A divided US Supreme Court on Friday granted President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to the social security data of millions of Americans.The decision came after the Trump administration appealed to the top court to lift an April order by a district judge restricting DOGE access to Social Security Administration (SSA) records.”SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work,” the top court said in a brief unsigned order.The three liberal justices on the Supreme Court dissented, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson saying the move poses “grave privacy risks for millions of Americans.””Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, bank-account numbers, medical records — all of that, and more, is in the mix,” Jackson said.”The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now — before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE’s access is lawful,” she said.In her April ruling, District Judge Ellen Hollander banned DOGE staff from accessing data containing information that could personally identify Americans such as their social security numbers, medical history or bank records.Social security numbers are a key identifier for people in the United States, used to report earnings, establish eligibility for welfare and retirement benefits and other purposes.Hollander said the SSA can only give redacted or anonymized records to DOGE employees who have completed background checks and training on federal laws, regulations and privacy policies.The case before Hollander was brought by a group of unions which argued that the SSA had opened its data systems to unauthorized personnel from DOGE “with disregard for the privacy” of millions of Americans.DOGE, which has been tasked by Trump with slashing billions of dollars of goverment spending, was headed at the time by SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has since had a very public falling out with the president.Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting his fury at court rulings at various levels that have frozen his executive orders on multiple issues.

An ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs testified Friday of sex with a network of paid male escorts at the music mogul’s behest and that he asked her to transport drugs for him.The woman speaking under the pseudonym Jane took the stand for a second day in the sex trafficking and racketeering trial, delivering emotional, graphic testimony in the federal criminal proceedings against Combs, the 55-year-old superstar known as “Diddy.”He faces life in prison if convicted in the case, and has denied all charges.Jane told jurors in the Manhattan courtroom that she, assistants of Combs or the artist himself would book travel for the escorts, who would frequently be paid by Combs in the thousands of dollars in cash or via apps.The payment was in exchange for choreographed sexual encounters that would sometimes last days, “hotel nights” that Jane described in lurid detail.Her description closely tracked with the testimony of a previous star witness, Casandra Ventura, who said the encounters were called “freak-offs.”Jane, who was identified as a social media influencer and single mother, spoke through tears as she recounted instances that she told Combs she did not like having sex with the escorts while he watched.The encounters virtually always left her sore and in pain and she suffered frequent infections, Jane testified. But when she protested or said she only wanted to be with him, Jane said Combs was “dismissive” and “belittling.”Evidence read in court included lengthy text exchanges between Jane and Combs, as well as diaristic notes Jane had taken for herself on her phone that corroborate her testimony.Among the tranche of texts was one message in which she described the pattern of hotel nights as a “Pandora’s box” she couldn’t shut.”I’m so much more than being loved in the dark in hotel rooms doing things that make me feel disgusted,” she texted Combs. “I don’t want to play this role in your life anymore.””It’s dark, sleazy and makes me feel disgusted with myself,” she continued, saying that she felt he was paying her rent in exchange for the sex parties. “I don’t want to feel obligated to perform these nights with you in fear of losing the roof over my head,” Jane wrote.”Girl stop,” Combs wrote back.Her feeling of obligation had escalated in 2023, when the pair made a verbal “love contract” stipulating that while so-called hotel nights would feature into their relationship, so would a $10,000 monthly payment from Combs to Jane.She told jurors Friday that Combs continues to make her that payment, which she uses for rent, even as he is incarcerated.- Flying with drugs -Jane’s testimony of paying for the travel of escorts is key to the prosecution’s argument that Combs trafficked men and women across state lines with the intent of prostitution.She also told jurors that she transported illegal drugs for Combs on two occasions.When she expressed to a high-ranking staff member of Combs that it felt “unsafe” to fly with drugs from Los Angeles to Miami, the staffer replied that “it’s fine” and “I do it all the time.”In their opening statements, the defense insisted that Combs’s relationship with Jane was consensual.But she described struggling to get through the hotel nights without the aid of drugs, namely Ecstasy. She recounted one instance when she attempted to stay sober while complying with Combs’s demands that she have sex with multiple men for hours, to the point that she threw up, saying she was “repulsed.””Sean came in and I told him I had just thrown up and he was like, ‘that’s good then you’ll feel better.'”‘”Let’s go because the guy is here, the third guy,'” Jane said he told her.Jane previously told jurors that her relationship with Combs continued up until his arrest in September 2024.Prosecutors say he ran a criminal enterprise of employees and bodyguards who enforced his power and fulfilled his desires with illicit acts including trafficking, kidnapping, bribery and arson. Along with Ventura — whose testimony included harrowing accounts of physical and psychological abuse — and Jane, witnesses have included former employees of Bad Boy Enterprises, Combs’s company.Jane’s testimony could last days, with court proceedings expected to continue at least another month.

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein conceded that he acted “immorally” but insisted he did nothing criminal as jury deliberations on his fate in his sex crimes retrial paused for the weekend Friday.Jurors said after two days that they needed “more time” to deliberate on a verdict for Weinstein.He is on trial again after a New York state appeals court threw out his 2020 convictions, citing irregularities in the original proceedings. The former movie industry titan’s 23 year prison sentence for the initial conviction was thrown out, but he remains imprisoned for separate offenses.Although Weinstein did not take the stand, he spoke out in an interview aired by FOX5 television Friday as the jury considered six weeks of testimony.”I have regrets that I put my family through this, that I put my wife through this, and I acted immorally…, but never illegal, never criminal, never anything,” he said.Weinstein pointed to comments by his defense attorney Arthur Aidala who suggested the three women who testified against him at trial “had four million reasons to testify, as in dollars.”Judge Curtis Farber issued initial instructions Thursday to jurors, one of whom had to be swapped out for an alternate after falling ill, before they retired to consider their verdict.He called on the panel to use “common sense” for this “very important decision” and reminded them that Weinstein was “presumed innocent.”On Friday, the jury panel of 12 heard a read back of emotional testimony from Weinstein’s former assistant Miriam Haley.The jury must decide whether Weinstein — accused by dozens of women of being a sexual predator — is guilty of sexual assaults in 2006 on Haley and former model Kaja Sokola, and of rape in 2013 of then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann.- ‘Playground stuff’ -One juror came forward on Friday to report tensions between his fellow panelists, alleging “people are being shunned. It’s playground stuff.”He asked to resign as a juror, but Farber denied his request.Aidala requested that a mistrial be declared, but the judge denied his motion, and the jury will continue to deliberate Weinstein’s fateMonday.On Wednesday, prosecutor Nicole Blumberg summarized the evidence of the three alleged victims of Weinstein who testified at the trial for jurors saying simply “he raped three women, they all said no.”The Hollywood figure had “all the power” and “all the control” over the alleged victims, which is why jurors should find him guilty, she said.”The defendant thought the rules did not apply to him, now it is the time to let him know that the rules apply to him.”There is no reasonable doubt; tell the defendant what he already knows — that he is guilty of the three crimes.”Weinstein’s defense attorney insisted the sexual encounters were consensual, pointing to a “casting couch” dynamic between the movie mogul and the women.Weinstein, the producer of box office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.The cinema magnate, whose downfall in 2017 sparked the global #MeToo movement, has been on trial since April 15 in a scruffy Manhattan courtroom.He is already serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California in a separate for raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.