On Wednesday, the White House released "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan," a 25-page document that outlines the Trump administration's strategy to "maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance" in AI through deregulation, infrastructure investment, and international partnerships. But critics are already taking aim at the plan, saying it's doing Big Tech a big favor.
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology Michael Kratsios and Special Advisor for AI and Crypto David Sacks crafted the plan, which frames AI development as a race the US must win against global competitors, particularly China.
The document describes AI as the catalyst for "an industrial revolution, an information revolution, and a renaissance—all at once." It calls for removing regulatory barriers that the administration says hamper private sector innovation. The plan explicitly reverses several Biden-era policies, including Executive Order 14110 on AI model safety measures, which President Trump rescinded on his first day in office during his second term.
The White House unveiled its long-awaited “AI Action Plan” on Wednesday, and it included a zombie: a resurrected form of the controversial AI law moratorium that died a very public death.
The failed congressional moratorium would have stipulated that no state could regulate artificial intelligence systems for a 10-year period, on pain of being barred from a $500 million AI development fund and potentially losing rural broadband funding. Trump’s new plan has a similar, albeit more vague, provision buried within it. It states that “AI is far too important to smother in bureaucracy at this early stage” and that the government “should not allow AI-related Federal funding to be directed toward states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds,” though it should also “not interfere with states’ rights to pass prudent laws that are not unduly restrictive to innovation.”
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget will work with federal agencies that have “AI-related discretionary funding programs to ensure, consistent with applicable law, that they consider a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and limit funding if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.”
Essentially, states that do choose to enforce their own AI regulations may be punished for it on a federal level, under a different sort of AI law moratorium — one with, as described in this plan, no expiration date.
The AI Action Plan also states that the Federal Communications Commission will lead a charge to “evaluate whether state AI regulations interfere with the agency’s ability to carry out its obligations and authorities under the Communications Act of 1934.” No word yet on what the penalties for that will be.
The official White House press release made no mention of the state guidelines. More detail about Trump’s plan — which encourages rapid adoption of AI tech and expansion of AI infrastructure, as well as attempts to root out diversity and climate science in AI systems used by the government — will come in a series of executive orders this week.
The congressional moratorium initially passed the House of Representatives, but it was largely condemned by Democrats and divisive among some Republicans. Some industry activists believed it would prohibit not just new AI regulation, but data privacy, facial recognition, and other tech-related rules in states like Washington and Colorado.
After an intense 24-hour period of lobbying and back-door dealmaking — including 45 rounds of votes — 99 out of 100 senators voted for the moratorium’s exclusion from Trump’s funding bill.
Now, against all odds, the provision may be coming back from the dead.
American financier Jeffrey Epstein (left) and real estate developer Donald Trump pose together at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach in 1997.
Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
Donald Trump on Friday sued Rupert Murdoch and two Wall Street Journal reporters for defamation.
The Journal reported Thursday that Trump wrote a "bawdy" birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
If the suit doesn't settle, the discovery process could raise more questions about Trump's ties to Epstein.
President Donald Trump's latest defamation suit, filed in response to a recent story by The Wall Street Journal, could raise more questions about the president's relationship with the late financier, Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump on Friday filed the lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, Dow Jones, News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson, and Journal reporters Khadeeja Safdar and Joseph Palazzolo.
The suit, which seeks at least $10 billion in damages, accuses the group of committing defamation by publishing an article about a suggestive letter bearing Trump's name that the Journal reported was given to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003. Trump has denied that he wrote the letter.
Chris Mattei, a former federal prosecutor who served as lead attorney for Sandy Hook families in their defamation suit against Alex Jones, told BI that the lawsuit has several possible paths: the defendants move to dismiss the case with a limited discovery process, they skip the motion for dismissal and move instead for an open discovery process, or they settle out of court.
In a statement after the lawsuit was filed, a Dow Jones spokesperson said, "We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit."
Representatives for News Corp., Trump's legal team, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
A discovery process
Damon Dunn, a First Amendment and media attorney, told BI that, in order to win his suit at trial, Trump would have to prove the story was false, damaging to his reputation, and published with constitutional or "actual" malice — a high legal standard requiring the plaintiff to prove the defendant knew the statement was false, or acted with reckless disregard for its veracity, when publishing it.
"The provenance of the 'card' appears suspect, but, even so, is it defamatory that one millionaire sent a birthday card to another in 2003 before Epstein was discovered?" Dunn said, referring to the time before Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes.
The discovery process could be limited to whether the Journal published with actual malice, even if it wrongly attributed the card to Trump, Dunn said. That would be similar towhen a court dismissed actor Justin Baldoni's defamation case against The New York Times, he added.
However, Mattei said that the Journal may seek reciprocal discovery, meaningit can ask Trump to provide them with any information or evidence he has not only about the writing of the letter but also about his relationship with Epstein, even about the extent to which he may have been aware of Epstein's crimes.
"If Trump's defense is that this was false, then any evidence suggesting that he had a relationship with Epstein, the degree to which that relationship was close or not, would be relevant to the question of whether or not it's likely Trump had any sort of role in this letter," Mattei said. "And so an aggressive Wall Street Journal here would seek broad discovery about the extent of Trump's relationship with Epstein."
Dunn said it's possible the defendants may pursue a reciprocal discovery process, but it would be expensive, and Trump's relationship with Epstein would be of "questionable relevance" to the proceedings, so such a move may not be worth it in the end.
Mattei said he felt Trump's case is unlikely to have merit, describing the suit as Trump's attempt to "explore what kind of power and leverage he has over the American media." Still, the judge will decide how long the procedural elements of the case take to play out.
"There will be some period of weeks where The Wall Street Journal will be able to file its motion to dismiss if it wants to make a request for discovery, the judgment rule on that request could take a little bit more time," Mattei said. "And so if it is indeed contested, you could see the initial phase of this, including discovery, playing out over the next six months."
Trump's long history with Epstein
The suit against Murdoch and the Journal reporters comes as Trump continues to grapple with his ties to Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
Trump has said that he was friends with Epstein for more than 15 years, beginning in the 1980s. The pair were regularly seen socializing at parties, and Trump told New York Magazine in 2002 that Epstein was a "terrific guy."
Trump said in 2019 that he and Epstein had a "falling out" in 2004 after a real estate dispute, and he was "not a fan" of his former friend, The New York Times reported.
Publicly available documents related to Epstein's sex trafficking trial have not revealed any wrongdoing by Trump; his name and those of some of his family members were listed in one of Epstein's contact books, and Trump is mentioned as a passenger in flight logs for Epstein's private jets.
As part of his reelection campaign, Trump promised he would make public all the available files related to the government's investigation into Epstein's crimes. The Justice Department published an unsigned memo on July 7 that said it won't release any more "Epstein Files."
In a Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump revisited the idea of releasing more Epstein-related documents, writing that he had asked the Justice Department to "release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval."
"With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request," Trump said in the post. "It will always be more, more, more."
This story has been updated to clarify the legal issues.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa at a press conference on Capitol Hill on September 19, 2023.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
The US government spent $5 trillion to stimulate the economy during the pandemic.
Much was lost to fraud, and several bills would extend deadlines to file charges.
A bill involving the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, which BI previously reported on, moved forward Wednesday.
A Senate committee on Wednesday advanced a bill that would give prosecutors more time to bring fraud charges tied to two pandemic-era relief programs — including one that, as Business Insider has reported, awarded millions of dollars to wealthy musicians who used the money on private jets, luxury goods, and parties.
Federal investigators believe at least 6% of the $5 trillion allocated for pandemic relief was routed to fraudsters or people and businesses who didn't qualify. Prosecutors have brought charges over a small fraction of that spending, and could run out of time to bring charges in thousands of cases that were referred to them.
Currently, prosecutors have five years after many fraud-related crimes occur to bring charges. The bill would give them an extra five years to file criminal charges against anyone who defrauded the $28 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund or the $14 billion Shuttered Venue Operators Grant.
Originally pitched as a lifeline for independent venues and arts groups, the SVOG program ended up awarding billions with limited guardrails, and a Business Insider investigation found that pop stars like Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, and Marshmello used the money for jets, bonuses, and a birthday bash.
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who chairs the Small Business Committee that moved the bill forward, told Business Insider that the government should be "going after the people that truly didn't deserve the money."
"What we saw was a lot of celebrities that were gaming the system," she said, "that were able to take those dollars and buy jets and throw fancy parties and do things like that — boost up their wardrobe. That's not what the dollars were for."
The celebrities Business Insider reported on didn't previously reply to comment requests, except for Lil Wayne, who responded to a reporter's questions with an explicit sexual overture. The SBA has defended its fraud controls and said in late 2024 that it was still looking into some grants.
The agency has recently sent out hundreds of letters to SVOG grantees demanding that they repay their grants, according to people in the entertainment industry, but details on which grantees were targeted were not available.
Maggie Clemmons, an agency representative, told BI that the SBA is "continuously fighting to claw back fraudulently-obtained COVID funds, including within the SVOG program" and criticized "inaction" by the Biden administration.
The Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which cut checks of up to $10 million, has been scrutinized by auditors. Nearly a quarter of funds were awarded without doing enough to verify that grantees were eligible, the Small Business Administration's inspector general said last year, and the agency found that improper payments were "likely" in 53 out of 122 restaurant awards it analyzed.
The bill still needs to pass the Senate and House of Representatives before it becomes law. And even if the statute of limitations to bring charges is extended, whether prosecutors will clear out the backlog of pandemic-fraud cases is an open question. The agency's inspector general has said the SBA should also extend the time period for which grant recipients hold on to their records.
"My hope would be that given the priorities of the Department of Justice, that somewhere in that mix, we have those that will go after the fraudsters," Ernst said. "Fraud is fraud, and our taxpayers really need to know that the federal government takes it seriously."
In 2022, lawmakers similarly extended the deadline to bring fraud charges over the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans from five years to 10.
Congress also allocated at least $653 billion to fund extra unemployment benefits during the pandemic. The House of Representatives passed a bill in March to allow more time to prosecute unemployment benefit fraud, but that bill hasn't advanced in the Senate.
Blake Lively had some good news and bad news from the federal judge in her Manhattan lawsuit against "It Ends With Us" costar Justin Baldoni.
Aeon/GC Images
A judge ordered Blake Lively to turn over 3 years of her business income records to Justin Baldoni.
But in a victory for the actress, the judge blocked Baldoni's demand for details of her net worth.
Thursday's decision is the latest in the ongoing litigation between the "It Ends With Us" costars.
The judge in Blake Lively's ongoing lawsuit against "It Ends With Us" costar Justin Baldoni ordered her to turn over three years of business income records to his lawyers, but blocked his demand for her total net worth.
Thursday's mixed decision — awarding Baldoni some, but not all, of the financial records he has demanded — is the latest development in Lively's December 2024 lawsuit.
Lively alleges Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set and then tried to destroy her reputation through a "sophisticated" press and online attack campaign when she complained.
The judge's most recent decision requires Lively to turn over all of her business income and expense records from January 1, 2022 to present. She must do so by July 25, the judge ruled.
These records are needed for "establishing whether such income and expenses have changed since the events described" in her lawsuit, the judge wrote.
Lively has alleged in court papers that Baldoni's attacks on her reputation depressed the retail sales of her hair care line, Blake Brown, by "56% —78%." She also has a sparkling mixer brand, Betty Buzz.
"Lively must have some basis for stating that she has suffered economic damages," the judge wrote in ordering her to turn over her income records.
The judge spared Lively from having to turn over her last three years of net worth records.
Lively's side had complained that this demand was overbroad and that the records, which could have included details of property values, savings, and investments, would be irrelevant to proving her businesses' lost income.
The judge agreed, writing, "Lively cannot be compelled to produce documents regarding her personal assets and liabilities with no relationship to any alleged loss in income or opportunities resulting from defendants' actions."
Barring some kind of settlement, the case is not scheduled to wrap anytime soon. She is due to be deposed in private by Baldoni's lawyers on July 31. Lawyers for both sides are due in court on October 21 for their next status conference, and a 2026 trial date has yet to be set.
Even with the TikTok divest-or-ban law officially in effect since January, the app has only shut down service in the US for one day. Now, The Information reports that an agreement for a sale satisfying the law’s requirements is close and would come with a new, separate version of the app.
Any deal, however, would need approval from the Chinese government, which is also still wrangling with the Trump administration over tariffs.
The outlet reports that the Trump administration says it’s close to working out a sale to a group of “non-Chinese” investors, including Oracle, with current majority owner ByteDance maintaining a minority stake that would satisfy the terms of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
Earlier today, the Wall Street Journal reported that the General Services Administration says Oracle has reached a new agreement with the federal government that “is the first of its kind that provides the entire government with a discount on cloud infrastructure,” with a 75 percent discount on licensed software.
TikTok’s staff is reportedly working on a new version of the app — dubbed M2, to the current app’s internal M designation — for release in app stores on September 5th. Trump issued a third legally questionable extension of the deadline to ban TikTok from US app stores last month, which is set to expire in mid-September. According to The Information’s unnamed source, under the current timeline, the original TikTok app would leave app stores as the new one launches and then stop working entirely in March 2026.
Once upon a time in America, there was a tyrant. And Congress rejected him totally.
The tyrant, of course, was King George III, the target of the Declaration of Independence. We take it for granted now, but the Declaration was an enormous political innovation - in it, the country that became the United States of America laid claim to certain "unalienable" rights, rights that took precedence over any king or crown.
To protect those rights, our Founders declared that the People were allowed to "alter" or "abolish" the government - in this case, British rule over the American colonies.
The idea that 'the People' have 'unalienable rights' b …
Marc Agnifilo (center) spoke to the press following the mostly successful jury verdict for Sean "Diddy" Combs. He was joined by Brian Steel (left), Teny Geragos (right), and Xavier Donaldson (far right).
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images
Family and supporters of Sean "Diddy" Combs praised his legal "dream team" after the jury verdict.
The team was led by Marc Agnifilo, who is also representing Luigi Mangione.
It was rounded out by a row of other formidable lawyers.
They were up against a formidable government team. The US Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York is considered one of the most elite federal prosecutors' offices in America. And the team prosecuting Combs had Maurene Comey, one of the prosecutors who put Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell behind bars.
Combs, though, has an eye for star lawyers.
His previous defense team also won him an acquittal in 2001, when the Manhattan District Attorney's Office accused him of being involved in a nightclub shooting.
At that time, Combs' team was led by his longtime attorney Ben Brafman. For this year's trial, Brafman's protégé Marc Agnifilo was in the driver's seat.
Here's the "dream team" that defended Diddy:
Marc Agnifilo
The founding partner of Agnifilo Intrater LLP spent about two decades in the US Attorney's office in New Jersey before moving to private practice.
Before the Combs trial, he had a crushing jury verdict against his client, Keith Raniere, the founder of the NXIVM sex cult, who in 2020 was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
But Agnifilo has had high-profile victories, including representing former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who had sexual assault charges against him dropped.
Together with his wife, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Agnifilo is also representing Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
The 34-year-old Geragos, a partner at Agnifilo's firm, handled some of the trial's biggest moments, including the defense team's opening statement and multiple cross-examinations of important witnesses.
Before the trial, she vocally defended Combs on social media. And, years earlier, she represented Raniere along with Agnifilo.
Geragos has also represented Roger Ng, the ex-Goldman Sachs banker convicted in 2023 of siphoning billions of dollars from 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
Her father is celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos, who represents Combs' mother and consulted with the trial defense team.
The legal team for Sean "Diddy" Combs posed outside the courthouse after the trial. From left to right: Brian Steel, Alexandra Shapiro, Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos, Anna Estevao, Nicole Westmoreland, Jason Driscoll, and Xavier Donaldson.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Alexandra Shapiro
A former clerk for former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Shapiro is well-known in the New York bar for her appeals and white collar litigation.
In Combs' case, Shapiro raised multiple legal issues during the trial that could form the basis for an appeal. She also took the lead in bail arguments, unsuccessfully trying to keep Combs out of jail ahead of the trial and between the verdict and his sentencing hearing.
She's also the author of the 2022 legal thriller "Presumed Guilty" and is an avid nature photographer.
Jason Driscoll
An associate at Shapiro's firm, Shapiro Arato Bach, Driscoll crafted legal arguments about the scope of what witnesses were permitted to testify about at the trial and which exhibits should have been permitted to go into evidence.
He's previously worked at the Big Law firm Paul Weiss and has clerked for two federal judges in Manhattan.
Lawyer Anna Estevao cross-examines Casandra "Cassie" Ventura during Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex trafficking trial in New York City.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
Anna Estevao
Estevao had one of the most difficult jobs in the trial, cross-examining Cassie Ventura, Combs' longtime partner, who prosecutors had designated as his primary victim and who was visibly pregnant while she was on the witness stand. (Ventura gave birth after her testimony, while the trial was ongoing.)
Estevao joined Combs' legal team while a partner at Sher Tremonte, a firm also representing him in many of the civil lawsuits against him and his companies. She joined the firm Harris Trzaskoma the same month the criminal trial began — a move that a source familiar with the matter said was in the works long before the trial.
Xavier Donaldson
An experienced New York City attorney, Donaldson also joined the Combs criminal case shortly before the trial began.
At the trial, Donaldson cross-examined Daniel Phillip, a male dancer who participated in freak offs with Ventura, and Deonte Nash, a friend of Ventura's.
Donaldson has also previously represented the "Chelsea bomber", Ahmed Rahimi.
Brian Steel
Fresh off a favorable plea deal for the rapper Young Thug in Atlanta, Steel joined Combs' legal team shortly before the trial.
He handled the cross-examination of one of Combs' assistants, as well as security officers at the InterContinental Hotel, where Combs beat Cassie Ventura in a hallway in a notorious incident caught on video.
Nicole Westmoreland
Another Atlanta-based lawyer involved in Young Thug's trial, Westmoreland officially joined the Combs legal team shortly before opening statements.
Westmoreland cross-examined Combs' accuser Dawn Richard and two friends of Ventura who corroborated some of her testimony.
In the past week, big AI companies have - in theory - chalked up two big legal wins. But things are not quite as straightforward as they may seem, and copyright law hasn't been this exciting since last month's showdown at the Library of Congress.
First, Judge William Alsup ruled it was fair use for Anthropic to train on a series of authors' books. Then, Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed another group of authors' complaint against Meta for training on their books. Yet far from settling the legal conundrums around modern AI, these rulings might have just made things even more complicated.
Both cases are indeed qualified victories for Meta and Anthropic. And at least one judge - Alsup - seems sympathetic to some of the AI industry's core arguments about copyright. But that same ruling railed against the startup's use of pirated media, leaving it potentially on the hook for massive financial damage. (Anthropic even admitted it did not initially purchase a copy of every book it used.) Meanwhile, the Meta ruling asserted that because a flood of AI content could crowd out human artists, the entire field of AI system training might be fundamentally at odds with fair use. And neither case a …
Artificial intelligence companies don't need permission from authors to train their large language models (LLMs) on legally acquired books, US District Judge William Alsup ruled Monday.
The first-of-its-kind ruling that condones AI training as fair use will likely be viewed as a big win for AI companies, but it also notably put on notice all the AI companies that expect the same reasoning will apply to training on pirated copies of books—a question that remains unsettled.
In the specific case that Alsup is weighing—which pits book authors against Anthropic—Alsup found that "the purpose and character of using copyrighted works to train LLMs to generate new text was quintessentially transformative" and "necessary" to build world-class AI models.
Employers are drowning in AI-generated job applications, with LinkedIn now processing 11,000 submissions per minute—a 45 percent surge from last year, according to new data reported by The New York Times.
Due to AI, the traditional hiring process has become overwhelmed with automated noise. It's the résumé equivalent of AI slop—call it "hiring slop," perhaps—that currently haunts social media and the web with sensational pictures and misleading information. The flood of ChatGPT-crafted résumés and bot-submitted applications has created an arms race between job seekers and employers, with both sides deploying increasingly sophisticated AI tools in a bot-versus-bot standoff that is quickly spiraling out of control.
The Times illustrates the scale of the problem with the story of an HR consultant named Katie Tanner, who was so inundated with over 1,200 applications for a single remote role that she had to remove the post entirely and was still sorting through the applications three months later.
The defense, too, rested — its entire case lasting only 30 minutes.
The hip-hop mogul's lawyers did not call any witnesses to testify on Combs' behalf. Instead, his lawyers read a small selection of texts and a half dozen stipulations into the record.
Stipulations are agreements between lawyers on both sides to enter documents or other facts into evidence.
A defense decision not to call witnesses is not uncommon in criminal trials and suggests that Combs' team believes the prosecution does not have a slam-dunk case, lawyers who are not involved in the trial told Business Insider.
Opting for no witnesses reflects a show of confidence and may prove to be a wise strategy, said attorney Michael Bachner, who was on the defense team in 2001 when Combs was acquitted in Manhattan of state-level gun and bribery charges after the rapper took the stand.
In Combs' case, Bachner, a former prosecutor who, as an attorney, won an acquittal for Combs co-defendant Anthony Jones, said the defense has likely concluded that they've already raised reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury through their cross-examinations of some of the 34 prosecution witnesses and by turning the prosecution's own evidence against them.
Combs' eight-man, four-woman jury has seen hundreds of texts and emails between the music tycoon and his two sex-trafficking accusers — R&B singer Cassie Ventura and a later girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym "Jane."
During their testimony, both women recounted the anguish and fear they said they suffered from participating in years of "freak offs," described as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances with male escorts that Combs would record and masturbate to.
But in their cross-examinations, defense lawyers repeatedly underscored that both women also at times expressed enthusiasm for these sex encounters at the center of the case. (The women testified that they were just telling Combs what they knew he wanted to hear.)
"Unless you have something that's a critical witness, like an alibi witness, it's sometimes just safer to sit on your laurels and hope you've raised reasonable doubt," Bachner said.
"I think they believe that with what they have now, they have a good chance of getting at least one hung juror," he added. "And if there's a hung jury, you may not be re-tried."
Combs had one final chance to change his mind and take the stand before his lawyers rested their case. Outside the presence of the jury, the judge asked Combs if he was voluntarily waiving his right to testify on his own behalf. Combs stood at the defense table and said he was.
"It's my decision," he told the judge, of choosing not to testify.
Combs also slipped the judge a compliment, telling him, "I want to tell you I think you are doing an excellent job."
Combs has denied the criminal charges against him, and his attorneys have argued that the sexual interactions cited in the case were consensual. They also argue that Combs' business was not a criminal racket.
"The defense has a narrative that has come across very clearly through the defense opening statement and all the cross-examinations. They've made a decision that the defense witnesses will not be necessary to that narrative," said former Manhattan federal prosecutor Sarah Krissoff.
Spencer Kuvin, an attorney who has represented multiple accusers of late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said, "By only reading stipulations and not calling a single witness, Diddy's attorneys are positioning to argue that the government has failed to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt."
"The government must prove Diddy's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and if they do not, Diddy is not guilty," Kuvin said.
In opening statements on May 12, prosecutor Emily Johnson told the jury Combs used "lies, drugs, threats, and violence to force and coerce" Ventura, his ex-girlfriend of more than 10 years, and later Jane, into the freak offs.
Combs, a onetime near billionaire, is accused of running a racketeering conspiracy that committed numerous crimes, including sex trafficking, arson, kidnapping, bribery, witness tampering, forced labor, and drug distribution.
"For 20 years, the defendant, with the help of his trusted inner circle, committed crime after crime," Johnson said.
Combs' defense attorney, Teny Geragos, countered in her opening statement that Combs is a "complicated" and "flawed" man with a violent side, but said the evidence does not show that he's a sex trafficker or racketeer.
"This case is about voluntary, adult choices made by capable adults and consensual relationships," Geragos said. "This case is about those real-life relationships, and the government is trying to turn those relationships into a racketeering case, a prostitution case, and a sex trafficking case. It will not work."
Jurors heard nearly two weeks of what was at times emotional testimony from Ventura and Jane. Both said they felt compelled by Combs to have sex with male prostitutes while he watched and recorded them. These elaborate, drug-fueled performances would go on for days, typically in luxury hotels, the women said.
They participated out of fear of Combs' violence and because of his emotional and financial control over them, they testified. Prosecutors used photographs of bruises, eyewitness testimony, and years of text and email messages to corroborate the women's accounts.
Jurors also viewed graphic freak off video footage that the public and media were not permitted to see.
This story was updated when the defense rested its case.
In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court ruled that Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors was not unconstitutional—the first case of its kind on which the court has ruled.
The Department of Justice reported yesterday that it filed a civil complaint to seize roughly $225.3 million in cryptocurrency linked to crypto investment scams. In a press release, the DOJ said it traced and targeted accounts that were “part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network” dispersing funds taken from more than 400 suspected victims of fraud.
The 75-page complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia lays out more detail about the seizure. According to it, the US Secret Service (USSS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tied scammers to seven groups of Tether stablecoin tokens. The fraud fell under what’s typically known as “pig butchering:” a form of long-running confidence scam aimed at tricking victims — sometimes with a fake romantic relationship — into what they believe is a profitable crypto investment opportunity, then disappearing with the funds. Pig butchering rings often traffic the workers who directly communicate with victims to Southeast Asian countries, something the DOJ alleges this ring did.
The DOJ says Tether and crypto exchange OKX first alerted law enforcement in 2023 to a series of accounts they believed were helping launder fraudulently obtained currency through a vast and complex web of transactions. The alleged victims include Shan Hanes (referred to in this complaint as S.H.), the former Heartland Tri-State Bank president who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for embezzling tens of millions of dollars to invest in one of the best-known and most devastating pig butchering scams. The complaint lists a number of other victims who lost thousands or millions of dollars they thought they were investing (and did not commit crimes of their own). An FBI report cited by the press release concluded overall crypto investment fraud caused $5.8 billion worth of reported losses in 2024.
Money recovered from this seizure will be put toward returning funds to the known victims of the scammers, the DOJ says. The fervently pro-crypto Trump administration has previously said forfeited money that isn’t sent to victims could be used to fund a US cryptocurrency reserve.
In 2019, we told you about a new interactive digital "murder map" of London compiled by University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner. Drawing on data catalogued in the city coroners' rolls, the map showed the approximate location of 142 homicide cases in late medieval London. The Medieval Murder Maps project has since expanded to include maps of York and Oxford homicides, as well as podcast episodes focusing on individual cases.
It's easy to lose oneself down the rabbit hole of medieval murder for hours, filtering the killings by year, choice of weapon, and location. Think of it as a kind of 14th-century version of Clue: It was the noblewoman's hired assassins armed with daggers in the streets of Cheapside near St. Paul's Cathedral. And that's just the juiciest of the various cases described in a new paper published in the journal Criminal Law Forum.
The noblewoman was Ela Fitzpayne, wife of a knight named Sir Robert Fitzpayne, lord of Stogursey. The victim was a priest and her erstwhile lover, John Forde, who was stabbed to death in the streets of Cheapside on May 3, 1337. “We are looking at a murder commissioned by a leading figure of the English aristocracy," said University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner, who heads the Medieval Murder Maps project. "It is planned and cold-blooded, with a family member and close associates carrying it out, all of which suggests a revenge motive."
Senate Commerce Republicans have kept a ten year moratorium on state AI laws in their latest version of President Donald Trump's massive budget package. And a growing number of lawmakers and civil society groups warn that its broad language could put consumer protections on the chopping block.
Republicans who support the provision, which the House cleared as part of its "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," say it will help ensure AI companies aren't bogged down by a complicated patchwork of regulations. But opponents warn that should it survive a vote and a congressional rule that might prohibit it, Big Tech companies could be exempted from state legal guardrails for years to come, without any promise of federal standards to take their place.
"What this moratorium does is prevent every state in the country from having basic regulations to protect workers and to protect consumers," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), whose district includes Silicon Valley, tells The Verge in an interview. He warns that as written, the language included in the House-passed budget reconciliation package could restrict state laws that attempt to regulate social media companies, prevent algorithmic rent discrimination, …
US District Judge Arun Subramanian said he personally saw Combs appearing to send signals to the jury while one of his lawyers grilled a prosecution witness about her interactions with Combs.
If it happened again, Subramanian warned the defense team, the judge would consider talking to jurors about what Combs was doing — and it could result in "the exclusion of your client from the courtroom."
"I really meant it," the judge said. "There should be no efforts whatsoever to have any interactions with the jury."
Prosecutors allege Combs sex-trafficked women by forcing them to engage in "freak offs" — dayslong, drug-fueled sexual performances involving male sex workers.
Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, and his attorneys say all his relationships were consensual. The blockbuster trial, playing out in a lower Manhattan courtroom, is expected to conclude within a month.
The apparent head-nods came up during Thursday's cross-examination of Bryana "Bana" Bongolan, a friend of R&B artist Cassie Ventura, the prosecution's star witness.
Bongolan testified she once watched Combs throw a knife at Ventura, and Ventura throw it back.
Bongolan also said Combs once leaned into her face and announced, "I'm the devil and I could kill you," and said that in September, 2016, he hoisted her into the air and dangled her over Ventura's 17th-story balcony.
During the cross-examination that Combs reacted to, defense attorney Nicole Westmoreland highlighted apparent inconsistencies between what Bongolan has alleged in a civil lawsuit, her interviews with prosecutors, and her testimony.
Westmoreland pursued a familiar theme pushed by Combs' legal team: That his accusers have financial motives to accuse him of wrongdoing.
In one example, Bongolan's ongoing lawsuit accuses Combs of violent sexual assault, an allegation not made in her June 4 testimony, though Bongolan did tell jurors that Combs' hands cupped her breasts before he hoisted her up from under her arms.
Sean "Diddy" Combs' prosecutors are beginning to wrap up their Manhattan sex-trafficking case.
"Jane," their third and last sexual-assault witness, is taking the stand on Thursday.
Prosecutors say Combs sex-trafficked her from 2021-2024. She is also key to a racketeering charge.
A final sexual assault witness testified on Thursday that agreeing to have sex with male escorts while Sean "Diddy" Combs watched and directed their actions opened up a "Pandora's box" she could not close.
"It was just a door I was unable to shut," said the witness, testifying under the pseudonym "Jane."
"It was so much of it," she said of the drug-fueled, dayslong sexual performances that she and Combs called "hotel nights."
"It was too much of it," she told the jury.
Jane is due to testify this week and next at Combs' federal trial in Manhattan, with her testimony meant to bolster the two top charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
Her testimony follows that of R&B singer and sex-trafficking witness Cassie Ventura, who said Combs coerced her into humiliating sex with male escorts in the 10 years ending in 2018. Former Combs employee "Mia" has also testified and said he sexually assaulted her at least four times between 2009 and 2017.
Jane is the millionaire music and lifestyle mogul's last victim before his arrest, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors say Combs sex-trafficked Jane —meaning forced her to cross state lines to engage in sex with paid male escorts — between 2021 and 2024, the year he was arrested at the Park Hyatt, a Manhattan luxury hotel.
Inside Combs' hotel room, investigators recovered bags of ketamine and ecstasy powder, a blue party light, and more than a dozen bottles of baby oil and sexual lubricants, a Department of Homeland Security investigator testified during the trial's first week.
Prosecutors have previously described these items as the ingredients for freak offs, the dayslong sexual performances at the center of the sex trafficking case. Prosecutors have suggested that Jane will testify to having participated in Combs' final freak off — or "hotel night," as she called them — at that hotel.
On Thursday, Jane told the jury that she agreed to the first encounter in 2021 because she loved Combs and wanted to make him happy. She conceded on the stand that she felt "exhilarated" afterward.
Still, "I didn't think that we would be doing that again," she told the jury. "I figured it was something we did that one time, and maybe on a random night we might do it again."
She said she soon realized that participating was the only way Combs would agree to have sex with her.
But when she would tell him she wanted to stop having the encounters, which jurors have also heard were called "freak offs" and "king nights," Combs would abruptly brush her off.
"I could just feel the tension was building," she said. Combs would tell her, "We don't have to," and "That's fine," she said, and then quickly changed the subject.
Ultimately, she said, "We would just do it" again.
Prosecutors have also said that Combs could be violent with Jane. In openings last month, they described Combs chasing her through the rooms of the house he paid for her to live in in Los Angeles, breaking down doors as she tried to escape.
Sean Combs is accused of sex trafficking women right up to the year of his arrest.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
Jane's testimony may be key to proving not just sex trafficking, but racketeering as well. Racketeering requires proof that Combs, through his business empire, committed at least two underlying crimes.
Those potential underlying crimes include sex trafficking. They also include bribery and obstruction of justice, two crimes that prosecutors have alleged that Jane witnessed.
During her May 12 opening statements, Emily Johnson, an assistant US attorney, told the jury that Combs and his family members repeatedly reached out to Jane in an attempt to influence her testimony against him.
"You will hear him try to manipulate Jane into saying she wanted freak offs," Johnson said in her opening, describing a recorded phone call she promised the jury would hear.
"You will hear him interrupt Jane when she pushes back," the prosecutor added.
Prosecutors say Combs made sure that Jane would continue to receive housing payments from him after his arrest, something they may describe as a bribe.
Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to the indictment, through which he risks a maximum potential sentence of life in prison.
His lawyers have insisted that all sexual contact in the indictment was consensual, and they have described his business activities as legitimate and not constituting a criminal "racket."
The trial may continue into early July, depending on the length of the defense case, which is expected to begin in mid-June.
This story has been updated with additional detail from Jane's testimony.
After weeks of arguments in the Federal Trade Commission's monopoly trial, Meta is done defending its decade-plus-old acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp—at least for now.
The seven-week trial ended Tuesday, with the FTC urging Judge James Boasberg to rule that a breakup is necessary to end Meta's alleged monopoly in the "personal social networking services" market, where Meta currently faces sparse competition among other apps connecting friends and family. As alleged by the FTC, Meta's internal emails laid bare that Meta's motive in acquiring both Instagram and WhatsApp was to pay whatever it took to snuff out dominant rivals threatening to lure users away from Facebook—Mark Zuckerberg's jewel.
Talking to Bloomberg, Meta has maintained that the FTC's case is weak, seeking to undo deals that the FTC approved long ago while ignoring the competition Meta faces from rivals in the broader social media market, like TikTok. But Meta's attempt to shut down the case mid-trial was rebuffed by Boasberg, who has signaled he will take months to weigh his decision.
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