An Arizona resident, who claims to have been left partially paralyzed following a “swatting” prank that led to a police shooting, is now seeking $176 million in damages from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

At 24, Axeel Melendez, alongside his mother, Carmen Melendez, has submitted a notice of claim against both the Pima County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Chris Nanos, hinting at the possibility of a lawsuit, as reported by Arizona Public Media.

Dev Sethi, Melendez’s attorney, explained to the news outlet that a swatting incident targeted Melendez and his mother. This led to a large-scale police response at their location. Swatting involves making false emergency calls to provoke a reaction from law enforcement.

“Our justice system upholds the value of human life and the integrity of one’s physical being. Axeel has had his health, independence, earning potential, and peace of mind taken from him,” Sethi remarked.

Someone impersonating Melendez initially called 311, a non-emergency number, on April 10 and said his father shot his sister, giving the address for Melendez.

“This morning of the April 10 call has many red flags and hallmarks of it being a fake call, including…this call came into 311. Nobody reporting an emergency calls 311,” Sethi said.

Sethi said the call was made from an out of state area code and added the caller didn’t pronounce Melendez’s first name correctly.

Melendez received a threatening message from a hacker who stole his personal information during an online video game and demanded a ransom to return his accounts and passwords, his attorney said, even threatening to report him to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because of his Hispanic name.

After the threat, Melendez called 911 and shared his concerns about a possible swatting incident and was allegedly reassured there are safeguards.

“He tells a 911 operator all of this and she essentially downplays it and says, ‘Don’t worry, that’s not how it works. They can’t just call 911 and have the SWAT team show up at your house,” Sethi said.

According to the attorney, Pima County deputies allegedly ignored a warning that Melendez’s address was a known possible swatting target, stating that she approached the home with a mindset to “treat it like it’s real until it’s not real.”

Believing an intruder was breaking in, Melendez grabbed his family’s legally owned handgun and took cover behind his bedroom door as deputies smashed through the window, according to the claim. The deputies then allegedly opened fire.

Melendez says he was hit in his right thigh and left shoulder, which left him with a spinal court injury in addition to broken ribs and a broken leg.

“He did everything we teach our kids to do. When you’re in danger, when somebody’s threatening you, what’s the first thing we tell all of our children? Call the police,” Sethi said. “Axeel is a vulnerable young man, his life has been upended. He has real present needs and we’ve given them an opportunity to do the right thing and resolve the case, but the ball is wholly in their courts.”

Questions are swirling around Tony Romo’s future at CBS, with uncertainty looming over his broadcasting career.

Romo was placed on leave by CBS following his arrest on July 23 for operating while intoxicated (OWI) in Wisconsin. The Athletic has pointed out that, despite being locked into a long-term contract, there’s a pathway for the network to distance itself from the seasoned broadcaster entirely.

Romo’s substantial 10-year agreement, valued at $180 million, contains a morals clause—a standard in high-profile contracts. This clause gives networks the right to reconsider their ties with talent if public scandals tarnish the brand’s image, The Athletic added.

Although Romo is poised to earn a hefty $72 million over the coming four years, his current status is “on leave” from CBS, with the network stating this situation will persist “until further notice.”

Stepping into Romo’s shoes for the time being is Texas sports icon J.J. Watt, who will join the esteemed broadcast team alongside veterans Jim Nantz and Tracy Wolfson.

While driving in Wisconsin on July 23, Romo was stopped on the road around 8 p.m. and didn’t pass sobriety tests. Romo was taken into custody, booked and released. 

Romo was driving his Black Jeep, and the sheriff’s office said he had an open container of alcohol in it. Court records indicated he refused to “take test for intoxication after arrest.” 

The former Cowboys quarterback is scheduled for a court hearing Sept. 21, but isn’t required to attend. 

The 46-year-old also faces a total of $1,568.50 in fines. 

After retiring from the NFL in 2017, Romo joined CBS as a color analyst, and has been the lead analyst for the network’s NFL coverage for nine years. 

Although Romo was once considered the “golden boy” of NFL commentary, fans have grown increasingly critical of him recently due to his style and overexuberance. 

Before his broadcasting career, Romo spent 12 seasons with the Cowboys, throwing for 248 touchdowns while earning four Pro Bowl nods.

Democrats complain about the fund

Blanche’s independence has been called into question

Blanche was an important figure for Trump’s defense

Thousands of migrants find themselves in a precarious situation in Ceuta, a Spanish city in North Africa, as they await resolution. The European Union has stepped in, offering urgent support to bolster the enclave’s border defenses. Meanwhile, Spanish officials are conducting investigations to determine if last week’s mass crossing included activities by criminals or jihadists seeking entry into Europe.

According to Spanish authorities, approximately 72,000 individuals made their way into Ceuta from Morocco. Since then, about 70,000 have returned, leaving an estimated 2,000 people still in the enclave. The local reception facilities are struggling under the pressure, with hundreds of migrant minors needing shelter and officials working to ascertain the status of those remaining.

At present, local authorities are busy processing 862 migrant minors. These children benefit from special protections under Spanish legislation, meaning they cannot be returned immediately. Reports from The Associated Press highlight the dire situation, with some children forced to beg for food or sleep outdoors due to the overwhelmed youth shelter.

The European Union is stepping in to support Spain with emergency financial resources aimed at enhancing border security in Ceuta. This initiative was announced by Magnus Brunner, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, following an emergency assembly of the EU ministers held in Brussels.

Brunner said the unprecedented crossing was fueled by criminal smuggling networks and disinformation spread through social media, as Spanish authorities were examining whether known criminals or suspected jihadists exploited the scale and disorder of the crossing to enter Ceuta undetected.

Spain’s National Police and Guardia Civil were reviewing video of the crossings and checking people who remained in the territory against criminal and counterterrorism databases, according to El Confidencial, which cited Spanish Interior Ministry sources.

The Spanish outlet reported that authorities were searching for known criminals and possible jihadists who may have entered among the tens of thousands who crossed. Interior Ministry sources acknowledged that the sheer scale of the surge created a genuine infiltration risk, according to the report.

El Confidencial said the concern was heightened by Ceuta’s proximity to Fnideq, also known as Castillejos, a Moroccan border town that has figured in previous jihadist recruitment investigations. Authorities have previously dismantled extremist cells operating across the Ceuta-Fnideq border area, while hundreds of people from northern Morocco traveled to join ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq during the mid-2010s, the outlet reported.

The crisis is also creating an opening for Islamist movements seeking to weaken confidence in Morocco’s government, according to Zineb Riboua, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Riboua said in an article that Moroccan Islamists have spent years portraying the monarchy as overly secular and pro-Western, attacking its relationships with the United States and Israel and encouraging the belief that young Moroccans have little future at home.

At the same time, she wrote, Islamist voices have promoted an idealized image of Europe as a place where prosperity and legal status can be easily obtained.

Riboua said the Ceuta crisis allows those movements to transform public frustration over migration, unemployment and economic conditions into a broader political attack on the Moroccan state ahead of the national elections in September.

Evidence has separately emerged that the mass crossing was preceded by an extensive online mobilization campaign.

An open-source intelligence report prepared by Golden Owl Intelligence traced weeks of activity across TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, including misleading interpretations of Spanish immigration law and practical information about routes, meeting points and recommended crossing times.

The report estimated that the content generated more than 11 million potential impressions through posts, videos, comments and interactions. It also identified messaging groups administered through telephone numbers carrying Algerian international codes.

The campaign accelerated after Spain’s Supreme Court issued a July 8 ruling concerning the immediate return of migrants intercepted at sea near Ceuta and Melilla, according to the report. Simplified and misleading interpretations of the decision, combined with confusion surrounding Spain’s policy to regularize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, were presented online as evidence that people who reached Spanish territory would be allowed to remain and eventually obtain legal status.

The investigation documented the later circulation of maps, swimming routes, transportation information and suggested departure points as tens of thousands of people began moving toward the border.

Morocco’s Interior Ministry spokesman Rachid El Khalfi said at a news conference Sunday that the surge resulted from several overlapping factors, including the exploitation of digital platforms, misleading information, human-trafficking networks and inaccurate interpretations of legal and administrative developments.

Khalfi said the messaging created the false impression that the border was open and that people could reach European territory without legal consequences. He said Moroccan prosecutors had opened investigations to identify those responsible and determine the appropriate legal consequences.

Reuters and the Associated Press have independently documented cases in which online claims influenced people to travel toward Ceuta. Reuters interviewed a Moroccan teenager who said Instagram videos inspired him and his cousin to make the journey, while a Moroccan human-rights activist told the AP that social-media posts initially claimed the border was open and later promoted a misleading interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling.

The crisis has also placed Spain’s intelligence services and its relationship with Morocco under scrutiny.

El País and Cadena SER reported, citing officials familiar with Spain’s intelligence assessment, that Morocco did not plan the mass crossing but allowed it to unfold after border controls were gradually relaxed.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said Spain’s foreign intelligence agency had not warned him of an imminent surge of that magnitude.

Morocco has denied deliberately orchestrating the crossing. Interior Ministry spokesman Rachid Khalfi blamed the surge on online misinformation, human-trafficking networks and distorted interpretations of Spanish legal and administrative developments, according to The Jerusalem Post. The ministry said Morocco remained committed to international cooperation against irregular migration and human trafficking.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares defended Rabat’s response, saying Moroccan authorities quickly provided police support and helped facilitate the return of most of those who crossed.

Juan Jesus Vivas Lara, president of the autonomous city of Ceuta, offered a sharply different assessment, telling El País that many Ceuta residents believed Morocco had allowed, if not orchestrated, the surge.

“Morocco has shown us that it isn’t reliable,” Vivas said. “There’s no alternative but to put in place whatever means are necessary to ensure it cannot do this again.”

News Media reached out to the Moroccan government for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

A British surgeon has been dismissed from his position after an operation went seriously awry, creating a life-threatening situation when the patient’s organs were improperly connected, obstructing normal bowel function.

Testimonies at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service revealed that the patient received emergency surgery to remove a tumor from their bowel, conducted by NHS surgeon Dr. Yasser Adly Abdel Rahman at Greater Manchester’s Royal Oldham Hospital.

In collaboration with another surgeon, Dr. Rahman decided to execute a highly unusual procedure linking the small intestine to the stomach, attempting something uncharted in medical practice.

Yet, during the surgery, a critical mistake occurred. They accidentally linked the wrong section of the intestine to the stomach, an error experts consider incompatible with life.

Consequently, the patient’s intestinal contents ended up looping back into the stomach, effectively going around in circles, with no proper exit pathway.

Despite the patient reporting increasing pain and vomiting with no bowel movements for weeks afterwards, Rahman seemed unconcerned, according to a nurse.

The doctor even told the patient and their family that “all the signs are saying” that his bowels would work soon.

Rahman and his colleague had decided to connect the two organs to maintain digestive and bowel continuity, and had even tested for no obstructions.

A month after the initial procedure, Dr. Anthony Rate, another colorectal surgeon at the same hospital, took over care after the patient’s family raised concerns.

Rate performed a second surgery and managed to salvage some of the bowel by giving the patient a stoma, a surgical opening in the abdomen for waste to come out.

An expert witness at the tribunal, former consultant general and colorectal surgeon Anthony Blower, said Rahman’s decision was “as bad as it gets for a consultant surgeon.”

“[The patient] would have died in the post-operative period if it was not for the intervention,” Blower said in court.

He added that the initial move connecting the stomach and intestine would have been “extremely difficult” to perform because of the huge tumor present in the patient.

“Dr. Abdel Rahman’s procedure can at best be described as bizarre and was a totally unconventional operation that is not compatible with life,” Blower said.

“Patient A would have died in the post-operative period if it was not for the intervention of Mr Rate.”

During the tribunal, Rahman believed there was a “witch hunt” against him, claiming he had never had a single complaint among his “unblemished record” of 30 years.

Regardless of the doctor’s claims, the tribunal decided Rahman had given no “remorse, empathy, or recognition of the impact on” the patient and “no attempt at an apology.”

The court decided to remove him from the list of doctor’s at the hospital, and an immediate suspension was put in place in case he chooses to appeal against the decision.