Vermont
Driver charged with gross negligence in crash that killed Treat Williams
DORSET, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont driver accused of causing a crash that killed actor Treat Williams has been charged with grossly negligent operation causing death, officials said.
An investigation of the June 12 crash in Dorset concluded a vehicle pulled in front of Williams, who was riding a motorcycle and was unable to avoid a collision, Vermont State Police said Tuesday.
The driver who was charged, Ryan Koss, 35, of Dorset, was processed Tuesday evening and released ahead of a September arraignment, state police said. A court official couldn’t say whether Koss had a lawyer, and Koss didn’t immediately return an email message seeking comment.
Williams, 71, of Manchester Center, was pronounced dead at Albany Medical Center in New York.
Richard Treat Williams’ nearly 50-year career included starring roles in the TV series “Everwood” and the movie “Hair.” He appeared in more than 120 TV and film roles, including the movies “The Eagle Has Landed,” “Prince of the City” and “Once Upon a Time in America.”
Utah
Law requiring age verification for porn sites to remain in effect
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah law requiring adult websites to verify the age of their users will remain in effect after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from an industry group challenging its constitutionality.
The dismissal poses a setback for digital privacy advocates and the Free Speech Coalition, which sued on behalf of adult entertainers, erotica authors, sex educators and casual porn viewers over the Utah law — and another in Louisiana — designed to limit access to materials considered vulgar or explicit.
U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart did not address the group’s arguments that the law unfairly discriminates against certain kinds of speech, violates the First Amendment rights of porn providers and intrudes on the privacy of individuals who want to view sexually explicit materials.
Dismissing their lawsuit on Tuesday, he instead said they couldn’t sue Utah officials because of how the law calls for age verification to be enforced. The law doesn’t direct the state to pursue or prosecute adult websites and instead gives Utah residents the power to sue them and collect damages if they don’t take precautions to verify their users’ ages.
“They cannot just receive a pre-enforcement injunction,” Stewart wrote in his dismissal, citing a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a Texas law allowing private citizens to sue abortion providers.
The law is the latest anti-pornography effort from Utah’s Republican-supermajority Legislature, which since 2016 has passed laws meant to combat the public and mental health effects they say watching porn can have on children.
In passing new age verification requirements, Utah lawmakers argued that because pornography had become ubiquitous and easily accessible online, it posed a threat to children in their developmentally formative years, when they begin learning about sex.
The law does not specify how adult websites should verify users’ ages. Some, including Pornhub, have blocked their pages in Utah, while others have experimented with third-party age verification services, including facial recognition programs such as Yoti, which use webcams to identify facial features and estimate ages.
Opponents have argued that age verification laws for adult websites not only infringe upon free speech, but also threaten digital privacy because it’s impossible to ensure that websites don’t retain user identification data. On Tuesday, the Free Speech Coalition, which is also challenging a similar law in Louisiana, vowed to appeal the dismissal.
“States are attempting to do an end run around the First Amendment by outsourcing censorship to citizens,” said Alison Boden, the group’s executive director. “It’s a new mechanism, but a deeply flawed one. Government attempts to chill speech, no matter the method, are prohibited by the Constitution and decades of legal precedent.”
State Sen. Todd Weiler, the age verification law’s Republican sponsor, said he was unsurprised the lawsuit was dismissed. He said Utah — either its executive branch or Legislature — would likely expand its digital identification programs in the future to make it easier for websites to comply with age verification requirements for both adult websites and social media platforms.
The state passed a first-in-the-nation law in March to similarly require age verification for anyone who wants to use social media in Utah.
Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, one of the officials named in the lawsuit, applauded Stewart’s dismissal and called age verification requirements “reasonable safeguards for our children.”
“The innocence and safety of our children are paramount and worth protecting ardently,” he said in a statement.
California
Lawsuit by former dancers accuses Lizzo of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lizzo has been sued by three former dancers who accuse the Grammy winner of sexual harassment and allege the singer and her production company created a hostile work environment.
The civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court claims Lizzo pressured the dancers to engage with nude performers at a club in Amsterdam and shamed one of them for her weight gain before firing her.
Plaintiffs Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez make numerous charges including sexual, religious and racial harassment, disability discrimination, assault and false imprisonment.
The legal complaint seeks unspecified damages and names Melissa Viviane Jefferson, known professionally as Lizzo, her production company Big Grrrl Big Touring, Inc., and Shirlene Quigley, captain of the performer’s dance team.
Representatives for Lizzo didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The court filing claims that after performing a concert in Amsterdam, Lizzo and her crew attended a sexually themed show at a club in the city’s notorious Red Light District where “Lizzo began inviting cast members to take turns touching the nude performers.” During the show, Lizzo led a chant pressuring Davis to touch the breasts of one of the nude women performing at the club, the filing states.
“Finally, the chorus became overwhelming, and a mortified Ms. Davis acquiesced in an attempt to bring an end to the chants,” the complaint states. “Plaintiffs were aghast with how little regard Lizzo showed for the bodily autonomy of her employees and those around her,
especially in the presence of many people whom she employed.”
Lizzo, who routinely champions body positivity, is also accused of calling out Davis for her weight gain after accusing the dancer of not being committed to her role. Davis was fired in May for recording a meeting during which Lizzo had given out notes to dancers about their performances, according to the complaint.
Quigley, who served as a judge on the singer’s reality show “Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls,” is accused in the lawsuit of pushing her Christian beliefs onto dancers. The court filing claims Quigley referred to Davis as a “non-believer” and told co-workers that “No job and no one will stop me from talking about the Lord.”
Earlier this year, Lizzo won the Grammy for record of the year for her hit “About Damn Time.” A global tour supporting her fourth studio album, 2022’s “Special,” wrapped up last month.
West Virginia
Teacher caught on video abusing students — district to settle for over $11M
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A school district in West Virginia has reached settlements totaling over $11 million in lawsuits involving a teacher who abused special education students in her classroom, according to a media report.
Seven lawsuits against Nancy Boggs and the Kanawha County Board of Education were settled for a combined $11.75 million, WCHS-TV reported Monday, citing state insurance documents it obtained via a records request. The report did not indicate when the settlement was reached, and the school district did not comment to the television station.
Boggs was caught on surveillance camera abusing several students at Holz Elementary School in Charleston in September 2021. She admitted to hitting one student with a cabinet door, pulling her hair and pulling a chair out from under her. Boggs also admitted to slamming another child’s head into a desk and slapping a third child.
Boggs was sentenced to 10 years in prison in August 2022. County Judge Maryclaire Akers said in court that Boggs turned her “classroom into a place of what can only be described as torture.”
The identities of the plaintiffs and individual settlement amounts remain sealed.
“This is a significant settlement because it was a horrific case of abuse, probably one of the worst abuses we’ve seen in West Virginia,” attorney Ben Salango, who represented plaintiffs in three of the seven cases, told WCHS.
He said he believes it’s the largest settlement against a school board in West Virginia history.
The Boggs case helped lead to the strengthening last year of a state law that requires cameras in classrooms — video footage must now be kept on hand for a full year instead of three months and must be regularly viewed by administrators.
Missouri
Transgender former student sues school for making her use boys’ bathrooms
PLATTE COUNTY, Mo. (AP) — A transgender former student sued a Missouri school district on Monday for forcing her to use the boys’ bathrooms or the high school’s only single-stall bathroom.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued Platte County R-3 School District on behalf of the transgender female former student, identified in the lawsuit only as R.F.
The former student received detention twice for using the girls’ restroom, according to the lawsuit. She said a male classmate harassed her and threatened her with rape when she used the boys’ bathroom.
The lawsuit argues the school violated her rights by requiring her to use the bathroom that aligned with her sex assigned at birth or the school’s single-stall gender-neutral bathroom.
“Forcing transgender students to use the bathroom or locker room that matches their sex designated at birth is not only discrimination but dangerous and causes serious harm to Missouri’s youth,” said Gillian Wilcox, deputy director of litigation at the ACLU of Missouri, in a statement. “Both through the constitution and by statute the government, a school in this case, is prohibited from discriminating against the people it is supposed to protect on the basis of either their sex or disability.”
Superintendent Jay Harris said in a statement that the district is “in the early stages of evaluating the legal claims” but plans to provide more information soon.
