New York
Rudy Giuliani and Dominion Voting Systems settle defamation suit over his 2020 election claims
NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani has reached a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit over his baseless 2020 election-rigging claims.
The two sides said in a filing in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday that they have agreed to permanently dismiss the suit against the former New York City mayor and former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump.
The brief filing doesn’t cite the settlement terms. Spokespeople for Giuliani and the Colorado-based company said Saturday that the terms are confidential and declined to comment further.
Dominion sued Giuliani in 2021 for $1.3 billion in damages after he led Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results.
Conservatives and other Trump supporters blamed the company, one of the nation’s top voting machine makers, for the Republican’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Many alleged, without evidence, that its systems were easily manipulated. Dominion had provided voting machines for the state of Georgia, a critical battleground that Biden won and which flipped control of the U.S. Senate.
The web of conspiracy theories following the the 2020 election not only caused headaches for Dominion but also undermined public confidence in U.S. elections, led to calls to ban voting machines and triggered death threats against elections officials.
But Trump’s former attorney general and others found no widespread fraud in the election.
Fox News also agreed to a nearly $800 million settlement with Dominion in 2023, and another politically conservative network, Newsmax, agreed to a $67 million settlement with Dominion over its election claims.
The company’s suit against Giuliani was based on statements the onetime presidential hopeful made on social media, on conservative news outlets and during legislative hearings in which he claimed the company conspired to flip votes to Biden.
Dominion’s lawsuit was among a series of legal and financial setbacks for Giuliani stemming from his role in spreading election conspiracy theories.
Earlier this month, a New York judge ordered the Republican, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to pay $1.36 million in legal fees.
Giuliani, in recent years, has also been disbarred as an attorney in New York and Washington; filed for bankruptcy and reached an undisclosed settlement to keep his homes and belongings after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia elections workers he defamed.
Florida
Woman sues Universal Orlando over injuries from same roller coaster in which man died after ride
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A woman has sued Universal Orlando Resort, claiming she was injured on a roller coaster at its newest theme park. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, comes a week after a man died from blunt impact injuries after going on the same ride.
Sandi Streets filed the negligence lawsuit in state court in Orlando, days after the death of 32-year-old Kevin Rodriguez Zavala in a separate incident.
Streets said she was invited to Universal’s Epic Universe theme park just a few weeks before it officially opened to the public in May and went on the dual-launch coaster, which reaches speeds up to 62 mph (100 kph). On the ride, her head shook violently and slammed into her seat’s headrest, giving her permanent injuries, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Streets has suffered disability, medical care expenses, loss of the ability to work and an exacerbation of a preexisting condition since going on the ride. Her attorney, Nicholas Spetsas, didn’t immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking further details on her injuries.
The ride failed to properly restrain her head, and the theme park failed to adequately warn her of “the unsafe and unreasonably dangerous condition” of the roller coaster, the lawsuit says.
Universal didn’t respond Thursday to an email seeking comment about the lawsuit.
In Zavala’s case, the medical examiner for the Orlando area ruled the cause of death as multiple blunt impact injuries and said the manner of death was an accident.
Karen Irwin, Universal Orlando Resort’s president, said in a note to workers last weekend, after Zavala’s death, that internal findings showed ride systems functioned normally, equipment was intact and Universal workers followed the proper procedures. Investigators with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said last Friday that their initial findings align with that of the theme park.
Lawyers for Zavala’s family took issue with that conclusion at a news conference Wednesday. Zavala had a spinal disability from birth and used a wheelchair, but they said his disability didn’t cause his death. His family hasn’t filed a lawsuit, as of yet, and said they want to understand how he died.
Florida
Truck driver accused of being in the U.S. illegally pleads not guilty in crash that killed 3 people
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A commercial truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed three people on a Florida highway last month waived his first appearance hearing Monday and entered a not guilty plea, court records show.
Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old native of India, is being held in the St. Lucie County Jail in Florida after being denied bond on three counts of vehicular homicide and immigration violations. Singh lived in California and was originally issued a commercial driver’s license in Washington before California issued him one.
Fallout from the crash led to a war of words between the Trump administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and new, stricter rules for non-citizens to obtain commercial drivers licenses. That policy was announced Friday by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The Florida Highway Patrol said Singh attempted to make a U-turn Aug. 12 from the northbound lanes of Florida’s Turnpike near Fort Pierce. A minivan that was behind Singh’s big rig couldn’t stop and crashed into the truck, killing its driver and two passengers. Singh and a passenger in the truck were not injured.
In a news conference last week, Duffy said an audit conducted after the Florida crash showed the previous rules weren’t strict enough and that a number of states weren’t following them consistently.
He said Singh should have never received a commercial license because of his immigration status.
That review found that commercial driver’s licenses were improperly issued in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington. But Duffy said the problems were so egregious in California, where Singh’s license was issued, that he is threatening to pull $160 million in federal funding.
Neither Singh’s attorney, Natalie Knight-Tai, nor prosecutor David Dodd responded to emails seeking comment on the case. Next up for Singh is a pre-trial docket call on Friday in Fort Pierce.
Utah
Attorney for suspect in Charlie Kirk assassination wants more time to review evidence
PROVO, Utah (AP) — An attorney for an 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk asked a judge Monday for more time to review the large amount of evidence in the case before deciding if the defense will seek a preliminary hearing.
A preliminary hearing would determine if there is enough evidence against Tyler Robinson to go forward with a trial. Defendants can waive that step, but Robinson’s newly appointed attorney Kathryn Nester said her team did not intend to do so.
Utah prosecutors have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty.
Both the defense and prosecution acknowledged at a brief hearing Monday that the amount of evidence that prosecutors have is “voluminous.” Robinson was not present for the hearing and appeared via audio from jail at his defense team’s request.
Judge Tony Graf set the next hearing for Oct. 30.
Defense attorneys for Robinson and prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office declined to comment after Monday’s hearing. It took place in Provo, just a few miles from the Utah Valley University campus in Orem where many students are still processing trauma from the Sept. 10 shooting and the day-and-a-half search for the suspect.
Authorities arrested Robinson when he showed up with his parents at his hometown sheriff’s office in southwest Utah, more than a three-hour drive from the site of the shooting, to turn himself in. Prosecutors have since revealed incriminating text messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing.
A note that Robinson left for his romantic partner before the shooting said he had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices, “and I’m going to take it,” Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray told reporters before the first hearing. Gray also said Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred.”
The assassination of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism, has galvanized Republicans who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of moving American politics further right.
Trump has declared Kirk a “martyr” for freedom and threatened to crack down on what he called the “radical left.”
Workers across the U.S. have been punished or fired for speaking out about Kirk after his death, including teachers, public and private employees and media personalities — most notably Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show was suspended then reinstated by ABC.
Kirk’s political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through his podcast, social media and campus events. Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk planned to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.
Florida
Man killed and ate his pet peacocks, authorities say
HUDSON, Fla. (AP) — A man on Florida’s Gulf Coast has been charged with animal cruelty after authorities said he killed, cooked and ate two of his pet peacocks.
The 61-year-old man from Hudson, Florida, was arrested last week on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty, according to an affidavit from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.
The man told investigators that he had killed the two peacocks because his neighbor kept feeding them. He had written the neighbor a letter telling her that he would continue to kill his pet peacocks if she kept feeding them “to prove a point,” according to the affidavit, which didn’t say how many peacocks he kept.
The man “admitted to killing the bird by cutting the bird’s neck out of spite, then bleeding it out, and then later eating the bird after cooking it on a frying pan,” the affidavit said.
While he was being taken to jail, the man told deputies that he would kill all of his pet peacocks upon release to prevent anyone from taking them, the sheriff’s office report said.
The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office on Monday didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about the fate of the remaining peacocks.
An online docket showed no attorney listed for the man.
Rudy Giuliani and Dominion Voting Systems settle defamation suit over his 2020 election claims
NEW YORK (AP) — Rudy Giuliani has reached a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems in its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit over his baseless 2020 election-rigging claims.
The two sides said in a filing in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday that they have agreed to permanently dismiss the suit against the former New York City mayor and former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump.
The brief filing doesn’t cite the settlement terms. Spokespeople for Giuliani and the Colorado-based company said Saturday that the terms are confidential and declined to comment further.
Dominion sued Giuliani in 2021 for $1.3 billion in damages after he led Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the 2020 election results.
Conservatives and other Trump supporters blamed the company, one of the nation’s top voting machine makers, for the Republican’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
Many alleged, without evidence, that its systems were easily manipulated. Dominion had provided voting machines for the state of Georgia, a critical battleground that Biden won and which flipped control of the U.S. Senate.
The web of conspiracy theories following the the 2020 election not only caused headaches for Dominion but also undermined public confidence in U.S. elections, led to calls to ban voting machines and triggered death threats against elections officials.
But Trump’s former attorney general and others found no widespread fraud in the election.
Fox News also agreed to a nearly $800 million settlement with Dominion in 2023, and another politically conservative network, Newsmax, agreed to a $67 million settlement with Dominion over its election claims.
The company’s suit against Giuliani was based on statements the onetime presidential hopeful made on social media, on conservative news outlets and during legislative hearings in which he claimed the company conspired to flip votes to Biden.
Dominion’s lawsuit was among a series of legal and financial setbacks for Giuliani stemming from his role in spreading election conspiracy theories.
Earlier this month, a New York judge ordered the Republican, once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, to pay $1.36 million in legal fees.
Giuliani, in recent years, has also been disbarred as an attorney in New York and Washington; filed for bankruptcy and reached an undisclosed settlement to keep his homes and belongings after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia elections workers he defamed.
Florida
Woman sues Universal Orlando over injuries from same roller coaster in which man died after ride
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A woman has sued Universal Orlando Resort, claiming she was injured on a roller coaster at its newest theme park. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, comes a week after a man died from blunt impact injuries after going on the same ride.
Sandi Streets filed the negligence lawsuit in state court in Orlando, days after the death of 32-year-old Kevin Rodriguez Zavala in a separate incident.
Streets said she was invited to Universal’s Epic Universe theme park just a few weeks before it officially opened to the public in May and went on the dual-launch coaster, which reaches speeds up to 62 mph (100 kph). On the ride, her head shook violently and slammed into her seat’s headrest, giving her permanent injuries, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says Streets has suffered disability, medical care expenses, loss of the ability to work and an exacerbation of a preexisting condition since going on the ride. Her attorney, Nicholas Spetsas, didn’t immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking further details on her injuries.
The ride failed to properly restrain her head, and the theme park failed to adequately warn her of “the unsafe and unreasonably dangerous condition” of the roller coaster, the lawsuit says.
Universal didn’t respond Thursday to an email seeking comment about the lawsuit.
In Zavala’s case, the medical examiner for the Orlando area ruled the cause of death as multiple blunt impact injuries and said the manner of death was an accident.
Karen Irwin, Universal Orlando Resort’s president, said in a note to workers last weekend, after Zavala’s death, that internal findings showed ride systems functioned normally, equipment was intact and Universal workers followed the proper procedures. Investigators with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services said last Friday that their initial findings align with that of the theme park.
Lawyers for Zavala’s family took issue with that conclusion at a news conference Wednesday. Zavala had a spinal disability from birth and used a wheelchair, but they said his disability didn’t cause his death. His family hasn’t filed a lawsuit, as of yet, and said they want to understand how he died.
Florida
Truck driver accused of being in the U.S. illegally pleads not guilty in crash that killed 3 people
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A commercial truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed three people on a Florida highway last month waived his first appearance hearing Monday and entered a not guilty plea, court records show.
Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old native of India, is being held in the St. Lucie County Jail in Florida after being denied bond on three counts of vehicular homicide and immigration violations. Singh lived in California and was originally issued a commercial driver’s license in Washington before California issued him one.
Fallout from the crash led to a war of words between the Trump administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and new, stricter rules for non-citizens to obtain commercial drivers licenses. That policy was announced Friday by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
The Florida Highway Patrol said Singh attempted to make a U-turn Aug. 12 from the northbound lanes of Florida’s Turnpike near Fort Pierce. A minivan that was behind Singh’s big rig couldn’t stop and crashed into the truck, killing its driver and two passengers. Singh and a passenger in the truck were not injured.
In a news conference last week, Duffy said an audit conducted after the Florida crash showed the previous rules weren’t strict enough and that a number of states weren’t following them consistently.
He said Singh should have never received a commercial license because of his immigration status.
That review found that commercial driver’s licenses were improperly issued in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington. But Duffy said the problems were so egregious in California, where Singh’s license was issued, that he is threatening to pull $160 million in federal funding.
Neither Singh’s attorney, Natalie Knight-Tai, nor prosecutor David Dodd responded to emails seeking comment on the case. Next up for Singh is a pre-trial docket call on Friday in Fort Pierce.
Utah
Attorney for suspect in Charlie Kirk assassination wants more time to review evidence
PROVO, Utah (AP) — An attorney for an 22-year-old man charged with killing Charlie Kirk asked a judge Monday for more time to review the large amount of evidence in the case before deciding if the defense will seek a preliminary hearing.
A preliminary hearing would determine if there is enough evidence against Tyler Robinson to go forward with a trial. Defendants can waive that step, but Robinson’s newly appointed attorney Kathryn Nester said her team did not intend to do so.
Utah prosecutors have charged Robinson with aggravated murder and plan to seek the death penalty.
Both the defense and prosecution acknowledged at a brief hearing Monday that the amount of evidence that prosecutors have is “voluminous.” Robinson was not present for the hearing and appeared via audio from jail at his defense team’s request.
Judge Tony Graf set the next hearing for Oct. 30.
Defense attorneys for Robinson and prosecutors with the Utah County Attorney’s Office declined to comment after Monday’s hearing. It took place in Provo, just a few miles from the Utah Valley University campus in Orem where many students are still processing trauma from the Sept. 10 shooting and the day-and-a-half search for the suspect.
Authorities arrested Robinson when he showed up with his parents at his hometown sheriff’s office in southwest Utah, more than a three-hour drive from the site of the shooting, to turn himself in. Prosecutors have since revealed incriminating text messages and DNA evidence that they say connect Robinson to the killing.
A note that Robinson left for his romantic partner before the shooting said he had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices, “and I’m going to take it,” Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray told reporters before the first hearing. Gray also said Robinson wrote in a text about Kirk to his partner: “I had enough of his hatred.”
The assassination of Kirk, a close ally of President Donald Trump who worked to steer young voters toward conservatism, has galvanized Republicans who have vowed to carry on Kirk’s mission of moving American politics further right.
Trump has declared Kirk a “martyr” for freedom and threatened to crack down on what he called the “radical left.”
Workers across the U.S. have been punished or fired for speaking out about Kirk after his death, including teachers, public and private employees and media personalities — most notably Jimmy Kimmel, whose late-night show was suspended then reinstated by ABC.
Kirk’s political organization, Arizona-based Turning Point USA, brought young, evangelical Christians into politics through his podcast, social media and campus events. Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk planned to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.
Florida
Man killed and ate his pet peacocks, authorities say
HUDSON, Fla. (AP) — A man on Florida’s Gulf Coast has been charged with animal cruelty after authorities said he killed, cooked and ate two of his pet peacocks.
The 61-year-old man from Hudson, Florida, was arrested last week on a third-degree felony charge of aggravated animal cruelty, according to an affidavit from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.
The man told investigators that he had killed the two peacocks because his neighbor kept feeding them. He had written the neighbor a letter telling her that he would continue to kill his pet peacocks if she kept feeding them “to prove a point,” according to the affidavit, which didn’t say how many peacocks he kept.
The man “admitted to killing the bird by cutting the bird’s neck out of spite, then bleeding it out, and then later eating the bird after cooking it on a frying pan,” the affidavit said.
While he was being taken to jail, the man told deputies that he would kill all of his pet peacocks upon release to prevent anyone from taking them, the sheriff’s office report said.
The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office on Monday didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry about the fate of the remaining peacocks.
An online docket showed no attorney listed for the man.
