Names and faces
■ The college student who made a name for himself tracking the private jet of Taylor Swift is challenging the pop star’s cease and desist letter. Jack Sweeney, who runs the company GRNDCTRL and ran the now-defunct Instagram account taylorswiftjets, tweeted his lawyer’s two-page response to Swift’s attorney, Katie Wright Morrone, captioning the letter: “Look What You Made Me Do.” The caption was the title of the lead single from the 2017 album “Reputation.” “Put simply, there is nothing unlawful about GRNDCTRL’s use of publicly accessible information to track private jets, including those used by public figures like Taylor Swift,” states Sweeney’s attorney, James Slater. “The taylorswiftjets account is engaged in protected speech that does not violate any of Ms. Swift’s legal rights.” Sweeney’s camp points out that Morrone failed “to identify any legal claim.” “Further, your letter’s tone of alarm is unfounded,” Slater continues, noting GRNDCTRL “only provides the location of private jets using publicly available information” which “poses no threat” to the superstar. Slater dismissed Swift’s letter as “a groundless effort to intimidate and censor” Sweeney and his company and pledged to defend both should she “pursue meritless legal action.”
■ South Florida rapper Kodak Black was freed from jail Wednesday after a federal judge sentenced him to time served for a probation violation, even though a drug trafficking case from 2022 remains ongoing. U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez in Miami handed down the sentence nearly two weeks after a drug possession charge was dismissed in neighboring Broward County, according to court records. Broward County Circuit Judge Barbara Duffy ruled earlier this month that prosecutors could not refute or negate the fact that the rapper, whose real name is Bill Kapri, had an oxycodone prescription filled by a pharmacy. Plantation police arrested Kapri, 26, in December after finding him asleep at the wheel with white powder around his mouth, officials said. Although authorities said the powder initially tested positive for cocaine, a lab test later revealed it was oxycodone, for which Kapri obtained a prescription in July 2022. The arrest was a violation of his probation from an unrelated case, which led to him being jailed in Miami for two months. Kapri has sold more than 30 million singles, with hits such as “Super Gremlin,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022.