Legal Insight 2025/10/06 20:31
Mexican authorities said they arrested former soccer player Omar Bravo, 45, on suspicion of child sexual abuse.
The Jalisco state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that investigations indicate Bravo allegedly abused a teenage girl on several occasions in recent months and may have committed similar acts before.
He was arrested during an operation in the municipality of Zapopan and was expected to appear in court soon.
Bravo rose to fame playing as a forward for Chivas de Guadalajara, where he became the club’s all-time leading goal scorer. He also played for Mexico’s national team in the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach a lawyer for Bravo.
On Bravo’s Instagram account, fans commented on his latest post from Sept. 8, which made no reference to the accusations. Some expressed sadness, while others said he was their idol and hoped the allegations were not true.
The prosecutor’s office said it will continue its investigation.

Legal Business 2025/10/02 20:32
More than 800,000 drivers for ride-hailing companies in California will soon be able to join a union and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits under a measure signed Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Supporters said the new law will open a path for the largest expansion of private sector collective bargaining rights in the state’s history. The legislation is a significant compromise in the yearslong battle between labor unions and tech companies.
California is the second state where Uber and Lyft drivers can unionize as independent contractors. Massachusetts voters passed a ballot referendum in November allowing unionization, while drivers in Illinois and Minnesota are pushing for similar rights.
Newsom announced the signing at an unrelated news conference at University of California, Berkeley. The new law will give drivers “dignity and a say about their future,” he said.
The new law is part of an agreement made in September between Newsom, state lawmakers and the Service Employees International Union, along with rideshare companies Uber and Lyft. In exchange, Newsom also signed a measure supported by Uber and Lyft to significantly cut the companies’ insurance requirements for accidents caused by underinsured drivers.
Uber and Lyft fares in California are consistently higher than in other parts of the U.S. because of insurance requirements, the companies say. Uber has said that nearly one-third of every ride fare in the state goes toward paying for state-mandated insurance.
Labor unions and tech companies have fought for years over drivers’ rights. In July of last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that app-based ride-hailing and delivery services like Uber and Lyft can continue treating their drivers as independent contractors not entitled to benefits like overtime pay, paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. A 2019 law mandated that Uber and Lyft provide drivers with benefits, but voters reversed it at the ballot in 2020.
The collective bargaining measure now allows rideshare workers in California to join a union while still being classified as independent contractors and requires gig companies to bargain in good faith. The new law doesn’t apply to drivers for delivery apps like DoorDash.
The insurance measure will reduce the coverage requirement for accidents caused by uninsured or underinsured drivers from $1 million to $60,000 per individual and $300,000 per accident.
The two measures “together represent a compromise that lowers costs for riders while creating stronger voices for drivers —demonstrating how industry, labor, and lawmakers can work together to deliver real solutions,” Ramona Prieto, head of public policy for California at Uber, said in a statement.
Rideshare Drivers United, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group of 20,000 drivers, said the collective bargaining law isn’t strong enough to give workers a fair contract. The group wanted to require the companies to report its data on pay to the state.
New York City drivers’ pay increased after the city started requiring the companies to report how much an average driver earns, the group said.
“Drivers really need the backing of the state to ensure that not only is a wage proposal actually going to help drivers, but that there is progress in drivers’ pay over the years,” said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United.
Other drivers said the legislation will provide more job safety and benefits.
Many who support unionization said they have faced a slew of issues, including being “deactivated” from their apps without an explanation or fair appeals process when a passenger complains.
“Drivers have had no way to fight back against the gig companies taking more and more of the passenger fare, or to challenge unfair deactivations that cost us our livelihoods,” Ana Barragan, a gig driver from Los Angeles, said in a statement. “We’ve worked long hours, faced disrespect, and had no voice, just silence on the other end of the app. But now, with the right to organize a strong, democratic union, I feel hope.”

Legal Insight 2025/09/29 12:53
Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are heading to the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday in a late effort to avoid a government shutdown, but both sides have shown hardly any willingness to budge from their entrenched positions.
If government funding legislation isn’t passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Tuesday night, many government offices across the nation will be temporarily shuttered and nonexempt federal employees will be furloughed, adding to the strain on workers and the nation’s economy.
Trump, ahead of the meeting, made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms.
“They’re going to have to do some things because their ideas are not very good ones,” the president said Monday.
Republicans are daring Democrats to vote against legislation that would keep government funding mostly at current levels, but Democrats have held firm. They’re using one of their few points of leverage to demand Congress take up legislation to extend health care benefits.
“We finally got our meeting. We hope they’re serious about getting something real done on health care,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said as he departed the Capitol for the White House.
Trump has shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. The Republican president has said repeatedly he fully expects the government to enter a shutdown this week.
“If it has to shut down, it’ll have to shut down,” Trump said Friday. “But they’re the ones that are shutting down government.”
The Trump administration has tried to pressure Democratic lawmakers into backing away from their demands, warning that federal employees could be permanently laid off in a funding lapse.
“Chuck Schumer said a few months ago that a government shutdown would be chaotic, harmful and painful. He’s right, and that’s why we shouldn’t do it,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Still, Democrats argued Trump’s agreement to hold a meeting shows he’s feeling the pressure to negotiate. They say that because Republicans control the White House and Congress, Americans will mostly blame them for any government shutdown.
Democrats are pushing for an extension to Affordable Care Act tax credits that have subsidized health insurance for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits, which are designed to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year.
At a Monday news conference, Jeffries, a New York Democrat, called health care cuts a “five-alarm fire” that is rippling across communities nationwide.
“We’re not going to simply go along to get along with a Republican bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans who are already living with this Trump economy, where costs aren’t going down but they’re going up,” he said.
The pandemic-era ACA subsidies are set to expire in a matter of months if Congress fails to act.
Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits but want changes. Thune said Sunday that the program is “desperately in need of reform” and Republicans want to address “waste, fraud and abuse.” He has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later.
It remains to be seen whether the White House meeting will help or hurt the chances for a resolution. Negotiations between Trump and Democratic congressional leaders have rarely gone well, and Trump has had little contact with the opposing party during his second term.
The most recent negotiation in August between Schumer and the president to speed the pace of Senate confirmation votes for administration officials ended with Trump telling Schumer to “go to hell” in a social media post.

Court News 2025/09/25 12:54
Former FBI Director James Comey was charged Thursday with crimes connected to his Senate testimony in 2020 about an investigation, a major strike against a high-profile figure who has long been the target of President Donald Trump’s anger.
“No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.
The indictment accuses Comey of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a criminal proceeding. He declared his innocence Thursday night and said, “Let’s have a trial.”
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in a video posted to Substack.
Comey, who was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, was fired by Trump during the president’s first term amid the government’s probe into allegations of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Trump mentioned Comey last weekend in a social media post in which he complained that no charges had been filed against him yet.
Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia in 2016, but they found that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.
Trump and his supporters have called the investigation a “hoax” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the campaign.
The indictment against Comey accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about an investigation.
Before the charges emerged Thursday, Trump told reporters that Comey was a “bad person.” He later reveled in news of the indictment.
“He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation,” Trump said on his social media platform.
Comey’s disgust for Trump was laid out in his 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”
“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey wrote. “His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”
He recalled a private meeting with Trump early in his first presidency in which Trump demanded allegiance. Comey likened it to a Mafia induction.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it was investigating a social media post by Comey that Trump and his allies interpreted as a call for violence against the president.
In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk” under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for “86 47.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “get rid of” or “refuse service to.”
Comey deleted the post and said he didn’t know “some folks associate those numbers with violence.”
Comey’s daughter was a federal prosecutor for 10 years until she was fired in July by the Justice Department. Maurene Comey is suing to get her job back, saying her dismissal was unconstitutional and connected to Trump’s hostility toward her father.
“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” Maurene Comey said in a note to her colleagues. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”
The White House said the decision came from Justice Department officials.
Separately, James Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned Thursday as a federal prosecutor, minutes after the former FBI director was indicted.

Lawyer Blog Post 2025/09/21 12:54
Patrons at a restaurant acted quickly and selflessly to stop a gunman who opened fire while a wedding was taking place at a New Hampshire country club, averting a worse tragedy, authorities said Sunday.
One person was killed and two others were wounded by gunfire Saturday night before a suspect was taken into custody in a nearby neighborhood not long after the shooting, authorities said.
The gunfire killed Robert Steven DeCesare, 59, at Sky Meadow Country Club in Nashua, said New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Nashua Police Chief Kevin Rourke. They said the suspect was Hunter Nadeau, 23, of Nashua, and that he had been arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder for knowingly shooting DeCesare.
Nadeau was a former employee of the club, Formella said, adding that Nadeau made a number of statements during the shooting and appeared to be attempting to cause chaos in the moment as opposed to showing a hate-based motivation. Witnesses reported that Nadeau said “Free Palestine” during the confusion.
Some witnesses said someone struck Nadeau with a chair in an attempt to subdue him. Formella cited “selfless acts of courage by the patrons in the restaurant who put aside care for their own safety and worked to intervene and stop the shooter.”
The shooting happened adjacent to a wedding that was taking place at the club. Wedding DJ Michael Homewood credited the chair strike with preventing an even worse shooting.
“He hit him over the head with a chair, and he probably saved a bunch of lives just doing that,” Homewood told WCVB-TV.
Investigators were working to determine a motive, Formella said. Police did not immediately respond to a question about whether Nadeau is represented by an attorney, and attempts to reach family members of Nadeau were not immediately successful. Authorities said there is no known connection between Nadeau and DeCesare.
Authorities had initially thought there could be two shooters but later said there was only one.
“Additional charges likely will be brought, including for the additional shooting victims,” Formella and Rourke said in a statement. They said they expect Nadeau to be arraigned at the Ninth Circuit Court in Nashua on Monday.
One of the surviving gunshot victims was an employee and the other was a patron, Formella said. The employee is hospitalized in critical but stable condition while the other victim’s status is unknown, Formella said. He said at least four other people at the scene suffered non-gunshot wounds that were not expected to be life threatening.
In addition to the three gunshot victims, others suffered injuries including lacerations, a broken hand and blunt force trauma, Nashua Fire Rescue said Sunday. The agency said it assisted about 100 people from the scene to a nearby firehouse, mostly on foot.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte said in a statement Sunday that the attorney general’s office will assist Nashua police with the investigation and that she and her husband were “praying for the victims and their families.”
Nashua is about 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest of Boston, just across the Massachusetts border.
The mother of DeCesare, the man who was killed, had earlier described not being able to find her son after he was shot.
“He went down. My daughter-in-law and granddaughter escaped. ... They saw my son go down and they saw blood,” said Evie O’Rourke of Salem, New Hampshire.
Sophie Flabouris told WCVB-TV that someone hit the suspect over the head with a chair to subdue him. Flabouris said the suspect then fled the scene.
“We had just gathered around the dance floor. We were about to do a Greek smashing of the plates and throwing the dollar bills. The bride had just come up to me and gave me the plates to say, ‘All right, you give this to my husband.’ And all of a sudden we heard ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.’ Heard five shots,” Flabouris said. “All of a sudden heard ‘Gun!’ Chaos, screaming, and then running.”
Emily Ernst said she saw a gunman in all black.
“He had a mask on. We just saw him raise the gun and then we ran,” Ernst said. “I ran through the kitchen for my life.”
Tom Bartelson of Pepperell, Massachusetts, described a chaotic scene that unfolded near his nephew’s wedding.

Legal Insight 2025/09/17 12:55
The Senate rejected competing measures on Friday to fund federal agencies for a few weeks when the new budget year begins on Oct. 1, increasing prospects for a partial government shutdown on that date.
Leaders of the two parties sought to blame the other side for the standoff. Democrats accused Republicans of not negotiating with them to address some of their priorities on health care as part of the funding measure, even though they knew Democratic votes would be needed to get a bill to the president’s desk.
Republicans said Democrats were making demands that would dramatically increase spending and were not germane to the core issue of keeping agencies fully running for a short period of time while negotiations continued on a full-year spending package.
It’s unclear how the two sides will be able to avoid a shutdown. Republicans are planning on what amounts to a do-over vote on their proposal close to the deadline in the hopes that more Democrats will have second thoughts. Democrats are repeating their demand that Republicans sit down with them and work on a compromise.
“The theater must end,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the vote. “Let’s sit down and negotiate.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., gave no indication of a change in course.
“All it takes is a handful of Democrats to join the Republicans in keeping the government open and funded, and to ensure we have a chance to get the appropriations process completed in the way it was intended,” Thune said.
The Senate action came after the House earlier in the day passed the Republican-led funding bill. The measure would extend government funding generally at current levels for seven weeks. The bill would also add about $88 million in security funding for lawmakers and members of the Supreme Court and executive branch in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The vote was 217-212. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the lone Democratic member to support the bill. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., also said she tried to vote for the bill but was not recognized by the presiding officer. She was listed officially as not voting.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said he knew he had few votes to spare as he sought to persuade fellow Republicans to vote for the funding patch, something many in his conference have routinely opposed in past budget fights. But this time, GOP members saw a chance to portray the Democrats as responsible for a shutdown.
“The ball is in Chuck Schumer’s court. I hope he does the right thing. I hope he does not choose to shut the government down and inflict pain on the American people,” Johnson said.
President Donald Trump had urged House Republicans to pass the bill and put the burden on Democrats to oppose it. GOP leaders often need Trump’s help to win over holdouts on legislation.
Trump predicted Friday that there could be “a closed country for a period of time.” He said the government will continue to “take care” of the military and Social Security payments in a closure.
Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said that in opposing the continuing resolution, Democrats were working to protect the health care of the American people. He said that with Republicans controlling the White House and both branches of Congress, “Republicans will own a government shutdown. Period. Full stop.”
The Senate moved quickly after the House vote to take up the measure plus the Democratic counter. Both bills fell far short of the 60 votes required for passage.
The Democratic proposal would extend enhanced health insurance subsidies set to expire at the end of the year, plus reverse Medicaid cuts that were included in Republicans’ big tax breaks and spending cuts bill enacted earlier this year.
The Democratic measure actually received more votes than the Republican one due to absences. The 47-45 vote went strictly along party lines.
“The American people will look at what Republicans are doing, look at what Democrats are doing, and it will be clear that public sentiment will be on our side,” Schumer said.
The Republican measure gained 44 votes, including from Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. But 48 voted against it, including two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
