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News

February 25, 2026

Former ‘American Idol’ contestant and worship leader charged with murdering wife while daughters slept

Caleb Flynn, a 39-year-old church worship leader and former “American Idol” contestant, has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of his wife, Ashley Flynn, inside their Ohio home. Their two young daughters were in the residence at the time. Both were unharmed.

Flynn called 911 early Monday morning from the couple’s home in Tipp City, roughly 20 miles north of Dayton. He told the dispatcher that someone had broken into the house and shot his wife.

“Oh my god, somebody broke into my home, somebody broke into my home and shot my wife.”

He described blood “everywhere.” Dispatch logs indicated Ashley Flynn had been shot in the head.

Judge rejects Tyler Robinson’s attempt to remove prosecutors from Charlie Kirk murder case

Tyler Robinson’s bid to boot the prosecution team from his murder case hit a wall this week. A Utah judge denied the request, keeping the Utah County Attorney’s Office firmly in control of the case against the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk.

Judge Tony Graf read his ruling during a video hearing held Tuesday, systematically dismantling the defense’s argument that a conflict of interest should disqualify prosecutors from the case.

Robinson, who is being held without bail, could not be seen on video but could be heard. When asked if he could follow the proceedings, he offered a simple reply: “Yes, I can your honor.”

The ruling clears a procedural hurdle and keeps the case on track, with Robinson slated to appear in court at an upcoming hearing on March 13.

The Conflict That Wasn’t

The defense argument centered on one fact: a daughter of prosecutor Chad Grunander was present at the Sept. 10, 2025 rally at Utah Valley University where Kirk was shot in front of 3,000 people.

Robinson’s legal team contended that Grunander’s familial connection to someone at the scene created a conflict of interest that tainted the entire prosecution, including Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray’s decision to pursue the death penalty.

Judge Graf was unconvinced. On every point, he sided with the state.

“The court finds that [the prosecutor’s] daughter’s presence at the rally did not factor into the prosecutorial analysis.”

He went further, affirming that the death penalty decision rested on the merits, not on any personal entanglement.

“Mr. Gray’s decision was grounded in the assessment of the facts and applicable law.”

The daughter, whose identity has been kept under wraps, was roughly 85 feet from Kirk when he was shot. She testified that she didn’t take a video of the killing or the melee that followed. She didn’t even realize it was Kirk who had been shot until after she reached safety. She described being “afraid for her life when she was running” but said she hadn’t “experienced any trauma.”

In other words, she was one of thousands of attendees caught in the chaos of a public assassination. That’s not a conflict of interest. That’s proximity.

A Legal Strategy Built on Sand

Defense attorneys in high-profile murder cases often try to reshape the battlefield before trial begins. Disqualifying prosecutors, changing venue, suppressing evidence: these are the tools of delay and disruption. Sometimes they’re warranted. Here, the judge found otherwise.

“The defense has not shown that the there is a significant risk that [the prosecutor’s] relationship with his daughter has or will impact defendant’s due process rights.”

“Defendant has not shown that his prosecution by the Utah County Prosecutor’s Office is tainted by concurrent conflict of interest.”

That’s two separate findings on two separate legal theories, both rejected. Graf also addressed the core concern directly, ruling that Grunander’s role as a father posed no threat to his role as an officer of the court.

“The court concludes there is not a significant risk that Mr. Grunander’s loyalty to daughter has or will materially limit his representation of that State of Utah.”

Gray, the county attorney, has said he doesn’t plan to call the daughter as a witness at trial. Robinson’s lawyers could issue a subpoena for her testimony if they wanted to, but that option lies with them, not the state.

Justice for Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk was gunned down in broad daylight at a public event, in front of thousands of Americans who came to hear a conservative leading light speak on a college campus.

The sheer brazenness of the act demanded a prosecution that matches the gravity of the crime. The death penalty is on the table because Jeffrey Gray determined the facts and the law warranted it. A judge has now confirmed that determination wasn’t clouded by anything improper.

Every procedural motion, every attempt to reshuffle the legal deck, delays the day Robinson faces a jury. That’s the defense’s prerogative, and the system allows it. But the system also allows a judge to look at a meritless argument and say no.

That’s what happened Tuesday. The prosecution stands. The case moves forward. And the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk remains held without bail, awaiting his next court date on March 13.

Three thousand people watched Kirk fall. They deserve a trial that gets to the truth, not one that stalls on technicalities about where a prosecutor’s daughter was standing.

Larry Summers to Resign From Harvard Amid Epstein Controversy

Former Harvard President Larry Summers will step down from his remaining academic roles at the university at the end of the academic year, relinquishing his university professorship and resigning from his leadership post at the Harvard Kennedy School, the university confirmed.

Summers will remain on leave until that time and will not return to teaching or advising students.

“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers said in a statement shared with Newsweek on Wednesday.

“I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”

Summers’ decision means he will relinquish his Harvard professorship and no longer serve as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, per The Harvard Crimson. The move will end nearly a lifetime of connection to the Ivy League school for Summers, who was first there as a graduate student fifty years ago.

Following the release of emails in November, which showed Summers exchanging frequent messages with Epstein up until the day before the late financier’s arrest in July 2019, Summers had stepped back from teaching at Harvard and from other roles.

The emails, released by the House Oversight Committee, showed Summers confided in Epstein over several months, including personal matters unrelated to academia or university business. Harvard then launched its own review into Summers and other affiliates named for ties to Epstein.

Why It Matters

The move follows months of mounting scrutiny after the release of emails showing Summers maintained a long‑standing personal relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein well after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. The fallout prompted Harvard to reopen a broader review of its historical ties to Epstein and led Summers to withdraw from several high‑profile roles as pressure intensified over his continued presence at the university.

More widely, scrutiny of the Epstein files is ongoing, with the House Oversight Committee and the Department of Justice having released millions of files, photos, and other documents related to investigations into Epstein’s alleged years of sex trafficking. The Trump administration has been heavily criticized for its handling of the release of the files, after campaign promises of transparency.

Bill Gates Admits to Affairs with 2 Russian Women While Married to Melinda and Apologizes to Staff for Past Epstein Ties

A spokesperson for Gates tells PEOPLE in a statement that “this was a scheduled townhall with employees, which Bill does twice a year. In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health. ”

Scrutiny has been renewed around Gates’ history with Epstein — who died in federal custody in 2019 after being accused of human trafficking — because a trove of documents released by the U.S. Justice Department showed yearsold draft emails Epstein wrote himself in which he accused Gates of contracting a sexually transmitted infection from “Russian girls” and then asking for Epstein’s help in order to hide it from his then-wife.

A spokesperson for Gates had previously called those claims from Epstein “absolutely absurd and completely false.”

However, Gates acknowledged on Tuesday, he’d had affairs with a “Russian bridge player who met me at bridge events and one with a Russian nuclear physicist who I met through business activities.”

Epstein learned of these, he said. The “bridge player” was identified by the Journal in 2023 as Mila Antonova, who reportedly met Gates around 2010 when she was in her 20s.

DHS reinstates 56 Coast Guard members discharged over Biden admin’s Covid vaccine mandate

“The last administration’s vaccine mandates were unconstitutional, un-American, and a gross violation of personal freedom. It was no way to treat the men and women who put everything on the line to keep our country safe.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Monday that 56 members of the United States Coast Guard who were discharged for refusing to comply with the Covid vaccine mandate have been reinstated with back pay, marking what officials are calling a significant victory for personal freedom and military justice.

“56 members of the United States Coast Guard who were kicked out of the service over the COVID-19 vaccine have finally been reinstated with back pay. This is a victory for religious, personal, and medical freedom for all Americans, both in and out of uniform,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement. “The last administration’s vaccine mandates were unconstitutional, un-American, and a gross violation of personal freedom. It was no way to treat the men and women who put everything on the line to keep our country safe.”

Noem added, “President Trump is righting these wrongs and returning those unjustly removed members to service. This decision to reinstate these members of the Coast Guard is a major step in the right direction.”

On August 21, 2021, President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a department-wide mandate requiring all US service members to receive the Covid vaccine. Although the Coast Guard operates under DHS rather than the Department of Defense, it implemented a similar mandate shortly thereafter.

The Defense Department rescinded its vaccine mandate on January 10, 2023, and the Coast Guard followed suit one day later, on January 11, 2023. During the nearly 15 months the mandate was in effect, the Coast Guard discharged 274 enlisted members solely for refusing the vaccine. While some service members were reinstated following the rescission of the mandate, dozens remained separated from service.

On January 27, 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14184, directing the Secretaries of the military departments to take all necessary action to make reinstatement available to service members discharged solely for refusing the Covid vaccine. The order also provided that reinstated members could “revert to their former rank and receive full back pay, benefits, bonus payments, or compensation.”

Following the executive order, Secretary Noem submitted a group application to the Coast Guard’s Board for Correction of Military Records (BCMR), requesting relief on behalf of affected members. A three-member panel of the BCMR reviewed the cases and voted to grant relief to 56 former Coast Guard members who had been discharged solely for vaccine refusal. According to the Board’s final decision, dated February 12, 2026, the Coast Guard will retroactively reinstate these individuals effective the date of their original discharge.

As part of the decision, each reinstated member’s service record will be corrected to reflect a period of unbroken and continuous active-duty service between the date of their vaccine-related discharge and their return to duty. This ensures that the discharge will effectively be removed from their record for purposes related to the Covid mandate.

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