LONDON (AP) — Elizabeth Hurley accused the publisher of the Daily Mail on Thursday of tapping her phones, putting microphones outside her windows and stealing her medical records among “other monstrous, staggering things” during testimony in a celebrity-studded privacy invasion lawsuit.
“The best way I can describe it is like there is someone peeping into your life and into your home,” the model and actor said. It “makes me feel as if my private life had been violated by violent intruders — that there had been sinister thieves in my home all along and that I had been living with them completely unaware.”
Hurley was the second witness to testify in the lawsuit that includes co-claimants Prince Harry and Elton John, and four others who allege that Associated Newspapers Ltd. hired private investigators to unlawfully snoop on them over two decades.
Harry showed up to show his support for Hurley’s testimony the day after he choked up in the witness box as he spoke of the emotional toll his battle against the British media had taken on him and his family.
The publisher denies the claims and has called them preposterous. It said that the articles were reported on with legitimate sources and many will be named by employees at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday in the company's defense during the nine-week trial in London's High Court.
Hurley, who like the prince brought similar phone hacking lawsuits against the publishers of the Daily Mirror and The Sun, said that she was unaware of similar allegations against the Mail until she was told in 2020 that Gavin Burrows, a former private eye, purportedly said that he had stolen her information at the behest of the newspapers.
Burrows has since disavowed that sworn statement and said he never worked for the Mail.
Hurley claims 15 articles about her between 2002 and 2011 relied on unlawful information-gathering. Several were about the 2002 birth of her son, Damian, and the paternity fight with his father, the late film producer Steve Bing.
“The Mail’s unlawful acts against me involve landline tapping my phones and recording my live telephone conversations, placing surreptitious mics on my home windows, stealing my medical information when I was pregnant with Damian, and other monstrous, staggering things,” Hurley said.
She said she had hoped her son, now a model and actor himself who sat in the courtroom, would never see those articles.
“I felt really mortified that my son would be able to read all this stuff one day, and I feel really bad that that day is today when all this stuff is being regurgitated," she said as she became upset when shown some of those articles in court. “Yet again, everyone’s privacy is being invaded in this terrible way, and I feel very helpless about that.”
Elizabeth Hurley, right, leaves the Royal Courts of Justice on day four of the trial over allegations of unlawful information gathering brought against Associated Newspapers Limited, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in London. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)
Britain's Prince Harry arrives at London's High Court to lead a group, including Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley, accusing the Daily Mail's publisher of privacy invasion through unlawful tactics in a trial that is part of a wider phone hacking scandal in London, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Elizabeth Hurley, right, leaves the Royal Courts of Justice on day four of the trial over allegations of unlawful information gathering brought against Associated Newspapers Limited, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in London. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a service at a Minnesota church have been arrested, Trump administration officials said Thursday, even as a judge rebuffed related charges against journalist Don Lemon.
The developments unfolded as Vice President JD Vance arrived in the state.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong in a post on X. On Sunday, protesters entered the Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement serves as a pastor. Bondi later posted on X that a second person had been arrested, followed by a third arrested announced by FBI Director Kash Patel.
The Justice Department quickly opened a civil rights investigation after the group interrupted services by chanting “ICE out” and “Justice for Renee Good," referring to the 37-year-old mother of three who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
“Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP," the attorney general wrote on X.
Cities Church belongs to the Southern Baptist Convention and lists one of its pastors as David Easterwood, who leads the local ICE field office. Many Baptist churches have pastors who also work other jobs.
Attorneys representing the church hailed the arrests.
“The U.S. Department of Justice acted decisively by arresting those who coordinated and carried out the terrible crime,” said Doug Wardlow, director of litigation for True North Legal, which calls itself a public interest civil rights firm, in a statement.
Levy Armstrong, a civil rights attorney and prominent local activist, had called for the pastor affiliated with ICE to resign, saying his dual role poses a “fundamental moral conflict.”
“You cannot lead a congregation while directing an agency whose actions have cost lives and inflicted fear in our communities,” she said Tuesday. “When officials protect armed agents, repeatedly refuse meaningful investigation into killings like Renée Good’s, and signal they may pursue peaceful protesters and journalists, that is not justice — it is intimidation.”
Prominent leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have come to the church’s defense, arguing that compassion for migrant families affected by the crackdown cannot justify violating a sacred space during worship.
Vance, speaking in Toledo ahead of his Minnesota visit, warned the church protesters: “Those people are going to be sent to prison so long as we have the power to do so. We’re going to do everything we can to enforce the law."
A longtime activist in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Levy Armstrong has helped lead local protests after the high-profile police-involved killings of Black Americans, including George Floyd, Philando Castile and Jamar Clark. She is a former president of the NAACP’s Minneapolis branch.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a photo on X of Levy Armstrong with her arms behind her back next to a person wearing a badge. Noem said she faces a charge under a statute that bars threatening or intimidating someone exercising a right.
FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that Chauntyll Louisa Allen, the second person Bondi said was arrested, is charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services or seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship. Patel said William Kelly has also been arrested.
It's unclear which attorneys would represent Allen and Kelly.
Saint Paul Public Schools, where Allen is a member of the board of education, is aware of her arrest but will not comment on pending legal matters, according to district spokesperson Erica Wacker.
Allen and Levy Armstrong are part of a community of Black Minnesota activists who have protested the deaths of African Americans at the hands of police.
Kelly defended the protest during a news conference Tuesday, criticizing the church for its association with a pastor who works for ICE.
The Justice Department’s swift investigation into the church protest stands in contrast to its decision not to open a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said last week there was “no basis” for a civil rights investigation into her death.
Administration officials have said the officer acted in self-defense and that the driver of the Honda was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled toward him. But the decision not to have the department’s Civil Rights Division investigate marked a sharp departure from past administrations, which have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials.
The Justice Department has separately opened an investigation into whether Minnesota officials impeded or obstructed federal immigration enforcement though their public statements. Prosecutors this week sent subpoenas to the offices of Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties, according to a person familiar with the matter.
A magistrate judge rejected federal prosecutors’ bid to charge journalist Don Lemon related to the church protest, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the ongoing investigation.
Lemon was among those on who entered the church. Lemon has said he is not affiliated with the protest organizers and was there chronicling as a journalist.
“Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon said in a video posted on social media. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what the Justice Department would do after the judge’s decision. Authorities could return to a magistrate judge to again seek a criminal complaint or an indictment against Lemon before a grand jury.
CNN, which fired Lemon in 2023, first reported the ruling.
Vance, a Republican, arrived amid tense interactions between federal immigration law enforcement authorities and residents. State and local elected officials have opposed the crackdown that has become a major focus of Department of Homeland Security sweeps.
His visit comes less than a month after Renee Good was killed. He has called Good’s death a “tragedy of her own making.”
Vance said early Thursday that the “far left” has decided the U.S. shouldn't have a border.
“If you want to turn down the chaos in Minneapolis, stop fighting immigration enforcement and accept that we have to have a border in this country. It’s not that hard," Vance said.
A federal appeals court this week suspended a decision that barred immigration officers from using tear gas or pepper spray against peaceful protesters in Minnesota. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals froze the ruling that had barred retaliation, including detaining people who follow agents in cars.
After the court’s stay, U.S. Border Patrol official Greg Bovino, who has commanded the administration’s big-city immigration campaign, was seen on video repeatedly warning protesters on a snowy Minneapolis street “Gas is coming!” before tossing a canister that released green smoke into the crowd.
Bovino, speaking Thursday during a news conference, urged better cooperation from local and state officials in Minnesota, and blamed an “influx of anarchists” for the anti-ICE sentiment.
“The current climate confronting law enforcement ... is not very favorable right now in Minneapolis,” he said. The Associated Press left messages for the Minneapolis Police Department requesting its response to Bovino’s comments.
Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Chris Megerian in Washington; Corey Williams in Detroit; and Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Vice President JD Vance speaks at an industrial shipping facility on the administration's economic agenda and impacts on the Midwest in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Jim Watson/Pool Photo via AP)
FILE - Nekima Levy Armstrong holds up her fist after speaking at an anti-ICE rally for Martin Luther King Jr., Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)
Nekima Levy Armstrong holds up her fist after speaking at an anti-ICE rally for Martin Luther King Jr., Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
A man arrested by federal agents moments prior escapes in handcuffs after tear gas went off, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Tear gas is deployed as Federal agents make arrests on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Nekima Levy Armstrong speaks at an anti-ICE rally for Martin Luther King Jr., Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Cities Church is seen in St. Paul, Minn. where activists shut down a service claiming the pastor was also working as an ICE agent, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026 in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
