Bahamas
Husband arrested after woman vanishes from boat denies wrongdoing
An American who was arrested in the Bahamas after his wife vanished while the couple were traveling in a motorboat near the archipelago denies any wrongdoing, his attorney said Thursday.
Brian Hooker “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing” and has been cooperating with authorities, lawyer Terrel Butler said in the statement. Butler said Hooker could not provide further comments while investigations are continuing.
Authorities said the husband, a 59-year-old man whom they did not identify, was arrested in Abaco on Wednesday and is being questioned. Police and Butler did not provide further details, including whether or not he was charged.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson told The Associated Press that they have opened a criminal investigation into the case.
Officials have said Lynette Hooker, 55, was traveling in an 8-foot motorboat from Hope Town to Elbow Cay on Saturday night, and that her husband, Brian Hooker, told authorities she fell overboard with the boat keys, causing the engine to turn off.
Authorities said Brian Hooker then paddled to shore and alerted someone about her disappearance early Sunday.
“Strong currents subsequently carried her away, and he lost sight of her,” police said in a statement issued Saturday.
The couple had been married for more than two decades and lived in Onsted, Michigan. Online records gave Brian Hooker’s age as 58, and the reason for the discrepancy wasn’t immediately clear.
Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, told NBC News that it is unlikely her mother would “just fall” off the boat, saying she was an experienced sailor. The couple had been sailing for years and documented their voyages on social media under the moniker, “The Sailing Hookers.”
Aylesworth also told NBC that the couple’s relationship was volatile, and that they have a “history of not getting along, especially when they drink.”
She told WXYZ-TV she doubted her mother survived and was able to tread water that long, but hoped to find her to get closure.
On Wednesday morning, Brian Hooker wrote on Facebook that he is “heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.”
“Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart,” he wrote. “We continue to search for her and that is my sole focus.”
The U.S. Coast Guard has also joined the investigation and interviewed Aylesworth on Wednesday, according to her attorney, Ron Marienfeld.
Bahamian police said search operations and investigative efforts remain active.
Washington
Appeals court rebuffs Anthropic in latest round of its AI battle with the Trump administration
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to block the Pentagon from blacklisting artificial intelligence laboratory Anthropic in a decision that differed from the conclusions reached in another judge’s ruling on the same issues.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected Anthropic’s request for an order that would shield the San Francisco company from the fallout stemming from a dispute over how the Pentagon could deploy its Claude chatbot in fully autonomous weapons and potential surveillance of Americans while the panel is still collecting evidence about the case.
But the setback in Washington came after Anthropic already had prevailed in separate case focused on the same issues in San Francisco federal court. In that case, a judge forced President Donald Trump’s administration to remove a label tainting the company as a national security risk.
Anthropic filed the two separate lawsuits in San Francisco and the Washington appeals court last month, asserting the Trump administration was engaging in an “unlawful campaign of retaliation” because of its attempt to impose limits on how its AI technology can be deployed. The Trump administration blasted Anthropic as a liberal-leaning company trying to dictate U.S. military policy.
In the San Francisco case, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Trump administration had overstepped its bounds by labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk unqualified to work with military contractors and issuing other directives that could cripple a company locked in a race for AI supremacy against rivals such as ChatGPT maker Open AI and Google.
That decision prompted the Trump administration to remove the stigmatizing labels from Anthropic and take other steps clearing the way for government employees and contractors to continue using Claude and other chatbots, according to court filing made in San Francisco earlier this week.
The appeals court in Washington didn’t see things the same way, even though it conceded the company would “likely suffer some degree of irreparable harm” if it’s deemed a supply chain risk. But the appeals court didn’t see sufficient reason to issue its own order revoking the Trump administration’s actions, partly because “the precise amount of Anthropic’s financial harm is not fully clear.”
Further evidence in the case is scheduled to be presented before the appeals court in a hearing scheduled for May 19.
“We’re grateful the court recognized these issues need to be resolved quickly and remain confident the courts will ultimately agree that these supply chain designations were unlawful,” Anthropic said in a statement.
Matt Schruers, the CEO of the technology trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association, expressed worries that the conflicting court decisions issued so far in the standoff between Anthropic and the Trump administration will muddle the business landscape at a pivotal time.
“The Pentagon’s actions and the DC Circuit’s ruling create substantial business uncertainty at a time when U.S. companies are competing with global counterparts to lead in AI,” Schruers said.
Texas
Guatemalan man pleads guilty in federal court after truck crash in Mexico killed over 50 migrants
LAREDO, Texas (AP) — A Guatemalan man pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to a felony offense and acknowledged his involvement in an attempt to illegally smuggle migrants to the U.S. when a jampacked tractor-tailer truck crashed in Mexico in 2021, killing more than 50 migrants.
Daniel Zavala Ramos, 42, faces a possible sentence of life in prison following his guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Laredo, Texas, to a single charge of conspiring to bring migrants without documents from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. and placing lives in jeopardy and causing serious injury and deaths, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Sentencing is set for July 7.
Ramos was among six Guatemalans charged over the crash of the semitrailer truck and the first to be convicted. The other five have a final pretrial conference on June 3, according to court records. Ramos’ attorney did not immediately return an email Wednesday evening seeking comment.
At least 160 migrants, many from Guatemala, were packed into the truck that hit the support base for a pedestrian bridge on Dec. 9, 2021, and overturned, authorities said. At least 53 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, officials said, and video footage at the time of the crash showed dead and injured migrants in a jumbled pile inside the truck’s collapsed freight container.
The Justice Department statement said the dead included unaccompanied children.
The crash occurred on a highway leading toward the Chiapas state capital, some 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Mexico’s border with Guatemala and about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) south of the Mexican border with Texas.
Authorities announced the arrests of Ramos and the five other defendants in Guatemala and Texas in 2024, on the third anniversary of the accident. Ramos was extradited in 2025 from Guatemala to face charges, the DOJ statement said.
Prosecutors said the Guatemalans conspired to smuggle migrants from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. for payment. In cases of unaccompanied children being smuggled, the defendants would provide scripts of what to say if they were apprehended, authorities said.
The smugglers would move migrants on foot, inside microbuses, cattle trucks and tractor trailers and use Facebook Messenger to request and deliver identification documents to the migrants to get them into the U.S., according to authorities.
New York
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lawyers appeal his conviction with First Amendment argument
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ lawyers are poised to try to persuade federal appeals court judges that the hip-hop mogul was treated unfairly at the trial that sent him to prison on prostitution-related charges, and that the First Amendment should win his freedom.
Combs, currently in federal prison in New Jersey, won’t be at Thursday morning’s arguments before a panel of three federal appellate judges. He’s challenging his conviction and more than 4-year prison sentence.
His attorneys say Combs’ conviction should be reversed, or he should at least be freed and resentenced to less time.
Prosecutors oppose the arguments.
In written arguments, Combs’ lawyers repeated claims they made before the trial judge, including an assertion that Combs’ films of sexual encounters between his girlfriends and male sex workers amounted to “amateur pornography” and was protected by the First Amendment. The attorneys said the term “prostitution” should be interpreted narrowly to exclude what they portray as voyeuristic and expressive activity.
The lawyers also argue that Combs’ sentence was too harsh, saying the trial judge wrongly based it in part on a conclusion that the crimes involved fraud and coercion and that Combs was a leader or organizer of criminal activity. Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that carried the potential for a life sentence.
He was convicted under the federal Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime.
Federal prosecutors said in court papers that Combs’ recordings don’t make his case a free speech issue.
They said that if Combs was right in claiming that “creative,” “elaborate” and “highly staged” sex acts meant that they were protected by the First Amendment, then “brothels offering elaborate and staged scenes for individuals to have sex with women for payment could claim First Amendment protection.”
Prosecutors also said the sentence was proper.
Combs’ trial last year exposed the sordid private life of one of the most influential figures in music. The case featured harrowing testimony about violence, drugs and sexual performances that witnesses said he called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”
He did not testify. His defense team acknowledged that he could be violent but argued that prosecutors were straining to make a federal crime out of his personal life.
Combs, 56, has been behind bars since his September 2024 arrest. The Federal Bureau of Prisons says he is scheduled for release in April 2028.
Husband arrested after woman vanishes from boat denies wrongdoing
An American who was arrested in the Bahamas after his wife vanished while the couple were traveling in a motorboat near the archipelago denies any wrongdoing, his attorney said Thursday.
Brian Hooker “categorically and unequivocally denies any wrongdoing” and has been cooperating with authorities, lawyer Terrel Butler said in the statement. Butler said Hooker could not provide further comments while investigations are continuing.
Authorities said the husband, a 59-year-old man whom they did not identify, was arrested in Abaco on Wednesday and is being questioned. Police and Butler did not provide further details, including whether or not he was charged.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson told The Associated Press that they have opened a criminal investigation into the case.
Officials have said Lynette Hooker, 55, was traveling in an 8-foot motorboat from Hope Town to Elbow Cay on Saturday night, and that her husband, Brian Hooker, told authorities she fell overboard with the boat keys, causing the engine to turn off.
Authorities said Brian Hooker then paddled to shore and alerted someone about her disappearance early Sunday.
“Strong currents subsequently carried her away, and he lost sight of her,” police said in a statement issued Saturday.
The couple had been married for more than two decades and lived in Onsted, Michigan. Online records gave Brian Hooker’s age as 58, and the reason for the discrepancy wasn’t immediately clear.
Lynette Hooker’s daughter, Karli Aylesworth, told NBC News that it is unlikely her mother would “just fall” off the boat, saying she was an experienced sailor. The couple had been sailing for years and documented their voyages on social media under the moniker, “The Sailing Hookers.”
Aylesworth also told NBC that the couple’s relationship was volatile, and that they have a “history of not getting along, especially when they drink.”
She told WXYZ-TV she doubted her mother survived and was able to tread water that long, but hoped to find her to get closure.
On Wednesday morning, Brian Hooker wrote on Facebook that he is “heartbroken over the recent boat accident in unpredictable seas and high winds that caused my beloved Lynette to fall from our small dinghy near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.”
“Despite desperate attempts to reach her, the winds and currents drove us further apart,” he wrote. “We continue to search for her and that is my sole focus.”
The U.S. Coast Guard has also joined the investigation and interviewed Aylesworth on Wednesday, according to her attorney, Ron Marienfeld.
Bahamian police said search operations and investigative efforts remain active.
Washington
Appeals court rebuffs Anthropic in latest round of its AI battle with the Trump administration
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to block the Pentagon from blacklisting artificial intelligence laboratory Anthropic in a decision that differed from the conclusions reached in another judge’s ruling on the same issues.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., rejected Anthropic’s request for an order that would shield the San Francisco company from the fallout stemming from a dispute over how the Pentagon could deploy its Claude chatbot in fully autonomous weapons and potential surveillance of Americans while the panel is still collecting evidence about the case.
But the setback in Washington came after Anthropic already had prevailed in separate case focused on the same issues in San Francisco federal court. In that case, a judge forced President Donald Trump’s administration to remove a label tainting the company as a national security risk.
Anthropic filed the two separate lawsuits in San Francisco and the Washington appeals court last month, asserting the Trump administration was engaging in an “unlawful campaign of retaliation” because of its attempt to impose limits on how its AI technology can be deployed. The Trump administration blasted Anthropic as a liberal-leaning company trying to dictate U.S. military policy.
In the San Francisco case, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that the Trump administration had overstepped its bounds by labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk unqualified to work with military contractors and issuing other directives that could cripple a company locked in a race for AI supremacy against rivals such as ChatGPT maker Open AI and Google.
That decision prompted the Trump administration to remove the stigmatizing labels from Anthropic and take other steps clearing the way for government employees and contractors to continue using Claude and other chatbots, according to court filing made in San Francisco earlier this week.
The appeals court in Washington didn’t see things the same way, even though it conceded the company would “likely suffer some degree of irreparable harm” if it’s deemed a supply chain risk. But the appeals court didn’t see sufficient reason to issue its own order revoking the Trump administration’s actions, partly because “the precise amount of Anthropic’s financial harm is not fully clear.”
Further evidence in the case is scheduled to be presented before the appeals court in a hearing scheduled for May 19.
“We’re grateful the court recognized these issues need to be resolved quickly and remain confident the courts will ultimately agree that these supply chain designations were unlawful,” Anthropic said in a statement.
Matt Schruers, the CEO of the technology trade group Computer & Communications Industry Association, expressed worries that the conflicting court decisions issued so far in the standoff between Anthropic and the Trump administration will muddle the business landscape at a pivotal time.
“The Pentagon’s actions and the DC Circuit’s ruling create substantial business uncertainty at a time when U.S. companies are competing with global counterparts to lead in AI,” Schruers said.
Texas
Guatemalan man pleads guilty in federal court after truck crash in Mexico killed over 50 migrants
LAREDO, Texas (AP) — A Guatemalan man pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to a felony offense and acknowledged his involvement in an attempt to illegally smuggle migrants to the U.S. when a jampacked tractor-tailer truck crashed in Mexico in 2021, killing more than 50 migrants.
Daniel Zavala Ramos, 42, faces a possible sentence of life in prison following his guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Laredo, Texas, to a single charge of conspiring to bring migrants without documents from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. and placing lives in jeopardy and causing serious injury and deaths, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Sentencing is set for July 7.
Ramos was among six Guatemalans charged over the crash of the semitrailer truck and the first to be convicted. The other five have a final pretrial conference on June 3, according to court records. Ramos’ attorney did not immediately return an email Wednesday evening seeking comment.
At least 160 migrants, many from Guatemala, were packed into the truck that hit the support base for a pedestrian bridge on Dec. 9, 2021, and overturned, authorities said. At least 53 people were killed and more than 100 were injured, officials said, and video footage at the time of the crash showed dead and injured migrants in a jumbled pile inside the truck’s collapsed freight container.
The Justice Department statement said the dead included unaccompanied children.
The crash occurred on a highway leading toward the Chiapas state capital, some 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Mexico’s border with Guatemala and about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) south of the Mexican border with Texas.
Authorities announced the arrests of Ramos and the five other defendants in Guatemala and Texas in 2024, on the third anniversary of the accident. Ramos was extradited in 2025 from Guatemala to face charges, the DOJ statement said.
Prosecutors said the Guatemalans conspired to smuggle migrants from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. for payment. In cases of unaccompanied children being smuggled, the defendants would provide scripts of what to say if they were apprehended, authorities said.
The smugglers would move migrants on foot, inside microbuses, cattle trucks and tractor trailers and use Facebook Messenger to request and deliver identification documents to the migrants to get them into the U.S., according to authorities.
New York
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ lawyers appeal his conviction with First Amendment argument
NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs ‘ lawyers are poised to try to persuade federal appeals court judges that the hip-hop mogul was treated unfairly at the trial that sent him to prison on prostitution-related charges, and that the First Amendment should win his freedom.
Combs, currently in federal prison in New Jersey, won’t be at Thursday morning’s arguments before a panel of three federal appellate judges. He’s challenging his conviction and more than 4-year prison sentence.
His attorneys say Combs’ conviction should be reversed, or he should at least be freed and resentenced to less time.
Prosecutors oppose the arguments.
In written arguments, Combs’ lawyers repeated claims they made before the trial judge, including an assertion that Combs’ films of sexual encounters between his girlfriends and male sex workers amounted to “amateur pornography” and was protected by the First Amendment. The attorneys said the term “prostitution” should be interpreted narrowly to exclude what they portray as voyeuristic and expressive activity.
The lawyers also argue that Combs’ sentence was too harsh, saying the trial judge wrongly based it in part on a conclusion that the crimes involved fraud and coercion and that Combs was a leader or organizer of criminal activity. Combs was acquitted of sex trafficking and racketeering charges that carried the potential for a life sentence.
He was convicted under the federal Mann Act, which bans transporting people across state lines for any sexual crime.
Federal prosecutors said in court papers that Combs’ recordings don’t make his case a free speech issue.
They said that if Combs was right in claiming that “creative,” “elaborate” and “highly staged” sex acts meant that they were protected by the First Amendment, then “brothels offering elaborate and staged scenes for individuals to have sex with women for payment could claim First Amendment protection.”
Prosecutors also said the sentence was proper.
Combs’ trial last year exposed the sordid private life of one of the most influential figures in music. The case featured harrowing testimony about violence, drugs and sexual performances that witnesses said he called “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”
He did not testify. His defense team acknowledged that he could be violent but argued that prosecutors were straining to make a federal crime out of his personal life.
Combs, 56, has been behind bars since his September 2024 arrest. The Federal Bureau of Prisons says he is scheduled for release in April 2028.
