Actor Shia LaBeouf has been arrested after being accused of hitting two men early Tuesday morning during Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, police said.
LaBeouf was charged with two counts of simple battery, New Orleans police said in a statement.
Officers were called to a business around the French Quarter at about 12:45 a.m. after allegedly "causing a disturbance and becoming increasingly aggressive” inside, police said. Police did not say what type of business it was.
An employee tried to remove LaBeouf and once outside, the actor allegedly hit a man “multiple times with closed fists,” police said.
Witnesses told police that LaBeouf left the area but later returned and continued to act aggressively.
“Multiple individuals attempted to restrain him, releasing him in hopes he would leave,” police said.
The man who was first allegedly hit by LaBeouf told police the actor hit him again. Another man told officers that LaBeouf also allegedly punched him in the nose.
“He was held down until officers arrived,” police said.
LaBeouf was taken to a hospital for treatment of unknown injuries and after being released, he was arrested and taken into custody by police.
Court and jail records did not list an attorney who could speak on behalf of LaBeouf. Emails to LaBeouf’s publicists were not immediately returned.
He has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including a 2017 New York City arrest on suspicion of assault that happened during a livestream.
Later that summer, he was arrested in Georgia for public drunkenness and accused of disorderly conduct and obstruction, when he was on location filming “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” and sentenced to probation. In 2020, he was charged with misdemeanor battery and petty theft in Los Angeles.
That year, the English singer and actor FKA Twigs, whose legal name is Tahliah Barnett, also filed a lawsuit alleging LaBeouf was physically and emotionally abusive to her during their relationship, which they settled in July.
Barnett said LaBeouf put her in a constant state of fear and humiliation, once slammed her into a car, tried to strangle her and knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease.
LaBeouf apologized in a statement after the lawsuit was filed. He also denied the accusations in the lawsuit in a 2021 filing, saying any injuries done or damages incurred by Barnett were not his doing.
The 39-year-old first gained acclaim as a child for his role on the Disney Channel series “Even Stevens,” and continued working steadily into adulthood. He is perhaps best known for his roles in 2007′s “Transformers” and in 2008′s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.”
LaBeouf shares a daughter, born in 2022, with actor Mia Goth.
AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr contributed to this report.
Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
This story was first published Feb. 17, 2026. It was updated on Feb. 27, 2026 to correct that LaBeouf’s 2017 New York arrest was on suspicion of assault, not public drunkenness and disorderly conduct.
FILE - Shia LaBeouf appears at the photo call for the film "Slauson Rec" at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, on May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
FILE - Shia LaBeouf appears at the premiere of "The Phoenician Scheme" at the 78th international film festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 18, 2025. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are sinking Friday as Wall Street keeps punishing companies that could become losers in the artificial-intelligence revolution. A surprisingly discouraging update on inflation is also hurting the market, while oil prices climbed with worries about tensions between the United States and Iran.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8% and is staggering toward the finish of what would be just its second losing month in the last 10. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 716 points, or 1.4%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower.
The losses came as investors returned to knocking down software companies and other businesses under suspicion of getting supplanted by AI-powered competitors.
Block, the company behind Cash App, Square and other businesses, gave a potential signal of what AI could do after Chair Jack Dorsey said it's cutting its workforce by nearly half. That’s even though he said 2025 was a strong year for the company, which is sending more cash to shareholders through stock buybacks.
“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a letter to investors while announcing Block’s latest profit results. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”
The co-founder of Twitter also said, “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
Block is cutting more than 4,000 jobs from its workforce of over 10,000. Its stock jumped 15.1%.
Capable AI tools that can replace humans could also replace entire companies, or at least eat away at their profit margins. Fears about AI disruption have been causing sudden and swift sell-offs for stocks seen as potentially under threat, rolling through industries as different as trucking logistics and legal services.
Salesforce, whose platform helps customers manage their relationships with clients, fell 3%. It gave back much of its 4% gain from the day before after reporting a better profit than analysts expected.
A widely followed ETF tracking the software industry, meanwhile, sank 2.2% to bring its loss for the year so far to 23.6%.
The pain has also filtered out to private-equity companies that have lent money to software companies, which need to withstand the AI threat to keep repaying those loans. Apollo Global Management dropped 8.8% for the sharpest loss in the S&P 500.
Even the companies currently seeing their revenue and profit soar because of AI-related demand are weakening. Nvidia fell 3.1% and was the heaviest weight on the U.S. stock market, a day after dropping to its worst loss since last spring. That's even though it reported a better profit than analysts expected and forecast more in revenue for the current quarter.
Rival chip companies also fell. Worries are hurting such companies not only about whether their stock prices rose too high in recent years but also whether the huge spending driving their growth can continue. Can big spenders like Amazon and Alphabet make back all their billions of dollars in AI investments through higher productivity and profits in the future?
On the winning side of Wall Street was Netflix, which climbed 13.1% after walking away from its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business. That put Skydance-owned Paramount in a position to take over its Hollywood rival.
Paramount Skydance shares jumped 19.7%, while Warner Bros. Discovery fell 2.1%.
Some of the strongest action in financial markets was for oil, where the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 2.8% to settle at $67.02. It's the latest swing in a market unsettled by tensions between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S. military has already gathered a massive fleet of aircraft and warships in the Middle East, and a conflict could disrupt the global flow of oil and drive prices higher.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.4% to $72.48 per barrel.
Also hurting the broad market was a report showing that inflation at the U.S. wholesale level was at 2.9% last month, much higher than the 1.6% that economists expected.
The high number could pressure the Federal Reserve to hold off longer on its cuts to interest rates. Lower rates would give the economy and prices for investments a boost, but they risk worsening inflation at the same time.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was at 3.96%. It briefly swiveled higher following the inflation report, but it’s down from its 4.02% level late Thursday. Treasury yields often fall when nervousness is high and investors are moving into investments that are considered safer.
ln stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% from its latest record, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 0.9% for two of the world’s larger moves.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Earlier versions of the story incorrectly referred to Apollo Global Management as Blue Apollo Global Management.
Trader John Romolo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Thomas McArdle works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Timothy Nick, left, and Robert Charmak work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People walk near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person stands as a vehicle passes by in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A currency trader watches a monitor near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
