Washington
5 states sue Trump administration for withholding billions in social safety net funds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit Thursday against President Donald Trump’s administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs, citing concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families.
The states — California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York — called the move an unconstitutional abuse of power. The Trump administration announced earlier this week it was withholding their social safety net funding. The funding went toward three federal programs, two of which focus on lifting families with children out of poverty.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, said the Trump administration is overstepping its authority by freezing billions of dollars in funds that were already approved for the states by Congress.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asks the courts to order the administration to halt the freeze and release the funds.
“Once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution,” James said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week told the five states it was freezing their money for the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant.
HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
About half of the $10 billion in funding targeted by the Trump administration supported California programs, said the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.
In letters to the states, Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, wrote that HHS had “reason to believe” the states were providing benefits to people who were in the U.S. illegally, offering no further details about the allegations. They requested reams of data, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone that had received some of the benefits.
“The letters requested that California turn over essentially every document ever associated with the state’s implementation of these federal programs and do so within 14 days, by Jan. 20, including personally identifiable information about program participants,” Bonta said. “That is deeply concerning and also deeply frustrating.”
The government intensified its focus on the child care subsidy program after a conservative YouTuber released a video claiming day care centers in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. The child care centers were run by members of the city’s Somali community, which has been frequently maligned by Trump and targeted by immigration authorities.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has defended his state’s response and said his state is taking aggressive action to prevent further fraud.
Florida
Google and chatbot maker Character to settle lawsuit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Google and artificial intelligence chatbot maker Character Technologies have agreed to settle a lawsuit from a Florida mother who alleged a chatbot pushed her teenage son to kill himself.
Attorneys for the two tech companies have also agreed to settle several other lawsuits filed in Colorado, New York and Texas from families who alleged Character.AI chatbots harmed their children, according to court documents filed this week in federal courts in those states.
None of the documents disclose the specific terms of the settlement agreements, which must still be approved by judges.
The suits against Character Technologies, the company behind Character.AI, also named Google as a defendant because of its ties to the startup after hiring its co-founders in 2024. Character declined to comment Wednesday and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the Florida lawsuit, Megan Garcia alleged that her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III fell victim to a Character.AI chatbot that pulled him into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide in February, 2024.
The lawsuit alleged that in the final months of his life, Setzer became increasingly isolated from reality as he engaged in sexualized conversations with the chatbot, which was patterned after a fictional character from the television show “Game of Thrones.” In his final moments, the chatbot told Setzer it loved him and urged the teen to “come home to me as soon as possible,” according to screenshots of the exchanges.
Garcia’s lawsuit was the first of similar lawsuits around the U.S. that have also been filed against ChatGPT maker OpenAI. A federal judge had earlier rejected Character’s attempt to dismiss the Florida case on First Amendment grounds.
New York
Mental health evaluation ordered for woman accused of stabbing tourist in Manhattan Macy’s
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City judge on Wednesday ordered a mental health evaluation for a Massachusetts woman charged in the unprovoked stabbing of a tourist changing her baby’s diaper in a bathroom of Macy’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan around the holidays.
Kerri Aherne, 43, of Tewksbury, will be examined by mental health professionals to determine whether she’s fit to stand trial, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
She pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, assault, endangering the welfare of a child and other charges during her arraignment Wednesday in Manhattan court.
Aherne’s lawyer Kevin Sylvan didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment but told the Daily News that his client’s mental state is “the only relevant issue right now.”
The newspaper reports that Aherne had been released from a New York psychiatric hospital the morning of the attack and had previously been a patient at a mental health facility in Massachusetts.
Prosecutors say that on Dec. 11, Aherne purchased a knife at the Macy’s store in Herald Square, went up to a seventh-floor bathroom and began stabbing a woman who was changing her child’s diaper.
The victim, a California resident, eventually managed to grab the knife and toss it away. Aherne was restrained by the victim’s partner and store security until police arrived.
The victim was stabbed in the back, arm and hand. Her 10-month-old baby, who fell from the changing table onto the floor during the attack, was not injured.
Macy’s issued a statement at the time saying it was “deeply saddened” by the attack.
Ahern remains in custody. Her next court date is Feb. 11.
Brazil
Former priest sentenced to 24 years in prison for underage rape
SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian court sentenced former priest Bernardino Batista dos Santos to 24 years and nine months in prison for the rape of an underage person, a document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday showed.
The ruling was issued earlier this week, though the case remains sealed.
In a 22-page document, the court in the state of Minas Gerais also sentenced the 78-year-old dos Santos to pay 30,000 Brazilian reais in damages ($5,570) to the person.
Dos Santos’ lawyer, Leonardo Diniz, said in a short statement he is shocked by the court’s decision and will appeal it.
The Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte removed dos Santos from his position in the neighboring city of Contagem in 2021 following dozens of complaints going back to 1975. His conviction, though, is based on a single case in 2016, after Brazil changed its laws on statutes of limitation in similar cases.
The former priest was first arrested in October 2024, but was later moved to house arrest with electronic ankle monitoring, according to Minas Gerais authorities.
Lawyer Ana Carolina Oliveira, who works for more than 60 people allegedly raped by dos Santos, said in a statement that “the court’s decision recognizes the seriousness of the actions committed, the particular vulnerability of the underage victim, and the profound impact of the violations.”
“No social, institutional, or religious position can serve as a shield for impunity in crimes of this nature,” Oliveira said.
A Minas Gerais state police investigation, to which the AP also had access, showed the family of the underage person accused dos Santos of rape during a weekend at a farm he had in the city of Tiros. At the time, the former priest was the director of a kindergarten in Belo Horizonte.
Florida
Environmental groups say officials withheld evidence on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ funding
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal and state officials withheld evidence that the Department of Homeland Security had agreed to reimburse Florida for some of the costs of constructing an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” according to environmental groups suing to shut down the facility.
The Everglades facility remains open, still holding detainees, because an appellate court in early September relied on arguments by Florida and the Trump administration that the state hadn’t yet applied for federal reimbursement, and therefore wasn’t required to follow federal environmental law.
The new evidence — emails and documents obtained through a public records request — shows that officials had discussed federal reimbursement in June, and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed in early August that it had received from state officials a grant application. Florida was notified in late September that FEMA had approved $608 million in federal funding to support the center’s construction and operation.
“We now know that the federal and state government had records confirming that they closely partnered on this facility from the beginning but failed to disclose them to the district court,” said Tania Galloni, one of the attorneys for the environmental groups.
An appellate panel in Atlanta put a temporary hold on a lower court judge’s ruling that would have closed the state-built facility. The new evidence should now be considered as the judges decide the facility’s permanent fate, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, said in court papers on Wednesday.
A federal judge in Miami in mid-August ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact according to federal law. That judge concluded that a reimbursement decision already had been made.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which led the efforts to build the Everglades facility, didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Thursday.
Florida has led other states in constructing facilities to support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Besides the Everglades facility, which received its first detainees in July, Florida has opened an immigration detention center in northeast Florida and is looking at opening a third facility in the Florida Panhandle.
The environmental lawsuit is one of three federal court challenges to the Everglades facility. In the others, detainees said Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state have no authority to operate the center under federal law. They’re also seeking a ruling ensuring access to confidential communications with their attorneys.
5 states sue Trump administration for withholding billions in social safety net funds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit Thursday against President Donald Trump’s administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs, citing concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families.
The states — California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York — called the move an unconstitutional abuse of power. The Trump administration announced earlier this week it was withholding their social safety net funding. The funding went toward three federal programs, two of which focus on lifting families with children out of poverty.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, said the Trump administration is overstepping its authority by freezing billions of dollars in funds that were already approved for the states by Congress.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asks the courts to order the administration to halt the freeze and release the funds.
“Once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution,” James said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week told the five states it was freezing their money for the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant.
HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
About half of the $10 billion in funding targeted by the Trump administration supported California programs, said the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.
In letters to the states, Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, wrote that HHS had “reason to believe” the states were providing benefits to people who were in the U.S. illegally, offering no further details about the allegations. They requested reams of data, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone that had received some of the benefits.
“The letters requested that California turn over essentially every document ever associated with the state’s implementation of these federal programs and do so within 14 days, by Jan. 20, including personally identifiable information about program participants,” Bonta said. “That is deeply concerning and also deeply frustrating.”
The government intensified its focus on the child care subsidy program after a conservative YouTuber released a video claiming day care centers in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. The child care centers were run by members of the city’s Somali community, which has been frequently maligned by Trump and targeted by immigration authorities.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has defended his state’s response and said his state is taking aggressive action to prevent further fraud.
Florida
Google and chatbot maker Character to settle lawsuit
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Google and artificial intelligence chatbot maker Character Technologies have agreed to settle a lawsuit from a Florida mother who alleged a chatbot pushed her teenage son to kill himself.
Attorneys for the two tech companies have also agreed to settle several other lawsuits filed in Colorado, New York and Texas from families who alleged Character.AI chatbots harmed their children, according to court documents filed this week in federal courts in those states.
None of the documents disclose the specific terms of the settlement agreements, which must still be approved by judges.
The suits against Character Technologies, the company behind Character.AI, also named Google as a defendant because of its ties to the startup after hiring its co-founders in 2024. Character declined to comment Wednesday and Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the Florida lawsuit, Megan Garcia alleged that her 14-year-old son Sewell Setzer III fell victim to a Character.AI chatbot that pulled him into what she described as an emotionally and sexually abusive relationship that led to his suicide in February, 2024.
The lawsuit alleged that in the final months of his life, Setzer became increasingly isolated from reality as he engaged in sexualized conversations with the chatbot, which was patterned after a fictional character from the television show “Game of Thrones.” In his final moments, the chatbot told Setzer it loved him and urged the teen to “come home to me as soon as possible,” according to screenshots of the exchanges.
Garcia’s lawsuit was the first of similar lawsuits around the U.S. that have also been filed against ChatGPT maker OpenAI. A federal judge had earlier rejected Character’s attempt to dismiss the Florida case on First Amendment grounds.
New York
Mental health evaluation ordered for woman accused of stabbing tourist in Manhattan Macy’s
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City judge on Wednesday ordered a mental health evaluation for a Massachusetts woman charged in the unprovoked stabbing of a tourist changing her baby’s diaper in a bathroom of Macy’s flagship store in midtown Manhattan around the holidays.
Kerri Aherne, 43, of Tewksbury, will be examined by mental health professionals to determine whether she’s fit to stand trial, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
She pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, assault, endangering the welfare of a child and other charges during her arraignment Wednesday in Manhattan court.
Aherne’s lawyer Kevin Sylvan didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment but told the Daily News that his client’s mental state is “the only relevant issue right now.”
The newspaper reports that Aherne had been released from a New York psychiatric hospital the morning of the attack and had previously been a patient at a mental health facility in Massachusetts.
Prosecutors say that on Dec. 11, Aherne purchased a knife at the Macy’s store in Herald Square, went up to a seventh-floor bathroom and began stabbing a woman who was changing her child’s diaper.
The victim, a California resident, eventually managed to grab the knife and toss it away. Aherne was restrained by the victim’s partner and store security until police arrived.
The victim was stabbed in the back, arm and hand. Her 10-month-old baby, who fell from the changing table onto the floor during the attack, was not injured.
Macy’s issued a statement at the time saying it was “deeply saddened” by the attack.
Ahern remains in custody. Her next court date is Feb. 11.
Brazil
Former priest sentenced to 24 years in prison for underage rape
SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian court sentenced former priest Bernardino Batista dos Santos to 24 years and nine months in prison for the rape of an underage person, a document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday showed.
The ruling was issued earlier this week, though the case remains sealed.
In a 22-page document, the court in the state of Minas Gerais also sentenced the 78-year-old dos Santos to pay 30,000 Brazilian reais in damages ($5,570) to the person.
Dos Santos’ lawyer, Leonardo Diniz, said in a short statement he is shocked by the court’s decision and will appeal it.
The Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte removed dos Santos from his position in the neighboring city of Contagem in 2021 following dozens of complaints going back to 1975. His conviction, though, is based on a single case in 2016, after Brazil changed its laws on statutes of limitation in similar cases.
The former priest was first arrested in October 2024, but was later moved to house arrest with electronic ankle monitoring, according to Minas Gerais authorities.
Lawyer Ana Carolina Oliveira, who works for more than 60 people allegedly raped by dos Santos, said in a statement that “the court’s decision recognizes the seriousness of the actions committed, the particular vulnerability of the underage victim, and the profound impact of the violations.”
“No social, institutional, or religious position can serve as a shield for impunity in crimes of this nature,” Oliveira said.
A Minas Gerais state police investigation, to which the AP also had access, showed the family of the underage person accused dos Santos of rape during a weekend at a farm he had in the city of Tiros. At the time, the former priest was the director of a kindergarten in Belo Horizonte.
Florida
Environmental groups say officials withheld evidence on ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ funding
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Federal and state officials withheld evidence that the Department of Homeland Security had agreed to reimburse Florida for some of the costs of constructing an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” according to environmental groups suing to shut down the facility.
The Everglades facility remains open, still holding detainees, because an appellate court in early September relied on arguments by Florida and the Trump administration that the state hadn’t yet applied for federal reimbursement, and therefore wasn’t required to follow federal environmental law.
The new evidence — emails and documents obtained through a public records request — shows that officials had discussed federal reimbursement in June, and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirmed in early August that it had received from state officials a grant application. Florida was notified in late September that FEMA had approved $608 million in federal funding to support the center’s construction and operation.
“We now know that the federal and state government had records confirming that they closely partnered on this facility from the beginning but failed to disclose them to the district court,” said Tania Galloni, one of the attorneys for the environmental groups.
An appellate panel in Atlanta put a temporary hold on a lower court judge’s ruling that would have closed the state-built facility. The new evidence should now be considered as the judges decide the facility’s permanent fate, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, said in court papers on Wednesday.
A federal judge in Miami in mid-August ordered the facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact according to federal law. That judge concluded that a reimbursement decision already had been made.
The Florida Department of Emergency Management, which led the efforts to build the Everglades facility, didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Thursday.
Florida has led other states in constructing facilities to support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Besides the Everglades facility, which received its first detainees in July, Florida has opened an immigration detention center in northeast Florida and is looking at opening a third facility in the Florida Panhandle.
The environmental lawsuit is one of three federal court challenges to the Everglades facility. In the others, detainees said Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state have no authority to operate the center under federal law. They’re also seeking a ruling ensuring access to confidential communications with their attorneys.
