California
Rapper sues prison system for $100 million over stabbing by inmate
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rapper Tory Lanez has sued the California prison system, saying he never should have been housed with a fellow inmate who stabbed him 16 times last year.
Lanez, 33, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, filed the federal lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages on Tuesday against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the warden and guards at the prison in Tehachapi where he was being held.
The suit says he was stabbed 16 times in the back, torso, head and face in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by inmate Santino Casio, who used a homemade “shank.” Lanez had a collapsed lung and had to be airlifted to a hospital, it says.
Lanez is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion in the feet after a dramatic and high-profile 2022 trial in Los Angeles.
Prison officials say he was attacked May 12, 2025, by Casio, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. Casio had another 2008 conviction for assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon and another in 2018 for manufacturing a deadly weapon.
“The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit says. It alleges that correctional officers’ response was slow, and no special measures like flash grenades or smoke bombs were used to stop Casio. It says the institution housed the men together despite the rapper’s “high-profile celebrity status,” which made him a target.
There is no record of Casio being charged in the assault. An attorney who represented him previously did not respond to messages seeking comment at the time.
Lanez was transferred to another prison, the California Men’s Colony, in San Luis Obispo County.
The lawsuit also says the defendants unlawfully seized his songbooks with unpublished lyrics that are of great future commercial value and refused to return them.
In response to a request for comment, Department of Corrections spokesperson Ike Dodson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit was first reported by TMZ.
Lanez was convicted of three felonies in December 2022: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
A California court rejected his appeal in November.
Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified at trial that in July 2020, after they left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home, Lanez fired the gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding.
She had bullet fragments surgically removed from both feet. It was not until months after the incident that she publicly identified Lanez as the person who fired the gun.
The 32-year-old Canadian Lanez began releasing mixtapes in 2009 and saw a steady rise in popularity, moving on to major label albums, two of which reached the top 10 on Billboard’s charts.
California
Los Angeles woman arrested on Iranian arms trafficking charge
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal prosecutors said a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.
Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it wasn’t known Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Essayli posted a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli said.
A criminal complaint dated March 12 alleges that Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator operated a company in Oman called Atlas International Business through which weapons and ammunition were trafficked. The company received over $7 million in payments in 2025.
Separately, Mafi and the co-conspirator brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according to the court documents.
“In connection with the transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (‘IRGC’) to purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint said.
Mafi is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
The Sudanese civil war has created a humanitarian crisis in the North African country where food supplies are dwindling and millions of people have fled their homes.
England
Amy Winehouse’s father loses legal bid for funds friends made selling singer’s memorabilia
LONDON (AP) — A London judge ruled Monday against the father of Amy Winehouse who sued his daughter’s friends for profiting off the late singer’s memorabilia.
Mitch Winehouse, who was administrator of this daughter’s estate, sued Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay in the High Court over the $1.2 million (890,000 pounds) they earned at auction in the U.S. from items he claimed they did not have the right to sell.
Amy Winehouse was 27 when she died from alcohol poisoning in her London house in 2011.
Parry, who was also Winehouse’s stylist, and Gourlay said they either owned or were given the 150 items that included dresses, shoes, scarves, earrings and purses.
Parry earned $878,000 — including $243,200 from the silk minidress Winehouse wore at her final performance in Belgrade, Serbia — for the 56 items she sold at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles in 2021, the court said. Gourley earned $344,000 for 85 items.
Parry applauded the decision by Deputy Judge Sarah Clarke to dismiss Mitch Winehouse’s claim that the two were not entitled to sell the items and did so without his knowledge.
“The High Court has cleared my name, unequivocally and in full, after years of deeply damaging and unfounded allegations brought by Mitch Winehouse,” Parry said in a statement. “This was not a partial outcome or a matter of nuance. The claim has failed entirely. It should never have been brought.”
Washington
High Court to hear from religious preschools over exclusion from taxpayer-funded program
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear from Catholic preschools that say Colorado violated their religious rights by excluding them from a state-funded program over their admission policies.
The court agreed on Monday to take up the appeal from St. Mary Catholic Parish, which is supported by the Republican Trump administration.
Joined by the Archdiocese of Denver, the facilities argue it’s unconstitutional to bar them from a taxpayer-funded universal preschool program because of their faith-based restrictions on admission of LGBTQ+ families and kids.
The state said that religious schools are welcome to participate but are required to follow nondiscrimination laws. The program was created by a 2020 ballot measure and provides public funding for free preschool at centers selected by parents.
It’s the latest religious rights case for the conservative-majority court, which has backed other claims of religious discrimination while taking a more skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights.
As part of the case, the court will consider narrowing a landmark 1990 decision over the spiritual use of peyote, a cactus that contains a hallucinogen called mescaline. That opinion, written by conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia, found religious practices don’t create exemptions from broadly applicable laws.
The justices declined a push from the schools, along with a Catholic family in Colorado, to overturn the ruling.
The case will be heard in the fall.
Wisconsin
Authorities put total arrests from clashes at beagle breeding facility at about 25
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Around 25 protesters were arrested as around 1,000 animal welfare activists tried to gain entry to a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin and were met by officers firing pepper spray and rubber bullets, authorities said Sunday.
Saturday’s protest was the second attempt in as many months by demonstrators to take beagles from Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, about 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Madison. They were turned back by officers who arrested the group’s leader.
The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said the situation was “significantly calmer and more peaceful” on Sunday, when around 200 people assembled outside the farm. They dispersed after around two hours, it said.
“We’re pleased with the group’s cooperation today, and their willingness to remain peaceful, while still sending their message of concern for the dogs at Ridglan Farms,” Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said in a statement. “We are happy to support anyone who wants to exercise the right to protest, as long as they do so lawfully.”
The sheriff had said in a video statement Saturday that 300 to 400 protesters were “violently trying to break into the property.” They tried to overcome barricades that included a manure-filled trench, hay bales and a barbed-wire fence.
Some got through the fence but were unable to enter the facility, where an estimated 2,000 beagles are kept, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Those arrested included the leader of the Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs, Wayne Hsiung, 44, of New York, who was being held on a tentative felony charge of conspiracy to commit burglary. But most arrestees were just booked and released, the sheriff’s office said Sunday.
“No one should be assaulted for giving aid to a dog, even if damage to property is part of that rescue effort,” Hsiung said in a statement from jail Sunday that also accused authorities of using excessive force. “The animals of this Earth are not “things.” They’re sentient beings. And we have the right to rescue them from abuse,” he concluded.
Protesters took 30 dogs when they broke into the facility in March, when authorities arrested 27 people.
Ridglan denies mistreating animals but agreed in October to give up its state breeding license as of July 1 in a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges.
On its website, the company says “no credible evidence of animal abuse, cruelty, mistreatment or neglect at Ridglan Farms has ever been presented or substantiated.”
Rapper sues prison system for $100 million over stabbing by inmate
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rapper Tory Lanez has sued the California prison system, saying he never should have been housed with a fellow inmate who stabbed him 16 times last year.
Lanez, 33, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, filed the federal lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages on Tuesday against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the warden and guards at the prison in Tehachapi where he was being held.
The suit says he was stabbed 16 times in the back, torso, head and face in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by inmate Santino Casio, who used a homemade “shank.” Lanez had a collapsed lung and had to be airlifted to a hospital, it says.
Lanez is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion in the feet after a dramatic and high-profile 2022 trial in Los Angeles.
Prison officials say he was attacked May 12, 2025, by Casio, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. Casio had another 2008 conviction for assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon and another in 2018 for manufacturing a deadly weapon.
“The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit says. It alleges that correctional officers’ response was slow, and no special measures like flash grenades or smoke bombs were used to stop Casio. It says the institution housed the men together despite the rapper’s “high-profile celebrity status,” which made him a target.
There is no record of Casio being charged in the assault. An attorney who represented him previously did not respond to messages seeking comment at the time.
Lanez was transferred to another prison, the California Men’s Colony, in San Luis Obispo County.
The lawsuit also says the defendants unlawfully seized his songbooks with unpublished lyrics that are of great future commercial value and refused to return them.
In response to a request for comment, Department of Corrections spokesperson Ike Dodson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit was first reported by TMZ.
Lanez was convicted of three felonies in December 2022: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
A California court rejected his appeal in November.
Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified at trial that in July 2020, after they left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home, Lanez fired the gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding.
She had bullet fragments surgically removed from both feet. It was not until months after the incident that she publicly identified Lanez as the person who fired the gun.
The 32-year-old Canadian Lanez began releasing mixtapes in 2009 and saw a steady rise in popularity, moving on to major label albums, two of which reached the top 10 on Billboard’s charts.
California
Los Angeles woman arrested on Iranian arms trafficking charge
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal prosecutors said a 44-year-old Los Angeles woman was arrested Saturday night at Los Angeles International Airport on suspicion of helping Iran traffic weapons to Sudan, which is in its fourth year of a bloody civil war.
Shamim Mafi will face charges that she brokered the sale of “drones, bombs, bomb fuses, and millions of rounds of ammunition” between Iran and the Sudanese Armed Forces, First U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Sunday on social media.
A phone number for Mafi could not be located and it wasn’t known Sunday if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.
Essayli posted a photo of someone in an FBI jacket escorting a woman into the back of a sedan outside a terminal at LAX.
Mafi is an Iranian national who became a lawful permanent resident of the United States in 2016, Essayli said.
A criminal complaint dated March 12 alleges that Mafi and an unnamed co-conspirator operated a company in Oman called Atlas International Business through which weapons and ammunition were trafficked. The company received over $7 million in payments in 2025.
Separately, Mafi and the co-conspirator brokered the sale of 55,000 bomb fuses to the Sudanese Ministry of Defense, according to the court documents.
“In connection with the transaction, Mafi submitted a letter of intent to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (‘IRGC’) to purchase the bomb fuses for Sudan,” the complaint said.
Mafi is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
The Sudanese civil war has created a humanitarian crisis in the North African country where food supplies are dwindling and millions of people have fled their homes.
England
Amy Winehouse’s father loses legal bid for funds friends made selling singer’s memorabilia
LONDON (AP) — A London judge ruled Monday against the father of Amy Winehouse who sued his daughter’s friends for profiting off the late singer’s memorabilia.
Mitch Winehouse, who was administrator of this daughter’s estate, sued Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay in the High Court over the $1.2 million (890,000 pounds) they earned at auction in the U.S. from items he claimed they did not have the right to sell.
Amy Winehouse was 27 when she died from alcohol poisoning in her London house in 2011.
Parry, who was also Winehouse’s stylist, and Gourlay said they either owned or were given the 150 items that included dresses, shoes, scarves, earrings and purses.
Parry earned $878,000 — including $243,200 from the silk minidress Winehouse wore at her final performance in Belgrade, Serbia — for the 56 items she sold at Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles in 2021, the court said. Gourley earned $344,000 for 85 items.
Parry applauded the decision by Deputy Judge Sarah Clarke to dismiss Mitch Winehouse’s claim that the two were not entitled to sell the items and did so without his knowledge.
“The High Court has cleared my name, unequivocally and in full, after years of deeply damaging and unfounded allegations brought by Mitch Winehouse,” Parry said in a statement. “This was not a partial outcome or a matter of nuance. The claim has failed entirely. It should never have been brought.”
Washington
High Court to hear from religious preschools over exclusion from taxpayer-funded program
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear from Catholic preschools that say Colorado violated their religious rights by excluding them from a state-funded program over their admission policies.
The court agreed on Monday to take up the appeal from St. Mary Catholic Parish, which is supported by the Republican Trump administration.
Joined by the Archdiocese of Denver, the facilities argue it’s unconstitutional to bar them from a taxpayer-funded universal preschool program because of their faith-based restrictions on admission of LGBTQ+ families and kids.
The state said that religious schools are welcome to participate but are required to follow nondiscrimination laws. The program was created by a 2020 ballot measure and provides public funding for free preschool at centers selected by parents.
It’s the latest religious rights case for the conservative-majority court, which has backed other claims of religious discrimination while taking a more skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights.
As part of the case, the court will consider narrowing a landmark 1990 decision over the spiritual use of peyote, a cactus that contains a hallucinogen called mescaline. That opinion, written by conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia, found religious practices don’t create exemptions from broadly applicable laws.
The justices declined a push from the schools, along with a Catholic family in Colorado, to overturn the ruling.
The case will be heard in the fall.
Wisconsin
Authorities put total arrests from clashes at beagle breeding facility at about 25
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Around 25 protesters were arrested as around 1,000 animal welfare activists tried to gain entry to a beagle breeding and research facility in Wisconsin and were met by officers firing pepper spray and rubber bullets, authorities said Sunday.
Saturday’s protest was the second attempt in as many months by demonstrators to take beagles from Ridglan Farms in Blue Mounds, about 25 miles (about 40 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Madison. They were turned back by officers who arrested the group’s leader.
The Dane County Sheriff’s Office said the situation was “significantly calmer and more peaceful” on Sunday, when around 200 people assembled outside the farm. They dispersed after around two hours, it said.
“We’re pleased with the group’s cooperation today, and their willingness to remain peaceful, while still sending their message of concern for the dogs at Ridglan Farms,” Sheriff Kalvin Barrett said in a statement. “We are happy to support anyone who wants to exercise the right to protest, as long as they do so lawfully.”
The sheriff had said in a video statement Saturday that 300 to 400 protesters were “violently trying to break into the property.” They tried to overcome barricades that included a manure-filled trench, hay bales and a barbed-wire fence.
Some got through the fence but were unable to enter the facility, where an estimated 2,000 beagles are kept, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
Those arrested included the leader of the Coalition to Save the Ridglan Dogs, Wayne Hsiung, 44, of New York, who was being held on a tentative felony charge of conspiracy to commit burglary. But most arrestees were just booked and released, the sheriff’s office said Sunday.
“No one should be assaulted for giving aid to a dog, even if damage to property is part of that rescue effort,” Hsiung said in a statement from jail Sunday that also accused authorities of using excessive force. “The animals of this Earth are not “things.” They’re sentient beings. And we have the right to rescue them from abuse,” he concluded.
Protesters took 30 dogs when they broke into the facility in March, when authorities arrested 27 people.
Ridglan denies mistreating animals but agreed in October to give up its state breeding license as of July 1 in a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges.
On its website, the company says “no credible evidence of animal abuse, cruelty, mistreatment or neglect at Ridglan Farms has ever been presented or substantiated.”
