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    Former Texas Megachurch Pastor Is Indicted on Child Sex Abuse Charges

    Robert Morris, the former senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church, abused a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Robert Morris, the founder of a Texas megachurch and a former faith adviser to the Trump White House, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he molested a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Last summer, days after Cindy Clemishire publicly accused Mr. Morris, 63, of having abused her when she was a girl, Mr. Morris resigned as the senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church.On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Mr. Morris on five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child after concluding that he had used his hands and body to touch the girl’s private parts from when she was 12 until she was 14, according to the indictment. The indictment refers to the girl only as C.C.Ms. Clemishire, 55, of Oklahoma, told The Dallas Morning News last year that the abuse had begun when her family invited Mr. Morris — then a young, traveling preacher — to stay at their home in Oklahoma on Christmas Day in 1982. It took her decades to realize that what had happened to her was abuse and a crime, Ms. Clemishire told the newspaper.In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Clemishire said, “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me.” She added, “My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.”Lawyers who had represented Mr. Morris did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.In a statement to The Christian Post last year after Ms. Clemishire made her allegations, Mr. Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, confessed that he had engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” Gateway Church, one of the largest churches in the United States, claimed to have more than 100,000 attendees.In a statement on Wednesday night, Gateway Church said: “We are aware of the actions being taken by the legal authorities in Oklahoma and are grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions. We continue to pray for Cindy Clemishire and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church, and for all of those impacted by this terrible situation.”Mr. Morris had served on a faith advisory council during President Trump’s first term. He hosted Mr. Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020. In 2024, a spokesman for Mr. Trump said that Mr. Morris had not played a role in his 2024 presidential campaign.Specifics about the criminal investigation into Ms. Clemishire’s claims were not immediately available. The charges that Mr. Morris faces each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.Sheelagh McNeill More

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    NYT Crossword Answers for March 13, 2025

    Rich Proulx and Simeon Seigel encourage us to use questionable table manners.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — I’m hungry. A snack would go down really well right now. Are you hungry, too?Rich Proulx and Simeon Seigel have kindly set out a buffet for us, but we will have to figure out what to do with it. You’re probably thinking, “Duh, Deb; we’re supposed to eat it,” and of course, you would be right. Sure, we can snack away, but here’s the question we need to ask ourselves: Are we really getting the most out of this buffet?There must be a way, elegantly or inelegantly, to maximize our snack intake. Just don’t listen to Mr. Proulx or Mr. Seigel, or you might be ridiculed for your table manners.Today’s ThemeThis puzzle has a fun theme and an Easter egg hidden in the grid for snackers who like to know what they’re eating. More on that later.Two things convinced me that there was more going on in today’s puzzle than I had originally thought.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Meta Seeks to Block Further Sales of Ex-Employee’s Scathing Memoir

    An arbitrator has prevented the employee from promoting her book and disparaging the company until private arbitration concludes.Meta won a legal victory on Wednesday against a former employee who published an explosive, tell-all memoir, as an arbitrator temporarily prohibited the author from promoting or further distributing copies.Sarah Wynn-Williams last week released “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism,” a book that describes a series of incendiary allegations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior by senior executives during her tenure at the company. Meta pursued arbitration, arguing that the book is prohibited under a nondisparagement contract she signed as a global affairs employee.During an emergency hearing on Wednesday, the arbitrator, Nicholas Gowen, found that Meta had provided enough grounds that Ms. Wynn-Williams had potentially violated her contract, according to a legal filing posted by Meta. The two parties will now begin private arbitration.In addition to halting book promotions and sales, Ms. Wynn-Williams must refrain from engaging in or “amplifying any further disparaging, critical or otherwise detrimental comments,” according to the filing. She also must retract all previous disparaging comments “to the extent within her control.”The filing did not appear to limit the publisher, Flatiron Books, or its parent company, Macmillan, from continuing publication of the memoir.“Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism” was released last week.Flatiron, via Associated PressMeta has vehemently denied the allegations in the book.The book is a “mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” a Meta spokesman, Andy Stone, said in a statement. Ms. Wynn-Williams was fired for cause, he added, and an investigation at the time determined that “she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment.”A spokeswoman for Flatiron Books did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Ms. Wynn-Williams, who worked at what was then called Facebook from 2011 to 2018, did not comment.The move to publish the arbitration filing is one of Meta’s most forceful public repudiations of a former employee’s tell-all memoir, several of which have been published over the past two decades.Meta executives have also responded online to Ms. Wynn-Williams’s claims, calling most of them wildly exaggerated or flat-out false.It is unclear whether Meta’s attempts to claw back Ms. Wynn-Williams’s book will ultimately be successful. In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.In a Meta shareholder report in 2022, the company’s board of directors said that it did not require employees “to remain silent about harassment or discrimination,” and that the company “strictly prohibits retaliation against any personnel” for speaking up on these issues.And in 2018, Meta said it would no longer force employees to settle sexual harassment claims in private arbitration, following a similar stance taken by Google at the time.Sheera Frenkel More

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    Trump Administration Opens Investigation Into Shelters in New York

    The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the funding and management of New York City hotels operating as shelters for migrants, according to a copy of a federal subpoena sent to a Manhattan hotel.Federal prosecutors sent a subpoena to the Hotel Chandler in Midtown on Wednesday, requesting information related to the migrant shelter program and “a list of full names of aliens currently residing at Hotel Chandler,” including nationality, dates of birth and identification numbers.The subpoena requested testimony and evidence from the hotel related to “an alleged violation” of federal immigration law. It asked the hotel for the names of entities and individuals responsible for the “funding and management of the illegal immigrant/migrant shelter program,” as well as any contracts or agreements related to it.It was unclear why prosecutors sent a subpoena to the Chandler, a hotel on East 31st Street that was converted into a homeless shelter years ago but does not operate as a shelter for migrants.The investigation appears focused at least in part on the management and funding of hotels acting as shelters, but its full scope was unclear as of Wednesday, as was whether other hotels had received subpoenas.The grand jury subpoena was issued by the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. A spokesman for the office, Nicholas Biase, referred questions to the Department of Justice in Washington. A spokesman there declined to comment on what he said was “an ongoing criminal investigation,” adding that he could not discuss the scope or contours of the inquiry.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Takeaways From the Irish Leader Micheál Martin’s Visit With Trump

    In a meeting with Ireland’s prime minister, President Trump gave no hint of backing down from actions that have caused fissures in the trans-Atlantic alliance.President Trump hosted Micheál Martin, the prime minister of Ireland, at the White House on Wednesday, with an escalating trade dispute with Europe hovering over the usual pomp and circumstance.Official Washington, dappled in green, feted Mr. Martin at the traditional visit ahead of St. Patrick’s Day. But Mr. Trump gave no hint of backing down from actions that have caused fissures in the trans-Atlantic alliance.In the Oval Office, Mr. Trump, seated next to Mr. Martin, railed against the European Union’s trade policies and regulation of American companies.“The European Union treats us very badly, and they have for years,” he said.Mr. Martin largely took a back seat during the meeting, seeking to avoid the fireworks that erupted at the White House two weeks ago when Mr. Trump rebuked President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, casting him as ungrateful for U.S. aid.Here are three takeaways from Mr. Martin’s visit.The president showed no signs of changing course on tariffs.The stock market has declined. Top business leaders are privately complaining. And even some Republicans are voicing concern. But Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he had no plans to change his strategy on sweeping tariffs.In fact, Mr. Trump suggested that he might institute steeper levies after the European Union announced billions of dollars in retaliatory tariffs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Administration Cuts Ties With Migrant Shelter Provider After Dropping Child Abuse Lawsuit

    The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it had stopped using the largest U.S. operator of shelters for migrant children over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment of minors at the facilities, and moved to dismiss a Biden-era lawsuit that sought to hold the nonprofit accountable for enabling that abuse.A joint statement issued by the Health and Human Services and Justice Departments on Wednesday cited concerns over allegations detailed in the lawsuit filed last year, namely that employees for the provider, Southwest Key Programs, subjected children to abuse and harassment.The suit accused employees of Southwest Key, which has worked with the federal government for more than two decades, of exploiting “children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers and distance from family and loved ones” from 2015 through at least 2023, including President Trump’s first term.Attorney General Pam Bondi, in the statement, blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for enabling the abuses.“Under the border policies of the previous administration, bad actors were incentivized to exploit children and break our laws: this ends now,” Ms. Bondi said, adding, “securing our border and protecting children from abuse are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration.”Anais Biera Miracle, a spokeswoman for Southwest Key, maintained the nonprofit denied the claims of abuse. She said it was “pleased” that the Justice Department had dropped the case in its entirety, and that charges cannot be refiled.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Putin Visits Kursk to Cheer Russian Troops Trying to Oust Ukraine

    The trip comes as President Trump looks to secure the Russian leader’s support for a 30-day cease-fire.Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in fatigues, visited a command post near the front in Kursk late Wednesday to cheer on his military’s ejection of Ukrainian forces from much of the territory they had been occupying in the Russian border region.The Russian leader’s pointed visit came a day after a U.S. delegation met in Saudi Arabia with Ukrainian officials, who agreed to a 30-day cease-fire in the war. American officials planned to take the proposal to Mr. Putin, who has previously said he is not interested in a temporary truce.Dressed in a green camouflage uniform, Mr. Putin sat at a desk with maps spread out in front of him, according to photos released by the Kremlin. He appeared with Russia’s top military officer, Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov.In video footage released by Russian state media, Mr. Putin praised the Russian military formations that had taken back much of the territory captured by Ukraine in the Kursk region. He called on the troops to seize the territory for good from Ukrainian forces, who have been occupying portions of the Russian border region since last summer. Kyiv had hoped to use the territory as a bargaining chip in peace talks.The Russian leader also demanded that Ukrainian forces taken prisoner in the region be treated and prosecuted as terrorists under Russian law. General Gerasimov said more than 400 Ukrainian troops had been captured in the operations.“People who are on the territory of the Kursk region, committing crimes here against the civilian population and opposing our armed forces, law enforcement agencies and special services, in accordance with the laws of the Russian Federation, are terrorists,” Mr. Putin said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Why Trump’s Tesla Showcase Mattered to Elon Musk

    A lot has changed since former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. snubbed Elon Musk at an event in 2021.It wasn’t so long ago that Elon Musk couldn’t even get an invitation to the White House.The year was 2021, and President Joe Biden was announcing tighter pollution rules and promoting his electric vehicle policies.Behind him on the lawn were gleaming examples — a Ford F-150 Lightning, a Chevrolet Bolt EV, a Jeep Wrangler — as well as the chief executives of the companies that made them. But the nation’s biggest electric vehicle producer was nowhere to be seen.“Seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited,” Musk tweeted before the event.The Biden White House explained the snub by noting that the automakers that had been invited were the nation’s three largest employers of the United Automobile Workers, a powerful union, and it suggested that the administration would find other ways to partner with Tesla. (Union animus toward electric vehicles later became a problem for Biden.) But today, the moment is seen as a turning point in a feud between Musk and Biden that some Democrats say they have come to regret deeply.“They left Elon out,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist who is working to get his party to embrace electric vehicles, “and now he hates ’em.”It was hard not to think about that episode yesterday when Musk and Trump lined up Teslas, including Cybertrucks, on the White House driveway and proceeded to rattle off their benefits like denizens of a suburban showroom.“I love the product,” Trump said.“Try it,” Musk said. “You’ll like it!”Musk now has the White House attention and promotion that he wanted several years ago — and with it, a pile of potential benefits for some of his companies — but it’s come at a price. He donated some $300 million largely through his own super PAC to help Trump get elected. My colleagues Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman reported yesterday that he’s signaled a willingness to put another $100 million into groups controlled by Trump’s political operation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More