Jonathan McKinsey, a transgender New York Times executive who was allegedly killed in broad daylight at a Bay Area parking lot, had previously threatened to kill his wife and her parents, according to court documents.

McKinsey, 40, was fatally shot Saturday afternoon at Dublin Sports Grounds in Dublin, California. Witnesses said Shouyong Zhang and Shili Chen, both 77, took turns firing at him in the parking lot.

“During our marriage, the children and I learned to avoid provoking Jonathan lest he became angry. In my experience, appearing agreeable or happy around him was sometimes a means of avoiding his anger,” McKinsey’s wife, Candice Jang, wrote in an August custody filing obtained by the California Post. The filing was first reported by The Mercury News.

Jang and McKinsey married in 2010, though she filed for divorce in 2025 after alleging that he had abused her and one of their young sons.

Jang also claimed that McKinsey had recently given their three children a book about a mother’s death.

“Jonathan dismisses my concern about a book he provided to the children concerning the death of a mother. He omits the context that makes the conduct frightening to me. Jonathan has previously threatened to kill me and my parents,” Jang wrote in the court documents.

According to Jang, the 40-year-old newspaper executive gave the children a book about a young girl “mourning the death of her mother, as a birthday present.” She said the choice was “deeply disturbing and frightening” because of his alleged previous threats against her life.

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Jang further alleged that McKinsey routinely blamed others for problems instead of accepting responsibility.

McKinsey and Jang were embroiled in a contentious custody dispute involving their three children, ages 3, 5 and 7. McKinsey was accused of abusing Jang and the children.

Jang sought a restraining order against McKinsey in 2025. He responded by seeking a restraining order against her that same year.

McKinsey was charged with two misdemeanor counts of child abuse in connection with the allegations. He was later released from jail on the condition that he complete parenting classes.

In a subsequent court filing, Jang updated the court on the custody dispute and challenged what she described as false testimony from her husband.

McKinsey transitioned from female to male in 2010 and married Jang in 2011, according to the report. The estranged couple had been scheduled to appear in court over custody issues this Friday, before the shooting occurred.

McKinsey joined The New York Times in early 2023 as a senior engineering manager overseeing its games platform. He became director of engineering for games player experience in late 2025.

Police are examining the family conflict as a possible motive in the shocking shooting, in which both members of the elderly couple allegedly opened fire on McKinsey.

A traffic stop on a Kentucky interstate ended in tragedy Monday after a state trooper was shot and killed, triggering a statewide manhunt that concluded with a suspect’s arrest.

Trooper Hayden Phillips, 30, was killed on Interstate 65 in Warren County. He is survived by his wife and three young sons.

“He was senselessly murdered,” U.S. Attorney Kyle Bumgarner said during a news conference Monday night. “We have a wife that expected her husband to come home. We have three little boys who don’t have a dad.”

Phillips had served with the Kentucky State Police for three years and was assigned to Post 3 in Bowling Green. He graduated with Cadet Class 103 and was known among fellow troopers as Unit 369.

“Because he served us, because he served our community, because he wanted to keep each of us safe,” Bumgarner said. “He gave the ultimate sacrifice.”

Kentucky State Police Commissioner Col. Phillip Burnett Jr. vowed that the agency would pursue justice in Phillips’ death.

“We will seek justice for Hayden,” Burnett said. “Let me repeat that, we will seek justice for Hayden. We will not rest until this happens.”

Burnett described Phillips’ death as one of the most difficult moments the Kentucky State Police could face.

“His dedication to duty and commitment to the Commonwealth will never be forgotten,” Burnett said. “Our hearts break for Trooper Phillips’ family, loved ones, and fellow troopers as we grieve this tremendous loss.”

Kentucky State Police initially reported a trooper-involved shooting on northbound I-65 near the 38-mile marker. Investigators then urged the public to watch for a bluish-gray Honda Civic with an Alabama license plate that had been at the scene. A Blue Alert named Emonnie Branch as the wanted person.

Louisville Metro Police later arrested Branch, prompting state police to cancel the alert. Burnett said Branch was being charged with the murder of a first responder. Bumgarner said Branch would be returned to Warren County to face state murder charges.

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“I want you to know I only mentioned his name one time,” Burnett said while denouncing what he described as the suspect’s “cowardly actions.”

Authorities have not disclosed why Phillips stopped the vehicle or whether Branch had a prior criminal record.

“One of our own was gunned down and murdered on the side of the road,” Bumgarner said. He promised that the Justice Department would provide Kentucky prosecutors and investigators with “every tool” and “every bit of support” available.

Burnett also spoke directly to Phillips’ family, assuring them that Kentucky State Police would support them.

“You will not walk this path alone,” he said.

“Rest Easy U/369. We have it from here,” state police wrote in a tribute to Phillips.

Gov. Andy Beshear called Phillips a hero who dedicated himself to protecting Kentucky. He said the trooper was also “a devoted husband and loving father to three children.”

“Let us wrap our arms around this family during this unimaginable time,” the governor wrote.

Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., thanked law enforcement for its swift work and said Phillips’ wife, their three young children and his colleagues were in his prayers. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., urged people to pray for Phillips’ family and fellow officers.

Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Ky., also offered prayers for Phillips’ family and said Kentucky would not forget his service.

“Alongside his fellow KSP troopers and all who knew and loved him, we will not forget his service to our commonwealth,” McGarvey wrote.

Country singer Lee Greenwood mourned Phillips, writing that he and his wife, Kim, had learned of the trooper’s death and would “always stand with the men and women in blue.”

Kurt Olsen, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, and at least six other prosecutors have left the so-called “grand conspiracy” investigation in the Southern District of Florida, dealing a significant setback to the Justice Department’s months-long inquiry.

The departures, first reported by the Daily Mail, come after weeks of uncertainty surrounding the Miami-based investigation and the abrupt resignation earlier this month of another Trump ally, Joseph diGenova.

Attorney General Todd Blanche selected diGenova in April to examine allegations that US intelligence and law enforcement officials—including former President Barack Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan—had participated in a yearslong effort targeting Trump.

The prosecutors’ exits have raised new questions about the future and direction of the far-reaching Florida investigation.

The departures also reportedly followed pressure from Justice Department officials in Washington to obtain indictments before the midterm elections, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Such demands appear to conflict with longstanding Justice Department practice, which generally discourages overt investigative action in politically sensitive cases during the 60 to 90 days before an election.

The source said the pressure from Main Justice to pursue indictments was central to the prosecutors’ departures, particularly after a contentious meeting at the Southern District of Florida earlier this month.

“They started asking questions, and then they started giving orders to line attorneys about how to conduct the grand jury,” the person told the Daily Mail. “The attorneys revolted, and then objections were made to the department, and then that’s when everything exploded.”

The Daily Mail was told that between seven and eight prosecutors had left the team, including Olsen.

A second source disputed that account, telling the Daily Mail that the number of departures was four. That figure included two US attorneys whose temporary assignments had ended and a JAG attorney transferred to another role.

The source added that two more prosecutors had recently been recruited for the investigation and were expected to begin within the next week or two.

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Asked about the probe’s status, a Justice Department spokesperson told the Daily Mail that department leadership “has full confidence in the great team of experienced prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida led by US Attorney Quiñones.”

“The Department’s work on this investigation continues, and we are grateful to the talented team of attorneys, which continues to grow, doing the work each day.”

Olsen’s departure adds to the uncertainty surrounding the long-running investigation. It comes after the Daily Mail reported exclusively last week that the so-called grand conspiracy probe was in serious trouble, although Justice Department officials maintained that the inquiry would continue.

Maria Medetis Long, a senior career prosecutor, was reportedly removed from the case earlier this year after raising concerns about the strength of the evidence.

She was replaced by a group of Trump-aligned figures, including diGenova, a longtime Trump associate, and Olsen, a former White House official who promoted false claims about the 2020 election.

At the time of publication, both diGenova and Olsen had left the investigation.

Olsen did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment. 

The Daily Mail previously reported that the probe in Miami had been hitting dead ends for months – suggesting that the so-called ‘grand conspiracy’ probe that the president has obsessed over, publicly and privately – for the better part of the last six years – is all but dead.

‘This case was initiated to make the president and the public think something is happening down there, when in reality, it’s not,’ one DOJ official told the Daily Mail last week.

A DOJ official previously disputed the notion that the case in Florida is stalled and has no support from Main Justice.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and another attorney traveled down to Florida after DiGenova’s departure to check in on progress, a law enforcement official told the Daily Mail last week. 

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education announced Monday that it had eliminated Biden-era Title IX regulations that expanded protections for students based on sexual orientation and gender identity at federally funded schools and universities.

The action formally rescinds rules adopted under the Biden administration, including provisions that broadened the definition of sexual harassment and increased the number of complaints schools were required to investigate.

“Today’s rulemaking clears the Biden Administration’s illegal rewrite of Title IX from the Code of Federal Regulations and restores the commonsense language promulgated in the first Trump Administration, which we have been enforcing since the first days of the Administration,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement Monday.

“Thanks to today’s action, the published Title IX regulations faithfully reflects court orders and Congressional intent—reducing confusion for parents, students, and educational institutions,” McMahon said.

“We will continue to relentlessly champion equal opportunity for all Americans and hold accountable any school or college that violates the rights, privacy, or athletic opportunities of our women and girls.”

For students, parents and teachers, the announcement is not expected to bring an immediate practical change because the department has been enforcing Trump administration rules since the president returned to office last year.

Enacted in 1972, Title IX is a landmark civil rights law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

The Education Department’s decision restores the Title IX framework used during Trump’s first term. Those regulations adopted a narrower definition of sexual harassment and provided greater due-process protections for people accused of misconduct.

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Biden’s Title IX rules also removed a requirement limiting investigations to incidents that took place on campus. Under those provisions, schools could examine alleged sexual misconduct connected to school-sponsored events and activities, even when the conduct occurred elsewhere.

The Biden-era regulations had already been invalidated after Republican-led states filed immediate legal challenges.

According to an agency fact sheet, litigation over the Biden rules continued, with appeals remaining pending into 2026, the Department of Education said.

After those appeals were ultimately dismissed in August, the administration moved to complete the process by removing the vacated regulations from the Code of Federal Regulations.

The announcement drew criticism from advocates who said the rollback would weaken important federal protections for LGBTQ+ people and survivors of sexual assault.

The decision came one day after a separate civil case prompted New York prosecutors to reopen a criminal investigation into allegations that seven Cornell University fraternity members gang-raped a former student in 2024.

The disturbing allegations involving members of the Chi Phi fraternity have fueled a broader debate among lawmakers, celebrities and social media users over the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault on college campuses.

“We know who will be hurt: women, girls, and others who are vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault and abuse — including LGBTQ+ students,” Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said after the Title IX changes were announced.

“The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period, denying families, educators, loved ones and the students themselves a say in how they should be treated, shows how little they care about the safety of our students.”

A Tennessee grandmother is suing the city of Fargo, North Dakota, and its police department, alleging she was wrongfully detained for nearly six months after authorities misused artificial intelligence facial-recognition technology while investigating a bank theft case.

Angela Lipps, 50, of Elizabethton, Tennessee, said she was caring for four young children belonging to a neighbor when police arrived at the home and arrested her at gunpoint in July 2025.

The complaint, filed Sept. 15, 2026, alleges that authorities relied solely on a flawed AI facial-recognition match to extradite Lipps from Tennessee to North Dakota, even though she had no connection to the state or the alleged crime.

Police technology experts told News Media that the case is one of more than a dozen known incidents involving alleged law-enforcement mishandling of facial-recognition tools.

“I sat in a county jail in Tennessee for 108 days,” Lipps wrote in a GoFundMe post. “They said I was fugitive from justice. I had no bail. No one interviewed me. I just sat and waited.”

The investigation began after an unknown woman allegedly used fake identification and stolen identities to commit bank fraud in Fargo and West Fargo, North Dakota, in April and May 2025, according to the lawsuit.

According to prosecutors, investigators used a photograph from a fraudulent identification card submitted by the suspect—not surveillance footage—to conduct facial-recognition searches through Clearview AI.

Clearview AI expressly requires its facial-recognition results to be treated as investigative leads. However, Fargo police allegedly described the result as a positive identification without disclosing that it had not been independently confirmed, the complaint states.

West Fargo police, by contrast, reportedly declined to pursue charges because the AI match had not been corroborated.

A West Fargo police captain described AI facial recognition as “close to a last-ditch effort” in investigations, according to the lawsuit.

The complaint alleges that Detective Lucas Heck failed to review Lipps’ financial and travel records, which showed she was in Tennessee at the time of the thefts. It also says he did not conduct photo lineups with bank tellers. Surveillance video reportedly revealed physical differences between Lipps and the suspect, including a different build and a neck tattoo visible on Lipps but absent from the suspect.

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“Heck ignored, concealed, and misrepresented exculpatory evidence that Lipps did not commit the bank thefts,” the complaint alleged.

On July 14, 2025, U.S. Marshals surrounded a neighbor’s home in Tennessee and arrested Lipps at gunpoint under a nationwide warrant, prosecutors said.

Lipps was extradited to North Dakota and held on $100,000 bond while facing eight felony charges. The most serious charges carried maximum prison sentences of up to 10 years.

Prosecutors dismissed all charges on Dec. 24, 2025, after Lipps presented bank records showing she was in Tennessee when the thefts took place, prosecutors said.

“When she was released, she found that her residence, car, and personal property were lost while she was absent,” the complaint stated.

After the case drew public scrutiny, the Fargo Police Department and the city acknowledged at a March 2026 news conference that investigators had made errors.

“When chief found some errors that were made in this area of where we got our facial recognition and how that worked, we immediately addressed it,” Mayor Tim Mahoney said.

Clare Garvie, the deputy director of Technology Law & Policy with the Policing Project, told News Media that incidents involving the alleged mishandling of AI have increased as law enforcement agencies adjust to “integrate AI and additional tools into police investigations.”

“We are aware of 16 misidentifications stemming from a face recognition match where someone was wrongfully arrested and spent time in jail because of that misidentification, and in many of these cases, it was because additional investigative steps weren’t taken to prove, or in these cases to disprove, the face recognition match,” Garvie said in an interview.

“We’re asking officers to do a different job now, such that we need to update how we think about these workflows,” she added.

In an interview with News Media, Nate Freed-Wessler, a deputy director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the rise of artificial intelligence in law enforcement has fueled wrongful arrests across the country.

“We’ve been seeing these kinds of wrongful arrests happening for at least five or six years now out of this kind of AI technology. And the rate of them seems to be increasing,” he said.

“We’ve seen cases where police intentionally avoid making any notes about their use of facial recognition technology or other AI.”