The Omicron variant has morphed into more than half a dozen different strains—the latest of which include BQ.1.1 and XBB.1, and XBB.1.5. Combined, these variants and their close relatives now account for nearly 90% of new COVID-19 infections in the U.S.

But so far, no COVID-19 vaccine directly targets them. Instead, the latest bivalent formulation of the booster (and the only one currently available) was designed against the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5, which are no longer widely circulating.

So how well does it protect against the newer ones?

The first look at a vaccine’s effectiveness generally comes from lab-based data analyzing serum from vaccinated people, while real-world data show how those numbers translate to actual protection and symptoms of disease. Two new reports provide both types of evidence—and the best picture yet of how the bivalent booster is faring in the face of newer Omicron variants. The upshot? Even though the bivalent vaccine was not designed to target them, it still provides some protection against the latest variants.

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On Jan. 25, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report real-world data conducted from December 1, 2022 to January 13, 2023—when the new variants were becoming more prevalent—showing that vaccinated people who were boosted with the bivalent shot were half as likely as vaccinated people who didn’t get the bivalent booster to become infected with these variants and experience at least one symptom of COVID-19. On the same day, in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), scientists at the University of Texas and Pfizer-BioNTech (which makes one of the FDA-authorized bivalent shots), reported that the bivalent vaccine still provides some protection against BQ.1.1 and XBB.1.

In the real-world CDC data, researchers show that the bivalent booster is reducing COVID-19 among those who receive it, and that protection from disease against the newest variants is similar to that against the BA.5 variant. That’s “reassuring that the vaccines are continuing to work,” says the CDC’s Ruth Link-Gelles, lead author of the report.

Researchers behind the NEJM paper analyzed data from vaccinated and boosted people enrolled in the trials for the original Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, who received a fourth dose of the original vaccine, and another group that received three doses of the original vaccine and a fourth dose of the bivalent vaccine. The researchers had blood samples from the day the participants received their fourth dose, as well as samples taken one month later, so they could measure antibody levels against BQ.1.1 and XBB.1 in the same people.

After one month, people who received the bivalent booster generated antibodies that were on average nearly three times higher than those produced by people who were given a fourth shot of the original formula. “This is the best [data] you can get on this question in human trials,” says Pei-Yong Shi, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and co-senior author of the study. “The neutralizing antibody response is clearly better than [that provided] by the [original] vaccine.”

In this study, the bivalent booster was slightly better at generating virus-fighting antibodies than in previous studies, which found only small differences between people boosted with the original and bivalent vaccines in terms of antibodies generated against BQ.1.1 and XBB.1. (Unpublished data from these groups shows similarly small differences with XBB.1.5.) In those studies, however, blood wasn’t collected from people before and after their fourth booster dose; instead, the scientists compared blood from different groups of people who had been either boosted with the original or bivalent doses. A strength of the NEJM study is that “you can clearly calculate what is the contribution of the fourth dose and quantify the differences between the original and bivalent doses,” says Shi.

Shi also notes that in previous studies, scientists used a so-called pseudovirus, which contained only the spike protein of the virus, to test in the lab how much antibody was present in the blood sera. In the current study, a more complete version of SARS-CoV-2 was used, which likely better mimics what happens in the body.

Still, Shi acknowledges that the response produced by the bivalent vaccine against the newest variants isn’t dramatic. “We have to acknowledge that BQ.1.1. and XBB.1 really knock down or evade the antibody response substantially,” he says.

The researchers also found that the virus-fighting antibody levels produced by vaccinated and boosted people who had recovered from a previous infection were in general lower than those generated by vaccinated and boosted people who had never been infected, regardless of whether they received the original or bivalent booster. That could reflect the fact that people who have been infected tend to start out with a higher baseline of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 than those who have never encountered any variant.

The bottom line is that even though the strain included in the booster no longer matches the variants currently causing infections—and even though antibody levels aren’t very high against the latest variants—a person’s entire COVID-19 vaccine history continues to play an important role in their immune response. The original vaccines taught the immune system to produce long-lasting T cells against the virus, which helps reduce a person’s risk of severe disease. And the bivalent booster appears to be doing its job at keeping the immune system sharp against Omicron’s onslaught.

Remember the name Emma Moran, for she has achieved what once seemed impossible: She’s created a superhero comedy that’s actually funny. The premise of her debut series, Extraordinary, is not revolutionary. Like Disney’s Encanto and, to a lesser extent, the recently canceled Peacock teen drama Vampire Academy, it’s set in an alternate reality where every young person, upon reaching a certain age, develops a superpower—except for the unfortunate protagonist. The failure-to-launch metaphor is so obvious, it even resonates with toddlers. What makes Moran’s show, well, extraordinary is the irreverent panache with which it’s executed.

Extraordinary, whose eight-episode season is now streaming in full on Hulu, follows the hapless Jen (Máiréad Tyers), a 25-year-old Irish girl living among Londoners who almost all received a supernatural enhancement sometime around their 18th birthdays. As she works an ironically depressing job at a party store and hooks up with people who don’t really care about her, Jen’s perceived deficiency constantly gnaws at her. Even a date with a guy who has the power to give anyone an orgasm simply by grazing their skin with his hand somehow winds up unsatisfying. (One thing that sets Extraordinary apart from Encanto is its enthusiastic raunchiness.)

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Jen’s greatest source of comfort is her lifelong best friend and housemate, Carrie (Sofia Oxenham), a fledgling lawyer who can summon the dead. Spirits can even speak through her mouth, which comes in handy for clarifying contested wills. Carrie’s live-in boyfriend Kash (Bilal Hasna) is a slacker who can rewind time; his real life is essentially a VHS tape. He dreams of parlaying that ability into some ill-defined sort of vigilante group—but isn’t a team of do-gooder superheroes kind of redundant in a world where just about everybody is a superhero of sorts?

Natalie Seery—Disney+From left: Mairead Tyers, Sofia Oxenham, and Siobhan McSweeney in Extraordinary

Moran uses the superpower conceit brilliantly. While the urban skies are dotted with people who can fly, and muggers capitalize on invisibility, humans remain as neurotic as ever. In the series’ opening scene, Jen answers a polite job-interview question—”How was your journey?”—with a deluge of TMI regarding tampons, masturbation, antidepressants, and her explosively anxious stomach. She has, unfortunately, encountered an HR rep who is the human embodiment of truth serum. Meanwhile, some people end up with gross or inane powers; “I can summon sea creatures,” one guy announces, as a wet, writhing fish smashes through a window into his outstretched hand. A character who can kinda, sorta walk through walls, but only when he’s naked, gets stuck in a brick facade with his bare butt hanging out for much of an episode.

Ribald, kinetic, and rooted in the misadventures of flailing young-adult friends, Extraordinary feels closer to zany millennial-underachiever farces like Broad City and Search Party than it does to any superhero show I’ve ever seen. The sight gags are on point, but the dialogue is even sharper. “I’m playing the world’s smallest violin,” Jen scoffs, scrunching her hands into a miniscule air violin, when her perfect younger sister Andy (Safia Oakley-Green), a smug musical prodigy, throws a tantrum upon failing to discover her power the moment she turns 18. Andy: “I’ve actually played the world’s smallest violin, and it’s much bigger than that.” (In a glorious casting choice, the girls’ mom is played by Derry Girls’ deadpan nun, Siobhán McSweeney.) The soundtrack is all witty misfits: Devo, Wet Leg, Mitski, The Clash.

But it’s the superhero stuff that saves this Gen Z comedy from merely rehashing the angsty-young-woman humor of its recent predecessors. By situating Jen, Carrie, and Kash (yes, they’re a couple named Kash and Carrie) in such a complicated and absurd reality—one of Jen’s love interests literally spent the last several years of his life as a cat—Moran gently sends up the low-stakes narcissism of the pre-Trump, pre-pandemic, pre-climate-panic Girls era. True to its title, Extraordinary combines and tweaks familiar tropes into something genuinely unique. That it also makes Deadpool look about as audacious as The Incredibles is just a bonus.

Administrators at a school in Newport News, Virginia were allegedly warned three times in that a 6-year-old student had a gun and had made threats to use it, but they neglected to act before he shot his teacher later that day, putting her in critical condition, the teacher’s lawyer said Wednesday.

Richneck Elementary School teacher Abigail Zwerner, 25, was the sole victim of the shooting on Jan. 6, 2023, and although she survived, her lawyer Diane Toscano claims that the shooting was “entirely preventable” if Newport News School District administrators had taken proper measures to investigate and handle the threat. She added that Zwerner intends to sue the school district.

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“On that day, over the course of a few hours, three different times—three times—school administration was warned by concerned teachers and employees that the boy had a gun on him at the school and was threatening people. But the administration could not be bothered,” Toscano said at a press conference gathering Wednesday.

“Were they not so paralyzed by apathy they could have prevented this tragedy,” Toscano said, adding that administrators didn’t call the police, remove the boy from class or place the school under lockdown.

On the day of the shooting, Toscano said Zwerner, following protocol, notified school administrators around 11:15-11:30 AM that morning that a 6-year-old, who would later shoot Zwerner, had threatened to beat up another student. Toscano said that the school administration didn’t call security or remove the student from the classroom.

Another teacher apparently received a warning that the boy had a gun, and approached a school administrator at 12:30 PM, saying that she had searched the boy’s bookbag, following protocol, but suspected that he put the gun in his pocket and went out for recess. The administrator allegedly responded saying, “Well, he has little pockets.”

Just after 1 P.M., a third teacher told administrators that another student, crying and fearful, admitted to the teacher that he had seen the gun at recess, and the shooter threatened to shoot him if he told anybody, according to Toscano.

A fourth school employee who heard about the danger asked an administrator for permission to conduct a search of the child, but was denied and told to wait the situation out because the school day was almost over, Toscano said.

Shortly after 2 P.M., just as the school day was ending, the boy pulled out the gun and shot Zwerner in the hand and chest while she was teaching a lesson, according to Newport News police, who also said that Zwerner evacuated all the other students from the classroom after she was shot.

Since the shooting, the school district’s superintendent, George Parker, has come under criticism by parents who call for his resignation or firing. Six days after the shooting, Parker admitted that at least one administrator had been told that the boy may have a gun the day of the shooting. On Wednesday, the Newport News School Board will meet to discuss a separation agreement and severance for the superintendent, Newport News Public Schools did not respond to TIME’s request for comment.

When the Newport News School District sends a message that “teachers are expendable, that this is just a hazard of the job if you teach at Newport News, their response will hover over this school district and this community for decades,” Toscano said.

“Since they can’t roll back time and undo the callousness of the bureaucracy, they can do the right thing and admit what went wrong and fix it,” she added.

Toscano said that since the shooting, Zwerner has been home recovering and “gaining strength every day,” but that Zwerner was between surgeries and physical therapy appointments and the bullet from the shooting remains dangerously inside Zwerner’s body. And while her physical condition is improving, Toscano said Zwerner’s “psychological conditions cut deeply and remain fresh.”

“Abby Zwerner is the best of us, an optimistic, dedicated and caring elementary school teacher who endured the unthinkable; being shot purposely by a 6-year-old student in front of her first grade class while teaching,” Toscano said.

According to a letter previously released by the shooter’s family, the gun belonged to the boy’s mother and they had stored it in a secure location. Newport News police confirmed that his mother had legally purchased the gun. The commonwealth attorney’s office will decide if the mother will face any charges.

The letter also stated that the six-year-old boy has an “acute disability and was under a care plan at the school that included his mother or father attending school with him and accompanying him to class every day.” The week of the shooting was the first instance where neither parent accompanied the boy. Following the shooting, the boy received hospital care and “the treatment he needs,” according to the letter.

On Wednesday, James Ellenson, an attorney for the child’s family, said in a statement that they “continue to pray for Ms. Zwerner and wish her a complete and full recovery.”

(NewsNation) — Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, announced Wednesday that former President Donald Trump’s suspension from the social media platform will come to an end “in the coming weeks,” Nick Clegg, the president of Meta’s global affairs, said in an email to media outlets Wednesday.

“Americans should be able to hear from the people who want to lead the country,” Clegg said. “We don’t want to stand in the way.”

The former president’s accounts were suspended after the social media platforms determined that Trump stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The company said in a blog post Wednesday it is adding “new guardrails” to ensure there are no “repeat offenders” who violate its rules.

“In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation,” Meta, which is based in Menlo Park, California, said.

Trump’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.

He was suspended on Jan. 7, a day after the deadly 2021 insurrection. Other social media companies also kicked him off their platforms, though he was recently reinstated on Twitter after Elon Musk took over the company. He has not tweeted.

Banned from mainstream social media, Trump has been relying on his own, much smaller site, Truth Social, which he launched after being blocked from Twitter.

This is a developing story. Refresh for updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

It can be frustrating to know that you might not be receiving critical emails, especially due to technical issues.

Justin Paget/Getty Images

• If Gmail isn’t receiving emails, there could be a few problems.
• When your Google Drive runs out of storage space, you can’t receive new emails.
• You might also have the wrong Gmail inbox settings, or lack a stable internet connection.

It can be frustrating to find that you’re not receiving emails through Gmail. Connectivity, settings, and account issues can stop you from receiving emails, but most are a quick fix.

Here’s what to do if you’re having inbox trouble.

How to fix Gmail if you’re not receiving emails

Clearing your inbox or Google Drive, changing your filter settings, and double-checking your internet connection can all help solve the problem. 

Clear your Google storage space

Plenty of us are guilty of hoarding messages and files that we don’t need. If your inbox is filled with old emails, you run the risk of running out of storage space.

Go through your inbox to delete large files from your account or Google Drive to help free up space. If you want more space to save your emails, you can also upgrade your storage plan.

If you’ve run out of Google storage, you can’t receive more emails.

Google; William Antonelli/Insider

Make sure your emails aren’t being filtered into another folder

Gmail has an automatic system for filtering emails into your different folders. This means that if you’re waiting for an email from a new sender, there’s a chance Gmail marked it as spam.

Quick tip: Gmail marks some emails as spam by default. It will eventually learn which emails are safe and which are spam as you mark them. In the meantime, here’s how to change Gmail spam settings if it’s not getting it quite right.

You can open your spam folder by clicking or tapping Spam in Gmail’s left sidebar. If you find the email you’re looking for there, open it and select Report not spam or Move to inbox.

You can move spam messages back into the general inbox.

Gmail; William Antonelli/Insider

Alternatively, check out the All Mail folder, which contains every email you receive, no matter the folder. 

You might also want to check your Trash folder. There’s always a chance that you deleted the email you’re looking for accidentally.

If you find that a lot of important emails are getting filtered into other folders, make sure that you don’t have a filter inadvertently blocking your emails.

1. On Gmail’s desktop website, click the gear icon in the top-right corner and then click See all settings.

2. Select the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab to see all your Gmail filters.

The Filters and Blocked Addresses tab shows if there are any conditions that might hide or block emails before you see them.

Alexander Johnson/Insider

3. Review the filters and select Delete for any you want to remove.

Connect to the internet

It might seem obvious, but you need an internet connection to receive emails. If your internet connection is spotty or weak, Gmail will have trouble receiving and loading emails.

Take a speed test on your computer or phone to see if your connection is slow. And if the problems persist, disconnect from the internet and reconnect. You might also have to manually reset your internet router, or even try using another device to check your email with.

Quick tip: You may be receiving emails, but simply not getting notifications from them, especially if you’re not connected to the internet. Try checking your iPhone’s notification settings or reconnecting to wifi.

Make sure your account’s POP/IMAP settings are correct on the iPhone Mail app

Some issues might occur while using Gmail on your iPhone. If you’re using the Mail app on an iPhone, you’ll have to make sure your Google account is properly set up and linked.

1. Open Settings and scroll down to Mail.

2. Tap Accounts and then Add Account.

3. Choose the email provider you use and sign into the designated account. 

4. Once signed in, your Gmail account should be linked to your iPhone’s Mail app.

Gmail on an iPhone can also have IMAP issues, which is the system that allows information to flow into and from your smartphone. If it’s switched off, there are simple steps to enable it. 

On a computer’s web browser

1. Open Gmail and click the gear icon in the top-right corner and then click See all settings.

2. Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

3. Scroll down to IMAP Access and click on Enable IMAP.

Enable IMAP, either on your computer or phone.

Gmail; William Antonelli/Insider

On your iPhone

1. Open Safari, go to Gmail.com and log in to your account.

2. Tap Go to Mobile Gmail Site and tap the link at the bottom of the screen.

3. Tap More in the bottom-left corner.

4. Scroll down and tap View Gmail and tap Desktop. 

5. Tap Settings and then the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

6. Scroll down to IMAP Access and tap Enable IMAP.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets his cabinet colleagues as he arrives on the opening day of the winter session of the Parliament, in New Delhi, India, on December 7, 2022.

AP Photo/Manish Swarup

• YouTube and Twitter blocked links to a BBC documentary about Indian PM Narendra Modi in India.
• The documentary investigates Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots that killed around 1,000 people.
• An advisor to the Indian government called the documentary “hostile propaganda” on Twitter.

Links and videos of a BBC documentary about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are being blocked on YouTube and Twitter in India.

The two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” investigates claims about Modi’s involvement in the 2002 riots in Gujarat where he was serving as chief minister at the time. Over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed during the violence that was prompted by the murder of a group of 59 Hindu pilgrims.

Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, tweeted on Saturday that the office “issued directions for blocking multiple” YouTube videos showing the first episode of the documentary. The ministry also ordered Twitter to block “over 50 tweets with links to these YT videos,” he said.

He tweeted that the ministry is using “emergency powers under the IT Rules,” introduced by Modi in 2021, and that YouTube and Twitter have complied in India.

Modi is part of the BJP, or Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been India’s ruling political party since 2014 when Modi took office. He has denied contributing to the violence depicted in the documentary.  

Gupta criticized the documentary on Twitter, calling it “hostile propaganda,” and “anti-India garbage.” He accused the BBC of having a “colonial mindset,” and said the documentary was “undermining the sovereignty and integrity of India.”

A YouTube spokesperson told Insider in a statement that, “The video in question has been blocked from appearing by the BBC due to a copyright claim.” 

A spokesperson for the BBC said it “has not asked Twitter to remove any content relating to the documentary. As is our standard practice, we issue Takedown Notices to websites and other file sharing platforms where the content infringes the BBC’s copyright.” The documentary has been broadcast only in the UK on the BBC’s video on-demand service. 

The spokesperson said the documentary “examines the tensions between India’s Hindu majority and Muslim minority and explores the politics of India’s PM Narendra Modi in relation to those tensions.”

“The documentary was rigorously researched according to highest editorial standards. A wide range of voices, witnesses and experts were approached, and we have featured a range of opinions – this includes responses from people in the BJP. We offered the Indian Government a right to reply to the matters raised in the series – it declined to respond,” the spokesperson said.

Twitter did not immediately responded to Insider’s request for comment.

Two Parliamentary members of the opposition party All India Trinamool Congress, shared links to the documentary. Derek O’Brien’s tweet was removed; Mahua Moitra shared an archived link to the video but it longer works. In a tweet with the link she said, “Sorry, Haven’t been elected to represent world’s largest democracy to accept censorship.”

Twitter CEO Elon Musk responded to a tweet asking him about The Intercept’s article on removing the documentary and said it was the first he’d heard of it.

“It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things,” Musk tweeted.

Musk has called himself  “a free speech absolutist,” but clarified in another tweet in April that, “By ‘free speech’, I simply mean that which matches the law. I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.”

Stanley’s 40-ounce tumblers retail for $40 to $50, according to the company website. Social media users are praising the cups for their design and ability to keep drinks chilled.

Courtesy of Stanley

• Stanley tumblers had a surge of popularity in 2022 with many calling it the new “it” portable drinkware.
• Stanley is beating out drinkware from other brands that previously dominated the market.
• Here are the beloved water bottle brands that are now falling by the wayside. 

As more consumers move away from single-use plastics and toward a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, the reusable water bottle market is reaping the benefits — especially beloved brands like Stanley. 

The market was valued at nearly $9 billion in 2021, and it’s expected to reach close to $12 billion by 2028, according to a 2022 study done by market intelligence company SkyQuest. Stanley is cashing in on that growth: In February 2022, Stanley was named the fastest-growing equipment accessories brand, with sales growing by 275% in 2021, the company told the New York Times earlier this year. 

In recent months, Stanley’s 40-ounce tumblers — which retail for between $40 and $50 — have become the internet’s latest obsession, thanks to their sleek design and ability to keep drinks chilled for long periods of time. 

Before these colorful tumblers took over your TikTok, these are the six brands that dominated the reusable water bottle market. 

Prince Andrew.

Steve Parsons – WPA Pool/Getty Images

• Prince Andrew wants to overturn his settlement with Virginia Giuffre, according to news reports. 
• Legal experts told Insider setting aside settlements is not unprecedented. 
• But the experts said it’s a hard process and one Andrew is unlikely to win.

Over the weekend, news outlets in the UK reported that Prince Andrew was mounting an effort to get his settlement with Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre overturned, but legal experts told Insider that such an effort will be nearly impossible.  

Giuffre claims Epstein sex-trafficked her to Andrew when she was 17 years old. She sued the prince in 2021, alleging battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. While Andrew has always maintained his innocence, the two settled out of court in February 2022, with Andrew reportedly paying millions of dollars. 

Andrew has faced serious consequences for his relationship with Epstein. He stepped away from public life in 2019 after giving a disastrous BBC interview about Epstein, and was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages just weeks before his settlement with Giuffre was announced last year.

According to reports in The Mail on Sunday and The Sun, Andrew has consulted lawyers about whether he can overturn the settlement after Giuffre dropped another lawsuit against prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz. Giuffre long claimed that Epstein had sex-trafficked her to Dershowitz as well, but ended her lawsuit against Dershowitz in November, issuing a statement that she may have been mistaken in accusing Dershowitz of sexual abuse.

Representatives for the prince and Giuffre did not immediately respond to Insider’s requests for comment on Wednesday.

Sources told The Mail on Sunday and The Sun that Andrew always wanted to fight Giuffre’s allegations but felt like he was forced to settle so as not to distract from the celebrations around Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee last year. 

“Andrew felt as if he was in a pressure-cooker, as if he was given no option but to settle,” a source told The Mail on Sunday. “But he never wanted to settle and has always insisted he was innocent. He wants to see what legal routes might be available to him.”

Andrew’s ‘buyer’s remorse’

While not unprecedented, legal experts in the US said that Andrew will have a tough time trying to force a retraction from Giuffre and get his money back. 

Prominent Los Angeles attorney Tre Lovell said that settlements usually contain language that “even if new or additional facts are later uncovered, the settlement agreement will still be binding.”

“The purpose of a settlement is to forever end a dispute and allow the settling parties to move on with their lives in peace,” Lovell said.

Virginia Roberts holds a photo of herself at age 16, when she says Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein began abusing her sexually.

Emily Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

However, Lovell said that “contract defenses do exist for challenging a settlement agreement, such as in the cases of fraud, duress, a mistake, or undue influence” but said that proving such defenses are “very hard and most courts will lean towards enforcing such an agreement.” 

Gerard Filitti, senior counsel of The Lawfare Project, said it seems like Andrew is experiencing “buyer’s remorse” over his settlement, but he said he doesn’t see how the prince could successfully challenge the settlement agreement. 

“Prince Andrew would likely argue that there was some element of fraud or misrepresentation that induced him to settle, but this settlement was the result of litigation that he had the full opportunity to vigorously defend, including through fact discovery,” Filitti said.

“Prince Andrew’s potential claim that he somehow was under ‘duress’ is equally unavailing. A public figure involved in headline-grabbing litigation is hardly under duress, and if anything, would have had the motivation to vigorously defend the claims in public rather than settle,” Filitti added. 

Though the terms of the settlement are still private, it’s possible that Andrew may argue that Giuffre somehow violated the terms, Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Insider. 

However, Rahmani said that doesn’t automatically mean the courts will side with Andrew and give him his money back. Rahmani said that typically, minor breaches of a contract don’t result in the deal being rescinded entirely. 

“Minor breaches aren’t grounds to terminate an agreement. They may be grounds for monetary damages but not grounds to tear the whole thing up,” Rahmani said. 

Overall, Filitti described the idea of trying to overturn the settlement as a “foolhardy effort.” 

“If Prince Andrew wants to rehabilitate his image, perhaps he should do so in a way that doesn’t remind the public about the seamier aspects of his private life,” Filitti said. 

A California farm worker accused of shooting seven people to death near San Francisco, some of them his co-workers, made his first court appearance on Wednesday after he was charged with murder in the state’s second deadly gun rampage in recent days.

Chunli Zhao, 66, the lone suspect in Monday’s massacre at two mushroom farms in the seaside town of Half Moon Bay, was to be formally presented with seven counts of premeditated murder and a single count of attempted murder in a criminal complaint filed by local prosecutors.

The hearing was held at the San Mateo County Superior Court in nearby Redwood City, California.

The complaint against Zhao also alleged “special circumstances” accusing Zhao of “personally and intentionally” shooting to kill.

California law declares that defendants convicted of murder with “special circumstances” can be eligible for the death penalty, but Governor Gavin Newsom in 2019 declared a moratorium on executions. The state has not executed a condemned inmate since 2006.

Also on Wednesday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, a California native, planned to travel to the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park, site of the first of the recent deadly rampages. She was expected to meet with some families of the 11 people who were fatally shot in a dance hall on Saturday night by a gunman who later took his own life.

Coming in quick succession, the two shooting sprees left California reeling from one of the bloodiest spates of mass gun violence in decades in a state with some of the strictest firearm laws in the country.

Zhao was taken into custody on Monday evening outside a sheriff’s station, where police said he had driven shortly after the attack on farm workers.

The precise motive for the shooting remained unclear. Zhao had been employed by one of the growers, Mountain Mushroom Farm, and had resided at the property along with some other employees, according to a spokesperson for California Terra Gardens, which owns the farm. Authorities said early evidence indicated the bloodshed stemmed from a workplace grievance. The second crime scene, Concord Farms, is about a mile away.

Half Moon Bay, a community of about 12,000 residents south of San Francisco, is home to both a luxury resort and a low-income farming community. The shooting cast a renewed spotlight on hardships faced by the area’s farm workers, many of them immigrants from Latin America and Asia who often live in squalid labor encampments and toil long hours under poor conditions for extremely low pay.

The San Mateo County Coroner named six of the seven deceased victims on Wednesday and listed their ages as between 43 and 73. Charging documents listed the dead as Yetao Bing, Qizhong Cheng, Jingzhi Lu, Zhishen Liu, Aixiang Zhang, Jose Romero and Marciano Martinez Jimenez.

Jose Romero’s brother Pedro was also injured in the attack and was hospitalized as of Tuesday, the brothers’ cousin Jose Juarez told Reuters. Juarez said the brothers had immigrated from Mexico and worked at Mountain Mushroom Farm.

Two days before the Half Moon Bay killings, another gunman 380 miles to the south opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a club frequented mostly by older patrons of Asian descent in Monterey Park.

Eleven people died and nine were injured in Saturday night’s gunfire, which some survivors and bystanders said they initially mistook for fireworks as the predominantly Asian-American community was observing the start of the Lunar New Year.

Authorities said the assailant, Huu Can Tran, 72, drove a short time later to a second dance hall in the neighboring town of Alhambra. There, the club’s operator disarmed him before he could open fire.

The next morning, Tran shot himself to death behind the wheel of his getaway vehicle as police closed in on him south of Los Angeles, leaving investigators with few clues as to his motive.

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