WASHINGTON (AP) — A veteran FBI employee training to become a special agent was fired last month for displaying at his workspace an LGBTQ+ flag, which had previously flown outside a field office, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

David Maltinsky had worked at the FBI for 16 years and was nearly finished with special agent training in Quantico, Virginia, when he was called into a meeting last month with FBI officials, given a letter from Director Kash Patel and told he was being “summarily dismissed” over the inappropriate display of political signage, Maltinsky’s lawsuit said.

The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District court in Washington, said Maltinsky had been a decorated intelligence specialist working in the Los Angeles field office and most recently was pursuing a longtime dream of becoming a special agent.

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In June 2021, the Los Angeles field office displayed a “Progress Pride” flag, which consists of a rainbow-colored horizontal stripes and a chevron with black, brown, pink, light blue, and white colors. It’s meant to represent people of color, as well as the LGBTQ+ community. Maltinsky was given that flag after it had come down and was then displayed at his Los Angeles field office workstation with the support and permission of his supervisors, according to the lawsuit.

In April, he began training at the FBI Academy to become a special agent and had successfully completed 16 of the 19 weeks of training at the time of his firing, the lawsuit stated.

Maltinsky said in the suit he helped lead diversity initiatives during his time at the bureau as well. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January ending all diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the government.

The suit names Patel, the FBI, Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department as defendants.

The FBI declined to comment. A message seeking comment on behalf of the Justice Department wasn’t immediately returned Wednesday.

Among other things, Maltinsky is seeking reinstatement to his position along with an order declaring that the defendants violated his First Amendment rights to speech and Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law.

Maltinsky’s attorney Christopher M. Mattei called the firing an unlawful attack.

“This case is about far more than one man’s career — it’s about whether the government can punish Americans simply for saying who they are,” Mattei said in a statement.

Other lawsuits challenging the bureau’s personnel moves have been filed since President Donald Trump’s second term began. In September, three high-ranking FBI officials said in a lawsuit they were fired in a “campaign of retribution” carried out by a director who knew better but caved to political pressure from the Trump administration.

By JONEL ALECCIA, Associated Press

As cases of potentially deadly botulism in babies who drank ByHeart infant formula continue to grow, state officials say they are still finding the recalled product on some store shelves.

Investigators in at least three states found ByHeart formula for sale a week after the New York-based company recalled all products nationwide, officials told The Associated Press.

At least 31 babies in 15 states who drank ByHeart formula have been hospitalized and treated for infantile botulism since August, federal health officials said Wednesday. They range in age from about 2 weeks to about 6 months, with the most recent case reported on Nov. 13.

No deaths have been reported.

Stephen Dexter holds a container of ByHeart baby formula, which was recently recalled by ByHeart, in Flagstaff, Ariz., on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Cheyanne Mumphrey)

In Oregon, nine of more than 150 stores checked still had the formula on shelves this week, a state agriculture official said. In Minnesota, investigators conducted 119 checks between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17 and removed recalled products from sale at four sites, an agriculture department official said. An Arizona health official also said they found the product available.

Businesses and consumers should remain alert, Minnesota officials said in a statement. “No affected product should be sold or consumed,” they wrote.

Investigators with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted inspections at ByHeart manufacturing plants in Allerton, Iowa, and Portland, Oregon. No results from the inspections have been reported.

ByHeart officials said they voluntarily recalled their products “in close cooperation” with the FDA, “despite the fact that no unopened ByHeart product has tested positive” for the spores or toxin that cause infant botulism.

California officials previously confirmed the type of bacteria that can lead to illness was confirmed in an open can of ByHeart formula fed to a baby who developed botulism.

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Infant botulism, which can cause paralysis and death, is caused by a type of bacteria that forms spores that germinate in a baby’s gut and produce a toxin.

Symptoms can take up to 30 days to develop and include constipation, poor feeding, a weak cry, drooping eyelids or a flat facial expression. Babies can develop weakness in their limbs and head and may feel “floppy.” They can have trouble swallowing or breathing.

ByHeart had been manufacturing about 200,000 cans of formula per month. It was sold online or at retail stores such as Target and Walmart. A Walmart spokesperson said the company swiftly issued a restriction that prevented sale of the formula, removed the product from stores and notified consumers who had bought it. Customers can visit any store for a refund of the formula, which sold for about $42 per can.

Federal and state health officials are concerned that some parents and caregivers may still have ByHeart products in their homes. They are advising consumers to stop using the product — including formula in cans and any singe-serve sticks. They also suggest marking it “DO NOT USE” and keeping it for at least a month in case a baby develops symptoms. In that case, the formula would need to be tested.

The California health department operates the Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program, which tracks cases and distributes treatment for the disease. Officials there have launched a public hotline at 833-398-2022, which is staffed with health officials from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

The hotline has fielded hundreds of calls from parents and caregivers to date, officials said. It is being operated in addition to a longstanding hotline for doctors to discuss suspected infant botulism cases.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

St. Anthony police arrested a man and woman on Wednesday morning following reports of damaged door locks filled with super glue and expanding foam at the Starbucks coffee shop on Silver Lake Road.

Workers attempting to open the Starbucks contacted police around 6:30 a.m. and said they were unable to get doors open, according to a statement from the police department. The employees said they had interacted with a man and a woman in a nearby vehicle who they believed were part of a group readying to demonstrate outside the coffee shop.

Starbucks workers at that location, as well as dozens of other sites across the country, have been on strike since Nov. 13. The striking workers are demanding higher wages, more work hours, an end to what they say is understaffing and the resolution of alleged retaliatory firings and discipline for union actions. Starbucks has said the company already offers the best wage and benefit package in retail.

The pair drove off when police approached them, but they were quickly stopped and arrested on suspicion of felony damage to property based on evidence collected at the scene and during the stop, police said. They were transported to the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center and formal charges are pending.

Shortly afterward, police were called back to Starbucks because a large group of demonstrators were blocking the drive-through lane. The group was advised to move off private property.

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By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is sending President Donald Trump a bill to compel the Justice Department to make public its case files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a potentially far-reaching development in a yearslong push by survivors of Epstein’s abuse for a public reckoning.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill this week with overwhelming margins after Trump reversed course on his monthslong opposition to the bill and indicated he would sign it. Once the bill is signed by the president, it sets a 30-day countdown for the Justice Department to produce what’s commonly known as the Epstein files.

“This bill is a command for the president to be fully transparent, to come fully clean, and to provide full honesty to the American people,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Wednesday.

Schumer added that Democrats were ready to push back if they perceive that the president is doing anything but adhering to “full transparency.”

The swift, bipartisan work in Congress this week was a response to the growing public demand that the Epstein files be released, especially as attention focuses on his connections to global leaders including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, who has already been stripped of his royal title as Prince Andrew over the matter, and many others.

There is plenty of public anticipation about what more the files could reveal. Yet the bill will most likely trigger a rarely seen baring of a sprawling federal investigation, also creating the potential for unintended consequences.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., leaves the U.S. Capitol after voting in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

What does the bill do?

The bill compels Attorney General Pam Bondi to release essentially everything the Justice Department has collected over multiple federal investigations into Epstein, as well as his longtime confidante and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for luring teenage girls for the disgraced financier. Those records total around 100,000 pages, according to a federal judge who has reviewed the case.

It will also compel the Justice Department to produce all its internal communications on Epstein and his associates and his 2019 death in a Manhattan jail cell as he awaited charges for sexually abusing and trafficking dozens of teenage girls.

The legislation, however, exempts some parts of the case files. The bill’s authors made sure to include that the Justice Department could withhold personally identifiable information of victims, child sexual abuse materials and information deemed by the administration to be classified for national defense or foreign policy.

“We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims,” Bondi told a news conference Wednesday when asked about releasing the files.

The bill also allows the Justice Department to withhold information that would jeopardize active investigations or prosecutions. That’s created some worry among the bill’s proponents that the department would open active investigations into people named in the Epstein files in order to shield that material from public view.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump loyalist who has had a prominent split with Trump over the bill, said Tuesday that she saw the administration’s compliance with the bill as its “real test.”

“Will the Department of Justice release the files, or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” she asked.

In July, the FBI said in a memo regarding the Epstein investigation that, “we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” But Bondi last week complied with Trump’s demands and ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to the president’s political foes, including Clinton.

Still, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the bill, said “there’s no way they can have enough investigations to cover” all of the people he believes are implicated in Epstein’s abuse.

“And if they do, then good,” he added.

The bill also requires the Justice Department to produce reports on what materials it withheld, as well as redactions made, within 15 days of the release of the files. It stipulates that officials can’t withhold or redact anything “on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

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Who could be named?

There’s a widely held expectation that many people could be named in case files for investigations that spanned over a decade — and some concern that just because someone is named, that person would be assumed guilty or complicit.

Epstein was a luminary who kept company with heads of state, influential political figures, academics and billionaires. The release of his emails and messages by a House Oversight Committee investigation last week has already shown his connections with — and private conversations about — Trump and many other high-powered figures.

Yet federal prosecutors follow carefully constructed guidelines about what information they produce publicly and at trial, both to protect victims and to uphold the fairness of the legal system. House Speaker Mike Johnson raised objections to the bill on those grounds this week, arguing that it could reveal unwanted information on victims as well as others who were in contact with investigators.

Still, Johnson did not actually try to make changes to the bill and voted for it on the House floor.

For the bill’s proponents, a public reckoning over the investigation is precisely the point. Some of the survivors of trafficking from Epstein and Maxwell have sought ways to name people they accuse of being complicit or involved, but fear they will face lawsuits from the men they accuse.

Massie said that he wants the FBI to release the reports from its interviews with the victims.

Those reports typically contain unvetted information, but Massie said he is determined to name those who are accused. He and Greene have offered to read the names of those accused on the House floor, which would shield their speech from legal consequences.

“We need names,” Massie said.