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The longtime Indiana University doctor accused of sexually abusing basketball players has died, but the lawsuit accusing the school’s trustees and a former athletic trainer of turning a blind eye to the alleged abuse lives on.

Dr. Bradford Bomba Sr., who has been accused of performing unnecessary rectal examinations on several generations of Hoosiers players, died on May 8 while receiving hospice care in his hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, according to his obituary. He was 89.

His death comes a week after a law firm hired by the university concluded that the doctor did not act “in bad faith or with an improper purpose” when he performed the exams on hundreds of young players during routine physicals.

But in the same report, medical experts brought on by the Jones Day law firm to help conduct the independent investigation wrote that “it was uncommon” for physicians to perform invasive exams like this on “college-age student athletes without pertinent history of complaints.”

Kathleen DeLaney, who represents five former Indiana players in the federal lawsuit, said Bomba’s death does not derail their case. Bomba is not named as a defendant.

In December Bomba testified via video in a deposition ordered by the federal judge presiding over the lawsuit. During the deposition, Bomba invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination dozens of times, according to a transcript of his testimony.

“We will be able to use that testimony, so we do not believe that Dr. Bomba’s death will impact our case,” Delaney wrote in an emailed response Tuesday to NBC News. “IU does not challenge that Dr. Bomba systematically and over decades penetrated the rectums of young, healthy male elite athletes.”

IU did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the death of Bomba, who provided medical care to all of its sports teams from 1962 to 1970 and was the men’s basketball team physician from 1979 until the late 1990s.

Born in Chicago, Bradford played football for Indiana University and was drafted by the Washington Redskins in 1957 but left the team after four preseason games to attend IU’s school of medicine, his obituary states.

Bomba was long retired when Haris Mujezinovic and Charlie Miller, who played for the Hoosiers in the 1990s under legendary coach Bob Knight, said in a lawsuit filed in October in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana that the coaches and trainers were aware that Bomba was subjecting basketball players to unnecessary prostate examinations and did nothing to stop him. 

Knight, who was described as a “close friend” in Bomba’s obituary, died two years ago at age 83.

The former Hoosiers players sued under Title IX, a federal law that requires all colleges and universities that receive federal funds to put safeguards in place to protect students from discrimination based on sex, including sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Since October, three other former players joined the class action lawsuit against the IU trustees and former athletic trainer Tim Garl.

Both the IU trustees and Garl have filed motions seeking to dismiss the lawsuit against them, court records show. Garl, who had been the head men’s basketball trainer at the school since 1981, was informed in April that IU would not be renewing his contract.

The Jones Day report called Garl’s behavior “unprofessional” for “razzing” players about the rectal exams at the hands of Bomba.

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced it will begin the process of pulling prescription fluoride drops and tablets for children off the market. The supplements are usually given to kids at high risk for cavities.

The federal government and some state legislatures are increasingly drawing attention to what they claim are the risks associated with fluoride, a mineral that’s been used for decades in community water systems, toothpastes and mouth rinses to prevent tooth decay.

Dentists fiercely contest that the harms of fluoride outweigh the benefits.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said in a news release that he’s instructing the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research “to evaluate the evidence regarding the risks of systemic fluoride exposure from FDA-regulated pediatric ingestible fluoride prescription drug products to better inform parents and the medical community on this emerging area.”

The news release suggested that ingested fluoride can alter a child’s gut microbiome and cause weight gain, thyroid disorders and “possibly decreased IQ.”

“The best way to prevent cavities in children is by avoiding excessive sugar intake and good dental hygiene,” Makary said.

The FDA said the evaluation should be completed by Oct. 31.

The new action goes after tablets and drops that contain fluoride. According to the American Dental Association, pediatric dentists can prescribe fluoride supplements to kids living in areas with low fluoride levels in drinking water.

Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina, said she’s been prescribing more of the drops and tablets since county commissioners voted to stop adding fluoride to its water supply last year.

“This is really going to hamper our goal of providing kids with fluoride,” Lochary said. “It’s ridiculous, and it takes away the choice of parents to allow their children to have better dental health. It doesn’t make scientific sense.”

“Unlike toothpaste with fluoride or fluoride rinses, these products are swallowed and ingested by infants and toddlers,” the news release said.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously referred to fluoride as “industrial waste” on the social media platform X and said on MSNBC that the faster the mineral goes away, the better.

“Ending the use of ingestible fluoride is long overdue,” Kennedy said in Tuesday’s announcement.

Utah and Florida recently banned the addition of fluoride to public water systems.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration is cutting another $450 million in grants to Harvard University a day after the Ivy League school pushed back against government allegations that it’s a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism.

In a letter to Harvard on Tuesday, a federal antisemitism task force said Harvard will lose grants from eight federal agencies in addition to $2.2 billion that was previously frozen by the Trump administration.

The letter said Harvard has become a “breeding ground for virtue signaling and discrimination” and faces a “steep, uphill battle” to reclaim its legacy as a place of academic excellence.

“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” the letter said.

It was signed by officials at the Education Department, Health and Human Services and the General Services Administration.

University officials did not immediately provide comment on the letter.

Harvard has faced escalating sanctions from the White House after becoming the first U.S. university to openly defy the government’s demands to limit pro-Palestinian activism and end diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

Trump, a Republican, has said he wants Harvard to lose its tax-exempt status, and the Department of Homeland Security has threatened to revoke the school’s eligibility to host foreign students.

Last week, the Education Department said Harvard will receive no new federal grants until it meets the government’s demands.

The Trump administration has demanded Harvard make broad leadership changes, revise its admissions policies and audit its faculty and student body to ensure the campus is home to many viewpoints.

The demands are part of a pressure campaign targeting several other high-profile universities. The administration has cut off money to colleges including Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University, seeking compliance with Trump’s agenda.

Harvard is suing to block the federal funding freeze.

Harvard President Alan Garber disputed the government’s allegations in a Monday letter, saying Harvard is nonpartisan and has taken steps to root out antisemitism on campus. He insisted that Harvard is in compliance with the law, calling the federal sanctions an “unlawful attempt to control fundamental aspects of our university’s operations.”

The government’s letter on Tuesday said Harvard has repeatedly failed to address racial discrimination and antisemitism on campus. It cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down Harvard’s use of race in the admissions process, along with a recent internal report at Harvard detailing cases of antisemitic harassment.

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he is placing a hold on all Trump Justice Department nominees as he seeks answers on the administration’s plan to accept a luxury jet from Qatar to be used as Air Force One.

“In light of the deeply troubling news of a possible Qatari-funded Air Force One, and the reports that the Attorney General personally signed off on this clearly unethical deal, I am announcing a hold on all DOJ political nominees, until we get more answers,” Schumer said on the Senate floor this morning.

The minority leader presented a list of questions he has for the Trump administration that he says must be answered before he lifts his hold on nominees.

“President Trump has told the American people this is, ‘a free jet.’ Does that mean the Qataris are delivering a ready-on-day-one plane with all the security measures already built in? If so, who installed those security measures, and how do we know they were properly installed?” Schumer asked. “If this is, as President Trump promised, a free jet, will the Qataris pay for those highly sensitive installations, or will American taxpayers cover the cost?”

Schumer can’t block these nominees with this tactic, but he can slow down their consideration. It’s not really clear if the Judicial nominees would have already been held for various other reasons, considering the vast majority of Trump nominees have been held in this way already.

The Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ prepared a memo declaring that the acceptance of the plane was legal, a senior DOJ official told NBC News on Monday. The DOJ declined to release the memo, which Attorney General Pam Bondi approved.

Schumer, in his remarks Tuesday, called on Bondi to testify before Congress to explain the conclusion that there is no conflict and answer a number of questions related to the gift.

“The Attorney General must testify before both the House and Senate to explain why gifting Donald Trump a private jet does not violate the emoluments clause — which requires congressional approval — or any other ethics laws,” Schumer said. “Until the Attorney General explains her blatantly inept decision and we get complete and comprehensive answers to these and other questions, I will place a hold on all political nominees to the Department Of Justice.”

Before leaving for his trip to the Middle East on Monday, Trump defended his decision to accept the airplane gift, which he called “a very nice gesture.” He also said it would eventually be decommissioned and would be given to his presidential library.

“Now I could be a stupid person and say, ‘Oh no, we don’t want a free plane,’” he told reporters at the White House. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”

Some legal experts, however, have questioned how a gift that would follow Trump out of office could be permissible under the Emoluments Clause. Democrats and even some Republicans have suggested the jet could be perceived as a conflict of interest.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a close ally of the president’s, told CNBC on Tuesday that “the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems.”

Some Democrats have also questioned Bondi’s involvement in the matter as she has previously lobbied for the government of Qatar.

Lawmakers and former intelligence officials note the massive spying risks posed by such a gift from a foreign government and the long history of gifts that turned out to be more than they appeared. In 1945, for example, Soviet children gifted the U.S. ambassador in Moscow a wooden carving of America’s Great Seal, and a listening device inside the object was discovered seven years later.

BEIJING — Xi Jinping didn’t even have to mention Donald Trump by name to get his point across.

The Chinese president was giving the hard sell to a room full of senior Latin American leaders on Tuesday. He promoted his country’s stability and fundamental reasonableness, providing a clear contrast between him and his U.S. counterpart’s erratic trade war.

“Bullying and coercion only lead to isolation,” he said in Beijing at the China-CELAC, or Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Forum. The context was clear.

The world’s two largest economies remain engaged in a trade war that has also engulfed nearly every country on earth, including more than 30 Latin American and Caribbean countries who sent heads of state and senior officials to Tuesday’s forum.

In his first public comments since the U.S. and China agreed to a 90-day pause on most of their levies in trade talks over the weekend, Xi said Beijing was ready to work with Latin American and Caribbean countries in the face of “rising geopolitical tensions and bloc confrontation, unilateralism and protectionism.”

While Trump has allies such as El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and Argentinian President Javier Milei, he has alienated much of Latin America with his threats to “take back” the Panama Canal and his derogatory comments about immigrants, said Bárbara Fernández Melleda, an assistant professor in Latin American studies at the University of Hong Kong.

“It seems that Donald Trump is certainly Latin American-adverse, and the way he’s been speaking about the Latin American community in the United States has been really sad for us,” she said.

“What’s happening, not just in Latin America, is that countries are saying, ‘Well, if these big countries are getting hostile, we should just find other partnerships.’”

China played up those tensions in the lead-up to the forum, rejecting the idea of Latin American and Caribbean countries being in anyone’s “backyard.”

“What the people of Latin America and the Caribbean seek are independence and self-determination, not the so-called new Monroe Doctrine,” Assistant Foreign Minister Miao Deyu was quoted as saying by Chinese state media, referring to the 19th-century U.S. approach to the region as its “sphere of influence” that Trump has been accused of trying to revive.

The Cuban ambassador to China, Alberto Blanco Silva, told NBC News after Xi’s speech that he viewed China “as a factor of stability, balance and opportunity — not only for the world, but also for Latin America.”

China is Latin America’s second-biggest trading partner after the United States, and Latin America is the biggest destination for Chinese outbound investment outside Asia. Last year, total trade between China and Latin America exceeded $500 billion for the first time, up from $12 billion in 2000.

Beijing has also been cultivating Latin American ties with an eye on Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy it views as a breakaway province. Most of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies are in the region, and China peeled away one of them — Honduras — in 2023.

Chinese influence in Latin America can be seen in the electric vehicles on its roads as well as massive infrastructure projects, such as the $1.3 billion Chancay port in Peru.

While there are concerns and criticism around such projects, Latin American countries’ relationship with China “seems to be more symmetrical than we are used to,” especially when compared with the U.S. and former colonial rulers in Europe, Fernández Melleda said.

Xi said Tuesday that China would import more from Latin America, encourage Chinese companies to increase investment and provide 66 billion yuan ($9.1 billion) in fresh credit to support Latin American and Caribbean financing.

The Chinese leader also said he wanted to deepen Latin America’s involvement in Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who in January agreed to accept U.S. deportation flights after Trump threatened him with sweeping tariffs, said Monday that his country would join Belt and Road.

Eric Baculinao reported from Beijing, and Jennifer Jett from Hong Kong.

After months of delays, Erik and Lyle Menendez may be one step closer to learning if they’ll be free.

The brothers have each spent more than three decades in prison for the 1989 shotgun murders of their parents, and they’ve been waiting since October to be heard on a prosecutor’s recommendation that their sentences of life without the possibility of parole be reduced to 50 years to life.

That recommendation, if approved by Los Angeles County Superior Judge Michael Jesic after what is expected to be two days of hearings beginning Tuesday, would make Erik, 54, and Lyle, 57, eligible for parole immediately.

A decision on the matter has been hamstrung by forces inside and outside the courtroom. Those delays have helped fuel an increasingly bitter debate over a question at the heart of the criminal justice system: What does someone convicted of first-degree murder have to do to show they’ve been rehabilitated?

SEATTLE — Yankees third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera was taken off the field in an ambulance after he injured his left ankle in the ninth inning of New York’s 11-5 victory over Seattle on Monday night.

Cabrera was hurt on an awkward slide when he reached back for the plate and scored the Yankees’ final run on Aaron Judge’s sacrifice fly.

Manager Aaron Boone said Cabrera had a brace put on his left ankle before entering the ambulance on a stretcher. Cabrera was taked to a hospital with team athletic trainer Tim Lentych.

“I think everyone understands it was a pretty serious situation,” Boone said. “So, just praying for our guy (Cabrera) tonight and hoping for the best. Trust that he’s in good hands as he goes through the night here.”

Cabrera, a 26-year-old native of Venezuela writhed on the ground and stayed down for several minutes while being attended to by various medical personnel.

“Right before he got carted off, he just called me over and said, ‘Hey, did I score?’” Judge said. “So, just kind of shows you what type of guy he is. Something like that happens and the one thing on his mind for all the pain and everything is, ‘Did I score?’”

Cabrera is in his fourth MLB season and has become a regular in the Yankees’ lineup. He is hitting .243 this season with one home run and 12 RBIs.

“He cares for everybody in this room. He loves being a Yankee,” Judge said. “He wears his jersey with pride. This is a tough one, especially a guy that’s grinded his whole life and finally got an opportunity to be our everyday guy and been excelling at it.”

Law enforcement officials in New Jersey have opened a criminal investigation into a devastating house fire — which, neighbors have called an explosion — on Sunday that left two people dead and a house left as little more than a pile of debris in Washington Township.

Prosecutors in Gloucester Township have told NBC10’s Neil Fischer that the Gloucester County Fire Marshal’s Office is working with law enforcement officials to determine how the deadly fire may have begin as the incident is now being considered a criminal investigation.

Officials also said the county’s coroner’s office is still working and has not yet prepared an autopsy report on the two individuals — a man and a woman — who were pulled from the wreckage of the home.

The identities of the two individuals found in the property have not yet been revealed by law enforcement officials.

But, neighbors, and a woman who he previously dated, identified the man who lived at the home as Daniel Steele.

“It’s an emotional roller coaster. I hurt for his whole family. I hurt for her family. I hurt for myself, because Dan was one of the best people I ever met,” Steele’s former girlfriend, Nicole Ruiz, told NBC10’s Miguel Martinez-Valle.

Ruiz said that, before Sunday’s fire, Steele dropped his dog, Billy, off at her home and along with some dog food.

PARIS — A Paris court on Tuesday found actor Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexual assault on a 2021 film set.

The actor, 76, was convicted of having groped a 54-year-old set dresser during the filming of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”). The panel of judges will deliver a verdict regarding another plaintiff and pronounce a sentence later Tuesday.

The case is widely seen as a key post-#MeToo test of how French society and its film industry address allegations of sexual misconduct involving prominent figures.

Depardieu has denied the accusations.

Depardieu’s long and storied career — he told the court that he’s made more than 250 films — has turned him into a French movie giant. He was Oscar-nominated in 1991 for his performance as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac.

During the four-day trial in March, Depardieu rejected the accusations, saying he’s “not like that.” He acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualized language on the film set and that he grabbed the set dresser’s hips during an argument, but denied that his behavior was sexual.

Two accusers

The set dresser described the alleged assault, 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 grabbed her chest.

The woman also testified that Depardieu used an obscene expression to ask her to touch his penis and suggested he wanted to rape her. She told the court that the actor’s calm and cooperative attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.

The other plaintiff, an assistant, said that Depardieu groped her buttocks and her breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.

The Associated Press doesn’t identify by name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to be named. Neither women has done so in this case.

Suspended sentence requested

Paris’ public prosecutor requested that Depardieu be found guilty and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 20,000 euros ($22,200). The prosecutor denounced the actor’s “total denial and failure to question himself.”

Some figures in the French cinema world have expressed their support for Depardieu. Actors Vincent Perez and Fanny Ardant were among those who took seats on his side of the courtroom.

Depardieu has been accused publicly or in formal complaints of misconduct by more than 20 women, but so far only the sexual assault case has proceeded to court. Some other cases were dropped because of a lack of evidence or the statute of limitations.

The actor may have to face other legal proceedings soon.

In 2018, actor Charlotte Arnould accused him of raping her at his home. That case is still active, and in August 2024 prosecutors requested that it go to trial.

NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK, Wash. — Three climbers from suburban Seattle were killed in a fall over the weekend in North Cascades National Park, sheriff’s officials said.

Sheriff’s personnel and county search and rescue volunteers responded to the accident late Sunday morning about 16 miles west of Mazama in an area of rock formations that are popular with climbers, the Okanogan County Sheriff’s Office said in a social media post Monday.

A party of four climbers from Renton was involved in the fall while descending a steep gully in the area of North Early Winters Spire. The post said three people ages 36, 47 and 63, died at the scene.

The fourth person sustained internal bleeding and a traumatic brain injury in the fall but freed himself, walked to his car and drove to a pay phone to call for help, Okanogan County Undersheriff David Yarnell told The Seattle Times. The man was then taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

“He didn’t realize he had as significant of internal injuries as he did,” Yarnell said. His current condition is not known.

A helicopter rescue team from nearby Snohomish County helped recover the bodies from the technical, mountainous terrain.

Anchor failure while rappelling is the presumed cause of the accident, the post said. An investigation is ongoing.