Washington
Court rejects Biden’s bid to block release of recordings of ghostwriter interviews
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a request by Joe Biden to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.
A divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow more time for Biden to consider another appeal.
The panel’s 2-1 ruling late Monday found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material that Biden wants to keep under wraps. Redactions to the recordings would help protect Biden’s privacy, the majority noted.
“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the ruling says.
Judge Florence Pan, who was nominated by Biden, a Democrat, wrote a dissenting opinion in which she said Biden has shown a “substantial privacy interest” in keeping the material hidden.
“The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,” she wrote.
The appeal also was heard by D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Gregory Katsas. Srinivasan was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat who chose Biden as his vice president. Katas was nominated by President Donald Trump, a Republican who lost to Biden in 2020 but was elected again to the White House in 2024.
Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on two memoirs, 2007’s “Promises to Keep” and 2017’s “Promise Me, Dad,” interviewed him at his home in 2016 and 2017. Biden’s lawyers say the conversations were candid, personal and intended to remain private.
The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator from Delaware and as Obama’s vice president. Republicans in Congress demanded the material after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.
Biden sued and sought an injunction to prevent the Justice Department under Trump from releasing the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The department previously argued that the recordings were exempt from disclosure under public records law.
Biden appealed after U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was nominated by Trump, ruled in June that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.
Pan noted that the majority is effectively ruling in favor of immediately disclosing the material by denying Biden’s request for an injunction pending appeal.
“That, of course, will moot this case,” she wrote.
Michigan
Safety manager pleads no contest in fatal hyperbaric chamber explosion
LANSING – On Tuesday, Oxford Center Safety Director Jeffrey Mosteller pled no contest to one count of Involuntary Manslaughter in connection with the death of 5-year-old Thomas Cooper, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Per a plea and sentencing agreement submitted to the Court, Mosteller will be sentenced to 19 months to 15 years’ incarceration.
The Oxford Center, located in Troy, provided therapy for adults and children with various health conditions, including autism, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases, through Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. On January 31, 2025, while Cooper was undergoing treatment, the hyperbaric chamber caught fire from the inside and exploded. Both the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Sechrist, the manufacturer of the hyperbaric chamber, publish strict safety protocols that must be followed before treatment. However, Mosteller deliberately discarded these protocols and ignored precautions at the time of Cooper’s death.
“A young child lost his life in a completely preventable tragedy because this defendant allowed an outdated device to operate in defiance of safety standards,” said Attorney General Nessel. “While no outcome can reverse this loss, it is my hope that this conviction provides a sense of justice to Thomas’s family.”
Mosteller is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kwamé L. Rowe of the 6th Circuit Court in Oakland County on August 13.
Michigan
Man sentenced for criminal sexual conduct
LANSING – Yesterday, Jeffrey Scott Barrett, 43, of Gwinn, was sentenced by Judge Susan Sniegowski of the 51st Circuit Court in Oceana County to 50-75 years’ incarceration on four counts of First-Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Barrett was additionally sentenced to 20-50 years’ incarceration for one count of First-Degree Child Abuse. This sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to the 50-75-year sentence ordered for the Criminal Sexual Conduct convictions.
Barrett was convicted by an Oceana County jury in June for repeatedly sexually assaulting the victim when she was 4 and 5 years of age in 2010 and 2011. During the same time period, Barrett also abused the child in other ways, knowingly or intentionally causing severe mental harm. Barrett was originally charged by the Oceana County Prosecutor’s Office in 2018, when the victim reported the abuse, but he evaded authorities until his arrest by the U.S. Marshals Service in Marinette, Wisconsin in January 2025. Barrett was later extradited to Oceana County in April 2025 under Operation Survivor Justice.
“This significant sentence is a testament to the life-changing impact of Operation Survivor Justice,” said Attorney General Nessel. “It delivered the justice this young victim has deserved for more than 15 years, bringing her and her family the healing, closure, and peace that was stolen from them for far too long. This outcome only reinforces our commitment to working with our partners to apprehend fugitives and hold them accountable for their heinous crimes.”
The victim in this matter provided a victim impact statement to the Court that read in part, “For the first time in 15 years, I feel like that little girl who was once scared and confused can finally breathe. The verdict didn’t erase what happened or give me back the childhood that was taken from me, but it gave me something I had been searching for so long — it gave me validation. It reminded me that my voice matters, that the truth matters, and that what happened to me was real. Today, I carry hope, strength, and peace, knowing that I stood up not only for myself, but for the little girl who couldn’t. I am no longer the scared little girl who didn’t understand what was happening to her. I am a woman who found her voice, chose courage over silence, and refused to give up. This isn’t the end of my story — it is the beginning of my healing.”
Operation Survivor Justice is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Attorney General, local county prosecutors, and the U.S. Marshals Service to locate, apprehend, and return to Michigan fugitive offenders with outstanding sexual assault warrants.
California
Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.
District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.
About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.
Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was “the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.
Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, highlighted that ruling Friday as a landmark showing “that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law.”
“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close,” Sridhar said in a written statement.
Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024. It’s the first major settlement in dozens of AI copyright lawsuits that are still working their way through courts.
New York
Appeals court reverses decision that freed pro-Palestinian Columbia activist Mohsen Mahdawi
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals panel has reversed a lower court decision ordering the release of pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, opening the door to the re-arrest of a student protest organizer whom the Trump administration has spent more than a year trying to deport.
Tuesday’s ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York overturns a previous decision by a federal judge in Vermont, which likened the government’s efforts to expel him and other activists to McCarthyist repression.
In their unanimous decision, the panel found that the judge had overstepped his authority by intervening in Mahdawi’s case before it had moved fully through the immigration court system.
The ruling mirrors a separate appellate panel’s decision earlier this year against Mahmoud Khalil, a former classmate of Mahdawi’s at Columbia University.
As with the ruling against Khalil, the appeals court did not weigh in on the merits of Mahdawi’s claim that he was unconstitutionally targeted for criticizing Israel. He can seek a review from the federal courts over those claims once he has exhausted his options in the immigration courts, the panel wrote.
Mahdawi, 35, is currently appealing an order of removal issued against him in immigration court. An emailed inquiry to his attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union was not immediately returned.
Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and became a legal permanent resident of the U.S. in 2015.
He was arrested by immigration agents during a citizenship interview in April 2025, part of the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to expel noncitizens who criticized Israel and protested against the war in Gaza.
He was released two weeks later and graduated from Columbia soon after.
At a hearing in front of the 2nd Circuit last September, government attorneys argued against the release of both Mahdawi and another student, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by masked federal agents after co-signing an op-ed critical of Israel.
Both students, the government said, had wrongly benefited from a form of relief, known as habeas corpus, that should be off-limits to those whose cases are moving through the immigration courts.
Attorneys for the students countered that there was little hope in seeking relief from an immigration court system overseen by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.
The 2nd Circuit court is expected to issue a separate ruling concerning Ozturk’s case.
Court rejects Biden’s bid to block release of recordings of ghostwriter interviews
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a request by Joe Biden to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.
A divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow more time for Biden to consider another appeal.
The panel’s 2-1 ruling late Monday found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material that Biden wants to keep under wraps. Redactions to the recordings would help protect Biden’s privacy, the majority noted.
“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the ruling says.
Judge Florence Pan, who was nominated by Biden, a Democrat, wrote a dissenting opinion in which she said Biden has shown a “substantial privacy interest” in keeping the material hidden.
“The conversations at issue took place in Biden’s home, and the recordings of them were obtained by the government in the course of a criminal investigation that did not lead to an indictment,” she wrote.
The appeal also was heard by D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Gregory Katsas. Srinivasan was nominated by President Barack Obama, a Democrat who chose Biden as his vice president. Katas was nominated by President Donald Trump, a Republican who lost to Biden in 2020 but was elected again to the White House in 2024.
Mark Zwonitzer, who worked with Biden on two memoirs, 2007’s “Promises to Keep” and 2017’s “Promise Me, Dad,” interviewed him at his home in 2016 and 2017. Biden’s lawyers say the conversations were candid, personal and intended to remain private.
The recordings were obtained by special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents from his time as a senator from Delaware and as Obama’s vice president. Republicans in Congress demanded the material after Hur declined to file charges against the then-president.
Biden sued and sought an injunction to prevent the Justice Department under Trump from releasing the recordings to Congress and the conservative Heritage Foundation. The department previously argued that the recordings were exempt from disclosure under public records law.
Biden appealed after U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who was nominated by Trump, ruled in June that the public interest in the material outweighed whatever privacy rights Biden had.
Pan noted that the majority is effectively ruling in favor of immediately disclosing the material by denying Biden’s request for an injunction pending appeal.
“That, of course, will moot this case,” she wrote.
Michigan
Safety manager pleads no contest in fatal hyperbaric chamber explosion
LANSING – On Tuesday, Oxford Center Safety Director Jeffrey Mosteller pled no contest to one count of Involuntary Manslaughter in connection with the death of 5-year-old Thomas Cooper, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Per a plea and sentencing agreement submitted to the Court, Mosteller will be sentenced to 19 months to 15 years’ incarceration.
The Oxford Center, located in Troy, provided therapy for adults and children with various health conditions, including autism, ADHD, and autoimmune diseases, through Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. On January 31, 2025, while Cooper was undergoing treatment, the hyperbaric chamber caught fire from the inside and exploded. Both the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Sechrist, the manufacturer of the hyperbaric chamber, publish strict safety protocols that must be followed before treatment. However, Mosteller deliberately discarded these protocols and ignored precautions at the time of Cooper’s death.
“A young child lost his life in a completely preventable tragedy because this defendant allowed an outdated device to operate in defiance of safety standards,” said Attorney General Nessel. “While no outcome can reverse this loss, it is my hope that this conviction provides a sense of justice to Thomas’s family.”
Mosteller is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Kwamé L. Rowe of the 6th Circuit Court in Oakland County on August 13.
Michigan
Man sentenced for criminal sexual conduct
LANSING – Yesterday, Jeffrey Scott Barrett, 43, of Gwinn, was sentenced by Judge Susan Sniegowski of the 51st Circuit Court in Oceana County to 50-75 years’ incarceration on four counts of First-Degree Criminal Sexual Conduct, announced Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Barrett was additionally sentenced to 20-50 years’ incarceration for one count of First-Degree Child Abuse. This sentence was ordered to be served consecutively to the 50-75-year sentence ordered for the Criminal Sexual Conduct convictions.
Barrett was convicted by an Oceana County jury in June for repeatedly sexually assaulting the victim when she was 4 and 5 years of age in 2010 and 2011. During the same time period, Barrett also abused the child in other ways, knowingly or intentionally causing severe mental harm. Barrett was originally charged by the Oceana County Prosecutor’s Office in 2018, when the victim reported the abuse, but he evaded authorities until his arrest by the U.S. Marshals Service in Marinette, Wisconsin in January 2025. Barrett was later extradited to Oceana County in April 2025 under Operation Survivor Justice.
“This significant sentence is a testament to the life-changing impact of Operation Survivor Justice,” said Attorney General Nessel. “It delivered the justice this young victim has deserved for more than 15 years, bringing her and her family the healing, closure, and peace that was stolen from them for far too long. This outcome only reinforces our commitment to working with our partners to apprehend fugitives and hold them accountable for their heinous crimes.”
The victim in this matter provided a victim impact statement to the Court that read in part, “For the first time in 15 years, I feel like that little girl who was once scared and confused can finally breathe. The verdict didn’t erase what happened or give me back the childhood that was taken from me, but it gave me something I had been searching for so long — it gave me validation. It reminded me that my voice matters, that the truth matters, and that what happened to me was real. Today, I carry hope, strength, and peace, knowing that I stood up not only for myself, but for the little girl who couldn’t. I am no longer the scared little girl who didn’t understand what was happening to her. I am a woman who found her voice, chose courage over silence, and refused to give up. This isn’t the end of my story — it is the beginning of my healing.”
Operation Survivor Justice is a partnership between the Michigan Department of Attorney General, local county prosecutors, and the U.S. Marshals Service to locate, apprehend, and return to Michigan fugitive offenders with outstanding sexual assault warrants.
California
Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.
District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.
About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.
Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was “the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”
U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.
Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, highlighted that ruling Friday as a landmark showing “that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law.”
“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close,” Sridhar said in a written statement.
Bestselling thriller novelist Andrea Bartz first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024. It’s the first major settlement in dozens of AI copyright lawsuits that are still working their way through courts.
New York
Appeals court reverses decision that freed pro-Palestinian Columbia activist Mohsen Mahdawi
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals panel has reversed a lower court decision ordering the release of pro-Palestinian activist Mohsen Mahdawi, opening the door to the re-arrest of a student protest organizer whom the Trump administration has spent more than a year trying to deport.
Tuesday’s ruling from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York overturns a previous decision by a federal judge in Vermont, which likened the government’s efforts to expel him and other activists to McCarthyist repression.
In their unanimous decision, the panel found that the judge had overstepped his authority by intervening in Mahdawi’s case before it had moved fully through the immigration court system.
The ruling mirrors a separate appellate panel’s decision earlier this year against Mahmoud Khalil, a former classmate of Mahdawi’s at Columbia University.
As with the ruling against Khalil, the appeals court did not weigh in on the merits of Mahdawi’s claim that he was unconstitutionally targeted for criticizing Israel. He can seek a review from the federal courts over those claims once he has exhausted his options in the immigration courts, the panel wrote.
Mahdawi, 35, is currently appealing an order of removal issued against him in immigration court. An emailed inquiry to his attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union was not immediately returned.
Mahdawi was born in a refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and became a legal permanent resident of the U.S. in 2015.
He was arrested by immigration agents during a citizenship interview in April 2025, part of the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to expel noncitizens who criticized Israel and protested against the war in Gaza.
He was released two weeks later and graduated from Columbia soon after.
At a hearing in front of the 2nd Circuit last September, government attorneys argued against the release of both Mahdawi and another student, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by masked federal agents after co-signing an op-ed critical of Israel.
Both students, the government said, had wrongly benefited from a form of relief, known as habeas corpus, that should be off-limits to those whose cases are moving through the immigration courts.
Attorneys for the students countered that there was little hope in seeking relief from an immigration court system overseen by President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice.
The 2nd Circuit court is expected to issue a separate ruling concerning Ozturk’s case.
