Vince McMahon to pay $1.7 million for failing to disclose settlements
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(WASHINGTON) — Vince McMahon, the former head of WWE, will pay $1.7 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to disclose two settlements he had with employees while he ran the formerly publicly traded company.
One settlement agreement, signed in 2019, obligated McMahon to pay a former employee $3 million in exchange for the former employee’s agreement not to disclose her relationship with McMahon and her release of potential claims against WWE and McMahon, and the second agreement, signed in 2021, obligated McMahon to pay a former WWE independent contractor $7.5 million in exchange for the independent contractor’s agreement not to disclose her allegations against McMahon and her release of potential claims against WWE and McMahon, according to the SEC.
These payments were not disclosed and, thus, “WWE overstated its 2018 net income by approximately 8 percent and its 2021 net income by approximately 1.7 percent,” according to the SEC.
McMahon agreed to pay a $400,000 civil penalty and reimburse WWE $1,330,915.90, the SEC said.
In a statement posted on X, McMahon said the “case is closed.”
“Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies,” he said.
“There has been a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading,” he added. “In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE. I’m thrilled that I can now put all this behind me.”
McMahon, who is married to President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be education secretary, Linda McMahon, resigned from WWE’s parent company TKO Group Holdings in 2024 after he was sued by a former employee accusing him of sexual misconduct. McMahon has denied any wrongdoing in that suit.
(PUERTO RICO) — An island-wide blackout in Puerto Rico Tuesday left millions of residents without power ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations.
As of Tuesday afternoon, less than 10% of customers on the island had their power restored, according to power company LUMA.
LUMA said the exact cause of the power outage, which began at 5:30 a.m. local time, remains under investigation.
“As part of our coordinated response, our LUMA team is in close communication and collaboration with island officials, including the Governor, Governor-elect, and our Mayors to keep them updated on the status of restoration,” the power company said.
Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Pierluisi earlier said work was underway to restore the service at energy plants in San Juan and Palo Seco.
The U.S. territory has continued to face a slow rebuild of its infrastructure since Hurricane Maria caused widespread damage to the island in 2017.
In 2020, 1 million customers were without power following back-to-back earthquakes. An explosion and subsequent fire at a substation left 900,000 customers on the island without power in June 2021.
Another massive fire at a major power plant caused a massive outage for about 1.3 million customers in April 2022, followed by Hurricane Fiona in September of that year.
(MIAMI) — A tree trimmer died after getting caught in a wood chipper while trimming trees at a town hall near Miami, officials said.
The incident occurred at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning when the Ocean Ridge Police Department responded to Ocean Ridge Town Hall — some 60 miles north of Miami — for “an accident involving one employee from a contracted tree trimming vendor,” according to a statement from the town of Ocean Ridge on social media.
“Upon arrival, Ocean Ridge officers found one person had died from injuries sustained in the accident,” officials said. No other individuals on scene sustained injuries.
Officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were immediately notified and were en route to the scene, according to the town of Ocean Ridge.
The identity of the victim has not yet been disclosed by authorities.
The investigation is currently ongoing at this time and Boynton Beach Fire Rescue is providing grief counseling to town employees and vendor staff, officials said.
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge, in a ruling late Friday evening, has denied an effort to block the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing sensitive data from the Department of Labor.
In his ruling, federal Judge John D. Bates found that the five federal employee unions that alleged Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team sought to illegally access highly sensitive data, including medical records, failed to establish standing.
“Although the Court harbors concerns about defendants’ alleged conduct, it must deny plaintiffs’ motion at this time,” Judge Bates said in his ruling.
During the hearing, the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that if DOGE accessed DOL data, it would cause irreparable harm to their clients.
However, in his ruling, Bates found that the plaintiffs did not show that “at least one particular member is substantially likely to suffer an injury at the hands of the defendant.”
During Friday’s hearing, attorneys for the five unions argued that access to the data would also violate the Privacy Act.
“We’ve demonstrated that by having access to these systems, the personal information in them is necessarily at harm with the disclosure of sensitive information,” one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued. “It’s unlawful.”
The Department of Justice argued that DOGE employees would have access to data needed to assist the Labor Department in improving its information technology and data systems. The DOJ attorney also argued that DOGE employees are authorized under the Privacy Act and that they would not share data with anyone outside the agency, including other DOGE employees.
Bates pushed back on the DOJ attorneys, saying they were asking him to have “a great deal of confidence in people who, according to public reports, are very young, who have never been in the federal government, who have never had any training with respect to the hands of confidential information.”
“[You] are asking me to just put absolute confidence in the fact that nothing will happen,” Bates said.
Attorneys for the unions said they planned to amend their complaint over the weekend to include three other federal agencies: Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“Department of Labor employees have been told to unquestionably give DOGE operatives access to any system or information they request, or else face termination,” the lawsuit said, alleging that DOGE’s pattern of conduct has been “replete with violations of law.”
Musk’s private companies, including SpaceX and Tesla, have been investigated and fined by parts of the Department of Labor, and at least one of his companies is being actively investigated. Musk has denied all wrongdoing.
On Wednesday, in response to a lawsuit by several federal employee unions, lawyers with the Justice Department agreed to a temporary restraining order that would largely prohibit DOGE from accessing Treasury Department data.
As DOGE has, according to the suit, “zeroed in on and sought unprecedented access to sensitive information” from other federal agencies, including the Treasury Department and Department of Education, the lawsuit raised red flags about Musk’s intrusion into the Department of Labor because of the sensitivity of their records related to the administration of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.
According to the lawsuit, Labor Department records include injury reports for thousands of employees, medical records, claim forms, and personal information gathered during the administration of FECA claims.
The department also has records of at least 86,000 workers’ compensation claims from 2024 alone that could be breached by DOGE, the suit said.
“The threats to the Department of Labor that give rise to this action and application for emergency relief represent yet another iteration of what is fast becoming a pattern for DOGE: exceeding its narrow mission and exercising authority it does not (and cannot) possess by exerting control over agencies through personal attacks and threats of unlawful reprisals, and harming people and the stability of our nation in the process,” the lawsuit said.
In a court filing Thursday, Justice Department attorneys representing DOGE argued that the federal unions who brought the case failed to show how they would be harmed by the sharing of data between DOGE and the Labor Department, acknowledging that multiple DOGE representatives have already been sent to work for the department.
“Plaintiffs cannot establish standing, much less irreparable harm, to challenge the sharing of unstated categories of information from unidentified records systems to unknown individuals working in the Executive Branch,” their filing said.
The lawsuit further alleged that Musk — described as an “an unappointed, unelected, and temporarily serving official” — has sought to “run roughshod” over the Labor Department at the same time it has active investigations pending into his private companies.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration — which falls under the Labor Department — previously investigated and fined Musk’s SpaceX and Tesla for multiple safety incidents, including one in connection with a SpaceX employee’s death. OSHA also has multiple open investigations into Musk’s Boring Company.
“Mr. Musk would ordinarily be unable to access nonpublic information regarding those investigations,” the lawsuit said. “In light of the blanket instruction to provide DOGE employees with ‘anything they want,’ Mr. Musk or his associates will be able to access that information simply by asking DOL employees for it.”
The plaintiffs are asking the judge to issue a temporary restraining order that would prohibit the Department of Labor from sharing any records with DOGE.
