A California jury Friday imposed a $50 million fine on Starbucks in the case of a delivery driver burned by a scalding cup of hot tea at a company location in Los Angeles.
Michael Garcia was picking up three drinks in 2020 but one, he claimed, was “negligently” unsecured and spilled in his lap. He claimed that he consequently “suffered severe burns, disfigurement, and debilitating nerve damage to his genitals” and he was taken to an emergency room by paramedics.
“Michael Garcia’s life has been forever changed,” his attorney, Nick Rowley, said.
“No amount of money can undo the permanent catastrophic harm he has suffered, but this jury verdict is a critical step in holding Starbucks accountable for flagrant disregard for customer safety and failure to accept responsibility,” he added.
Starbucks said it planned to appeal the verdict.
“We sympathize with Mr. Garcia, but we disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” company spokesperson Jaci Anderson said in a statement.
“We have always been committed to the highest safety standards in our stores, including the handling of hot drinks,” she added.
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The U.S. Senate is set to pass a stopgap spending bill Friday that would avert a partial government shutdown, although many Democrats are expressing anger over plans by their party’s leadership to support the measure.
The measure cleared its first Senate hurdle early Friday evening, 62-38.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the bill earlier this week to meet a March 14 deadline to keep the government running.
Senate Democrats have fractured over whether to support the short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government for the next six months, reduce total government spending by about $7 billion from last year’s levels and shift money to the military and away from non-defense spending.
Much of the party’s anger Friday was directed at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer who announced Thursday night that while he disliked the bill, a shutdown was a “far worse option.”
Speaking on the Senate floor Friday morning, Schumer said not passing the Republican funding bill would give more power to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) effort led by Elon Musk, including which agencies would be shut down.
“A shutdown would allow DOGE to shift into overdrive,” he said.
Dozens of House Democrats, who opposed the funding measure in the lower chamber, sent a letter to Schumer on Friday, expressing their “strong opposition” to his plan to vote for the bill.
Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Senate Democrats to go against their leader.
In a Friday statement, she wrote, “America has experienced a Trump shutdown before — but this damaging legislation only makes matters worse.”
Trump has called on Congress to pass the funding bill and on Friday praised Schumer for supporting it. “Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Appropriations bills require a 60-vote threshold for passage in the Senate, which means Republicans need to secure at least eight Democratic votes.
Schumer previously called for the Senate to pass an earlier version of the CR that Democrats were involved in negotiating.
“Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort. But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input, any input, from congressional Democrats,” Schumer said on the Senate floor late Wednesday.
The House passed the short-term spending measure Tuesday by a vote of 217-213. One Democrat voted for the bill and one Republican against it. The chamber went out of session for the rest of the week starting Tuesday afternoon, putting pressure on senators to pass its version of the CR.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson quelled dissent from within his Republican Party to pass the spending measure. He told reporters Tuesday the seven-month continuing resolution was an important step toward implementing Trump’s agenda of rooting out government waste and abuse through DOGE.
“It allows us to move forward with changing the size and scope of the federal government. There is a seismic shift going on in Washington right now. This is a different moment than we have ever been in. The DOGE work is finding massive amounts of fraud, waste and abuse,” Johnson said. “We have a White House that is actually dedicated to getting us back onto a fiscally responsible track.”
Independent watchdogs and analysts, however, say DOGE is using overly broad claims of fraud to generate support for large-scale cuts to federal programs and offices.
Representative Thomas Massie was the lone Republican holdout, despite Trump’s post Monday night on Truth Social calling for Massie to lose his seat if he voted against the spending measure.
The continuing resolution buys lawmakers time to reach a compromise on Senate and House versions of government spending for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, a key tool for implementing Trump’s domestic policy agenda.
At question is how and when to enact a proposed extension of the 2017 tax cuts and how to pay down the U.S. deficit without cutting key safety net programs that help American voters.
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The U.S. bird population is declining at an alarming rate, according to a report published Thursday by an alliance of science and conservation groups.
Habitat loss and climate change are among the key contributing factors to the bird population losses, according to the 2025 U.S. State of the Birds report.
More than 100 of the species studied, have reached a “tipping point,” losing more than half their populations in the last 50 years. The report revealed that the avian population in all habitats is declining, including the duck population, previously considered a triumph of conservation. “The only bright spot is water birds such as herons and egrets that show some increases,” Michael Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy, told Reuters.
The decline in the duck population fell by approximately 30% from 2017, but duck population numbers still remain higher, however, than their 1970 numbers, according to an Associated Press account on the report.
“Roughly one in three bird species (229 species) in the U.S. requires urgent conservation attention, and these species represent the major habitats and systems in the U.S. and include species that we’ve long considered to be common and abundant,” Amanda Rodewald, faculty director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Center for Avian Population Studies told Reuters.
Included among the birds with highest losses, Reuters reported, are the mottled duck, Allen’s hummingbird, yellow-billed loon, red-faced cormorant, greater sage-grouse, Florida scrub jay, Baird’s sparrow, saltmarsh sparrow, mountain plover, Hawaiian petrel, Bicknell’s thrush, Cassia crossbill, pink-footed shearwater, tricolored blackbird and golden-cheeked warbler. Some of the birds in this “red alert” group are already protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, the news agency said.
“For each species that we’re in danger of losing, it’s like pulling an individual thread out of the complex tapestry of life,” Georgetown University biologist Peter Marra. who was not involved in the new report, told AP. While the outlook may seem dire, it is not without hope, said Marra, who noted the resurgence of the majestic bald eagle.
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PENTAGON — U.S. government lawyers are expected to face off with attorneys for civil and immigration rights groups over the use of a U.S. naval base in Cuba to hold migrants slated for deportation.
Arguments in the two lawsuits over operations at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, filed against the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem, are set for a U.S. District Court in Washington on Friday.
The suits allege that the U.S. government has overstepped its bounds by denying migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay access to legal representation and also by attempting to send migrants to the base’s facilities without the proper legal authority in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
DHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the upcoming hearing, but they have repeatedly denied the allegations while criticizing the groups bringing the lawsuits.
“The American Civil Liberties Union appears far more interested in promoting open borders and disrupting public safety missions than in protecting the civil liberties of Americans,” a DHS spokesperson told VOA in a statement earlier this month, declining to be named.
“They should consider changing their name,” the spokesperson added, further describing the legal challenges as “baseless.”
President Donald Trump first raised the idea of using the U.S. naval base in Cuba as part of his administration’s plans for mass deportations shortly after taking office in January.
Homeland Security’s Noem said the base, which features a secure prison to hold captured terrorists, would be used to house “the worst of the worst.”
Trump and other U.S. officials also suggested the base could be used to hold up to 30,000 migrants while they awaited deportation.
Those plans, however, never fully materialized.
The U.S. began sending what officials described as “high threat illegal aliens” to Guantanamo Bay’s detention center in early February, followed by other nonviolent migrants, who stayed at other facilities.
At times, the facilities held close to 200 detainees, many of whom were deported to Honduras, Venezuela or other countries.
But despite efforts to prepare the facilities for more migrants, capacity has been limited.
According to a U.S. defense official, who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity, the prison as currently configured can hold only 130 detainees, while the base’s Migrant Operations Center and a temporary tent city can hold, at most, 550 people.
As VOA first reported, DHS officials decided to remove all 40 remaining migrants from the prison and other facilities at Guantanamo Bay this past Tuesday, flying them instead to the U.S. southern state of Louisiana.
Neither DHS nor its subagency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have responded to requests for comment on the decision to evacuate migrants from the naval base or on their status or whereabouts since being returned to the U.S. mainland.
The move — and lack of communication — has drawn criticism from immigrants’ rights groups, including some of those involved in the current litigation.
“The arbitrary and secret shuttling of people between Guantanamo and the U.S. demonstrates a complete disregard for human dignity, an affront to the rule of law, and a waste of public resources,” said the International Refugee Assistance Project’s Pedro Sepulveda.

“No one should be detained at Guantanamo,” Sepulveda added. “The Trump administration must stop these ill-conceived and cruel transfers and stop detaining immigrants at Guantanamo once and for all.”
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SAN FRANCISCO — Social media giant Meta on Thursday announced it would begin testing its new “Community Notes” feature across its platforms on March 18, as it shifts away from third-party fact-checking toward a crowd-sourced approach to content moderation.
Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the new system in January as he appeared to align himself with the incoming Trump administration, including naming a Republican as the company’s head of public policy.
The change of system came after years of criticism from supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, among others, that conservative voices were being censored or stifled under the guise of fighting misinformation, a claim professional fact-checkers vehemently reject.
Meta has also scaled back its diversity initiatives and relaxed content moderation rules on Facebook and Instagram, particularly regarding certain forms of hostile speech.
The initiative, similar to the system already implemented by X (formerly Twitter), will allow users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads to write and rate contextual notes on various content.
Meta said approximately 200,000 potential contributors in the United States have already signed up across the three platforms.
The new approach requires contributors to be over 18 with accounts more than six months old that are in good standing.
During the testing period, notes will not immediately appear on content and the company will gradually admit people from the waitlist and thoroughly test the system before public implementation.
Meta emphasized that the notes will only be published when contributors with differing viewpoints agree on their helpfulness.
“This isn’t majority rules,” the company said.
Moreover, unlike fact-checked posts that often had reduced distribution, flagged content with Community Notes will not face distribution penalties.
Notes will be limited to 500 characters, must include supporting links and will initially support six languages commonly used in the United States: English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese.
“Our intention is ultimately to roll out this new approach to our users all over the world, but we won’t be doing that immediately,” the company said.
“Until Community Notes are launched in other countries, the third party fact checking program will remain in place for them,” it added.
Meta said that it would not be “reinventing the wheel” and will use X’s open-source algorithm as the basis of its system.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month warned that the rollbacks to fact-checking and moderation safeguards were “reopening the floodgates” of hate and violence online.
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WASHINGTON — Kuwait has released a group of American prisoners, including veterans and military contractors jailed for years on drug-related charges, in a move seen as a gesture of goodwill between two allies, a representative for the detainees told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The release follows a recent visit to the region by Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s top hostage envoy, and comes amid a continued U.S. government push to bring home American citizens jailed in foreign countries.
Six of the newly freed prisoners were accompanied on a flight from Kuwait to New York by Jonathan Franks, a private consultant who works on cases involving American hostages and detainees and who had been in the country to help secure their release.
“My clients and their families are grateful to the Kuwaiti government for this kind humanitarian gesture,” Franks said in a statement.
He said that his clients maintain their innocence and that additional Americans he represents also are expected to be released by Kuwait later.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The names of the released prisoners were not immediately made public.
Kuwait, a small, oil-rich nation that borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is near Iran, is considered a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Secretary of State Marco Rubio paid tribute to that relationship as recently as last month, when he said the U.S. “remains steadfast in its support for Kuwait’s sovereignty and the well-being of its people.”
The countries have had a close military partnership since America launched the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraqi troops after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the country, with some 13,500 American troops stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base.
But Kuwait has also detained many American military contractors on drug charges, in some cases, for years. Their families have alleged that their loved ones faced abuse while imprisoned in a country that bans alcohol and has strict laws regarding drugs.
The State Department warns travelers that drug charges in Kuwait can carry long prison sentences and the death penalty. Defense cooperation agreements between the U.S. and Kuwait likely include provisions that ensure U.S. troops are subject only to American laws, though that likely doesn’t include contractors.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his Republican administration has secured the release of American schoolteacher Marc Fogel in a prisoner swap with Russia and has announced the release by Belarus of an imprisoned U.S. citizen.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice has dropped a civil rights lawsuit it filed last year against the national nonprofit Southwest Key Programs alleging its employees had sexually abused unaccompanied minors who were housed in its shelters after entering the country illegally, according to a court filing.
Austin, Texas-based nonprofit Southwest Key contracts with the federal government to care for young migrants arriving in the U.S. without parents or legal guardians. It has operated 27 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California. It is the largest provider of shelter to unaccompanied minor children.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued in July 2024 in the Western District of Texas alleging a pattern of “severe or pervasive sexual harassment” going back to at least 2015 in the network of Southwest Key shelters.
The complaint includes alleged cases of “severe sexual abuse and rape, solicitation of sex acts, solicitation of nude photos, entreaties for sexually inappropriate relationships, sexual comments and gestures.”
The department decided to drop the lawsuit after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stopped the placement of unaccompanied migrant children in shelters operated by Southwest Key and initiated a review of its grants with the organization, the department said in a press release on Wednesday. The department said it has moved all children in Southwest Key shelters to other shelters.
“For too long, pernicious actors have exploited such children both before and after they enter the United States,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the release. “Today’s action is a significant step toward ending this appalling abuse of innocents.”
While Southwest Key did not immediately respond to a request for comment, it had previously sought to have the case dismissed and denied the allegations of sexual assault of children.
“Southwest Key takes pride in its record of providing safe shelter care, and it vehemently denies the allegations that there is any ‘pattern or practice’ of sexual abuse, harassment or misconduct at its facilities, or that it ‘failed to take reasonable, appropriate, and sufficient action to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse and harassment of the children entrusted to its care,’” it wrote in a court filing last year.
The plans to dismiss the case were first reported by Bloomberg. In that story, the news outlet reported that an attorney for Southwest Key had reached out to the Justice Department and asked it to dismiss the matter, saying the case could hinder the crackdown on illegal immigration by President Donald Trump’s administration.
The reversal by the Justice Department comes at a time when Attorney General Pam Bondi has made combatting illegal immigration take priority over other initiatives that were pursued during President Joe Biden’s administration.
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Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — Foreign ministers from the G7 group of leading industrial nations are set to gather for several days of talks in Quebec, Canada, including meetings focused on support for Ukraine in its battle against a three-year Russian invasion.
The talks follow a decision by the United States to resume intelligence sharing and security assistance to Ukraine, after senior officials from the two countries met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
After nearly eight hours of talks, Ukraine announced Tuesday its readiness to accept a U.S. proposal for “an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire” in the war with Russia, pending Kremlin approval.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed the 30-day ceasefire proposal, saying Wednesday on X that it is “an important and correct step towards a just peace for Ukraine.”
“We stand with Ukraine and the United States and welcome the proposals from Jeddah. Now it is up to Putin,” Scholz said.
The Kremlin had no immediate comment on a ceasefire proposal from the U.S. and Ukraine. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said only that negotiations with U.S. officials could take place this week.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters late Tuesday that Ukraine has taken a concrete step toward ending the war.
“Now hopefully we’ll take this offer now to the Russians. And we hope that they’ll say yes. That they’ll say yes to peace. The ball’s now in their court,” he said.
National security adviser Mike Waltz, who joined Rubio in leading the U.S. side in Jeddah, said he would speak with his Russian counterpart “in the coming days.”
On Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte will visit the White House. All these discussions are part of the efforts to advance the peace process.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not participate in the U.S.-Ukraine talks, but he said during his nightly address Tuesday that the ceasefire plan was a “positive proposal.”
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WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to block the ability of Congress to quickly challenge tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump that have rattled financial markets.
The 216-214 vote, largely along party lines, delays lawmakers’ ability for the rest of the year to force a vote that could revoke Trump’s tariffs and immigration actions.
Trump has made a blitz of tariff announcements since taking office, upending relations with key trading partners, including Mexico and China. This week he has ramped up a trade war with Canada, sending markets reeling and prompting business leaders to warn of weakening consumer demand.
Trump has said the tariffs will correct unbalanced trade relations, bring jobs back to the country and stop the flow of illegal narcotics from abroad.
Tuesday’s vote effectively derails an effort to challenge Trump’s Canada and Mexico tariffs, sponsored by Democratic Representative Suzan DelBene of Washington, which had been due to take place later this month.
“Every House Republican who voted for this measure is voting to give Trump expanded powers to raise taxes on American households through tariffs with full knowledge of how he is using those powers, and every Republican will own the economic consequences of that vote,” DelBene and a fellow Democrat, Representative Don Beyer from Virginia, said in a statement.
Rule changes governing the House voting processes in the majority’s favor are a common affair on Capitol Hill.
“This is an appropriate balance of powers and we trust this White House to do the right thing, and I think that was the right vote and it was reflected in the vote count,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said when asked by Reuters why he was comfortable giving more trade power to the executive branch.
The provision was tucked into a procedural vote related to the Republicans’ six-month stopgap funding bill.
DelBene had sought to force a vote under the National Emergencies Act, which gives the president special powers in an emergency and was cited by Trump in his tariff actions. That law also allows for representatives to force a vote in the House within 15 days to revoke the president’s emergency authority. The Senate would have to also pass the resolution for it to take effect.
But Tuesday’s vote tweaks how the House will count calendar days for the remainder of 2025, effectively blocking a vote of this kind this year.
The voting change is the latest example of the legislative branch offloading its constitutional trade authority to the executive branch.
“The international emergency economic powers have not been used before to impose tariffs, and many members want to have a chance to weigh in,” said Greta Peisch, former general counsel to the U.S. Trade Representative. “Without a fast-track voting process, they are unlikely to have an opportunity to do so.”
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Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — U.S. and Ukrainian officials began talks Tuesday in Saudi Arabia with the Ukrainian side expected to present a partial ceasefire plan with Russia.
The Ukrainian plan includes halting long-range missiles strikes and a truce covering the Black Sea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not take part in Tuesday’s meetings, with Ukraine represented by his chief of staff Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and military commander Pavlo Palisa.
Yermak told reporters just before the start of Tuesday’s meeting that Ukraine is ready “to do everything to achieve peace.”
When asked if Ukraine is seeking security guarantees, Yermak said ‘yes’ and that Ukraine wants to ensure that Russia never repeats its aggression.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz led the U.S. delegation amid President Donald Trump’s push to broker a swift end to the war that began in early 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Rubio said Monday the United States hopes to resolve the pause in aid to Ukraine.
He said the U.S. is in a listening mode and aims to understand what concessions Ukraine might be willing to make.
“The Ukrainians are already receiving all defensive intelligence information as we speak. I think all the notion of the pause in aid broadly is something I hope we can resolve. Obviously, I think what happens tomorrow will be key to that,” Rubio told reporters aboard a military plane before landing in Jeddah.
“We’re not going to be sitting in a room drawing lines on a map, but just get a general sense of what concessions are in the realm of the possible for them [Ukrainians],” Rubio said, adding that there is no military solution to the war, and that both Russia and Ukraine need to “do difficult things.”
Later on Monday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Rubio in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah.
Salman held a separate meeting with Zelenskyy in Riyadh earlier in the day.
Mineral deal?
Trump has voiced interest in making continued military aid conditional on access to Ukraine’s raw materials.
More than four dozen minerals, including several types of rare earths, nickel and lithium, are considered critical to the U.S. economy and national defense. Ukraine has large deposits of uranium, lithium and titanium.
But Rubio clarified that securing a deal on Ukraine’s mineral resources was not the primary focus of Tuesday’s talks.
“There’s still more details to work out, and at this point, we’re probably — rather than a memorandum of understanding — just wanting to sign a specific agreement. And that would take a little bit more time,” he told reporters.
“I wouldn’t prejudge tomorrow by whether or not we have a minerals deal. … It’s an important topic, but it’s not the main topic on the agenda,” Rubio added.
Rubio also credited Britain and France for playing a constructive role in talks with Ukraine.
He told VOA that there have been no discussions about China playing a role in postwar peacekeeping and reconstruction in Ukraine.
This marks Rubio’s second visit to Saudi Arabia since taking office. He and other senior U.S. officials held talks with Russian officials in Riyadh on February 18. He is scheduled to travel to Canada on Wednesday for meetings with G7 foreign ministers.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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NEW YORK — A public memorial service bursting with choral music and the Berklee College of Music’s Nebulous String Quartet, with Stevie Wonder and the Rev. Al Sharpton also on the bill, celebrated the life and legacy of Grammy-winning singer and pianist Roberta Flack. 

Flack’s songs “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song” made her a global star in the 1970s and beyond. She died last month at age 88. 

Wonder was among the artists scheduled to perform during the service at a historic Harlem church, while Sharpton was to deliver the eulogy, according to the memorial program. 

Flack was an influential performer with an intimate vocal and musical style that ranged easily between soul, jazz and gospel. 

Her “Celebration of Life” memorial was livestreamed at www.RobertaFlack.com and on YouTube. 

Here are some highlights: 

For the memory of a singing legend, an historic location 

Flack’s memorial was open to the public at The Abyssinian Baptist Church. Founded in 1808, it is one of the oldest Black Baptist churches in the U.S. 

The church was decorated for the ceremony with stunning white and yellow bouquets and filled quickly beforehand. At the center, a screen showed a young Flack at the piano and played highlights of her career. 

It was a fitting location: Flack grew up with church gospel and her mother played organ at the Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Church in Arlington, Virginia. As a teen, she began accompanying the church choir on piano. 

The program featured a powerful quote from Flack. 

“Remember: Always walk in the light,” it read. “If you feel like you’re not walking in it, go find it. Love the Light.” 

A celebration of a life in music … with music 

“Many of us are here today because she has touched not just our hearts, but she also touched our souls,” said the Rev. Dr. Kevin R. Johnson, the senior church pastor who led the service. 

Choir performances including a rousing rendition of “Amazing Grace” came in between a video recollection of Flack’s life and scripture readings. 

“That’s what we call church, y’all,” Johnson said at the close of one choral performance. 

Organ and piano riffs played off and on in the background. 

“She just sang the song. She let you hear the lyrics. She let you understand the beauty. But I also want you to understand that this woman was also a pure genius,” Santita Jackson, daughter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and a friend of Flack, told the near-capacity crowd. 

Actor Phylicia Rashad remembered first seeing Flack perform when she was a student at Howard University — to an audience that grew rapt by her quiet, steady voice. 

Flack lived comfortably with her genius and without having to proclaim it to people, Rashad said. 

“She wore that like a loose fitting garment and lived her life attending to that which she cared for most: music, love and humanity,” Rashad said. 

What are some of Flack’s best-known songs? 

Flack leaves behind a rich repertoire of music that avoids categorization. Her debut, “First Take,” wove soul, jazz, flamenco, gospel and folk into one revelatory package, prescient in its form and measured in its approach. 

She will likely be remembered for her classics. Those include “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” her dreamy cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” written by English folk artist Ewan MacColl for his wife Peggy Seeger. It marked the beginning of Flack’s mainstream success when it was used in a love scene between Clint Eastwood and Donna Mills in his 1971 film “Play Misty for Me.” 

But most will think of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” when Flack’s name comes up in conversation. She first heard Lori Lieberman’s “Killing Me Softly with His Song” while on a plane and immediately fell in love with it. While on tour with Quincy Jones, she covered the song, and the audience fell in love with it, too, as they’d continue to for decades.
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Bedford, Massachusetts — A military court-martial convened on Monday for Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira, who was sentenced in federal court to 15 years in prison for leaking highly classified military documents after the most consequential national security breach in years.

Teixeira pleaded guilty last year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act. He faces additional military charges of disobeying orders and obstructing justice in the court-martial, held at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts.

Military prosecutors said the court-martial is appropriate given that obeying orders is the “absolute core” of the military. Teixeira’s lawyers argued that further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.

The leaks exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine, and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. Teixeira also admitted posting information about a U.S. adversary’s plans to harm U.S. forces serving overseas.

Before he was sentenced in November in U.S. District Court in Boston, Teixeira showed little emotion as he stood in court and apologized for his actions. The 22-year-old previously admitted he illegally collected some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and shared them with other users on the social media platform Discord.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry for all the harm that I brought and caused,” Teixeira said. “I understand all the responsibility and consequences fall upon my shoulders alone and accept whatever that will bring.”

Afterward, Teixeira hugged one of his attorneys, looked toward his family and smiled before being led from court. His family left without commenting to reporters, but his mother and others submitted letters to the court seeking leniency.

“I know Jack deeply regrets his actions and is ready to accept his punishment for his part in this situation,” his mother, Dawn Dufault, wrote. “While I understand the severity of his charges and the importance of ensuring justice, I implore you, Your Honor, to consider Jack’s true nature and his unique challenges, as I have observed over the years.”

The security breach raised alarm over the country’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks also embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts. He worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, which is essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks. He remains in the Air National Guard in an unpaid status, an Air Force official said.

Teixeira’s lawyers described him as an autistic, isolated individual who spent most of his time online, especially with his Discord community, and never meant to harm the United States. “His intent was to educate his friends about world events to make certain they were not misled by misinformation,” they wrote. “He needed someone to share the experience with.”

Prosecutors countered that Teixeira did not suffer from any intellectual disability and that his post-arrest diagnosis of “mild, high-functioning” autism was of “questionable relevance.”

Authorities said he first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings.

Prosecutors also said he tried to cover his tracks before his arrest. Authorities found a smashed tablet, laptop and an Xbox gaming console in a dumpster at his house.
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