Alaska
Foster youth organization sues children’s services for alleged lack of food and necessities
An Alaska foster youth advocacy organization is suing the state Office of Children’s Services for allegedly failing to provide food and necessities for older youth in their care.
The lawsuit by Facing Foster Care in Alaska claims foster youth placed in shelters or college dormitories don’t receive enough money for food or basic needs like they would if they were in a home placement with a family.
Facing Foster Care director Amanda Metivier said for years, she’s heard complaints from foster youth that they cannot afford to buy enough food or other necessities.
“For a young person in the dorm who needs transportation to a therapy appointment, the state has a duty to cover that cost,” she said. “When the (college) commons close during winter break and there’s no meal plan, we hear from those youth who say, ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna eat during winter break.’”
Alaska foster youth 16 years and older get a small stipend to help with transitioning to adulthood, for things like getting a driver’s license.
But Metivier said the stipend amounts to a small fraction of the more than $1,000 a month that foster families get to provide food and necessities for children in their care. Facing Foster Care has provided gift cards to cover transportation and food outside of meal plans and shelter meals, according to the lawsuit.
The Office of Children’s Services declined an interview for this story, but an official with OCS wrote in an email that they routinely offer food and clothing vouchers, bus passes and other transportation assistance, and that young adults have access to the same funding streams as younger children.
Metivier said her organization’s youth board works with OCS and has brought up the issue multiple times without resolution. She said some other states have better systems to provide stipends to youth living independently as they transition out of foster care.
“As a state, we’ve continued to see a decline in foster homes,” Metivier said. “We’ve continued to see challenges with workforce in the child welfare system, and those things are not going to improve overnight. And these youth have needs right now, and this would be a pretty simple way to solve that, right?”
Facing Foster Care in Alaska filed the lawsuit Jan. 6 in Alaska Superior Court.
North Carolina
Pacific Life seeks to dismiss Kyle Busch’s $8.5M lawsuit over insurance policies
Pacific Life Insurance Company on Thursday asked a federal court to dismiss the $8.5 million lawsuit filed by NASCAR champion Kyle Busch and his wife over policies the Buschs claim were sold to them under false and negligent representations as tax-free income for retirement.
The filing in the Western District of North Carolina — the same court that just heard the Michael Jordan-led antitrust suit against NASCAR — alleges the Buschs purchased five separate Indexed Universal Life policies between 2018 and 2022 to provide more than $90 million in insurance protection for the two-time NASCAR champion.
The IUL policies were intended to provide immediate death benefit protection and “the opportunity to accumulate cash values when the policies are held for the long term.”
Pacific Life claims Busch failed to fully fund the policies, let some lapse and surrendered the others. Busch has claimed he is out $10.4 million and filed suit in October alleging Pacific Life failed to reveal the true risks of the policies.
Pacific Life countered in its request to have the suit dismissed that both Buschs signed multiple documents acknowledging they understood the policies, including one that indicated the couple would pay planned premiums and hold the policies over 30 years through age 70 and beyond.
“Instead of keeping the policies long enough to capitalize on their growth potential, Plaintiffs failed to timely pay planned premiums, failed to monitor allocation of their policy values between indexed and fixed accounts and surrendered the policies or allowed them to lapse,” Pacific Life wrote in the filing. “Rather than accept responsibility for their own decisions, Plaintiffs now attempt to blame their negative outcome on the IUL product.”
An IUL is a combination life insurance policy that provides a death benefit with a cash value component. The cash value growth is tied to a stock market index, supposedly with built-in protections against market downturns.
When he filed the suit last year, Busch said he was told that if he paid $1 million for five years, he would be able to take out $800,000 a year once he turned 52. Busch claims when he received a sixth premium notice he began asking questions and discovered almost all of his money was gone.
Pacific Life has countered that the Buschs acknowledged understanding the policies, but also that his claims for breach of fiduciary and negligent misrepresentation come seven years after he began purchasing the policies and are therefore outside the three-year statute of limitations.
“A plaintiff cannot avoid the statute of limitations by remaining ‘willfully blind’: A man should not be allowed to close his eyes to the facts readily observable by ordinary attention, and maintain for his own advantage the position of ignorance,” Pacific Life wrote. “Such a principle would enable a careless man, and by reason of his carelessness, to extend his right to recover for an indefinite length of time.”
Pacific Life also maintains that all of the Buschs claims on misrepresentation are false due to the “express, repeated disclosures” they signed. Additionally, all five policies come with a cover letter that in bold capitalized letters says “READ YOUR POLICY CAREFULLY” and offered a 20-day cancelation window in which premiums would be refunded.
Both Buschs signed a form that certified they had received the policies and understood they must carefully review them, Pacific Life said.
The Buschs also named agent Rodney A. Smith in their lawsuit for steering the Buschs into an unsustainable, high-risk product, along with charging an up-front 35% commission they were unaware of.
Texas
Federal judge upholds West Texas A&M drag show ban, short-circuiting student group’s appeal
A federal judge’s ruling has reset the legal fight over a drag show ban at West Texas A&M, handing the school a win after a full trial and wiping out a pending appeal.
The case had been on track for a closely watched hearing before the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this week. Instead, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled Saturday that the university did not violate the First Amendment by blocking a 2023 drag show by the student group Spectrum WT.
Kacsmaryk, an Amarillo-based judge appointed by President Donald Trump, has drawn national attention for rulings favorable to Republican officials and conservative legal groups in abortion and LGBTQ rights cases.
The now-canceled appeal focused on whether Spectrum WT’s drag show should be allowed to proceed while the lawsuit was pending. Once Kacsmaryk issued a final ruling, the appeals court dismissed the appeal.
In his ruling, Kacsmaryk said Spectrum failed to show the planned drag show was intended to convey a specific message and said past performances that included stripteases and simulated sexual activity justified restricting the event in a campus venue open to minors.
He also ruled that Legacy Hall, where Spectrum planned to hold the drag show, is a limited public forum subject to reasonable, viewpoint-neutral limits because the university screens and approves events there.
Kacsmaryk leaned heavily on testimony from Spectrum’s president, who said the group was “not trying to convey a specific message” in a drag show planned for this year. He rejected Spectrum’s argument that selling tickets to benefit LGBTQ causes and suicide prevention made the performance itself expressive.
The judge also said minors had attended past Spectrum events and that performers had gone beyond what the group said it intended.
“Drag, by its ‘provocative,’ ‘transgressive’ nature, veers into sexualized content and Spectrum’s proven inability to control the content elides any argument that the 2026 show will be ‘appropriate,’” Kacsmaryk wrote.
Spectrum plans to appeal the ruling, said JT Morris, a supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents the student group.
Morris said the decision “reflects many of the same erroneous legal conclusions” the judge reached earlier in the case and conflicts with Supreme Court precedent on expressive conduct. He also pointed to another judge’s rejection of the Texas A&M University System’s separate attempt to ban drag shows based on officials’ views that the performances were offensive or demeaning.
Georgia
Prosecutors announce guilty plea in Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of $380M
ATLANTA (AP) — A financial adviser in Georgia pleaded guilty Wednesday to wire fraud in a Ponzi scheme that bilked more than 2,000 people out of $380 million, federal authorities announced.
Prosecutors accused Todd Burkhalter, the founder and CEO of Drive Planning LLC, of marketing several fraudulent investment schemes and using the money in part to buy a $2 million yacht, a $2.1 million condo in Mexico and a motorcoach.
Burkhalter was represented by the federal defenders’ office. A message to the office after hours on Wednesday was not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said one of Burkhalter’s investment schemes purported to provide short-term loans to real estate developers and promised returns of 10% every three months. According to prosecutors, Burkhalter falsely said those investments were backed by real estate holdings.
Burkhalter, 54, of St. Petersburg, Florida, encouraged investors to dip into retirement accounts and savings and take out lines of credit. Drive Planning’s former chief operating officer has also pleaded guilty.
“These losses will echo through the lives of these victims long after these defendants receive their well-deserved sentences,” said Aaron Seres, a supervisory special agent at the Atlanta-area FBI office.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of more than 17 years in prison for Burkhalter, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore Hertzberg said.
Hertzberg and Seres spokes at a news conference announcing Burkhalter’s plea.
Hertzberg said a court-appointed official is trying to recover victims’ money by selling Burkhalter’s assets, but it’s highly unlikely that they will get back everything they lost.
Foster youth organization sues children’s services for alleged lack of food and necessities
An Alaska foster youth advocacy organization is suing the state Office of Children’s Services for allegedly failing to provide food and necessities for older youth in their care.
The lawsuit by Facing Foster Care in Alaska claims foster youth placed in shelters or college dormitories don’t receive enough money for food or basic needs like they would if they were in a home placement with a family.
Facing Foster Care director Amanda Metivier said for years, she’s heard complaints from foster youth that they cannot afford to buy enough food or other necessities.
“For a young person in the dorm who needs transportation to a therapy appointment, the state has a duty to cover that cost,” she said. “When the (college) commons close during winter break and there’s no meal plan, we hear from those youth who say, ‘I don’t know how I’m gonna eat during winter break.’”
Alaska foster youth 16 years and older get a small stipend to help with transitioning to adulthood, for things like getting a driver’s license.
But Metivier said the stipend amounts to a small fraction of the more than $1,000 a month that foster families get to provide food and necessities for children in their care. Facing Foster Care has provided gift cards to cover transportation and food outside of meal plans and shelter meals, according to the lawsuit.
The Office of Children’s Services declined an interview for this story, but an official with OCS wrote in an email that they routinely offer food and clothing vouchers, bus passes and other transportation assistance, and that young adults have access to the same funding streams as younger children.
Metivier said her organization’s youth board works with OCS and has brought up the issue multiple times without resolution. She said some other states have better systems to provide stipends to youth living independently as they transition out of foster care.
“As a state, we’ve continued to see a decline in foster homes,” Metivier said. “We’ve continued to see challenges with workforce in the child welfare system, and those things are not going to improve overnight. And these youth have needs right now, and this would be a pretty simple way to solve that, right?”
Facing Foster Care in Alaska filed the lawsuit Jan. 6 in Alaska Superior Court.
North Carolina
Pacific Life seeks to dismiss Kyle Busch’s $8.5M lawsuit over insurance policies
Pacific Life Insurance Company on Thursday asked a federal court to dismiss the $8.5 million lawsuit filed by NASCAR champion Kyle Busch and his wife over policies the Buschs claim were sold to them under false and negligent representations as tax-free income for retirement.
The filing in the Western District of North Carolina — the same court that just heard the Michael Jordan-led antitrust suit against NASCAR — alleges the Buschs purchased five separate Indexed Universal Life policies between 2018 and 2022 to provide more than $90 million in insurance protection for the two-time NASCAR champion.
The IUL policies were intended to provide immediate death benefit protection and “the opportunity to accumulate cash values when the policies are held for the long term.”
Pacific Life claims Busch failed to fully fund the policies, let some lapse and surrendered the others. Busch has claimed he is out $10.4 million and filed suit in October alleging Pacific Life failed to reveal the true risks of the policies.
Pacific Life countered in its request to have the suit dismissed that both Buschs signed multiple documents acknowledging they understood the policies, including one that indicated the couple would pay planned premiums and hold the policies over 30 years through age 70 and beyond.
“Instead of keeping the policies long enough to capitalize on their growth potential, Plaintiffs failed to timely pay planned premiums, failed to monitor allocation of their policy values between indexed and fixed accounts and surrendered the policies or allowed them to lapse,” Pacific Life wrote in the filing. “Rather than accept responsibility for their own decisions, Plaintiffs now attempt to blame their negative outcome on the IUL product.”
An IUL is a combination life insurance policy that provides a death benefit with a cash value component. The cash value growth is tied to a stock market index, supposedly with built-in protections against market downturns.
When he filed the suit last year, Busch said he was told that if he paid $1 million for five years, he would be able to take out $800,000 a year once he turned 52. Busch claims when he received a sixth premium notice he began asking questions and discovered almost all of his money was gone.
Pacific Life has countered that the Buschs acknowledged understanding the policies, but also that his claims for breach of fiduciary and negligent misrepresentation come seven years after he began purchasing the policies and are therefore outside the three-year statute of limitations.
“A plaintiff cannot avoid the statute of limitations by remaining ‘willfully blind’: A man should not be allowed to close his eyes to the facts readily observable by ordinary attention, and maintain for his own advantage the position of ignorance,” Pacific Life wrote. “Such a principle would enable a careless man, and by reason of his carelessness, to extend his right to recover for an indefinite length of time.”
Pacific Life also maintains that all of the Buschs claims on misrepresentation are false due to the “express, repeated disclosures” they signed. Additionally, all five policies come with a cover letter that in bold capitalized letters says “READ YOUR POLICY CAREFULLY” and offered a 20-day cancelation window in which premiums would be refunded.
Both Buschs signed a form that certified they had received the policies and understood they must carefully review them, Pacific Life said.
The Buschs also named agent Rodney A. Smith in their lawsuit for steering the Buschs into an unsustainable, high-risk product, along with charging an up-front 35% commission they were unaware of.
Texas
Federal judge upholds West Texas A&M drag show ban, short-circuiting student group’s appeal
A federal judge’s ruling has reset the legal fight over a drag show ban at West Texas A&M, handing the school a win after a full trial and wiping out a pending appeal.
The case had been on track for a closely watched hearing before the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later this week. Instead, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled Saturday that the university did not violate the First Amendment by blocking a 2023 drag show by the student group Spectrum WT.
Kacsmaryk, an Amarillo-based judge appointed by President Donald Trump, has drawn national attention for rulings favorable to Republican officials and conservative legal groups in abortion and LGBTQ rights cases.
The now-canceled appeal focused on whether Spectrum WT’s drag show should be allowed to proceed while the lawsuit was pending. Once Kacsmaryk issued a final ruling, the appeals court dismissed the appeal.
In his ruling, Kacsmaryk said Spectrum failed to show the planned drag show was intended to convey a specific message and said past performances that included stripteases and simulated sexual activity justified restricting the event in a campus venue open to minors.
He also ruled that Legacy Hall, where Spectrum planned to hold the drag show, is a limited public forum subject to reasonable, viewpoint-neutral limits because the university screens and approves events there.
Kacsmaryk leaned heavily on testimony from Spectrum’s president, who said the group was “not trying to convey a specific message” in a drag show planned for this year. He rejected Spectrum’s argument that selling tickets to benefit LGBTQ causes and suicide prevention made the performance itself expressive.
The judge also said minors had attended past Spectrum events and that performers had gone beyond what the group said it intended.
“Drag, by its ‘provocative,’ ‘transgressive’ nature, veers into sexualized content and Spectrum’s proven inability to control the content elides any argument that the 2026 show will be ‘appropriate,’” Kacsmaryk wrote.
Spectrum plans to appeal the ruling, said JT Morris, a supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents the student group.
Morris said the decision “reflects many of the same erroneous legal conclusions” the judge reached earlier in the case and conflicts with Supreme Court precedent on expressive conduct. He also pointed to another judge’s rejection of the Texas A&M University System’s separate attempt to ban drag shows based on officials’ views that the performances were offensive or demeaning.
Georgia
Prosecutors announce guilty plea in Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of $380M
ATLANTA (AP) — A financial adviser in Georgia pleaded guilty Wednesday to wire fraud in a Ponzi scheme that bilked more than 2,000 people out of $380 million, federal authorities announced.
Prosecutors accused Todd Burkhalter, the founder and CEO of Drive Planning LLC, of marketing several fraudulent investment schemes and using the money in part to buy a $2 million yacht, a $2.1 million condo in Mexico and a motorcoach.
Burkhalter was represented by the federal defenders’ office. A message to the office after hours on Wednesday was not immediately returned.
Prosecutors said one of Burkhalter’s investment schemes purported to provide short-term loans to real estate developers and promised returns of 10% every three months. According to prosecutors, Burkhalter falsely said those investments were backed by real estate holdings.
Burkhalter, 54, of St. Petersburg, Florida, encouraged investors to dip into retirement accounts and savings and take out lines of credit. Drive Planning’s former chief operating officer has also pleaded guilty.
“These losses will echo through the lives of these victims long after these defendants receive their well-deserved sentences,” said Aaron Seres, a supervisory special agent at the Atlanta-area FBI office.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors plan to recommend a sentence of more than 17 years in prison for Burkhalter, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Theodore Hertzberg said.
Hertzberg and Seres spokes at a news conference announcing Burkhalter’s plea.
Hertzberg said a court-appointed official is trying to recover victims’ money by selling Burkhalter’s assets, but it’s highly unlikely that they will get back everything they lost.
