Colorado
Judge clarifies NCAA eligibility order, which could blunt its impact on ‘5 for 5’ rule
DENVER (AP) — The judge who granted the right to play another year of college sports to some athletes whose eligibility ran out last school year issued a new order Sunday that makes clear that does not include football players who signed pro contracts this summer then had a change of heart.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney responded to an NCAA request for clarity about her Friday ruling that granted a fifth year to athletes who graduated high school in 2022 and were not included in the new NCAA rule that allows five seasons of eligibility for Division I players.
That decision, she said, still stands, but has no impact on other NCAA rules, including its prohibition on players signing pro contracts, then coming back to college.
The ruling, as first written, had the potential to upend the upcoming college football season, where teams are starting camp planning on the so-called “five for five” rule to take effect beginning next fall.
Extending it to players this fall granted hundreds a chance to return to school. In the direct aftermath of the decision, some media reports were listing players on NFL and CFL rosters who were signaling they’d be open to returning to school.
But that appears to be off the table after Sweeney’s clarification that said there are no changes to the NCAA’s rules regarding pros; no exceptions over when athletes can enter the transfer portal; and no impact on elements of the landmark House lawsuit settlement, which dictates how many players teams can put on rosters and how much schools can pay them.
The rulings out of U.S. District Court in Denver figures to impact sports differently. Football teams, for instance, have already started practice for this season, while baseball doesn’t start for a while.
In making decisions, teams figure to factor the NCAA’s coming appeal of Sweeney’s order and whether to risk bringing back players who could then be declared ineligible if her decision is overturned.
NCAA President Charlie Baker issued a statement after Sweeney’s initial ruling came out Friday, saying the ruling was potentially chaos-inducing and a reason Congress needs to pass the Protect College Sports Act. That bill, being considered in the Senate, includes lawsuit protection for the NCAA over eligibility rules, the likes of which they defending in several courts around the country.
South Africa
Court fight begins over South Africa’s land law that irks Trump administration
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A court case opened Monday challenging South Africa’s controversial new law that allows the government to seize private land, which has been at the heart of strained relations with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Expropriation Act was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year as part of the government’s efforts to address the effects of land dispossession and economic inequality through decades of white minority rule in South Africa that ended in 1994.
Trump has said the law will be used to target white farmers for land seizures and has cited it as a reason why the U.S. has withdrawn all financial aid to South Africa and imposed high trade tariffs on the country. The government denies this, and says the law will be aimed at making unused land productive.
The Democratic Alliance, a political party which is now part of the country’s unity government, has joined with lobby groups to challenge the law in the Western Cape High Court. Lawyers for the groups argued Monday that the law violates the South African Constitution’s protections of private property and prohibitions of expropriation of land without compensation.
Proceedings in the case are scheduled to run through the end of the week, but is unclear how long judges will take to deliver a ruling, which could take weeks or months.
The law allows the South African government to expropriate land from private parties if it’s in the public interest, and it allows for expropriation without compensation if negotiations for a reasonable settlement have failed. The government says the law does not allow land to be taken arbitrarily.
Others parties to the case include the Institute for Race Relations, which argues the law does not adequately protect land owners’ property rights and the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum.
Afrikaner farmers are descended from Dutch and other European colonial settlers who first came to the country more than 300 years ago. The Trump administration has offered asylum to Afrikaners who claim persecution.
United Kingdom
Funeral director sentenced to 20 years in prison after bereaved families given wrong ashes
LONDON (AP) — A British funeral director was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday after the judge heard emotional testimony about how he gave families the wrong ashes for their cremated loved ones, improperly retained corpses for months and stole charity donations collected at memorial services.
Robert Bush, 48, was sentenced at Hull Crown Court in northeastern England after a five-day hearing in which more than 200 victims described the devastating impact of his crimes. He previously pleaded guilty to 67 charges related to crimes that took place over 12 years at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.
Among those who spoke in court was Jasmine Beverley, whose son Sunny was stillborn on May 13, 2022. Investigators found his ashes in a brown paper bag on the floor of the funeral director’s premises more than a year after Bush handed her a little blue coffin and told her Sunny’s ashes were inside.
“When I discovered what had happened, it reopened that trauma in a way I cannot fully describe,” Beverley said, recalling the pain of losing her child.
About 50 people learned they had been given the wrong ashes for their loved ones when police raided the funeral home and found urns and packaging labeled with their names.
The court also heard that Bush defrauded 172 people of 562,000 pounds ($755,000), including money from fake funeral plans. He also collected cash donations on behalf of bereaved families during memorial services but didn’t turn the money over to the designated charities.
The case came to light in March 2024 when Bush was on vacation in Arizona and asked the directors of another funeral firm to help with a body recovery while he was away.
A worker at Bush’s funeral home told the other firm’s directors “out of the blue” that bodies had been at the site “for years.”
They called the police, who discovered a “horror scene” at the funeral home, with bodies in various stages of decomposition stored on the racks of a cold storage area and one naked corpse lying on a stretcher on the floor, prosecutors said.
Australia
Jury convicts entertainer Yung Filly of assault as he weeps in court
PERTH, Australia (AP) — An Australian jury convicted the British social media celebrity and rapper Yung Filly on Friday of assaulting a fan following a music performance two years ago, but did not find him guilty of allegations that he raped and choked her.
The 30-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, wept after the verdicts were delivered in the District Court of Western Australia state in Perth.
He had pleaded not guilty to six charges of rape, three charges of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of choking in a Perth hotel room in September 2024.
The accuser cannot legally be named. She was 20 at the time.
Three days after the jury began deliberating, they found him guilty of only two of the assault charges which relate to him biting the woman. He testified during his eight-day trial that they were “love bites” and denied his victim had complained that he was hurting her.
He was found not guilty on some charges, but he could potentially face a retrial on three charges of rape on which the jury could not reach a verdict.
Despite the convictions, the Colombian-born entertainer remained free on bail until the case returns to court on Aug. 21 to discuss next steps.
Barrientos had been touring Australia and had already performed in Sydney and Melbourne before he encountered his victim in Perth. He was arrested several days later in the east coast city of Brisbane, where the tour was to end.
Prosecutors alleged the woman initially agreed to have sex but withdrew her consent because she feared for her safety.
Photos of the woman with bruising as well as bite marks on her face and neck were shown to the court.
Barrientos has been free on bail since he was charged and was allowed to return to Britain for several months.
Washington
National Guard officer forged records and stole public money to facilitate secret second marriage
A National Guard officer carried out a secret second marriage to a woman he met while posted in Mongolia, using a government travel card and forged documents to facilitate the double life, U.S. prosecutors allege.
Maj. Collin Welch, 40, pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing about $54,000 in government money and inducing the Mongolian woman and her daughter to remain in the U.S. unlawfully. He’s awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Welch made a fake divorce decree to convince his second wife that he was no longer married to his first, according to a statement he signed as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. After moving her to the United States, he forged other government records to convince her that she was in the pipeline for U.S. citizenship and legally staying in the country.
Two deployments — to Afghanistan and Djibouti — and years spent away from his family put a strain on Welch, his lawyer, Gregory Rosen, said in a statement.
“None of that changes the fact that Major Welch accepts full responsibility for his actions,” Rosen said. “That alone speaks louder about his character than any statement of offense, standing alone, ever could.”
The affair began in 2019, when Welch was with the Alaska National Guard and stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It continued after he returned to Alaska in 2021 and moved to Arkansas the next year. They were married in 2022 in Mongolia.
In 2023, Welch moved to Washington with his family for a role with the District of Columbia National Guard that required extensive foreign travel. He used his government travel card to rent hotel rooms in the Washington area for video calls with his second wife, so she wouldn’t know he was living with his family.
He also submitted false reimbursement expenses and lied to his superiors to get authorization for foreign travel to visit the Mongolian woman, according to the statement filed in court.
Welch charged the government for plane tickets for the Mongolian woman and her daughter to move to the United States in 2024. He married her again in Virginia, falsely saying he had never been married before. He paid for their living arrangements in Northern Virginia until they were evicted late last year when he tried to pay the rent with forged checks.
During that time, Welch knew the woman and her daughter had expired tourist visas but faked a variety of records to convince them otherwise. Those included letters from immigration authorities, Social Security cards and a Defense Department letter purporting to say the immigrants were enrolled in military health coverage.
Judge clarifies NCAA eligibility order, which could blunt its impact on ‘5 for 5’ rule
DENVER (AP) — The judge who granted the right to play another year of college sports to some athletes whose eligibility ran out last school year issued a new order Sunday that makes clear that does not include football players who signed pro contracts this summer then had a change of heart.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney responded to an NCAA request for clarity about her Friday ruling that granted a fifth year to athletes who graduated high school in 2022 and were not included in the new NCAA rule that allows five seasons of eligibility for Division I players.
That decision, she said, still stands, but has no impact on other NCAA rules, including its prohibition on players signing pro contracts, then coming back to college.
The ruling, as first written, had the potential to upend the upcoming college football season, where teams are starting camp planning on the so-called “five for five” rule to take effect beginning next fall.
Extending it to players this fall granted hundreds a chance to return to school. In the direct aftermath of the decision, some media reports were listing players on NFL and CFL rosters who were signaling they’d be open to returning to school.
But that appears to be off the table after Sweeney’s clarification that said there are no changes to the NCAA’s rules regarding pros; no exceptions over when athletes can enter the transfer portal; and no impact on elements of the landmark House lawsuit settlement, which dictates how many players teams can put on rosters and how much schools can pay them.
The rulings out of U.S. District Court in Denver figures to impact sports differently. Football teams, for instance, have already started practice for this season, while baseball doesn’t start for a while.
In making decisions, teams figure to factor the NCAA’s coming appeal of Sweeney’s order and whether to risk bringing back players who could then be declared ineligible if her decision is overturned.
NCAA President Charlie Baker issued a statement after Sweeney’s initial ruling came out Friday, saying the ruling was potentially chaos-inducing and a reason Congress needs to pass the Protect College Sports Act. That bill, being considered in the Senate, includes lawsuit protection for the NCAA over eligibility rules, the likes of which they defending in several courts around the country.
South Africa
Court fight begins over South Africa’s land law that irks Trump administration
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A court case opened Monday challenging South Africa’s controversial new law that allows the government to seize private land, which has been at the heart of strained relations with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Expropriation Act was signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa last year as part of the government’s efforts to address the effects of land dispossession and economic inequality through decades of white minority rule in South Africa that ended in 1994.
Trump has said the law will be used to target white farmers for land seizures and has cited it as a reason why the U.S. has withdrawn all financial aid to South Africa and imposed high trade tariffs on the country. The government denies this, and says the law will be aimed at making unused land productive.
The Democratic Alliance, a political party which is now part of the country’s unity government, has joined with lobby groups to challenge the law in the Western Cape High Court. Lawyers for the groups argued Monday that the law violates the South African Constitution’s protections of private property and prohibitions of expropriation of land without compensation.
Proceedings in the case are scheduled to run through the end of the week, but is unclear how long judges will take to deliver a ruling, which could take weeks or months.
The law allows the South African government to expropriate land from private parties if it’s in the public interest, and it allows for expropriation without compensation if negotiations for a reasonable settlement have failed. The government says the law does not allow land to be taken arbitrarily.
Others parties to the case include the Institute for Race Relations, which argues the law does not adequately protect land owners’ property rights and the Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum.
Afrikaner farmers are descended from Dutch and other European colonial settlers who first came to the country more than 300 years ago. The Trump administration has offered asylum to Afrikaners who claim persecution.
United Kingdom
Funeral director sentenced to 20 years in prison after bereaved families given wrong ashes
LONDON (AP) — A British funeral director was sentenced to 20 years in prison Friday after the judge heard emotional testimony about how he gave families the wrong ashes for their cremated loved ones, improperly retained corpses for months and stole charity donations collected at memorial services.
Robert Bush, 48, was sentenced at Hull Crown Court in northeastern England after a five-day hearing in which more than 200 victims described the devastating impact of his crimes. He previously pleaded guilty to 67 charges related to crimes that took place over 12 years at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull.
Among those who spoke in court was Jasmine Beverley, whose son Sunny was stillborn on May 13, 2022. Investigators found his ashes in a brown paper bag on the floor of the funeral director’s premises more than a year after Bush handed her a little blue coffin and told her Sunny’s ashes were inside.
“When I discovered what had happened, it reopened that trauma in a way I cannot fully describe,” Beverley said, recalling the pain of losing her child.
About 50 people learned they had been given the wrong ashes for their loved ones when police raided the funeral home and found urns and packaging labeled with their names.
The court also heard that Bush defrauded 172 people of 562,000 pounds ($755,000), including money from fake funeral plans. He also collected cash donations on behalf of bereaved families during memorial services but didn’t turn the money over to the designated charities.
The case came to light in March 2024 when Bush was on vacation in Arizona and asked the directors of another funeral firm to help with a body recovery while he was away.
A worker at Bush’s funeral home told the other firm’s directors “out of the blue” that bodies had been at the site “for years.”
They called the police, who discovered a “horror scene” at the funeral home, with bodies in various stages of decomposition stored on the racks of a cold storage area and one naked corpse lying on a stretcher on the floor, prosecutors said.
Australia
Jury convicts entertainer Yung Filly of assault as he weeps in court
PERTH, Australia (AP) — An Australian jury convicted the British social media celebrity and rapper Yung Filly on Friday of assaulting a fan following a music performance two years ago, but did not find him guilty of allegations that he raped and choked her.
The 30-year-old entertainer, whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos, wept after the verdicts were delivered in the District Court of Western Australia state in Perth.
He had pleaded not guilty to six charges of rape, three charges of assault occasioning bodily harm and one count of choking in a Perth hotel room in September 2024.
The accuser cannot legally be named. She was 20 at the time.
Three days after the jury began deliberating, they found him guilty of only two of the assault charges which relate to him biting the woman. He testified during his eight-day trial that they were “love bites” and denied his victim had complained that he was hurting her.
He was found not guilty on some charges, but he could potentially face a retrial on three charges of rape on which the jury could not reach a verdict.
Despite the convictions, the Colombian-born entertainer remained free on bail until the case returns to court on Aug. 21 to discuss next steps.
Barrientos had been touring Australia and had already performed in Sydney and Melbourne before he encountered his victim in Perth. He was arrested several days later in the east coast city of Brisbane, where the tour was to end.
Prosecutors alleged the woman initially agreed to have sex but withdrew her consent because she feared for her safety.
Photos of the woman with bruising as well as bite marks on her face and neck were shown to the court.
Barrientos has been free on bail since he was charged and was allowed to return to Britain for several months.
Washington
National Guard officer forged records and stole public money to facilitate secret second marriage
A National Guard officer carried out a secret second marriage to a woman he met while posted in Mongolia, using a government travel card and forged documents to facilitate the double life, U.S. prosecutors allege.
Maj. Collin Welch, 40, pleaded guilty Tuesday to stealing about $54,000 in government money and inducing the Mongolian woman and her daughter to remain in the U.S. unlawfully. He’s awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Welch made a fake divorce decree to convince his second wife that he was no longer married to his first, according to a statement he signed as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors. After moving her to the United States, he forged other government records to convince her that she was in the pipeline for U.S. citizenship and legally staying in the country.
Two deployments — to Afghanistan and Djibouti — and years spent away from his family put a strain on Welch, his lawyer, Gregory Rosen, said in a statement.
“None of that changes the fact that Major Welch accepts full responsibility for his actions,” Rosen said. “That alone speaks louder about his character than any statement of offense, standing alone, ever could.”
The affair began in 2019, when Welch was with the Alaska National Guard and stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It continued after he returned to Alaska in 2021 and moved to Arkansas the next year. They were married in 2022 in Mongolia.
In 2023, Welch moved to Washington with his family for a role with the District of Columbia National Guard that required extensive foreign travel. He used his government travel card to rent hotel rooms in the Washington area for video calls with his second wife, so she wouldn’t know he was living with his family.
He also submitted false reimbursement expenses and lied to his superiors to get authorization for foreign travel to visit the Mongolian woman, according to the statement filed in court.
Welch charged the government for plane tickets for the Mongolian woman and her daughter to move to the United States in 2024. He married her again in Virginia, falsely saying he had never been married before. He paid for their living arrangements in Northern Virginia until they were evicted late last year when he tried to pay the rent with forged checks.
During that time, Welch knew the woman and her daughter had expired tourist visas but faked a variety of records to convince them otherwise. Those included letters from immigration authorities, Social Security cards and a Defense Department letter purporting to say the immigrants were enrolled in military health coverage.
