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."
© Medieval Murder Maps. University of Cambridge: Institute of Criminology
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, …
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
The trial could soon be missing him.
The judge overseeing Sean "Diddy" Combs' Manhattan sex-trafficking trial threatened to kick the rapper out of the courtroom after seeing him "nodding vigorously" during a witness's testimony on Thursday.
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 had told the jury on Wednesday that Combs physically attacked Ventura and herself.
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.
The jury heard earlier in the trial that Combs settled a civil lawsuit from Ventura for $20 million. Ventura also testified that a hotel where Combs beat her agreed to a $10 million settlement.
Bongolan's civil lawsuit against Combs asked for $10 million in damages.
"It means a lot for you to become a ten-millionaire soon, doesn't it?" Westmoreland asked Bongolan.
"I care about justice," Bongolan answered.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
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.
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.
© Aurich Lawson | Getty Images
Harvey; Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images
Legaltech startup Harvey has agreed to a two-year, $150 million commitment to use Azure cloud services, according to an internal email seen by Business Insider.
Jay Parikh, who leads Microsoft's new CoreAI unit, included the deal in an internal memo, writing that his unit "announced expanded partnership with Harvey Al with a 2-year $150M MACC and $3.5M unified expansion." Parikh joined Microsoft in October to lead a new engineering group responsible for building its artificial-intelligence tools.
Microsoft declined to comment, and Harvey declined to comment on the agreement.
MACC, or Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment, is an agreement customers make to spend a specific amount on Azure for a period of time, often for a discount.
Harvey, which builds chatbots and agents tailored for legal and professional services, is scaling up and entering the enterprise market. It's adding legal teams at Comcast and Verizon as clients, while developing bespoke workflow software for large law firm customers.
It has raised more than $500 million from investors, including Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and OpenAI Startup Fund, a Harvey spokesperson told BI.
Harvey has closely partnered with Microsoft since at least early 2024. That year, the company deployed its platform on Microsoft Azure, followed by a Word plug-in designed for lawyers. It also introduced a SharePoint integration, allowing users to securely access files from their Microsoft storage system through Harvey's apps.
For years, Harvey, founded in 2022, ran its platform on OpenAI models, primarily because they're hosted in Microsoft's data centers, Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg told BI last month. Law firms handle highly sensitive information and trusted Microsoft to keep it safe, Weinberg said.
"Law firms refused to use anything that wasn't through Azure," Weinberg said. That's now changing, he said, as vendors like Anthropic build the features enterprises require.
Last week, Harvey expanded its use of foundation models to Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude.
Still, Harvey's $150 million Azure deal signals it's not backing away from Microsoft anytime soon. The company's growing cloud footprint suggests that, while other partners are gaining traction with the legaltech start, Azure remains integral to Harvey's growth for now.
Have a tip? Contact Melia Russell via email at [email protected] or Signal at @MeliaRussell.01. Reach Ashley Stewart via the encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email ([email protected]).. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
A lawsuit against Google and companion chatbot service Character AI — which is accused of contributing to the death of a teenager — can move forward, ruled a Florida judge. In a decision filed today, Judge Anne Conway said that an attempted First Amendment defense wasn’t enough to get the lawsuit thrown out. Conway determined that, despite some similarities to videogames and other expressive mediums, she is “not prepared to hold that Character AI’s output is speech.”
The ruling is a relatively early indicator of the kinds of treatment that AI language models could receive in court. It stems from a suit filed by the family of Sewell Setzer III, a 14-year-old who died by suicide after allegedly becoming obsessed with a chatbot that encouraged his suicidal ideation. Character AI and Google (which is closely tied to the chatbot company) argued that the service is akin to talking with a video game non-player character or joining a social network, something that would grant it the expansive legal protections that the First Amendment offers and likely dramatically lower a liability lawsuit’s chances of success. Conway, however, was skeptical.
While the companies “rest their conclusion primarily on analogy” with those examples, they “do not meaningfully advance their analogies,” the judge said. The court’s decision “does not turn on whether Character AI is similar to other mediums that have received First Amendment protections; rather, the decision turns on how Character AI is similar to the other mediums” — in other words whether Character AI is similar to things like video games because it, too, communicates ideas that would count as speech. Those similarities will be debated as the case proceeds.
While Google doesn’t own Character AI, it will remain a defendant in the suit thanks to its links with the company and product; the company’s founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, who are separately included in the suit, worked on the platform as Google employees before leaving to launch it and were later rehired there. Character AI is also facing a separate lawsuit alleging it harmed another young user’s mental health, and a handful of state lawmakers have pushed regulation for “companion chatbots” that simulate relationships with users — including one bill, the LEAD Act, that would prohibit them for children’s use in California. If passed, the rules are likely to be fought in court at least partially based on companion chatbots’ First Amendment status.
This case’s outcome will depend largely on whether Character AI is legally a “product” that is harmfully defective. The ruling notes that “courts generally do not categorize ideas, images, information, words, expressions, or concepts as products,” including many conventional video games — it cites, for instance, a ruling that found Mortal Kombat’s producers couldn’t be held liable for “addicting” players and inspiring them to kill. (The Character AI suit also accuses the platform of addictive design.) Systems like Character AI, however, aren’t authored as directly as most videogame character dialogue; instead, they produce automated text that’s determined heavily by reacting to and mirroring user inputs.
“These are genuinely tough issues and new ones that courts are going to have to deal with.”
Conway also noted that the plaintiffs took Character AI to task for failing to confirm users’ ages and not letting users meaningfully “exclude indecent content,” among other allegedly defective features that go beyond direct interactions with the chatbots themselves.
Beyond discussing the platform’s First Amendment protections, the judge allowed Setzer’s family to proceed with claims of deceptive trade practices, including that the company “misled users to believe Character AI Characters were real persons, some of which were licensed mental health professionals” and that Setzer was “aggrieved by [Character AI’s] anthropomorphic design decisions.” (Character AI bots will often describe themselves as real people in text, despite a warning to the contrary in its interface, and therapy bots are common on the platform.)
She also allowed a claim that Character AI negligently violated a rule meant to prevent adults from communicating sexually with minors online, saying the complaint “highlights several interactions of a sexual nature between Sewell and Character AI Characters.” Character AI has said it’s implemented additional safeguards since Setzer’s death, including a more heavily guardrailed model for teens.
Becca Branum, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Free Expression Project, called the judge’s First Amendment analysis “pretty thin” — though, since it’s a very preliminary decision, there’s lots of room for future debate. “If we’re thinking about the whole realm of things that could be output by AI, those types of chatbot outputs are themselves quite expressive, [and] also reflect the editorial discretion and protected expression of the model designer,” Branum told The Verge. But “in everyone’s defense, this stuff is really novel,” she added. “These are genuinely tough issues and new ones that courts are going to have to deal with.”
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
From the start of Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial, everyone was waiting for Cassie Ventura to appear. She was the star witness.
I expected Ventura's testimony to be explosive. But it turned out to be more graphic than I ever imagined.
In the courtroom, I noticed the distress on the face of Ventura's husband. His wife, who is eight months pregnant, was telling her alleged abuser and a room full of strangers about some of the worst moments in her life.
In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Combs of racketeering and sex trafficking. They say he used the vast power and resources of his record label and other businesses to arrange drug-fueled and baby oil-lubricated sexual encounters called "freak offs" with Ventura, other victims, and male escorts.
Combs pleaded not guilty and denies the sex-trafficking allegations, but he hasn't quite denied all wrongdoing. His legal team said he participated in "mutual abuse" with Ventura, and that the two frequently fought physically. This was a domestic violence case, they argued — ugly, but not criminal sex trafficking.
In her testimony, Ventura talked about a messy, 11-year relationship during which she fought for scraps of Combs' attention. He was often busy with other women and his various businesses, she said. Ventura participated in the freak offs out of love for Combs, she said, but they were never something she wanted.
The hip-hop mogul introduced her to the idea of freak offs about six months into their relationship, when she was 22 and owed him another nine albums as part of a record label deal, Ventura said. Combs would watch as Ventura would have sex with other men, who were paid thousands of dollars in cash, according to court testimony.
In text messages and emails shown as trial evidence, Ventura talked about arranging the freak offs, which required dropping by a Duane Reade to pick up baby oil, lubricant, candles, and condoms.
The freak offs could last up to four days, requiring drugs to maintain stamina, she said. They typically required up to 10 large bottles of baby oil, she testified. Everyone "had to be glistening," as she described it. At one point, the judge stepped in to ask prosecutors to pull back from the deluge of baby oil questions.
The disturbing nature of the testimony was only heightened by Ventura's appearance. She is due to have a baby in June and was visibly pregnant. One courtroom marshal said he was prepared to deliver her baby if the stress of testifying induced labor. I wasn't sure if he was joking. One of the prosecutors urged the judge to require Combs' lawyers to wrap up cross-examination. "We are afraid she could have the baby over the weekend," she said.
Over the years, I've reported on about a dozen trials and countless more court hearings. There were the uncomfortable benches of Donald Trump's criminal trial. The rowdy fans at the R. Kelly Trial. The cold December mornings when I lined up for the Ghislaine Maxwell trial. The ultracompetitive Sam Bankman-Fried trial, where getting in line at 4 a.m. still wasn't early enough to get inside the courtroom.
But nothing in my experience has compared to the Combs trial, which began Monday morning after a week of jury selection and is supposed to last two months.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
Ever since Ventura accused Combs of sexual abuse in November 2023, Combs' legal quagmire has been one of the biggest stories in the country. Combs paid Ventura $20 million to settle her case, but a flood of other accusers filed additional civil lawsuits against him. When prosecutors brought the criminal case against Combs, it was put on the fast track.
No longer the image of a pop star, Combs dresses for court like an office drone, wearing thin crewneck sweaters over white button-down shirts. He rarely betrays any emotion, occasionally nodding during his lawyers' arguments or huddling with the attorneys beside him.
His large family, including his mother and seven children, has been in the courtroom to show their support. Every day, Combs flashes them heart symbols with his hands. Their expressions, during trial proceedings, have remained neutral. The gravity of the situation — Combs could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted of all charges — is obvious.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
On the other side of the courtroom aisle are Ventura's support group, which includes her husband, Alex Fine, and several relatives. At some of the more raw moments of Ventura's testimony, Fine's face looked visibly pained. When her texts with Combs about the freak offs were shown to the jury, he broke his gaze and looked at his lap.
As Ventura testified in graphic detail, the courtroom was rapt. She spoke in a faint, dispassionate voice.
The grim atmosphere made the otherwise unbelievable details of the trial feel upsetting rather than dramatic. On social media, these details fly by as jokes. For Ventura, they left scars. In February of 2023, years after she left Combs, Ventura couldn't sleep, she testified.
"I couldn't take the pain that I was in anymore, and so I just tried to walk out the front door into traffic," she told the jury. "And my husband would not let me."
On Monday, for opening statements, the line outside the lower Manhattan courthouse began the previous afternoon. Same Old Line Dudes, the standard-bearer line-sitting company for New York trials, declined to disclose the precise time their clients booked because "it's very competitive," a receptionist told me.
During lunch breaks, live-streamers went outside and updated their followers on what unfolded indoors. Christine Cornell, a courtroom sketch artist, took photos of her illustrations in natural sunlight to share them with the media. Vicky Perez, who had come to New York City from Connecticut to watch the trial's opening day, said she's a fan of Ventura, having purchased her first album when she was in the fifth grade. Perez wanted her to "get justice," she said.
"I want to see his downfall," she said of Combs.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
The scene overwhelmed even Dennis Byron, the editor in chief of the Hip-Hop Enquirer, who said he's reported on the hip-hop scene for 35 years. He covered Comb's career since he was an up-and-coming artist.
"I've been to a Diddy party," he said.
"Not one of those parties," he quickly clarified.
Byron — who wore a tweed vest and trousers in the May afternoon heat — said he's attended and photographed Combs' extravagant "White Parties," where he took photos of the likes of Combs, Ventura, Kim Porter, and Jay-Z.
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
These parties took on a new meaning following the indictment against Combs, where they've been widely re-interpreted as sex parties (virtually every single celebrity who has been asked about this denies they were sex parties). But celebrities have been having orgies forever, Byron said. He remembers hearing about them in the 1980s. Flying in escorts — as prosecutors said Combs did for freak offs — wasn't anything new either, Byron said.
"Well, I never stayed for those," Byron said. "I never stayed for those orgies. But I'm sure they happen. But I never seen them."
Combs' White Parties were meant to show off his power as "a tastemaker," Byron said. Combs accrued cultural capital — something prosecutors later said he used to coerce his victims.
"Remember, that party was a regular party," he said as I wrapped up our conversation. "Ain't no party like a regular Diddy party."
Combs' trial was taking place in the same 26th-floor courtroom that saw the trials of Sam Bankman-Fried and two of E. Jean Carroll's lawsuits against Trump. (Bankman-Fried and Combs share a jail unit together; Trump is in the White House.) As with all federal court cases, there's no broadcast or livestream.
Karen Agnifilo-Friedman, Luigi Mangione's lead defense lawyer and the husband of Combs' lead lawyer Mark Agnifilo, often showed up to watch. The court staff had also set up three overflow rooms for journalists and members of the public to watch the trial on a closed-circuit camera feed, plus two rooms for members of the in-house press like me.
Several people I spoke to said they were willing to keep an open mind, but believed it would be hard to shake the memory of watching the video of Combs beating Ventura and dragging her through a hotel hallway.
"I'm going to try to give him a fair shake, said Oota Ongo, a YouTuber who livestreamed himself walking around the courthouse after watching opening statements. "We all saw the Cassie tape. That Cassie tape is just something that I can't get out of my head."
Lloyd Mitchell for BI
Depending on the day, I alternated between the courtroom itself and a press room. When I checked out an overflow room one day, I spotted a prominent federal prosecutor who had put Bankman-Fried behind bars. He was paying close attention to Combs' lawyer, Teny Gregagaros, giving Combs' side of the story in an opening statement.
While Combs may have been an unpleasant, angry, jealous, and violent man — especially when drunk or high — he was not guilty of sex trafficking, Gregagos insisted. At most, he was responsible for domestic violence, she conceded.
"He is not charged with being mean," Gregaros told the jurors. "He is not charged with being a jerk."
The first witness was a security guard at the Intercontinental Hotel, who testified about the infamous video where Combs assaulted Ventura (Combs just wanted to get his phone back from her, his defense lawyers said).
Next, before Ventura, was a male dancer who said he acted as an escort. He testified about being asked to carefully urinate during sex.
"Apparently, I was doing it wrong because they both stopped me and told me that I was supposed to let a little out at a time and not go full, like, take a leak on her," he said, in a quote that perhaps best encapsulated both the graphic nature of the trial testimony and how prosecutors say Combs intimately choreographed people around him to satisfy his own desires.
During Ventura's cross-examination, Combs' lawyers pulled up texts in which Ventura indicated she enjoyed the freak offs.
But Ventura, in her testimony earlier, said she just wanted to make Combs happy. She loved him. But she never wanted the freak offs, she said.
"It made me feel worthless," Ventura testified. "Like I didn't have anything else to offer him."
Elizabeth Williams via AP
It's week two of the Sean "Diddy" Combs sex-trafficking and racketeering trial.
A federal jury in Manhattan has heard R&B singer Cassie Ventura — Combs' ex-girlfriend and the catalyst for his public downfall — tearfully testify about the humiliating sexual violence she says she endured throughout their 11-year relationship.
Ventura's mother has described physically confronting Combs during a 2011 argument over her daughter's missing cellphone, and two male strippers have regaled the jury with sometimes X-rated testimony about "freak offs."
Along the way, there have been numerous celebrity mentions, including pop icon Britney Spears and actor Michael B. Jordan. Rapper Kid Cudi capped an already busy week two by describing his brief romance with Ventura, testifying that a jealous Combs broke into his LA home and unwrapped his family's Christmas presents.
Combs was arrested in September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution — the culmination of months of lawsuits and public accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct.
It was Ventura's November 2023 lawsuit that began this avalanche of accusations. Filed about 10 months before the criminal charges, it accused Combs of rape, physical abuse, and controlling her during their relationship. The lawsuit was settled a day later for what Ventura testified was $20 million.
Combs has denied the charges. The music tycoon is arguing through his defense team that all sexual encounters were consensual, including the alleged drug-fueled freak offs. The defense also argues that any violence fell far short of sex trafficking and that his accusers have a financial motive to implicate him.
Here are some of the most striking moments from the trial so far.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
Kid Cudi took the witness stand in Combs' trial on May 22, telling jurors that in December 2011, the music tycoon broke into his Hollywood Hills home, enraged after finding out about the rival rapper's short-lived romance with Ventura.
Kid Cudi, given name Scott Mescudi, told the jury that he returned home after the break-in to find the Christmas gifts he'd planned to give his family unwrapped and opened. His dog, he said, had been shut in the bathroom.
Mescudi said he was tipped off about the break-in in real time, when one of Combs' trusted assistants called him to say she was outside his house— and that Combs was inside.
"Motherfucker, you in my house?" Mescudi recalled telling Combs over the phone as he raced home to confront him.
Combs was gone by the time he arrived, Mescudi said.
Mescudi also told the jury that some two weeks later, his Porsche was firebombed while in his driveway.
Jurors had first heard about the firebombing when Ventura took the witness stand in the first week of the trial and described Combs' jealous rage on learning of her brief fling with Mescudi. She told jurors that Combs lunged at her with a corkscrew, threatened to release their sex tapes, and warned he'd torch Mescudi's car.
Combs discovered the relationship during a freak off in Los Angeles when he went through Ventura's phone, she testified.
"I just remember him putting like a wine bottle opener between his fingers and, like, lunging at me," Ventura said, adding that Combs' "eyes blacked out, super angry."
The Porsche "arson" is a specific element in the racketeering charges against Combs. Prosecutors alleged in court papers that Combs ordered his underlings to torch a vehicle "by slicing open the car's convertible top and dropping a Molotov cocktail inside the interior."
Kylie Cooper/REUTERS
Regina Ventura corroborated her daughter's testimony, where she alleged two of Combs' violent, jealous rages over romantic rivals.
The first was from 2011. The mom said Cassie Ventura came home to Connecticut for the Christmas holidays that year with a large bruise on her back.
Cassie Ventura previously testified that the bruise was from being kicked to the ground by Combs after a fight over alleged romantic rival Mescudi.
The mom showed jurors a Blackberry text Cassie Ventura had sent while en route to Connecticut, memorializing what the daughter testified were Combs' threats to release sexually explicit videos, including on Christmas Day.
Combs also demanded that the family pay him $20,000 for "expenses," the mom testified. The family complied, taking out a second mortgage because "I was scared for my daughter's safety," she testified. Combs returned the money days later, the mom told jurors, giving no explanation for the refund.
Regina Ventura also told jurors about a 2016 incident that her daughter also testified about.
It was shortly before the younger Ventura's 30th birthday. Combs had swiped her cellphone, Cassie Ventura testified, after learning about her affair with an unnamed professional NFL player.
When she returned to her Los Angeles apartment without her phone, her mother, who was visiting, called the police and confronted Combs outside the building as her daughter remained upstairs, the elder Ventura testified.
"I was yelling and screaming and trying to hit him," the mom told jurors. "He did give it back," she told jurors of the missing phone.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
In some of the most compelling testimony of the trial, a former Combs personal assistant described watching — and doing nothing — as his boss brutally attacked a cowering Ventura in the bedroom of the rapper's private jet.
Former personal assistant George Kaplan, 34, said the attack happened on a crowded flight to Las Vegas in the latter half of 2015. Kaplan said he heard the sound of screams and shattering glass coming from the jet's bedroom.
He said he turned to see Combs standing over Ventura with a "whiskey rock glass" in his hand, as she cowered on the bed.
"After the glass crashed, Cassiie screamed, 'Isn't anybody seeing this?'" Kaplan told the jury.
"Did you look away?" asked a federal prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Maurene Comey. Kaplan said he did.
"And after you looked away, what did you hear?" the prosecutor asked.
"Further glass crashing and chaos."
When the prosecutor asked what, if anything, the Combs security staff did in response, Kaplan answered, "Nothing."
No one, he said, went back to check on Ventura after Combs left the bedroom to rejoin his employees.
"I was 23 years old," Kaplan said in explanation of his own inaction. "All I wanted to do was have a great job in the entertainment industry."
Ultimately, he told the jury, this and similar domestic violence incidents drove him to quit.
John Lamparski/Getty Images
Combs' former personal assistant spent two days on the witness stand, and in his most dramatic testimony, described how a 2008 run for cheeseburgers at an all-night diner nearly escalated the East Coast-West Coast rap wars.
It started at 4 a.m. in the parking lot at Mel's Drive-In in Los Angeles, the ex-assistant, David James, testified.
Combs' trusted security guard, Damian "D-Roc" Butler, noticed that Suge Knight, cofounder of rival recording studio Death Row Records, was sitting in an Escalade just a few parking spots away.
James, Combs' personal assistant from 2007 to 2009, testified that he was at the wheel of Combs' silver Lincoln Navigator when Knight and D-Roc faced off.
"What are you doing in my city?" James, according to his testimony, remembered hearing Knight asking Combs' security guard, who had introduced himself as "D-Roc, Biggie's boy," a reference to the rapper Notorious B.I.G.
Within moments, James and the bodyguard saw someone pass a gun to Knight and watched as four SUVs pulled up into different corners of the parking lot, he told jurors.
James testified that he was ordered by D-Roc to speed back to Combs' Hollywood Hills estate. There was no mention of whether they drove back with or without the cheeseburgers.
Once back home, and as Ventura protested in tears, Combs grabbed three guns for the ten-minute drive with D-Roc back to Mel's, testified James, who said he was still the driver.
Knight was nowhere to be found upon their return, James said.
"It was the first time I realized my life was in danger," the former PA testified, telling jurors that he sent in his resignation soon after.
Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for MTV
Danity Kane singer Dawn Richard was the fifth prosecution witness, and her testimony on May 16 alleged that in 2009, Combs brutally beat Ventura after she took too long to cook him dinner.
"Where's my fucking egg?" Richard recounted to the jury Combs shouting in 2009, as he stormed into the kitchen of his rented Los Angeles mansion.
"He took the skillet with the eggs in it and tried to hit her in the head, and she fell to the ground," Richard testified.
Ventura cowered on the floor "in a fetal position" as Combs punched her and kicked her, she testified. Then he dragged her upstairs by her hair, she said, adding that she then heard the sound of screaming and breaking glass from the third floor.
The next day, Combs called Ventura and Richard into the mansion's first-floor recording studio, she said.
"He said that what we saw was passion, and it was what lovers in a relationship do," Richard said.
She said Combs told the two women that "he was trying to take us to the top, and that, where he comes from, people go missing if they say things like that, like, if people talk. And then he gave us flowers."
While back on the stand on May 19, Richard re-emphasized that she felt this was a threat to her life.
The details in the testimony came as a surprise to Combs' lead defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, who called it prejudicial and "just a drop dead lie."
"It didn't happen," the lawyer complained to the judge. "And the reason we know it didn't happen is that Ms. Ventura didn't talk about it" during her four days on the witness stand.
On cross-examination on May 19, Richard agreed that she only recalled the alleged death threat in speaking with prosecutors earlier this month. It had gone unmentioned, she agreed, during a half-dozen prior interviews with prosecutors.
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images; Johnny Nunez/WireImage
Ventura was beaten by Combs for the most minor of perceived infractions, including taking too long in the bathroom, prosecutor Emily Johnson said in her opening statement.
"He beat her when she didn't answer the phone when he called. He beat her when she left a freak off without his permission," Johnson said.
Ventura's ex-best friend, Kerry Morgan, was called to the witness stand on May 19 and told jurors about two attacks on Ventura she witnessed, including one while on vacation in Jamaica in 2013.
Morgan said Ventura at one point went to the bathroom at the residence where they were staying, and Combs said, "She's taking too long."
"A few minutes later, I heard her screaming — like guttural. Terrifying," Morgan said. "He was dragging her by her hair on the floor."
Morgan told jurors that she saw Combs push Ventura to the ground, causing her to hit her head on the paving bricks.
"She didn't move. She fell on her side," Morgan said, adding, "I thought she was knocked out."
Ventura, too, had testified that arguments with Combs would regularly result in physical abuse.
Ventura —who dated Combs on and off from 2007 to 2018 — described six separate times when Combs' attacks left her with injuries, with the most severe beating occurring in Los Angeles in 2009 following a party Combs had hosted at a club called Ace of Diamonds.
Ventura said she punched Combs in the face after he called her a "slut or a bitch" for talking to a record producer. Combs retaliated in the back seat of a chauffeured luxury vehicle by punching and kicking Ventura throughout a ten-minute ride to the rapper's rented mansion, she said.
She said she hid under the back seat to escape the attack. Combs demanded she stay hidden in a hotel for a week so her bruises could heal, she said.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
The prosecution's fourth witness took the witness stand briefly on May 16 to detail what she and other Homeland Security investigators say they found inside Combs' suite at Manhattan's Park Hyatt New York after his September arrest.
Combs had checked into the luxury Midtown hotel, his lawyers have said, in case federal prosecutors in Manhattan had asked him to surrender voluntarily.
Special Agent Yasin Binda told the Combs jury she photographed what her colleagues found inside the room.
Those items included a clear plastic bag of baby oil bottles found inside a duffle bag. There were three more bottles of baby oil in his bathtub, alongside two bottles of personal lubricant.
Two more bottles of lubricant were recovered from a nightstand drawer, next to a prescription pill bottle she said held two small baggies containing a pink powder.
On the living room floor was a large blue party light of the kind Ventura testified were used to illuminate freak offs.
Similar bags of pink powder have previously been seized from Combs and tested positive for ecstasy and other drugs, a prosecutor had said in court the day after Combs was arrested.
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
In some of her final moments on the witness stand, Ventura was asked by the defense about a legal settlement that she said she is on the verge of receiving from the InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.
"I think it was $10 million," Ventura said of the settlement, hesitating when asked for the total amount agreed to.
The InterContinental is where security cameras captured Combs beating Ventura in a hallway in 2016, as she tried to flee what prosecutors say was one of Combs' freak offs.
The jury was shown the infamous footage at the beginning of the trial.
Johnson, the prosecutor, said in her opening statements that at the time of the attack, Combs paid a security guard at the hotel $100,000 in a brown paper envelope in exchange for the footage.
Combs apologized for his actions in the video after CNN published the footage last year.
It was the second big-money settlement revealed in Ventura's testimony.
Earlier in her testimony, Ventura told jurors that Combs paid her $20 million to settle her civil suit against him in 2023.
Christopher Polk via Getty Images
Pop icon Britney Spears and actor Michael B. Jordan were both name-dropped on May 15, on Ventura's third day of testimony.
During a cross-examination, Ventura was asked to tell the jury about the 21st birthday party Combs threw for her in 2007, at a club in Las Vegas.
The party was a significant moment in the Combs-Ventura story. Ventura testified that Combs, who recently signed her to his record label, gave her an uninvited kiss in a bathroom, sparking their relationship.
"I believe there were other celebrities there in attendance?" defense attorney Anna Estevao asked Ventura, who answered yes, there were.
"Sean was there, and he brought Dallas Austin, he brought Britney Spears," Ventura said, referring to the "Oops!… I Did It Again" singer and the record producer. "I think those were the two people that stand out to me," Ventura added.
Asked how a 21-year-old of limited fame was able to attract such big names to her party, Ventura credited Combs, saying, "That was all him."
Jordan's name came up as the cross-examination focused on 2015, when Combs became suspicious that she was having an affair with the actor.
"Is Michael B. Jordan a celebrity?" Estevao asked.
"I would say so," Ventura answered, sounding surprised.
Jeff Minton
Both Combs and Ventura were heavy opioid users, the R&B singer testified — and on one late night in February 2012, the pills he took made the rapper seriously ill, she said.
"Was that around the time that Whitney Houston died?" Estevao, Combs' defense attorney, asked about the timing.
"Yes," Ventura said.
That evening, the pair went to a sex club in San Bernardino, California, and then she went home, and Combs went to a party at the Playboy Mansion, Ventura told jurors.
"Well, from what he told me, he took a very strong opiate that night, but we didn't know what was happening, so we took him to the hospital," Ventura testified.
There, she said, she learned that he had overdosed on whatever painkillers he had taken, she said.
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images
Ventura testified on May 13 that she was initially nervous, but felt a sense of responsibility to participate in Combs' freak offs.
"I was just in love and wanted to make him happy," Ventura told the jury.
Ventura testified that in 2007, Combs first proposed "this sexual encounter that he called voyeurism, where he would watch me have a sexual encounter with a third man, specifically another man."
"I didn't want to upset him if I said it scared me or if I said anything aside from, 'OK, let's try it,'" she said.
Johnson said in her opening statements that Combs eventually made it Ventura's job to find and book escorts to participate in the sex encounters.
While on the stand, Ventura described in detail what went on during freak offs. Prosecutors say Combs arranged, directed, and often electronically recorded the sex performances.
Ventura testified that Combs would urinate and ask escorts to urinate on her during the freak offs.
"It was disgusting. It was too much. It was overwhelming," she said. "I choked."
Nathan Howard/REUTERS
President Donald Trump's deal with Paul Weiss was his first big win in his war against Big Law.
In court, it's coming back to haunt him.
For the law firms choosing to fight Trump's executive orders targeting them, rather than striking deals with the president, the Paul Weiss deal has turned into a potent weapon.
They have cited Trump's quick revocation of the order — just six days after it was initially issued — to argue that they never had any legitimacy in the first place. The order, had it been carried out, would have revoked the security clearances of Paul Weiss lawyers out of "the national interest" and barred them from entering government-owned buildings, potentially including even courthouses and post offices.
The argument emerged again in a Washington, DC, federal courtroom on Thursday afternoon as a lawyer representing the firm Susman Godfrey told a federal judge that Trump's turnabout on the Paul Weiss order was evidence that the White House never really believed the law firms posed a national security risk.
"There was no change in circumstances with respect to the trustworthiness of Paul Weiss between the issuing of that executive order and its rescission a few days later," said Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., a lawyer at Munger Tolles representing Susman Godfrey. "And I think in some ways that tells you all you need to know about whether there's anything legitimate about the suspension."
After Paul Weiss agreed to a deal with Trump, in March, its chairman, Brad Karp, told lawyers at the firm that the agreement resolved an "existential crisis" that "could easily have destroyed our firm."
The decision divided the legal profession. Critics said that by choosing to reach an agreement with Trump instead of fight in court — as Perkins Coie had at the time — Paul Weiss empowered Trump to go after more Big Law firms.
Eight more Big Law firms made deals with Trump, averting altogether possible executive orders targeting them, and pledging a total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono hours toward Trump's political priorities.
For the four law firms fighting executive orders — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey — the Paul Weiss deal had the opposite effect.
It was a clear indication, they have all argued, that the legal justifications for Trump's orders were baloney.
Under legal precedents, government agencies are required to conduct an "individualized review" to issue and revoke security clearances, judges have ruled in the cases. Reversing the Paul Weiss order in under a week was clearly too short a time to individually weigh whether each person working at the firm posed an actual national security threat, the four law firms have each argued.
Thursday's court hearing, overseen by US District Judge Loren AliKhan, was over whether the judge should permanently block the order targeting Susman Godfrey, a law firm that represents The New York Times in a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, and has represented Dominion Voting Systems in its lawsuit against Fox News.
Richard Lawson — who has been left as the sole Justice Department lawyer defending the government in these cases — said in the hearing that the executive branch has "inherent discretion on security clearances." He has also argued that because each of Trump's executive orders says security clearances should be reviewed "consistent with applicable law," they could not possibly be illegal.
The four judges, overseeing the lawsuits, including AliKhan, have not been persuaded. Each swiftly issued a temporary restraining order blocking the implementation of the executive orders.
On Friday, US District Judge Beryl Howell issued the first order permanently blocking one of the executive orders against Perkins Coie.
She wrote in her 102-page opinion that Trump's actions and public statements indicated his executive orders had nothing to do with national security, but were instead motivated by his dislike of specific people working at particular law firms and because he wanted "big numbers" in pro bono pledges from each firm.
"None of these agreed-upon policy or practice changes appear to explain or address how any national security concerns sufficient to warrant the Paul, Weiss EO could have changed so rapidly," Howell wrote of the announced deal between Trump and Paul Weiss. "The speed of the reversal and the rationale provided in the Paul, Weiss Revocation Order, which focused only on agreements to advance policy initiatives of the Trump Administration, further support the conclusion that national security considerations are not a plausible explanation."
Howell also addressed the circumstances of Trump's executive order targeting Susman Godfrey. After signing the order, Trump announced, "We're just starting the process with this one." It was an indication, Howell wrote, that Trump may view the orders as leverage for a negotiation rather than trying to legitimately address national security issues.
"Whether President Trump's focus on 'the process' refers to enforcement of the Susman EO or that this Order was the opening gambit — akin to the Paul, Weiss EO followed by the Paul, Weiss Revocation Order — for deal negotiations, is unclear," Howell wrote.
On Thursday, AliKhan, asked Lawson if he wanted to share a view on how Howell's order might affect the Susman Godfrey case.
Lawson stumbled through a response.
"No, I don't. There's nothing in there that, I mean, obviously we have a big issue with the finding," Lawson said, laughing. "But I don't think there's anything urgent I need to bring to the court's attention."
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Costco's policies surrounding internal investigations are under scrutiny for being "overly broad" and in violation of employees' rights.
On Monday, US National Labor Relations Board judge Andrew Gollin decided against Costco in a matter involving the confidentiality agreements that workers are expected to sign when raising issues with management.
The specific case was brought on behalf of Jessica Georg, who in 2022 used Costco's "Open Door" policy to file an internal complaint that she was sexually harassed by a co-worker, according to filings.
As part of the process, Georg was required to sign a confidentiality agreement that barred her from discussing the open matter with coworkers. She later received a letter from Costco that said the employee was fired, the case was closed, and that "we hope and expect" that the information would continue to remain confidential, according to filings.
The NLRB and Georg each declined to comment for this story, and neither Costco nor its attorney responded to Business Insider's request.
In a briefing, Costco's lawyer Paul Galligan argued that the confidentiality rules are intended to protect the integrity of the investigation and are in the shared interest of the company and workers.
"It helps employees to be candid in their statements knowing that their statements will be treated confidentiality. It is probably more critical in an industry like retail where employees work closely together," Galligan said.
He also said in the briefing the rules aren't intended to dissuade employees from discussing things like wages, working conditions, or forming a union.
But Costco's investigation found that the individual about whom Georg complained also had several prior complaints filed against him, and Georg later testified she felt she or her coworkers with similar experiences felt they might be risking their jobs if they shared information about alleged patterns of behavior by an individual employee about whom they had raised concerns.
A more tailored confidentiality agreement could still protect sensitive information while still assuring workers of their rights to protect themselves against harassment, the NLRB attorneys said in a brief.
The NLRB attorneys argued that Costco's policy "appears to instead protect the harasser who has had individual complaints dismissed over and over, because no one outside the investigator is privy to the serial nature of the harassment."
Costco's lawyer argued that the company's employee handbook explains that the confidentiality requirement is not intended to discourage workers from exercising their rights. The NLRB argued, and the judge agreed, that having workers sign a separate form (as was the case here) could reasonably cause confusion for a typical worker and lead them to fear for their job.
Part of Judge Gollin's proposed remedy is that Costco post a notice in the one warehouse where the violation occurred, since the NLRB did not prove conclusively that similar confidentiality forms were used at all of the company's US locations.
The case now heads to the NLRB's board, with exceptions to the decision due by June 2.
Got a tip? Email Dominick or call/text/Signal at 646.768.4750.
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A federal judge appeared poised to hand Big Law another win after he snapped Monday at a Justice Department lawyer attempting to justify President Donald Trump's executive order targeting one firm.
During Monday's court hearing, Richard Lawson, the Justice Department attorney, argued that Trump's order could not possibly be illegal because it required federal agencies to act "consistent with applicable law."
Lawson appeared to struggle through arguments, at times not giving direct responses to questions from the judge.
Lawson said Trump could target Jenner & Block, the Big Law firm, because the president said "Jenner discriminates against its employees based on race" — even though no court or government agency had come to that conclusion.
"Give me a break," US District Judge John Bates snapped, as Lawson said federal agencies should be allowed to follow the order because the firm engaged in "racial discrimination."
The oral arguments, in a Washington, DC, federal court, were part of Jenner & Block's lawsuit seeking to permanently block Trump's March 25 executive order targeting the firm. Bates previously ordered the federal government to pause the implementation of Trump's order.
Jenner & Block, represented by the elite law firm Cooley LLP, is one of four firms that sued the government seeking to stop Trump's executive orders. Nine other Big Law firms all made deals with Trump, collectively promising nearly $1 billion in pro bono work, to avert orders targeting them.
The law firms fighting the Trump administration, so far, are winning. Federal judges have swiftly issued temporary restraining orders preventing the executive orders from going into effect. And in court hearings for other cases, federal judges have been similarly impatient with Lawson's arguments, Business Insider reported Sunday.
During one hearing last week, for the law firm Perkins Coie's lawsuit seeking to stop an executive order, a judge referred to some of the Justice Department's positions as "hyper-technical legal arguments that may have no merit."
Bates, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, appeared impatient Monday as he questioned Lawson over the legal basis for Trump's order.
Trump, in the first section of the order, said he targeted Jenner & Block in part because the firm previously hired a lawyer who worked for former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, among other reasons.
The order would strip Jenner & Block employees of security clearances, cancel any contracts with the firm and its clients, and ban all employees from government buildings and from meeting with government officials.
"Ordering guidance specific to Jenner & Block that limits access to federal buildings, access to federal employees, access to federal agencies — the rationales in Section One that warrant that are what? Are what?" Bates asked Lawson.
In court filings and in Monday's hearing, Lawson has argued that judges should give broad leeway to Trump's power to target people and companies through executive orders, especially for purported national security issues.
Lawyers for Jenner & Block say the order is effectively government retaliation for free speech, violating the First Amendment. They also say Trump's order would violate their clients' right to counsel, as well as Jenner & Block's obligation to advocate on behalf of their clients without government interference.
The law firm argues that the order would also effectively kick several Jenner & Block lawyers out of their military reserve service because that service depends on their having security clearances.
Lawson said federal agencies would review security clearances on "an individual-by-individual basis" rather than issuing a blanket suspension of everyone at the firm to remain "consistent with applicable law."
Bates said he found that to be "a pretty strange reading" of the executive order.
"You think an agency official, given this executive order, is going to say, 'Well, I'm going to do a person-by-person analysis to decide whether I will suspend the security clearances of these seven Jenner people subject to my agency,'" the judge asked incredulously. "Is that what you think?"
Bates also reserved sharp questions for Jenner & Block's attorney, Michael Attanasio, during the hearing.
He asked whether it was necessary to strike down the entire executive order, or just the parts that directly harmed the law firm.
Attanasio asked the judge to issue a permanent injunction against the entire order, much like Trump withdrew the executive order he issued for Paul Weiss, which struck a deal with the president. The lawyer said Trump issued the order against Jenner & Block as "retribution."
"It was set up to be one form of punishment, and it should be taken down the same way, just as the President did for Paul Weiss," Attanasio said. "The difference being this time it gets taken down not on bended knee, but because this court enforces the constitution."
Bates said a written opinion in the case was "forthcoming."
Correction: April 28, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated the amount of pro bono work the nine other firms collectively promised. It is nearly $1 billion, not $1 trillion.
mrs/Getty Images
A group of tabletop game companies is suing President Donald Trump because it says his tariffs are reducing their profits to the real-world value of Monopoly money.
Stonemaier Games, which makes the popular board games "Wingspan," "Rolling Realms," and "Vantage," announced its involvement in the lawsuit this week. The company said the lawsuit would "challenge the unchecked authority" of Trump and his tariffs.
"We will not stand idly by while our livelihoods—and the livelihoods of thousands of small business owners and contractors in the US, along with the customers whose pursuit of happiness we hold dear—are treated like pawns in a political game," the company said.
Lawyers for Stonemaier, which is based in St. Louis, said in a legal complaint that the company estimates it will pay "millions in tariffs" because it manufactures all of its games in a Chinese factory owned by Panda Game Manufacturing, which is based in Canada. Stonemaier has printed its games in China for more than 13 years, the lawsuit says.
At least nine other companies joined Stonemaier in the lawsuit, saying Trump's tariffs will cause substantial harm to their business. XYZ Game Labs, Rookie Mage, Spielcraft, and TinkerHouse Games are all board game companies that are joining the lawsuit.
Spielcraft, an independent Nebraska-based board game maker, paid $4,335 in tariff fees in April, the lawsuit says.
Other small businesses also joined the suit. Clothing company Princes Awesome, which makes inclusive clothing for children and adults, paid $1,041 for dresses imported from China in March, according to the lawsuit.
"Princess Awesome has also ordered additional products from Peru, Bangladesh, and India that they anticipate will arrive in the United States in the coming weeks and are continuing to place new orders for imports," the complaint says.
Trump and his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, have said that the tariffs are part of a strategy to increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. But that could take a while. In the meantime, tariffs can raise prices and reduce the dollar's purchasing power, leaving consumers with less money to spend.
Experts told Business Insider that supply chain disruptions caused by the tariffs could cause prices to spike and the availability of goods to decrease in as early as a few weeks.
Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing the companies in the lawsuit, said in a statement that Trump's tariffs are unconstitutional and that only Congress should have the power to levy tariffs.
"The Constitution gives Congress—not the president—the power to impose tariffs because policies affecting an entire nation should come from the body most representative of the entire nation," the statement says. "And Congress cannot delegate that core legislative power to the president."
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg/File Photo
Prosecutors want to make sure the public doesn't see the "freak off" videos made by Sean "Diddy" Combs, which they say they'll present as exhibits in his upcoming criminal sex-trafficking trial.
Even the audio from those videos shouldn't reach the ears of the public and the press, argued Assistant US Attorney Madison Smyser in a court conference on Friday.
"These are extremely sensitive videos, they are going to involve videos of 'freak offs,'" Smyser said. "They involve other parties, victims, and, in some videos, Mr. Combs."
Smyser said prosecutors and defense lawyers were working out a way so that only jurors would be able to see and hear the videos when they're presented in court.
The indictment, brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan, accuses Combs of sex trafficking and racketeering.
The primary victim prosecutors identified is Cassie Ventura, who was in a romantic relationship with Combs for 10 years. According to prosecutors, Combs sexually abused Ventura through "freak offs," which they described as elaborate and lengthy sexual performances that Combs staged, masturbated during, and often recorded.
Prosecutors have identified another four accusers who are expected to testify as victims in the trial. The judge has also allowed one "propensity witness," a yet-identified former romantic partner who is set to testify by name about alleged prior abuse, but who is not considered a victim in the criminal charges. Some of the witnesses are also expected to include sex workers who were recruited for the "freak offs."
Combs was attentive during Friday's court conference, the penultimate one before jury selection begins on May 5.
The hip-hop artist wore khaki jail garb and what appeared to be laceless Vans slip-on shoes.
Before the start of the hearing, Combs hugged his three female attorneys and then shook hands with one of his male lawyers. Throughout the conference, he sipped water from an unusually small plastic cup on the defense table before him.
US District Judge Arun Subramanian, who is overseeing Combs' criminal case, asked prosecutors to provide legal justifications for sealing the "freak off" videos, which would become court records if they were to be entered into evidence.
Prosecutors said they'd file a letter providing examples where similar procedures were followed in other cases. In R. Kelly's trial in Brooklyn, the court had jurors watch videos of sexual abuse on small screens in front of their jury seats while wearing earphones, while journalists and members of the public were kept out of the courtroom.
During Friday's hearing, prosecutors also said they wanted an accuser to testify about a "medical procedure" that they said was a result of a "freak off."
Combs's defense attorneys argued that the procedure wasn't sufficiently related to the conduct described in the indictment, and that the accuser shouldn't be able to testify about the experience.
Submaranian ultimately concluded that he'd wait and see what else the victim would testify about before deciding if prosecutors could ask questions about the purported medical procedure.
The judge also issued a ruling narrowing the scope of what Dawn Hughes, an expert on interpersonal relationships, would be allowed to testify about. Hughes, who previously testified in the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, and is expected to testify in Harvey Weinstein's ongoing trial, is expected to testify on behalf of Combs. Combs's lawyers have said she would partly testify about the "swingers" lifestyle the singer participated in.
Subramanian previously resolved most of the other legal issues ahead of the trial, which is set to take place in the same lower Manhattan courtroom where Combs's jailmate Sam Bankman-Fried had his trial.
The judge allowed Combs's team to obtain drafts of Ventura's memoir for cross-examination, but did not allow them to obtain other notes, emails, or bank records they had requested.
Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP, File
Subramanian also forced Warner Bros. to give Combs' lawyers interview footage with two accusers taken for a Max documentary, "The Fall of Diddy." An attorney for Combs said in Friday's hearing that they expected to receive the footage next week.
The contents of Ventura's memoir have never been made public, and little information about it is known.
Combs's lawyer Marc Agnifilo discussed the memoir in a September court hearing, where he unsuccessfully asked a judge to allow Combs to stay out of jail ahead of the criminal trial.
Agnifilo said Combs and Ventura had a consensual, if complicated, 10-year relationship, and that she essentially tried to extort him with the memoir draft after it ended. In November 2023, Combs settled a civil sexual abuse lawsuit that Ventura brought against him.
"'My client has written a book, and she is going to publish it, but if you want to buy the rights, then you will have the exclusive rights, and she won't be able to publish it.'" Agnifilo said, characterizing an offer from one of Ventura's previous lawyers. "'And you know what, you can buy the rights for $30 million.'"
Later, Ventura retained a different lawyer and sued Combs under New York's Adult Survivors Act, alleging sexual abuse,
"'I am not really here to embarrass you anymore to the tune of $30 million; I am going to bring this civil sex claim against you,'" Agnifilo said, purportedly quoting Ventura's other attorney.
Agnifilo's arguments were not successful. Combs has been detained in Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center since September.
On Monday, the State Bar of California revealed that it used AI to develop a portion of multiple-choice questions on its February 2025 bar exam, causing outrage among law school faculty and test takers. The admission comes after weeks of complaints about technical problems and irregularities during the exam administration, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The State Bar disclosed that its psychometrician (a person or organization skilled in administrating psychological tests), ACS Ventures, created 23 of the 171 scored multiple-choice questions with AI assistance. Another 48 questions came from a first-year law student exam, while Kaplan Exam Services developed the remaining 100 questions.
The State Bar defended its practices, telling the LA Times that all questions underwent review by content validation panels and subject matter experts before the exam. "The ACS questions were developed with the assistance of AI and subsequently reviewed by content validation panels and a subject matter expert in advance of the exam," wrote State Bar Executive Director Leah Wilson in a press release.
© Getty Images
At the Meta monopoly trial, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom accused Mark Zuckerberg of draining Instagram resources to stifle growth out of sheer jealousy.
According to Systrom, Zuckerberg may have been directly involved in yanking resources after integrating Instagram and Facebook because "as the founder of Facebook, he felt a lot of emotion around which one was better—Instagram or Facebook," The Financial Times reported.
In 2025, Instagram is projected to account for more than half of Meta's ad revenue, according to eMarketer's forecast. Since 2019, Instagram has generated more ad revenue per user than Facebook, eMarketer noted, and today makes Meta twice as much per user as the closest rival that Meta claims it fears most, TikTok.
© San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers / Contributor | Hearst Newspapers
A new report from ProPublica published Thursday showed how the Louisiana government is using TIGER (Targeted Interventions to Greater Enhance Re-entry), a computer program developed by Louisiana State University to prevent recidivism, to approve or deny parole applications based on a score calculating their risk of returning to prison. Though the algorithm was initially designed to be used as a tool to help rehabilitate inmates by taking their background into account, a TIGER score – which uses data from an inmate’s time before prison, such as work history, criminal convictions, and age at first arrest – is now the sole measure of one’s eligibility.
In interviews, several prisoners revealed that their scheduled parole hearings had been abruptly canceled after their TIGER score determined that they were at “moderate risk” of returning to prison. There is no factor in a TIGER score that takes into account an inmate’s behavior in prison or attempts at rehab – a score that criminal justice activists argue penalizes one’s racial and demographic background. (According to current state Department of Corrections data, half of Louisiana’s prison population of roughly 13,000 would automatically fall in the moderate or high risk categories.)
One included Calvin Alexander, a 70-year-old partially blind man in a wheelchair, who had been in prison for 20 years, but had spent his time in drug rehab, anger management therapy, and professional skills development, and had a clean disciplinary record. “People in jail have … lost hope in being able to do anything to reduce their time,” he told ProPublica.
Parole via algorithm is not just legal in Louisiana, but a deliberate element in Republican Governor Jeff Landry’s crusade against parole. Last year, he signed a law eliminating parole for all prisoners who committed a crime after August 1st, 2024, making Louisiana the first state to eliminate parole in 24 years. A subsequent law decreed that currently-incarcerated prisoners would only be eligible for parole if the algorithm determined they were “low risk”.
OpenAI filed a countersuit against Elon Musk on Wednesday, saying on X that “Elon’s nonstop actions against us are just bad-faith tactics to slow down OpenAI and seize control of the leading AI innovations for his personal benefit.”
In the lawsuit, OpenAI’s lawyers argue that “Musk’s continued attacks on OpenAI, culminating most recently in the fake takeover bid designed to disrupt OpenAI’s future, must cease. Musk should be enjoined from further unlawful and unfair action, and held responsible for the damage he has already caused.”
Musk, who was part of the initial founding team at OpenAI, initially sued last spring, saying he wanted to force the company to “return to its mission to develop AGI for the benefit of humanity” instead of pursuing profits. (The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, found Musk’s legal case against OpenAI “hilariously bad.”)
Musk dropped that lawsuit in June but sued OpenAI again in August. In December, OpenAI published a blog post with the headline “Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit,” with receipts. The case is scheduled to go to trial in the spring of 2026.
Earlier this year, Musk also offered $97.4 billion to buy OpenAI, saying in a statement that “it’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was.” OpenAI’s board of directors unanimously rejected the offer, which today’s filing called a “sham bid.”
Disclosure: The Verge’s parent company, Vox Media, partners with OpenAI.
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