Mississippi
No charges in Nolan Wells’ death following grand jury review
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A grand jury has found there wasn’t evidence to bring charges in the death of Nolan Wells, a Black teen who was found dead after a July 4 boating trip off the Mississippi Gulf Coast — a conclusion swiftly questioned by Wells’ family.
The decision announced late Monday by Angel Myers McIlrath, the district attorney overseeing Wells’ case, comes after months of intense speculation about how the 18-year-old disappeared from a bustling party and why the friends who ferried Wells to the island left without him.
The grand jury in Jackson County, Mississippi, found no evidence of criminal conduct and noted that examinations of his body by the Mississippi medical examiner’s office and an independent forensic pathologist hired by Wells’ family found the cause and manner of death to be undetermined.
“If credible evidence comes to light in the future that suggests Mr. Wells’ death was non-accidental, this matter should be represented to the Jackson County Grand Jury for further consideration,” the panel’s report said.
Lawyers for Wells’ family, including civil rights attorney Ben Crump, said the grand jury’s report leaves more questions than answers and accused the district attorney of ending the investigation despite not determining what caused blunt force trauma on the back of Wells’ head and body.
They also renewed their request that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct an independent investigation and called on McIlrath to release the investigation file and the full autopsy report by the medical examiner.
“Today, the State of Mississippi is attempting to close the chapter on Nolan Wells’ death without getting to the truth,” Crump said in a statement.
Crump, Wells’ family and the NAACP planned a news conference Tuesday.
McIlrath, in a 15-minute social media video posted Monday night, expressed frustration about inaccurate speculation by some members of the public about what happened to Wells. She also said that lawyers for Wells’ family told her office last month that their own investigation found no evidence of crimes.
“What I cannot accept, what I cannot ignore, is that false narratives that Nolan’s death was somehow racially motivated, and that this is a case of another young Black man denied justice by a racist, corrupt system, were perpetuated and allowed to spread. There is not a shred of evidence to support these narratives,” she said.
Wells disappeared while celebrating the Fourth of July with friends on Horn Island, an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. His body was discovered on the island’s northwestern tip two days after he was last seen.
Shortly after, Jackson County Sheriff’s Office officials said investigators did not suspect foul play, sparking widespread concerns about whether law enforcement would conduct a thorough investigation in a state with a brutal history of racism and civil rights violations. McIlrath repeatedly promised a fair and thorough investigation into his death.
Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl. Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, which was later towed partway back to the mainland after taking on water.
Crump and Wells’ parents have cast doubt on why a teenager would choose to stay on an island without his phone. They also speculated that messages on his phone were tampered with and alleged his friends were reluctant to turn over his keys. Lawyers for Wells’ friends said the friends are cooperating with authorities.
The grand jury also debunked public assertions that Wells was the only Black person on Horn Island on July 4.
“These false assertions have led to misidentification, speculation and rumors concerning the death of Mr. Wells,” it said.
The report concluded with the panel expressing sympathy for Wells’ family. “The evidence received in this matter convinced the Grand Jury of Mr. Wells’ outstanding character,” it said.
Massachusetts
Clancy’s attorney asks judge to investigate lone juror who wanted to convict her
BOSTON (AP) — A lawyer for Lindsay Clancy is asking a judge to investigate the conduct of the lone juror who wanted to convict the Massachusetts mother of murder in the deaths of her three young children.
In a motion filed Friday but made public Monday, Clancy’s lawyer asked the court to question juror Michael Desronvil about his alleged use of a cellphone during deliberations, his truthfulness on a questionnaire that prospective jurors filled out before the trial began and his truthfulness when jurors were questioned by the judge a day before the trial ended.
Among other things, lawyer Kevin Reddington asked the court to obtain a record of any calls or texts Desronvil made between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on each day the jury deliberated. Phone use during deliberations is prohibited in the state.
The judge declared a mistrial Sept. 4 after the jury insisted it couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, despite days of trying. Eleven of 12 jurors were ready to clear Clancy of criminal responsibility, with the majority feeling that she was in the grip of a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids.
But Desronvil sided with the prosecutors, who had argued that Clancy knew what she was doing.
Desronvil hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with his service on the jury, though some other jurors complained that he was inflexible in his opinion that Clancy was guilty. In a statement released by his lawyer last week, Desronvil said he “didn’t have any doubts.”
Prosecutors have yet to say whether they plan on putting Clancy on trial again. She remains charged with murder and is in a psychiatric hospital until her case is resolved.
In another motion on Monday, another lawyer for Clancy, Martin Weinberg, asked the judge to take the unusual step of dismissing the criminal case, rather than putting on a new trial, on the grounds that a mistrial shouldn’t have been declared in the first place.
Weinberg argued that the judge should have replaced Desronvil with an alternate during the deliberations after the jury foreperson complained he was refusing to listen to the law on reasonable doubt.
“Contrary to the court’s stated belief at the time, it did have viable choices other than declaring a mistrial,” Weinberg wrote.
A spokesperson for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz would not comment on the motions.
At the trial, jurors heard from psychologists and clinicians who treated Clancy for several months before the killings, when she was suffering from worsening mental health problems that emerged after the birth of her youngest child.
She was released from a psychiatric hospital less than three weeks before she killed her children.
New ?York
DoorDash to pay $131M for underpaying delivery workers in New York City
NEW YORK (AP) — DoorDash will pay $131.5 million to settle claims that it underpaid delivery workers in New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday.
The agreement, which officials described as the largest worker settlement in city history, also requires the company to submit to a new monitoring system to ensure compliance with delivery worker pay laws in the city.
In a statement, DoorDash admitted errors, saying: “Simply put, we screwed up.”
“While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay. We pride ourselves on operational excellence at DoorDash – and this was not excellent, nor was it acceptable. Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time.
We are sorry to the Dashers we let down,” the company said.
Most of the settlement will be returned to more than 260,000 workers who were underpaid, not paid or paid late for deliveries by DoorDash, according to City Hall. The company will also pay about $16 million in civil penalties and other costs to the city.
“When a worker earns a wage, they deserve to be paid that wage – not tomorrow, not after a lawsuit, but on time and in full,” Mamdani said in a statement. “DoorDash underpaid more than 260,000 workers, and today we are getting that money back.”
DoorDash said many of the errors in payment were caused by “technical bugs or happened in complicated situations,” such as deliveries that went outside city boundaries, had multiple pickup or drop-off spots or included deliveries that were cancelled or partially completed.
Last year, the company agreed to pay almost $17 million to settle claims that it unfairly used customer tips to subsidize the wages of its delivery workers in New York, rather than allowing drivers to keep the tips on top of their guaranteed pay.
California
Charges to be dropped against 5 pro-Palestinian protesters after mistrial
Five pro-Palestinian demonstrators whose trial earlier this year over a 2024 protest at Stanford University ended in a mistrial will have their charges dismissed if they complete community service and pay restitution, prosecutors said Monday.
The defendants — one current and four former Stanford students — were among thousands of demonstrators arrested on campuses nationwide in 2024 during protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Most criminal charges were dismissed, but the Stanford students went to trial in Santa Clara County.
The five defendants faced felony charges of vandalism and conspiracy to trespass after demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the university president and provost executive offices for several hours on June 5, 2024.
In February, a judge declared a mistrial after jurors could not reach a verdict.
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen had said he planned to pursue a new trial but defense attorneys successfully argued that he and his office should be removed from the case. They cited concerns including comments by Rosen and campaign fundraising for his reelection that tied the prosecution to fighting antisemitism.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul removed Rosen in May and ordered the attorney general’s office to take over the case.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Monday that the defendants must pay a combined restitution of about $52,000 to the university and each must complete 100 hours of community service. The restitution has been fully paid, according to a statement on behalf of the demonstrators.
“As this saga comes to an end, we are humbled by the outpouring of community support and we look again to Gaza, the compass of our struggle, to reaffirm our commitment to solidarity,” defendant Germán González said in the statement.
Seven other defendants have already been given various forms of diversion or deferred entry of judgment by the courts in the Stanford case.
Protests sprang up on campuses across the country in 2024 over the Israel-Hamas conflict, with students setting up camps and demanding their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its war efforts against Hamas. About 3,200 people were arrested nationwide that year.
While some colleges ended demonstrations by striking deals with students or simply waited them out, others called in police. Most criminal charges were ultimately dismissed.
No charges in Nolan Wells’ death following grand jury review
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A grand jury has found there wasn’t evidence to bring charges in the death of Nolan Wells, a Black teen who was found dead after a July 4 boating trip off the Mississippi Gulf Coast — a conclusion swiftly questioned by Wells’ family.
The decision announced late Monday by Angel Myers McIlrath, the district attorney overseeing Wells’ case, comes after months of intense speculation about how the 18-year-old disappeared from a bustling party and why the friends who ferried Wells to the island left without him.
The grand jury in Jackson County, Mississippi, found no evidence of criminal conduct and noted that examinations of his body by the Mississippi medical examiner’s office and an independent forensic pathologist hired by Wells’ family found the cause and manner of death to be undetermined.
“If credible evidence comes to light in the future that suggests Mr. Wells’ death was non-accidental, this matter should be represented to the Jackson County Grand Jury for further consideration,” the panel’s report said.
Lawyers for Wells’ family, including civil rights attorney Ben Crump, said the grand jury’s report leaves more questions than answers and accused the district attorney of ending the investigation despite not determining what caused blunt force trauma on the back of Wells’ head and body.
They also renewed their request that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct an independent investigation and called on McIlrath to release the investigation file and the full autopsy report by the medical examiner.
“Today, the State of Mississippi is attempting to close the chapter on Nolan Wells’ death without getting to the truth,” Crump said in a statement.
Crump, Wells’ family and the NAACP planned a news conference Tuesday.
McIlrath, in a 15-minute social media video posted Monday night, expressed frustration about inaccurate speculation by some members of the public about what happened to Wells. She also said that lawyers for Wells’ family told her office last month that their own investigation found no evidence of crimes.
“What I cannot accept, what I cannot ignore, is that false narratives that Nolan’s death was somehow racially motivated, and that this is a case of another young Black man denied justice by a racist, corrupt system, were perpetuated and allowed to spread. There is not a shred of evidence to support these narratives,” she said.
Wells disappeared while celebrating the Fourth of July with friends on Horn Island, an island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. His body was discovered on the island’s northwestern tip two days after he was last seen.
Shortly after, Jackson County Sheriff’s Office officials said investigators did not suspect foul play, sparking widespread concerns about whether law enforcement would conduct a thorough investigation in a state with a brutal history of racism and civil rights violations. McIlrath repeatedly promised a fair and thorough investigation into his death.
Wells’ parents and their lawyers voiced suspicions after Wells’ friends left the island without him, saying he wanted to stay behind and talk to a girl. Wells’ phone was on the boat that took him to the island, which was later towed partway back to the mainland after taking on water.
Crump and Wells’ parents have cast doubt on why a teenager would choose to stay on an island without his phone. They also speculated that messages on his phone were tampered with and alleged his friends were reluctant to turn over his keys. Lawyers for Wells’ friends said the friends are cooperating with authorities.
The grand jury also debunked public assertions that Wells was the only Black person on Horn Island on July 4.
“These false assertions have led to misidentification, speculation and rumors concerning the death of Mr. Wells,” it said.
The report concluded with the panel expressing sympathy for Wells’ family. “The evidence received in this matter convinced the Grand Jury of Mr. Wells’ outstanding character,” it said.
Massachusetts
Clancy’s attorney asks judge to investigate lone juror who wanted to convict her
BOSTON (AP) — A lawyer for Lindsay Clancy is asking a judge to investigate the conduct of the lone juror who wanted to convict the Massachusetts mother of murder in the deaths of her three young children.
In a motion filed Friday but made public Monday, Clancy’s lawyer asked the court to question juror Michael Desronvil about his alleged use of a cellphone during deliberations, his truthfulness on a questionnaire that prospective jurors filled out before the trial began and his truthfulness when jurors were questioned by the judge a day before the trial ended.
Among other things, lawyer Kevin Reddington asked the court to obtain a record of any calls or texts Desronvil made between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on each day the jury deliberated. Phone use during deliberations is prohibited in the state.
The judge declared a mistrial Sept. 4 after the jury insisted it couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict, despite days of trying. Eleven of 12 jurors were ready to clear Clancy of criminal responsibility, with the majority feeling that she was in the grip of a rare condition called postpartum psychosis when she strangled her kids.
But Desronvil sided with the prosecutors, who had argued that Clancy knew what she was doing.
Desronvil hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with his service on the jury, though some other jurors complained that he was inflexible in his opinion that Clancy was guilty. In a statement released by his lawyer last week, Desronvil said he “didn’t have any doubts.”
Prosecutors have yet to say whether they plan on putting Clancy on trial again. She remains charged with murder and is in a psychiatric hospital until her case is resolved.
In another motion on Monday, another lawyer for Clancy, Martin Weinberg, asked the judge to take the unusual step of dismissing the criminal case, rather than putting on a new trial, on the grounds that a mistrial shouldn’t have been declared in the first place.
Weinberg argued that the judge should have replaced Desronvil with an alternate during the deliberations after the jury foreperson complained he was refusing to listen to the law on reasonable doubt.
“Contrary to the court’s stated belief at the time, it did have viable choices other than declaring a mistrial,” Weinberg wrote.
A spokesperson for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz would not comment on the motions.
At the trial, jurors heard from psychologists and clinicians who treated Clancy for several months before the killings, when she was suffering from worsening mental health problems that emerged after the birth of her youngest child.
She was released from a psychiatric hospital less than three weeks before she killed her children.
New ?York
DoorDash to pay $131M for underpaying delivery workers in New York City
NEW YORK (AP) — DoorDash will pay $131.5 million to settle claims that it underpaid delivery workers in New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday.
The agreement, which officials described as the largest worker settlement in city history, also requires the company to submit to a new monitoring system to ensure compliance with delivery worker pay laws in the city.
In a statement, DoorDash admitted errors, saying: “Simply put, we screwed up.”
“While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay. We pride ourselves on operational excellence at DoorDash – and this was not excellent, nor was it acceptable. Dashers should be paid in full, on time, every time.
We are sorry to the Dashers we let down,” the company said.
Most of the settlement will be returned to more than 260,000 workers who were underpaid, not paid or paid late for deliveries by DoorDash, according to City Hall. The company will also pay about $16 million in civil penalties and other costs to the city.
“When a worker earns a wage, they deserve to be paid that wage – not tomorrow, not after a lawsuit, but on time and in full,” Mamdani said in a statement. “DoorDash underpaid more than 260,000 workers, and today we are getting that money back.”
DoorDash said many of the errors in payment were caused by “technical bugs or happened in complicated situations,” such as deliveries that went outside city boundaries, had multiple pickup or drop-off spots or included deliveries that were cancelled or partially completed.
Last year, the company agreed to pay almost $17 million to settle claims that it unfairly used customer tips to subsidize the wages of its delivery workers in New York, rather than allowing drivers to keep the tips on top of their guaranteed pay.
California
Charges to be dropped against 5 pro-Palestinian protesters after mistrial
Five pro-Palestinian demonstrators whose trial earlier this year over a 2024 protest at Stanford University ended in a mistrial will have their charges dismissed if they complete community service and pay restitution, prosecutors said Monday.
The defendants — one current and four former Stanford students — were among thousands of demonstrators arrested on campuses nationwide in 2024 during protests over the Israel-Hamas war. Most criminal charges were dismissed, but the Stanford students went to trial in Santa Clara County.
The five defendants faced felony charges of vandalism and conspiracy to trespass after demonstrators barricaded themselves inside the university president and provost executive offices for several hours on June 5, 2024.
In February, a judge declared a mistrial after jurors could not reach a verdict.
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen had said he planned to pursue a new trial but defense attorneys successfully argued that he and his office should be removed from the case. They cited concerns including comments by Rosen and campaign fundraising for his reelection that tied the prosecution to fighting antisemitism.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kelley Paul removed Rosen in May and ordered the attorney general’s office to take over the case.
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office said Monday that the defendants must pay a combined restitution of about $52,000 to the university and each must complete 100 hours of community service. The restitution has been fully paid, according to a statement on behalf of the demonstrators.
“As this saga comes to an end, we are humbled by the outpouring of community support and we look again to Gaza, the compass of our struggle, to reaffirm our commitment to solidarity,” defendant Germán González said in the statement.
Seven other defendants have already been given various forms of diversion or deferred entry of judgment by the courts in the Stanford case.
Protests sprang up on campuses across the country in 2024 over the Israel-Hamas conflict, with students setting up camps and demanding their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its war efforts against Hamas. About 3,200 people were arrested nationwide that year.
While some colleges ended demonstrations by striking deals with students or simply waited them out, others called in police. Most criminal charges were ultimately dismissed.
