Person shot in incident involving Border Patrol in Arizona, sheriff says
(NEW YORK) — A person was shot in an incident involving U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona, a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told ABC News.
The shooting occurred early Tuesday morning, the Santa Rita Fire District said. Emergency responders provided first aid at the scene and the person was taken to a hospital in unknown condition, officials said.
The sheriff’s office said it’s working with the FBI and Customs and Border Protection.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The seal of the Department of Justice is seen before a news conference with Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, December 4, 2025, announcing the arrest of Brian Cole Jr., who allegedly placed pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee offices on January 6, 2021. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
(FLORIDA) — A federal judge in Florida has granted the Trump administration’s motion to unseal grand jury transcripts from the initial federal investigation of Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-2000s. The order also grants the government’s request to modify any protective orders in place that would inhibit public disclosure.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith – a Trump appointee – determined that the language of the recently-enacted Epstein Transparency Act “overrides” federal rules prohibiting the public disclosure of grand jury materials.
“The Act applies to unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials that relate to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” Smith wrote in an order Friday. “Consequently, the later-enacted and specific language of the Act trumps Rule 6’s prohibition on disclosure. Accordingly, it is ORDERED that United States’ Expedited Motion to Unseal Grand Jury Transcripts and Modify Protective Order…is GRANTED.”
Smith is one of three federal judges asked by the DOJ to unseal grand jury materials in cases involving Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Smith is the first to rule. Two judges in New York are expected to issue their decisions next week.
This is the second time the DOJ has gone to those courts asking for the grand jury materials to be unsealed. Those earlier attempts – before the Epstein Transparency Act was passed, requiring the disclosure of materials related to Epstein’s cases within 30 days with certain exceptions — were rejected by each court.
Smith’s order does not address redactions to the records to protect the privacy interests of Epstein’s victims. It will be up to the DOJ to make those redactions, as administration officials have promised to do before disclosing records to the public.
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida used two separate grand juries during their initial probes in the mid-2000s of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking of minors. Neither grand jury was asked to indict Epstein, and there was never a federal criminal prosecution of Epstein in Florida. Instead, Epstein and federal prosecutors negotiated a non-prosecution agreement which resulted in Epstein’s guilty pleas in state court.
Witnesses express concerns about privacy in New York cases
In the New York cases, the courts have received input and objections from witnesses, victims and others expressing concerns about personal privacy, redaction of victim information and the potential impacts the court’s rulings could have on public disclosure of the Epstein files.
Annie Farmer – a witness who testified against Maxwell at her criminal trial in 2021 – urged the judges to make “abundantly clear” that any decision they make about the DOJ’s motions “does not affect the Department of Justice’s ability to release documents subject to the [Epstein] Transparency Act,” including materials contained in the 300 gigabytes of data the government has said it has in its possession.
“While Ms. Farmer remains hopeful that the instant motions reflect a bona fide desire by the Government to provide greater transparency into Epstein’s crimes, she is wary of the possibility that any denial of the motions may be used by others as a pretext or excuse for continuing to withhold crucial information concerning Epstein’s crimes,” wrote Sigrid McCawley, counsel for Farmer and other Epstein and Maxwell accusers.
The Epstein Transparency Act contains a number of exceptions that could allow the DOJ to withhold or redact certain records, including records that could result in victim identification or a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” There is also an exception for records related to any “active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution.”
The DOJ faces a Dec. 19 deadline to comply with the law’s provisions.
U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer – who will decide the DOJ’s motion on the Maxwell docket – also received letters from attorneys for two men; one a potential witness at the Maxwell trial who wasn’t called and another whose name had been contained in court files in civil litigation against Maxwell but who had successfully argued for his name to be redacted when those records were unsealed.
“I submit that all personally identifiable information regarding my client is within the ambit of the Act’s permitted withholdings and that this information must be redacted pursuant to the Act, because that disclosure without redaction would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of my client’s personal privacy,” wrote Avrom Robin, an attorney for the witness who wasn’t called.
The attorneys for both men argued that the language of the Epstein Transparency Act contains no specific mention of grand jury materials and that the government’s motion to unseal those records should be denied. Absent such a ruling, they argue that the names of their clients should be redacted or remain under seal.
The Department of Justice has been ordered by the courts to respond to the concerns raised in the letters by Monday.
U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions during a press briefing held at the White House February 20, 2026 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The federal judge who tossed then-special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against President Donald Trump has permanently barred the release of Smith’s final report on his probe.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in 2024 after deciding that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unlawful, then blocked the release of the Smith’s report on his investigation.
She ruled Monday that the report should be sealed for good, after Trump and his co-defendants in the case sought a court order barring the report’s release.
The public release of the report “would contravene the conclusions in the Court’s final Dismissal Order that Special Counsel Smith acted without lawful appointment or funding authority in this proceeding and that his actions taken in connection herewith are therefore invalid,” Cannon’s order said.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, also scolded Smith for preparing the report in the first place even though she had ruled his appointment was unlawful, calling it a “concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order.”
“Nevertheless, rather than seek a stay of the Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond,” Cannon wrote in her order.
“The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order,” she wrote.
Trump pleaded not guilty in June 2023 to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the government’s efforts to get the documents back. Trump asserted that he had every right to possess the documents.
Smith, testifying publicly before the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee last month, said his investigation “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity” — and that partisan politics did not play a role in his decision to charge Trump.
Family photo posted on Eric Richins’ Facebook. (Facebook / Eric Richins)
(NEW YORK) — The murder trial of Kouri Richins, a Utah mom accused of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl who self-published a children’s book on grieving following his death, is set to get underway with opening statements on Monday.
The 35-year-old realtor was charged with aggravated murder in connection with the 2022 death of her husband, Eric Richins, following a lengthy investigation. Prosecutors allege she spiked his cocktail with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Her charges also include attempted aggravated murder, with prosecutors alleging she gave her husband a sandwich laced with fentanyl on Valentine’s Day two weeks before his death in an initial, failed attempt to kill him.
She has pleaded not guilty. The trial in Park City is scheduled to last up to five weeks.
“Kouri has waited nearly three years for this moment: the opportunity to have the facts of this case heard by a jury, free from the prosecution’s narrative that has dominated headlines since her arrest,” Kouri Richins’ attorneys — Wendy Lewis, Kathy Nester and Alex Ramos — said in a statement ahead of Monday’s opening statements. “Now the state must prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“What the public has been told bears little resemblance to the truth,” the statement continued. “We welcome the courtroom, where evidence is bound by rules, not sensational coverage. Kouri is a mother who wants to go home to her children. We are confident this jury will make that possible.”
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins was in “financial distress” due to her realty company’s debts and believed she would have financially benefited from her husband’s death, according to the charging document. They also allege she was having an affair and purportedly told a witness months before her husband’s death that she “felt ‘stuck’ and ‘trapped’ in her marriage and it would be better if Eric Richins just died,” according to the charging document.
Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in the couple’s bedroom in the early hours of March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the lethal dosage, according to the charging document. The medical examiner determined the fentanyl was “illicit fentanyl,” not medical grade, according to the charging document.
Prosecutors allege that Kouri Richins purchased illicit fentanyl shortly before the Valentine’s Day incident and again before his death, at which point she allegedly asked for stronger drugs.
Weeks before her husband’s death, she is accused of fraudulently securing a life insurance policy for her husband with his forged signature, and then fraudulently claiming the benefits following his death, according to the charging document.
Kouri Richins has proclaimed her innocence, speaking out from jail in an audio recording released in May 2024.
“The world has yet to hear who I really am, what I’ve really done or didn’t do,” Kouri Richins insisted in the audio, provided to ABC News through a trusted confidant. “What I really didn’t do is murder my husband.”
Kouri Richins has remained in Summit County Jail since her arrest in May 2023.
A month prior to her arrest, the mom of three young sons appeared on a “Good Things Utah” segment on Salt Lake City ABC affiliate KTVX to promote her children’s book. In the segment, Kouri Richins said her husband of nine years died “unexpectedly” and that his death “completely took us all by shock.”
Kouri Richins also faces over two dozen charges in a separate case filed last year alleging she committed mortgage fraud in 2021. The charging document alleges she submitted falsified bank statements in support of mortgage loan applications for her realty business, committed money laundering and issued bad checks.
The charges in the case also allege she murdered her husband for financial gain as she “stood on the precipice of total financial collapse.” According to the charging document, around the time of Eric Richins’ death, her realty company owed lenders nearly $5 million, and his estate was worth approximately $5 million.
