Closing arguments are expected in the trial of a man accused of killing a North Carolina college student 14 years ago. Faith Hedgepeth was a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill when she was fatally beaten in her off-campus apartment in 2012. Miguel Salguero Olivares was arrested nine years later. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, rape and burglary charges. Closing arguments are scheduled Thursday. Prosecutors say Salguero Olivares was a stranger who killed Hedgepeth in a fit of rage and left his DNA behind. They say he provided a DNA sample after his arrest in 2021 for driving while intoxicated and it matched evidence from the crime scene.
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The Justice Department’s inspector general has declined to investigate the handling of the criminal case against a former Olympian who was cleared of accusations that he intentionally damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. That's according to a letter from the man’s lawyers that was made public Wednesday. The department's internal watchdog told David Hearn’s lawyers that the allegations of professional misconduct fall outside its jurisdiction and are instead within the purview of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The lawyers' letter urges Inspector General Don Berthiaume to reconsider the decision.
A judge has ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $25 billion after a jury found the company liable for deceiving users about privacy and content moderation on Facebook. At a news conference Wednesday, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez described it as “one of the largest, if not the single largest state verdict against a company in American history,” The ruling follows a September decision in which jurors found Meta responsible for over 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws. The violations stem from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where user data was harvested for political ads in the 2016 election. New Mexico pursued the case independently after 48 other states settled. Meta plans to appeal.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted the death sentence of Toforest Johnson to life in prison without parole. Johnson was convicted of the 1995 murder of Deputy Sheriff William Hardy, but he has maintained his innocence. On Tuesday, Ivey expressed concerns about the lack of direct evidence for a death sentence. Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr, elected in 2018, supports a new trial, citing unraveling evidence and credible alibi witnesses. Johnson’s attorneys are grateful for the commutation and continue to fight for a new trial. Several former judges and prosecutors have also raised doubts about the conviction.
Justice Diana Kavedza presides over a court trial of Good News International Church Pastor Paul Mackenzie accused of murdering over 191 people, in Mombasa, Kenya, Monday, Oct. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Wachira)
The Supreme Court has rejected an effort to revive a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks. The deal would have spared him the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea and life in prison without parole. Military prosecutors and the Pentagon initially approved the agreement, but then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin canceled it, saying the defense secretary should decide on the death penalty for such a grave attack. Relatives of the victims are divided on the issue. A trial date has been set for 2028.
Prosecutors and lawyers for Alex Murdaugh have returned to court to dispute evidence for his retrial on murder charges next year. The hearing is Friday in South Carolina. Murdaugh faces another trial in April over the 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son. The state Supreme Court overturned his convictions earlier this year, saying a court clerk influenced jurors to find him guilty. Friday's arguments focus on DNA testing and whether authorities must share ballistics evidence. Defense lawyers also want to know if a grand jury is investigating a police officer friend of Murdaugh as a possible accomplice. Murdaugh remains in prison serving decades for financial crimes
A trial is set for the suspected organizer of a deadly al-Qaida attack on a U.S. warship in the year 2000. But his lawyer wants a military court to determine his competence before proceedings begin. Attorney Allison Ferber Miller argues that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri suffered traumatic brain injury after being tortured in CIA custody. She says a psychiatrist determined he can't understand the proceedings at a U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Miller asked a federal judge to delay Nashiri's trial until the military court can determine his competence. Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed when an explosives-laden skiff blew up alongside the USS Cole off Yemen's coast.
Lawyers for the BBC say that President Donald Trump is trying to delay sitting for a deposition in the defamation case he brought against the British broadcaster until January 2027. In a filing this week, they asked a Florida court to compel the president to appear in the $10 billion case after they say he canceled an agreed-upon date this week, citing “matters of national importance.” Trump, who has a history of avoiding depositions, filed the lawsuit against the BBC last December, seeking $10 billion in damages.
The holdout juror who blocked Lindsay Clancy from being acquitted says he was influenced by how “methodical” he thought she was in killing her three children. Michael Desronvil said in his first interview since the trial ended with a deadlocked jury that he didn’t have any doubt Clancy was guilty. He told Fox News in an interview broadcast Thursday that he was struck by her “thought process.” Clancy’s trial ended in early September after the 12 jurors couldn’t agree whether she was criminally responsible in the deaths of her three young children. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether they will retry the case.