A jury on Monday convicted a Vermont man of attempted murder in the shootings of three Palestinian college students who were walking near his home, rejecting an insanity defense rooted in his claims that he was acting on orders from U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Jason Eaton faces up to life in prison in the November 2023 attack in Burlington, which paralyzed Hisham Awartani from the waist down and wounded his friends, Tahseen Aliahmad and Kinnan Abdalhamid.

The men, all 20 at the time, had been visiting Awartani’s grandmother for Thanksgiving. They were smoking cigarettes and speaking a mix of English and Arabic as they walked near the University of Vermont campus after dusk. Two of them were wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs.

The jury deliberated for several hours before reaching its verdict after a weeklong trial that saw testimony from the three men, who recounted how their stroll ended in bloodshed, and defense and prosecution psychiatric experts who offered differing views of Eaton’s mental health and criminal culpability.

Eaton, 51, stared ahead blankly as the verdict was read, standing alongside his lawyers — public defenders whom he tried to fire last week over his concerns that his defense hadn’t been “adequately presented.” Judge John Pacht, who blocked Eaton’s midtrial bid to act as his own lawyer, ordered him jailed pending sentencing, which has yet to be scheduled.

Awartani and Aliahmad watched from the front row of the courtroom gallery, smiling and hugging people around them.

“The verdict cannot undo what happened or erase the trauma our families still carry, but it affirms something fundamental: Jason Eaton is responsible for what he did,” Awartani’s mother, Elizabeth Price, told reporters afterward.

Eaton had pleaded not guilty but did not dispute that he was the shooter. He claimed that the CIA and Mossad transmitted their orders via FM radio and that God was commanding him to protect his Jewish neighbors. His lawyers had urged jurors to find him not guilty by reason of insanity, an outcome that would’ve spared him from prison but could have required that he undergo mental health treatment.

Eaton’s lawyers, Margaret Jansch and Joshua O’Hara, said he had struggled with mental health issues his whole life, including diagnoses of attention deficit, post-traumatic stress, bipolar, depression and borderline personality disorders, culminating in a psychotic break after losing his job at a credit union two weeks before the shooting.

Prosecutor Sarah George countered that Eaton was a narcissist but not legally insane. He had a grandiose sense of self-importance and lacked empathy but was fully aware of the criminality of his conduct, George said in a closing argument. He appeared nervous when police arrived at his door, repeatedly asked for a lawyer and hasn’t claimed to have received any other messages directing his actions, she said.

Eaton told officers that he had a shotgun in his apartment, but didn’t disclose that he had other weapons, including a Ruger .380-caliber handgun that was found in a bedroom dresser and that crime lab testing concluded was used in the shooting, said George, the Chittenden County state’s attorney.

Days after the shooting, George said in her closing argument, Eaton had told his lawyers that he wished Awartani’s grandmother had warned him that the men were “going to dress up like terrorists” and trek through his neighborhood.

The shooting, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, shook Burlington, and reverberated in the West Bank, where the three wounded men grew up and became friends as schoolmates in Ramallah before moving to the U.S. for college. It spawned calls for a hate crime investigation.

But no hate crime charges were filed as questions persisted about whether anti-Palestinian animus, an altered mental state or something else had compelled Eaton to open fire. After the verdict, Awartani’s mother said Eaton’s hateful rhetoric, aired at the trial, had made it clear why he targeted her son.

The House on Wednesday passed a broad package of sanctions targeting Russian officials and key pillars of its economy as lawmakers look to deprive President Vladimir Putin of the financial resources needed to wage the war against Ukraine.

The bill is named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who spent more than a year negotiating it. The measure was approved in a 262-159 vote and now heads to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The legislation represents the most ambitious effort to support Ukraine since Trump's return to the White House and would break nearly two years of relative gridlock on the issue following a 2024 emergency aid package. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pushing for the bill's passage and made a direct appeal to senators shortly before they passed it last month.

The measure sanctions Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving. It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia's natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports.

“These countries have a choice to make about whether they will continue to sustain Putin's aggression,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

Supporters said the tariff provisions are aimed at deterring China and India from purchasing Russian energy, but critics of the bill said they fear Trump will use the legislation to target allies in the European Union and elsewhere. Americans, they warned, would pay the price for such tariffs through higher prices at the cash register.

“This president has always said he loves tariffs,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y. “And we know the history of what he's done with reference to tariffs to our European allies, and our allies everywhere.”

Democrats were divided on the bill, despite overwhelming support in the caucus for aiding Ukraine. Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told colleagues they can't control what the president does, but they can stand up and declare where they are on the war.

“If we fail to pass this bill, there will be cheers in the Kremlin and tears in Kyiv,” Hoyer said.

But Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., predicted Ukraine supporters would come to regret voting for the bill.

“Yes they will be able to say 'we stood with Ukraine' in the immediate aftermath,” Beyer said. “But when Donald Trump hits our allies with new tariffs and waives sanctions on Russia, the propaganda victory for Putin will be lasting, and the damage will be embedded in U.S. law.”

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, speaking in opposition to the bill, said Democrats would continue to support the Ukrainian people until victory is won, “but this bill does not provide a path to secure that.”

In all, 58 Democrats broke with Jeffries and voted for the bill, while 152 voted against it. Among Republicans, 203 voted yes while seven voted against it.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., celebrated the vote and highlighted the additional tariff power it provides the president.

“For too long, Putin has bankrolled this devastating war with money and resources from countries willing to look the other way, and today, that ends,” Johnson said.

Congress has struggled to ensure the flow of U.S. funding and munitions to Ukraine as Republican support for spending billions of dollars more on the effort has waned. Trump routinely derided the Ukraine aid while campaigning for the White House and insisted that, if elected, he would quickly end the war launched by Moscow's February 2022 invasion.

It took Graham essentially a full year to bring Trump on board with the Russia sanctions package. Eventually, Trump gave a nod to the bill after it included his push for a five-year extension of existing sanctions on Iran. Republicans speaking on the House floor in advance of Wednesday's vote were overwhelmingly supportive of the package.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Donald Trump's bid to restrict mail ballots for the midterm elections, capping a flurry of last-minute legal action with voting already underway.

The decision allows states to continue sending out mail ballots under the same processes they've used for years and have accounted for nearly a third of votes cast.

It represented a stark defeat for Trump on an issue he consistently has emphasized as vital to ensuring election integrity even though there is virtually no evidence of fraud with mail ballots.

The Supreme Court majority wrote that the administration's push to implement the restrictions this year is likely to lose in court, though the brief emergency order didn't detail its reasoning. Two justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, publicly dissented.

The Trump administration had asked the justices, once again at the center of a roiling political controversy, to clear the way for restrictions before the pivotal November contests for control of Congress.

Alito wrote in his dissent that the Postal Service "has broad authority to regulate the mail" and likely does have the power to enforce Trump's restrictions.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, agreed that the restrictions should not go into effect for the midterms but indicated he might rule in favor of the Trump administration if the issue comes back before the court at a later time.

Mail ballots are already being sent to voters

Election officials have said there was simply no way to carry out a complete overhaul in the weeks before the midterms. Indeed, Alabama, North Carolina and Wisconsin began sending mail ballots to voters over the past week while the new system was still not active.

The Trump administration plan would require states to adopt a uniform envelope style and submit lists of eligible voters to an online portal. The Postal Service could refuse to deliver ballots to states that didn't comply.

The administration's efforts had the potential to be especially disruptive in states that send out ballots entirely by mail. Washington's Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said the decision means work "to carry out a safe, secure, and accurate election" can continue "without having to upend our election processes to meet unrealistic ballot mail requirements."

In Arizona, another largely vote-by-mail state, Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said "it is crucial for us to continue rejecting the notion that access and security are mutually exclusive when it comes to running strong elections."

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican serving as the state's chief election officer, said on social media that the Supreme Court's decision means "Utahns can have confidence that the 2026 election will proceed as normal."

The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but have in the past framed the restrictions as commonsense changes aimed at keeping elections secure.

State officials and voting rights groups pushed back

Democratic state officials and voting rights groups challenged the restrictions in court, arguing that the president has no constitutional authority to set election rules that would "virtually eliminate mail voting on the eve of a major election."

A whistleblower report, meanwhile, said the postal system's requirements could lead to millions of mail ballots never being sent, because problems with the not-yet-operational portal meant a single bar code error could result in an entire batch of ballots being tossed out.

A former high-ranking Democratic legislator in New Mexico accused of diverting millions of dollars meant for vocational education in the state's largest school district to businesses and charities in which she had an interest has pleaded guilty to state charges that include fraud and money laundering.

Sheryl Williams Stapleton changed her plea during a hearing Friday, just three weeks after a federal jury convicted her of dozens of similar charges stemming from what prosecutors described as a yearslong scheme.

State prosecutors filed money laundering, racketeering and other charges against Williams Stapleton in 2021. She was set to go to trial in October. Under the plea agreement, all but four of the charges were dropped, and the agreement calls for a 10 1/2-year prison sentence and more than $1.8 million in restitution.

“Today's guilty plea holds Sheryl Williams Stapleton accountable for defrauding New Mexico taxpayers and abusing the public trust,” said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.

Rodriguez added that state prosecutors are pleased that the federal sentencing range “will provide a significant period of incarceration beyond what the state system could impose on its own.”

An attorney for Williams Stapleton did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday.

A former state House majority leader and an administrator with Albuquerque Public Schools, Williams Stapleton was first elected in 1994. She resigned from the House two days after search warrants were served at her home during summer 2021, and the school district fired her.

In the federal case, prosecutors said that the district paid more than $3 million to Robotics Management Learning Systems LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based company at the center of both the state and federal cases. Most of that money came from federal funds meant for vocational education programs.

As the school district's career and technical education director, Williams Stapleton made sure money for those programs went to Robotics, which was owned by her friend and federal co-defendant Joseph Johnson, prosecutors said. Williams Stapleton was accused of ushering the company's invoices through the procurement process. Johnson was accused of providing blank checks to Williams Stapleton.

During the federal trial, prosecutors also presented evidence that Williams Stapleton and Johnson failed to report thousands of dollars in payments from Robotics on their federal income tax returns.

Jurors also convicted Johnson in the federal case. He and Williams Stapleton have yet to be sentenced, and their attorneys previously indicated they would appeal the federal verdicts.

A social media influencer known for posting viral videos of pranks has pleaded guilty to criminal impersonation in Arizona for posing as an employee of businesses in a Phoenix suburb and orchestrating brief but chaotic takeover attempts.

The outcome was welcomed by observers who said it could serve as a reminder to seekers of viral fame that stunts that cross the line legally can lead to serious ramifications.

Heston James Cobb, who posts as “Heston James,” was arrested in July 2025 after police in Tempe say he and others went into businesses posing as workers, entered employee-only areas and refused to leave when asked to do so. He entered his plea Friday.

In one video Cobb, wearing a Chipotle Mexican Grill shirt, told restaurant staff he was going to “clean house” before a group of men wearing dark shirts flooded into the eatery and ignored requests to leave. One man posing as an employee cleaned a tabletop with a mop.

Investigators said the videos had millions of views and potentially generated large amounts of income.

Vicki Lopez, an attorney representing Cobb, declined to comment Saturday. The Associated Press left a message with Cobb's TikTok account seeking comment.

Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant Association, said he hopes Cobb's punishment is “severe” to deter copycats.

“There's no place for it,” Chucri said. “That's the last thing we need to put up with in the restaurant industry. The amount of money it takes to operate today is expensive.”

Chucri said the association does not offer any formal training or advice to restaurants on dealing with social media pranksters, and he hopes it does not come to that.

“We're a society of civility,” Chucri said. “We shouldn't have to.”

Matthew Pittman, a social media professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, hopes the arrest will be a warning to influencers about boundaries when creating prank or satirical content.

Pittman said he and others who teach aspiring content creators generally stress that “real world norms and laws” extend into the digital world.

“So doing something that is illegal in real life would also be illegal on social, even if you are doing it for content,” he said. “This is a clear case of going beyond what the law allows.”

Among the recent cases he cited was an influencer in Long Island, New York, who was arrested last year after a series of pranks. They included videos of him going to eateries; pouring food such as raw eggs or beans over his head; and then running off, leaving the mess to be cleaned by others.

“Every few years a YouTuber, influencer or prank content creator goes a little too far, gets in trouble, and reminds the rest of us creators that digital actions can have real world consequences,” Pittman said.

Cara Hawkins-Jedlicka, a communications professor at Washington State University who teaches about content creation, said it's not enough for influencers to stay within the law. They also need to have basic empathy.

“When is it pulling a prank, and when it is being cruel?” Hawkins-Jedlicka said. “Before anything else, this is truly kind of unkind. This influencer was really only thinking about himself and how can I take advantage of this community.”