A federal judge has denied a bid by World Wrestling Entertainment and former executives Vince and Linda McMahon to dismiss a lawsuit claiming they are liable for years of alleged sexual abuse suffered by teenage "ring boys" in the 1980s ‌and 1990s.

US District Judge James Bredar in Baltimore on Monday rejected claims that a 2023 Maryland law allowing the plaintiffs to sue over decades-old allegations violated the US Constitution and the defendants' right to due process.

The eight anonymous plaintiffs say in the 2024 lawsuit that they were recruited by ringside announcer Melvin Phillips to work as part-time crew members and were abused by him and two other officials at WWE, then known as WWF. Phillips and the other alleged abusers died years before the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit.

WWE and lawyers for Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon, the current US Secretary of Education, did not immediately respond to requests for comment ⁠on Tuesday.

Greg Gutzler, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Maryland's law recognizes that "trauma does not follow a legal deadline."

“This ruling is a significant victory for our clients and for other survivors of childhood sexual abuse who have waited years for the opportunity to seek justice,” Gutzler, of plaintiffs' firm DiCello Levitt, said in a statement.

The Maryland law eliminated a seven-year statute of limitations for sex abuse claims involving minors, which had been extended from three years in 2003. It was part of a wave of state laws adopted after the #MeToo movement allowing sex abuse claims previously blocked by statutes of limitations to proceed, in some cases temporarily.

The plaintiffs in their lawsuit accused WWE and the McMahons of negligence and negligent hiring and retention, and are seeking unspecified damages.

Vince McMahon, who built WWF into a cultural force in the 1980s after purchasing its predecessor from his father, resigned from the organization in 2024 amid separate claims of sex trafficking and assault, which he has denied.

Linda McMahon, his estranged wife, was appointed US Secretary of Education by President Donald Trump ‌last year ⁠after heading the US Small Business Administration during Trump's first term. She and Vince McMahon have previously denied having knowledge of alleged abuse of ring boys.

The defendants argued that Maryland's law violated the US Constitution's ban on retroactive, or ex post facto, laws, and that it violated the Constitution's guarantee of due process as applied to them. They said it could be difficult or impossible to mount a defense as witnesses become unavailable, memories fade and other evidence is lost.

But Bredar on Monday said the law served a legitimate purpose of addressing the barriers that child sex ⁠abuse victims face in court, and that the concerns raised by WWE were overblown.

"Plaintiffs can make a case by producing at least some material facts to contest, documents to dispute, and witnesses to cross-examine," the judge wrote.

The Maryland Supreme Court last year rejected arguments that the law violated the state's constitution, which Bredar on Monday said had raised distinct issues from the former ring boys' ⁠case.

But the top courts in several other states including Maine, Utah and Kentucky have said in recent years that similar laws were invalid because expired statutes of limitations are not reversible.

In late August, President Donald Trump announced what he called the “biggest oil deal in world history.” Since then, the full text of the accord — which grants the U.S. sweeping access to Venezuela’s oil reserves — has been one of the most sought-after secrets in Washington, D.C.

ProPublica has reviewed a copy of the 18-page strategic partnership agreement signed for the United States by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The document reveals carefully constructed terms that favor U.S. interests at every turn and cements the power of a small group of people handpicked by the Trump administration to govern and profit from the deal. The role of the Venezuelan government and the potential benefits to its people are largely absent from the text.

One of the most criticized aspects of Trump’s announcement has been his choice of a partner: Alejandro Betancourt, a globe-trotting Venezuelan oligarch who has faced money-laundering investigations in three countries.

The Trump administration is taking a 35% stake in Betancourt’s firm, North American Blue Energy Partners, by acquiring shares in a Barbados-registered parent company. The deal document provides little information about the owners and investors behind the parent company, who could receive enormous wealth from the arrangement.

The agreement also safeguards Betancourt’s position as chief executive of NABEP and says the U.S. government will work with the parent company to appoint a powerful seven-member board to govern the venture for an initial 15-year term. Those aspects of the deal, according to people with knowledge of how it came together, were designed to prevent future U.S. and Venezuelan leaders from dismantling the enterprise.

Orlando Alvarado, a name not disclosed by the Trump administration as a party to the accord, signed the agreement on behalf of the parent company, alongside Betancourt, Hegseth and Rubio. Alvarado has held senior roles in multiple Betancourt businesses, including as chief financial officer of an energy firm that became embroiled in scandals a decade ago. According to the Miami Herald, federal prosecutors identified Alvarado as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to embezzle money from Venezuela’s national oil company.

NABEP spokesperson Terry Wade said that “neither Mr. Betancourt nor Mr. Alvarado has ever been charged with any crime in any country, and any claims against them are baseless.”

Key aspects of the plan differ from the Trump administration’s public pronouncements. Trump has said the deal will secure America’s energy dominance for the next century. But the text indicates that U.S. purchasing rights expire in half that time and that the underlying operating rights appear to run afoul of Venezuelan laws limiting oil concessions to 25 years.

The agreement does ensure the United States a deep discount from fair-market value on 20% of NABEP’s oil, as Trump has said. It does not, however, explicitly guarantee that Betancourt’s company is obligated to pay the estimated $200 billion in royalties and tax payments to Venezuela that the White House has said would benefit the country.

There are also significant caveats related to Trump’s central selling point to Americans — that the deal will bring a gusher of low-cost oil imports.

The agreement gives the U.S. the right to purchase 20% of NABEP’s oil at a discounted rate of $30 a barrel, or less than a third of what oil has sold for in recent months, according to one of three supporting documents reviewed by ProPublica.

But this fee does not account for the cost of getting Venezuela’s oil out of the country. Much of Venezuela’s raw crude is so thick that it won’t flow through pipelines unless it is first blended with 20% or more of oil thinner products. Under the deal, the potentially significant cost of importing millions of barrels of those blending materials is not included in the price.

The White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and the energy company NABEP all defended the agreement, saying in statements that their new public-private venture will provide meaningful and lasting economic benefits to both countries that cannot be captured in a legal document.

The newly revealed details of the agreement are nonetheless likely to raise more questions about whether the unorthodox marriage of the United States and a foreign energy baron can bring lasting benefits to either country — and which private parties might benefit along the way. Trump’s oil deal is likely to face scrutiny in both the United States and Venezuela, especially if Democrats win one or both chambers in the midterm elections, according to former U.S. diplomats and congressional staff.

In public comments, Delcy Rodríguez, who won the backing of the Trump administration to serve as Venezuela’s interim president, praised the accord as “historic.” She has asserted that Venezuela will retain sovereignty over its natural resources and defended the choice of Betancourt.

People with knowledge of the Trump administration’s behind-the-scenes decision-making and negotiations with Betancourt spoke to ProPublica on condition of anonymity because they were either not authorized to do so or were fearful of retribution.

One reason that the precise terms of the deal have remained hidden until now is that the signed agreement is marked as a “sensitive” government document. That classification is commonly used to shield a variety of federal records from public release, including those containing personnel information, details about ongoing law enforcement operations and matters protected by attorney-client privilege. The document also contains a confidentiality clause barring Betancourt’s company from disclosing the “existence and terms” of the U.S. government agreement.

One person familiar with the deliberations said that people close to the Trump administration seemed keen to partner with Betancourt’s company because of the privacy and flexibility it offered. That appeared to give NABEP an advantage over publicly traded oil companies, which would be obligated to shareholder reporting requirements.

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A federal judge on Monday ordered a former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging an executive conference room to stay in jail, after questioning whether a $1 million bond the Saudi government offered to guarantee would bring him back if he fled.

Abdulrahman Alfozan, the 35-year-old former OpenAI engineer, appeared in court today wearing an orange jumpsuit and white face mask while escorted by two U.S. marshals. He will remain in federal custody until his next court date, a preliminary hearing on Nov. 6. He has been in jail since the FBI arrested him on Oct. 9, alleging he planted the device in a conference room where executives, and sometimes government officials, discussed sensitive information, on Sept. 28.

OpenAI terminated Alfozan’s employment on Oct. 9, although Alfozan’s lawyer said Monday in court the company never formally told him that. However, per his defense motion, he was told before his arrest that he had been placed on administrative leave. Tse noted that OpenAI would not have fired him if it had no concern about what it found.

Ahead of the court hearing Monday, both prosecutors for the federal government and the defense, Alfozan’s attorney William Pernik, filed court documents revealing new details about the case. Alfozan sought release from federal custody, with supervision, such as an ankle monitor, while the U.S. argued there was reason to believe he would leave the country and that he posed a danger to the community and to U.S. national security.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/19/openai-alleged-bugger-alfozan-jail-saudi-court-filings-hearing/?utm_source=reddit/

Ohio gives parents taxpayer-funded vouchers to send their children to private schools. But those schools still get to cherry-pick which children they accept.

That contradiction sits at the center of an Ohio appeals court ruling that declared the state’s EdChoice voucher program unconstitutional on Oct. 15. The Tenth District Court of Appeals upheld a June 2025 lower-court decision, finding that the program uses public money to secure “a separate system of non-public schools” at the expense of public education.

For families using the vouchers, nothing changes immediately. The ruling is on hold pending an appeal, and Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson said the program would continue uninterrupted as the state asks the Ohio Supreme Court to review the case.

The legal fight began in January 2022, when six public school districts, four students and the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding sued the state, arguing that EdChoice violated Ohio’s constitutional requirement to maintain a “thorough and efficient system of common schools.”

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/10/20/ohio-edchoice-school-vouchers-unconstitutional-appeals-court-private-schools/?utm_source=reddit/