New Gophers men’s basketball coach coach Niko Medved will earn $1 million more than what previous U coach Ben Johnson made last season, according to the U’s memorandum of understanding shared Tuesday.

Medved, who was hired Monday, will receive an annual base salary of $400,000, plus $2.6 million in annual supplemental pay for a total compensation of $3 million, with an annual escalator in supplemental pay of $100,000, according to the U memo shared with the Pioneer Press via a data request. Medved’s full contract will needs Board of Regent approval.

Johnson received $2 million last season, per his contract. Johnson was the lowest-paid coach in the Big Ten Conference last season.

Medved was earning $1.7 million at Colorado State before taking the Minnesota job.

This story will be updated.

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By KELVIN CHAN, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A magazine journalist’s account of being added to a group chat of U.S. national security officials coordinating plans for airstrikes has raised questions about how highly sensitive information is supposed to be handled.

Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg detailed a discussion that happened over the Signal messaging app hours before strikes on Iran-backed Houthi-rebels in Yemen order by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The National Security Council has since said the text chain “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.

Here’s a look at the app in question.

What is Signal?

It’s an app that can be used for direct messaging and group chats as well as phone and video calls.

Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services that prevents any third-party from viewing conversation content or listening in on calls.

In other words, messages and calls sent on Signal are scrambled and only the sender and recipient at each end will have the key to decipher them.

Signal’s encryption protocol is open source, meaning that it’s freely available for anyone to inspect, use or modify. The encryption protocol is also used by another popular chat service, social media company Meta’s WhatsApp platform.

Encryption on Signal is turned on by default, unlike another popular messaging app, Telegram, which requires users to turn it on and does not make it available for group chats.

Signal has features that are found on other messaging apps. It allows users to host group chats with up to 1,000 people and messages can be set to automatically disappear after a certain time.

Is it secure?

Signal touts the privacy of its service — and experts agree it is more secure than conventional texting.

But it could be hacked.

Government officials have used Signal for organizational correspondence, such as scheduling sensitive meetings, but in the Biden administration, people who had permission to download it on their White House-issued phones were instructed to use the app sparingly, according to a former national security official who served in the administration.

The official, who requested anonymity to speak about methods used to share sensitive information, said Signal was most commonly used to notify someone that they should check for a classified message sent through other means.

Beyond concerns about security, Signal and other similar apps may allow users to skirt open records laws. Without special archiving software, the messages frequently aren’t returned under public information requests.

In the Atlantic article, Goldberg wrote that some messages were set to disappear after one week and some after four.

Do other government officials use Signal?

Encrypted messaging apps are increasingly popular with government officials, according to a recent Associated Press review.

State, local and federal officials in nearly every state have accounts on encrypted messaging apps, according to the review, which found many of those accounts registered to government cellphone numbers. Some were also registered to personal numbers.

Who’s behind Signal?

The app’s origins date back more than a decade, when it was set up by an entrepreneur who goes by the name Moxie Marlinspike, who was briefly head of product security at Twitter after he sold his mobile security startup to the social media company. Marlinspike merged two existing open source apps, one for texting and one for voice calls, to create Signal.

The nonprofit Signal Foundation was set up in 2018 to support the app’s operations as well as “investigate the future of private communication,” according to the foundation’s website. The foundation says it is a 501c3 nonprofit “with no advertisers or investors, sustained only by the people who use and value it.”

The foundation’s board has five members, including Brian Acton, who cofounded WhatsApp and donated $50 million to set up the foundation.

Associated Press writers Tara Copp, Aamer Madhani and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.

By SYLVIE CORBET and JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — French actor Gérard Depardieu acknowledged Tuesday that he used crude and heated language around a woman who accuses him of sexual assault and grabbed her hips but denied assaulting her, as he testified for the first time at his landmark trial in Paris.

She told the court that he’d behaved “like a madman” who took “pleasure in frightening me.”

Day 2 of the Paris trial centered on the Oscar-nominated actor’s behavior during the filming in 2021 of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”), where two co-workers allege that he groped them on the set.

Actor Gerard Depardieu, left, arrives at his trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, with his lawyer Jeremie Assous ,Tuesday, March 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

The 76-year-old has denied assaulting the women. But during more than an hour of testimony Tuesday in a packed Paris court, Depardieu acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language with one of the plaintiffs, a 54-year-old set dresser, and grabbed her hips during an on-set argument about the artistic merits of a painting.

Depardieu said he’d been in a “bad mood” because the set was hot, which was hard for him because he is overweight.

“I understand perfectly if she’s a bit upset,” he said in his gruff, deep voice so familiar to cinemagoers. “I don’t have to talk like that, get angry like that, voilà.”

But he insisted that he isn’t a sexual predator. “I’m not touching the butts of women,” Depardieu said.

The actor faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $81,000 if convicted. The verdict isn’t expected immediately after the trial.

Plaintiff details alleged assault

The set dresser testified after Depardieu. She described the alleged assault in detail, saying the actor pincered her between his legs as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.

She said he grabbed her hips then started “palpating” her behind and “in front, around.” She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show what she allegedly experienced. She said he then reached for and grabbed her chest.

A plaintiff arrives as actor Gerard Depardieu face his trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, with his lawyer Jeremie Assous ,Tuesday, March 25, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard)

“That’s when I had a reflex of ‘My God.’ I tried to free myself, I tried to take his hands away, I couldn’t do it,” she testified. “He terrified me, he laughed, he looked like a madman.”

“It was very brief, there was no shouting,” she said, adding that she’d been too “petrified” to speak and that he was too strong for her to break free. She said someone came and removed Depardieu’s hands from her.

“I saw in his eyes a pleasure in frightening me, that’s what I felt, it’s savagery,” she said. “He terrified me, and that amused him.”

She said Depardieu’s calm and cooperative attitude in court bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.

“Here, he’s exemplary, he doesn’t move, he’s quiet, he doesn’t make any noise,” she said. “He’s not like that on the film set: He gesticulates, he grunts, he makes remarks to women.”

On the movie set, “he started saying sexual things, talking about his sexual capabilities,” she said.

The second plaintiff, a 34-year-old who worked as an assistant on the film, is yet to testify.

Depardieu acknowledges boorish behavior

Because of Depardieu’s fame and impact on the French movie industry, his trial is seen as an important test of French willingness to confront sexual violence and hold influential men accountable.

His long and storied career — he told that court that he’s made more than 250 movies — has turned him into a giant of the French movie industry. French President Emmanuel Macron has included himself among Depardieu’s many admirers, calling him a “great actor” who “makes France proud.” That was in 2023, when the star was already facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

In his testimony, Depardieu said he’d noticed that the set dresser had been taken aback by his behavior and language. He acknowledged that he sometimes has a potty mouth and that his behavior can be boorish.

“I’ve always been told I have a Russian nature, I don’t know if it’s because of the drinking or the vulgarity,” he said. “I have said in black and white that I am a disgusting slob.”

But he said he “never, ever” would have pincered a woman between his legs against her will.

“I’m not like that,” he said.

By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

SUSIYA, West Bank (AP) — The lawyer for an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces says he will be released. Lea Tsemel, the attorney for Hamdan Ballal, said Tuesday that he and two other Palestinians spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

The wife of an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army said Tuesday that he was beaten in front of his home by three men in military fatigues while another filmed it.

Hamdan Ballal and the other directors of “No Other Land,” which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, had mounted the stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month when it won the award for best documentary film.

Basel Adra, Palestinian co-director of the Oscar winner documentary “No Other Land”, looks at a damaged car after a settler’s attack in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

On Tuesday, he and two other Palestinians were being held at a police station in the occupied West Bank, according to their attorney, Lea Tsemel, who was only allowed to speak to them by phone several hours after they were detained late the night before.

She said all three had been wounded in the attack and were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.

Palestinian residents say around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms — attacked the West Bank village of Susiya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.

The Israeli military said Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

‘I’m dying!’

Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.

Lamia Ballal, wife of Hamdan Ballal, a co-director of the Oscar winner documentary “No Other Land”, looks on as she sits at their house in the village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south Hebron hills, Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”

West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.

On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car’s windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbors pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been punched by the settlers.

Film looked at Palestinians’ struggle to stay on the land

“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.

The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened it.

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Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there’s been a massive upswing in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.

“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank … Nobody’s stopping this.”

Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tires, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.

Open-ended military rule

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.

The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widescale military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

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