A Utah judge concluded on Thursday that former Bachelorette star Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex-partner Dakota Mortensen both engaged in violent behavior during past domestic disputes.

During a custody hearing for their two-year-old son, Ever, District Commissioner Russell Minas informed the 31-year-old Paul and 33-year-old Mortensen that evidence showed violence was present on both sides, as reported by People.

According to court records acquired by the Daily Mail, Minas approved mutual protective orders for both Paul and Mortensen following the proceedings.

The hearing also unearthed details of the couple’s tumultuous relationship, including a disclosure from Paul’s lawyer that she had experienced two miscarriages before Mortensen leveled accusations of domestic violence against her.

Paul’s attorney, Eric M. Swinyard, remarked, “Today’s proceedings marked an important advance, as the Court issued protective orders mandating that Taylor’s former partner maintain a considerable distance from her.”

‘Taylor was incredibly candid with the Court that she is not perfect and owned her faults, which is in direct contrast to how the other party presented their argument, despite evidence and input from law enforcement that showed otherwise,’ Swinyard continued.

Disgraced Bachelorette star Taylor Frankie Paul and her ex Dakota Mortensen were determined to have both been violent in alleged domestic violence incidents by a judge on Thursday; Paul is pictured in court in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Thursday

Court documents obtained by the Daily Mail reveal that Commissioner Russell Minas granted both Paul and Mortensen’s requests for protective orders against each other after the hearing; Mortensen is pictured in court in Salt Lake City on Thursday

The latest development in their case comes after ABC opted not to air Paul’s season of The Bachelorette after disturbing video of Paul throwing metal chairs at Mortensen during a past confrontation resurfaced

‘Taylor feels solidarity with the many survivors who have endured similar hardships behind closed doors and shared only part of their stories, and she remains grateful for the outpouring of support she continues to receive. She looks forward to continuing to cooperate with the Court to make progress in the custody case.’ 

The Daily Mail has also reached out to Mortensen’s representatives for comment. 

The latest development in their case comes after ABC opted not to air Paul’s season of The Bachelorette after disturbing video of Paul throwing metal chairs at Mortensen during a past confrontation resurfaced.

The joint appearance by the warring exes marks the first time they have been pictured together since they were engulfed in dueling domestic violence accusations.

In the livestreamed hearing, Minas said Paul and Mortensen can’t be around each other for long, as ‘it turns violent.’  

‘I’m finding that there’s been violence both ways between these parties,’ he said in court.

The judge added that Paul and Mortensen had to ‘figure out’ their issues for the sake of their young son.

‘I’m hoping you’re not just people who thrive on the drama and the conflict,’ he said, according to People. ‘You guys have to figure out a lot here. You have to figure out how to function as coparents. This is dysfunctional.’

In the livestreamed hearing, Minas said Paul and Mortensen can’t be around each other for long, as ‘it turns violent.’ He added, ‘I’m finding that there’s been violence both ways between these parties’; Paul and Mortensen are pictured in court in Salt Lake City on April 30

In the custody hearing over their two-year-old son Ever, Minas said Paul and Mortensen were ‘modeling right now how to deal with conflict,’ and he warned that their behavior could negatively affect their son even as an adult

While addressing Paul and Mortensen, Minas said, ‘You’re linked together for the remainder of your lives. This is your legacy.’ 

Minas said the exes were ‘modeling right now how to deal with conflict’ in front of their son, and he warned that their controversial public displays could harm their child even as an adult. 

He went on to call out the ‘toxicity’ that Paul and Mortensen allegedly displayed.

‘I’m really intent on trying to keep the two of you away from each other for now,’ Minas declared, adding that they should ‘not be in the same place at the same time.’

Paul and Mortensen have their next custody hearing set for June 1, but Minas said they would receive recommendations on how much parenting time each should have with Ever before that date. 

Paul’s attorney claimed in court that she had suffered two miscarriages prior to Mortensen’s domestic violence claims; Paul is pictured in court in Salt Lake City on April 30

The Supreme Court dealt a significant blow to a pivotal Civil Rights-era statute on Wednesday, diminishing its impact and potentially reshaping the political landscape. This decision nullified a predominantly Black congressional district in Louisiana, paving the way for further redistricting nationwide, which could bolster Republican ambitions to maintain control of the House.

The court’s conservative majority, in a 6-3 decision, concluded that the Louisiana district, represented by Democrat Cleo Fields, excessively utilized racial criteria. Chief Justice John Roberts had previously likened the 6th Congressional District to a “snake,” noting its extensive 200-mile stretch connecting areas such as Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing on behalf of the six conservatives, declared, “The map is an unconstitutional gerrymander.”

The ruling’s consequences might become more pronounced by 2028 since most deadlines for this year’s congressional races have already passed. However, Louisiana may need to revise its redistricting strategy to align with the court’s decision.

The extent to which Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 remains effective is now uncertain.

When he signed the bill -the main way to challenge racially discriminatory election practices -into law more than 60 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson called it “a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory on any battlefield.”

In her dissent for the three liberal justices, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the court’s “gutting of Section 2 puts that achievement in peril.”

Her sentiment was shared by former President Barack Obama, who said the decision showed “how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy.”

In a statement, Fields said the decision’s “practical effect is to make it far harder for minority communities to challenge redistricting maps that dilute their political voice.”

Potential political fallout

The voting rights law succeeded in opening the ballot box to Black Americans and reducing persistent discrimination in voting. Nearly 70 of the 435 congressional districts are protected by Section 2, election law expert Nicholas Stephanopoulos has estimated.

Alito wrote that “allowing race to play any part in government decisionmaking represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context.” He said Section 2 is effectively limited to instances of intentional discrimination, a very high standard.

Kagan said the upshot of the decision is that states “can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens’ voting power.”

Reaction to the decision broke along partisan lines.

“This is a complete and total victory for American voters. The color of one’s skin should not dictate which congressional district you belong in. We commend the court for putting an end to the unconstitutional abuse of the Voting Rights Act and protecting civil rights,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson wrote in an email.

The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the decision “appalling.” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington state said it was the latest in a long line of attacks by President Donald Trump and the conservative court “against the fundamental right of every American citizen to vote.”

She said Democrats remained poised to regain the House majority in November “despite this corrupt and targeted assault on the voting rights of Black and Brown Americans from the Supreme Court.”

A ruling that Trump likes

Trump had touched off a nationwide redistricting competition this year to boost Republican chances of preserving their House edge. The president said some states should redraw their maps and he called the decision the “kind of ruling I like.”

Legislatures already are free to draw extremely partisan districts because of a 2019 Supreme Court decision.

Wednesday’s ruling came out as Florida legislators debated a proposed redrawing of the state’s congressional lines, submitted by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and intended to give the GOP a chance to pick up as many as four seats in the state’s U.S. House delegation.

Democrats in the Florida Senate urged the Republican supermajority to delay debate, at least long enough to allow lawmakers to read the decision and consult lawyers about how it might affect DeSantis’ proposal. Republicans refused.

In the Supreme Court’s Louisiana ruling, the justices did an about-face from a decision in a similar case from Alabama less than three years ago that led to a new congressional map for the state that sent two Black Democrats to Congress.

The Alabama decision also prompted Louisiana lawmakers to add a second majority Black district. About a third of Louisianans are Black and they now form majorities in two of the state’s six congressional districts. Alabama has a separate appeal pending at the Supreme Court

Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberals to form a majority in the Alabama case, the same term in which the conservative-dominated court ended affirmative action in college admissions. Both joined Alito’s opinion on Wednesday.

Roberts long eyes Voting Rights Act

The chief justice has been at the center of the effort to limit the use of race in public life. He has had the Voting Rights Act in his sights since his time as a young lawyer in the Reagan-era Justice Department.

“It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” Roberts wrote in a dissenting opinion in 2006 in his first major voting rights case as chief justice.

In 2013, Roberts wrote for the majority in gutting the law’s requirement that states and local governments with a history of discrimination, mostly in the South, get approval before making any election-related changes.

“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote.

Barring extraordinary action, the broader impact probably will be felt in 2028, when Republicans potentially can replace more than a dozen Democratic-held House districts that were previously protected under the Voting Rights Act.

“The Voting Rights Act as a means to protect minority voters from vote dilution is essentially dead,” said Jonathan Cervas, a political scientist at Carnegie Mellon University who has served as an outside legal expert in multiple Voting Rights Act cases.

Associated Press writers Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, La., Nicholas Riccardi in Denver, Bill Barrow in Tallahassee, Fla., and Lisa Mascaro and Seung Ming Kim contributed to this report.

On Thursday, authorities revealed charges against a doctor and his son, accusing them of running a pill mill in New York. This family-operated scheme, according to officials, represents a flagrant misuse of medical credentials to illegally distribute prescription medications.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reported that over a span of approximately three months in 2022, the doctor allegedly issued fake prescriptions for addictive drugs without conducting patient examinations. Meanwhile, his son was responsible for identifying buyers and handling payments as part of the operation.

The duo is said to have distributed various controlled substances, including medications commonly known as Percocet, Adderall, and Xanax, according to authorities.

Dr. Richard Taubman, a 71-year-old retired physician, along with his 33-year-old son, Eric Taubman, voluntarily turned themselves in to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday. Their surrender follows a comprehensive, multi-year investigation conducted by law enforcement agencies.

A close-up of a hand holding a white prescription pill. (iStock)

“Their alleged scheme to unlawfully distribute controlled substance prescriptions, placing profits above public health, is not only reckless and dangerous, but unconscionable,” DEA New York Enforcement Division Special Agent in Charge Farhana Islam said in a statement. 

“Medical professionals are entrusted with protecting patients’ lives, not destroying them by exploiting them to addiction and harm.” 

According to the DEA, the father is a retired obstetrician-gynecologist from Great Neck who returned to practice at a non-surgical weight loss center in Islandia, in Suffolk County, in early 2022.

Shelves with prescription drugs inside a pharmacy on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Investigators allege that between April 5 and June 29, 2022, Taubman wrote dozens of prescriptions for controlled substances for multiple individuals without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the course of his practice. 

He also submitted the prescriptions electronically from his home in Glen Head to pharmacies across Queens, officials further alleged. 

Separately, the son allegedly provided the father with the personal information and drug requests of friends and acquaintances.

A DEA logo sits behind packages of drugs. (Fox News)

Numerous reports from pharmacist employees soon flooded the DEA, and the agency said the father’s prescription license was stripped roughly one month later.

The investigation also revealed that some individuals allegedly circulated the drugs even further, selling them for profit, trading them for cash and other drugs, or simply using them. 

The father and son turned themselves in on Thursday and pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.

They are specifically charged with 23 counts of illegally selling or trying to sell drug prescriptions, along with one count of illegally teaming up to carry out this scheme.

If convicted, they face up to five and a half years in prison. 

The Dianna Russini story keeps getting more intriguing!

In a surprising development, just days after NFL reporter Dianna Russini left the New York Times following the publication of photos showing her with New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, she found herself heroically involved in a rescue mission. The incident occurred when she aided an elderly man in distress after a frightening car accident.

However, as is often the case with the Russini and Vrabel narrative, the situation wasn’t as straightforward as it seemed.

On April 17, Page Six received information about a crash that happened two days earlier in Wyckoff, New Jersey, near Russini’s residence. Not only was she present at the scene, but she also courageously enlisted help from a bystander to lift her onto an overturned Jeep. Once there, she managed to open the door and assist both the injured driver and his trapped dog to safety.

Local authorities confirmed to us that bystanders played a crucial role in the rescue efforts until law enforcement arrived.

When we ran the tipster’s account by a source familiar with the incident, they confirmed her story — including the detail that she climbed onto the vehicle with the help of a passerby to rescue the driver — adding that Russini had been driving with her mother and kids when the accident happened right in front of them.

Stirring stuff!

But… then a second tipster reached us. And they told a strikingly different story.

After we confirmed through public records that the second tipster was who they claimed to be — a fellow resident of Northern New Jersey — we interviewed them about the crash.

That tipster said that — while Russini had indeed come into the street to help with the crash — it was in fact the tipster’s husband, not Russini, who had freed the driver and his dog by ripping open the canvas roof of the Jeep. The tipster added that Russini had merely held the dog’s leash after the pet had been released from the wreckage. And she insisted that Russini most certainly had not scaled the car. (Sadly the alleged man of the hour declined to speak with us).

In search of the truth, the Post dispatched a reporter to the scene to see if we could finally suss out which version of events was the correct one, but we couldn’t turn up any more details.

Just another confounding footnote in the epic that is Vrabelgate!

The mother-in-law of a former Mexican beauty pageant winner has been apprehended after escaping the country following her alleged involvement in the brutal, execution-style murder of the young woman.

Authorities in Venezuela captured Erika Maria Herrera, aged 62, on Wednesday. She is suspected of being connected to the April 15 murder of 27-year-old Carolina Flores Gomez, who was found dead in her Mexico City apartment.

Gomez, a former Miss Teen Universe 2017 from Baja California, was shot multiple times—specifically six bullets to her head and another six to her chest, as reported by Blog del Narco.

Following the murder, investigators turned their attention to Herrera, leading to her inclusion on Interpol’s Red Notice list. The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office praised Interpol’s role in facilitating her arrest, as detailed by Reporte Indigo.

Prosecutors are now working on Herrera’s extradition back to Mexico, as reported by Diario Puntal.

Herrera’s arrest came after video posted online of the alleged shooting appeared to show Herrera follow Gomez into a room in her apartment before several gunshots and screams could be heard. 

Gomez, who in 2017 was crowned Miss Teen Universe in Baja California, was shot 12 times – with six gunshots to the head and six in the chest 

Gomez had recently celebrated her birthday, as she was born April 4, 1999 in Ensenada, Puntual reported. 

The video then shows Gomez’s husband, Alejandro Gomez, walking into the frame of the video while carrying their eight-month-old baby, asking his mother in Spanish: ‘What was that? What crazy thing did you do?’ 

Herrera answered: ‘Nothing. She made me angry.’

Gomez calmly asks her: ‘What’s wrong with you, she’s my family.’

Herrera answered: ‘You’re mine and she stole you.’

She then allegedly replied, ‘Nothing, she just made me angry,’ and emphasized that Alejandro is her son before she fled the premises.

The fact that Alejandro let his mother flee the scene, then wait until the next day to notify authorities about the murder, have led prosecutors to also investigate whether there was a cover-up in the homicide. 

Gomez had recently celebrated her birthday, as she was born April 4, 1999 in Ensenada, Puntual reported.  

Baja California governor Marina del Pilar Avila told reporters that the investigation into Gomez’s death was a foremost priority.

‘No crime against a woman should go unpunished,’ Avila told a pool of reporters, according to the outlet. ‘Our thoughts are with her family during this devastating time.’

State prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez said that there has been close communication between officials to prioritize the probe, according to Puntual. 

Erika Maria Herrera, 62, was arrested in Venezuela on Wednesday for the death of Carolina Flores Gomez, 27, inside her Mexico City apartment on April 15 

Authorities have also investigated whether there was a cover-up in the murder, as Gomez’s husband allegedly let his mother flee the scene and waited one day before calling authorities 

The tragic death of the beauty queen comes at a time of social unrest in Mexico over what advocates call an epidemic of violence against women, and lack of justice toward their assailants.

Civil organizations are pushing prosecutors to reclassify the case as a femicide, which the United Nations agency UN Women defines as ‘an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation,’ Puntual reported.

The UN agency said last November that femicide ‘is different from homicide, where the motivation may not be gender-related.’

It continued, ‘Femicide is driven by discrimination against women and girls, unequal power relations, gender stereotypes or harmful social norms. 

‘It is the most extreme and brutal manifestation of violence against women and girls which occurs on a continuum of multiple and related forms of violence, at home, in workplaces, schools or public and online spaces.’

Among the forms it takes, according to the agency, include ‘intimate partner violence, sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence, harmful practices and trafficking.’

The tragic death of a Pennsylvania woman in 2024 has led her family to file a wrongful death lawsuit, claiming that negligence by the property owner and U.S. Steel contributed to her fatal accident. Elizabeth Pollard, aged 64, died after falling into a sinkhole that had formed above an abandoned mine shaft.

Pollard was in Westmoreland County, searching for her cat, Pepper, with her 5-year-old granddaughter when she disappeared. Her car was later located near Monday’s Union Restaurant, sparking a search that ended in heartbreak when it was discovered she had fallen into the sinkhole. Authorities found Pollard’s vehicle hours after she vanished, according to reports from WTAE-TV.

Mark Malone, the attorney representing the Pollard family, expressed their quest for justice. “The Pollard family is seeking answers and accountability,” he stated. “They want to ensure that their beloved wife, mother, and grandmother’s death is not in vain.”

Fortunately, Pollard’s granddaughter was found inside the car, scared but unharmed, providing a small solace amidst the tragedy.

In a related incident underscoring safety concerns, an explosion at the U.S. Steel Clairton Coke Works plant in Clairton, Pennsylvania, occurred on August 11, 2025. This separate event resulted in at least one fatality and several injuries, drawing further scrutiny to the company’s safety practices. This backdrop amplifies the family’s lawsuit, highlighting alleged ongoing hazards and lapses in safety measures.

The car was parked only feet away from the sinkhole. After a four-day, around-the-clock recovery effort, crews found Pollard dead 30 feet below ground. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma.

“Elizabeth Pollard should still be alive. The defendants’ alleged failure to provide and maintain a safe environment caused her preventable and untimely death,” Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan and Malone said in a joint statement. 

“This lawsuit seeks to hold these entities accountable for their alleged negligence, which has robbed a family of a beloved wife, mother and grandmother. The Pollards deserve justice, and we will fight to ensure no other family is forced to endure a devastating loss like this.”

The U.S. Steel logo is visible on a roll of steel before the president spoke during a rally at U.S. Steel’s Irvin Works in West Mifflin, Pa., on May 30, 2025. (Saul Loeb/AFP)

The lawsuit alleges that U.S. Steel, the owner of the mine, and the restaurant, which owns the surface property, were responsible for the maintenance and safety of the area. The suit further claims the ground was susceptible to collapse after years of mining and that no measures were taken to address the known risks.

“The restaurant is included because they’re the property owner. They’re a necessary party at this point,” Malone said. “Their knowledge of the property since they purchased and operated it is central to the lawsuit.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to U.S. Steel, the restaurant and the plaintiffs’ attorneys for comment.

The sinkhole led to the Marguerite Mine, which was developed and later abandoned by the H.C. Frick Coke Co. by the middle of the last century, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

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