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a58f21b7b7020e0d5c4338605c2235d4f12a2c9916302674710e44038f031b46	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Why is an end to the war in Gaza so elusive?\n\nBy Tia Goldenberg \nMay 7th, 2025, 05:00 AM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The war in Gaza may be on the cusp of a new phase after Israel approved plans over the weekend to intensify its operations. Which raises the question: After 19 months of bloodshed and destruction, why is there still no end in sight?\n\nIsrael and Hamas appear to only be growing further apart. Israel unleashed fierce strikes in March, shattering a truce that had freed hostages and sent in badly needed aid. Israel's new plans include seizing the strip, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and asserting greater control over the distribution of aid in the territory, according to Israeli officials.\n\nMounting Israeli public support for an end to the war has not swayed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his stance that Hamas must be destroyed first. The military pressure, vast destruction in Gaza and rising death toll have so far not budged Hamas from its position demanding an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.\n\nHere is a deeper look at why an end to the war has been so elusive.\n\n## Israel says it won't stop until Hamas is defeated\n\nThe war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking 251 hostages. Israel's massive retaliation has killed over 52,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, whose count does not differentiate between militants and civilians.\n\nThe Hamas attack upended Israel's longstanding security doctrine. For years, Israel weathered threats along its borders, launching periodic operations to contain them. Hamas' surprise assault broke that cycle.\n\nIsrael says it is no longer willing to accept a reality where such an attack can reoccur. It has gone to great lengths to reshape the region according to that new doctrine.\n\nIsraeli forces have seized areas in Lebanon and Syria and cracked down in the West Bank, displacing tens of thousands. In Gaza, they intend to remain in the territory in a bid to eliminate Hamas' ability to regroup.\n\nIsrael shows no sign of relenting, despite war crimes accusations at international courts.\n\nExperts say Hamas no longer has the capacity to stage an Oct 7.-style attack — yet it cannot be easily stamped out, either.\n\nThe drive to dismantle Hamas' military and governing capabilities by force has so far proven incompatible with Israel's other war aim: freeing hostages. The captives' relatives fear any escalation in fighting endangers them.\n\n## Hamas agrees to cede political power but not to disarm\n\nNetanyahu has said he is prepared to end the war if Hamas gives up power, disarms and leaves Gaza. But even after that, Israel appears poised to keep troops in corridors carving up Gaza — effectively a new form of occupation.\n\nHamas has offered to release all hostages in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. It says it's willing to cede power in Gaza to other Palestinians but has refused to disarm, offering instead a long-term truce with Israel.\n\nNetanyahu has rejected the notion of Gaza being run by the more moderate Palestinian Authority, but has offered no concrete alternative. He opposes statehood for Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank.\n\nOpinion polls consistently show that only a minority of Palestinians support Hamas, and there have been some protests inside Gaza against Hamas and the war. Still, many Palestinians see armed resistance as the only path to statehood because negotiations and forms of nonviolent resistance have largely failed.\n\nFounded in the late 1980s, the Islamic militant group — which does not accept Israel's existence — is deeply rooted in Palestinian society, with an armed wing, a political party, media and charities. Over 18 years of rule in Gaza, it built a network of underground tunnels, rocket launchers, and weapons caches — some of which remains intact despite Israel's campaign.\n\n## Critics say Netanyahu's drive to continue the war is politically motivated\n\nTwo far-right parties who prop up Netanyahu's governing coalition hold the key to his political survival. They have threatened to topple the government if the war ends with Hamas intact. One party briefly quit the coalition over a recent ceasefire deal, only to return when fighting resumed.\n\nIf both leave, it could bring down the government and trigger early elections. Public opinion polls throughout the war have consistently shown that Netanyahu would struggle to form a coalition government in new elections, endangering his nearly uninterrupted 16-year rule.\n\nPart of that decline in support is because many Israelis oppose his government's insistence on continuing the war and want him to secure a deal freeing the remaining 59 hostages, roughly 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Many say Netanyahu should accept responsibility for his role in failing to prevent Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and resign, either now or after the war.\n\nPublic pressure is also mounting for an independent inquiry into the security failures of Oct. 7, which Netanyahu has refused to launch while the war continues. Any findings could be politically damaging to Netanyahu, who insists he'll face scrutiny, but only after the war.\n\nHis leadership has also been dogged by a series of scandals in his office as well as fierce public criticism against his moves to fire top security and legal officials, whom many Israelis view as an important check on executive power. He is also on trial for corruption for charges he denies.\n\n## The Trump factor\n\nDespite Netanyahu's political woes, Israel enjoys the support of U.S. President Donald Trump, who blames Hamas for the fighting and the misery the war has caused to Palestinian civilians.\n\nDuring the Biden administration, Israel faced some pushback from U.S. officials over what they saw as undue harm to civilians and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.\n\nWhile Trump says he wants an end to the war, he has so far given Israel free rein as it relaunched its military campaign in March and imposed a blockade on Gaza, barring all food, water, medicine and fuel and deepening a humanitarian crisis.\n\nOn Monday, Trump blamed Hamas for the aid crisis in Gaza, saying the group was \"taking everything that's being brought in,\" echoing Israel's accusations, which aid groups have disputed.\n\nTrump has also floated a plan to take over Gaza and relocate its population, an idea once limited to the fringes of Israeli political discourse that Netanyahu has now embraced and said Israel will try to implement.\n\n___\n\nFollow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Why is an end to the war in Gaza so elusive?\n\nBy Tia Goldenberg \nMay 7th, 2025, 05:00 AM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The war in Gaza may be on the cusp of a new phase after Israel approved plans over the weekend to intensify its operations. Which raises the question: After 19 months of bloodshed and destruction, why is there still no end in sight?\n\nIsrael and Hamas appear to only be growing further apart. Israel unleashed fierce strikes in March, shattering a truce that had freed hostages and sent in badly needed aid. Israel's new plans include seizing the strip, forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and asserting greater control over the distribution of aid in the territory, according to Israeli officials.\n\nMounting Israeli public support for an end to the war has not swayed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his stance that Hamas must be destroyed first. The military pressure, vast destruction in Gaza and rising death toll have so far not budged Hamas from its position demanding an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.\n\nHere is a deeper look at why an end to the war has been so elusive.\n\n## Israel says it won't stop until Hamas is defeated\n\nThe war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 and taking 251 hostages. Israel's massive retaliation has killed over 52,000 people in Gaza, according to local health authorities, whose count does not differentiate between militants and civilians.\n\nThe Hamas attack upended Israel's longstanding security doctrine. For years, Israel weathered threats along its borders, launching periodic operations to contain them. Hamas' surprise assault broke that cycle.\n\nIsrael says it is no longer willing to accept a reality where such an attack can reoccur. It has gone to great lengths to reshape the region according to that new doctrine.\n\nIsraeli forces have seized areas in Lebanon and Syria and cracked down in the West Bank, displacing tens of thousands. In Gaza, they intend to remain in the territory in a bid to eliminate Hamas' ability to regroup.\n\nIsrael shows no sign of relenting, despite war crimes accusations at international courts.\n\nExperts say Hamas no longer has the capacity to stage an Oct 7.-style attack — yet it cannot be easily stamped out, either.\n\nThe drive to dismantle Hamas' military and governing capabilities by force has so far proven incompatible with Israel's other war aim: freeing hostages. The captives' relatives fear any escalation in fighting endangers them.\n\n## Hamas agrees to cede political power but not to disarm\n\nNetanyahu has said he is prepared to end the war if Hamas gives up power, disarms and leaves Gaza. But even after that, Israel appears poised to keep troops in corridors carving up Gaza — effectively a new form of occupation.\n\nHamas has offered to release all hostages in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war. It says it's willing to cede power in Gaza to other Palestinians but has refused to disarm, offering instead a long-term truce with Israel.\n\nNetanyahu has rejected the notion of Gaza being run by the more moderate Palestinian Authority, but has offered no concrete alternative. He opposes statehood for Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank.\n\nOpinion polls consistently show that only a minority of Palestinians support Hamas, and there have been some protests inside Gaza against Hamas and the war. Still, many Palestinians see armed resistance as the only path to statehood because negotiations and forms of nonviolent resistance have largely failed.\n\nFounded in the late 1980s, the Islamic militant group — which does not accept Israel's existence — is deeply rooted in Palestinian society, with an armed wing, a political party, media and charities. Over 18 years of rule in Gaza, it built a network of underground tunnels, rocket launchers, and weapons caches — some of which remains intact despite Israel's campaign.\n\n## Critics say Netanyahu's drive to continue the war is politically motivated\n\nTwo far-right parties who prop up Netanyahu's governing coalition hold the key to his political survival. They have threatened to topple the government if the war ends with Hamas intact. One party briefly quit the coalition over a recent ceasefire deal, only to return when fighting resumed.\n\nIf both leave, it could bring down the government and trigger early elections. Public opinion polls throughout the war have consistently shown that Netanyahu would struggle to form a coalition government in new elections, endangering his nearly uninterrupted 16-year rule.\n\nPart of that decline in support is because many Israelis oppose his government's insistence on continuing the war and want him to secure a deal freeing the remaining 59 hostages, roughly 24 of whom are believed to be alive. Many say Netanyahu should accept responsibility for his role in failing to prevent Hamas' Oct. 7 attack and resign, either now or after the war.\n\nPublic pressure is also mounting for an independent inquiry into the security failures of Oct. 7, which Netanyahu has refused to launch while the war continues. Any findings could be politically damaging to Netanyahu, who insists he'll face scrutiny, but only after the war.\n\nHis leadership has also been dogged by a series of scandals in his office as well as fierce public criticism against his moves to fire top security and legal officials, whom many Israelis view as an important check on executive power. He is also on trial for corruption for charges he denies.\n\n## The Trump factor\n\nDespite Netanyahu's political woes, Israel enjoys the support of U.S. President Donald Trump, who blames Hamas for the fighting and the misery the war has caused to Palestinian civilians.\n\nDuring the Biden administration, Israel faced some pushback from U.S. officials over what they saw as undue harm to civilians and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.\n\nWhile Trump says he wants an end to the war, he has so far given Israel free rein as it relaunched its military campaign in March and imposed a blockade on Gaza, barring all food, water, medicine and fuel and deepening a humanitarian crisis.\n\nOn Monday, Trump blamed Hamas for the aid crisis in Gaza, saying the group was \"taking everything that's being brought in,\" echoing Israel's accusations, which aid groups have disputed.\n\nTrump has also floated a plan to take over Gaza and relocate its population, an idea once limited to the fringes of Israeli political discourse that Netanyahu has now embraced and said Israel will try to implement." } ]
ea9c9f795c9a5a9a3618bc92f28c01582750865a9620c12d5a250229a48e3d5e	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Federal officials set timeline for Helene aid to farmers as Georgia enacts tax breaks\n\nBy Jeff Amy \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:52 PM\n\n---\n\nFORSYTH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia's governor signed a law Thursday to exempt federal crop insurance and disaster payments following Hurricane Helene damage from Georgia state income taxes, but it could be months more before some federal money starts flowing to farmers in the hardest-hit states.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Agriculture published a schedule Wednesday to start disbursing disaster aid, part of a $100 billion package passed by Congress in December.\n\nThe September storm cut a swath from Florida's Big Bend across eastern Georgia and upstate South Carolina before causing historic flooding in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.\n\nHelene is the seventh-most expensive disaster in the United States since 1980, causing an estimated $78 billion in damage and 219 deaths.\n\nOfficials have estimated that Helene caused billions in property and economic damage to agriculture, including $5.5 billion in Georgia and $4.9 billion in North Carolina.\n\nFederal officials in March began handing out $10 billion designated in the bill for farmers nationwide harmed by low crop prices and high fertilizer prices. But billions more were set aside for farmers harmed by Helene and other natural disasters in 2023 and 2024.\n\nU.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was questioned about the timeframe Tuesday by lawmakers including Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia. He told Rollins that \"Time is of the essence.\"\n\n\"I've seen the devastation firsthand,\" Rollins said. \"It is heartbreaking to witness it.\"\n\nSome farmers have dipped into savings to pay for losses not covered by insurance. Others have unpaid debts from last year, restricting borrowing to plant 2025 crops. A few have sold equipment or land to generate cash.\n\nThe schedule shows federal officials will open applications for some aid in stages from May 30 through Sept. 15. But states have to negotiate plans to distribute other aid through block grants. If state and federal officials agree on a plan by May 28, block grants would be finalized by June 13, federal officials said. If agreements can be reached by June 13, they would be finalized by June 30. After that, states must give out the money.\n\nGeorgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said Thursday that he didn't know how much money Georgia would get in block grants. He said whether the state made the May 28 deadline \"depends on how our negotiations go with USDA over the next couple of weeks.\"\n\nKemp on Thursday signed into law tax breaks for farmers and timber owners harmed by Helene that could be worth nearly $300 million.\n\n\"Farmers operate on extremely tight margins, and to rebuild from a storm of this magnitude could be impossible for some to shoulder,\" Kemp said at Georgia Forestry Association headquarters in Forsyth, saying Helene was \"a storm like no other in out state.\"\n\nThe tax breaks come on top of $867 million in spending that Georgia lawmakers earlier allotted for Hurricane Helene relief .\n\nThe law exempts federal payments to farmers because of Helene from Georgia state income taxes. That could be worth $140 million.\n\nGeorgia's law also lets private timberland owners claim a credit for damaged timber on state income taxes if they replant trees. The timberland tax break could be worth $83 million to $104 million through 2030, estimates show.\n\nAnother tax break waives state and local sales taxes on building materials to rebuild chicken houses, barns, and fences.\n\nA fourth program lets counties waive taxes when timber owners cut down trees for 15 months. Any county that waives taxes would refund any taxes collected since Oct. 1. The state could spend $17.4 million to reimburse counties' lost tax money.\n\nGeorgia lawmakers earlier approved $285 million for low-interest loans to farmers and to remove downed trees from private lands so they don't become a fire hazard. There's also $25 million in grants to nonprofits that are supposed to go to help individuals.\n\nIn South Carolina, Republican legislative leaders are discussing hundreds of millions in Helene relief as part of the state's budget. North Carolina lawmakers agreed to a $524 million supplemental Helene relief in March, in part to provide more funds for agricultural needs. It was North Carolina's fourth Helene aid package." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Federal officials set timeline for Helene aid to farmers as Georgia enacts tax breaks\n\nBy Jeff Amy \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:52 PM\n\n---\n\nFORSYTH, Ga. (AP) — Georgia's governor signed a law Thursday to exempt federal crop insurance and disaster payments following Hurricane Helene damage from Georgia state income taxes, but it could be months more before some federal money starts flowing to farmers in the hardest-hit states.\n\nThe U.S. Department of Agriculture published a schedule Wednesday to start disbursing disaster aid, part of a $100 billion package passed by Congress in December.\n\nThe September storm cut a swath from Florida's Big Bend across eastern Georgia and upstate South Carolina before causing historic flooding in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee.\n\nHelene is the seventh-most expensive disaster in the United States since 1980, causing an estimated $78 billion in damage and 219 deaths.\n\nOfficials have estimated that Helene caused billions in property and economic damage to agriculture, including $5.5 billion in Georgia and $4.9 billion in North Carolina.\n\nFederal officials in March began handing out $10 billion designated in the bill for farmers nationwide harmed by low crop prices and high fertilizer prices. But billions more were set aside for farmers harmed by Helene and other natural disasters in 2023 and 2024.\n\nU.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was questioned about the timeframe Tuesday by lawmakers including Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia. He told Rollins that \"Time is of the essence.\"\n\n\"I've seen the devastation firsthand,\" Rollins said. \"It is heartbreaking to witness it.\"\n\nSome farmers have dipped into savings to pay for losses not covered by insurance. Others have unpaid debts from last year, restricting borrowing to plant 2025 crops. A few have sold equipment or land to generate cash.\n\nThe schedule shows federal officials will open applications for some aid in stages from May 30 through Sept. 15. But states have to negotiate plans to distribute other aid through block grants. If state and federal officials agree on a plan by May 28, block grants would be finalized by June 13, federal officials said. If agreements can be reached by June 13, they would be finalized by June 30. After that, states must give out the money.\n\nGeorgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper said Thursday that he didn't know how much money Georgia would get in block grants. He said whether the state made the May 28 deadline \"depends on how our negotiations go with USDA over the next couple of weeks.\"\n\nKemp on Thursday signed into law tax breaks for farmers and timber owners harmed by Helene that could be worth nearly $300 million.\n\n\"Farmers operate on extremely tight margins, and to rebuild from a storm of this magnitude could be impossible for some to shoulder,\" Kemp said at Georgia Forestry Association headquarters in Forsyth, saying Helene was \"a storm like no other in out state.\"\n\nThe tax breaks come on top of $867 million in spending that Georgia lawmakers earlier allotted for Hurricane Helene relief .\n\nThe law exempts federal payments to farmers because of Helene from Georgia state income taxes. That could be worth $140 million.\n\nGeorgia's law also lets private timberland owners claim a credit for damaged timber on state income taxes if they replant trees. The timberland tax break could be worth $83 million to $104 million through 2030, estimates show.\n\nAnother tax break waives state and local sales taxes on building materials to rebuild chicken houses, barns, and fences.\n\nA fourth program lets counties waive taxes when timber owners cut down trees for 15 months. Any county that waives taxes would refund any taxes collected since Oct. 1. The state could spend $17.4 million to reimburse counties' lost tax money.\n\nGeorgia lawmakers earlier approved $285 million for low-interest loans to farmers and to remove downed trees from private lands so they don't become a fire hazard. There's also $25 million in grants to nonprofits that are supposed to go to help individuals.\n\nIn South Carolina, Republican legislative leaders are discussing hundreds of millions in Helene relief as part of the state's budget. North Carolina lawmakers agreed to a $524 million supplemental Helene relief in March, in part to provide more funds for agricultural needs. It was North Carolina's fourth Helene aid package." } ]
6c91d4fad3d8e768c5b64c30f943f016706f3b36aef6cff2c21dbd95c784b612	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Video released of Kilmar Abrego Garcia traffic stop in 2022\n\nBy Ben Finley and Travis Loller \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:44 PM\n\n---\n\nNASHVILLE (AP) — Authorities in Tennessee have released video of a 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland construction worker who became the face of U.S. immigration policy after his erroneous deportation to El Salvador.\n\nThe body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Abrego Garcia. He was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and said they'd been working in Missouri.\n\nOfficers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were traveling without luggage. One of the officers said: \"He's hauling these people for money.\" Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.\n\nAbrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver's license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report said he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.\n\nThe Trump administration has been publicizing Abrego Garcia's interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the U.S.\n\nAn attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage.\n\n\"But the point is not the traffic stop — it's that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States,\" Sandoval-Moshenberg said.\n\nWhen details of the Tennessee traffic stop were first publicized, Abrego Garcia's wife said he sometimes transported groups of fellow construction workers between job sites.\n\n\"Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to the claims,\" Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid-April.\n\nAbergo Garcia fled his native El Salvador to the U.S. when he was 16 and lived in Maryland for roughly 14 years, court documents state. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him in March to a Salvadoran prison over a 2019 accusation that he was in the MS-13 gang.\n\nPolice in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member based on his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But he was never charged. His lawyers say the informant claimed Abrego Garcia was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he's never lived.\n\nAbrego Garcia's expulsion to El Salvador also violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded him from deportation to his native country. The judge had determined that Abrego Garcia would likely face persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized him and his family.\n\nAfter Abrego Garcia's family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.\n\nXinis then lambasted a government lawyer who couldn't explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done. She ordered officials to provide sworn testimony and other information to document their efforts.\n\nThe Trump administration appealed. But a federal appeals court backed Xinis' order for information in a blistering ruling. The case is ongoing.\n\nMeanwhile, President Donald Trump acknowledged to ABC News on Tuesday that he could call El Salvador's president and have Abrego Garcia sent back. But Trump doubled down on his claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.\n\nAttorney Sandoval-Moshenberg said Friday that Abrego Garcia should be able to answer the allegations himself before the U.S. immigration judge who heard his case in 2019.\n\n\"I have represented Kilmar Abrego Garcia for more than a month, and this bodycam video is the first time I've heard his voice,\" Sandoval-Moshenberg said. \"He has been denied the most basic protections of due process — no phone call to his lawyer, no call to his wife or child, and no opportunity to be heard.\"\n\n___\n\nFinley reported from Norfolk, Virginia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Video released of Kilmar Abrego Garcia traffic stop in 2022\n\nBy Ben Finley and Travis Loller \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:44 PM\n\n---\n\nNASHVILLE (AP) — Authorities in Tennessee have released video of a 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland construction worker who became the face of U.S. immigration policy after his erroneous deportation to El Salvador.\n\nThe body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol and Abrego Garcia. He was pulled over for speeding in a vehicle with eight passengers and said they'd been working in Missouri.\n\nOfficers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were traveling without luggage. One of the officers said: \"He's hauling these people for money.\" Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope.\n\nAbrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver's license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The report said he was traveling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work.\n\nThe Trump administration has been publicizing Abrego Garcia's interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the U.S.\n\nAn attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage.\n\n\"But the point is not the traffic stop — it's that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States,\" Sandoval-Moshenberg said.\n\nWhen details of the Tennessee traffic stop were first publicized, Abrego Garcia's wife said he sometimes transported groups of fellow construction workers between job sites.\n\n\"Unfortunately, Kilmar is currently imprisoned without contact with the outside world, which means he cannot respond to the claims,\" Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in mid-April.\n\nAbergo Garcia fled his native El Salvador to the U.S. when he was 16 and lived in Maryland for roughly 14 years, court documents state. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him in March to a Salvadoran prison over a 2019 accusation that he was in the MS-13 gang.\n\nPolice in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member based on his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But he was never charged. His lawyers say the informant claimed Abrego Garcia was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he's never lived.\n\nAbrego Garcia's expulsion to El Salvador also violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded him from deportation to his native country. The judge had determined that Abrego Garcia would likely face persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized him and his family.\n\nAfter Abrego Garcia's family filed a lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.\n\nXinis then lambasted a government lawyer who couldn't explain what, if anything, the Trump administration has done. She ordered officials to provide sworn testimony and other information to document their efforts.\n\nThe Trump administration appealed. But a federal appeals court backed Xinis' order for information in a blistering ruling. The case is ongoing.\n\nMeanwhile, President Donald Trump acknowledged to ABC News on Tuesday that he could call El Salvador's president and have Abrego Garcia sent back. But Trump doubled down on his claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.\n\nAttorney Sandoval-Moshenberg said Friday that Abrego Garcia should be able to answer the allegations himself before the U.S. immigration judge who heard his case in 2019.\n\n\"I have represented Kilmar Abrego Garcia for more than a month, and this bodycam video is the first time I've heard his voice,\" Sandoval-Moshenberg said. \"He has been denied the most basic protections of due process — no phone call to his lawyer, no call to his wife or child, and no opportunity to be heard.\"" } ]
edbf8b826d882836b5de13a9e5ce5ceffe6c78fefdda7ffbf79c857e377af9cf	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Judge bars Trump cuts to agencies that fund libraries, settle labor issues\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 6th, 2025, 06:52 PM\n\n---\n\nA federal judge has temporarily barred President Donald Trump's administration from dramatically shrinking three agencies that fund libraries across the U.S., settle labor disputes with public sector workers, and support state business contracting programs.\n\nU.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr. in Rhode Island said Trump can't unilaterally end the funding and programs for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. All three agencies were established by Congress.\n\nThe agencies carried out the cuts under the direction of an executive order from Trump. In Tuesday's preliminary injunction, McConnell said the actions were likely arbitrary and capricious because the agencies weren't able to provide more than \"vague\" justifications for the sweeping cuts.\n\n\"It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,\" McConnell wrote.\n\nTwenty-one states sued over Trump's March 14 executive order, which directed the agencies to eliminate every program that isn't mandated by law and to cut staffers and all other functions to the bare minimum allowed by statute. The states said the \"shredding\" of the agencies puts hundreds of millions of dollars of grant funding at risk and hurts the general public. Threatened programs include a braille library in Washington, a literacy program in California, and a program supporting veterans in Rhode Island, according to the lawsuit.\n\nBut attorneys for the government told the judge that the lawsuit is too broad, in part because some of the states are contending that specific grants have been terminated but others are simply anticipating future increased costs or that some grants may not be renewed.\n\nIn some cases, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys wrote in court filings, the various grant recipients haven't even requested payment of the grants yet. Disputes over personnel claims, like employee terminations or reductions in force, must first be litigated before other entities before they can be brought to federal court, the attorneys wrote, suggesting the states were trying to \"jump the line.\"\n\nThe ruling is consistent with one handed down last week in a similar case out of Washington, D.C.\n\nU.S. District Judge Richard Leon also temporarily stopped the Trump administration from shuttering the Institute of Museum and Library Services.\n\nLeon said the American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees were likely to succeed in their lawsuit contending that Trump doesn't have the legal authority to shut down the congressionally created agency." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Judge bars Trump cuts to agencies that fund libraries, settle labor issues\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 6th, 2025, 06:52 PM\n\n---\n\nA federal judge has temporarily barred President Donald Trump's administration from dramatically shrinking three agencies that fund libraries across the U.S., settle labor disputes with public sector workers, and support state business contracting programs.\n\nU.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr. in Rhode Island said Trump can't unilaterally end the funding and programs for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. All three agencies were established by Congress.\n\nThe agencies carried out the cuts under the direction of an executive order from Trump. In Tuesday's preliminary injunction, McConnell said the actions were likely arbitrary and capricious because the agencies weren't able to provide more than \"vague\" justifications for the sweeping cuts.\n\n\"It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,\" McConnell wrote.\n\nTwenty-one states sued over Trump's March 14 executive order, which directed the agencies to eliminate every program that isn't mandated by law and to cut staffers and all other functions to the bare minimum allowed by statute. The states said the \"shredding\" of the agencies puts hundreds of millions of dollars of grant funding at risk and hurts the general public. Threatened programs include a braille library in Washington, a literacy program in California, and a program supporting veterans in Rhode Island, according to the lawsuit.\n\nBut attorneys for the government told the judge that the lawsuit is too broad, in part because some of the states are contending that specific grants have been terminated but others are simply anticipating future increased costs or that some grants may not be renewed.\n\nIn some cases, U.S. Department of Justice attorneys wrote in court filings, the various grant recipients haven't even requested payment of the grants yet. Disputes over personnel claims, like employee terminations or reductions in force, must first be litigated before other entities before they can be brought to federal court, the attorneys wrote, suggesting the states were trying to \"jump the line.\"\n\nThe ruling is consistent with one handed down last week in a similar case out of Washington, D.C.\n\nU.S. District Judge Richard Leon also temporarily stopped the Trump administration from shuttering the Institute of Museum and Library Services.\n\nLeon said the American Library Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees were likely to succeed in their lawsuit contending that Trump doesn't have the legal authority to shut down the congressionally created agency." } ]
5cce0f11be92e517d24e5fd41c298481ed915b3ad29b594dedda194739cc5863	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Soviet-era spacecraft Kosmos 482 plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit\n\nBy Marcia Dunn \nMay 10th, 2025, 10:52 AM\n\n---\n\nA Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus.\n\nIts uncontrolled entry was confirmed by both the Russian Space Agency and European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but some experts were not so sure of the precise location. The European Space Agency's space debris office also tracked the spacecraft's doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station.\n\nIt was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might come crashing down, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system's hottest planet.\n\nThe chances of anyone getting clobbered by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said.\n\nLaunched in 1972 by the Soviet Union, the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 was part of a series of missions bound for Venus. But this one never made it out of orbit around Earth, stranded there by a rocket malfunction.\n\nMuch of the spacecraft came tumbling back to Earth within a decade of the failed launch. No longer able to resist gravity's tug as its orbit dwindled, the spherical lander — an estimated 3 feet (1 meter) across — was the last part of the spacecraft to come down. The lander was encased in titanium, according to experts, and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (495 kilograms).\n\nAny surviving wreckage will belong to Russia under a United Nations treaty.\n\nAfter following the spacecraft's downward spiral, scientists, military experts and others could not pinpoint in advance precisely when or where the spacecraft might come down. Solar activity added to the uncertainty as well as the spacecraft's deteriorating condition after so long in space.\n\nAfter so much anticipation, some observers were disappointed by the lingering uncertainty over the exact whereabouts of the spacecraft's grave.\n\n\"If it was over the Indian Ocean, only the whales saw it,\" Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek said via X.\n\nAs of Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Space Command had yet to confirm the spacecraft's demise as it collected and analyzed data from orbit.\n\nThe U.S. Space Command routinely monitors dozens of reentries each month. What set Kosmos 482 apart — and earned it extra attention from government and private space trackers — was that it was more likely to survive reentry, according to officials.\n\nIt was also coming in uncontrolled, without any intervention by flight controllers who normally target the Pacific and other vast expanses of water for old satellites and other space debris.\n\n___\n\nThe Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Soviet-era spacecraft Kosmos 482 plunges to Earth after 53 years stuck in orbit\n\nBy Marcia Dunn \nMay 10th, 2025, 10:52 AM\n\n---\n\nA Soviet-era spacecraft plunged to Earth on Saturday, more than a half-century after its failed launch to Venus.\n\nIts uncontrolled entry was confirmed by both the Russian Space Agency and European Union Space Surveillance and Tracking. The Russians indicated it came down over the Indian Ocean, but some experts were not so sure of the precise location. The European Space Agency's space debris office also tracked the spacecraft's doom after it failed to appear over a German radar station.\n\nIt was not immediately known how much, if any, of the half-ton spacecraft survived the fiery descent from orbit. Experts said ahead of time that some if not all of it might come crashing down, given it was built to withstand a landing on Venus, the solar system's hottest planet.\n\nThe chances of anyone getting clobbered by spacecraft debris were exceedingly low, scientists said.\n\nLaunched in 1972 by the Soviet Union, the spacecraft known as Kosmos 482 was part of a series of missions bound for Venus. But this one never made it out of orbit around Earth, stranded there by a rocket malfunction.\n\nMuch of the spacecraft came tumbling back to Earth within a decade of the failed launch. No longer able to resist gravity's tug as its orbit dwindled, the spherical lander — an estimated 3 feet (1 meter) across — was the last part of the spacecraft to come down. The lander was encased in titanium, according to experts, and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (495 kilograms).\n\nAny surviving wreckage will belong to Russia under a United Nations treaty.\n\nAfter following the spacecraft's downward spiral, scientists, military experts and others could not pinpoint in advance precisely when or where the spacecraft might come down. Solar activity added to the uncertainty as well as the spacecraft's deteriorating condition after so long in space.\n\nAfter so much anticipation, some observers were disappointed by the lingering uncertainty over the exact whereabouts of the spacecraft's grave.\n\n\"If it was over the Indian Ocean, only the whales saw it,\" Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek said via X.\n\nAs of Saturday afternoon, the U.S. Space Command had yet to confirm the spacecraft's demise as it collected and analyzed data from orbit.\n\nThe U.S. Space Command routinely monitors dozens of reentries each month. What set Kosmos 482 apart — and earned it extra attention from government and private space trackers — was that it was more likely to survive reentry, according to officials.\n\nIt was also coming in uncontrolled, without any intervention by flight controllers who normally target the Pacific and other vast expanses of water for old satellites and other space debris." } ]
67e55488acbb674004aa0f6170a3192c4e1d1b96b52613dba3d15dabf3b39080	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Autopsies misclassified deaths in police custody that were homicides, Maryland officials say\n\nBy Brian Witte and Lea Skene \nMay 15th, 2025, 05:57 PM\n\n---\n\nANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — An audit of Maryland autopsies has uncovered at least 36 deaths in police custody that should have been considered homicides, state officials announced Thursday following a comprehensive review of such cases spurred by widespread concerns about the former state medical examiner's testimony in the death of George Floyd.\n\nMedical examiners under Dr. David Fowler displayed racial and pro-police bias, according to the review. They were \"especially unlikely to classify a death as a homicide if the decedent was Black, or if they died after being restrained by police,\" Attorney General Anthony Brown said during a news conference.\n\n\"These findings have profound implications across our justice system,\" Brown said. \"They speak to systemic issues rather than individual conduct.\"\n\nThe auditors reviewed 87 in-custody death cases after medical experts called Fowler's work into question because he testified that police weren't responsible for Floyd's death. The Maryland team focused on cases in which people died suddenly after being restrained, often by police, officials said.\n\nThree-person panels evaluated each autopsy and, in 36 cases, they unanimously concluded that the deaths should have been classified as homicides but were not. In five more cases, two of the three reviewers came to that conclusion.\n\nFowler didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment.\n\n## State officials could reopen death investigations\n\nDemocratic Gov. Wes Moore said he has signed an executive order directing Brown to review the 41 cases and determine if any should be reopened for investigation.\n\nMoore acknowledged the families whose loved ones have died in police custody, some of whom have been \"screaming for this type of analysis — and have been met with silence.\" He also acknowledged the many members of law enforcement who do their jobs honorably and protect the public.\n\nMoore said he has also created a statewide task force to study the deaths of people restrained in law enforcement custody. He said the state won't shy away from rooting out misconduct and working to create a more equitable justice system.\n\nAmong a list of recommendations, the review suggested better training for law enforcement officers on the dangers of improper restraint techniques. It also directed the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to create standardized procedures for investigating restraint-related deaths.\n\nThe governor described the review as the first of its kind in the nation, saying he hopes it will provide a model for similar investigations elsewhere.\n\nIn a national investigation published last year, The Associated Press and its reporting partners found that medical examiners and coroners, whose rulings have huge consequences in the courts, can face pressure from law enforcement to exonerate officers. Some medical officials based their decisions not on physical evidence, but instead on whether they believed police intended to kill.\n\nWhen deaths are ruled accidental, prosecutions of officers are exceedingly rare — of 443 cases that were ruled accidental, just two resulted in criminal charges. A family's chances of winning a wrongful death lawsuit also become much tougher.\n\nWhile the audit findings are troubling, Maryland officials said they don't suggest intentional or malicious conduct. They emphasized that a homicide classification simply means someone died because of another person's action, not necessarily that the officers involved should be prosecuted.\n\n## Fowler was criticized for embracing a widely rejected theory\n\nFowler, who testified for the defense at the 2021 murder trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, attributed Floyd's death to a sudden heart rhythm disturbance as a result of his heart disease — a widely rejected theory that did little to persuade the jury. Chauvin was ultimately convicted of murder and manslaughter for kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.\n\nAfter his conviction, 400 medical experts signed a letter to the Maryland attorney general asserting that Fowler's testimony deviated way outside the bounds of accepted forensic practice. In addition to citing heart problems, he classified the manner of death as \"undetermined\" rather than \"homicide.\"\n\nThe letter called for an investigation to determine whether the office's in-custody death determinations under Fowler's leadership exhibited certain bias, among other potential issues.\n\nOfficials said Thursday that their audit found a troubling systemic pattern.\n\nNearly half of the reviewed cases cited \"excited delirium\" as a cause of death, a diagnosis that has been debunked by medical experts in recent years. Critics say it was often used to justify excessive force by police. The report recommended that medical examiners stop using the term altogether.\n\nFowler was Maryland's chief medical examiner from 2002 to 2019.\n\n## Two high-profile deaths are among the 41 cases highlighted\n\nIn 2023, state officials approved a settlement agreement that reformed the process for conducting autopsies on people killed in police custody.\n\nThat change came in response to the 2018 death of Anton Black, who died in police custody on Maryland's Eastern Shore. His death was captured on video, which showed police in rural Greensboro holding the unarmed teenager down for more than six minutes. Fowler ruled that Black died because of a sudden cardiac event while struggling with police — not because they pinned him in a prone position. His death was declared an accident.\n\nFowler similarly ruled that Tyrone West died of natural causes after struggling with Baltimore police following a traffic stop in 2013. Witnesses and the officers themselves said there was a violent struggle between the officers and West. His manner of death was undetermined, according to the autopsy.\n\nBoth Black and West are now included on the list of cases that should have been ruled homicides.\n\nTawanda Jones, West's sister who has held weekly rallies for 616 weeks to highlight his case, said she feels something positive will come from the investigation. \"They're finally listening to me now,\" Jones said. \"It feels good that finally they're listening.\"\n\nFowler's tenure also included the death of Freddie Gray 10 years ago. The autopsy concluded Gray died from spinal injuries sustained during transport in a Baltimore police van. It also classified his death as a homicide because officers repeatedly failed to seek medical attention while he was in distress. Prosecutors filed charges against six officers, but none were convicted." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Autopsies misclassified deaths in police custody that were homicides, Maryland officials say\n\nBy Brian Witte and Lea Skene \nMay 15th, 2025, 05:57 PM\n\n---\n\nANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — An audit of Maryland autopsies has uncovered at least 36 deaths in police custody that should have been considered homicides, state officials announced Thursday following a comprehensive review of such cases spurred by widespread concerns about the former state medical examiner's testimony in the death of George Floyd.\n\nMedical examiners under Dr. David Fowler displayed racial and pro-police bias, according to the review. They were \"especially unlikely to classify a death as a homicide if the decedent was Black, or if they died after being restrained by police,\" Attorney General Anthony Brown said during a news conference.\n\n\"These findings have profound implications across our justice system,\" Brown said. \"They speak to systemic issues rather than individual conduct.\"\n\nThe auditors reviewed 87 in-custody death cases after medical experts called Fowler's work into question because he testified that police weren't responsible for Floyd's death. The Maryland team focused on cases in which people died suddenly after being restrained, often by police, officials said.\n\nThree-person panels evaluated each autopsy and, in 36 cases, they unanimously concluded that the deaths should have been classified as homicides but were not. In five more cases, two of the three reviewers came to that conclusion.\n\nFowler didn't immediately respond to messages seeking comment.\n\n## State officials could reopen death investigations\n\nDemocratic Gov. Wes Moore said he has signed an executive order directing Brown to review the 41 cases and determine if any should be reopened for investigation.\n\nMoore acknowledged the families whose loved ones have died in police custody, some of whom have been \"screaming for this type of analysis — and have been met with silence.\" He also acknowledged the many members of law enforcement who do their jobs honorably and protect the public.\n\nMoore said he has also created a statewide task force to study the deaths of people restrained in law enforcement custody. He said the state won't shy away from rooting out misconduct and working to create a more equitable justice system.\n\nAmong a list of recommendations, the review suggested better training for law enforcement officers on the dangers of improper restraint techniques. It also directed the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to create standardized procedures for investigating restraint-related deaths.\n\nThe governor described the review as the first of its kind in the nation, saying he hopes it will provide a model for similar investigations elsewhere.\n\nIn a national investigation published last year, The Associated Press and its reporting partners found that medical examiners and coroners, whose rulings have huge consequences in the courts, can face pressure from law enforcement to exonerate officers. Some medical officials based their decisions not on physical evidence, but instead on whether they believed police intended to kill.\n\nWhen deaths are ruled accidental, prosecutions of officers are exceedingly rare — of 443 cases that were ruled accidental, just two resulted in criminal charges. A family's chances of winning a wrongful death lawsuit also become much tougher.\n\nWhile the audit findings are troubling, Maryland officials said they don't suggest intentional or malicious conduct. They emphasized that a homicide classification simply means someone died because of another person's action, not necessarily that the officers involved should be prosecuted.\n\n## Fowler was criticized for embracing a widely rejected theory\n\nFowler, who testified for the defense at the 2021 murder trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, attributed Floyd's death to a sudden heart rhythm disturbance as a result of his heart disease — a widely rejected theory that did little to persuade the jury. Chauvin was ultimately convicted of murder and manslaughter for kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes.\n\nAfter his conviction, 400 medical experts signed a letter to the Maryland attorney general asserting that Fowler's testimony deviated way outside the bounds of accepted forensic practice. In addition to citing heart problems, he classified the manner of death as \"undetermined\" rather than \"homicide.\"\n\nThe letter called for an investigation to determine whether the office's in-custody death determinations under Fowler's leadership exhibited certain bias, among other potential issues.\n\nOfficials said Thursday that their audit found a troubling systemic pattern.\n\nNearly half of the reviewed cases cited \"excited delirium\" as a cause of death, a diagnosis that has been debunked by medical experts in recent years. Critics say it was often used to justify excessive force by police. The report recommended that medical examiners stop using the term altogether.\n\nFowler was Maryland's chief medical examiner from 2002 to 2019.\n\n## Two high-profile deaths are among the 41 cases highlighted\n\nIn 2023, state officials approved a settlement agreement that reformed the process for conducting autopsies on people killed in police custody.\n\nThat change came in response to the 2018 death of Anton Black, who died in police custody on Maryland's Eastern Shore. His death was captured on video, which showed police in rural Greensboro holding the unarmed teenager down for more than six minutes. Fowler ruled that Black died because of a sudden cardiac event while struggling with police — not because they pinned him in a prone position. His death was declared an accident.\n\nFowler similarly ruled that Tyrone West died of natural causes after struggling with Baltimore police following a traffic stop in 2013. Witnesses and the officers themselves said there was a violent struggle between the officers and West. His manner of death was undetermined, according to the autopsy.\n\nBoth Black and West are now included on the list of cases that should have been ruled homicides.\n\nTawanda Jones, West's sister who has held weekly rallies for 616 weeks to highlight his case, said she feels something positive will come from the investigation. \"They're finally listening to me now,\" Jones said. \"It feels good that finally they're listening.\"\n\nFowler's tenure also included the death of Freddie Gray 10 years ago. The autopsy concluded Gray died from spinal injuries sustained during transport in a Baltimore police van. It also classified his death as a homicide because officers repeatedly failed to seek medical attention while he was in distress. Prosecutors filed charges against six officers, but none were convicted." } ]
79389fa32e1d8a99ca9c6d7ccd76307f96301f640d9123860b60895fe833b063	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# St. Louis agrees to pay $4M to settle lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at now-closed jail\n\nBy Heather Hollingsworth \nMay 6th, 2025, 09:20 PM\n\n---\n\nSt. Louis has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that inmates at a former medium-security jail were housed in \"inhumane conditions\" that included rodent feces in food, infestations of bugs and snakes, and unbearable overcrowding.\n\nThe nonprofit ArchCity Defenders announced the settlement on Tuesday as it filed a motion in federal court seeking authorization to begin notifying people who were incarcerated at the St. Louis Medium Security Institution that they could be eligible for damages.\n\nDemolition of the troubled jail, known as the Workhouse, began earlier this year. Around 16,000 people jailed there for five or more days from November 2012 through June 2022, when it closed, may be eligible to file a claim if the settlement is approved.\n\nThe agreement, signed April 10, said that the city denied any wrongdoing or liability.\n\nMayor Cara Spencer, who was sworn into office five days after the agreement was reached, declined to elaborate during a news conference Tuesday. \"I can't really speak to those decisions before I was sworn into office,\" she said.\n\nAll seven of the original plaintiffs who sued in 2017 are Black, as were the vast majority of inmates at the jail, although just over half of St. Louis' residents are Black. Virtually all of the people jailed there were awaiting trial because they couldn't afford bail, mostly for non-violent crimes.\n\n\"It was a horrible place,\" said one of the plaintiffs, Jasmine Borden, in a written statement. \"They treat dogs at the shelter better than they treated us. It's nice to be compensated with the settlement, but I can't get back any of the time that I was dealing with being locked up and being away from my kids in that unsuitable environment.\"\n\nAnother of the plaintiffs, James Cody, also said dogs were treated better during a news conference when the lawsuit was first filed.\n\nCody, who was jailed for eight months on a probation violation, said he often found mouse feces in cake served at the jail. Jail staff would simply scrape them off, he said.\n\nCody said he was housed in a dorm with 69 other men, all sharing a single working toilet, sink and shower. He recalled the heat of summer, when temperatures inside the jail reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.67 degrees Celsius), according to the lawsuit. The hot conditions led to protests that resulted in city officials temporarily bringing in portable air conditioners.\n\n\"This jail came to be such an infamous symbol of injustice and inhumane treatment in St. Louis, a symbol of racism, a symbol of the way in which we target poor people in our criminal legal system,\" said Blake Strode, ArchCity Defenders' executive director, in a phone interview.\n\n\"So many generations were harmed by it. And so, I think the fact that we are here in 2025 with the jail empty, partially demolished, fully defunded, and now you have thousands of people who are actually going to receive some recovery for the horrific conditions that they endured in the jail. I think that's a huge accomplishment.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# St. Louis agrees to pay $4M to settle lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions at now-closed jail\n\nBy Heather Hollingsworth \nMay 6th, 2025, 09:20 PM\n\n---\n\nSt. Louis has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that inmates at a former medium-security jail were housed in \"inhumane conditions\" that included rodent feces in food, infestations of bugs and snakes, and unbearable overcrowding.\n\nThe nonprofit ArchCity Defenders announced the settlement on Tuesday as it filed a motion in federal court seeking authorization to begin notifying people who were incarcerated at the St. Louis Medium Security Institution that they could be eligible for damages.\n\nDemolition of the troubled jail, known as the Workhouse, began earlier this year. Around 16,000 people jailed there for five or more days from November 2012 through June 2022, when it closed, may be eligible to file a claim if the settlement is approved.\n\nThe agreement, signed April 10, said that the city denied any wrongdoing or liability.\n\nMayor Cara Spencer, who was sworn into office five days after the agreement was reached, declined to elaborate during a news conference Tuesday. \"I can't really speak to those decisions before I was sworn into office,\" she said.\n\nAll seven of the original plaintiffs who sued in 2017 are Black, as were the vast majority of inmates at the jail, although just over half of St. Louis' residents are Black. Virtually all of the people jailed there were awaiting trial because they couldn't afford bail, mostly for non-violent crimes.\n\n\"It was a horrible place,\" said one of the plaintiffs, Jasmine Borden, in a written statement. \"They treat dogs at the shelter better than they treated us. It's nice to be compensated with the settlement, but I can't get back any of the time that I was dealing with being locked up and being away from my kids in that unsuitable environment.\"\n\nAnother of the plaintiffs, James Cody, also said dogs were treated better during a news conference when the lawsuit was first filed.\n\nCody, who was jailed for eight months on a probation violation, said he often found mouse feces in cake served at the jail. Jail staff would simply scrape them off, he said.\n\nCody said he was housed in a dorm with 69 other men, all sharing a single working toilet, sink and shower. He recalled the heat of summer, when temperatures inside the jail reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.67 degrees Celsius), according to the lawsuit. The hot conditions led to protests that resulted in city officials temporarily bringing in portable air conditioners.\n\n\"This jail came to be such an infamous symbol of injustice and inhumane treatment in St. Louis, a symbol of racism, a symbol of the way in which we target poor people in our criminal legal system,\" said Blake Strode, ArchCity Defenders' executive director, in a phone interview.\n\n\"So many generations were harmed by it. And so, I think the fact that we are here in 2025 with the jail empty, partially demolished, fully defunded, and now you have thousands of people who are actually going to receive some recovery for the horrific conditions that they endured in the jail. I think that's a huge accomplishment.\"" } ]
a98a4bbdb0a4caf2a932e9c50cf70093c5c9644a20639fd0a3a3abccb447eebd	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# As Europe celebrates the triumph of V-E Day, Algeria marks parallel legacy of colonial-era massacres\n\nMay 8th, 2025, 01:43 PM\n\n---\n\nALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — As Europe celebrates the 80th anniversary of its triumph over fascism and the end of World War II, Algeria is remembering a darker anniversary: the colonial-era massacres that erupted the same day.\n\nIn a message this week, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune framed commemoration as a matter of national pride and called the event a prelude to Algeria's fight for independence.\n\n\"The commemoration of May 8 reflects the Algerians' commitment to freedom and dignity, for which they took to the streets with bare hands to confront an enemy,\" Tebboune said, calling French colonialism \"genocidal\" and a crime against humanity.\n\nMore than 500,000 tirailleurs from North Africa, West Africa and Madagascar fought for France during WWII. Some volunteered, others were forcibly conscripted. Many lost their lives. Across the board, they were generally paid less than European soldiers.\n\nMany Algerian veterans believed their service would lead to greater rights. But when the war ended, Algerians who dared to demand them were met with repression and violence, even as French leader Gen. Charles De Gaulle exalted how \"the cause of liberty and justice\" had prevailed in a radio broadcast throughout France and its colonies, including Algeria.\n\nOn May 8, 1945, Algerians filled city streets in Ain Temouchent, Guelma, Kherrata and Setif, waving flags and reviving pre-war calls for independence. After demonstrators faced police fire, anti-French riots broke out, killing more than 100. France subsequently launched an air and ground offensive that killed thousands of Algerians — 45,000, according to Algerian authorities, and around 3,000, according to French statistics.\n\nThe war's ending sparked similar disenchantment in Britain's colonies in East and West Africa, where more than 375,000 men enlisted. Soldiers who returned home expecting to be rewarded for their service instead faced racism and a continued lack of political representation. Both helped fuel the subsequent Mau Mau rebellion against British rule in Kenya, during which tens of thousands were killed.\n\nIn recent years, memorials there as well as in South Africa have honored the service of African veterans. Elsewhere, including in Senegal, they've commemorated injustice and violence that many endured post-war.\n\nFor many in Algeria, the May 8 massacres awakened the anger and resolve that later fueled Algeria's war for independence.\n\n\"They understood that the only possible and unique path to independence was armed struggle,\" historian Mohamed Ferrad said in an interview this week.\n\nV-E Day events have been going all week in Europe, where leaders have focused on the plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia and values such as freedom and democracy. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to speak on similar topics on Thursday evening.\n\nMeanwhile, Algeria's Ministry of War Veterans is marking the anniversary with a series of nationwide events and panels featuring firsthand accounts from veterans and lectures from historians on the battle for independence after 132 years of French colonialism.\n\nThe massacres have been debated in popular books and films in Algeria and France and are a recurring theme when tensions flare between the two countries.\n\nTebboune and Macron announced a truth commission-style \"dossier de memoire\" in 2022, led by a committee of historians from both countries. However its activities have stalled as relations deteriorated over issues such as immigration and how France's juggles ties between Algeria and its regional rival Morocco.\n\nFrench leaders, including Macron, have called for truth and recognition but stopped short of fulfilling Algeria's demands for a formal state apology for the massacres.\n\n\"Algeria will never allow the memory issue to be forgotten or used as a bargaining chip, out of loyalty to our martyrs,\" Tebboune wrote in his Wednesday letter.\n\nA delegation of around 30 French lawmakers from leftist and centrist parties arrived in Algiers on Wednesday to participate in the commemorations of the massacres." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# As Europe celebrates the triumph of V-E Day, Algeria marks parallel legacy of colonial-era massacres\n\nMay 8th, 2025, 01:43 PM\n\n---\n\nALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — As Europe celebrates the 80th anniversary of its triumph over fascism and the end of World War II, Algeria is remembering a darker anniversary: the colonial-era massacres that erupted the same day.\n\nIn a message this week, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune framed commemoration as a matter of national pride and called the event a prelude to Algeria's fight for independence.\n\n\"The commemoration of May 8 reflects the Algerians' commitment to freedom and dignity, for which they took to the streets with bare hands to confront an enemy,\" Tebboune said, calling French colonialism \"genocidal\" and a crime against humanity.\n\nMore than 500,000 tirailleurs from North Africa, West Africa and Madagascar fought for France during WWII. Some volunteered, others were forcibly conscripted. Many lost their lives. Across the board, they were generally paid less than European soldiers.\n\nMany Algerian veterans believed their service would lead to greater rights. But when the war ended, Algerians who dared to demand them were met with repression and violence, even as French leader Gen. Charles De Gaulle exalted how \"the cause of liberty and justice\" had prevailed in a radio broadcast throughout France and its colonies, including Algeria.\n\nOn May 8, 1945, Algerians filled city streets in Ain Temouchent, Guelma, Kherrata and Setif, waving flags and reviving pre-war calls for independence. After demonstrators faced police fire, anti-French riots broke out, killing more than 100. France subsequently launched an air and ground offensive that killed thousands of Algerians — 45,000, according to Algerian authorities, and around 3,000, according to French statistics.\n\nThe war's ending sparked similar disenchantment in Britain's colonies in East and West Africa, where more than 375,000 men enlisted. Soldiers who returned home expecting to be rewarded for their service instead faced racism and a continued lack of political representation. Both helped fuel the subsequent Mau Mau rebellion against British rule in Kenya, during which tens of thousands were killed.\n\nIn recent years, memorials there as well as in South Africa have honored the service of African veterans. Elsewhere, including in Senegal, they've commemorated injustice and violence that many endured post-war.\n\nFor many in Algeria, the May 8 massacres awakened the anger and resolve that later fueled Algeria's war for independence.\n\n\"They understood that the only possible and unique path to independence was armed struggle,\" historian Mohamed Ferrad said in an interview this week.\n\nV-E Day events have been going all week in Europe, where leaders have focused on the plight of Ukraine in its fight against Russia and values such as freedom and democracy. French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to speak on similar topics on Thursday evening.\n\nMeanwhile, Algeria's Ministry of War Veterans is marking the anniversary with a series of nationwide events and panels featuring firsthand accounts from veterans and lectures from historians on the battle for independence after 132 years of French colonialism.\n\nThe massacres have been debated in popular books and films in Algeria and France and are a recurring theme when tensions flare between the two countries.\n\nTebboune and Macron announced a truth commission-style \"dossier de memoire\" in 2022, led by a committee of historians from both countries. However its activities have stalled as relations deteriorated over issues such as immigration and how France's juggles ties between Algeria and its regional rival Morocco.\n\nFrench leaders, including Macron, have called for truth and recognition but stopped short of fulfilling Algeria's demands for a formal state apology for the massacres.\n\n\"Algeria will never allow the memory issue to be forgotten or used as a bargaining chip, out of loyalty to our martyrs,\" Tebboune wrote in his Wednesday letter.\n\nA delegation of around 30 French lawmakers from leftist and centrist parties arrived in Algiers on Wednesday to participate in the commemorations of the massacres." } ]
3a6bb1946ba6f0037fbf6b5ca4b55e2fe1b140dcb1b9028f58b2991464aecddc	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Honda pulls back on EV strategy for now and will push hybrid sales\n\nBy Yuri Kageyama \nMay 20th, 2025, 06:39 AM\n\n---\n\nTOKYO (AP) — Honda said Tuesday electric vehicle sales were slowing in the U.S., prompting the Japanese automaker to scrap its previous goal for EVs to be 30% of its global vehicle sales by 2030.\n\nInstead of the initial plan to invest 10 trillion yen ($69 billion) in an electrification strategy through the fiscal year ending in 2031, Honda is reducing that investment by 3 trillion yen ($21 billion) to 7 trillion yen ($48 billion).\n\nHonda Motor Co. Chief Executive Toshihiro Mibe called the decisions \"a switch in the planned course,\" while stressing the long-term shift toward electrification remained unchanged, just pushed back in time.\n\nMibe didn't mention U.S. President Donald Trump. But Trump's policies on tariffs, as well as his lack of enthusiasm for electric vehicles, have Japanese automakers scrambling to adapt.\n\n\"The environment surrounding the automobile industry is changing day by day. Uncertainty in the business environment is increasing, due particularly to the slowdown in the expansion of the EV market due to several factors, including changes in environmental regulations,\" Honda said in a statement.\n\nMibe did not give a specific timeline for a new course for electrification. But Honda, which makes the Civic and Accord car models, will be more aggressive in producing hybrids instead, he said.\n\nHonda's auto plant in Marysville, Ohio, for instance, will be adapted to produce both EVs and hybrids under the new plan.\n\nMibe pointed to Honda's motorcycle business as its core strength, as sales continue to grow in India, and Honda's global market share was steadily rising.\n\nMibe also said the Tokyo-based automaker was working on the use of various digital technology to strengthen safety, including assisted driving that will bring deaths from traffic accidents down to zero, a longtime Honda goal.\n\nTalks that began late last year to bring together the operations of Honda and Japanese rival Nissan Motor Corp., as well as smaller automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp., in a merger, collapsed earlier this year. Mibe told reporters talks were still ongoing to have the three automakers work together on developing technology. He remained vague and did not say when a deal might be reached.\n\nNissan is sinking into losses, reducing its work force and shuttering plants. Its new chief executive, Ivan Espinosa, is promising a turnaround by speeding up decision-making.\n\nHonda's profit for the fiscal year through March slipped 24.5% from the previous year. But much of the negative impact is from external factors like tariffs and sliding sales in China.\n\n\"Honda's profitability outlook remains robust, supported by cost-cutting initiatives,\" said Aaron Ho, equity analyst at CFRA Research.\n\n___\n\nYuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Honda pulls back on EV strategy for now and will push hybrid sales\n\nBy Yuri Kageyama \nMay 20th, 2025, 06:39 AM\n\n---\n\nTOKYO (AP) — Honda said Tuesday electric vehicle sales were slowing in the U.S., prompting the Japanese automaker to scrap its previous goal for EVs to be 30% of its global vehicle sales by 2030.\n\nInstead of the initial plan to invest 10 trillion yen ($69 billion) in an electrification strategy through the fiscal year ending in 2031, Honda is reducing that investment by 3 trillion yen ($21 billion) to 7 trillion yen ($48 billion).\n\nHonda Motor Co. Chief Executive Toshihiro Mibe called the decisions \"a switch in the planned course,\" while stressing the long-term shift toward electrification remained unchanged, just pushed back in time.\n\nMibe didn't mention U.S. President Donald Trump. But Trump's policies on tariffs, as well as his lack of enthusiasm for electric vehicles, have Japanese automakers scrambling to adapt.\n\n\"The environment surrounding the automobile industry is changing day by day. Uncertainty in the business environment is increasing, due particularly to the slowdown in the expansion of the EV market due to several factors, including changes in environmental regulations,\" Honda said in a statement.\n\nMibe did not give a specific timeline for a new course for electrification. But Honda, which makes the Civic and Accord car models, will be more aggressive in producing hybrids instead, he said.\n\nHonda's auto plant in Marysville, Ohio, for instance, will be adapted to produce both EVs and hybrids under the new plan.\n\nMibe pointed to Honda's motorcycle business as its core strength, as sales continue to grow in India, and Honda's global market share was steadily rising.\n\nMibe also said the Tokyo-based automaker was working on the use of various digital technology to strengthen safety, including assisted driving that will bring deaths from traffic accidents down to zero, a longtime Honda goal.\n\nTalks that began late last year to bring together the operations of Honda and Japanese rival Nissan Motor Corp., as well as smaller automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp., in a merger, collapsed earlier this year. Mibe told reporters talks were still ongoing to have the three automakers work together on developing technology. He remained vague and did not say when a deal might be reached.\n\nNissan is sinking into losses, reducing its work force and shuttering plants. Its new chief executive, Ivan Espinosa, is promising a turnaround by speeding up decision-making.\n\nHonda's profit for the fiscal year through March slipped 24.5% from the previous year. But much of the negative impact is from external factors like tariffs and sliding sales in China.\n\n\"Honda's profitability outlook remains robust, supported by cost-cutting initiatives,\" said Aaron Ho, equity analyst at CFRA Research." } ]
a2cc9c57127c68746847434be87680ad53657a97e07bdf3a1aa38e79df9af346	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Roadside bomb targeting security vehicle kills 7 soldiers in southwest Pakistan\n\nMay 6th, 2025, 02:35 PM\n\n---\n\nQUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful roadside bomb struck a security vehicle in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing seven soldiers, the military said, in a sign of increasing violence in the region.\n\nThe attack occurred in the Kachhi district of Balochistan province, the military said in a statement. It blamed the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army for the bombing, describing the group as a proxy of India without backing up the claim with any evidence.\n\nIt said a clearance operation was underway and \"the perpetrators of this heinous and cowardly act will be brought to justice.\"\n\nThere was no immediate comment from New Delhi or the BLA, which often targets security forces and civilians and foreigners in Balochistan and elsewhere.\n\nPresident Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in separate statements, denounced the attack and praised security forces for sacrificing their lives in the war against extremism.\n\nThe latest attack came less than two months after a deadly assault by the BLA on a passenger train in Balochistan that killed 31 people, most of them soldiers.\n\nBalochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency, with several separatist groups carrying out attacks primarily targeting security forces. The insurgents demand independence from the central government.\n\nThe Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group also have a presence in the province." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Roadside bomb targeting security vehicle kills 7 soldiers in southwest Pakistan\n\nMay 6th, 2025, 02:35 PM\n\n---\n\nQUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful roadside bomb struck a security vehicle in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing seven soldiers, the military said, in a sign of increasing violence in the region.\n\nThe attack occurred in the Kachhi district of Balochistan province, the military said in a statement. It blamed the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army for the bombing, describing the group as a proxy of India without backing up the claim with any evidence.\n\nIt said a clearance operation was underway and \"the perpetrators of this heinous and cowardly act will be brought to justice.\"\n\nThere was no immediate comment from New Delhi or the BLA, which often targets security forces and civilians and foreigners in Balochistan and elsewhere.\n\nPresident Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in separate statements, denounced the attack and praised security forces for sacrificing their lives in the war against extremism.\n\nThe latest attack came less than two months after a deadly assault by the BLA on a passenger train in Balochistan that killed 31 people, most of them soldiers.\n\nBalochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency, with several separatist groups carrying out attacks primarily targeting security forces. The insurgents demand independence from the central government.\n\nThe Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group also have a presence in the province." } ]
93574ccf9602d3b194f982fec05b2f910e011cc192230b993f679f76def478d6	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# As political theater took center stage in Turkey, the war went on in Ukraine. Kyiv has few options\n\nBy Samya Kullab and Volodymyr Yurchuk \nMay 17th, 2025, 04:08 AM\n\n---\n\nKYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Since U.S.-brokered talks began in March, Ukraine's strategy has been to convince the Trump administration that Vladimir Putin is unreliable, and that Kyiv is serious about peace.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has few options, analysts and officials say, but to draw U.S. President Donald Trump's ire against Putin while depending on the united and stalwart support of European allies.\n\nIn the latest round, Zelenskyy not only accepted Putin's offer to hold direct talks in Turkey, after the United States endorsed the idea, but raised the stakes and challenged the Russian leader to a face-to-face. The gesture failed to move Putin and the Istanbul talks were demoted to a technical meeting on Friday that failed to yield substantial results on ending the war.\n\nThe U.S. has expressed frustration with the stalled talks and threatened to withdraw if results aren't achieved. On Friday, Trump told reporters after boarding Air Force One to return to Washington from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that he may call Putin soon.\n\n\"He and I will meet, and I think we'll solve it, or maybe not,\" Trump said. \"At least we'll know. And if we don't solve it, it'll be very interesting.\"\n\nAll along, Zelenskyy's message, directed at the Trump administration, has been: The Russian leader cannot be trusted.\n\nIt's a rhetorical game of pingpong in which both Kyiv and Moscow try to outmaneuver the other vis-à-vis the U.S. But the political theatrics are underscored by stark realities on the ground. In this war of attrition against Russia's invasion, Ukraine's position is poised to grow weaker as time goes on, unless powerful sanctions are imposed against Moscow and the U.S. continues arms deliveries.\n\n\"He is in a difficult situation because behind him is a whole nation of people who are suffering,\" said Oleksandr Merezkho, a lawmaker in Zelenskyy's party. \"We are playing (along), we are trying to do everything we can because we don't want to lose the support of the U.S. We don't want to be accused that it was our fault.\"\n\nPutin's no-show did not result in a strong reaction from Trump, which frustrated Ukrainian officials.\n\n\"It looks surreal, weird when Ukraine is complying to everything required from us, and Putin ignores, rejects,\" said Merezhko. \"It looks very imbalanced, it looks unfair for Ukraine.\"\n\n## Ukraine hopes for sanctions, while Russia stalls\n\nSince March, Zelenskyy has made a point of showing Ukraine's willingness to acquiesce to U.S. demands to avoid alienating Trump, his most powerful ally.\n\nKyiv hoped Russia's unwillingness to do the same would, in time, provoke the U.S. to unleash powerful sanctions and cripple Moscow's war machine — the most likely scenario in which Ukraine can hope to weaken Russia and negotiate an advantageous peace deal, analysts said.\n\nRussia's position has remained mostly consistent. The Kremlin kept repeating that it was ready for peace talks with Ukraine — while making demands that were politically untenable for Zelenskyy, and would require Ukraine to make territorial concessions, neutralize its army and vow never to join NATO.\n\nThroughout the war, Moscow has also accused Kyiv and its Western allies of seeking to prolong the fighting and derailing peace efforts.\n\nMost recently, the Kremlin pushed back against a proposed 30-day ceasefire, countering with two brief unilateral ones, and then accused Ukraine of failing to stop the fighting, painting it as unwilling to silence the guns. At the same time, Russian officials underscore the effort to resolve the conflict is complex.\n\n\"We understand that Washington wants to achieve quick success in this process, but at the same time we hope that there is an understanding that the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is too complicated, there are many questions and details that need to be addressed before the settlement,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last month.\n\nUkraine is asking for an unconditional temporary ceasefire, during which time future diplomatic talks can take shape. Zelenskyy also asked for a trust-building gesture, such as the release of prisoners of war, something the two sides agreed to Friday. The exchange of 1,000 prisoners would be their largest swap yet.\n\nBut Ukraine has also maintained flexibility in its negotiating position by accepting Trump's proposals to avoid alienating the U.S. president.\n\n\"They're desperate to keep the Americans on their side,\" said Balazs Jarabik, an analyst specializing in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.\n\nIn March, Kyiv agreed to the U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, which Putin effectively rejected by imposing conditions impossible for Ukraine. In April, Kyiv signed a landmark minerals deal sought by Trump after months of fraught negotiations and a brief pause in military aid.\n\nThat is why agreeing to send a delegation to Istanbul, after Trump supported the idea, was a risky move for Zelenskyy. It played into Putin's aim of drawing Kyiv into talks that had been stalled since the early weeks of Moscow's 2022 invasion.\n\n\"We showed that we are for peace negotiations and support Trump's plan,\" said Mykola Davydiuk, a Ukrainian political scientist. \"Now the ball is with Trump.\"\n\nDespite verbal threats from Europe and the U.S., sanctions of the kind that could devastate Russia's energy sector have not been forthcoming.\n\nZelenskyy has expressed support for a sanctions package pushed in the U.S. Congress by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham that could impose 500% tariffs on Russian energy imports. Graham has said he has enough support in the House to bring the sanctions bill to the floor.\n\n## Russia likely gearing up for summer fighting campaign\n\nFor now, Zelenskyy has few options but to continue to highlight Putin's disinclination to engage in meaningful talks and keep the U.S. engaged.\n\n\"If it turns out that the Russian delegation really is just theatrical and can't deliver any results today, the world must respond,\" the Ukrainian leader said at a European summit in Albania on Friday. \"There needs to be a strong reaction, including sanctions against Russia's energy sector and banks. Pressure must continue to rise until real progress is made.\"\n\nFor Ukrainian soldiers fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, the theatricality of the week's political developments stood in harsh contrast with the grinding war.\n\n\"Better to call it a circus,\" said a Ukrainian drone operator with the 68th brigade who, like other soldiers, gave only his call sign Goose in line with military protocol.\n\nAnalysts say Russia is at a crucial crossroads in the war, where it can negotiate a truce and consolidate gains, or launch a summer military campaign to maximize wins before the onset of winter.\n\nUkraine has always been at a disadvantage and faces manpower and ammunition shortages. Analysts have offered estimates of six months to two years for how much longer it can hang on.\n\nMuch will depend on what kind of support Ukraine receives from partners and how quickly the country can scale up domestic weapons production.\n\nRussian forces recently intensified offensive operations in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces spokesperson. Soldiers said Russia has a clear aim of reaching the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region, to be able to claim the capture of two out of four partially occupied territories.\n\n\"The feeling is that we will either hold out and allow the political leadership of the country to freeze the conflict along the contact line, or the enemy will break through,\" said a Ukrainian soldier with the call sign Corsair Denis in the Sumy region.\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# As political theater took center stage in Turkey, the war went on in Ukraine. Kyiv has few options\n\nBy Samya Kullab and Volodymyr Yurchuk \nMay 17th, 2025, 04:08 AM\n\n---\n\nKYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Since U.S.-brokered talks began in March, Ukraine's strategy has been to convince the Trump administration that Vladimir Putin is unreliable, and that Kyiv is serious about peace.\n\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has few options, analysts and officials say, but to draw U.S. President Donald Trump's ire against Putin while depending on the united and stalwart support of European allies.\n\nIn the latest round, Zelenskyy not only accepted Putin's offer to hold direct talks in Turkey, after the United States endorsed the idea, but raised the stakes and challenged the Russian leader to a face-to-face. The gesture failed to move Putin and the Istanbul talks were demoted to a technical meeting on Friday that failed to yield substantial results on ending the war.\n\nThe U.S. has expressed frustration with the stalled talks and threatened to withdraw if results aren't achieved. On Friday, Trump told reporters after boarding Air Force One to return to Washington from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that he may call Putin soon.\n\n\"He and I will meet, and I think we'll solve it, or maybe not,\" Trump said. \"At least we'll know. And if we don't solve it, it'll be very interesting.\"\n\nAll along, Zelenskyy's message, directed at the Trump administration, has been: The Russian leader cannot be trusted.\n\nIt's a rhetorical game of pingpong in which both Kyiv and Moscow try to outmaneuver the other vis-à-vis the U.S. But the political theatrics are underscored by stark realities on the ground. In this war of attrition against Russia's invasion, Ukraine's position is poised to grow weaker as time goes on, unless powerful sanctions are imposed against Moscow and the U.S. continues arms deliveries.\n\n\"He is in a difficult situation because behind him is a whole nation of people who are suffering,\" said Oleksandr Merezkho, a lawmaker in Zelenskyy's party. \"We are playing (along), we are trying to do everything we can because we don't want to lose the support of the U.S. We don't want to be accused that it was our fault.\"\n\nPutin's no-show did not result in a strong reaction from Trump, which frustrated Ukrainian officials.\n\n\"It looks surreal, weird when Ukraine is complying to everything required from us, and Putin ignores, rejects,\" said Merezhko. \"It looks very imbalanced, it looks unfair for Ukraine.\"\n\n## Ukraine hopes for sanctions, while Russia stalls\n\nSince March, Zelenskyy has made a point of showing Ukraine's willingness to acquiesce to U.S. demands to avoid alienating Trump, his most powerful ally.\n\nKyiv hoped Russia's unwillingness to do the same would, in time, provoke the U.S. to unleash powerful sanctions and cripple Moscow's war machine — the most likely scenario in which Ukraine can hope to weaken Russia and negotiate an advantageous peace deal, analysts said.\n\nRussia's position has remained mostly consistent. The Kremlin kept repeating that it was ready for peace talks with Ukraine — while making demands that were politically untenable for Zelenskyy, and would require Ukraine to make territorial concessions, neutralize its army and vow never to join NATO.\n\nThroughout the war, Moscow has also accused Kyiv and its Western allies of seeking to prolong the fighting and derailing peace efforts.\n\nMost recently, the Kremlin pushed back against a proposed 30-day ceasefire, countering with two brief unilateral ones, and then accused Ukraine of failing to stop the fighting, painting it as unwilling to silence the guns. At the same time, Russian officials underscore the effort to resolve the conflict is complex.\n\n\"We understand that Washington wants to achieve quick success in this process, but at the same time we hope that there is an understanding that the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis is too complicated, there are many questions and details that need to be addressed before the settlement,\" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last month.\n\nUkraine is asking for an unconditional temporary ceasefire, during which time future diplomatic talks can take shape. Zelenskyy also asked for a trust-building gesture, such as the release of prisoners of war, something the two sides agreed to Friday. The exchange of 1,000 prisoners would be their largest swap yet.\n\nBut Ukraine has also maintained flexibility in its negotiating position by accepting Trump's proposals to avoid alienating the U.S. president.\n\n\"They're desperate to keep the Americans on their side,\" said Balazs Jarabik, an analyst specializing in Eastern Europe and Ukraine.\n\nIn March, Kyiv agreed to the U.S. proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire, which Putin effectively rejected by imposing conditions impossible for Ukraine. In April, Kyiv signed a landmark minerals deal sought by Trump after months of fraught negotiations and a brief pause in military aid.\n\nThat is why agreeing to send a delegation to Istanbul, after Trump supported the idea, was a risky move for Zelenskyy. It played into Putin's aim of drawing Kyiv into talks that had been stalled since the early weeks of Moscow's 2022 invasion.\n\n\"We showed that we are for peace negotiations and support Trump's plan,\" said Mykola Davydiuk, a Ukrainian political scientist. \"Now the ball is with Trump.\"\n\nDespite verbal threats from Europe and the U.S., sanctions of the kind that could devastate Russia's energy sector have not been forthcoming.\n\nZelenskyy has expressed support for a sanctions package pushed in the U.S. Congress by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham that could impose 500% tariffs on Russian energy imports. Graham has said he has enough support in the House to bring the sanctions bill to the floor.\n\n## Russia likely gearing up for summer fighting campaign\n\nFor now, Zelenskyy has few options but to continue to highlight Putin's disinclination to engage in meaningful talks and keep the U.S. engaged.\n\n\"If it turns out that the Russian delegation really is just theatrical and can't deliver any results today, the world must respond,\" the Ukrainian leader said at a European summit in Albania on Friday. \"There needs to be a strong reaction, including sanctions against Russia's energy sector and banks. Pressure must continue to rise until real progress is made.\"\n\nFor Ukrainian soldiers fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, the theatricality of the week's political developments stood in harsh contrast with the grinding war.\n\n\"Better to call it a circus,\" said a Ukrainian drone operator with the 68th brigade who, like other soldiers, gave only his call sign Goose in line with military protocol.\n\nAnalysts say Russia is at a crucial crossroads in the war, where it can negotiate a truce and consolidate gains, or launch a summer military campaign to maximize wins before the onset of winter.\n\nUkraine has always been at a disadvantage and faces manpower and ammunition shortages. Analysts have offered estimates of six months to two years for how much longer it can hang on.\n\nMuch will depend on what kind of support Ukraine receives from partners and how quickly the country can scale up domestic weapons production.\n\nRussian forces recently intensified offensive operations in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, according to Ukraine's Southern Defense Forces spokesperson. Soldiers said Russia has a clear aim of reaching the borders of the Dnipropetrovsk region, to be able to claim the capture of two out of four partially occupied territories.\n\n\"The feeling is that we will either hold out and allow the political leadership of the country to freeze the conflict along the contact line, or the enemy will break through,\" said a Ukrainian soldier with the call sign Corsair Denis in the Sumy region." } ]
903440a6bfcd3cf9dc32b5ecedd1decde76ddad73be1dba0dd264ff0d7939b92	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# In Cameroon's civil war, spoken-word poets speak the unspeakable\n\nBy Nalova Akua \nMay 4th, 2025, 09:55 AM\n\n---\n\nBUEA, Cameroon (AP) — A woman cried out upon seeing what looked like a corpse, a sheet-covered form lying on a stretcher. As volunteers wheeled it onto the stage, Boris Taleabong Alemnge recited a poem whose title spoke the unspoken: \"Death.\"\n\n\"The day you die, people will cry,\" the 24-year-old told hundreds of audience members in an embattled part of southwest Cameroon. \"But this won't stop the clock from ticking or the flowers from blooming.\"\n\nAlemnge is among a group of artists using spoken-word poetry to denounce ongoing bloodshed in Cameroon's English-speaking regions, where separatists are fighting government forces. The supposed corpse was a stage prop, but the tears and wails that greeted it were real.\n\nThe civil war has killed an estimated 6,500 people, a majority of them civilians, and displaced nearly 1 million since 2016.\n\nSpoken word has gained new prominence in Cameroon as poets like Alemnge, who performs under the stage name \"Penboy,\" believe their art form taps into the everyday dangers of war zones that many people avoid talking about.\n\n\"Death is inevitable, yet many people don't even want to think about it,\" he said after a performance he organized in March to launch his latest album, \"RED.\"\n\nArtists have found eager audiences who say they feel moved by the rhythms of the spoken word.\n\n\"I have watched crowds fall silent, then rise like waves, because his words have the power to heal,\" said Prosper Langmi Ngunu, who watched Penboy's performance.\n\nAlmost everyone in Anglophone areas has lost someone close to them. Mental health issues are common. So, too, is gang rape by members of the warring parties, contributing to a rise in teenage pregnancy.\n\n\"RED\" returns to the themes of Penboy's first album, \"Natives of the Universe,\" which advocates that people share common humanity and fight for reasons of vanity that don't justify the human cost.\n\nDespite the linguistic divides deepened by the conflict, Penboy has toured six of Cameroon's eight Francophone regions to draw people's attention to atrocities committed in English-speaking regions. There, he said, his poems found empathetic audiences and even turned some listeners into advocates for peace.\n\nInternational and local organizations have documented looting, killing and torture as well as mass rape and the burning of villages. The warring sides often trade blame for such abuses.\n\nThe scars of colonial rule shape discord in modern-day Cameroon along linguistic fault lines. Once a German colony, Cameroon was divided between Britain and France after World War I. They ruled it as two separate entities until the early 1960s, when Cameroon became independent and united as a single, federal, bilingual state.\n\nThe arrangement was short-lived. The following decade, Cameroon passed a referendum amending its constitution and dissolving sections guaranteeing the rights of the English-speaking minority.\n\nThe English-speaking population makes up about 20% of the country's roughly 30 million people. They feel marginalized by the Francophone majority. Tensions spiked in 2016 when the government attempted to impose French in English-speaking regions' schools and courts, igniting protests that security forces violently repressed.\n\nThe clashes prompted some English-speaking separatists to take up arms against the government. Both sides have been accused of violence against civilians.\n\nThe growing popularity of spoken-word events like Penboy's March 9 gathering reflects how people are becoming less afraid to express their outrage, said another spoken-word artist who goes by Camila.\n\n\"Since we cannot pick guns to fight, we use the power of the spoken word to send across our message. Some find peace in it, others find healing, while some get educated,\" she said.\n\nHer performance drew inspiration from an October 2021 attack in which a soldier killed 5-year-old schoolgirl Caro Louise Ndialle after shooting at a car fleeing a checkpoint.\n\n\"How can we forget carrying the lifeless body of our baby girl in our hands with her open skull like a trophy won from a tournament?\" Camila asked the audience.\n\nHer poems tap into memories of bodies strewn on city streets, and schools and hospitals that stop operating after government soldiers and separatist fighters burn them to the ground.\n\nOther works lampoon what poets see as hypocrisy and nonchalance by the warring sides.\n\nIn \"Cries Of War,\" spoken-word poet and writer Sandra Nyangha tells the story of people fed up with the conflict and eager for a return to peace.\n\n\"If you can give the order for something such as war to start, then you can also give the order to end it,\" she said.\n\nFor Penboy, spoken-word gatherings are part of efforts to bring the arts to crisis-affected communities. He has also worked on initiatives like the Students In Activism Project, launched last year, to help youth build self-confidence through developing their writing and performances.\n\nThe war has robbed many of an education, he said.\n\n\"My goal here is not just to perfect their skills. It is for them to use the art forms to bring solutions to their communities,\" Penboy said. \"Artists have the responsibility to use their craft to advocate for change.\"\n\n___\n\nFor more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse\n\nThe Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.\n\n___\n\nThis story has been corrected to note that the performance in the sixth paragraph happened in March, not last month." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# In Cameroon's civil war, spoken-word poets speak the unspeakable\n\nBy Nalova Akua \nMay 4th, 2025, 09:55 AM\n\n---\n\nBUEA, Cameroon (AP) — A woman cried out upon seeing what looked like a corpse, a sheet-covered form lying on a stretcher. As volunteers wheeled it onto the stage, Boris Taleabong Alemnge recited a poem whose title spoke the unspoken: \"Death.\"\n\n\"The day you die, people will cry,\" the 24-year-old told hundreds of audience members in an embattled part of southwest Cameroon. \"But this won't stop the clock from ticking or the flowers from blooming.\"\n\nAlemnge is among a group of artists using spoken-word poetry to denounce ongoing bloodshed in Cameroon's English-speaking regions, where separatists are fighting government forces. The supposed corpse was a stage prop, but the tears and wails that greeted it were real.\n\nThe civil war has killed an estimated 6,500 people, a majority of them civilians, and displaced nearly 1 million since 2016.\n\nSpoken word has gained new prominence in Cameroon as poets like Alemnge, who performs under the stage name \"Penboy,\" believe their art form taps into the everyday dangers of war zones that many people avoid talking about.\n\n\"Death is inevitable, yet many people don't even want to think about it,\" he said after a performance he organized in March to launch his latest album, \"RED.\"\n\nArtists have found eager audiences who say they feel moved by the rhythms of the spoken word.\n\n\"I have watched crowds fall silent, then rise like waves, because his words have the power to heal,\" said Prosper Langmi Ngunu, who watched Penboy's performance.\n\nAlmost everyone in Anglophone areas has lost someone close to them. Mental health issues are common. So, too, is gang rape by members of the warring parties, contributing to a rise in teenage pregnancy.\n\n\"RED\" returns to the themes of Penboy's first album, \"Natives of the Universe,\" which advocates that people share common humanity and fight for reasons of vanity that don't justify the human cost.\n\nDespite the linguistic divides deepened by the conflict, Penboy has toured six of Cameroon's eight Francophone regions to draw people's attention to atrocities committed in English-speaking regions. There, he said, his poems found empathetic audiences and even turned some listeners into advocates for peace.\n\nInternational and local organizations have documented looting, killing and torture as well as mass rape and the burning of villages. The warring sides often trade blame for such abuses.\n\nThe scars of colonial rule shape discord in modern-day Cameroon along linguistic fault lines. Once a German colony, Cameroon was divided between Britain and France after World War I. They ruled it as two separate entities until the early 1960s, when Cameroon became independent and united as a single, federal, bilingual state.\n\nThe arrangement was short-lived. The following decade, Cameroon passed a referendum amending its constitution and dissolving sections guaranteeing the rights of the English-speaking minority.\n\nThe English-speaking population makes up about 20% of the country's roughly 30 million people. They feel marginalized by the Francophone majority. Tensions spiked in 2016 when the government attempted to impose French in English-speaking regions' schools and courts, igniting protests that security forces violently repressed.\n\nThe clashes prompted some English-speaking separatists to take up arms against the government. Both sides have been accused of violence against civilians.\n\nThe growing popularity of spoken-word events like Penboy's March 9 gathering reflects how people are becoming less afraid to express their outrage, said another spoken-word artist who goes by Camila.\n\n\"Since we cannot pick guns to fight, we use the power of the spoken word to send across our message. Some find peace in it, others find healing, while some get educated,\" she said.\n\nHer performance drew inspiration from an October 2021 attack in which a soldier killed 5-year-old schoolgirl Caro Louise Ndialle after shooting at a car fleeing a checkpoint.\n\n\"How can we forget carrying the lifeless body of our baby girl in our hands with her open skull like a trophy won from a tournament?\" Camila asked the audience.\n\nHer poems tap into memories of bodies strewn on city streets, and schools and hospitals that stop operating after government soldiers and separatist fighters burn them to the ground.\n\nOther works lampoon what poets see as hypocrisy and nonchalance by the warring sides.\n\nIn \"Cries Of War,\" spoken-word poet and writer Sandra Nyangha tells the story of people fed up with the conflict and eager for a return to peace.\n\n\"If you can give the order for something such as war to start, then you can also give the order to end it,\" she said.\n\nFor Penboy, spoken-word gatherings are part of efforts to bring the arts to crisis-affected communities. He has also worked on initiatives like the Students In Activism Project, launched last year, to help youth build self-confidence through developing their writing and performances.\n\nThe war has robbed many of an education, he said.\n\n\"My goal here is not just to perfect their skills. It is for them to use the art forms to bring solutions to their communities,\" Penboy said. \"Artists have the responsibility to use their craft to advocate for change.\"" } ]
0123ab009756a9f20385c8009c98a498b1a15f3a5d52ea6c33a6c8dab652c471	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Lives of Afghan refugees in Virginia upended by Trump-ordered moves\n\nBy Tiffany Stanley \nMay 16th, 2025, 11:03 AM\n\n---\n\nFREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Kat Renfroe was at Mass when she saw a volunteer opportunity in the bulletin. Her Catholic parish was looking for tutors for Afghan youth, newly arrived in the United States.\n\nThere was a personal connection for Renfroe. Her husband, now retired from the Marine Corps, had deployed to Afghanistan four times. \"He just never talked about any other region the way he did about the people there,\" she said.\n\nShe signed up to volunteer. \"It changed my life,\" she said.\n\nThat was seven years ago. She and her husband are still close to the young man she tutored, along with his family. And Renfroe has made a career of working with refugees. She now supervises the Fredericksburg migration and refugee services office, part of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington.\n\nThat faith-based work is now in peril. As part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, his administration banned most incoming refugees in January and froze federal funds for the programs. Across the country, local resettlement agencies like hers have been forced to lay off staff or close their doors. Refugees and other legal migrants have been left in limbo, including Afghans who supported the U.S. in their native country.\n\nThe upheaval is particularly poignant in this part of Virginia, which boasts both strong ties to the military and to resettled Afghans, along with faith communities that support both groups.\n\nSituated south of Washington, D.C., and wedged among military bases, Fredericksburg and its surrounding counties are home to tens of thousands of veterans and active-duty personnel.\n\nVirginia has resettled more Afghan refugees per capita than any other state. The Fredericksburg area now has halal markets, Afghan restaurants and school outreach programs for families who speak Dari and Pashto.\n\nMany of these U.S.-based Afghans are still waiting for family members to join them — hopes that appear on indefinite hold. Families fear a new travel ban will emerge with Afghanistan on the list. A subset of Afghans already in the U.S. may soon face deportation as the Trump administration ends their temporary protected status.\n\n\"I think it's tough for military families, especially those who have served, to look back on 20 years and not feel as though there's some confusion and maybe even some anger about the situation,\" Renfroe said.\n\nThe U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in April that it was ending its decades-old partnership with the federal government to resettle refugees. The move came after the Trump administration halted the program's federal funding, which the bishops' conference channels to local Catholic Charities.\n\nThe Fredericksburg Catholic Charities office has continued aiding current clients and operating with minimal layoffs thanks to its diocese's support and state funds. But it's unclear what the local agency's future will be without federal funding or arriving refugees.\n\n\"I'll just keep praying,\" Renfroe said. \"It's all I can do from my end.\"\n\n## A legacy of faith-based service\n\nReligious groups have long been at the heart of U.S. refugee resettlement work. Until the recent policy changes, seven out of the 10 national organizations that partnered with the U.S. government to resettle refugees were faith-based. They were aided by hundreds of local affiliates and religious congregations.\n\nCatholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington has been working with refugees for 50 years, starting with Vietnamese people after the fall of Saigon. For the last 10 years, most of its clients have been Afghans, with an influx arriving in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power.\n\nArea faith groups like Renfroe's large church — St. Mary's in Fredericksburg — have been key to helping Afghan newcomers get on their feet. Volunteers from local congregations furnish homes, provide meals and drive families to appointments.\n\n\"As a church, we care deeply. As Christians, we care deeply,\" said Joi Rogers, who led the Afghan ministry at her Southern Baptist church. \"As military, we also just have an obligation to them as people that committed to helping the U.S. in our mission over there.\"\n\nRogers' husband Jake, a former Marine, is one of the pastors at Pillar, a network of 16 Southern Baptist churches that minister to military members. Their flagship location is near Quantico, the Marine base in northern Virginia, where nearly 5,000 Afghans were evacuated to after the fall of Kabul.\n\nWith Southern Baptist relief funds, Pillar Church hired Joi Rogers to work part time as a volunteer coordinator in the base's makeshift refugee camp in 2021. She helped organize programming, including children's activities. Her position was under the auspices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which the government contracted to help run the camp.\n\nFor Pillar's founding pastor, Colby Garman, the effort was an easy decision. \"It was affecting so many of the lives of our families here who had served in Afghanistan.\"\n\n\"We've been told to love God and love our neighbor,\" Garman said. \"I said to our people, this is an opportunity, a unique opportunity, for us to demonstrate love for our neighbor.\"\n\n## Christians called to care for refugees, politics aside\n\nWithin five months, as the Afghans left the base for locations around the country, the support at the camp transitioned to the broader community. Pillar started hosting an English class. Church members visited locally resettled families and tried to keep track of their needs.\n\nFor one Pillar Church couple in nearby Stafford, Virginia, that meant opening their home to a teenager who had arrived alone in the U.S. after being separated from her family at the Kabul airport — a situation they heard about through the church.\n\nKatlyn Williams and her husband Phil Williams, then an active-duty Marine, served as foster parents for Mahsa Zarabi, now 20, during her junior and senior years of high school. They introduced her to many American firsts: the beach, homecoming, learning to drive.\n\n\"The community was great,\" Zarabi said. \"They welcomed me very well.\"\n\nShe attends college nearby; the Williamses visit her monthly. During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this spring, they broke fast with her and her family, now safely in Virginia.\n\n\"She has and will always be part of our family,\" Katlyn Williams said.\n\nHer friend Joi Rogers, while careful not to speak for Pillar, said watching the recent dismantling of the federal refugee program has \"been very hard for me personally.\"\n\nVeterans and members of the military tend to vote Republican. Most Southern Baptists are among Trump's staunch white evangelical supporters. For those reasons, Pillar pastor Garman knows it may be surprising to some that his church network has been steadfast in supporting refugees.\n\n\"I totally understand that is the case, but I think that is a bias of just not knowing who we are and what we do,\" Garman said after a recent Sunday service.\n\nLater, sitting in the church office with his wife, Jake Rogers said, \"We recognize that there are really faithful Christians that could lie on either side of the issue of refugee policy.\"\n\n\"Regardless of your view on what our national stance should be on this,\" he said, \"we as Christ followers should have a heart for these people that reflects God's heart for these people.\"\n\n## Unity through faith and refugee work\n\nLater that week, nearly two dozen Afghan women gathered around a table at the Fredericksburg refugee office, while children played with toys in the corner. The class topic was self-care, led by an Afghan staff member. Along the back wall waited dishes of rice and chicken, part of a celebratory potluck to mark the end of Ramadan.\n\nSitting at the front was Suraya Qaderi, the last client to arrive at the resettlement agency before the U.S. government suspended new arrivals.\n\nShe was in Qatar waiting to be cleared for a flight to the United States when the Trump administration started canceling approved travel plans for refugees. \"I was one of the lucky last few,\" said Qaderi, who was allowed to proceed.\n\nShe arrived in Virginia on Jan. 24, the day the administration sent stop-work orders to resettlement agencies.\n\nQaderi worked for the election commission in Afghanistan, and she received a special immigrant visa for her close ties to the U.S. government. She was a child when her father disappeared under the previous Taliban regime.\n\nThe return of the Taliban government was like \"the end of the world,\" she said. As a woman, she lost many of her rights, including her ability to work and leave home unaccompanied.\n\nShe studied Islamic law during her university years. She believes the Taliban's interpretation of Islam is wrong on the rights of women. \"Islam is not only for them,\" she said.\n\nThe resettlement office includes not only Catholic staffers, but many Muslim employees and clients. \"We find so much commonality between our faiths,\" Renfroe said.\n\nHer Catholic faith guides her work, and it's sustaining her through the uncertainty of what the funding and policy changes will mean for her organization, which remains committed to helping refugees.\n\n\"I'm happy to go back to being a volunteer again if that's what it takes,\" Renfroe said.\n\nRegardless of government contracts, she wants local refugee families to know that \"that we're still here, that we care about them and that we want to make sure that they have what they need.\"\n\n___\n\nAssociated 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." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Lives of Afghan refugees in Virginia upended by Trump-ordered moves\n\nBy Tiffany Stanley \nMay 16th, 2025, 11:03 AM\n\n---\n\nFREDERICKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Kat Renfroe was at Mass when she saw a volunteer opportunity in the bulletin. Her Catholic parish was looking for tutors for Afghan youth, newly arrived in the United States.\n\nThere was a personal connection for Renfroe. Her husband, now retired from the Marine Corps, had deployed to Afghanistan four times. \"He just never talked about any other region the way he did about the people there,\" she said.\n\nShe signed up to volunteer. \"It changed my life,\" she said.\n\nThat was seven years ago. She and her husband are still close to the young man she tutored, along with his family. And Renfroe has made a career of working with refugees. She now supervises the Fredericksburg migration and refugee services office, part of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington.\n\nThat faith-based work is now in peril. As part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, his administration banned most incoming refugees in January and froze federal funds for the programs. Across the country, local resettlement agencies like hers have been forced to lay off staff or close their doors. Refugees and other legal migrants have been left in limbo, including Afghans who supported the U.S. in their native country.\n\nThe upheaval is particularly poignant in this part of Virginia, which boasts both strong ties to the military and to resettled Afghans, along with faith communities that support both groups.\n\nSituated south of Washington, D.C., and wedged among military bases, Fredericksburg and its surrounding counties are home to tens of thousands of veterans and active-duty personnel.\n\nVirginia has resettled more Afghan refugees per capita than any other state. The Fredericksburg area now has halal markets, Afghan restaurants and school outreach programs for families who speak Dari and Pashto.\n\nMany of these U.S.-based Afghans are still waiting for family members to join them — hopes that appear on indefinite hold. Families fear a new travel ban will emerge with Afghanistan on the list. A subset of Afghans already in the U.S. may soon face deportation as the Trump administration ends their temporary protected status.\n\n\"I think it's tough for military families, especially those who have served, to look back on 20 years and not feel as though there's some confusion and maybe even some anger about the situation,\" Renfroe said.\n\nThe U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in April that it was ending its decades-old partnership with the federal government to resettle refugees. The move came after the Trump administration halted the program's federal funding, which the bishops' conference channels to local Catholic Charities.\n\nThe Fredericksburg Catholic Charities office has continued aiding current clients and operating with minimal layoffs thanks to its diocese's support and state funds. But it's unclear what the local agency's future will be without federal funding or arriving refugees.\n\n\"I'll just keep praying,\" Renfroe said. \"It's all I can do from my end.\"\n\n## A legacy of faith-based service\n\nReligious groups have long been at the heart of U.S. refugee resettlement work. Until the recent policy changes, seven out of the 10 national organizations that partnered with the U.S. government to resettle refugees were faith-based. They were aided by hundreds of local affiliates and religious congregations.\n\nCatholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington has been working with refugees for 50 years, starting with Vietnamese people after the fall of Saigon. For the last 10 years, most of its clients have been Afghans, with an influx arriving in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power.\n\nArea faith groups like Renfroe's large church — St. Mary's in Fredericksburg — have been key to helping Afghan newcomers get on their feet. Volunteers from local congregations furnish homes, provide meals and drive families to appointments.\n\n\"As a church, we care deeply. As Christians, we care deeply,\" said Joi Rogers, who led the Afghan ministry at her Southern Baptist church. \"As military, we also just have an obligation to them as people that committed to helping the U.S. in our mission over there.\"\n\nRogers' husband Jake, a former Marine, is one of the pastors at Pillar, a network of 16 Southern Baptist churches that minister to military members. Their flagship location is near Quantico, the Marine base in northern Virginia, where nearly 5,000 Afghans were evacuated to after the fall of Kabul.\n\nWith Southern Baptist relief funds, Pillar Church hired Joi Rogers to work part time as a volunteer coordinator in the base's makeshift refugee camp in 2021. She helped organize programming, including children's activities. Her position was under the auspices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which the government contracted to help run the camp.\n\nFor Pillar's founding pastor, Colby Garman, the effort was an easy decision. \"It was affecting so many of the lives of our families here who had served in Afghanistan.\"\n\n\"We've been told to love God and love our neighbor,\" Garman said. \"I said to our people, this is an opportunity, a unique opportunity, for us to demonstrate love for our neighbor.\"\n\n## Christians called to care for refugees, politics aside\n\nWithin five months, as the Afghans left the base for locations around the country, the support at the camp transitioned to the broader community. Pillar started hosting an English class. Church members visited locally resettled families and tried to keep track of their needs.\n\nFor one Pillar Church couple in nearby Stafford, Virginia, that meant opening their home to a teenager who had arrived alone in the U.S. after being separated from her family at the Kabul airport — a situation they heard about through the church.\n\nKatlyn Williams and her husband Phil Williams, then an active-duty Marine, served as foster parents for Mahsa Zarabi, now 20, during her junior and senior years of high school. They introduced her to many American firsts: the beach, homecoming, learning to drive.\n\n\"The community was great,\" Zarabi said. \"They welcomed me very well.\"\n\nShe attends college nearby; the Williamses visit her monthly. During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this spring, they broke fast with her and her family, now safely in Virginia.\n\n\"She has and will always be part of our family,\" Katlyn Williams said.\n\nHer friend Joi Rogers, while careful not to speak for Pillar, said watching the recent dismantling of the federal refugee program has \"been very hard for me personally.\"\n\nVeterans and members of the military tend to vote Republican. Most Southern Baptists are among Trump's staunch white evangelical supporters. For those reasons, Pillar pastor Garman knows it may be surprising to some that his church network has been steadfast in supporting refugees.\n\n\"I totally understand that is the case, but I think that is a bias of just not knowing who we are and what we do,\" Garman said after a recent Sunday service.\n\nLater, sitting in the church office with his wife, Jake Rogers said, \"We recognize that there are really faithful Christians that could lie on either side of the issue of refugee policy.\"\n\n\"Regardless of your view on what our national stance should be on this,\" he said, \"we as Christ followers should have a heart for these people that reflects God's heart for these people.\"\n\n## Unity through faith and refugee work\n\nLater that week, nearly two dozen Afghan women gathered around a table at the Fredericksburg refugee office, while children played with toys in the corner. The class topic was self-care, led by an Afghan staff member. Along the back wall waited dishes of rice and chicken, part of a celebratory potluck to mark the end of Ramadan.\n\nSitting at the front was Suraya Qaderi, the last client to arrive at the resettlement agency before the U.S. government suspended new arrivals.\n\nShe was in Qatar waiting to be cleared for a flight to the United States when the Trump administration started canceling approved travel plans for refugees. \"I was one of the lucky last few,\" said Qaderi, who was allowed to proceed.\n\nShe arrived in Virginia on Jan. 24, the day the administration sent stop-work orders to resettlement agencies.\n\nQaderi worked for the election commission in Afghanistan, and she received a special immigrant visa for her close ties to the U.S. government. She was a child when her father disappeared under the previous Taliban regime.\n\nThe return of the Taliban government was like \"the end of the world,\" she said. As a woman, she lost many of her rights, including her ability to work and leave home unaccompanied.\n\nShe studied Islamic law during her university years. She believes the Taliban's interpretation of Islam is wrong on the rights of women. \"Islam is not only for them,\" she said.\n\nThe resettlement office includes not only Catholic staffers, but many Muslim employees and clients. \"We find so much commonality between our faiths,\" Renfroe said.\n\nHer Catholic faith guides her work, and it's sustaining her through the uncertainty of what the funding and policy changes will mean for her organization, which remains committed to helping refugees.\n\n\"I'm happy to go back to being a volunteer again if that's what it takes,\" Renfroe said.\n\nRegardless of government contracts, she wants local refugee families to know that \"that we're still here, that we care about them and that we want to make sure that they have what they need.\"" } ]
a06cc29a5d1f3ad90390dab68709ca9972f0ba17360b96e472cf285314262938	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Trump administration again blocked from cutting billions in federal health money\n\nBy Devna Bose \nMay 16th, 2025, 03:44 PM\n\n---\n\nPresident Donald Trump's administration must put the brakes on slashing billions in federal money for public health departments, a federal judge said Friday.\n\nU.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island granted the preliminary injunction request in the lawsuit brought last month by a coalition of Democrat-led states, allowing the money to keep flowing.\n\n\"If we don't have our health, we don't have anything, and that's why today's preliminary injunction is such a critical win,\" Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement, adding later: \"A hacksaw approach to government reduction will never yield positive results for the American people, and we will continue to fight, and win, in court to minimize the harm the Trump Administration is causing the people of this country.\"\n\nThe lawsuit filed April 1 by 23 states and the District of Columbia sought to immediately halt $11 billion in cuts, alleging that it would decimate public health infrastructure across the country. The money, allocated by Congress during the pandemic, supported COVID-19 initiatives and mental health and substance abuse efforts.\n\nThe federal government argued that because the pandemic is over, the states no longer need the money. But McElroy, who granted a temporary restraining order last month in the case, wrote in her decision that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services doesn't have the power to decide that money isn't necessary anymore.\n\nShe went on to say that the agency ignored multiple requirements that govern how block grant programs are terminated, calling the federal government's argument for how it handled the situation \"puzzling.\"\n\nMcElroy wrote that the federal government's decision to rescind the money isn't just an economic loss — \"ample evidence\" provided by the states shows that it will decimate \"key mental health, substance abuse, and other healthcare programs ... worsening public health outcomes and placing their residents at risk.\"\n\nShe pointed to several instances of what the money funded, like vaccination efforts and building up disease surveillance and labs for \"future health threats,\" before writing, \"The Court could go on.\"\n\nThe injunction only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit. The federal government must file documentation that they're complying with the order by Tuesday evening.\n\n\"We're going to continue our lawsuit to protect the health and well-being of millions of Americans,\" New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote on X shortly after the decision.\n\nHealth departments across the country have said they've laid off employees after the Trump administration began to claw back the money in late March.\n\n___\n\nThe Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Trump administration again blocked from cutting billions in federal health money\n\nBy Devna Bose \nMay 16th, 2025, 03:44 PM\n\n---\n\nPresident Donald Trump's administration must put the brakes on slashing billions in federal money for public health departments, a federal judge said Friday.\n\nU.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island granted the preliminary injunction request in the lawsuit brought last month by a coalition of Democrat-led states, allowing the money to keep flowing.\n\n\"If we don't have our health, we don't have anything, and that's why today's preliminary injunction is such a critical win,\" Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement, adding later: \"A hacksaw approach to government reduction will never yield positive results for the American people, and we will continue to fight, and win, in court to minimize the harm the Trump Administration is causing the people of this country.\"\n\nThe lawsuit filed April 1 by 23 states and the District of Columbia sought to immediately halt $11 billion in cuts, alleging that it would decimate public health infrastructure across the country. The money, allocated by Congress during the pandemic, supported COVID-19 initiatives and mental health and substance abuse efforts.\n\nThe federal government argued that because the pandemic is over, the states no longer need the money. But McElroy, who granted a temporary restraining order last month in the case, wrote in her decision that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services doesn't have the power to decide that money isn't necessary anymore.\n\nShe went on to say that the agency ignored multiple requirements that govern how block grant programs are terminated, calling the federal government's argument for how it handled the situation \"puzzling.\"\n\nMcElroy wrote that the federal government's decision to rescind the money isn't just an economic loss — \"ample evidence\" provided by the states shows that it will decimate \"key mental health, substance abuse, and other healthcare programs ... worsening public health outcomes and placing their residents at risk.\"\n\nShe pointed to several instances of what the money funded, like vaccination efforts and building up disease surveillance and labs for \"future health threats,\" before writing, \"The Court could go on.\"\n\nThe injunction only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit. The federal government must file documentation that they're complying with the order by Tuesday evening.\n\n\"We're going to continue our lawsuit to protect the health and well-being of millions of Americans,\" New York Attorney General Letitia James wrote on X shortly after the decision.\n\nHealth departments across the country have said they've laid off employees after the Trump administration began to claw back the money in late March." } ]
f92f13544fd68a90c6fd63d177001dad1930146db0de40f16cca3e22ba2896dc	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Panama president says he will not renegotiate security deal with US, despite protests\n\nMay 8th, 2025, 09:34 PM\n\n---\n\nPANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama President José Raúl Mulino said Thursday that he will not renegotiate an agreement with the United States to give U.S. troops access to Panamanian facilities, despite protests charging that he compromised the country's sovereignty.\n\nOn Tuesday, thousands of Panamanians marched in the capital in the largest protest yet against an agreement signed during last month's visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.\n\nThe U.S. embassy followed with a statement Wednesday saying that the agreement did not allow for establishing military bases in Panama. A U.S. military presence in Panama is sensitive, since people still remember the U.S. invasion in 1989 and U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. take back control of the Panama Canal.\n\n\"Panama's sovereignty is not at stake, it's not handed over, it's not given,\" Mulino said during his weekly press conference. He insisted the agreement would not lead to U.S. bases in Panama.\n\nLater Thursday, the new U.S. ambassador to Panama, Kevin Marino Carbera, said in a news conference that \"the memorandum (of understanding) is going to strengthen our cooperation against drug trafficking and protect the (Panama) canal and we know that's the responsibility of both countries according to the (canal) treaty.\"\n\nThe locations where U.S. troops and contractors will have access will always remain under the control of Panama and it can terminate the agreement with six months notice, the Panamanian government has said.\n\nProtests during recent weeks have closed streets and drawn thousands.\n\nMulino said they were the result of political interests.\n\n____\n\nFollow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Panama president says he will not renegotiate security deal with US, despite protests\n\nMay 8th, 2025, 09:34 PM\n\n---\n\nPANAMA CITY (AP) — Panama President José Raúl Mulino said Thursday that he will not renegotiate an agreement with the United States to give U.S. troops access to Panamanian facilities, despite protests charging that he compromised the country's sovereignty.\n\nOn Tuesday, thousands of Panamanians marched in the capital in the largest protest yet against an agreement signed during last month's visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.\n\nThe U.S. embassy followed with a statement Wednesday saying that the agreement did not allow for establishing military bases in Panama. A U.S. military presence in Panama is sensitive, since people still remember the U.S. invasion in 1989 and U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that the U.S. take back control of the Panama Canal.\n\n\"Panama's sovereignty is not at stake, it's not handed over, it's not given,\" Mulino said during his weekly press conference. He insisted the agreement would not lead to U.S. bases in Panama.\n\nLater Thursday, the new U.S. ambassador to Panama, Kevin Marino Carbera, said in a news conference that \"the memorandum (of understanding) is going to strengthen our cooperation against drug trafficking and protect the (Panama) canal and we know that's the responsibility of both countries according to the (canal) treaty.\"\n\nThe locations where U.S. troops and contractors will have access will always remain under the control of Panama and it can terminate the agreement with six months notice, the Panamanian government has said.\n\nProtests during recent weeks have closed streets and drawn thousands.\n\nMulino said they were the result of political interests." } ]
5f88adb64ad07dd945b1dd7b81c00f28164a1692eec24c0a5b967dbd33c7a655	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Developer to resume NY offshore wind project after Trump administration lifts pause\n\nBy Jennifer Mcdermott \nMay 19th, 2025, 11:43 PM\n\n---\n\nThe Trump administration is allowing work on a major offshore wind project for New York to resume.\n\nThe developer, the Norwegian energy company Equinor, said Monday it was told by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that a stop-work order has been lifted for the Empire Wind project, allowing construction to resume.\n\nWork has been paused since Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last month directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction and review the permits. Burgum said at the time that it appeared former President Joe Biden's administration had \"rushed through\" the approvals. Equinor spent seven years obtaining permits and has spent more than $2.5 billion so far on a project that is one-third complete.\n\nEquinor President and CEO Anders Opedal thanked President Donald Trump for allowing the project to move forward, saving about 1,500 construction jobs and investments in U.S. energy infrastructure. He also expressed appreciation to New York's governor, New York City's mayor, members of Congress and labor groups, as well as Norwegian officials who worked to save the project. The Norwegian government owns a majority stake in Equinor.\n\n\"We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,\" Opedal said in a statement.\n\nNew York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it took countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials, and the involvement of labor and business interests, to emphasize the project's importance and get Empire Wind back on track. Equinor is building Empire Wind south of Long Island, New York, to provide power in 2026 for more than 500,000 New York homes.\n\n\"New York's economic future is going to be powered by abundant, clean energy that helps our homes and businesses thrive. I fought to save clean energy jobs in New York — and we got it done,\" Hochul said in a statement Monday.\n\nThe Interior Department said Tuesday the pause on the project was lifted while a review of the permits continues.\n\nLarge offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe and, more recently, in Asia. But the industry has struggled to grow in the U.S. due to high costs, difficulties growing a supply chain for materials and the lengthy permitting process.\n\nTrump has prioritized fossil fuels and moved against renewable energy since returning to the White House. One of his first acts was ordering a pause of offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects. But the administration's targeting of Empire Wind, a project already underway, took that a step further.\n\nWhite House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement Friday that while unleashing America's energy dominance, Trump \"paused certain wind projects that are detrimental to our beloved wildlife including birds and whales.\"\n\nThere are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While wind turbines can pose a risk to birds, wildlife conservation organizations say they support the responsible development of offshore wind because climate change is a bigger threat.\n\nSenate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Monday that lifting the stop-work order is welcome news. Empire Wind will greatly benefit the economy on Long Island and the environment for all New Yorkers, he said in a statement.\n\nOffshore wind advocates also celebrated the decision. It's a win for workers, the industry and companies in places like Louisiana, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, helping to build projects in the Northeast, the Oceantic Network said in a statement.\n\nEquinor said on May 9 it would be forced to abandon Empire Wind within days unless the administration relented on its order that stopped construction. Equinor was spending up to $50 million per week and had 11 vessels on standby.\n\nEquinor finalized the federal lease in March 2017, during Trump's first term. The federal government approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024.\n\nNew York aims to obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035. New York is getting some wind power from the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork that opened a year ago, operated by different companies east of Montauk Point, New York.\n\n___\n\nThe Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Developer to resume NY offshore wind project after Trump administration lifts pause\n\nBy Jennifer Mcdermott \nMay 19th, 2025, 11:43 PM\n\n---\n\nThe Trump administration is allowing work on a major offshore wind project for New York to resume.\n\nThe developer, the Norwegian energy company Equinor, said Monday it was told by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that a stop-work order has been lifted for the Empire Wind project, allowing construction to resume.\n\nWork has been paused since Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last month directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to halt construction and review the permits. Burgum said at the time that it appeared former President Joe Biden's administration had \"rushed through\" the approvals. Equinor spent seven years obtaining permits and has spent more than $2.5 billion so far on a project that is one-third complete.\n\nEquinor President and CEO Anders Opedal thanked President Donald Trump for allowing the project to move forward, saving about 1,500 construction jobs and investments in U.S. energy infrastructure. He also expressed appreciation to New York's governor, New York City's mayor, members of Congress and labor groups, as well as Norwegian officials who worked to save the project. The Norwegian government owns a majority stake in Equinor.\n\n\"We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,\" Opedal said in a statement.\n\nNew York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it took countless conversations with Equinor and White House officials, and the involvement of labor and business interests, to emphasize the project's importance and get Empire Wind back on track. Equinor is building Empire Wind south of Long Island, New York, to provide power in 2026 for more than 500,000 New York homes.\n\n\"New York's economic future is going to be powered by abundant, clean energy that helps our homes and businesses thrive. I fought to save clean energy jobs in New York — and we got it done,\" Hochul said in a statement Monday.\n\nThe Interior Department said Tuesday the pause on the project was lifted while a review of the permits continues.\n\nLarge offshore wind farms have been making electricity for three decades in Europe and, more recently, in Asia. But the industry has struggled to grow in the U.S. due to high costs, difficulties growing a supply chain for materials and the lengthy permitting process.\n\nTrump has prioritized fossil fuels and moved against renewable energy since returning to the White House. One of his first acts was ordering a pause of offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and the issuance of approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects. But the administration's targeting of Empire Wind, a project already underway, took that a step further.\n\nWhite House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement Friday that while unleashing America's energy dominance, Trump \"paused certain wind projects that are detrimental to our beloved wildlife including birds and whales.\"\n\nThere are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. While wind turbines can pose a risk to birds, wildlife conservation organizations say they support the responsible development of offshore wind because climate change is a bigger threat.\n\nSenate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Monday that lifting the stop-work order is welcome news. Empire Wind will greatly benefit the economy on Long Island and the environment for all New Yorkers, he said in a statement.\n\nOffshore wind advocates also celebrated the decision. It's a win for workers, the industry and companies in places like Louisiana, South Carolina and Pennsylvania, helping to build projects in the Northeast, the Oceantic Network said in a statement.\n\nEquinor said on May 9 it would be forced to abandon Empire Wind within days unless the administration relented on its order that stopped construction. Equinor was spending up to $50 million per week and had 11 vessels on standby.\n\nEquinor finalized the federal lease in March 2017, during Trump's first term. The federal government approved the construction and operations plan in February 2024.\n\nNew York aims to obtain 70% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 9 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2035. New York is getting some wind power from the nation's first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, a 12-turbine wind farm called South Fork that opened a year ago, operated by different companies east of Montauk Point, New York." } ]
cb95f1535d56436fcb604276cc1bf49699d2f81874b85eb435f785d02e3fe5dc	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 3 killed in lightning strike at Cambodia's Angkor Wat UNESCO site\n\nBy David Rising \nMay 19th, 2025, 07:11 AM\n\n---\n\nBANGKOK (AP) — Three people were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning while visiting Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple complex.\n\nThey had been seeking shelter around the main temple of the UNESCO site when the lightning struck late Friday afternoon.\n\nVideo posted on social media showed two ambulances arriving in the aftermath and onlookers and site officials carrying out some injured people and helping others out on foot. Other images showed multiple people being treated in the hospital.\n\nThe day after the incident, Cambodia's Minister of Tourism Hout Hak issued a statement telling people to take down online posts about it, saying the spreading of \"negative information\" could harm the country's tourism sector.\n\nAuthorities have released no information about the incident, but an official on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed to The Associated Press that three people — all Cambodian — were killed in the lightning strike.\n\nThe Cambodian Red Cross also posted an update saying it had delivered care packages to the families of two of the victims, a 34-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman. The Red Cross refused to comment further by phone.\n\nA spokesman for the Angkor Wat site did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a regional health official.\n\nCambodia's government under Prime Minister Hun Manet keeps a tight grip on information, and has been accused by rights groups of using the court system to prosecute critics and political opponents.\n\nHun Manet in 2023 succeeded his father, Hun Sen, who was widely criticized for the suppression of freedom of speech during his nearly four decades of autocratic rule.\n\nAngkor Wat is Cambodia's best-known tourist attraction, attracting some 2.5 million visitors annually, and is even featured on the country's flag.\n\nUNESCO calls the site, which sprawls across some 400 square kilometers (155 square miles) and contains the ruins of Khmer Empire capitals from the 9th to the 15th centuries, one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.\n\nCambodia has been actively developing the area to attract more visitors, including opening a new $1.1 billion Chinese-funded airport in nearby Siem Reap.\n\nIts move to relocate some 10,000 families squatting in the Angkor Wat area to a new settlement has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups, however, and UNESCO itself has expressed concern.\n\nCambodian authorities have said the families were being voluntarily relocated, but Amnesty International and others have questioned how voluntary the relocations actually have been." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 3 killed in lightning strike at Cambodia's Angkor Wat UNESCO site\n\nBy David Rising \nMay 19th, 2025, 07:11 AM\n\n---\n\nBANGKOK (AP) — Three people were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning while visiting Cambodia's famous Angkor Wat temple complex.\n\nThey had been seeking shelter around the main temple of the UNESCO site when the lightning struck late Friday afternoon.\n\nVideo posted on social media showed two ambulances arriving in the aftermath and onlookers and site officials carrying out some injured people and helping others out on foot. Other images showed multiple people being treated in the hospital.\n\nThe day after the incident, Cambodia's Minister of Tourism Hout Hak issued a statement telling people to take down online posts about it, saying the spreading of \"negative information\" could harm the country's tourism sector.\n\nAuthorities have released no information about the incident, but an official on Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed to The Associated Press that three people — all Cambodian — were killed in the lightning strike.\n\nThe Cambodian Red Cross also posted an update saying it had delivered care packages to the families of two of the victims, a 34-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman. The Red Cross refused to comment further by phone.\n\nA spokesman for the Angkor Wat site did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a regional health official.\n\nCambodia's government under Prime Minister Hun Manet keeps a tight grip on information, and has been accused by rights groups of using the court system to prosecute critics and political opponents.\n\nHun Manet in 2023 succeeded his father, Hun Sen, who was widely criticized for the suppression of freedom of speech during his nearly four decades of autocratic rule.\n\nAngkor Wat is Cambodia's best-known tourist attraction, attracting some 2.5 million visitors annually, and is even featured on the country's flag.\n\nUNESCO calls the site, which sprawls across some 400 square kilometers (155 square miles) and contains the ruins of Khmer Empire capitals from the 9th to the 15th centuries, one of the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia.\n\nCambodia has been actively developing the area to attract more visitors, including opening a new $1.1 billion Chinese-funded airport in nearby Siem Reap.\n\nIts move to relocate some 10,000 families squatting in the Angkor Wat area to a new settlement has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups, however, and UNESCO itself has expressed concern.\n\nCambodian authorities have said the families were being voluntarily relocated, but Amnesty International and others have questioned how voluntary the relocations actually have been." } ]
9c6973e4b10364bd46f24c61059db1bb8a501fa988e821ff4b2c069b3445fe15	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Newsom wants to pause health care expansion to low-income immigrants\n\nBy Trân Nguyễn \nMay 14th, 2025, 01:02 PM\n\n---\n\nSACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is facing a $12 billion deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to help close by freezing enrollment in a state-funded health care program for immigrants living in California without legal status.\n\nNewsom announced the deficit and his plans to cover it Wednesday as he outlined his nearly $322 billion state spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.\n\nBeyond higher-than-expected Medicaid spending, Newsom blamed broad economic uncertainty, including federal tariff policies and a volatile stock market. California relies heavily on revenue from a tax on capital gains.\n\nNewsom, a Democrat, highlighted California's contributions to the U.S. and world economy and said President Donald Trump's economic policies could reduce state revenues by $16 billion in the coming years.\n\n\"California is under assault,\" he said. \"We have a president that's been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines.\"\n\nHe now opens budget negotiations with lawmakers. A final budget must be signed by the end of June.\n\nAssembly Republican Leader James Gallagher criticized Newsom for blaming much of the state's budget woes on Trump.\n\n\"Newsom's finger-pointing on the budget shortfall is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen from a politician, and he shovels out a lot of it,\" Gallagher said. \"We're in this mess because of his reckless spending, false promises, and failed leadership.\"\n\n## A freeze on immigrant health care\n\nThe decision highlights Newsom's struggle to protect his liberal policy priorities against budget challenges in his final years on the job and as he weighs his next political move, which could include a presidential run.\n\nImmigration has become a politically potent issue nationally. Nearly half of Americans approve of President Donald Trump's tougher immigration approach, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have threatened to reduce Medicaid money for states that enroll immigrants living in the country illegally.\n\nThe freeze does not mean California is backing away from its support for immigrants, Newsom said.\n\n\"No state has done more than the state of California, no state will continue to do more than the state of California by a long shot. And that's a point of pride,\" he said.\n\nCalifornia was among one of the first states to extend free health care benefits to all poor adults regardless of their immigration status last year, an ambitious plan touted by Newsom to help the nation's most populous state inch closer to a goal of universal health care. But the cost ran $2.7 billion more than the administration had anticipated. The state has more than 1.6 million people without legal status enrolled in its health care program this fiscal year, according to the budget.\n\nNewsom in March suggested he was not considering rolling back health benefits for immigrants as the state was grappling with a $6.2 billion Medicaid shortfall. He also repeatedly defended the expansion, saying it saves the state money in the long run. The program is state-funded and does not use federal dollars.\n\nUnder Newsom's plan, low-income adults without legal status will no longer be eligible to apply for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, starting in 2026. Those who are already enrolled won't be kicked off their plans, and the changes won't impact children. Newsom didn't say how long the freeze would last.\n\nStarting in 2027, adults with \"unsatisfactory immigration status\" on Medi-Cal will also have to pay a $100 monthly premium. The governor's office said that is in line with the average cost paid by those who are on subsidized heath plans through California's own marketplace. There is no premium for most people currently on Medi-Cal.\n\n\"We believe that people should have some skin in the game as it relates to contributions,\" Newsom said.\n\nNewsom's office estimated the changes will save the state $5.4 billion by fiscal year 2028-2029.\n\nThe Medi-Cal expansion, combined with other factors such as rising pharmacy costs and larger enrollment by older people, has forced California to borrow and authorize new funding to plug the multibillion hole earlier this year. California provides free health care to more than a third of its 39 million people.\n\nDemocratic state Sen. Dave Cortese said he opposed Newsom's plan to scale back coverage for some immigrants without legal status.\n\n\"Congress may be walking away from its obligation to the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, but California will not,\" Cortese said in a statement.\n\nNewsom's proposals go against the commitment the state has made to the immigrant community, said Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center.\n\n\"Questions about the practicality of the program aren't even something that we want to entertain with,\" he said. \"The proposal just doesn't match with our values as a state.\"\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press journalist Sophie Austin contributed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Newsom wants to pause health care expansion to low-income immigrants\n\nBy Trân Nguyễn \nMay 14th, 2025, 01:02 PM\n\n---\n\nSACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California is facing a $12 billion deficit that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to help close by freezing enrollment in a state-funded health care program for immigrants living in California without legal status.\n\nNewsom announced the deficit and his plans to cover it Wednesday as he outlined his nearly $322 billion state spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year.\n\nBeyond higher-than-expected Medicaid spending, Newsom blamed broad economic uncertainty, including federal tariff policies and a volatile stock market. California relies heavily on revenue from a tax on capital gains.\n\nNewsom, a Democrat, highlighted California's contributions to the U.S. and world economy and said President Donald Trump's economic policies could reduce state revenues by $16 billion in the coming years.\n\n\"California is under assault,\" he said. \"We have a president that's been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines.\"\n\nHe now opens budget negotiations with lawmakers. A final budget must be signed by the end of June.\n\nAssembly Republican Leader James Gallagher criticized Newsom for blaming much of the state's budget woes on Trump.\n\n\"Newsom's finger-pointing on the budget shortfall is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen from a politician, and he shovels out a lot of it,\" Gallagher said. \"We're in this mess because of his reckless spending, false promises, and failed leadership.\"\n\n## A freeze on immigrant health care\n\nThe decision highlights Newsom's struggle to protect his liberal policy priorities against budget challenges in his final years on the job and as he weighs his next political move, which could include a presidential run.\n\nImmigration has become a politically potent issue nationally. Nearly half of Americans approve of President Donald Trump's tougher immigration approach, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress have threatened to reduce Medicaid money for states that enroll immigrants living in the country illegally.\n\nThe freeze does not mean California is backing away from its support for immigrants, Newsom said.\n\n\"No state has done more than the state of California, no state will continue to do more than the state of California by a long shot. And that's a point of pride,\" he said.\n\nCalifornia was among one of the first states to extend free health care benefits to all poor adults regardless of their immigration status last year, an ambitious plan touted by Newsom to help the nation's most populous state inch closer to a goal of universal health care. But the cost ran $2.7 billion more than the administration had anticipated. The state has more than 1.6 million people without legal status enrolled in its health care program this fiscal year, according to the budget.\n\nNewsom in March suggested he was not considering rolling back health benefits for immigrants as the state was grappling with a $6.2 billion Medicaid shortfall. He also repeatedly defended the expansion, saying it saves the state money in the long run. The program is state-funded and does not use federal dollars.\n\nUnder Newsom's plan, low-income adults without legal status will no longer be eligible to apply for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program, starting in 2026. Those who are already enrolled won't be kicked off their plans, and the changes won't impact children. Newsom didn't say how long the freeze would last.\n\nStarting in 2027, adults with \"unsatisfactory immigration status\" on Medi-Cal will also have to pay a $100 monthly premium. The governor's office said that is in line with the average cost paid by those who are on subsidized heath plans through California's own marketplace. There is no premium for most people currently on Medi-Cal.\n\n\"We believe that people should have some skin in the game as it relates to contributions,\" Newsom said.\n\nNewsom's office estimated the changes will save the state $5.4 billion by fiscal year 2028-2029.\n\nThe Medi-Cal expansion, combined with other factors such as rising pharmacy costs and larger enrollment by older people, has forced California to borrow and authorize new funding to plug the multibillion hole earlier this year. California provides free health care to more than a third of its 39 million people.\n\nDemocratic state Sen. Dave Cortese said he opposed Newsom's plan to scale back coverage for some immigrants without legal status.\n\n\"Congress may be walking away from its obligation to the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, but California will not,\" Cortese said in a statement.\n\nNewsom's proposals go against the commitment the state has made to the immigrant community, said Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center.\n\n\"Questions about the practicality of the program aren't even something that we want to entertain with,\" he said. \"The proposal just doesn't match with our values as a state.\"" } ]
db75ae6f5454fcdb814e5d82668e03501bd75c8f15aa5ee57a88f36d98dfe03e	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Daniel Dae Kim makes history at the Tony Awards\n\nBy Terry Tang \nMay 15th, 2025, 03:45 PM\n\n---\n\nThe first monologue Daniel Dae Kim ever performed was by David Henry Hwang.\n\nHe had to do one for his college summer program at the National Theater Institute in Connecticut. Kim chose a scene from \"FOB,\" Hwang's play about the assimilation struggles of a Chinese American. So, it's fitting that 35 years later Hwang — the first Asian American to win the Tony Award for best play — would be the one to bring Kim into the Tony spotlight.\n\nKnown for TV series such as \"Lost\" and \"Hawaii Five-0,\" Kim, 56, is the first Asian nominee in the category of best leading actor in a play in the Tonys' 78-year history for his work in a Broadway revival of Hwang's \"Yellow Face.\"\n\n\"I can imagine a lot of things, but I did not imagine this scenario with David,\" Kim said. \"That I would be in a play with him, that we would both be nominated for Tony Awards and we would be able to call each other friends.\"\n\nIn the semi-autobiographical show, which ran last fall at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Kim played a satirical version of Hwang. The show also scored nods for best play revival and best performance by a featured actor in a play for first-time nominee Francis Jue, an original 2007 cast member.\n\nYou could not have scripted a better ending for a play that was written in response to the musical \"Miss Saigon\" casting white actors as Asian characters.\n\nKim's performance was filmed in November and PBS will broadcast \"Yellow Face\" on Friday. The Tonys, airing on CBS on June 8, also will put a spotlight on the play.\n\n## Asian representation and the Tonys\n\nThis groundbreaking nomination seems like the perfect karmic reward for Kim, who has spent years advocating for greater Asian representation. At the pandemic's height, the Korean American actor was a constant media presence speaking out against anti-Asian hate. He also jump-started a campaign for veteran actor James Hong, then 91, to get a Hollywood star.\n\nHe woke up to the news of his nomination after people were able to get around his phone's \"do not disturb\" mode. His competition includes George Clooney and Cole Escola.\n\n\"It'd be a huge surprise if I won, but I will say that even getting the nomination is a win especially when you put it in the context of our community and what this means for Asian Americans,\" said Kim, whose previous Broadway credits include \"The King and I.\"\n\nHe admits it's surprising and \"a little sad\" that no other Asian actor has been in this category. There's still never been an Asian nominee for best lead actress in a play.\n\n\"Of course, the barrier we really want to break is to actually have someone win, and hopefully that happens sooner rather than later, whether it's me or not.\"\n\nKim is one of seven Asian acting nominees this year. Only three acting trophy winners have been Asian. One was Lea Salonga for \"Miss Saigon\" and another was Ruthie Ann Miles for \"The King and I.\" Coincidentally, the first was BD Wong for best featured actor in Hwang's Tony-winning play, \"M. Butterfly.\" Hwang takes special pride in helping actors break glass ceilings.\n\n\"I get to feel like, 'Oh, maybe I'm actually able to make a difference' and change the culture in the way that my little-kid-self would have loved but would not have thought possible,\" said Hwang, who now has his fourth career Tony nomination. He was last nominated 22 years ago.\n\n## Bringing Asian Americans into the theater\n\nFor a long time, Hwang felt the only way to get a play with Asian characters made was to set it outside America because \"Broadway audiences are not interested in Asian Americans.\"\n\nHistorically, productions with Asian ensembles have been musicals set in \"the exotic lands of Asia,\" such as \"The King and I,\" said Esther Kim Lee, a theater studies professor at Duke University and author of \"The Theatre of David Henry Hwang.\" \"Flower Drum Song,\" set in San Francisco, was an exception but the songs and book were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Hwang actually revised the book in 2002.\n\n\"It's 2025. We finally see an actual Asian American play with an Asian American lead,\" Lee said. \"You can have 'The King and I' and have great actors and they may get Tony Awards, but it's really not about Asian Americans. That this has happened with 'Yellow Face' is just incredible.\"\n\nThe show's two-month run brought the Roundabout a 50% increase in first-time audience members — \"a powerful statement,\" Kim said.\n\n\"One of the nicest compliments I would hear after the show when I would go to the stage door is, 'This is the first Broadway show I've ever seen,'\" Kim said. \"That meant a lot to me because bringing Asian Americans into the theater is important and bringing younger people into the theater is important just for the health of theater in general.\"\n\n## 'Yellow Face' has new relevance\n\nBesides discussing whitewash casting, \"Yellow Face\" examines the pain of the main character's immigrant father. The role is based on Hwang's father's experience being wrongly accused of laundering money for China. With the current anti-immigrant and anti-DEI climate, the show's airing on PBS feels especially vital to Hwang.\n\n\"Whenever there's a conflict between America and any Asian country, Asian Americans are the first to get targeted,\" Hwang said.\n\nPBS is also where in 2020 the five-episode history docuseries \"Asian Americans\" aired for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Kim was a narrator and remains \"unequivocally proud\" of the project.\n\nFive years after the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, Kim sees \"Yellow Face\" simply making it to Broadway as a victory.\n\n\"I don't want to get preachy, but I will say that the goal with spotlighting and elevating people of color is not to threaten the establishment,\" Kim said. \"The goal was really to say everyone can contribute to our society. Everyone can be a positive force for change.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Daniel Dae Kim makes history at the Tony Awards\n\nBy Terry Tang \nMay 15th, 2025, 03:45 PM\n\n---\n\nThe first monologue Daniel Dae Kim ever performed was by David Henry Hwang.\n\nHe had to do one for his college summer program at the National Theater Institute in Connecticut. Kim chose a scene from \"FOB,\" Hwang's play about the assimilation struggles of a Chinese American. So, it's fitting that 35 years later Hwang — the first Asian American to win the Tony Award for best play — would be the one to bring Kim into the Tony spotlight.\n\nKnown for TV series such as \"Lost\" and \"Hawaii Five-0,\" Kim, 56, is the first Asian nominee in the category of best leading actor in a play in the Tonys' 78-year history for his work in a Broadway revival of Hwang's \"Yellow Face.\"\n\n\"I can imagine a lot of things, but I did not imagine this scenario with David,\" Kim said. \"That I would be in a play with him, that we would both be nominated for Tony Awards and we would be able to call each other friends.\"\n\nIn the semi-autobiographical show, which ran last fall at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Kim played a satirical version of Hwang. The show also scored nods for best play revival and best performance by a featured actor in a play for first-time nominee Francis Jue, an original 2007 cast member.\n\nYou could not have scripted a better ending for a play that was written in response to the musical \"Miss Saigon\" casting white actors as Asian characters.\n\nKim's performance was filmed in November and PBS will broadcast \"Yellow Face\" on Friday. The Tonys, airing on CBS on June 8, also will put a spotlight on the play.\n\n## Asian representation and the Tonys\n\nThis groundbreaking nomination seems like the perfect karmic reward for Kim, who has spent years advocating for greater Asian representation. At the pandemic's height, the Korean American actor was a constant media presence speaking out against anti-Asian hate. He also jump-started a campaign for veteran actor James Hong, then 91, to get a Hollywood star.\n\nHe woke up to the news of his nomination after people were able to get around his phone's \"do not disturb\" mode. His competition includes George Clooney and Cole Escola.\n\n\"It'd be a huge surprise if I won, but I will say that even getting the nomination is a win especially when you put it in the context of our community and what this means for Asian Americans,\" said Kim, whose previous Broadway credits include \"The King and I.\"\n\nHe admits it's surprising and \"a little sad\" that no other Asian actor has been in this category. There's still never been an Asian nominee for best lead actress in a play.\n\n\"Of course, the barrier we really want to break is to actually have someone win, and hopefully that happens sooner rather than later, whether it's me or not.\"\n\nKim is one of seven Asian acting nominees this year. Only three acting trophy winners have been Asian. One was Lea Salonga for \"Miss Saigon\" and another was Ruthie Ann Miles for \"The King and I.\" Coincidentally, the first was BD Wong for best featured actor in Hwang's Tony-winning play, \"M. Butterfly.\" Hwang takes special pride in helping actors break glass ceilings.\n\n\"I get to feel like, 'Oh, maybe I'm actually able to make a difference' and change the culture in the way that my little-kid-self would have loved but would not have thought possible,\" said Hwang, who now has his fourth career Tony nomination. He was last nominated 22 years ago.\n\n## Bringing Asian Americans into the theater\n\nFor a long time, Hwang felt the only way to get a play with Asian characters made was to set it outside America because \"Broadway audiences are not interested in Asian Americans.\"\n\nHistorically, productions with Asian ensembles have been musicals set in \"the exotic lands of Asia,\" such as \"The King and I,\" said Esther Kim Lee, a theater studies professor at Duke University and author of \"The Theatre of David Henry Hwang.\" \"Flower Drum Song,\" set in San Francisco, was an exception but the songs and book were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Hwang actually revised the book in 2002.\n\n\"It's 2025. We finally see an actual Asian American play with an Asian American lead,\" Lee said. \"You can have 'The King and I' and have great actors and they may get Tony Awards, but it's really not about Asian Americans. That this has happened with 'Yellow Face' is just incredible.\"\n\nThe show's two-month run brought the Roundabout a 50% increase in first-time audience members — \"a powerful statement,\" Kim said.\n\n\"One of the nicest compliments I would hear after the show when I would go to the stage door is, 'This is the first Broadway show I've ever seen,'\" Kim said. \"That meant a lot to me because bringing Asian Americans into the theater is important and bringing younger people into the theater is important just for the health of theater in general.\"\n\n## 'Yellow Face' has new relevance\n\nBesides discussing whitewash casting, \"Yellow Face\" examines the pain of the main character's immigrant father. The role is based on Hwang's father's experience being wrongly accused of laundering money for China. With the current anti-immigrant and anti-DEI climate, the show's airing on PBS feels especially vital to Hwang.\n\n\"Whenever there's a conflict between America and any Asian country, Asian Americans are the first to get targeted,\" Hwang said.\n\nPBS is also where in 2020 the five-episode history docuseries \"Asian Americans\" aired for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Kim was a narrator and remains \"unequivocally proud\" of the project.\n\nFive years after the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, Kim sees \"Yellow Face\" simply making it to Broadway as a victory.\n\n\"I don't want to get preachy, but I will say that the goal with spotlighting and elevating people of color is not to threaten the establishment,\" Kim said. \"The goal was really to say everyone can contribute to our society. Everyone can be a positive force for change.\"" } ]
6f4f37afbb1bf2722878258e87d03ab43340644a868721398112657d231812c5	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Missouri's AG sues utility over home explosion that killed boy\n\nMay 12th, 2025, 10:36 PM\n\n---\n\nLEXINGTON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's attorney general sued a natural gas company Monday over the explosion of a home in a small town that killed a 5-year-old boy, accusing the utility of violating a state safety law.\n\nAttorney General Andrew Bailey's lawsuit came less than a week after federal investigators said in a preliminary report that a Liberty Utilities employee failed to mark a section of a gas line before another company drilled into it while installing a fiber optic cable. The April 9 explosion destroyed a home in Lexington, a town of about 4,500 people about 55 miles (89 kilometers) east of Kansas City.\n\nThe blast killed Alistair Lamb and injured his 10-year-old sister, Cami, and their father, Jacob Cunningham. Bailey's lawsuit, filed in Lafayette County Circuit Court, alleges that a Liberty employee \"falsely\" told the company installing the fiber optic cable that all gas lines had been marked. The lawsuit called the explosion a \"preventable tragedy.\"\n\nBailey said Liberty violated a state law designed to ensure that digging for underground water, sewer and telecommunications lines is safe. Bailey is seeking a $10,000 fine for each day the section of gas line wasn't marked and wants a special monitor appointed to ensure that the company complies with the law.\n\nThe company said in a statement that as a party to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board's ongoing investigation, it cannot comment much about the explosion or the lawsuit. Liberty said it will continue to help families affected by the explosion and \"support broader recovery efforts.\"\n\n\"Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our customers, employees, and communities,\" the statement said. \"We remain fully committed to working with authorities and regulatory agencies to support the ongoing investigation into the cause of the incident.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Missouri's AG sues utility over home explosion that killed boy\n\nMay 12th, 2025, 10:36 PM\n\n---\n\nLEXINGTON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's attorney general sued a natural gas company Monday over the explosion of a home in a small town that killed a 5-year-old boy, accusing the utility of violating a state safety law.\n\nAttorney General Andrew Bailey's lawsuit came less than a week after federal investigators said in a preliminary report that a Liberty Utilities employee failed to mark a section of a gas line before another company drilled into it while installing a fiber optic cable. The April 9 explosion destroyed a home in Lexington, a town of about 4,500 people about 55 miles (89 kilometers) east of Kansas City.\n\nThe blast killed Alistair Lamb and injured his 10-year-old sister, Cami, and their father, Jacob Cunningham. Bailey's lawsuit, filed in Lafayette County Circuit Court, alleges that a Liberty employee \"falsely\" told the company installing the fiber optic cable that all gas lines had been marked. The lawsuit called the explosion a \"preventable tragedy.\"\n\nBailey said Liberty violated a state law designed to ensure that digging for underground water, sewer and telecommunications lines is safe. Bailey is seeking a $10,000 fine for each day the section of gas line wasn't marked and wants a special monitor appointed to ensure that the company complies with the law.\n\nThe company said in a statement that as a party to the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board's ongoing investigation, it cannot comment much about the explosion or the lawsuit. Liberty said it will continue to help families affected by the explosion and \"support broader recovery efforts.\"\n\n\"Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our customers, employees, and communities,\" the statement said. \"We remain fully committed to working with authorities and regulatory agencies to support the ongoing investigation into the cause of the incident.\"" } ]
54abe7844e7048e945cfc38228a72acbeefe44e727837c30d687d87e7ba98b3d	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Sean 'Diddy' Combs' says he's 'a little nervous' as sex trafficking trial gets underway\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:11 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — The federal sex trafficking trial of Sean \"Diddy\" Combs, whose wildly successful career has been dotted by allegations of violence, began on Monday in New York City with jury selection that was briefly paused when the hip-hop entrepreneur said he was \"a little nervous\" and needed a bathroom break.\n\nThree dozen potential jurors were questioned by Judge Arun Subramanian about their answers on a questionnaire meant to help determine if they could be fair and impartial at a trial that will feature violent and sexually explicit videos. Opening statements and the start of testimony are scheduled for next week.\n\nThe judge gave the would-be jurors a brief description of the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs, telling them he'd pleaded not guilty and was presumed innocent.\n\nBy day's end, the jury pool was half its size as some were excluded for personal reasons such as inability to economically endure a trial projected to last two months or because their opinions or past experiences would endanger their objectivity.\n\nAnother three dozen prospective jurors were expected to be questioned on Tuesday. A jury was not likely before Wednesday.\n\nThroughout Monday, Combs, 55, sat with his lawyers in a sweater over a white collared shirt and gray slacks, which the judge had allowed rather than jail clothing. He's been held in a grim federal lockup in Brooklyn since his arrest last September. His hair and goatee were almost fully gray because dye isn't allowed in jail.\n\nUnlike other recent high-profile celebrity trials, Combs' court case won't be broadcast live because federal courtrooms don't allow electronic recordings inside — meaning courtroom sketch artists serve as the public's eyes in the courtroom.\n\nIf convicted of all charges, he could face a maximum of life in prison.\n\nSeveral prospective jurors indicated they'd seen news reports featuring a key piece of evidence in the case: a video of the hip-hop mogul hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. One prospective juror described a still image she saw from the video as \"damning evidence.\" That woman was rejected from consideration.\n\nAfter another juror was dismissed, Combs asked for a bathroom break, telling the judge, \"I'm sorry your honor, I'm a little nervous today.\"\n\nOne prospective juror said she had posted a \"like\" to a video on social media by a comedian who joked about large amounts of baby oil found by law enforcement in one of Combs' homes. She was not dismissed.\n\nThe 17-page indictment against Combs — which reads like a charging document filed against a Mafia leader or the head of a drug gang — alleges that Combs engaged in a two-decade racketeering pattern of abusive behavior against women and others, with the help of people in his entourage and employees from his network of businesses.\n\nCombs and his lawyers say he's innocent and any group sex was consensual. They say there was no effort to coerce people into things they didn't want to do, and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket.\n\nProsecutors say women were manipulated into drug-fueled sexual performances with male sex workers that Combs called \"Freak Offs.\" To keep women in line, prosecutors say Combs used a mix of influence and violence: He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he asked — or cut them off if they didn't.\n\nAnd when he wasn't getting what he wanted, the indictment says Combs and his associates resorted to violent acts including beatings, kidnapping and arson. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.\n\nOne of four alleged victims expected to testify against Combs may not take the witness stand after all, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey revealed Monday. She told Subramanian that the woman's attorney has had personal issues and been hard to reach and it was unclear if the woman would show up either.\n\n\"There is no particular count that requires her testimony in order for us to carry our burden,\" Comey said.\n\nCombs has acknowledged one episode of violence that is considered a key piece of the prosecution's case. In 2016, a security camera recorded him beating up his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel. Cassie filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape.\n\nThe Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, did." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Sean 'Diddy' Combs' says he's 'a little nervous' as sex trafficking trial gets underway\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:11 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — The federal sex trafficking trial of Sean \"Diddy\" Combs, whose wildly successful career has been dotted by allegations of violence, began on Monday in New York City with jury selection that was briefly paused when the hip-hop entrepreneur said he was \"a little nervous\" and needed a bathroom break.\n\nThree dozen potential jurors were questioned by Judge Arun Subramanian about their answers on a questionnaire meant to help determine if they could be fair and impartial at a trial that will feature violent and sexually explicit videos. Opening statements and the start of testimony are scheduled for next week.\n\nThe judge gave the would-be jurors a brief description of the sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against Combs, telling them he'd pleaded not guilty and was presumed innocent.\n\nBy day's end, the jury pool was half its size as some were excluded for personal reasons such as inability to economically endure a trial projected to last two months or because their opinions or past experiences would endanger their objectivity.\n\nAnother three dozen prospective jurors were expected to be questioned on Tuesday. A jury was not likely before Wednesday.\n\nThroughout Monday, Combs, 55, sat with his lawyers in a sweater over a white collared shirt and gray slacks, which the judge had allowed rather than jail clothing. He's been held in a grim federal lockup in Brooklyn since his arrest last September. His hair and goatee were almost fully gray because dye isn't allowed in jail.\n\nUnlike other recent high-profile celebrity trials, Combs' court case won't be broadcast live because federal courtrooms don't allow electronic recordings inside — meaning courtroom sketch artists serve as the public's eyes in the courtroom.\n\nIf convicted of all charges, he could face a maximum of life in prison.\n\nSeveral prospective jurors indicated they'd seen news reports featuring a key piece of evidence in the case: a video of the hip-hop mogul hitting and kicking one of his accusers in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. One prospective juror described a still image she saw from the video as \"damning evidence.\" That woman was rejected from consideration.\n\nAfter another juror was dismissed, Combs asked for a bathroom break, telling the judge, \"I'm sorry your honor, I'm a little nervous today.\"\n\nOne prospective juror said she had posted a \"like\" to a video on social media by a comedian who joked about large amounts of baby oil found by law enforcement in one of Combs' homes. She was not dismissed.\n\nThe 17-page indictment against Combs — which reads like a charging document filed against a Mafia leader or the head of a drug gang — alleges that Combs engaged in a two-decade racketeering pattern of abusive behavior against women and others, with the help of people in his entourage and employees from his network of businesses.\n\nCombs and his lawyers say he's innocent and any group sex was consensual. They say there was no effort to coerce people into things they didn't want to do, and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket.\n\nProsecutors say women were manipulated into drug-fueled sexual performances with male sex workers that Combs called \"Freak Offs.\" To keep women in line, prosecutors say Combs used a mix of influence and violence: He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he asked — or cut them off if they didn't.\n\nAnd when he wasn't getting what he wanted, the indictment says Combs and his associates resorted to violent acts including beatings, kidnapping and arson. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.\n\nOne of four alleged victims expected to testify against Combs may not take the witness stand after all, Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey revealed Monday. She told Subramanian that the woman's attorney has had personal issues and been hard to reach and it was unclear if the woman would show up either.\n\n\"There is no particular count that requires her testimony in order for us to carry our burden,\" Comey said.\n\nCombs has acknowledged one episode of violence that is considered a key piece of the prosecution's case. In 2016, a security camera recorded him beating up his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel. Cassie filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape.\n\nThe Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, did." } ]
3e02519e8d90609aa6039f2ad522a981542a425ace6969402afd58ac1461fee1	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# General Motors trims 2025 guidance, anticipating potential $5 billion tariff impact\n\nBy Michelle Chapman \nMay 1st, 2025, 11:51 AM\n\n---\n\nGeneral Motors is lowering its profit expectations for the year as the carmaker braces for a potential impact from auto tariffs as high as $5 billion in 2025.\n\nGM announced early this week that it was reassessing its expectations for 2025 due to tariffs. The company said at the time that its initial full-year financial outlook didn't contemplate their potential impact.\n\nOn Thursday the automaker said that it now foresees full-year adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in a range of $10 billion to $12.5 billion. The guidance includes a current tariff exposure of $4 billion to $5 billion.\n\nGM previously predicted 2025 adjusted EBIT between $13.7 billion and $15.7 billion.\n\nThe revised forecast comes after President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to relax some of his 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.\n\nAutomakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make U.S. production less competitive worldwide. Trump portrayed the changes as a bridge toward automakers moving more production into the United States.\n\nStill, it remains unclear what impact Trump's broader tariffs will have on the U.S. economy and auto sales. Most economists say the tariffs — which could ultimately hit most imports — would raise prices and slow economic growth, possibly hurting auto sales despite the relief that the administration intends to offer on its previous policies.\n\nIn a letter to shareholders on Thursday, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said that the automaker looks forward to maintaining its strong dialogue with the Trump administration on trade and other evolving policies.\n\n\"As you know, there are ongoing discussions with key trade partners that may also have an impact,\" she said. \"We will continue to be nimble and disciplined and update you as we know more.\"\n\nShares of GM climbed more than 2% before the opening bell." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# General Motors trims 2025 guidance, anticipating potential $5 billion tariff impact\n\nBy Michelle Chapman \nMay 1st, 2025, 11:51 AM\n\n---\n\nGeneral Motors is lowering its profit expectations for the year as the carmaker braces for a potential impact from auto tariffs as high as $5 billion in 2025.\n\nGM announced early this week that it was reassessing its expectations for 2025 due to tariffs. The company said at the time that its initial full-year financial outlook didn't contemplate their potential impact.\n\nOn Thursday the automaker said that it now foresees full-year adjusted earnings before interest and taxes in a range of $10 billion to $12.5 billion. The guidance includes a current tariff exposure of $4 billion to $5 billion.\n\nGM previously predicted 2025 adjusted EBIT between $13.7 billion and $15.7 billion.\n\nThe revised forecast comes after President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to relax some of his 25% tariffs on automobiles and auto parts, a significant reversal as the import taxes threatened to hurt domestic manufacturers.\n\nAutomakers and independent analyses have indicated that the tariffs could raise prices, reduce sales and make U.S. production less competitive worldwide. Trump portrayed the changes as a bridge toward automakers moving more production into the United States.\n\nStill, it remains unclear what impact Trump's broader tariffs will have on the U.S. economy and auto sales. Most economists say the tariffs — which could ultimately hit most imports — would raise prices and slow economic growth, possibly hurting auto sales despite the relief that the administration intends to offer on its previous policies.\n\nIn a letter to shareholders on Thursday, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said that the automaker looks forward to maintaining its strong dialogue with the Trump administration on trade and other evolving policies.\n\n\"As you know, there are ongoing discussions with key trade partners that may also have an impact,\" she said. \"We will continue to be nimble and disciplined and update you as we know more.\"\n\nShares of GM climbed more than 2% before the opening bell." } ]
d89d9a1842fe098d3e91efff8cdfe2f48d79cd503b21219ce0409a5809eee929	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Ousted top election official in key swing state urges civility toward 'caretakers of our democracy'\n\nBy Christina A. Cassidy \nMay 9th, 2025, 10:22 PM\n\n---\n\nThe former North Carolina elections director who was ousted this week after a politically motivated move by Republicans said Friday she hopes the new leadership will approach elections in a nonpartisan way and called for an end to verbal attacks against those who oversee the voting process.\n\nKaren Brinson Bell, who will leave the job next week, has served as the state's top election official for the last six years -- through hurricanes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the 2020 election. In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, she described the \"filthy language\" and insults that had been directed at her over the years and attributed it to a \"lack of understanding\" about the law and her job to follow it.\n\nShe noted that other election officials across the country have been subjected to death threats and harassment in recent years. Since the 2020 election and the false claims of widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines, several individuals have been prosecuted for threatening election officials.\n\n\"I hope that we get back to a place of civility, a place where it's understood that election professionals are the caretakers of our democracy and that very fundamental right to vote,\" Brinson Bell said. \"And our integrity should not be questioned for adhering to the rules and making sure that they're executed properly.\"\n\nBrinson Bell's removal followed a law passed late last year before state Republicans lost their supermajority in the legislature, which they used to override the governor's veto. It took the Democratic governor's authority to appoint election board members and handed that power to the state auditor, a Republican.\n\nWhile there's precedent for a new director to be hired when a change occurs in the board, the circumstances of Brinson Bell's ouster were extraordinary.\n\nThe GOP has tried several times since 2016 to remove the governor's authority to choose members of the state election board, whose duties include carrying out campaign finance laws, certifying election results and setting rules on a host of voting administration details.\n\nDemocratic Gov. Josh Stein, who was elected last November, sued over the law, and a group of trial judges determined it was unconstitutional and shouldn't be allowed to take effect. But a state Court of Appeals panel overruled them by allowing the new board appointments to proceed.\n\nAt the new board's first meeting on May 7, they voted to replace Brinson Bell with Sam Hayes, the top lawyer for the Republican House speaker. State Republicans have long been unhappy with Brinson Bell, emphasizing on her role in a legal settlement in 2020, during the pandemic, that temporarily extended the state's mail ballot deadline to nine days rather than the usual three-day limit.\n\nFrancis De Luca, the new board chair, said in a statement on Friday that the board wanted to \"go in a new direction\" and chose not to renew Brinson Bell's contract, which expires on May 15.\n\n\"The Democratic State Board members did the same thing in 2019, when they had the opportunity to appoint a new director to implement their vision for the agency,\" De Luca said.\n\nState Senate leader Phil Berger said he had no problem with Brinson Bell's departure.\n\n\"She was a partisan actor when she was put in that place, and she acted in a partisan manner all along,\" Berger said. \"And so I am hopeful that the change that we've made will see decisions made by the board based on what the law is, not what the board thinks the law should be.\"\n\nAsked whether the board picking Hayes could mean partisan decisions favoring the GOP, Berger, a Republican, said he didn't believe that would be the case: \"Everybody who looks at it can decide what they think it looks like.\"\n\nA registered Democrat, Brinson Bell said she never acted in a partisan way and drew on her experiences as a county election official and regional support staffer for the state Board of Elections. She noted that her replacement does not have experience in election administration and said she hopes he will rely on the institutional knowledge and expertise of the board staff as well as the state's 100 county election directors.\n\n\"I hope that Mr. Hayes will lean on that and recognize that he has been given the greatest opportunity of his life, and he is now our state's caretaker of democracy and the fundamental right to vote,\" Brinson Bell said.\n\nIn many states, the top election official is the secretary of state, an elected position just like those for governor or attorney general. North Carolina is among a handful of states that have created state election boards with appointed directors as a way to make the positions less political.\n\nIt hasn't always turned out that way. In Wisconsin, which has a setup similar to North Carolina's, Republicans created a bipartisan commission to run elections starting in 2016 after they were unhappy with its predecessor, which placed retired judges in charge of election oversight. The nonpartisan leader of the elections commission, Meagan Wolfe, was appointed to her position in 2019 and confirmed unanimously by the Republican-controlled Senate for a term ending in the middle of 2023.\n\nAfter President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020, Wolfe became the target for Republicans who falsely asserted there was widespread fraud despite no evidence to back up the claims.\n\nWolfe has survived numerous attempts to oust her. Most recently, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in February that she can legally retain her position despite not being reappointed and confirmed by the state Senate after her first term ended.\n\nRepublicans running for secretary of state in 2022 argued for returning the power of elections to that office, even though it hasn't had that authority since 1974. The Democratic incumbent won the election and talk of ceding election oversight to the office has faded.\n\nIn North Carolina, GOP leaders also criticized the previous board for what they called errors in how election laws were carried out for the 2024 election. It led to litigation in the race for a state Supreme Court seat that dragged on for months.\n\nBrinson Bell said Friday that election was conducted \"as the rules were set, and that is how we finished the election, as well.\" She criticized efforts across the country to change the rules after an election has been held and said the voters whose ballots were challenged in the North Carolina Supreme Court race were all eligible to vote under rules set before the election.\n\n\"You don't change the rules of the game after the game's begun, nor after the game has ended,\" Brinson Bell said. \"I think that we all need to be mindful of -- is this foretelling what's to come? Is this going to be the type of challenge to our elections time and time again?\"\n\nBrinson Bell said she wasn't sure of her next move but hoped to continue working in elections.\n\n\"The one thing that I will be is a voter, a registered voter in North Carolina,\" she said. \"And I hope that these folks that we're handing this off to will value my right to cast my ballot and have my say just as much as I do for them.\"\n\n___\n\nCassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Ousted top election official in key swing state urges civility toward 'caretakers of our democracy'\n\nBy Christina A. Cassidy \nMay 9th, 2025, 10:22 PM\n\n---\n\nThe former North Carolina elections director who was ousted this week after a politically motivated move by Republicans said Friday she hopes the new leadership will approach elections in a nonpartisan way and called for an end to verbal attacks against those who oversee the voting process.\n\nKaren Brinson Bell, who will leave the job next week, has served as the state's top election official for the last six years -- through hurricanes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the 2020 election. In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, she described the \"filthy language\" and insults that had been directed at her over the years and attributed it to a \"lack of understanding\" about the law and her job to follow it.\n\nShe noted that other election officials across the country have been subjected to death threats and harassment in recent years. Since the 2020 election and the false claims of widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines, several individuals have been prosecuted for threatening election officials.\n\n\"I hope that we get back to a place of civility, a place where it's understood that election professionals are the caretakers of our democracy and that very fundamental right to vote,\" Brinson Bell said. \"And our integrity should not be questioned for adhering to the rules and making sure that they're executed properly.\"\n\nBrinson Bell's removal followed a law passed late last year before state Republicans lost their supermajority in the legislature, which they used to override the governor's veto. It took the Democratic governor's authority to appoint election board members and handed that power to the state auditor, a Republican.\n\nWhile there's precedent for a new director to be hired when a change occurs in the board, the circumstances of Brinson Bell's ouster were extraordinary.\n\nThe GOP has tried several times since 2016 to remove the governor's authority to choose members of the state election board, whose duties include carrying out campaign finance laws, certifying election results and setting rules on a host of voting administration details.\n\nDemocratic Gov. Josh Stein, who was elected last November, sued over the law, and a group of trial judges determined it was unconstitutional and shouldn't be allowed to take effect. But a state Court of Appeals panel overruled them by allowing the new board appointments to proceed.\n\nAt the new board's first meeting on May 7, they voted to replace Brinson Bell with Sam Hayes, the top lawyer for the Republican House speaker. State Republicans have long been unhappy with Brinson Bell, emphasizing on her role in a legal settlement in 2020, during the pandemic, that temporarily extended the state's mail ballot deadline to nine days rather than the usual three-day limit.\n\nFrancis De Luca, the new board chair, said in a statement on Friday that the board wanted to \"go in a new direction\" and chose not to renew Brinson Bell's contract, which expires on May 15.\n\n\"The Democratic State Board members did the same thing in 2019, when they had the opportunity to appoint a new director to implement their vision for the agency,\" De Luca said.\n\nState Senate leader Phil Berger said he had no problem with Brinson Bell's departure.\n\n\"She was a partisan actor when she was put in that place, and she acted in a partisan manner all along,\" Berger said. \"And so I am hopeful that the change that we've made will see decisions made by the board based on what the law is, not what the board thinks the law should be.\"\n\nAsked whether the board picking Hayes could mean partisan decisions favoring the GOP, Berger, a Republican, said he didn't believe that would be the case: \"Everybody who looks at it can decide what they think it looks like.\"\n\nA registered Democrat, Brinson Bell said she never acted in a partisan way and drew on her experiences as a county election official and regional support staffer for the state Board of Elections. She noted that her replacement does not have experience in election administration and said she hopes he will rely on the institutional knowledge and expertise of the board staff as well as the state's 100 county election directors.\n\n\"I hope that Mr. Hayes will lean on that and recognize that he has been given the greatest opportunity of his life, and he is now our state's caretaker of democracy and the fundamental right to vote,\" Brinson Bell said.\n\nIn many states, the top election official is the secretary of state, an elected position just like those for governor or attorney general. North Carolina is among a handful of states that have created state election boards with appointed directors as a way to make the positions less political.\n\nIt hasn't always turned out that way. In Wisconsin, which has a setup similar to North Carolina's, Republicans created a bipartisan commission to run elections starting in 2016 after they were unhappy with its predecessor, which placed retired judges in charge of election oversight. The nonpartisan leader of the elections commission, Meagan Wolfe, was appointed to her position in 2019 and confirmed unanimously by the Republican-controlled Senate for a term ending in the middle of 2023.\n\nAfter President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020, Wolfe became the target for Republicans who falsely asserted there was widespread fraud despite no evidence to back up the claims.\n\nWolfe has survived numerous attempts to oust her. Most recently, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in February that she can legally retain her position despite not being reappointed and confirmed by the state Senate after her first term ended.\n\nRepublicans running for secretary of state in 2022 argued for returning the power of elections to that office, even though it hasn't had that authority since 1974. The Democratic incumbent won the election and talk of ceding election oversight to the office has faded.\n\nIn North Carolina, GOP leaders also criticized the previous board for what they called errors in how election laws were carried out for the 2024 election. It led to litigation in the race for a state Supreme Court seat that dragged on for months.\n\nBrinson Bell said Friday that election was conducted \"as the rules were set, and that is how we finished the election, as well.\" She criticized efforts across the country to change the rules after an election has been held and said the voters whose ballots were challenged in the North Carolina Supreme Court race were all eligible to vote under rules set before the election.\n\n\"You don't change the rules of the game after the game's begun, nor after the game has ended,\" Brinson Bell said. \"I think that we all need to be mindful of -- is this foretelling what's to come? Is this going to be the type of challenge to our elections time and time again?\"\n\nBrinson Bell said she wasn't sure of her next move but hoped to continue working in elections.\n\n\"The one thing that I will be is a voter, a registered voter in North Carolina,\" she said. \"And I hope that these folks that we're handing this off to will value my right to cast my ballot and have my say just as much as I do for them.\"" } ]
1ec6e1cd9f2eedfed846bf314c9c79494cb233022cdfb2c04f87d818c870521d	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# DoorDash agrees to acquire UK rival Deliveroo for $3.9 billion\n\nMay 6th, 2025, 09:23 AM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — DoorDash, the ubiquitous U.S. food delivery app, has agreed to acquire British rival Deliveroo for 2.9 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in cash, expanding its business in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.\n\nSan Francisco-based DoorDash will pay 180 pence ($2.40) for each Deliveroo share, 29% more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was announced, the companies said in a joint statement before the London Stock Exchange opened for trading on Tuesday.\n\nThe deal is DoorDash's second major international acquisition in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the U.S., Canada and Australia. After the purchase of Deliveroo, and the 2022 acquisition of Helsinki-based Wolt Enterprises, DoorDash will operate in more than 40 markets worldwide.\n\n\"I could not be more excited by the prospect of what DoorDash and Deliveroo will be able to accomplish together,\" DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in the statement.\n\nBoth companies were founded in 2013, using the then emerging technology of smartphones to link restaurants and their customers to a network of delivery riders.\n\nDeliveroo now operates in nine countries, including the U.K. and Ireland, which accounted for 59% of its business in 2023. It also does business in France, Italy, Belgium, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.\n\nThe acquisition comes less than three months after technology investment company Prosus agreed to buy Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com for 4.1 billion euros ($4.29 billion), boosting its food delivery portfolio in Europe." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# DoorDash agrees to acquire UK rival Deliveroo for $3.9 billion\n\nMay 6th, 2025, 09:23 AM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — DoorDash, the ubiquitous U.S. food delivery app, has agreed to acquire British rival Deliveroo for 2.9 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in cash, expanding its business in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.\n\nSan Francisco-based DoorDash will pay 180 pence ($2.40) for each Deliveroo share, 29% more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was announced, the companies said in a joint statement before the London Stock Exchange opened for trading on Tuesday.\n\nThe deal is DoorDash's second major international acquisition in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the U.S., Canada and Australia. After the purchase of Deliveroo, and the 2022 acquisition of Helsinki-based Wolt Enterprises, DoorDash will operate in more than 40 markets worldwide.\n\n\"I could not be more excited by the prospect of what DoorDash and Deliveroo will be able to accomplish together,\" DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in the statement.\n\nBoth companies were founded in 2013, using the then emerging technology of smartphones to link restaurants and their customers to a network of delivery riders.\n\nDeliveroo now operates in nine countries, including the U.K. and Ireland, which accounted for 59% of its business in 2023. It also does business in France, Italy, Belgium, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.\n\nThe acquisition comes less than three months after technology investment company Prosus agreed to buy Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com for 4.1 billion euros ($4.29 billion), boosting its food delivery portfolio in Europe." } ]
469c79138df80ce1a008e09be5aa5de333ddb64e5227a1f64baea1f5a1080c6e	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Reward increased for capture of escaped New Orleans inmates as 7 remain on the lam\n\nMay 18th, 2025, 06:21 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — Officials increased the reward for the capture of seven inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet as at least a dozen law enforcement agencies pressed their expansive search for the men for a third day on Sunday.\n\nFBI Special Agent Jonathan Trapp said at a news conference that seven of the 10 men who originally escaped on Friday are still at large and that the FBI is offering $10,000 per inmate instead of the $5,000 previously announced. He said he believes members of the public may be aiding the men, and authorities will arrest those found aiding or abetting them.\n\nThe men range in age from 19 to 42 and face a variety of charges including aggravated assault, domestic abuse battery and murder.\n\nThe FBI reward is in addition to $5,000 rewards offered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and $2,000 from CrimeStoppers.\n\nA spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police said that the agency was unable to provide details about the scope and target of the investigation for security reasons. The spokesperson added that a multiagency task force was scouring the region for the remaining fugitives.\n\nIn a separate statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Sunday her office's \"main priority remains recovering the prisoners, protecting the public, securing and stabilizing the facility staff, and building.\"\n\nAt least one of the escaped inmates was captured based on a tip from the public, according to a statement from the FBI on the social media platform X.\n\nNew Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick warned that the fugitives are dangerous in a news conference on Friday night but also urged the public \"not to panic.\"\n\nOrleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of \"defective locks.\" Hutson said she has continuously raised concerns about the locks to officials and, as recently as this week, advocated for money to fix the aged infrastructure.\n\n\"This massive jail break could be the largest jail break in the history of the state, and it never should have happened. The public deserves to know who, what and how this happened,\" Gov. Jeff Landry said at the Sunday news conference.\n\nLandry said an audit of the jail by the Department of Corrections will be done by the end of the week. He said everyone in the criminal justice system needs to be held accountable \"except for the police, who seem to be doing their job.\"\n\nLandry cited delays in bringing charges against people accused of crimes, prosecutions and in sentencing as factors he said contribute to jail populations.\n\nHe blamed Friday's escape on what he called a \"progressive justice system,\" saying that \"there is also no excuse for the way these cases are currently being mismanaged in our criminal justice system.\"\n\nLandry declined to comment on whether the escape was an inside job or how it happened.\n\nOn Friday, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of \"defective locks,\" and possibly with help from people inside her department.\n\n\"It's almost impossible, not completely, but almost impossible for anybody to get out of this facility without help,\" she said of the jail where 1,400 people are being held.\n\nThe escape is drawing intense scrutiny and opprobrium. It took hours for sheriff's officials to learn of the escape and then more time still to alert New Orleans police, even though some of the missing inmates are accused of violent offenses and they escaped into a neighborhood less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from the city's famous French Quarter.\n\nLouisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges said authorities in neighboring states have been notified but that officials do not believe the men have left the state yet. Leads for the men have not panned out, he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Reward increased for capture of escaped New Orleans inmates as 7 remain on the lam\n\nMay 18th, 2025, 06:21 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) — Officials increased the reward for the capture of seven inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet as at least a dozen law enforcement agencies pressed their expansive search for the men for a third day on Sunday.\n\nFBI Special Agent Jonathan Trapp said at a news conference that seven of the 10 men who originally escaped on Friday are still at large and that the FBI is offering $10,000 per inmate instead of the $5,000 previously announced. He said he believes members of the public may be aiding the men, and authorities will arrest those found aiding or abetting them.\n\nThe men range in age from 19 to 42 and face a variety of charges including aggravated assault, domestic abuse battery and murder.\n\nThe FBI reward is in addition to $5,000 rewards offered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and $2,000 from CrimeStoppers.\n\nA spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police said that the agency was unable to provide details about the scope and target of the investigation for security reasons. The spokesperson added that a multiagency task force was scouring the region for the remaining fugitives.\n\nIn a separate statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Sunday her office's \"main priority remains recovering the prisoners, protecting the public, securing and stabilizing the facility staff, and building.\"\n\nAt least one of the escaped inmates was captured based on a tip from the public, according to a statement from the FBI on the social media platform X.\n\nNew Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick warned that the fugitives are dangerous in a news conference on Friday night but also urged the public \"not to panic.\"\n\nOrleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of \"defective locks.\" Hutson said she has continuously raised concerns about the locks to officials and, as recently as this week, advocated for money to fix the aged infrastructure.\n\n\"This massive jail break could be the largest jail break in the history of the state, and it never should have happened. The public deserves to know who, what and how this happened,\" Gov. Jeff Landry said at the Sunday news conference.\n\nLandry said an audit of the jail by the Department of Corrections will be done by the end of the week. He said everyone in the criminal justice system needs to be held accountable \"except for the police, who seem to be doing their job.\"\n\nLandry cited delays in bringing charges against people accused of crimes, prosecutions and in sentencing as factors he said contribute to jail populations.\n\nHe blamed Friday's escape on what he called a \"progressive justice system,\" saying that \"there is also no excuse for the way these cases are currently being mismanaged in our criminal justice system.\"\n\nLandry declined to comment on whether the escape was an inside job or how it happened.\n\nOn Friday, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of \"defective locks,\" and possibly with help from people inside her department.\n\n\"It's almost impossible, not completely, but almost impossible for anybody to get out of this facility without help,\" she said of the jail where 1,400 people are being held.\n\nThe escape is drawing intense scrutiny and opprobrium. It took hours for sheriff's officials to learn of the escape and then more time still to alert New Orleans police, even though some of the missing inmates are accused of violent offenses and they escaped into a neighborhood less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from the city's famous French Quarter.\n\nLouisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges said authorities in neighboring states have been notified but that officials do not believe the men have left the state yet. Leads for the men have not panned out, he said." } ]
7794d054b5b3bb977f5b404c7b86f74641e6af9d7a220a5c0d8363aa601bdce0	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Women sue over Georgia law that added cash bail requirements for certain charges\n\nBy Charlotte Kramon \nMay 2nd, 2025, 05:31 PM\n\n---\n\nATLANTA (AP) — Two women behind bars in Atlanta sued the state of Georgia on Friday over a recent law that added a cash bail requirement for more crimes, many of them misdemeanors.\n\nThe lawsuit accuses the state of violating people's constitutional rights to due process when they're accused of crimes that require cash bail due to last year's Senate Bill 63.\n\nThe law, which went into effect in July, requires cash bail for 30 additional crimes, 18 of which are always or often misdemeanors, including failing to appear for a traffic citation if it's not their first. Georgia requires cash bail for far more offenses than any other state and has one of the nation's highest rates of people in jail or prison.\n\nThe American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and the Southern Center for Human Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the two women and a nonprofit group, estimate that tens of thousands of Georgians have and will be subject to the law if a judge doesn't rule it unconstitutional.\n\nThe law \"is keeping our jails full, separating people from their jobs, families, and homes, and all but guaranteeing that people leave worse than when they came in,\" said Lachlan Athanasiou of the Southern Center for Human Rights in a statement. \"It's difficult to think of a more backwards policy.\"\n\nThe lawsuit argues that the law prevents judges from considering whether cash bail is actually needed to ensure that people accused of crimes appear in court or don't pose any public safety risk, which was the original purpose of bail.\n\nRepublicans who supported the measure have argued that people let out of jail without bail are less likely to show up for court than those who have paid to get out of jail, although national studies contradict that claim. They also said judges could still set low bails.\n\n\"If you commit a crime, you have to be accountable for that and show back up to your hearing,\" said Republican Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch after the lawsuit was filed.\n\nSince the bill was proposed, advocates warned it would hurt low-income and minority groups, who are less likely to have the means to pay cash bail. Those individuals may spend months behind bars awaiting court dates while people charged with the same offense walk free if they can afford to.\n\n\"Unwarranted pretrial detention based on a person's inability to pay cash bond is unjust to those presumed innocent, wrongly punishing poverty and harming communities and families,\" the lawsuit said, adding that it can cause instability in housing, employment and family care.\n\nThe two women who filed the suit are currently incarcerated inside Georgia's Fulton County Jail, which has been the target of a federal probe due to its filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. Sierrah Coronell was arrested in February on four charges, including drug possession and obstructing a police officer, and cannot afford to pay her $600 cash bond. She missed her daughter's 15th birthday and Easter with her five kids. She was their primary caregiver, but now they're living with their father.\n\nDiane Holsey worked at Burger King and helped take care of her grandchildren. Since she was arrested in April on two charges, including battery, Holsey has missed out on making money and could lose her job. She cannot afford her $4,000 cash bond or a $400 deposit required by a bondsman.\n\nNonprofit Women on the Rise also joined the suit. The organization provides services to women who would otherwise go to jail, but the law keeps many of them detained.\n\nThe law also limited the number of cash bonds that people or organizations, such as churches or charitable funds, can post to three per year unless they meet the same requirements bail bond companies do. A judge temporarily blocked that part of the law last year after Atlanta-based nonprofit Barred Business Foundation sued, arguing it was unconstitutional.\n\nThe law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, was a reversal on criminal justice reform in Georgia, a priority of his predecessor, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Legislation passed almost unanimously in 2018 let judges release most people accused of misdemeanors without bail — part of a set of reforms that Deal said would combat unnecessary incarceration, make sure kids grew up with parents in the home and save taxpayer money.\n\n___\n\nThis story was first published on May 2, 2025. Its headline was updated on May 6, 2025, to clarify that the law added cash bail requirements for certain charges, not just misdemeanors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Women sue over Georgia law that added cash bail requirements for certain charges\n\nBy Charlotte Kramon \nMay 2nd, 2025, 05:31 PM\n\n---\n\nATLANTA (AP) — Two women behind bars in Atlanta sued the state of Georgia on Friday over a recent law that added a cash bail requirement for more crimes, many of them misdemeanors.\n\nThe lawsuit accuses the state of violating people's constitutional rights to due process when they're accused of crimes that require cash bail due to last year's Senate Bill 63.\n\nThe law, which went into effect in July, requires cash bail for 30 additional crimes, 18 of which are always or often misdemeanors, including failing to appear for a traffic citation if it's not their first. Georgia requires cash bail for far more offenses than any other state and has one of the nation's highest rates of people in jail or prison.\n\nThe American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and the Southern Center for Human Rights, which filed the suit on behalf of the two women and a nonprofit group, estimate that tens of thousands of Georgians have and will be subject to the law if a judge doesn't rule it unconstitutional.\n\nThe law \"is keeping our jails full, separating people from their jobs, families, and homes, and all but guaranteeing that people leave worse than when they came in,\" said Lachlan Athanasiou of the Southern Center for Human Rights in a statement. \"It's difficult to think of a more backwards policy.\"\n\nThe lawsuit argues that the law prevents judges from considering whether cash bail is actually needed to ensure that people accused of crimes appear in court or don't pose any public safety risk, which was the original purpose of bail.\n\nRepublicans who supported the measure have argued that people let out of jail without bail are less likely to show up for court than those who have paid to get out of jail, although national studies contradict that claim. They also said judges could still set low bails.\n\n\"If you commit a crime, you have to be accountable for that and show back up to your hearing,\" said Republican Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch after the lawsuit was filed.\n\nSince the bill was proposed, advocates warned it would hurt low-income and minority groups, who are less likely to have the means to pay cash bail. Those individuals may spend months behind bars awaiting court dates while people charged with the same offense walk free if they can afford to.\n\n\"Unwarranted pretrial detention based on a person's inability to pay cash bond is unjust to those presumed innocent, wrongly punishing poverty and harming communities and families,\" the lawsuit said, adding that it can cause instability in housing, employment and family care.\n\nThe two women who filed the suit are currently incarcerated inside Georgia's Fulton County Jail, which has been the target of a federal probe due to its filthy living quarters and the in-custody death of a man whose body was found covered in insects. Sierrah Coronell was arrested in February on four charges, including drug possession and obstructing a police officer, and cannot afford to pay her $600 cash bond. She missed her daughter's 15th birthday and Easter with her five kids. She was their primary caregiver, but now they're living with their father.\n\nDiane Holsey worked at Burger King and helped take care of her grandchildren. Since she was arrested in April on two charges, including battery, Holsey has missed out on making money and could lose her job. She cannot afford her $4,000 cash bond or a $400 deposit required by a bondsman.\n\nNonprofit Women on the Rise also joined the suit. The organization provides services to women who would otherwise go to jail, but the law keeps many of them detained.\n\nThe law also limited the number of cash bonds that people or organizations, such as churches or charitable funds, can post to three per year unless they meet the same requirements bail bond companies do. A judge temporarily blocked that part of the law last year after Atlanta-based nonprofit Barred Business Foundation sued, arguing it was unconstitutional.\n\nThe law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, was a reversal on criminal justice reform in Georgia, a priority of his predecessor, Republican Gov. Nathan Deal. Legislation passed almost unanimously in 2018 let judges release most people accused of misdemeanors without bail — part of a set of reforms that Deal said would combat unnecessary incarceration, make sure kids grew up with parents in the home and save taxpayer money." } ]
9866babdb3cf9f0310b2416d05a88e3b764a2391d54b09f17406be2083010c67	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# House Republicans propose $5 billion for private school vouchers\n\nBy Moriah Balingit \nMay 12th, 2025, 09:55 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans want to set aside up to $5 billion a year for scholarships to help families send their children to private and religious schools, an unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education.\n\nThe proposal, part of a budget reconciliation bill released Monday, would advance President Donald Trump's agenda of establishing \"universal school choice\" by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school. Nearly all households would qualify except those making more than three times the local median income.\n\nSupporters of private school vouchers say they want to give families assigned to low-performing schools more choices.\n\n\"Giving parents the ability to choose the best education for their child makes the (American Dream) possible,\" said Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who sponsored a similar proposal in the Senate.\n\nThe program would be funded by donors who could contribute money or stock. In turn, they would receive 100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills. It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes that would be levied if they donated or transferred the stock.\n\nCritics decried the proposal, saying it would aid the wealthy at the expense of the public school systems that serve the overwhelming majority of students. They said it would set up a tax shelter allowing savvy investors to make money under the guise of a donation.\n\nAll of this comes as the Trump administration downsizes the Education Department and cuts resources to public schools, including $1 billion in mental health grants and funding for teacher training.\n\n\"This is a significant threat,\" said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association. She added that states that have voucher programs often end up assisting families that were already paying for private school. \"It's opening the door even wider to what has already plagued voucher programs around the country, which is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse.\"\n\nSimilar tax-credit scholarship and private school voucher programs have proliferated in red-leaning states like Texas, which just passed a $1 billion program. Public school advocates worry the programs hurt enrollment and per-pupil funding, ultimately leaving fewer resources for families that choose public schools.\n\n___\n\nThe Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# House Republicans propose $5 billion for private school vouchers\n\nBy Moriah Balingit \nMay 12th, 2025, 09:55 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans want to set aside up to $5 billion a year for scholarships to help families send their children to private and religious schools, an unprecedented effort to use public money to pay for private education.\n\nThe proposal, part of a budget reconciliation bill released Monday, would advance President Donald Trump's agenda of establishing \"universal school choice\" by providing families nationwide the option to give their children an education different from the one offered in their local public school. Nearly all households would qualify except those making more than three times the local median income.\n\nSupporters of private school vouchers say they want to give families assigned to low-performing schools more choices.\n\n\"Giving parents the ability to choose the best education for their child makes the (American Dream) possible,\" said Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who sponsored a similar proposal in the Senate.\n\nThe program would be funded by donors who could contribute money or stock. In turn, they would receive 100% of the contribution back in the form of a discount on their tax bills. It would allow stock holders to avoid paying taxes that would be levied if they donated or transferred the stock.\n\nCritics decried the proposal, saying it would aid the wealthy at the expense of the public school systems that serve the overwhelming majority of students. They said it would set up a tax shelter allowing savvy investors to make money under the guise of a donation.\n\nAll of this comes as the Trump administration downsizes the Education Department and cuts resources to public schools, including $1 billion in mental health grants and funding for teacher training.\n\n\"This is a significant threat,\" said Sasha Pudelski of AASA, the School Superintendents Association. She added that states that have voucher programs often end up assisting families that were already paying for private school. \"It's opening the door even wider to what has already plagued voucher programs around the country, which is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse.\"\n\nSimilar tax-credit scholarship and private school voucher programs have proliferated in red-leaning states like Texas, which just passed a $1 billion program. Public school advocates worry the programs hurt enrollment and per-pupil funding, ultimately leaving fewer resources for families that choose public schools." } ]
4c195b7727e0f90acbb3d9ac0d9dd45f64ef785b595b4bf2266458fc51187907	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# A 2012 video shows comments from new pope that disappoint LGBTQ activists\n\nBy Colleen Barry, David Crary, and Giada Zampano \nMay 9th, 2025, 05:13 PM\n\n---\n\nVATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV, in remarks in 2012 when he was the Augustinian prior general in Chicago, made comments critical of what he called the \"homosexual lifestyle\" and the role of mass media in promoting acceptance of same-sex relationships that conflicted with Catholic doctrine.\n\nReports about the 2012 comments emerged after Thursday's election of U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost to succeed Pope Francis; he took the name Leo XIV.\n\nThe remarks were \"disappointing,\" said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a U.S.-based group that advocates for greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ Catholics in the church.\n\n\"We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his (Leo's) heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,\" DeBernardo said in a statement.\n\nA 2012 video provided to Catholic News Service, the news agency of the U.S. bishops conference, featured Prevost's address to the world Synod of Bishops against the backdrop of images from popular TV series and movies.\n\n\"Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel, for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia,\" Prevost said.\n\nHe singled out \"how alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today.\"\n\nWhen he became a cardinal in 2023, Catholic News Service asked him if his views had changed. He acknowledged Pope Francis' call for a more inclusive church, saying Francis \"made it very clear that he doesn't want people to be excluded simply on the basis of choices that they make, whether it be lifestyle, work, way to dress, or whatever.\"\n\nBut he underlined that doctrine had not changed, in line with Francis. \"And people haven't said yet (that) we're looking for that kind of change,\" Prevost said. \"But we are looking to be more welcoming and more open and to say all people are welcome in the church.\"\n\nIn his first remarks as pope on Thursday night, Leo spoke about building bridges and God's love for all.\n\nThe Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who founded an LGBTQ+ outreach ministry, said such an invitation to inclusiveness and welcome was important and he considered the cardinals' choice of Prevost \"brilliant.\"\n\n\"He is humble, reserved, straightforward, trustworthy. I think he brings a wealth of experience not only (from) his long time in Peru working with the poor, but also in the Vatican,\" Martin said. \"It's rare to come in contact with someone who is actually humble and not pretending to be humble. And he's the real deal. And that really cemented my respect for him. He always treated me with great respect, dignity, friendship. He's a man of few words, and I'll say that when he talked, people listened.\"\n\nFrancis, more than any of his predecessors, incrementally conveyed through his actions, formal statements and occasional casual remarks that he wanted the church to be a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people. Yet his papacy ended with the same core doctrine for LGBTQ+ people that he inherited: The Catholic Church still rejected same-sex marriage and condemned any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as \"intrinsically disordered.\"\n\nThe U.S.-based LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD called on the new pontiff to \"build on the progress\" made by his predecessor.\n\n\"The Roman Catholic Church stands on the threshold of a hopeful and inclusive new chapter. With Pope Leo XIV's leadership, there is an extraordinary opportunity to inspire billions around the world and further embrace LGBTQ people with compassion, dignity, and love,\" GLADD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement.\n\n___\n\nCrary reported from New York. Barry reported from Soave, Italy. Nicole Winfield contributed.\n\n___\n\nAssociated 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." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# A 2012 video shows comments from new pope that disappoint LGBTQ activists\n\nBy Colleen Barry, David Crary, and Giada Zampano \nMay 9th, 2025, 05:13 PM\n\n---\n\nVATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV, in remarks in 2012 when he was the Augustinian prior general in Chicago, made comments critical of what he called the \"homosexual lifestyle\" and the role of mass media in promoting acceptance of same-sex relationships that conflicted with Catholic doctrine.\n\nReports about the 2012 comments emerged after Thursday's election of U.S. Cardinal Robert Prevost to succeed Pope Francis; he took the name Leo XIV.\n\nThe remarks were \"disappointing,\" said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, a U.S.-based group that advocates for greater inclusion of LGBTQ+ Catholics in the church.\n\n\"We pray that in the 13 years that have passed, 12 of which were under the papacy of Pope Francis, that his (Leo's) heart and mind have developed more progressively on LGBTQ+ issues, and we will take a wait-and-see attitude to see if that has happened,\" DeBernardo said in a statement.\n\nA 2012 video provided to Catholic News Service, the news agency of the U.S. bishops conference, featured Prevost's address to the world Synod of Bishops against the backdrop of images from popular TV series and movies.\n\n\"Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel, for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia,\" Prevost said.\n\nHe singled out \"how alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today.\"\n\nWhen he became a cardinal in 2023, Catholic News Service asked him if his views had changed. He acknowledged Pope Francis' call for a more inclusive church, saying Francis \"made it very clear that he doesn't want people to be excluded simply on the basis of choices that they make, whether it be lifestyle, work, way to dress, or whatever.\"\n\nBut he underlined that doctrine had not changed, in line with Francis. \"And people haven't said yet (that) we're looking for that kind of change,\" Prevost said. \"But we are looking to be more welcoming and more open and to say all people are welcome in the church.\"\n\nIn his first remarks as pope on Thursday night, Leo spoke about building bridges and God's love for all.\n\nThe Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who founded an LGBTQ+ outreach ministry, said such an invitation to inclusiveness and welcome was important and he considered the cardinals' choice of Prevost \"brilliant.\"\n\n\"He is humble, reserved, straightforward, trustworthy. I think he brings a wealth of experience not only (from) his long time in Peru working with the poor, but also in the Vatican,\" Martin said. \"It's rare to come in contact with someone who is actually humble and not pretending to be humble. And he's the real deal. And that really cemented my respect for him. He always treated me with great respect, dignity, friendship. He's a man of few words, and I'll say that when he talked, people listened.\"\n\nFrancis, more than any of his predecessors, incrementally conveyed through his actions, formal statements and occasional casual remarks that he wanted the church to be a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people. Yet his papacy ended with the same core doctrine for LGBTQ+ people that he inherited: The Catholic Church still rejected same-sex marriage and condemned any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as \"intrinsically disordered.\"\n\nThe U.S.-based LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD called on the new pontiff to \"build on the progress\" made by his predecessor.\n\n\"The Roman Catholic Church stands on the threshold of a hopeful and inclusive new chapter. With Pope Leo XIV's leadership, there is an extraordinary opportunity to inspire billions around the world and further embrace LGBTQ people with compassion, dignity, and love,\" GLADD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement." } ]
194c4315174e1d8d1bb85e96614eb3068608cd3d7dc4d8a05d46c527f399ab22	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Netanyahu says 'no way' war in Gaza ends until defeat of Hamas\n\nBy Melanie Lidman and Elena Becatoros \nMay 13th, 2025, 04:08 PM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is \"no way\" Israel will halt its war in Gaza — where airstrikes on two hospitals Tuesday killed at least eight and wounded dozens — even if a deal is reached to release more hostages.\n\nNetanyahu's comments are likely to complicate talks on a new ceasefire that had seemed to gain momentum after Hamas released the last living American hostage on Monday in a gesture to U.S. President Donald Trump, who is visiting the region but skipping Israel.\n\nThey pointed to a potentially widening rift between Netanyahu and Trump, who had expressed hope that the release of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander would be a step toward ending the 19-month war.\n\nThe Israeli military on Tuesday struck what it said was a Hamas \"command and control center\" located beneath a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The strike on the European hospital was the day's second strike on a hospital, and left at least six people dead and 40 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.\n\nThe dead were taken to Nasser hospital, which Israel struck earlier in the day, saying militants were operating inside it, without identifying them. Two people were killed in that strike.\n\nIn comments released by Netanyahu's office Tuesday from a visit to wounded soldiers the previous day, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza \"with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.\"\n\nAny ceasefire deal reached would be temporary, the prime minister said. If Hamas were to say they would release more hostages, \"we'll take them, and then we'll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war,\" Netanyahu said. \"We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we're going to the end.\"\n\nHamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The dispute over whether to end the conflict has been the main obstacle in negotiations going back more than a year.\n\nIsrael says 58 hostages remain in captivity, with as many as 23 of them said to be alive, although authorities have expressed concern about the condition of three of them. Many of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that started the war were freed in ceasefire deals.\n\n## Comments come after hostage release\n\nMonday's release of 21-year-old Alexander resulted from negotiations between Hamas and the Trump administration that appeared to have largely bypassed Israel, which made no concessions for his release.\n\nAlexander, who was 19 when he was taken from an Israeli army base during the 2023 attack, was the first hostage released since Israel shattered an eight-week ceasefire with Hamas in March and unleashed fierce strikes on Gaza that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.\n\nIsrael has promised to intensify its offensive, including by seizing Gaza and displacing much of the territory's population again. Days before the ceasefire ended in March, Israel blocked all imports from entering the Palestinian enclave, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings about the risk of famine. Israel says the steps are meant to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire agreement on Israel's terms.\n\nThe World Health Organization said Tuesday that according to Gaza's Health Ministry, 57 children had died from the effects of malnutrition since the blockade began on March 2.\n\nA WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said that if the situation persists, nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition over the next 11 months.\n\n\"This is one of the world's worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,\" Peeperkorn said.\n\n## Netanyahu faces criticism\n\nAlexander's release created a backlash against Netanyahu, who critics accuse of putting the lives of the hostages in danger by continuing the war. Netanyahu says he is committed to returning all the hostages, destroying Hamas and resettling much of Gaza's population through what he refers to as \"voluntary emigration.\"\n\nDuring a nearly two-hour meeting in Tel Aviv with the families of hostages on Tuesday, the United States' special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and Adam Boehler, the Trump administration's envoy for hostage affairs, said they would do what was needed to bring the remaining hostages home.\n\nWitkoff said everyone would prefer a diplomatic solution and that most hostages had been released through diplomacy. The officials headed to Doha, Qatar, after their meeting to join Trump. Qatar has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas.\n\nWitkoff said they wouldn't be traveling to Qatar if they didn't think there was a genuine chance for progress in negotiations.\n\n## Alexander's parents say he told of 'unimaginable difficulty' in captivity\n\nAlexander's parents said in a statement on Tuesday that their son described enduring a harsh captivity that included hunger, lack of water, and \"appalling sanitary conditions.\"\n\nHis mother, Yael, said he feared for his life every day, \"but the most terrible sound that Edan feared was the sound of the war going on above their heads. Deafening explosions, the whistles of missiles, the sounds of collapse, collapse, and the earth shaking.\"\n\nAlexander's parents called on Netanyahu to listen to \"the vast majority of the Israeli public\" and prioritize the return of the remaining hostage. They thanked Trump and his envoys for \"their tireless efforts on Edan's behalf.\"\n\n## Israel seeking to move Palestinians out of Gaza\n\nNetanyahu has voiced support for a plan proposed by Trump for Palestinians to be moved out of the Gaza Strip after the war - a proposal that has infuriated Palestinians and Arab nations.\n\n\"We have put together an administration that will allow them to leave, but the problem with us is one thing — we need receptive countries,\" Netanyahu said during his visit to the wounded soldiers Monday. \"That's what we're working on right now. If you give them the go-ahead, I tell you that more than 50% will leave, and I think much more.\"\n\nIsrael and the US have been seeking countries willing to take Palestinians who would potentially move out of the territory.\n\nHamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 2023 attack. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.\n\nIsrael's offensive has obliterated vast swaths of Gaza's urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times.\n\n___\n\nBecatoros contributed from Athens, Greece. AP reporters Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem, Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Samy Magdy in Cairo and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Netanyahu says 'no way' war in Gaza ends until defeat of Hamas\n\nBy Melanie Lidman and Elena Becatoros \nMay 13th, 2025, 04:08 PM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says there is \"no way\" Israel will halt its war in Gaza — where airstrikes on two hospitals Tuesday killed at least eight and wounded dozens — even if a deal is reached to release more hostages.\n\nNetanyahu's comments are likely to complicate talks on a new ceasefire that had seemed to gain momentum after Hamas released the last living American hostage on Monday in a gesture to U.S. President Donald Trump, who is visiting the region but skipping Israel.\n\nThey pointed to a potentially widening rift between Netanyahu and Trump, who had expressed hope that the release of Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander would be a step toward ending the 19-month war.\n\nThe Israeli military on Tuesday struck what it said was a Hamas \"command and control center\" located beneath a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. The strike on the European hospital was the day's second strike on a hospital, and left at least six people dead and 40 wounded, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.\n\nThe dead were taken to Nasser hospital, which Israel struck earlier in the day, saying militants were operating inside it, without identifying them. Two people were killed in that strike.\n\nIn comments released by Netanyahu's office Tuesday from a visit to wounded soldiers the previous day, the prime minister said Israeli forces were just days away from a promised escalation of force and would enter Gaza \"with great strength to complete the mission. ... It means destroying Hamas.\"\n\nAny ceasefire deal reached would be temporary, the prime minister said. If Hamas were to say they would release more hostages, \"we'll take them, and then we'll go in. But there will be no way we will stop the war,\" Netanyahu said. \"We can make a ceasefire for a certain period of time, but we're going to the end.\"\n\nHamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The dispute over whether to end the conflict has been the main obstacle in negotiations going back more than a year.\n\nIsrael says 58 hostages remain in captivity, with as many as 23 of them said to be alive, although authorities have expressed concern about the condition of three of them. Many of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas-led militants in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that started the war were freed in ceasefire deals.\n\n## Comments come after hostage release\n\nMonday's release of 21-year-old Alexander resulted from negotiations between Hamas and the Trump administration that appeared to have largely bypassed Israel, which made no concessions for his release.\n\nAlexander, who was 19 when he was taken from an Israeli army base during the 2023 attack, was the first hostage released since Israel shattered an eight-week ceasefire with Hamas in March and unleashed fierce strikes on Gaza that have killed hundreds of Palestinians.\n\nIsrael has promised to intensify its offensive, including by seizing Gaza and displacing much of the territory's population again. Days before the ceasefire ended in March, Israel blocked all imports from entering the Palestinian enclave, deepening a humanitarian crisis and sparking warnings about the risk of famine. Israel says the steps are meant to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire agreement on Israel's terms.\n\nThe World Health Organization said Tuesday that according to Gaza's Health Ministry, 57 children had died from the effects of malnutrition since the blockade began on March 2.\n\nA WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said that if the situation persists, nearly 71,000 children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition over the next 11 months.\n\n\"This is one of the world's worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,\" Peeperkorn said.\n\n## Netanyahu faces criticism\n\nAlexander's release created a backlash against Netanyahu, who critics accuse of putting the lives of the hostages in danger by continuing the war. Netanyahu says he is committed to returning all the hostages, destroying Hamas and resettling much of Gaza's population through what he refers to as \"voluntary emigration.\"\n\nDuring a nearly two-hour meeting in Tel Aviv with the families of hostages on Tuesday, the United States' special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and Adam Boehler, the Trump administration's envoy for hostage affairs, said they would do what was needed to bring the remaining hostages home.\n\nWitkoff said everyone would prefer a diplomatic solution and that most hostages had been released through diplomacy. The officials headed to Doha, Qatar, after their meeting to join Trump. Qatar has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas.\n\nWitkoff said they wouldn't be traveling to Qatar if they didn't think there was a genuine chance for progress in negotiations.\n\n## Alexander's parents say he told of 'unimaginable difficulty' in captivity\n\nAlexander's parents said in a statement on Tuesday that their son described enduring a harsh captivity that included hunger, lack of water, and \"appalling sanitary conditions.\"\n\nHis mother, Yael, said he feared for his life every day, \"but the most terrible sound that Edan feared was the sound of the war going on above their heads. Deafening explosions, the whistles of missiles, the sounds of collapse, collapse, and the earth shaking.\"\n\nAlexander's parents called on Netanyahu to listen to \"the vast majority of the Israeli public\" and prioritize the return of the remaining hostage. They thanked Trump and his envoys for \"their tireless efforts on Edan's behalf.\"\n\n## Israel seeking to move Palestinians out of Gaza\n\nNetanyahu has voiced support for a plan proposed by Trump for Palestinians to be moved out of the Gaza Strip after the war - a proposal that has infuriated Palestinians and Arab nations.\n\n\"We have put together an administration that will allow them to leave, but the problem with us is one thing — we need receptive countries,\" Netanyahu said during his visit to the wounded soldiers Monday. \"That's what we're working on right now. If you give them the go-ahead, I tell you that more than 50% will leave, and I think much more.\"\n\nIsrael and the US have been seeking countries willing to take Palestinians who would potentially move out of the territory.\n\nHamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in the 2023 attack. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 52,800 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants or civilians.\n\nIsrael's offensive has obliterated vast swaths of Gaza's urban landscape and displaced 90% of the population, often multiple times." } ]
6032eef4c7447661fce96c06d65bb4ac189960783d504f5474fe8d2c66b12486	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Human rights commission urges monitoring of Brazil's flood recovery efforts\n\nBy Gabriela Sá Pessoa \nMay 1st, 2025, 07:40 PM\n\n---\n\nSAO PAULO (AP) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is calling for a permanent monitoring system to track Brazil's compliance with its recommendation s following the devastating floods that struck southern Brazil one year ago.\n\nJavier Palummo, the commission's special rapporteur, told The Associated Press Thursday the initiative aims to maintain a permanent channel with Brazil's government and \"strengthen public accountability, give international visibility to good practices, and monitor risks of setbacks—especially in the most affected areas and for vulnerable groups.\"\n\nBetween April and May 2024, unprecedented floods hit nearly all the municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Over 2.3 million people were affected. Hundreds of thousands were displaced and 182 died, according to official data. Analysts compared the scale of devastation to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005.\n\nA new report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released Wednesday highlights stark inequalities in the recovery process. Indigenous and quilombola communities —which are home to descendants of escaped slaves—, female-headed households, and unhoused people have faced significant challenges in accessing reconstruction aid and public services.\n\n\"These groups often reported being excluded from recovery planning,\" Palummo said. \"The lack of land regularization and limited institutional engagement reinforce historic inequalities.\"\n\nPalummo visited flood-hit areas in December. He cited the solidarity of a quilombola community where women led relief efforts as especially moving. He also pointed to the Mbyá-Guarani people of Eldorado do Sul, who lost their homes and school first to flooding, then to a construction project. Forced to resettle near a highway, they now face insecurity, health risks, and cultural loss.\n\n\"These disasters are not just natural—they're worsened by chronic neglect,\" he said. \"They reflect deep structural inequalities and growing climate vulnerability fueled by unplanned urban growth, environmental degradation, and environmental racism.\"\n\nThe report, he said, is the first of its kind by the commission affiliated with Organization of American States. Palummo will present the findings next week to local communities in Porto Alegre and to federal and state officials. He will also speak at a public hearing May 8 in Brasília.\n\n___\n\nFollow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Human rights commission urges monitoring of Brazil's flood recovery efforts\n\nBy Gabriela Sá Pessoa \nMay 1st, 2025, 07:40 PM\n\n---\n\nSAO PAULO (AP) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is calling for a permanent monitoring system to track Brazil's compliance with its recommendation s following the devastating floods that struck southern Brazil one year ago.\n\nJavier Palummo, the commission's special rapporteur, told The Associated Press Thursday the initiative aims to maintain a permanent channel with Brazil's government and \"strengthen public accountability, give international visibility to good practices, and monitor risks of setbacks—especially in the most affected areas and for vulnerable groups.\"\n\nBetween April and May 2024, unprecedented floods hit nearly all the municipalities in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Over 2.3 million people were affected. Hundreds of thousands were displaced and 182 died, according to official data. Analysts compared the scale of devastation to Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005.\n\nA new report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released Wednesday highlights stark inequalities in the recovery process. Indigenous and quilombola communities —which are home to descendants of escaped slaves—, female-headed households, and unhoused people have faced significant challenges in accessing reconstruction aid and public services.\n\n\"These groups often reported being excluded from recovery planning,\" Palummo said. \"The lack of land regularization and limited institutional engagement reinforce historic inequalities.\"\n\nPalummo visited flood-hit areas in December. He cited the solidarity of a quilombola community where women led relief efforts as especially moving. He also pointed to the Mbyá-Guarani people of Eldorado do Sul, who lost their homes and school first to flooding, then to a construction project. Forced to resettle near a highway, they now face insecurity, health risks, and cultural loss.\n\n\"These disasters are not just natural—they're worsened by chronic neglect,\" he said. \"They reflect deep structural inequalities and growing climate vulnerability fueled by unplanned urban growth, environmental degradation, and environmental racism.\"\n\nThe report, he said, is the first of its kind by the commission affiliated with Organization of American States. Palummo will present the findings next week to local communities in Porto Alegre and to federal and state officials. He will also speak at a public hearing May 8 in Brasília." } ]
220dfbf9893a6baa6105b831e329b0363f35c85523a63832e303bdb255ec1eed	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Two hikers are dead after seven rescued in Martinique amid heavy rains\n\nMay 14th, 2025, 01:56 PM\n\n---\n\nSAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Nine hikers on the French Caribbean island of Martinique were swept away by a swollen river, leaving two of them dead and seven requiring a rescue, officials said Wednesday.\n\nThe group was hiking near the Didier waterfall in the capital, Fort-de-France, when the waters suddenly rose, according to a government statement issued late Tuesday. It gave no nationalities or other details for the hikers.\n\nAuthorities said they used a helicopter and drones with infrared vision to rescue seven hikers who were found conscious and an eighth one who was in cardiac arrest and later died. They said Wednesday that the body of the ninth hiker was found after a search.\n\nHeavy rains have pelted the island in recent days and are expected to continue until Friday, prompting forecasters to issue warnings this week." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Two hikers are dead after seven rescued in Martinique amid heavy rains\n\nMay 14th, 2025, 01:56 PM\n\n---\n\nSAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Nine hikers on the French Caribbean island of Martinique were swept away by a swollen river, leaving two of them dead and seven requiring a rescue, officials said Wednesday.\n\nThe group was hiking near the Didier waterfall in the capital, Fort-de-France, when the waters suddenly rose, according to a government statement issued late Tuesday. It gave no nationalities or other details for the hikers.\n\nAuthorities said they used a helicopter and drones with infrared vision to rescue seven hikers who were found conscious and an eighth one who was in cardiac arrest and later died. They said Wednesday that the body of the ninth hiker was found after a search.\n\nHeavy rains have pelted the island in recent days and are expected to continue until Friday, prompting forecasters to issue warnings this week." } ]
b5adffad9447c349b52831ae5ef065b8e9ce04d7c2361cc9f85e06557c4f1679	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# More than 100 killed in jihadi attack in northern Burkina Faso\n\nBy Baba Ahmed and Wilson Mcmakin \nMay 12th, 2025, 09:39 PM\n\n---\n\nBAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An attack by a jihadi group in northern Burkina Faso killed more than 100 people, mostly soldiers, an aid worker and local residents said Monday.\n\nThe attack on several locations, including a military base and the long besieged strategic town of Djibo, occurred early Sunday, said an aid worker actively involved in dialogues in Burkina Faso's hard-hit communities. A student from the area said her father was among those killed.\n\nBoth individuals spoke to The Associated Press on Monday on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals.\n\nA jihadi group aligned with Al-Qaida known as Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, which is active in the Sahel region, claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack.\n\nRun by a military junta, the landlocked nation of 23 million has been among the worst hit by the security crisis in Africa's Sahel region, known as the global hot spot for violent extremism. About half of Burkina Faso is outside of government control as a result of the violence that contributed to two coups in 2022. Government security forces have also been accused of extrajudicial killings.\n\nThe aid worker, as well as Charlie Werb, an independent analyst focusing on the Sahel, recounted how Sunday's attack began simultaneously in different locations at 6 a.m. local time on Sunday.\n\n\"JNIM fighters attacked eight localities simultaneously to disperse the Burkina Faso air force. The main attack occurred in Djibo, where JNIM fighters first took control of all the town's entry checkpoints before attacking the military camps, particularly the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit's camp,\" said the aid worker.\n\nWerb, who studied videos posted online, said the attackers spent several hours in the areas without air support from Burkina Faso's military, unlike similar attacks on Djibo in the past, when security forces have successfully repelled the extremists.\n\nThe latest attack shows JNIM's escalating power and widening reach in Burkina Faso, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank. \"The fact that Djibo was targeted confirms the extent of JNIM's freedom of movement within Burkina Faso.\"\n\nAnalysts have warned that the junta's strategy of military escalation, including the mass recruitment of civilians into poorly trained militias, has worsened inter-ethnic tensions.\n\n____\n\nMcMakin reported from Dakar, Senegal\n\n____\n\nFollow AP's Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# More than 100 killed in jihadi attack in northern Burkina Faso\n\nBy Baba Ahmed and Wilson Mcmakin \nMay 12th, 2025, 09:39 PM\n\n---\n\nBAMAKO, Mali (AP) — An attack by a jihadi group in northern Burkina Faso killed more than 100 people, mostly soldiers, an aid worker and local residents said Monday.\n\nThe attack on several locations, including a military base and the long besieged strategic town of Djibo, occurred early Sunday, said an aid worker actively involved in dialogues in Burkina Faso's hard-hit communities. A student from the area said her father was among those killed.\n\nBoth individuals spoke to The Associated Press on Monday on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals.\n\nA jihadi group aligned with Al-Qaida known as Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, which is active in the Sahel region, claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack.\n\nRun by a military junta, the landlocked nation of 23 million has been among the worst hit by the security crisis in Africa's Sahel region, known as the global hot spot for violent extremism. About half of Burkina Faso is outside of government control as a result of the violence that contributed to two coups in 2022. Government security forces have also been accused of extrajudicial killings.\n\nThe aid worker, as well as Charlie Werb, an independent analyst focusing on the Sahel, recounted how Sunday's attack began simultaneously in different locations at 6 a.m. local time on Sunday.\n\n\"JNIM fighters attacked eight localities simultaneously to disperse the Burkina Faso air force. The main attack occurred in Djibo, where JNIM fighters first took control of all the town's entry checkpoints before attacking the military camps, particularly the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit's camp,\" said the aid worker.\n\nWerb, who studied videos posted online, said the attackers spent several hours in the areas without air support from Burkina Faso's military, unlike similar attacks on Djibo in the past, when security forces have successfully repelled the extremists.\n\nThe latest attack shows JNIM's escalating power and widening reach in Burkina Faso, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank. \"The fact that Djibo was targeted confirms the extent of JNIM's freedom of movement within Burkina Faso.\"\n\nAnalysts have warned that the junta's strategy of military escalation, including the mass recruitment of civilians into poorly trained militias, has worsened inter-ethnic tensions." } ]
bb34746832384112776150a9746c45c624cd9dda31106f66462aa9f1e370ee1b	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 18-24\n\nBy The Associated Press \nMay 12th, 2025, 01:33 PM\n\n---\n\nCelebrity birthdays for the week of May 18-24:\n\nMay 18: Actor Candice Azzara (″Caroline in the City,\" ″Rhoda\") is 84. Bluegrass singer-guitarist Rodney Dillard of The Dillards is 83. Keyboardist Rick Wakeman of Yes is 76. Singer Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo is 75. Actor James Stephens (\"Paper Chase,\" ″Father Dowling Mysteries\") is 74. Country singer George Strait is 73. Actor Chow Yun-Fat (\"Anna and the King,\" ″The Replacement Killers\") is 70. Singer-guitarist Page Hamilton of Helmet is 65. Guitarist Barry Graul of MercyMe is 64. Singer Michael Tait of Newsboys and of dc Talk is 59. Singer-actor Martika (\"Kids Incorporated,\" \"Wiseguy\") is 56. Comedian Tina Fey (\"30 Rock,\" ″Saturday Night Live\") is 55. Musician Jack Johnson is 50. Country singer David Nail is 46. Singer Darryl Allen of Mista is 45. Actor Allen Leech (\"Downton Abbey\") is 44. Guitarist Kevin Huguley of Rush of Fools is 43. Contemporary Christian singer Francesca Battistelli is 38. Actor Spencer Breslin (\"The Cat in the Hat\") is 33. Actor Violett Beane (\"God Friended Me\") is 29. Actor Hala Finley (\"Man with a Plan\") is 16.\n\nMay 19: TV personality David Hartman is 90. Actor James Fox is 86. Actor Nancy Kwan is 86. Musician Pete Townshend is 80. Singer-actor-model Grace Jones is 74. Drummer Phil Rudd AC/DC is 71. Actor Steven Ford is 69. Actor Toni Lewis (\"Homicide,\" ″Oz\") is 65. Guitarist Iain Harvie of Del Amitri is 63. Actor Polly Walker (film's \"John Carter,\" TV's \"Bridgerton\") is 59. Actor Jason Gray-Stanford (\"Monk\") is 55. Gospel singer Israel Houghton is 54. Singer Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base is 53. TV personality Kim Zolciak Biermann (\"Real Housewives of Atlanta\") is 47. Singer Shooter Jennings is 46. Comedian Michael Che (\"Saturday Night Live\") is 42. Guitarist Tim McTague of Underoath is 42. Guitarist James Richardson of MGMT is 42. Actor Eric Lloyd (\"The Santa Clause\") is 39. Singer Sam Smith is 33. Actor Nolan Lyons (\"Boardwalk Empire\") is 24.\n\nMay 20: Actor David Proval (\"The Sopranos\") is 83. Singer-actor Cher is 79. Actor Dave Thomas (\"Grace Under Fire,\" ″SCTV\") is 77. Musician Warren Cann of Ultravox is 75. Actor Dean Butler (\"Little House on the Prairie\") is 69. Guitarist Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's is 67. Singer Susan Cowsill of The Cowsills is 66. Actor Bronson Pinchot is 66. Actor John Billingsley (\"True Blood,\" ″Enterprise\") is 65. Actor Tony Goldwyn (\"Scandal\") is 65. Singer Nick Heyward of Haircut 100 is 64. TV personality Ted Allen (\"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy\") is 60. Actor Mindy Cohn (\"Facts of Life\") is 59. Guitarist Tom Gorman of Belly is 59. Rapper Busta Rhymes is 53. Bassist Ryan Martinie of Mudvayne is 50. Actor Matt Czuchry (\"The Good Wife,\" ″Gilmore Girls\") is 48. Singer-actor Naturi Naughton (3LW) is 41. Country singer Jon Pardi is 40.\n\nMay 21: Singer Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers is 84. Keyboardist Bill Champlin (Chicago) is 78. Actor Carol Potter (\"Beverly Hills, 90210,\" ″Sunset Beach\") is 77. Singer Leo Sayer is 77. Comedian and former U.S. Sen. Al Franken is 74. Actor Mr. T is 73. Drummer Stan Lynch (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) is 70. Actor Judge Reinhold is 68. Actor-director Nick Cassavetes (\"The Notebook\") is 66. Actor Lisa Edelstein (\"House\") is 59. Actor Fairuza Balk (\"The Waterboy\") is 51. Singer-guitarist Mikel Jollett of Airborne Toxic Event is 51. Rapper Havoc of Mobb Deep is 51. Drummer Tony LoGerfo of Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real is 42. Actor Sunkrish Bala (\"Castle\") is 41. Actor David Ajala (\"Star Trek: Discovery,\" \"Black Box\") is 39. Actor Ashlie Brillault (\"Lizzie McGuire\") is 38. Country singer Cody Johnson is 38. Actor Scott Leavenworth (\"7th Heaven\") is 35. Actor Sarah Ramos (\"Parenthood,\" ″American Dreams\") is 34.\n\nMay 22: Actor-director Richard Benjamin is 87. Actor Frank Converse is 87. Actor Barbara Parkins (\"Peyton Place,\" ″Valley of the Dolls\") is 83. Songwriter Bernie Taupin is 75. Actor Al Corley (\"Dynasty\") is 70. Singer Morrissey is 66. Actor Ann Cusack (\"Jeff Foxworthy Show,\" ″A League of Their Own\") is 64. Bassist Dana Williams of Diamond Rio is 64. Guitarist Jesse Valenzuela of Gin Blossoms is 63. Actor Mark Christopher Lawrence (\"Chuck\") is 61. Singer Johnny Gill is 59. Bassist Dan Roberts of Crash Test Dummies is 58. Actor Brooke Smith (\"Grey's Anatomy,\" ″The Silence of the Lambs\") is 58. Actor Michael Kelly (\"House of Cards\") is 56. Model Naomi Campbell is 55. Actor Anna Belknap (\"CSI: NY\") is 53. Singer Donell Jones is 52. Actor Sean Gunn (\"Guardians of the Galaxy,\" ″Gilmore Girls\") is 51. Actor A.J. Langer (\"Private Practice\") is 51. Actor Ginnifer Goodwin (\"Once Upon a Time\") is 47. Singer Vivian Green is 46. Actor Maggie Q (\"Insurgent,\" ″Divergent\") is 46. Actor Molly Ephraim (\"Last Man Standing\") is 39. Actor Anna Baryshnikov (\"Superior Donuts\") is 33. Actor Camren Bicondova (\"Gotham\") is 26.\n\nMay 23: Actor Barbara Barrie is 94. Actor Joan Collins is 93. Actor Lauren Chapin (\"Father Knows Best\") is 80. Country singer Judy Rodman is 74. Author Mitch Albom is 67. Comedian Drew Carey is 67. Actor Lea DeLaria (\"Orange Is the New Black\") is 67. Country singer Shelly West is 67. Actor Linden Ashby (\"Melrose Place\") is 65. Actor-model Karen Duffy is 64. Actor Melissa McBride (\"The Walking Dead\") is 60. Drummer Phil Selway of Radiohead is 58. Actor Laurel Holloman (\"The L Word\") is 57. Drummer Matt Flynn of Maroon 5 is 55. Singer Lorenzo is 53. Country singer Brian McComas is 53. Actor-playwright John Pollono (\"This is Us\") is 53. Singer Maxwell is 52. Singer Jewel is 51. Actor LaMonica Garrett (\"Designated Survivor,\" ″Sons of Anarchy\") is 50. Comedian Tim Robinson (\"Saturday Night Live\") is 44. Actor Adam Wylie (\"Picket Fences\") is 41. Director Ryan Coogler (\"Black Panther,\" \"Creed\") is 39. Singer Sarah Jarosz is 34.\n\nMay 24: Musician John Madden of The Serendipity Singers is 88. Jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp is 88. Comedian Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong is 87. Musician Bob Dylan is 84. Actor Gary Burghoff (\"MASH\") is 82. Singer Patti LaBelle is 81. Actor Priscilla Presley is 80. Country singer-songwriter Mike Reid is 78. Actor Jim Broadbent (\"Moulin Rouge,\" ″Iris\") is 76. Actor Alfred Molina is 72. Singer Rosanne Cash is 70. Actor Cliff Parisi (\"Call the Midwife\") is 65. Actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 65. Actor John C. Reilly (\"Chicago,\" \"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story\") is 60. Actor Dana Ashbrook (\"Twin Peaks\") is 58. Actor Eric Close (\"Nashville,\" ″Without a Trace\") is 58. Actor Carl Payne (\"Martin,\" ″The Cosby Show\") is 56. Guitarist Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes is 56. Actor Dash Mihok (\"Silver Linings Playbook\") is 51. Actor Bryan Greenberg (film's \"Bride Wars,\" TV's \"One Tree Hill\") is 47. Actor Billy L. Sullivan (\"Something So Right\") is 45. Actor-rapper Big Tyme is 44. Drummer Cody Hanson of Hinder is 43. Dancer Mark Ballas (\"Dancing With the Stars\") is 39. Country singer Billy Gilman is 37. Rapper G-Eazy is 36. Actor Cayden Boyd (\"The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl\") is 31." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 18-24\n\nBy The Associated Press \nMay 12th, 2025, 01:33 PM\n\n---\n\nCelebrity birthdays for the week of May 18-24:\n\nMay 18: Actor Candice Azzara (″Caroline in the City,\" ″Rhoda\") is 84. Bluegrass singer-guitarist Rodney Dillard of The Dillards is 83. Keyboardist Rick Wakeman of Yes is 76. Singer Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo is 75. Actor James Stephens (\"Paper Chase,\" ″Father Dowling Mysteries\") is 74. Country singer George Strait is 73. Actor Chow Yun-Fat (\"Anna and the King,\" ″The Replacement Killers\") is 70. Singer-guitarist Page Hamilton of Helmet is 65. Guitarist Barry Graul of MercyMe is 64. Singer Michael Tait of Newsboys and of dc Talk is 59. Singer-actor Martika (\"Kids Incorporated,\" \"Wiseguy\") is 56. Comedian Tina Fey (\"30 Rock,\" ″Saturday Night Live\") is 55. Musician Jack Johnson is 50. Country singer David Nail is 46. Singer Darryl Allen of Mista is 45. Actor Allen Leech (\"Downton Abbey\") is 44. Guitarist Kevin Huguley of Rush of Fools is 43. Contemporary Christian singer Francesca Battistelli is 38. Actor Spencer Breslin (\"The Cat in the Hat\") is 33. Actor Violett Beane (\"God Friended Me\") is 29. Actor Hala Finley (\"Man with a Plan\") is 16.\n\nMay 19: TV personality David Hartman is 90. Actor James Fox is 86. Actor Nancy Kwan is 86. Musician Pete Townshend is 80. Singer-actor-model Grace Jones is 74. Drummer Phil Rudd AC/DC is 71. Actor Steven Ford is 69. Actor Toni Lewis (\"Homicide,\" ″Oz\") is 65. Guitarist Iain Harvie of Del Amitri is 63. Actor Polly Walker (film's \"John Carter,\" TV's \"Bridgerton\") is 59. Actor Jason Gray-Stanford (\"Monk\") is 55. Gospel singer Israel Houghton is 54. Singer Jenny Berggren of Ace of Base is 53. TV personality Kim Zolciak Biermann (\"Real Housewives of Atlanta\") is 47. Singer Shooter Jennings is 46. Comedian Michael Che (\"Saturday Night Live\") is 42. Guitarist Tim McTague of Underoath is 42. Guitarist James Richardson of MGMT is 42. Actor Eric Lloyd (\"The Santa Clause\") is 39. Singer Sam Smith is 33. Actor Nolan Lyons (\"Boardwalk Empire\") is 24.\n\nMay 20: Actor David Proval (\"The Sopranos\") is 83. Singer-actor Cher is 79. Actor Dave Thomas (\"Grace Under Fire,\" ″SCTV\") is 77. Musician Warren Cann of Ultravox is 75. Actor Dean Butler (\"Little House on the Prairie\") is 69. Guitarist Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's is 67. Singer Susan Cowsill of The Cowsills is 66. Actor Bronson Pinchot is 66. Actor John Billingsley (\"True Blood,\" ″Enterprise\") is 65. Actor Tony Goldwyn (\"Scandal\") is 65. Singer Nick Heyward of Haircut 100 is 64. TV personality Ted Allen (\"Queer Eye for the Straight Guy\") is 60. Actor Mindy Cohn (\"Facts of Life\") is 59. Guitarist Tom Gorman of Belly is 59. Rapper Busta Rhymes is 53. Bassist Ryan Martinie of Mudvayne is 50. Actor Matt Czuchry (\"The Good Wife,\" ″Gilmore Girls\") is 48. Singer-actor Naturi Naughton (3LW) is 41. Country singer Jon Pardi is 40.\n\nMay 21: Singer Ron Isley of the Isley Brothers is 84. Keyboardist Bill Champlin (Chicago) is 78. Actor Carol Potter (\"Beverly Hills, 90210,\" ″Sunset Beach\") is 77. Singer Leo Sayer is 77. Comedian and former U.S. Sen. Al Franken is 74. Actor Mr. T is 73. Drummer Stan Lynch (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) is 70. Actor Judge Reinhold is 68. Actor-director Nick Cassavetes (\"The Notebook\") is 66. Actor Lisa Edelstein (\"House\") is 59. Actor Fairuza Balk (\"The Waterboy\") is 51. Singer-guitarist Mikel Jollett of Airborne Toxic Event is 51. Rapper Havoc of Mobb Deep is 51. Drummer Tony LoGerfo of Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real is 42. Actor Sunkrish Bala (\"Castle\") is 41. Actor David Ajala (\"Star Trek: Discovery,\" \"Black Box\") is 39. Actor Ashlie Brillault (\"Lizzie McGuire\") is 38. Country singer Cody Johnson is 38. Actor Scott Leavenworth (\"7th Heaven\") is 35. Actor Sarah Ramos (\"Parenthood,\" ″American Dreams\") is 34.\n\nMay 22: Actor-director Richard Benjamin is 87. Actor Frank Converse is 87. Actor Barbara Parkins (\"Peyton Place,\" ″Valley of the Dolls\") is 83. Songwriter Bernie Taupin is 75. Actor Al Corley (\"Dynasty\") is 70. Singer Morrissey is 66. Actor Ann Cusack (\"Jeff Foxworthy Show,\" ″A League of Their Own\") is 64. Bassist Dana Williams of Diamond Rio is 64. Guitarist Jesse Valenzuela of Gin Blossoms is 63. Actor Mark Christopher Lawrence (\"Chuck\") is 61. Singer Johnny Gill is 59. Bassist Dan Roberts of Crash Test Dummies is 58. Actor Brooke Smith (\"Grey's Anatomy,\" ″The Silence of the Lambs\") is 58. Actor Michael Kelly (\"House of Cards\") is 56. Model Naomi Campbell is 55. Actor Anna Belknap (\"CSI: NY\") is 53. Singer Donell Jones is 52. Actor Sean Gunn (\"Guardians of the Galaxy,\" ″Gilmore Girls\") is 51. Actor A.J. Langer (\"Private Practice\") is 51. Actor Ginnifer Goodwin (\"Once Upon a Time\") is 47. Singer Vivian Green is 46. Actor Maggie Q (\"Insurgent,\" ″Divergent\") is 46. Actor Molly Ephraim (\"Last Man Standing\") is 39. Actor Anna Baryshnikov (\"Superior Donuts\") is 33. Actor Camren Bicondova (\"Gotham\") is 26.\n\nMay 23: Actor Barbara Barrie is 94. Actor Joan Collins is 93. Actor Lauren Chapin (\"Father Knows Best\") is 80. Country singer Judy Rodman is 74. Author Mitch Albom is 67. Comedian Drew Carey is 67. Actor Lea DeLaria (\"Orange Is the New Black\") is 67. Country singer Shelly West is 67. Actor Linden Ashby (\"Melrose Place\") is 65. Actor-model Karen Duffy is 64. Actor Melissa McBride (\"The Walking Dead\") is 60. Drummer Phil Selway of Radiohead is 58. Actor Laurel Holloman (\"The L Word\") is 57. Drummer Matt Flynn of Maroon 5 is 55. Singer Lorenzo is 53. Country singer Brian McComas is 53. Actor-playwright John Pollono (\"This is Us\") is 53. Singer Maxwell is 52. Singer Jewel is 51. Actor LaMonica Garrett (\"Designated Survivor,\" ″Sons of Anarchy\") is 50. Comedian Tim Robinson (\"Saturday Night Live\") is 44. Actor Adam Wylie (\"Picket Fences\") is 41. Director Ryan Coogler (\"Black Panther,\" \"Creed\") is 39. Singer Sarah Jarosz is 34.\n\nMay 24: Musician John Madden of The Serendipity Singers is 88. Jazz saxophonist Archie Shepp is 88. Comedian Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong is 87. Musician Bob Dylan is 84. Actor Gary Burghoff (\"MASH\") is 82. Singer Patti LaBelle is 81. Actor Priscilla Presley is 80. Country singer-songwriter Mike Reid is 78. Actor Jim Broadbent (\"Moulin Rouge,\" ″Iris\") is 76. Actor Alfred Molina is 72. Singer Rosanne Cash is 70. Actor Cliff Parisi (\"Call the Midwife\") is 65. Actor Kristin Scott Thomas is 65. Actor John C. Reilly (\"Chicago,\" \"Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story\") is 60. Actor Dana Ashbrook (\"Twin Peaks\") is 58. Actor Eric Close (\"Nashville,\" ″Without a Trace\") is 58. Actor Carl Payne (\"Martin,\" ″The Cosby Show\") is 56. Guitarist Rich Robinson of The Black Crowes is 56. Actor Dash Mihok (\"Silver Linings Playbook\") is 51. Actor Bryan Greenberg (film's \"Bride Wars,\" TV's \"One Tree Hill\") is 47. Actor Billy L. Sullivan (\"Something So Right\") is 45. Actor-rapper Big Tyme is 44. Drummer Cody Hanson of Hinder is 43. Dancer Mark Ballas (\"Dancing With the Stars\") is 39. Country singer Billy Gilman is 37. Rapper G-Eazy is 36. Actor Cayden Boyd (\"The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl\") is 31." } ]
63892588be33f768a22f1a43e0dfb9513cb6270132cb5b0e05686e01f8a84301	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Morocco unveils policies it hopes bolster the care and management of stray dogs\n\nBy Sam Metz \nMay 18th, 2025, 07:04 AM\n\n---\n\nEL AARJATE, Morocco (AP) — A mutt with a blue tag clipped to her ear whimpers as she's lifted from a cage and carried to a surgery table for a spay and a rabies vaccine, two critical steps before she's released back onto the streets of Morocco's capital.\n\nThe \"Beldi,\" as Moroccan street dogs are called, is among the hundreds taken from Rabat to a dog pound in a nearby forest. As part of an expanded \"Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Return\" program, dogs like her are examined, treated and ultimately released with tags that make clear they pose no danger.\n\n\"We have a problem: That's stray dogs. So we have to solve it, but in a way that respects animals,\" said Mohamed Roudani, the director of the Public Health and Green Spaces Department in Morocco's Interior Ministry.\n\n## Trying to balance safety and animal well-being\n\nMorocco adopted \"Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Return,\" or TVNR, in 2019. One facility has opened in Rabat and more are set to be launched in at least 14 other cities, aligning Morocco with recommendations from the World Organization for Animal Health. The government has spent roughly $23 million over the past five years on animal control centers and programs.\n\nRoudani said Morocco's updated approach balanced public safety, health and animal well-being. Local officials, he added, were eager to expand TVNR centers throughout the country.\n\nThough population estimates are challenging, based on samples of marked and tagged stray dogs, Moroccan officials believe they number between 1.2 to 1.5 million. Some neighborhoods welcome and care for them collectively. However, others decry their presence as a scourge and note that more than 100,000 Moroccans have needed rabies vaccinations after attacks.\n\nA draft law is in the works that would require owners to vaccinate pets and impose penalties for animal abuse.\n\n## Inside the center\n\nOn a visit organized for journalists to a TNVR center in El Aarjate, enclosures for dogs appear spacious and orderly, with clean floors and the scent of disinfectant. Food and water bowls are refreshed regularly by staff who move between spaces, offering gentle words and careful handling. Some staff members say they grow so attached to the dogs that they miss them when they're released to make space to treat incoming strays.\n\nVeterinarians and doctors working for the Association for the Protection of Animals and Nature care for between 400 and 500 stray dogs from Rabat and surrounding cities. Dogs that veterinarians deem unhealthy or aggressive are euthanized using sodium pentobarbital, while the rest are released, unable to spread disease or reproduce.\n\nYoussef Lhor, a doctor and veterinarian, said that aggressive methods to cull dogs didn't effectively make communities safer from rabies or aggression. He said it made more sense to to try to have people coexist with dogs safely, noting that more than 200 had been released after treatment from the Rabat-area center.\n\n\"Slaughtering dogs leads to nothing. This TNVR strategy is not a miracle solution, but it is an element that will add to everything else we're doing,\" he said, referring to \"Treat, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return.\"\n\nIt's designed to gradually reduce the stray dog population while minimizing the need for euthanasia.\n\nIt's a program that Morocco is eager to showcase after animal rights groups accused it of ramping up efforts to cull street dogs after being named co-host of the 2030 FIFA World Cup last year.\n\n## Animal rights groups protest\n\nAnimal rights groups routinely use large sporting events to draw attention to their cause and similarly targeted Russia in the lead-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup there.\n\nCiting unnamed sources and videos it said were shot in Morocco, the International Animal Welfare and Protection Coalition claimed in January that Morocco was exterminating 3 million dogs, particularly around cities where stadiums are being built. The allegations, reported widely by international media lacking a presence in Morocco, triggered anti-FIFA protests as far away as Ahmedabad, India.\n\n\"These dogs are being shot in the street, often in front of children, or dragged away with wire nooses to die slow, agonizing deaths,\" Ian Ward, the coalition's chairman, said in a statement.\n\nMoroccan officials vehemently deny the claims, say they're implementing the very programs that activists propose, including TNVR. They rebuff the idea that any policy is related to the World Cup. Still, critics see their efforts as publicity stunts and are skeptical such programs are as widespread as officials claim.\n\nInstances of mistreatment and euthanasia by gunshot have been reported in local media but Moroccan officials say, despite international attention, they're isolated incidents and don't reflect on-the-ground reality nationwide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Morocco unveils policies it hopes bolster the care and management of stray dogs\n\nBy Sam Metz \nMay 18th, 2025, 07:04 AM\n\n---\n\nEL AARJATE, Morocco (AP) — A mutt with a blue tag clipped to her ear whimpers as she's lifted from a cage and carried to a surgery table for a spay and a rabies vaccine, two critical steps before she's released back onto the streets of Morocco's capital.\n\nThe \"Beldi,\" as Moroccan street dogs are called, is among the hundreds taken from Rabat to a dog pound in a nearby forest. As part of an expanded \"Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Return\" program, dogs like her are examined, treated and ultimately released with tags that make clear they pose no danger.\n\n\"We have a problem: That's stray dogs. So we have to solve it, but in a way that respects animals,\" said Mohamed Roudani, the director of the Public Health and Green Spaces Department in Morocco's Interior Ministry.\n\n## Trying to balance safety and animal well-being\n\nMorocco adopted \"Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Return,\" or TVNR, in 2019. One facility has opened in Rabat and more are set to be launched in at least 14 other cities, aligning Morocco with recommendations from the World Organization for Animal Health. The government has spent roughly $23 million over the past five years on animal control centers and programs.\n\nRoudani said Morocco's updated approach balanced public safety, health and animal well-being. Local officials, he added, were eager to expand TVNR centers throughout the country.\n\nThough population estimates are challenging, based on samples of marked and tagged stray dogs, Moroccan officials believe they number between 1.2 to 1.5 million. Some neighborhoods welcome and care for them collectively. However, others decry their presence as a scourge and note that more than 100,000 Moroccans have needed rabies vaccinations after attacks.\n\nA draft law is in the works that would require owners to vaccinate pets and impose penalties for animal abuse.\n\n## Inside the center\n\nOn a visit organized for journalists to a TNVR center in El Aarjate, enclosures for dogs appear spacious and orderly, with clean floors and the scent of disinfectant. Food and water bowls are refreshed regularly by staff who move between spaces, offering gentle words and careful handling. Some staff members say they grow so attached to the dogs that they miss them when they're released to make space to treat incoming strays.\n\nVeterinarians and doctors working for the Association for the Protection of Animals and Nature care for between 400 and 500 stray dogs from Rabat and surrounding cities. Dogs that veterinarians deem unhealthy or aggressive are euthanized using sodium pentobarbital, while the rest are released, unable to spread disease or reproduce.\n\nYoussef Lhor, a doctor and veterinarian, said that aggressive methods to cull dogs didn't effectively make communities safer from rabies or aggression. He said it made more sense to to try to have people coexist with dogs safely, noting that more than 200 had been released after treatment from the Rabat-area center.\n\n\"Slaughtering dogs leads to nothing. This TNVR strategy is not a miracle solution, but it is an element that will add to everything else we're doing,\" he said, referring to \"Treat, Neuter, Vaccinate, Return.\"\n\nIt's designed to gradually reduce the stray dog population while minimizing the need for euthanasia.\n\nIt's a program that Morocco is eager to showcase after animal rights groups accused it of ramping up efforts to cull street dogs after being named co-host of the 2030 FIFA World Cup last year.\n\n## Animal rights groups protest\n\nAnimal rights groups routinely use large sporting events to draw attention to their cause and similarly targeted Russia in the lead-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup there.\n\nCiting unnamed sources and videos it said were shot in Morocco, the International Animal Welfare and Protection Coalition claimed in January that Morocco was exterminating 3 million dogs, particularly around cities where stadiums are being built. The allegations, reported widely by international media lacking a presence in Morocco, triggered anti-FIFA protests as far away as Ahmedabad, India.\n\n\"These dogs are being shot in the street, often in front of children, or dragged away with wire nooses to die slow, agonizing deaths,\" Ian Ward, the coalition's chairman, said in a statement.\n\nMoroccan officials vehemently deny the claims, say they're implementing the very programs that activists propose, including TNVR. They rebuff the idea that any policy is related to the World Cup. Still, critics see their efforts as publicity stunts and are skeptical such programs are as widespread as officials claim.\n\nInstances of mistreatment and euthanasia by gunshot have been reported in local media but Moroccan officials say, despite international attention, they're isolated incidents and don't reflect on-the-ground reality nationwide." } ]
f305d3e946a7705f2fe99c7ddcab83d754275434ad8efc1b378a90dac2d6d77a	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Israel is letting a trickle of aid into Gaza for the first time in 2 1/2 months. Here's what to know\n\nBy Joseph Krauss \nMay 20th, 2025, 11:06 AM\n\n---\n\nIsrael has begun allowing a trickle of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip after sealing the territory's 2 million Palestinians off from all imports for more than 2 1/2 months. The humanitarian crisis is the worst it's been in 19 months of war.\n\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he eased the blockade under pressure from unnamed allies who were uncomfortable supporting Israel's latest major offensive against Hamas while images of starvation came out of Gaza. Israeli strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians in recent days.\n\nUnited Nations agencies and aid groups, which ran out of food to distribute weeks ago, have welcomed the move but say the promised aid is nowhere near what's needed. A few dozen trucks have entered since Monday but none of the aid has been distributed because of delays caused by Israeli military procedures, the U.N. said. Around 600 trucks entered each day during a ceasefire earlier this year.\n\nExperts have warned of famine if the blockade is not lifted and the military operation continues. Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation and 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.\n\nThe U.K., France and Canada, close allies of Israel, called the aid \"wholly inadequate\" and threatened \"concrete actions,\" including sanctions, over Israel's actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.\n\nHere's a closer look.\n\n## Why is Israel blocking humanitarian aid?\n\nIsrael imposed a complete ban on imports on March 2, saying it hoped to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire agreement that was more favorable to Israel than the one the group had signed in January. Two weeks later, Israel shattered the truce with a wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds.\n\nIsrael accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid and using it to fund its military activities, without providing evidence. The U.N. says there are mechanisms in place that prevent any significant diversion of aid.\n\nIsrael is also trying to pressure Hamas to release more of the hostages it abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. In that assault, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage. Israel's ensuing offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.\n\nHamas has said it will only return the remaining 58 hostages — around a third of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.\n\nNetanyahu has rejected those terms, saying Israel will continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is either destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile. Even then, he has vowed to maintain control over the territory and facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its Palestinian population.\n\nPalestinians, the Arab world and most of the international community have rejected those plans. Human rights experts say they would likely amount to mass expulsion in violation of international law.\n\n## What impact has the blockade had on Gaza?\n\nGaza's population is almost entirely reliant on international aid, as Israel's offensive has destroyed nearly all the territory's food production capabilities and displaced some 90% of the population.\n\nLocal markets offer only small amounts of vegetables at exorbitant prices. Most people depend on charity kitchens that have been closing as they run out of food. Thousands gather outside such kitchens each day, jostling with pots for a few ladles of soup, rice or lentils. Many return empty-handed.\n\nThe U.N. children's agency says over 9,000 children have been treated for malnutrition this year. Thousands of pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as sick, older or disabled people who cannot push their way through the crowds, are also at heightened risk.\n\nUp to 20% of Gaza's estimated 55,000 pregnant women are malnourished, and half face high-risk pregnancies, according to the United Nations Population Fund. In February and March, at least 20% of newborns were born prematurely or suffered from malnutrition or other complications.\n\nHospitals meanwhile say they are running low on medical supplies, even as they cope with daily mass casualties from Israeli strikes.\n\n## What is Israel's plan for taking over aid distribution?\n\nNetanyahu said this week's easing of the blockade is aimed at bridging the gap before the rollout of a new system for distributing aid that Israel says is aimed at keeping it out of Hamas' hands.\n\nA new group supported by the United States, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, made up of American security contractors, former government and humanitarian officials and ex-military officers, plans to establish four distribution sites guarded by private security firms. Each would serve 300,000 people, with its total reach covering only around half the population.\n\nU.N. agencies and aid groups have refused to take part in the plan, saying it won't meet local needs and would violate humanitarian principles by letting Israel control who receives aid, rather than delivering it based on need. They have also warned that it will cause new waves of displacement as people are forced to relocate to the hubs being built in southern Gaza.\n\nThose groups say there is plenty of aid stockpiled just outside Gaza and that they can quickly distribute it within the territory if Israel allows them to.\n\n___\n\nFollow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Israel is letting a trickle of aid into Gaza for the first time in 2 1/2 months. Here's what to know\n\nBy Joseph Krauss \nMay 20th, 2025, 11:06 AM\n\n---\n\nIsrael has begun allowing a trickle of food and medicine into the Gaza Strip after sealing the territory's 2 million Palestinians off from all imports for more than 2 1/2 months. The humanitarian crisis is the worst it's been in 19 months of war.\n\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he eased the blockade under pressure from unnamed allies who were uncomfortable supporting Israel's latest major offensive against Hamas while images of starvation came out of Gaza. Israeli strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians in recent days.\n\nUnited Nations agencies and aid groups, which ran out of food to distribute weeks ago, have welcomed the move but say the promised aid is nowhere near what's needed. A few dozen trucks have entered since Monday but none of the aid has been distributed because of delays caused by Israeli military procedures, the U.N. said. Around 600 trucks entered each day during a ceasefire earlier this year.\n\nExperts have warned of famine if the blockade is not lifted and the military operation continues. Nearly half a million Palestinians are facing possible starvation and 1 million others can barely get enough food, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a leading international authority on the severity of hunger crises.\n\nThe U.K., France and Canada, close allies of Israel, called the aid \"wholly inadequate\" and threatened \"concrete actions,\" including sanctions, over Israel's actions in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.\n\nHere's a closer look.\n\n## Why is Israel blocking humanitarian aid?\n\nIsrael imposed a complete ban on imports on March 2, saying it hoped to pressure Hamas to accept a ceasefire agreement that was more favorable to Israel than the one the group had signed in January. Two weeks later, Israel shattered the truce with a wave of airstrikes that killed hundreds.\n\nIsrael accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid and using it to fund its military activities, without providing evidence. The U.N. says there are mechanisms in place that prevent any significant diversion of aid.\n\nIsrael is also trying to pressure Hamas to release more of the hostages it abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war. In that assault, militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage. Israel's ensuing offensive has killed over 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.\n\nHamas has said it will only return the remaining 58 hostages — around a third of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.\n\nNetanyahu has rejected those terms, saying Israel will continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is either destroyed or disarmed and sent into exile. Even then, he has vowed to maintain control over the territory and facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its Palestinian population.\n\nPalestinians, the Arab world and most of the international community have rejected those plans. Human rights experts say they would likely amount to mass expulsion in violation of international law.\n\n## What impact has the blockade had on Gaza?\n\nGaza's population is almost entirely reliant on international aid, as Israel's offensive has destroyed nearly all the territory's food production capabilities and displaced some 90% of the population.\n\nLocal markets offer only small amounts of vegetables at exorbitant prices. Most people depend on charity kitchens that have been closing as they run out of food. Thousands gather outside such kitchens each day, jostling with pots for a few ladles of soup, rice or lentils. Many return empty-handed.\n\nThe U.N. children's agency says over 9,000 children have been treated for malnutrition this year. Thousands of pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as sick, older or disabled people who cannot push their way through the crowds, are also at heightened risk.\n\nUp to 20% of Gaza's estimated 55,000 pregnant women are malnourished, and half face high-risk pregnancies, according to the United Nations Population Fund. In February and March, at least 20% of newborns were born prematurely or suffered from malnutrition or other complications.\n\nHospitals meanwhile say they are running low on medical supplies, even as they cope with daily mass casualties from Israeli strikes.\n\n## What is Israel's plan for taking over aid distribution?\n\nNetanyahu said this week's easing of the blockade is aimed at bridging the gap before the rollout of a new system for distributing aid that Israel says is aimed at keeping it out of Hamas' hands.\n\nA new group supported by the United States, called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, made up of American security contractors, former government and humanitarian officials and ex-military officers, plans to establish four distribution sites guarded by private security firms. Each would serve 300,000 people, with its total reach covering only around half the population.\n\nU.N. agencies and aid groups have refused to take part in the plan, saying it won't meet local needs and would violate humanitarian principles by letting Israel control who receives aid, rather than delivering it based on need. They have also warned that it will cause new waves of displacement as people are forced to relocate to the hubs being built in southern Gaza.\n\nThose groups say there is plenty of aid stockpiled just outside Gaza and that they can quickly distribute it within the territory if Israel allows them to." } ]
970fbcb84841743d0a3f61d23bb454100aba619b6480c4ee373c917547d10c5c	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# A look at the Emoluments Clause and Qatar's offer to Trump of a jet\n\nBy Meg Kinnard \nMay 12th, 2025, 04:53 PM\n\n---\n\nPresident Donald Trump 's readiness to accept a luxury jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar for conversion into a presidential aircraft has revived the conversations around emoluments and the notion of a president otherwise allegedly profiting off of the office.\n\n\"I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,\" he told reporters on Monday, after being asked if Qatar was getting anything in return for the plane. \"I could be a stupid person and say, 'no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.'\"\n\nBut there are constitutional prohibitions against the president receiving gifts from foreign entities or even domestic ones. It's a conversation over emoluments, territory that Trump has been forced to navigate, and litigate, in the past.\n\n## What is an emolument?\n\nSimply, an emolument is compensation for services, from employment or holding office, that can take the form of a salary, fee or profit.\n\n## What is the Emoluments Clause?\n\nThere are separate emoluments delineations in the U.S. Constitution. Both are aimed at preserving the independence of the president from influence from outside entities, including Congress, states and foreign governments.\n\nArticle I bars anyone holding government office from accepting any present, emolument, office or title from any \"King, Prince, or foreign State,\" without congressional consent.\n\nArticle II deals with domestic emoluments, noting that Congress can't increase or decrease the president's compensation during his term in office, and prohibits the president from receiving any emolument from the states.\n\n## Why is the Emoluments Clause coming up now?\n\nTrump has reportedly been offered a Boeing 747-8 by Qatar in an arrangement that could be formalized as he travels to the Middle East this week. The Qatari government has said a final decision hasn't been made. But Trump has defended the idea as a fiscally smart move for the country, even as critics argue it would amount to a president accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government.\n\n\"If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture,\" Trump said Monday at the White House.\n\nThe luxury 747 — currently parked at Palm Beach International Airport, close to Trump's private Mar-a-Lago resort — would be donated to a future presidential library. Trump has said that he wouldn't use it for personal travel after leaving office, suggesting that it would be decommissioned like the Boeing 707 that Ronald Reagan flew on in the 1980s, and which is currently on display at Reagan's presidential library in Simi Valley, California.\n\nThere are other Trump-related deals with Qatar. Last month, the Trump family company struck a deal to build a luxury golf resort there, in a sign it has no plans to hold back from foreign dealmaking during a second Trump administration.\n\nThe project, which features Trump-branded beachside villas and an 18-hole golf course to be built by a Saudi Arabian company, marked the first foreign deal by the Trump Organization since Trump resumed office.\n\n## Has Trump dealt with debate over emoluments before?\n\nIn his first term, Trump faced lawsuits from Maryland and the District of Columbia, as well as high-end restaurants and hotels in New York and Washington, D.C., that accused him of illegally profiting off the presidency through his luxury Washington hotel.\n\nIn 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court brought an end to the cases, ruling them as moot since Trump was no longer president. The justices threw out Trump's challenge to lower court rulings that had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution's emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.\n\n## Has Congress weighed in on emoluments?\n\nThey've tried.\n\nLast year, congressional Democrats introduced legislation that would prohibit U.S. officials from accepting money, payments or gifts from foreign governments without congressional consent. It was their response to a yearslong probe into Trump's overseas business dealings.\n\nThe proposals led by Rep. Jamie Raskin and Sen. Richard Blumenthal would enforce the Constitution's ban on emoluments, which prohibits the president from accepting foreign gifts and money without Congress' permission. Democrats have argued that Trump ignored the clause as president.\n\nBoth bills did not advance.\n\n___\n\nKinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# A look at the Emoluments Clause and Qatar's offer to Trump of a jet\n\nBy Meg Kinnard \nMay 12th, 2025, 04:53 PM\n\n---\n\nPresident Donald Trump 's readiness to accept a luxury jet as a gift from the ruling family of Qatar for conversion into a presidential aircraft has revived the conversations around emoluments and the notion of a president otherwise allegedly profiting off of the office.\n\n\"I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,\" he told reporters on Monday, after being asked if Qatar was getting anything in return for the plane. \"I could be a stupid person and say, 'no, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.'\"\n\nBut there are constitutional prohibitions against the president receiving gifts from foreign entities or even domestic ones. It's a conversation over emoluments, territory that Trump has been forced to navigate, and litigate, in the past.\n\n## What is an emolument?\n\nSimply, an emolument is compensation for services, from employment or holding office, that can take the form of a salary, fee or profit.\n\n## What is the Emoluments Clause?\n\nThere are separate emoluments delineations in the U.S. Constitution. Both are aimed at preserving the independence of the president from influence from outside entities, including Congress, states and foreign governments.\n\nArticle I bars anyone holding government office from accepting any present, emolument, office or title from any \"King, Prince, or foreign State,\" without congressional consent.\n\nArticle II deals with domestic emoluments, noting that Congress can't increase or decrease the president's compensation during his term in office, and prohibits the president from receiving any emolument from the states.\n\n## Why is the Emoluments Clause coming up now?\n\nTrump has reportedly been offered a Boeing 747-8 by Qatar in an arrangement that could be formalized as he travels to the Middle East this week. The Qatari government has said a final decision hasn't been made. But Trump has defended the idea as a fiscally smart move for the country, even as critics argue it would amount to a president accepting an astonishingly valuable gift from a foreign government.\n\n\"If we can get a 747 as a contribution to our Defense Department to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones, I think that was a very nice gesture,\" Trump said Monday at the White House.\n\nThe luxury 747 — currently parked at Palm Beach International Airport, close to Trump's private Mar-a-Lago resort — would be donated to a future presidential library. Trump has said that he wouldn't use it for personal travel after leaving office, suggesting that it would be decommissioned like the Boeing 707 that Ronald Reagan flew on in the 1980s, and which is currently on display at Reagan's presidential library in Simi Valley, California.\n\nThere are other Trump-related deals with Qatar. Last month, the Trump family company struck a deal to build a luxury golf resort there, in a sign it has no plans to hold back from foreign dealmaking during a second Trump administration.\n\nThe project, which features Trump-branded beachside villas and an 18-hole golf course to be built by a Saudi Arabian company, marked the first foreign deal by the Trump Organization since Trump resumed office.\n\n## Has Trump dealt with debate over emoluments before?\n\nIn his first term, Trump faced lawsuits from Maryland and the District of Columbia, as well as high-end restaurants and hotels in New York and Washington, D.C., that accused him of illegally profiting off the presidency through his luxury Washington hotel.\n\nIn 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court brought an end to the cases, ruling them as moot since Trump was no longer president. The justices threw out Trump's challenge to lower court rulings that had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution's emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.\n\n## Has Congress weighed in on emoluments?\n\nThey've tried.\n\nLast year, congressional Democrats introduced legislation that would prohibit U.S. officials from accepting money, payments or gifts from foreign governments without congressional consent. It was their response to a yearslong probe into Trump's overseas business dealings.\n\nThe proposals led by Rep. Jamie Raskin and Sen. Richard Blumenthal would enforce the Constitution's ban on emoluments, which prohibits the president from accepting foreign gifts and money without Congress' permission. Democrats have argued that Trump ignored the clause as president.\n\nBoth bills did not advance." } ]
ca0ef55c0846afd6e2a8f345d5448f1f8a796d24231ddd872765a0e24188760b	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Former New Hampshire sheriff sentenced to prison on perjury charges, accused of taking county funds\n\nMay 19th, 2025, 05:04 PM\n\n---\n\nDOVER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire sheriff who resigned after he was accused of stealing $19,000 in county funds was sentenced Monday to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison on perjury charges.\n\nProsecutors had asked for a seven-to-14-year sentence for Mark Brave.\n\nHis lawyer, Leif Becker, had asked that the judge accept a proposed sentence of no prison time \"in mercy,\" noting that Brave didn't have a prior criminal history and has accepted responsibility for his crimes.\n\nBrave, 39, was elected as Strafford County sheriff in 2020. At the time, he was both the youngest sheriff and the first Black man to serve as a sheriff in the state.\n\nHe was arrested in 2023 and charged with eight felonies following an investigation into accusations that he misused county credit cards. Brave called the arrest a political attack, said he he did nothing wrong and would fight the charges.\n\nBrave was accused of using a county credit card to pay for travel to fictitious business meetings with romantic partners and then lying about it to a grand jury. He went on administrative leave and resigned that December, saying he felt it was in the best interest of the county.\n\nBrave pleaded guilty to four charges in February as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors: two counts of perjury, theft, and falsifying physical evidence.\n\nThe agreement called for suspended sentences on the theft and physical evdience charges provided he met conditions such as paying back the county and not seek employment as a law enforcement officer in any jurisdiction.\n\nBrave said in court that he began making poor choices as his marriage was falling apart, The Boston Globe reported.\n\n\"I stand before you embarrassed and ashamed of my own conduct,\" he said.\n\nAttorney General John Formella said Brave's sentence shows a \"clear and necessary principle\" that no one is above the law.\n\n\"His repeated lies, misuse of taxpayer funds, and abuse of office were not just criminal — they were a profound betrayal of the public trust and the oath he took to serve with integrity,\" Formella said in a statement." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Former New Hampshire sheriff sentenced to prison on perjury charges, accused of taking county funds\n\nMay 19th, 2025, 05:04 PM\n\n---\n\nDOVER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire sheriff who resigned after he was accused of stealing $19,000 in county funds was sentenced Monday to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison on perjury charges.\n\nProsecutors had asked for a seven-to-14-year sentence for Mark Brave.\n\nHis lawyer, Leif Becker, had asked that the judge accept a proposed sentence of no prison time \"in mercy,\" noting that Brave didn't have a prior criminal history and has accepted responsibility for his crimes.\n\nBrave, 39, was elected as Strafford County sheriff in 2020. At the time, he was both the youngest sheriff and the first Black man to serve as a sheriff in the state.\n\nHe was arrested in 2023 and charged with eight felonies following an investigation into accusations that he misused county credit cards. Brave called the arrest a political attack, said he he did nothing wrong and would fight the charges.\n\nBrave was accused of using a county credit card to pay for travel to fictitious business meetings with romantic partners and then lying about it to a grand jury. He went on administrative leave and resigned that December, saying he felt it was in the best interest of the county.\n\nBrave pleaded guilty to four charges in February as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors: two counts of perjury, theft, and falsifying physical evidence.\n\nThe agreement called for suspended sentences on the theft and physical evdience charges provided he met conditions such as paying back the county and not seek employment as a law enforcement officer in any jurisdiction.\n\nBrave said in court that he began making poor choices as his marriage was falling apart, The Boston Globe reported.\n\n\"I stand before you embarrassed and ashamed of my own conduct,\" he said.\n\nAttorney General John Formella said Brave's sentence shows a \"clear and necessary principle\" that no one is above the law.\n\n\"His repeated lies, misuse of taxpayer funds, and abuse of office were not just criminal — they were a profound betrayal of the public trust and the oath he took to serve with integrity,\" Formella said in a statement." } ]
36f9c43330baf838ecfcb7490cf0198405b4c666a870c62b8a225059e6fbd56e	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Walz calls Trump a 'tyrant' who is trampling Americans' rights\n\nBy Jill Colvin \nMay 17th, 2025, 05:26 PM\n\n---\n\nDemocratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota assailed Donald Trump in a law school graduation speech Saturday, accusing the Republican president of creating a national emergency by repeatedly violating the rule of law.\n\nWalz, the vice presidential nominee in 2024, used his remarks at the University of Minnesota's law school commencement ceremony to call on graduates to stand up to abuses of power. Lawyers, he said, \"our first and last line of defense.\"\n\n\"Right now, more than any other time in my lifetime, we need you to live up to the oath that you're about to make. Because, I have to be honest with you: You are graduating into a genuine emergency,\" Walz told the crowd, which greeted him with loud applause. \"Every single day, the president of the United States finds new ways to trample rights and undermine the rule of law.\"\n\nWalz pointed to Trump's immigration crackdown, which includes deporting alleged gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process, and the offer of a gifted jet from the Qatari ruling family to the president.\n\n\"This is what the crumbling of rule of law looks like in real time. And it's exactly what the founders of this nation feared: A tyrant, abusing power to persecute scapegoats and enemies,\" he said.\n\nSince Kamala Harris' loss to Trump in November, Democrats have been debating which direction to take the party amid deep frustrations from Democratic voters that its leaders are failing to do enough to check the new administration.\n\nWalz is among a long list of potential 2028 candidates who have been traveling to early voting states.\n\nOthers include Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who sharply criticized \"do-nothing\" Democrats last month for failing to oppose Trump. Pritzker, who is scheduled to headline a Minnesota Democratic dinner in June, drew attention in February when he used part of his joint budget and State of the State address to draw a parallel between Trump's rhetoric and the rise of Nazi Germany.\n\nThis past week, President Joe Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, returned to Iowa for a town hall where he criticized Trump's administration while demanding that Democrats make their agenda clear and reach out to people who disagree with them.\n\nCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom has been hosting a high-profile podcast. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been drawing huge crowds to rallies across the country. Walz and Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland have scheduled stops in South Carolina at the end of May.\n\nIn his commencement speech, Walz acknowledged his words were particularly pointed for a celebratory ceremony.\n\n\"Some would say, 'Boy, this is getting way too political for a commencement address.' But I would argue: I wouldn't be honoring my oath if I didn't address this head on,\" he said to applause and cheers.\n\nLater, he scoffed at some Democrats who have urged the party to focus on issues such as trade, where Trump is polling badly, instead of the rule of law.\n\nHe also attacked \"feckless\" and \"cowardly\" big law firms that have acquiesced to Trump in the face of threats, with some offering millions in pro bono work and other benefits.\n\n\"It's a flagrant betrayal of the oath they took as lawyers,\" he said, urging graduates to refuse to work for or with those firms as they make their way into the workforce.\n\nIn response, the White House revived a line of attack from last year's campaign, criticizing Walz's stewardship of Minnesota when the state's two largest cities erupted in protests and riots after a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020. Spokesman Harrison Fields also referenced Walz's spot on the losing Democrat ticket alongside nominee Kamala Harris, \"who presided over one of the most chaotic administrations in American history.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Walz calls Trump a 'tyrant' who is trampling Americans' rights\n\nBy Jill Colvin \nMay 17th, 2025, 05:26 PM\n\n---\n\nDemocratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota assailed Donald Trump in a law school graduation speech Saturday, accusing the Republican president of creating a national emergency by repeatedly violating the rule of law.\n\nWalz, the vice presidential nominee in 2024, used his remarks at the University of Minnesota's law school commencement ceremony to call on graduates to stand up to abuses of power. Lawyers, he said, \"our first and last line of defense.\"\n\n\"Right now, more than any other time in my lifetime, we need you to live up to the oath that you're about to make. Because, I have to be honest with you: You are graduating into a genuine emergency,\" Walz told the crowd, which greeted him with loud applause. \"Every single day, the president of the United States finds new ways to trample rights and undermine the rule of law.\"\n\nWalz pointed to Trump's immigration crackdown, which includes deporting alleged gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process, and the offer of a gifted jet from the Qatari ruling family to the president.\n\n\"This is what the crumbling of rule of law looks like in real time. And it's exactly what the founders of this nation feared: A tyrant, abusing power to persecute scapegoats and enemies,\" he said.\n\nSince Kamala Harris' loss to Trump in November, Democrats have been debating which direction to take the party amid deep frustrations from Democratic voters that its leaders are failing to do enough to check the new administration.\n\nWalz is among a long list of potential 2028 candidates who have been traveling to early voting states.\n\nOthers include Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who sharply criticized \"do-nothing\" Democrats last month for failing to oppose Trump. Pritzker, who is scheduled to headline a Minnesota Democratic dinner in June, drew attention in February when he used part of his joint budget and State of the State address to draw a parallel between Trump's rhetoric and the rise of Nazi Germany.\n\nThis past week, President Joe Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, returned to Iowa for a town hall where he criticized Trump's administration while demanding that Democrats make their agenda clear and reach out to people who disagree with them.\n\nCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom has been hosting a high-profile podcast. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have been drawing huge crowds to rallies across the country. Walz and Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland have scheduled stops in South Carolina at the end of May.\n\nIn his commencement speech, Walz acknowledged his words were particularly pointed for a celebratory ceremony.\n\n\"Some would say, 'Boy, this is getting way too political for a commencement address.' But I would argue: I wouldn't be honoring my oath if I didn't address this head on,\" he said to applause and cheers.\n\nLater, he scoffed at some Democrats who have urged the party to focus on issues such as trade, where Trump is polling badly, instead of the rule of law.\n\nHe also attacked \"feckless\" and \"cowardly\" big law firms that have acquiesced to Trump in the face of threats, with some offering millions in pro bono work and other benefits.\n\n\"It's a flagrant betrayal of the oath they took as lawyers,\" he said, urging graduates to refuse to work for or with those firms as they make their way into the workforce.\n\nIn response, the White House revived a line of attack from last year's campaign, criticizing Walz's stewardship of Minnesota when the state's two largest cities erupted in protests and riots after a white Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020. Spokesman Harrison Fields also referenced Walz's spot on the losing Democrat ticket alongside nominee Kamala Harris, \"who presided over one of the most chaotic administrations in American history.\"" } ]
2d5617a6f1a6dbe782059c8fb19e7ff5a3bb58341fce081089803be2a4582a8f	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# How to make Mom some Challah French toast for Mother's Day\n\nBy Katie Workman \nMay 7th, 2025, 12:15 PM\n\n---\n\nCooking for your mom on Mother's Day is probably the Best Gift Ever for a lot of moms. Sure, we're delighted to get flowers, or a lovely box of chocolate, or a new power drill, but what we really want is to be taken care of for one single, blessed day. Just kidding, we know you love us. Now cook something to prove it.\n\nA chill brunchy breakfast is a great way to go. And, by the way, it doesn't have to be in bed. In fact, having balanced a toddler, a mug of hot coffee and a plate of eggs on my lap while lying in bed in years past, I can say that's challenging, even when charming.\n\nThe smell of French toast cooking up on the stove should make a morning person out of anyone. There are few breakfasts that feel as indulgent, but it couldn't be easier to make!\n\nIn some parts of the world, French toast is called \"eggy toast,\" \"Bombay toast,\" \"gypsy toast\" and \"poor nights of Windsor.\" In France, it is actually called \"pain perdu,\" which means \"lost bread,\" as the bread is dunked into an eggy custard to soak for a while. Besides, the name French toast probably has nothing to do with France -– the most reasonable story is that a man named Joseph French invented it.\n\nWhatever you call it, it's a fan favorite.\n\n## For best results, choose an eggy bread\n\nChallah is far and away my favorite bread to use for making French toast. The bread is made with eggs, so it is richer than plain white loaves, and the middle becomes almost custardy in texture when it is soaked in a milk and egg mixture and griddled up on a pan.\n\nBrioche is another egg-based bread that is a great choice. And you can definitely use a plain Pullman loaf, a firm white bread, if you like – just make sure your slices are nice and thick.\n\nUse bread that is a bit on the dry side, meaning it needs to be a few days old. When I have a fresh challah, I simply slice it 3/4-inch thick and leave the slices on the counter for about 24 hours to dry out a bit. Flip them sometime in the middle of the day so both sides have a chance to air dry. Or put them on a wire rack, and then you can just let them dry without having to flip them.\n\nAnd it should be said that French toast leftovers heat up nicely in the microwave, so make a few extra pieces for later in the week.\n\n## Tips for making perfect French toast:\n\n— Mix the custard batter thoroughly so you don't get patches of just egg or milk.\n\n— Use two skillets to make the cooking go faster, especially if you are making it for a crowd.\n\n— Your bread slices should be around ¾-inch thick, and no more than 1-inch thick. Thinner slices might get too soggy in the custard dip and fall apart. Thicker slices are hard to cook through properly.\n\n— Soak the bread for just long enough: too long and it will get soggy and disintegrate, too short and the milk and egg mixture won't penetrate to the center of the bread, offering that custardy texture in the middle.\n\n— Use moderate heat: too high and the bread will burn on the outside, too low and it won't get that nicely browned crusty exterior.\n\n— Preheat the pan. Again, this will allow for the nice browned exterior.\n\n— Use a heavy skillet if possible, which holds heat more evenly. Cast iron is perfect, regular or enameled.\n\nThe recipe:\n\n## Challah French Toast\n\nServes 6\n\n## Ingredients:\n\n3 large eggs\n\n1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract\n\n½ to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)\n\n3 tablespoons sugar\n\n½ teaspoon kosher salt\n\n2 cups milk (I prefer whole)\n\n1 loaf slightly stale challah, sliced ¾ inch thick\n\nAbout 4 tablespoons butter for cooking, divided\n\nFor serving (pick and choose, or combine)\n\nMaple syrup\n\nConfectioners' sugar\n\nBerries or chopped soft fruit, like ripe peaches or nectarines\n\n## Directions:\n\nUse a whisk or a fork to beat the eggs in a wide shallow bowl or baking pan. Beat in the vanilla, cinnamon (if using), sugar and salt. Add the milk and whisk to combine thoroughly.\n\nHeat a very large skillet over medium heat. While the skillet is heating up, place a piece of the challah in the milk mixture and let it sit for about 1 minute. Flip the bread and let soak for another minute. If your bread is very dry, it might need to soak for longer. Take it out when it is soaked through, but not mushy.\n\nWhen the skillet is quite hot, take the bread from the milk mixture, allow any excess to drip back into the bowl, and then melt a tablespoon of the butter in the pan, swirling it to coat the bottom. Place the dipped bread in the skillet, and repeat with more slices, fitting as many pieces in the pan as possible in a single layer. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side, then transfer the French toast to a serving plate or platter. Repeat with the remaining butter and dipped bread.\n\nServe the French toast hot with confectioners' sugar, maple syrup, berries or other fruit, and whatever other toppings you like.\n\nFrench toast also goes well with Strawberry Sauce, Fruit Salad and Crispy bacon.\n\n___\n\nKatie Workman writes regularly about food for The Associated Press. She has written two cookbooks focused on family-friendly cooking, \"Dinner Solved!\" and \"The Mom 100 Cookbook.\" She blogs at https://themom100.com/. She can be reached at [email protected].\n\n___\n\nFor more AP food stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/recipes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# How to make Mom some Challah French toast for Mother's Day\n\nBy Katie Workman \nMay 7th, 2025, 12:15 PM\n\n---\n\nCooking for your mom on Mother's Day is probably the Best Gift Ever for a lot of moms. Sure, we're delighted to get flowers, or a lovely box of chocolate, or a new power drill, but what we really want is to be taken care of for one single, blessed day. Just kidding, we know you love us. Now cook something to prove it.\n\nA chill brunchy breakfast is a great way to go. And, by the way, it doesn't have to be in bed. In fact, having balanced a toddler, a mug of hot coffee and a plate of eggs on my lap while lying in bed in years past, I can say that's challenging, even when charming.\n\nThe smell of French toast cooking up on the stove should make a morning person out of anyone. There are few breakfasts that feel as indulgent, but it couldn't be easier to make!\n\nIn some parts of the world, French toast is called \"eggy toast,\" \"Bombay toast,\" \"gypsy toast\" and \"poor nights of Windsor.\" In France, it is actually called \"pain perdu,\" which means \"lost bread,\" as the bread is dunked into an eggy custard to soak for a while. Besides, the name French toast probably has nothing to do with France -– the most reasonable story is that a man named Joseph French invented it.\n\nWhatever you call it, it's a fan favorite.\n\n## For best results, choose an eggy bread\n\nChallah is far and away my favorite bread to use for making French toast. The bread is made with eggs, so it is richer than plain white loaves, and the middle becomes almost custardy in texture when it is soaked in a milk and egg mixture and griddled up on a pan.\n\nBrioche is another egg-based bread that is a great choice. And you can definitely use a plain Pullman loaf, a firm white bread, if you like – just make sure your slices are nice and thick.\n\nUse bread that is a bit on the dry side, meaning it needs to be a few days old. When I have a fresh challah, I simply slice it 3/4-inch thick and leave the slices on the counter for about 24 hours to dry out a bit. Flip them sometime in the middle of the day so both sides have a chance to air dry. Or put them on a wire rack, and then you can just let them dry without having to flip them.\n\nAnd it should be said that French toast leftovers heat up nicely in the microwave, so make a few extra pieces for later in the week.\n\n## Tips for making perfect French toast:\n\n— Mix the custard batter thoroughly so you don't get patches of just egg or milk.\n\n— Use two skillets to make the cooking go faster, especially if you are making it for a crowd.\n\n— Your bread slices should be around ¾-inch thick, and no more than 1-inch thick. Thinner slices might get too soggy in the custard dip and fall apart. Thicker slices are hard to cook through properly.\n\n— Soak the bread for just long enough: too long and it will get soggy and disintegrate, too short and the milk and egg mixture won't penetrate to the center of the bread, offering that custardy texture in the middle.\n\n— Use moderate heat: too high and the bread will burn on the outside, too low and it won't get that nicely browned crusty exterior.\n\n— Preheat the pan. Again, this will allow for the nice browned exterior.\n\n— Use a heavy skillet if possible, which holds heat more evenly. Cast iron is perfect, regular or enameled.\n\nThe recipe:\n\n## Challah French Toast\n\nServes 6\n\n## Ingredients:\n\n3 large eggs\n\n1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract\n\n½ to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)\n\n3 tablespoons sugar\n\n½ teaspoon kosher salt\n\n2 cups milk (I prefer whole)\n\n1 loaf slightly stale challah, sliced ¾ inch thick\n\nAbout 4 tablespoons butter for cooking, divided\n\nFor serving (pick and choose, or combine)\n\nMaple syrup\n\nConfectioners' sugar\n\nBerries or chopped soft fruit, like ripe peaches or nectarines\n\n## Directions:\n\nUse a whisk or a fork to beat the eggs in a wide shallow bowl or baking pan. Beat in the vanilla, cinnamon (if using), sugar and salt. Add the milk and whisk to combine thoroughly.\n\nHeat a very large skillet over medium heat. While the skillet is heating up, place a piece of the challah in the milk mixture and let it sit for about 1 minute. Flip the bread and let soak for another minute. If your bread is very dry, it might need to soak for longer. Take it out when it is soaked through, but not mushy.\n\nWhen the skillet is quite hot, take the bread from the milk mixture, allow any excess to drip back into the bowl, and then melt a tablespoon of the butter in the pan, swirling it to coat the bottom. Place the dipped bread in the skillet, and repeat with more slices, fitting as many pieces in the pan as possible in a single layer. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side, then transfer the French toast to a serving plate or platter. Repeat with the remaining butter and dipped bread.\n\nServe the French toast hot with confectioners' sugar, maple syrup, berries or other fruit, and whatever other toppings you like.\n\nFrench toast also goes well with Strawberry Sauce, Fruit Salad and Crispy bacon." } ]
0d2dc56f0c0f26f76087621909a36f3714584dc736b3859ac6c2b877179ad3e6	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Literary world gathers for PEN America dinner-gala hosted by Amber Ruffin\n\nBy Hillel Italie \nMay 15th, 2025, 05:51 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — Amber Ruffin looked out upon hundreds of writers, publishers and editors gathered for PEN America's annual gala and shared her experience of being on the receiving end of censorship.\n\n\"I'm officially a banned book,\" the comic-writer joked, referring to her being dropped as a speaker at April's White House Correspondents Dinner. \"They booked me and then they banned me.\"\n\nThursday night's event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City was a protest against the suppression of speech and a celebration of being permitted to say what you pleased.\n\nRuffin presided over a dinner-fundraiser that included a tribute to actor-publisher-bibliophile Sarah Jessica Parker, imprisoned Egyptian poet-songwriter-activist Galal El-Behairy, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth and Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged.\n\nOne of the biggest ovations was for a non-speaker, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who during a White House meeting in February challenged President Donald Trump over her support for transgender athletes, When Trump suspended funds for a Maine child nutrition program, Mills sued in federal court and prevailed.\n\nPEN America, the century-old free speech organization, brought in Ruffin to host soon after the WHCA withdrew its invitation, contending it wanted to focus on the achievements of journalism. Ruffin is a blunt and sometimes profane critic of Trump and duly went after him Thursday, calling him \"gross,\" \"incompetent,\" \"racist\" and \"sexually deviant.\" She also praised PEN for the chance to speak out.\n\n\"Thank you to PEN America for asking me to host and more importantly, thank you, PEN America, for Googling me at least once before asking me to host,\" she said. \"I'm looking at you, White House Correspondents Association.\"\n\nParker was presented the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, given in previous years to Patti Smith, Robert Caro and Stephen Sondheim among others.\n\nParker has been a longtime champion of books and literacy and runs the publishing imprint SJP Lit, where authors include Lucy Caldwell, Linda Grant and Elysha Chang. At the Sundance Film Festival in January, she premiered a documentary film for which she served as executive producer, \"The Librarians,\" about the fight against book bans.\n\n\"To censor a book is to limit imagination, curiosity, connection, empathy and inspiration,\" Parker said during her acceptance speech. \"Libraries aren't just buildings with shelves. They are a beacon. They are warm in the winter and cool in summer, and they are sanctuaries of possibility. They are a heartbeat of the neighborhood.\"\n\nEl-Behairy, who has been imprisoned off and on since 2018 on charges of terrorism and \"spreading false news,\" won the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, given to dissidents who have been jailed. The prize was accepted by his sister, Naiera, and father, Abdelfattah, who noted his son \"paid the price for his opposition with the best years of his life wasted in prison.\"\n\nTaye Diggs presented the Business Visionary award to Yaged and joked that he liked the Macmillan executive because he didn't publish his children's books just because Diggs was an extremely handsome and successful Black actor.\n\nWesleyan President Michael S. Roth, a leading critic of Trump's threats to cancel research funding at Columbia University and other schools, won the PEN/Benenson Courage Award. During a speech that was loudly cheered, he remembered a happy, outspoken and admittedly privileged childhood during which threats to democracy were rarely considered.\n\n\"We are going to have to draw on love and support if we are to resist the slide towards authoritarianism that has gathered momentum across the land,\" Roth said.\n\nPEN is still recovering from a tumultuous 2024. Allegations that leadership was reluctant to criticize Israel's invasion of Gaza and slow to respond to the suffering of Palestinians, including Palestinian writers and journalists, led to so many writers withdrawing from PEN's spring awards ceremony and World Voices festival that both were canceled. PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel departed at the end of the year and a permanent replacement has not yet been announced.\n\nThe awards night and World Voices returned this month, although with reminders of the ongoing war in Gaza. Several prize nominees withdrew from competition, including two of the five finalists for the $75,000 Jean Stein Book Award for a work of \"originality, merit, and impact.\" The daughters of Stein, the late author, editor and philanthropist, decided the prize money would be donated to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and to Palestine Legal, a U.S.-based defense organization." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Literary world gathers for PEN America dinner-gala hosted by Amber Ruffin\n\nBy Hillel Italie \nMay 15th, 2025, 05:51 PM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — Amber Ruffin looked out upon hundreds of writers, publishers and editors gathered for PEN America's annual gala and shared her experience of being on the receiving end of censorship.\n\n\"I'm officially a banned book,\" the comic-writer joked, referring to her being dropped as a speaker at April's White House Correspondents Dinner. \"They booked me and then they banned me.\"\n\nThursday night's event at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City was a protest against the suppression of speech and a celebration of being permitted to say what you pleased.\n\nRuffin presided over a dinner-fundraiser that included a tribute to actor-publisher-bibliophile Sarah Jessica Parker, imprisoned Egyptian poet-songwriter-activist Galal El-Behairy, Wesleyan University President Michael Roth and Macmillan CEO Jon Yaged.\n\nOne of the biggest ovations was for a non-speaker, Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who during a White House meeting in February challenged President Donald Trump over her support for transgender athletes, When Trump suspended funds for a Maine child nutrition program, Mills sued in federal court and prevailed.\n\nPEN America, the century-old free speech organization, brought in Ruffin to host soon after the WHCA withdrew its invitation, contending it wanted to focus on the achievements of journalism. Ruffin is a blunt and sometimes profane critic of Trump and duly went after him Thursday, calling him \"gross,\" \"incompetent,\" \"racist\" and \"sexually deviant.\" She also praised PEN for the chance to speak out.\n\n\"Thank you to PEN America for asking me to host and more importantly, thank you, PEN America, for Googling me at least once before asking me to host,\" she said. \"I'm looking at you, White House Correspondents Association.\"\n\nParker was presented the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, given in previous years to Patti Smith, Robert Caro and Stephen Sondheim among others.\n\nParker has been a longtime champion of books and literacy and runs the publishing imprint SJP Lit, where authors include Lucy Caldwell, Linda Grant and Elysha Chang. At the Sundance Film Festival in January, she premiered a documentary film for which she served as executive producer, \"The Librarians,\" about the fight against book bans.\n\n\"To censor a book is to limit imagination, curiosity, connection, empathy and inspiration,\" Parker said during her acceptance speech. \"Libraries aren't just buildings with shelves. They are a beacon. They are warm in the winter and cool in summer, and they are sanctuaries of possibility. They are a heartbeat of the neighborhood.\"\n\nEl-Behairy, who has been imprisoned off and on since 2018 on charges of terrorism and \"spreading false news,\" won the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, given to dissidents who have been jailed. The prize was accepted by his sister, Naiera, and father, Abdelfattah, who noted his son \"paid the price for his opposition with the best years of his life wasted in prison.\"\n\nTaye Diggs presented the Business Visionary award to Yaged and joked that he liked the Macmillan executive because he didn't publish his children's books just because Diggs was an extremely handsome and successful Black actor.\n\nWesleyan President Michael S. Roth, a leading critic of Trump's threats to cancel research funding at Columbia University and other schools, won the PEN/Benenson Courage Award. During a speech that was loudly cheered, he remembered a happy, outspoken and admittedly privileged childhood during which threats to democracy were rarely considered.\n\n\"We are going to have to draw on love and support if we are to resist the slide towards authoritarianism that has gathered momentum across the land,\" Roth said.\n\nPEN is still recovering from a tumultuous 2024. Allegations that leadership was reluctant to criticize Israel's invasion of Gaza and slow to respond to the suffering of Palestinians, including Palestinian writers and journalists, led to so many writers withdrawing from PEN's spring awards ceremony and World Voices festival that both were canceled. PEN CEO Suzanne Nossel departed at the end of the year and a permanent replacement has not yet been announced.\n\nThe awards night and World Voices returned this month, although with reminders of the ongoing war in Gaza. Several prize nominees withdrew from competition, including two of the five finalists for the $75,000 Jean Stein Book Award for a work of \"originality, merit, and impact.\" The daughters of Stein, the late author, editor and philanthropist, decided the prize money would be donated to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and to Palestine Legal, a U.S.-based defense organization." } ]
71ac2b6dfad2f43ec68565404740d8233dc31804dce674f799aa6d6cdc16ec8a	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# One Tech Tip: Skype shut down for good, but users still have these alternatives\n\nBy Kelvin Chan \nMay 6th, 2025, 03:06 PM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — Skype is dead. What now?\n\nMicrosoft's shutdown of Skype on May 5 sent millions of users scrambling to find an alternative to the pioneering internet phone service.\n\nSkype, which Microsoft bought in 2011, was beloved by a dwindling group of users who appreciated how it let them make cheap long-distance calls as well as communicate with other users through chat messages, voice or video calls.\n\nSome liked its simplicity and ease of use — an advantage, for example, when setting up a communications app for an elderly parent living far away.\n\nOr they just used it out of habit.\n\nSkype was founded in 2003 and was among the first in a wave of communication services that used voice over internet protocol technology (VoIP), which converts audio into a digital signal.\n\nSkype's disappearance also inconveniences Americans and other expatriates living overseas who signed up because they needed an U.S.-based number to receive text authentication codes from, say, a bank back home. It was also handy for calling 800 numbers for free even if you weren't living in North America.\n\nHere is a guide for life after Skype:\n\n## What's happening\n\nMicrosoft announced in late February that it was shutting down Skype on May 5 and shifting some of its services to Microsoft Teams, its flagship office videoconferencing and group collaboration platform.\n\nSkype users can use their existing accounts to log into Teams and have the option to automatically migrate their contacts and chats.\n\nIf you had a Skype number or a calling subscription, it stopped automatically renewing on April 3.\n\nIf your account still has credit, you can access Skype's dial pad from the web portal or Teams to make calls.\n\nSkype numbers won't immediately expire on May 5 so you'll still be able to receive calls until your subscription expires. But you'll have to use Teams or keep the Skype dial pad open on the web portal to receive them.\n\n## Porting your number(s)\n\nIf your Skype number hasn't expired and you don't want to lose it, you should transfer it to another provider.\n\nSkype numbers can be ported to a phone carrier or any number of other VoIP services. But you'll have to start the process through the new provider, not Skype.\n\n## Google Voice\n\nGoogle users can access the online search giant's internet phone service to make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser. You can get your own Google Voice phone number and use features like call forwarding and voicemail. Or you can port your number from another service like Skype, but it will cost $20.\n\nCalls to U.S., Canadian or Puerto Rican numbers are free. Rates for other countries vary.\n\nThe free version of Google Voice is only available to U.S. residents physically located in the 48 contiguous states, so that means expatriate Americans can only use it if they registered before they moved overseas.\n\n\"You cannot sign up for a Google Voice number while outside the USA,\" according to a help page. \"Do not try to circumvent this by using a VPN.\"\n\n## Viber\n\nOwned by Japan's Rakuten, Viber was long considered one of the closest competitors to Skype. One key difference is that Skype users don't need a phone number and are identified by their usernames, while Viber users need a number to register for service.\n\nSimilar to Skype, Viber users can buy credit or packages to call phone numbers around the world but it's no longer possible to get a Viber number to receive calls.\n\n## Zoom\n\nThe videoconferencing service that's become a byword for online company meetings offers a calling service, Zoom Phone, and features like number porting and the ability to send and receive SMS text messages.\n\nTake note that Zoom Phone isn't free. There are various calling plans that involve a monthly subscription cost and extra fees for international calls.\n\n## Teams\n\nMicrosoft users have the option of making calls on Teams, dubbed Teams Phone. Like Zoom Phone, you'll need to buy a subscription and pay extra for international calls.\n\nBut it's not an option for regular people because Microsoft says Teams Phone isn't for consumer use and is only available to small and medium-sized businesses.\n\n## Wireless Carriers\n\nIf you absolutely need a U.S. number but live overseas, sign up for service with a low-cost virtual wireless carrier that offers cheap cellphone plans or pay-as-you-go rates.\n\nOne provider, Tello, offers monthly plans for as little as $5 and says users can activate its service even if they're living outside the U.S.\n\nBecause mobile virtual network operators like Tello are essentially wireless phone companies that piggyback off a bigger carrier's physical network, you can't use it to make calls on a computer or an app.\n\n## VoIP it\n\nThere are a slew of Skype pretenders offering phone calls over the internet, such as Zoiper, VoIP.ms, CallCentric, Mytello, and Virtual Landline. Many are aimed at business users.\n\nSome are capitalizing on Skype's disappearance. Hushed, which started as an anonymous calling app, bills itself as a Skype alternative. Users can buy a phone number from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom or Puerto Rico or port their own number.\n\nIt warns that some of its numbers aren't guaranteed to work with third-party verification text messages.\n\n\"We do not intentionally block anyone from receiving these codes, but it's common that some services will prevent verification texts from being sent to certain phone numbers due to their own security policies,\" Hushed says on its website.\n\n## Park your number\n\nMaybe you can't decide which calling service you want to switch to. If you want to save your current number, there are services to just park your number like NumberBarn.com and Parkmyphone.com.\n\nThey let you store a phone number for a monthly fee while relaying any text messages sent to that number. You can port the number to another service whenever you want.\n\nBeware, you can only port in U.S. or Canadian phone numbers.\n\n## eSIMs\n\nWhat about an international eSIM? They're the virtual version of the mobile phone SIM card that you can buy and add to your phone when you're on a trip to save on roaming fees.\n\nThey offer cheap data access rates so you can use the internet without worrying about racking up a huge bill when you get home.\n\nUnfortunately, you can't port a Skype number to an international eSIM because of \"the fundamental differences\" between VoIP services and traditional mobile networks, said Pedro Maiquez, co-founder of eSIM provider Holafly. \"Skype numbers are not tied to a mobile carrier's physical infrastructure, making them incompatible with mobile eSIM solutions.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# One Tech Tip: Skype shut down for good, but users still have these alternatives\n\nBy Kelvin Chan \nMay 6th, 2025, 03:06 PM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — Skype is dead. What now?\n\nMicrosoft's shutdown of Skype on May 5 sent millions of users scrambling to find an alternative to the pioneering internet phone service.\n\nSkype, which Microsoft bought in 2011, was beloved by a dwindling group of users who appreciated how it let them make cheap long-distance calls as well as communicate with other users through chat messages, voice or video calls.\n\nSome liked its simplicity and ease of use — an advantage, for example, when setting up a communications app for an elderly parent living far away.\n\nOr they just used it out of habit.\n\nSkype was founded in 2003 and was among the first in a wave of communication services that used voice over internet protocol technology (VoIP), which converts audio into a digital signal.\n\nSkype's disappearance also inconveniences Americans and other expatriates living overseas who signed up because they needed an U.S.-based number to receive text authentication codes from, say, a bank back home. It was also handy for calling 800 numbers for free even if you weren't living in North America.\n\nHere is a guide for life after Skype:\n\n## What's happening\n\nMicrosoft announced in late February that it was shutting down Skype on May 5 and shifting some of its services to Microsoft Teams, its flagship office videoconferencing and group collaboration platform.\n\nSkype users can use their existing accounts to log into Teams and have the option to automatically migrate their contacts and chats.\n\nIf you had a Skype number or a calling subscription, it stopped automatically renewing on April 3.\n\nIf your account still has credit, you can access Skype's dial pad from the web portal or Teams to make calls.\n\nSkype numbers won't immediately expire on May 5 so you'll still be able to receive calls until your subscription expires. But you'll have to use Teams or keep the Skype dial pad open on the web portal to receive them.\n\n## Porting your number(s)\n\nIf your Skype number hasn't expired and you don't want to lose it, you should transfer it to another provider.\n\nSkype numbers can be ported to a phone carrier or any number of other VoIP services. But you'll have to start the process through the new provider, not Skype.\n\n## Google Voice\n\nGoogle users can access the online search giant's internet phone service to make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser. You can get your own Google Voice phone number and use features like call forwarding and voicemail. Or you can port your number from another service like Skype, but it will cost $20.\n\nCalls to U.S., Canadian or Puerto Rican numbers are free. Rates for other countries vary.\n\nThe free version of Google Voice is only available to U.S. residents physically located in the 48 contiguous states, so that means expatriate Americans can only use it if they registered before they moved overseas.\n\n\"You cannot sign up for a Google Voice number while outside the USA,\" according to a help page. \"Do not try to circumvent this by using a VPN.\"\n\n## Viber\n\nOwned by Japan's Rakuten, Viber was long considered one of the closest competitors to Skype. One key difference is that Skype users don't need a phone number and are identified by their usernames, while Viber users need a number to register for service.\n\nSimilar to Skype, Viber users can buy credit or packages to call phone numbers around the world but it's no longer possible to get a Viber number to receive calls.\n\n## Zoom\n\nThe videoconferencing service that's become a byword for online company meetings offers a calling service, Zoom Phone, and features like number porting and the ability to send and receive SMS text messages.\n\nTake note that Zoom Phone isn't free. There are various calling plans that involve a monthly subscription cost and extra fees for international calls.\n\n## Teams\n\nMicrosoft users have the option of making calls on Teams, dubbed Teams Phone. Like Zoom Phone, you'll need to buy a subscription and pay extra for international calls.\n\nBut it's not an option for regular people because Microsoft says Teams Phone isn't for consumer use and is only available to small and medium-sized businesses.\n\n## Wireless Carriers\n\nIf you absolutely need a U.S. number but live overseas, sign up for service with a low-cost virtual wireless carrier that offers cheap cellphone plans or pay-as-you-go rates.\n\nOne provider, Tello, offers monthly plans for as little as $5 and says users can activate its service even if they're living outside the U.S.\n\nBecause mobile virtual network operators like Tello are essentially wireless phone companies that piggyback off a bigger carrier's physical network, you can't use it to make calls on a computer or an app.\n\n## VoIP it\n\nThere are a slew of Skype pretenders offering phone calls over the internet, such as Zoiper, VoIP.ms, CallCentric, Mytello, and Virtual Landline. Many are aimed at business users.\n\nSome are capitalizing on Skype's disappearance. Hushed, which started as an anonymous calling app, bills itself as a Skype alternative. Users can buy a phone number from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom or Puerto Rico or port their own number.\n\nIt warns that some of its numbers aren't guaranteed to work with third-party verification text messages.\n\n\"We do not intentionally block anyone from receiving these codes, but it's common that some services will prevent verification texts from being sent to certain phone numbers due to their own security policies,\" Hushed says on its website.\n\n## Park your number\n\nMaybe you can't decide which calling service you want to switch to. If you want to save your current number, there are services to just park your number like NumberBarn.com and Parkmyphone.com.\n\nThey let you store a phone number for a monthly fee while relaying any text messages sent to that number. You can port the number to another service whenever you want.\n\nBeware, you can only port in U.S. or Canadian phone numbers.\n\n## eSIMs\n\nWhat about an international eSIM? They're the virtual version of the mobile phone SIM card that you can buy and add to your phone when you're on a trip to save on roaming fees.\n\nThey offer cheap data access rates so you can use the internet without worrying about racking up a huge bill when you get home.\n\nUnfortunately, you can't port a Skype number to an international eSIM because of \"the fundamental differences\" between VoIP services and traditional mobile networks, said Pedro Maiquez, co-founder of eSIM provider Holafly. \"Skype numbers are not tied to a mobile carrier's physical infrastructure, making them incompatible with mobile eSIM solutions.\"" } ]
3e9c5d6c0a368632abd6f78f1d8e902bdca863f71d45ed5b1fe73d0a7504d4a1	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans under 18th-century wartime law\n\nBy Nicholas Riccardi \nMay 1st, 2025, 04:13 PM\n\n---\n\nA federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump's invocation of it was \"unlawful.\"\n\nU.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is the first judge to rule that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who, the Republican administration claims, are gang members invading the United States. Rodriguez said he wouldn't interfere with the government's right to deport people in the country illegally through other means, but it could not rely on the 227-year-old law to do so.\n\n\"Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States,\" wrote Rodriguez, who was nominated by Trump in 2018. But, the judge said, \"the President's invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute's terms.\"\n\nIn March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S. He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings.\n\n\"The Court concludes that the President's invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,\" Rodriguez wrote.\n\nIn an interview on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said the administration will be \"aggressively appealing\" the ruling and others that hem in the president's deportation power.\n\n\"The judge doesn't make that determination, whether the Alien Enemies Act can be deployed,\" Vance said. \"I think the president of the United States is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded.\"\n\nThe chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said in a statement the judge had made clear \"what we all knew to be true: The Trump administration illegally used the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process.\"\n\nThe Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in U.S. history, most recently during World War II, when it was cited to intern Japanese-Americans.\n\nThe proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the administration tried to ship migrants it claimed were gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.\n\nRodriguez's ruling is significant because it is the first formal permanent injunction against the administration using the AEA and contends the president is misusing the law. \"Congress never meant for this law to be used in this manner,\" said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, in response to the ruling.\n\nRodriguez agreed, noting that the provision has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of 1812. Trump claimed Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities the administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or \"predatory incursion,\" as the statute requires.\n\n\"The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized, armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation,\" Rodriguez wrote. \"Thus, the Proclamation's language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of 'invasion' for purposes of the AEA.\"\n\nIf the administration appeals, it would go first to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is among the nation's most conservative appeals courts and it also has ruled against what it saw as overreach on immigration matters by both the Obama and Biden administrations. In those cases, Democratic administrations had sought to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the U.S.\n\nThe administration, as it has in other cases challenging its expansive view of presidential power, could turn to appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in the form of an emergency motion for a stay pending an appeal.\n\nThe Supreme Court already has weighed in once on the issue of deportations under the AEA. The justices held that migrants alleged to be gang members must be given \"reasonable time\" to contest their removal from the country. The court has not specified the length of time.\n\nIt's possible that the losing side in the 5th Circuit would file an emergency appeal with the justices that also would ask them to short-circuit lower court action in favor of a definitive ruling from the nation's highest court. Such a decision likely would be months away, at least.\n\nThe Texas case is just one piece of a tangle of litigation sparked by Trump's proclamation.\n\nThe ACLU initially filed suit in the nation's capital to block deportations. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued a temporary hold on removals and ordered the administration turn around planes that had left with detainees headed to El Salvador, a directive that was apparently ignored. Later, the Supreme Court weighed in.\n\nThe justices stepped in again late last month with an unusual postmidnight order halting deportations from North Texas, where the ACLU contended the administration was preparing for another round of flights to El Salvador.\n\n___\n\nRiccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Mark Sherman contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Judge bars deportations of Venezuelans under 18th-century wartime law\n\nBy Nicholas Riccardi \nMay 1st, 2025, 04:13 PM\n\n---\n\nA federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans from South Texas under an 18th-century wartime law and said President Donald Trump's invocation of it was \"unlawful.\"\n\nU.S. District Court Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. is the first judge to rule that the Alien Enemies Act cannot be used against people who, the Republican administration claims, are gang members invading the United States. Rodriguez said he wouldn't interfere with the government's right to deport people in the country illegally through other means, but it could not rely on the 227-year-old law to do so.\n\n\"Neither the Court nor the parties question that the Executive Branch can direct the detention and removal of aliens who engage in criminal activity in the United States,\" wrote Rodriguez, who was nominated by Trump in 2018. But, the judge said, \"the President's invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute's terms.\"\n\nIn March, Trump issued a proclamation claiming that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S. He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings.\n\n\"The Court concludes that the President's invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation exceeds the scope of the statute and, as a result, is unlawful,\" Rodriguez wrote.\n\nIn an interview on Fox News, Vice President JD Vance said the administration will be \"aggressively appealing\" the ruling and others that hem in the president's deportation power.\n\n\"The judge doesn't make that determination, whether the Alien Enemies Act can be deployed,\" Vance said. \"I think the president of the United States is the one who determines whether this country is being invaded.\"\n\nThe chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said in a statement the judge had made clear \"what we all knew to be true: The Trump administration illegally used the Alien Enemies Act to deport people without due process.\"\n\nThe Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before in U.S. history, most recently during World War II, when it was cited to intern Japanese-Americans.\n\nThe proclamation triggered a flurry of litigation as the administration tried to ship migrants it claimed were gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.\n\nRodriguez's ruling is significant because it is the first formal permanent injunction against the administration using the AEA and contends the president is misusing the law. \"Congress never meant for this law to be used in this manner,\" said Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who argued the case, in response to the ruling.\n\nRodriguez agreed, noting that the provision has only been used during the two World Wars and the War of 1812. Trump claimed Tren de Aragua was acting at the behest of the Venezuelan government, but Rodriguez found that the activities the administration accused it of did not amount to an invasion or \"predatory incursion,\" as the statute requires.\n\n\"The Proclamation makes no reference to and in no manner suggests that a threat exists of an organized, armed group of individuals entering the United States at the direction of Venezuela to conquer the country or assume control over a portion of the nation,\" Rodriguez wrote. \"Thus, the Proclamation's language cannot be read as describing conduct that falls within the meaning of 'invasion' for purposes of the AEA.\"\n\nIf the administration appeals, it would go first to the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is among the nation's most conservative appeals courts and it also has ruled against what it saw as overreach on immigration matters by both the Obama and Biden administrations. In those cases, Democratic administrations had sought to make it easier for immigrants to remain in the U.S.\n\nThe administration, as it has in other cases challenging its expansive view of presidential power, could turn to appellate courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, in the form of an emergency motion for a stay pending an appeal.\n\nThe Supreme Court already has weighed in once on the issue of deportations under the AEA. The justices held that migrants alleged to be gang members must be given \"reasonable time\" to contest their removal from the country. The court has not specified the length of time.\n\nIt's possible that the losing side in the 5th Circuit would file an emergency appeal with the justices that also would ask them to short-circuit lower court action in favor of a definitive ruling from the nation's highest court. Such a decision likely would be months away, at least.\n\nThe Texas case is just one piece of a tangle of litigation sparked by Trump's proclamation.\n\nThe ACLU initially filed suit in the nation's capital to block deportations. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued a temporary hold on removals and ordered the administration turn around planes that had left with detainees headed to El Salvador, a directive that was apparently ignored. Later, the Supreme Court weighed in.\n\nThe justices stepped in again late last month with an unusual postmidnight order halting deportations from North Texas, where the ACLU contended the administration was preparing for another round of flights to El Salvador." } ]
2c438a317e46030ac229a8149517482c2fec1dcc1ab82b255908d769cb7e568d	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# South Korea's acting leader Han resigns amid reports he will run for president\n\nBy Hyung-Jin Kim \nMay 1st, 2025, 07:20 AM\n\n---\n\nSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's acting leader, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, said Thursday he is resigning to take on \"heavier responsibility\" as expectation mounted he will run in next month's presidential election.\n\nHan has emerged as a potential conservative standard bearer as the main conservative People Power Party remains in disarray over the recent ouster of President Yoon Suk Yeol. Observers expect Han to officially launch his presidential campaign on Friday.\n\n\"I have two paths ahead of me. One is completing the heavy responsibility that I handle now. The other is putting down that responsibility and taking a heavier responsibility,\" Han said in a nationally televised announcement. \"I've finally determined to put down my post to do what I can and what I have to help overcome the crises facing us.\"\n\nHan, who Yoon had appointed prime minister, the country's No. 2 post, is expected to align with the People Power Party to launch a unified conservative campaign against liberal front-runner Lee Jae-myung, observers say.\n\n## Who is Han?\n\nHan, 75, is a career bureaucrat with about 40 years of public service and a Harvard doctorate in economics. He has held many top posts under both conservative and liberal governments, including trade minister, finance minister and ambassador to the U.S. He's served as prime minister twice, first under liberal President Roh Moo-hyun from 2007 to 2008 and later under Yoon.\n\nHan's supporters say his extensive government experience, especially on economic affairs, would make him the right leader who can deal with President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff policies and other economic problems. But his critics say Han — who has never had an elected post — has no strong political support base and is too old to become president.\n\nLee's main liberal opposition Democratic Party lambasted Han's move. \"Only the people's severe punishment awaits Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is blind with greed and abandons state affairs,\" party spokesperson Cho Seung-rae said.\n\nHan is to formally end his term at midnight after he signs a related document, according to South Korean media.\n\nWith Han's resignation, Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok was supposed to serve as acting leader until a new president is elected on June 3. But Choi resigned Thursday night, after the Democratic Party, which has a majority status at the single-chamber National Assembly, abruptly pushed to pass his impeachment motion. Another Deputy Prime Minister Lee Ju-Ho is next in line to become acting leader.\n\n## Lee's legal troubles\n\nLee Jae-myung, who won the nomination of the Democratic Party on Sunday, has been favored to win. But his campaign suffered a blow Thursday after the Supreme Court ordered a lower court to review its earlier cancellation of his conviction over election law violation charges.\n\nWhile it's unclear the Seoul High Court will come up with a new ruling on Lee before the June 3 election, the development provided his conservative rivals with fodder for a political offensive. Under South Korean law, anyone who receives a fine exceeding 1 million won ($683) for election law violations is barred from running for elections for five years.\n\nThe Democratic Party condemned the Supreme Court for allegedly trying to interfere in the election.\n\nAfter the liberal opposition-controlled assembly impeached Yoon on Dec. 14 over his martial law declaration that plunged the country into turmoil, Han began serving as acting leader.\n\nBut Han quickly clashed with Lee's Democratic Party over his refusal to fill three vacant seats on the nine-member Constitutional Court, which was deliberating whether to formally dismiss or reinstate Yoon. A court decision to dismiss Yoon needed support from at least six justices.\n\nIn late December, the Democratic Party and other small opposition parties voted to impeach Han, accusing him of obstructing the restoration of the court's full membership and abetting Yoon's martial law decree. In March, however, the Constitutional Court overturned Han's impeachment, reinstating him as acting president. The court in early April ruled to dismiss Yoon.\n\nYoon separately faces a criminal trial for rebellion in connection with his martial law decree. On Thursday, prosecutors added charges of abuse of power, according to a Seoul prosecutors' office." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# South Korea's acting leader Han resigns amid reports he will run for president\n\nBy Hyung-Jin Kim \nMay 1st, 2025, 07:20 AM\n\n---\n\nSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's acting leader, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, said Thursday he is resigning to take on \"heavier responsibility\" as expectation mounted he will run in next month's presidential election.\n\nHan has emerged as a potential conservative standard bearer as the main conservative People Power Party remains in disarray over the recent ouster of President Yoon Suk Yeol. Observers expect Han to officially launch his presidential campaign on Friday.\n\n\"I have two paths ahead of me. One is completing the heavy responsibility that I handle now. The other is putting down that responsibility and taking a heavier responsibility,\" Han said in a nationally televised announcement. \"I've finally determined to put down my post to do what I can and what I have to help overcome the crises facing us.\"\n\nHan, who Yoon had appointed prime minister, the country's No. 2 post, is expected to align with the People Power Party to launch a unified conservative campaign against liberal front-runner Lee Jae-myung, observers say.\n\n## Who is Han?\n\nHan, 75, is a career bureaucrat with about 40 years of public service and a Harvard doctorate in economics. He has held many top posts under both conservative and liberal governments, including trade minister, finance minister and ambassador to the U.S. He's served as prime minister twice, first under liberal President Roh Moo-hyun from 2007 to 2008 and later under Yoon.\n\nHan's supporters say his extensive government experience, especially on economic affairs, would make him the right leader who can deal with President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff policies and other economic problems. But his critics say Han — who has never had an elected post — has no strong political support base and is too old to become president.\n\nLee's main liberal opposition Democratic Party lambasted Han's move. \"Only the people's severe punishment awaits Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who is blind with greed and abandons state affairs,\" party spokesperson Cho Seung-rae said.\n\nHan is to formally end his term at midnight after he signs a related document, according to South Korean media.\n\nWith Han's resignation, Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok was supposed to serve as acting leader until a new president is elected on June 3. But Choi resigned Thursday night, after the Democratic Party, which has a majority status at the single-chamber National Assembly, abruptly pushed to pass his impeachment motion. Another Deputy Prime Minister Lee Ju-Ho is next in line to become acting leader.\n\n## Lee's legal troubles\n\nLee Jae-myung, who won the nomination of the Democratic Party on Sunday, has been favored to win. But his campaign suffered a blow Thursday after the Supreme Court ordered a lower court to review its earlier cancellation of his conviction over election law violation charges.\n\nWhile it's unclear the Seoul High Court will come up with a new ruling on Lee before the June 3 election, the development provided his conservative rivals with fodder for a political offensive. Under South Korean law, anyone who receives a fine exceeding 1 million won ($683) for election law violations is barred from running for elections for five years.\n\nThe Democratic Party condemned the Supreme Court for allegedly trying to interfere in the election.\n\nAfter the liberal opposition-controlled assembly impeached Yoon on Dec. 14 over his martial law declaration that plunged the country into turmoil, Han began serving as acting leader.\n\nBut Han quickly clashed with Lee's Democratic Party over his refusal to fill three vacant seats on the nine-member Constitutional Court, which was deliberating whether to formally dismiss or reinstate Yoon. A court decision to dismiss Yoon needed support from at least six justices.\n\nIn late December, the Democratic Party and other small opposition parties voted to impeach Han, accusing him of obstructing the restoration of the court's full membership and abetting Yoon's martial law decree. In March, however, the Constitutional Court overturned Han's impeachment, reinstating him as acting president. The court in early April ruled to dismiss Yoon.\n\nYoon separately faces a criminal trial for rebellion in connection with his martial law decree. On Thursday, prosecutors added charges of abuse of power, according to a Seoul prosecutors' office." } ]
78e041ae4d2af7f25329df863aa05c6fe214006b735750a6eeeb2a9fee27f9e9	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# What to know about Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman\n\nBy Marc Levy \nMay 8th, 2025, 05:11 PM\n\n---\n\nHARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the lawmaker known for his unconventional and irreverent brand of politics, is in the news again after a blowup at a closed-door meeting with union allies and former staff aides who aired concerns about his mental health.\n\nFetterman's life and political career have been upended the past three years with medical scares, including a stroke he suffered on 2022's campaign trail and a six-week hospital stay to be treated for clinical depression in 2023.\n\nAs Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, the plainspoken Fetterman became a popular campaign surrogate for Democrats in the battleground state and a force in raising small-dollar campaign donations.\n\nFetterman's victory in 2022 's Senate race was cause for celebration for Democrats, flipping a seat that was key to the party holding the Senate majority.\n\nHe ran as a hero to progressives, with a platform ranging from the legalization of marijuana to strengthening union and LGBT rights. But as a senator, he has made a rightward shift on some issues, prompting some former supporters to disavow him.\n\n## Getting his start in a tiny former steel town\n\nLong before that, the Harvard-educated Fetterman, now 55, had made himself into a minor celebrity as the mayor of downtrodden former steel town Braddock, where he settled originally as an AmeriCorps alumni to set up a GED program.\n\nThere's his unusual looks: he's 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head, goatee and glower like a professional wrestler.\n\n\"I don't even look like a typical person,\" Fetterman once joked.\n\nThere's his home: a converted car dealership across the street from U.S. Steel's blast furnace.\n\nThere's his casual dress: as mayor he often wore short-sleeve work shirts and cargo shorts. (As senator, his style evolved to gym shorts and hoodies, causing a stir in the chamber.)\n\nThere was his bare-knuckled politics: In 2010, he was arrested in a protest over the closing of a hospital in Braddock. Later, he performed same-sex marriage ceremonies before it was legal.\n\nHis attention-getting efforts for reviving Braddock helped land profiles in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The New York Times and other news outlets. He appeared on Comedy Central's \"The Colbert Report.\"\n\nHe gave Ted Talks. He has three school-age children and has spoken at length about his wife, Gisele, whose legal status later lapsed after arriving in the U.S. from Brazil as a child.\n\n## Not always playing nice with other politicians\n\nFetterman has long been a wild card in the political realm, forging a career largely on his own, independently from the Democratic Party.\n\nHe endorsed the insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in 2016's presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed Democrat in Pennsylvania's 2016 Senate primary. He lost.\n\nAs lieutenant governor, Fetterman didn't always shown reverence for job expectations or requirements, skipping Senate voting sessions where he was supposed to preside or getting removed by Republican senators as the presiding officer in partisan disputes over floor rules.\n\nHe curses casually on his social media feeds and, in the 2022 Senate campaign, relentlessly trolled his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in ground-breaking ways.\n\nBut his time in the Senate has been tumultuous.\n\n## Hospitalized after joining the Senate\n\nFetterman checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center barely a month after he was sworn in to the Senate, amid staff concerns over his isolating and disengaged behavior.\n\nAt the time, he was still suffering from effects of the stroke that he said nearly killed him.\n\nFetterman returned to the Senate a much more outgoing lawmaker, frequently joking with his fellow senators and engaging with reporters in the hallways.\n\nHe has talked openly about his struggle with depression and urged people to get help.\n\n## Still a something of a loner\n\nTwo years later, Fetterman is still something of a loner in the Senate.\n\nHe has fallen out with progressives over his staunch support of Israel in its war in Gaza and drawn anger from rank-and-file Democrats for arguing that his party needs to work with, not against, Trump.\n\nIt nevertheless has brought some Fetterman plaudits.\n\nBill Maher, host of the political talk show \"Real Time with Bill Maher,\" urged Fetterman to run for president in 2028 while conservatives — who had long made Fetterman a target for his progressive politics — have sprung to Fetterman's defense.\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.\n\nFollow Marc Levy on X at https://x.com/timelywriter." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# What to know about Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman\n\nBy Marc Levy \nMay 8th, 2025, 05:11 PM\n\n---\n\nHARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the lawmaker known for his unconventional and irreverent brand of politics, is in the news again after a blowup at a closed-door meeting with union allies and former staff aides who aired concerns about his mental health.\n\nFetterman's life and political career have been upended the past three years with medical scares, including a stroke he suffered on 2022's campaign trail and a six-week hospital stay to be treated for clinical depression in 2023.\n\nAs Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, the plainspoken Fetterman became a popular campaign surrogate for Democrats in the battleground state and a force in raising small-dollar campaign donations.\n\nFetterman's victory in 2022 's Senate race was cause for celebration for Democrats, flipping a seat that was key to the party holding the Senate majority.\n\nHe ran as a hero to progressives, with a platform ranging from the legalization of marijuana to strengthening union and LGBT rights. But as a senator, he has made a rightward shift on some issues, prompting some former supporters to disavow him.\n\n## Getting his start in a tiny former steel town\n\nLong before that, the Harvard-educated Fetterman, now 55, had made himself into a minor celebrity as the mayor of downtrodden former steel town Braddock, where he settled originally as an AmeriCorps alumni to set up a GED program.\n\nThere's his unusual looks: he's 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head, goatee and glower like a professional wrestler.\n\n\"I don't even look like a typical person,\" Fetterman once joked.\n\nThere's his home: a converted car dealership across the street from U.S. Steel's blast furnace.\n\nThere's his casual dress: as mayor he often wore short-sleeve work shirts and cargo shorts. (As senator, his style evolved to gym shorts and hoodies, causing a stir in the chamber.)\n\nThere was his bare-knuckled politics: In 2010, he was arrested in a protest over the closing of a hospital in Braddock. Later, he performed same-sex marriage ceremonies before it was legal.\n\nHis attention-getting efforts for reviving Braddock helped land profiles in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The New York Times and other news outlets. He appeared on Comedy Central's \"The Colbert Report.\"\n\nHe gave Ted Talks. He has three school-age children and has spoken at length about his wife, Gisele, whose legal status later lapsed after arriving in the U.S. from Brazil as a child.\n\n## Not always playing nice with other politicians\n\nFetterman has long been a wild card in the political realm, forging a career largely on his own, independently from the Democratic Party.\n\nHe endorsed the insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in 2016's presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed Democrat in Pennsylvania's 2016 Senate primary. He lost.\n\nAs lieutenant governor, Fetterman didn't always shown reverence for job expectations or requirements, skipping Senate voting sessions where he was supposed to preside or getting removed by Republican senators as the presiding officer in partisan disputes over floor rules.\n\nHe curses casually on his social media feeds and, in the 2022 Senate campaign, relentlessly trolled his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in ground-breaking ways.\n\nBut his time in the Senate has been tumultuous.\n\n## Hospitalized after joining the Senate\n\nFetterman checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center barely a month after he was sworn in to the Senate, amid staff concerns over his isolating and disengaged behavior.\n\nAt the time, he was still suffering from effects of the stroke that he said nearly killed him.\n\nFetterman returned to the Senate a much more outgoing lawmaker, frequently joking with his fellow senators and engaging with reporters in the hallways.\n\nHe has talked openly about his struggle with depression and urged people to get help.\n\n## Still a something of a loner\n\nTwo years later, Fetterman is still something of a loner in the Senate.\n\nHe has fallen out with progressives over his staunch support of Israel in its war in Gaza and drawn anger from rank-and-file Democrats for arguing that his party needs to work with, not against, Trump.\n\nIt nevertheless has brought some Fetterman plaudits.\n\nBill Maher, host of the political talk show \"Real Time with Bill Maher,\" urged Fetterman to run for president in 2028 while conservatives — who had long made Fetterman a target for his progressive politics — have sprung to Fetterman's defense." } ]
04a4f52a28f32a178be490a2307fc7c7053b051e943c53d7384e2f45cf383ab5	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Academy Country Music Awards show photos\n\nMay 9th, 2025, 01:02 AM\n\n---\n\nFRISCO, Texas (AP) — The 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards celebrate their 60th anniversary Thursday night.\n\nThis is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Academy Country Music Awards show photos\n\nMay 9th, 2025, 01:02 AM\n\n---\n\nFRISCO, Texas (AP) — The 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards celebrate their 60th anniversary Thursday night.\n\nThis is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors." } ]
88a9ac77f6d0e72ac7072bb18847746891f64e4cabd96b91cf144a5fc3e51784	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 15 states sue over Trump's move to fast-track oil and gas projects via his 'energy emergency' order\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 9th, 2025, 08:12 PM\n\n---\n\nA coalition of 15 states is suing over President Donald Trump's efforts to fast-track energy-related projects, saying the administration is bypassing environmental protection laws and threatening endangered species, critical habitat and cultural resources.\n\nTrump issued an executive order declaring a \"national energy emergency \" on the first day of his presidency. The order urges oil and gas expansion through federal use of eminent domain and the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to use private land and resources to produce goods deemed to be a national necessity.\n\nThose kinds of steps are supposed to be reserved for actual emergencies, such as projects needed in the aftermath of disasters like hurricanes, flooding or major oil spills, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit filed in Washington state on Friday.\n\nBut now, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown and the other plaintiffs said, agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior are bypassing required reviews under federal laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.\n\n\"The President of the United States has the authority to determine what is a national emergency, not state attorneys or the courts,\" White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers wrote in an email. \"President Trump recognizes that unleashing American energy is crucial to both our economic and national security.\"\n\nThe attorneys general said reliable and affordable electricity is of critical importance to the nation, but noted that U.S. energy production is already at an all-time high.\n\n\"The Executive Order is unlawful, and its commands that federal agencies disregard the law and in many cases their own regulations to fast-track extensive categories of activities will result in damage to waters, wetlands, critical habitat, historic and cultural resources, endangered species, and the people and wildlife that rely on these precious resources,\" they wrote in the lawsuit.\n\n\"The shortcuts inherent in rushing through emergency processes fundamentally undermine the rights of States,\" the attorneys general said, noting that the federal Clean Water Act grants states the right to protect water quality within their own borders.\n\nThey want a federal judge to declare the executive order unlawful and bar the agencies from pursuing emergency permitting for non-emergency projects.\n\nBrown and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are leading the lawsuit, and the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin have signed on." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 15 states sue over Trump's move to fast-track oil and gas projects via his 'energy emergency' order\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 9th, 2025, 08:12 PM\n\n---\n\nA coalition of 15 states is suing over President Donald Trump's efforts to fast-track energy-related projects, saying the administration is bypassing environmental protection laws and threatening endangered species, critical habitat and cultural resources.\n\nTrump issued an executive order declaring a \"national energy emergency \" on the first day of his presidency. The order urges oil and gas expansion through federal use of eminent domain and the Defense Production Act, which allows the government to use private land and resources to produce goods deemed to be a national necessity.\n\nThose kinds of steps are supposed to be reserved for actual emergencies, such as projects needed in the aftermath of disasters like hurricanes, flooding or major oil spills, the attorneys general wrote in the lawsuit filed in Washington state on Friday.\n\nBut now, Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown and the other plaintiffs said, agencies like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Interior are bypassing required reviews under federal laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.\n\n\"The President of the United States has the authority to determine what is a national emergency, not state attorneys or the courts,\" White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers wrote in an email. \"President Trump recognizes that unleashing American energy is crucial to both our economic and national security.\"\n\nThe attorneys general said reliable and affordable electricity is of critical importance to the nation, but noted that U.S. energy production is already at an all-time high.\n\n\"The Executive Order is unlawful, and its commands that federal agencies disregard the law and in many cases their own regulations to fast-track extensive categories of activities will result in damage to waters, wetlands, critical habitat, historic and cultural resources, endangered species, and the people and wildlife that rely on these precious resources,\" they wrote in the lawsuit.\n\n\"The shortcuts inherent in rushing through emergency processes fundamentally undermine the rights of States,\" the attorneys general said, noting that the federal Clean Water Act grants states the right to protect water quality within their own borders.\n\nThey want a federal judge to declare the executive order unlawful and bar the agencies from pursuing emergency permitting for non-emergency projects.\n\nBrown and California Attorney General Rob Bonta are leading the lawsuit, and the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin have signed on." } ]
6e30f28210d4d79a13d311a0e0718cb0335def4f334e62afb4237e9c5ca7da13	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# It's not about the books: Trump and the Library of Congress fight\n\nBy Seung Min Kim \nMay 16th, 2025, 03:59 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — It's not really about the books.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's abrupt firing of top officials at the Library of Congress and equally sudden attempt to appoint a slate of loyalists as replacements has instead morphed into an enormous fight over the separation of powers, as the White House tries to wrest control of what has for centuries been a legislative institution.\n\nIt's a power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Library of Congress not only stores the world's largest collection of books but also an office overseeing reams of copyrighted material of untold value.\n\nThere is a research institute that has long been protected from outside influence. Its servers house extremely sensitive information regarding claims of workplace violations on Capitol Hill, as well as payments and other financial data for the legislative branch's more than 30,000 employees. There's even speculation that the whole affair is tied to an ongoing debate over whether big tech companies can use copyrighted material for artificial intelligence systems.\n\nBecause of this, the battle over control of the Library of Congress has prompted Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to deliver rare pushback against a president who has pressed to expand the boundaries of his own power to enact his priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans have been talking with the White House about a potential path to détente.\n\nThis all has left the library in a bizarre state of purgatory.\n\nFor now, Trump's choices for interim library leaders — most notably Todd Blanche, a deputy attorney general who had represented the president in his criminal proceedings — have not appeared to challenge the assertion by the library that one of its veteran officials would be the acting head. It would be unheard of for an executive branch official such as Blanche to simultaneously serve in the legislative branch, according to experts.\n\nAll the while, the agency-slashing Department of Government Efficiency has been trying to access legislative branch offices — with leaders there refusing.\n\n\"This egregious overreach into the legislature by the executive branch is just unwarranted and, we believe, unprecedented,\" said New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Library of Congress.\n\n## One firing, then another ... then questions about who steps in\n\nThe controversy began to unfold publicly last week, when Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was fired in a terse email from a White House official. She had just one year left in her 10-year term.\n\nThen this week, Blanche was tapped by the White House to be the interim librarian, and two other Justice Department officials were chosen for other senior library posts. Those officials, Brian Nieves and Paul Perkins, tried unsuccessfully to enter the U.S. Copyright Office on Monday, but left voluntarily after library officials called Capitol Police.\n\nThune told The Associated Press that Congress was \"not entirely\" consulted ahead of Trump's dismissal of Hayden.\n\nLawmakers want to ensure that \"congressional legislative branch equities are protected,\" Thune said. He speculated that discussions with the White House to resolve the standoff would bleed into next week.\n\nThe White House has said Trump was within his authority to dismiss Hayden, a former head of the library systems in Baltimore. It cited \"quite concerning\" behavior from Hayden involving diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as well as books for children that the White House found inappropriate.\n\nA copy of virtually every book published in the U.S. is sent to the Copyright Office, then the library decides whether to include it in the main collection. No one under 16 can get a reader card to access the collection.\n\nExisting regulations and past practices call for an acting librarian to come from the Library of Congress' current ranks if there is a vacancy. But the White House has argued that a law governing federal vacancies applies, even though the 1998 law deals with the executive branch, according to two people familiar with the discussions.\n\nWhen Nieves and Perkins showed up on Monday, they held a letter that invoked the vacancies law to justify their appointments, according to one of the people.\n\nOklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who leads the panel overseeing funding for the Library of Congress, argued that in practice, the librarian is not a legislative branch employee, saying: \"It's an appointment by the president of the United States, because we have to confirm her.\"\n\n## Worries about research services, information about workers, and more\n\nYet there is deep concern among lawmakers and aides about any unjustified intrusion of the administration into the Library of Congress and its operations.\n\nEspecially worrisome to them is potential meddling with the Congressional Research Service, known as the nonpartisan think tank of Capitol Hill. It fields roughly 75,000 requests from members of Congress every year for research, legal expertise and other information critical for policymaking.\n\nThe discussions between lawmakers and the Congressional Research Service are considered so sensitive that they are protected under the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, which shields members of Congress from being questioned -– such as in court -– about official legislative acts.\n\nThe service's \"utility and trustworthiness would be substantially undercut if these inquiries were not protected or the Administration sought to shape responses to reflect its priorities,\" said Hope O'Keeffe, a former associate general counsel at the Library of Congress.\n\nIt stores financial information about legislative branch employees, who include not just those at the Library of Congress, lawmakers and their aides, but employees of the Capitol Police, the Architect of the Capitol and the Government Accountability Office. The library also houses the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which functions as the human resources office of the legislative branch, fielding complaints about harassment, discrimination and other workplace violations.\n\nDOGE officials reached out to the workplace office this week to discuss assigning one of its teams there, according to emails obtained by the AP. The office promptly denied DOGE's request, noting that it was a legislative branch agency and not subject to Trump's executive order on streamlining government, the emails show. DOGE made similar requests to the GAO this week, according to other emails and letters seen by the AP.\n\nRobert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, told library staffers shortly after Hayden's firing that he will serve as the acting librarian. He said in a note this week that while the White House had appointed its own acting librarian, \"we have not yet received direction from Congress about how to move forward,\" indicating that the library was defying Trump's wishes.\n\nCalifornia Sen. Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, this week said flatly that Newlen is the acting librarian of Congress. Asked whether Blanche was respecting that, Padilla said, \"that's my understanding.\"\n\nBut a White House official stressed on Thursday that Trump selected Blanche to be the acting librarian. The official, granted anonymity because of the ongoing private discussions with lawmakers, said Trump chose Blanche because the president is \"appointing highly-qualified individuals who are wholeheartedly committed to advancing the America-first agenda.\" The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.\n\n## Library drama could be linked to AI debate\n\nSome suspect that the Copyright Office is the true aim of the administration. Housed in the Library of Congress with a leader chosen by the librarian, the office accepts millions of copies of copyrighted material such as books, artwork and music every year as part of the copyright registration process.\n\nShortly before the director of the office, Shira Perlmutter, was fired, her office released a report that questioned whether it was legal for the tech industry to use copyrighted material to \"train\" their artificial intelligence systems. Tech companies contend that doing so is legal when used for educational or research purposes or creating something new. Perlmutter's report said doing so, in some circumstances, would go beyond established boundaries of fair use when the AI-generated content is competing with creative works made by people.\n\nThe material there is extremely valuable. For instance, copyright violation damages for the office's existing collection — if, for instance, tech companies scraped the material for AI purposes and then later were found liable for copyright infringement — would likely exceed $1.5 trillion, according to a person familiar with the calculations.\n\nMorelle noted that the firing came \"one day after, and I doubt there's any coincidence to this, a report which is in many ways at odds with what Elon Musk wants to do around intellectual property and copyright.\" Musk is the billionaire outside adviser for Trump who operates his own AI startup, called xAI. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# It's not about the books: Trump and the Library of Congress fight\n\nBy Seung Min Kim \nMay 16th, 2025, 03:59 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — It's not really about the books.\n\nPresident Donald Trump's abrupt firing of top officials at the Library of Congress and equally sudden attempt to appoint a slate of loyalists as replacements has instead morphed into an enormous fight over the separation of powers, as the White House tries to wrest control of what has for centuries been a legislative institution.\n\nIt's a power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Library of Congress not only stores the world's largest collection of books but also an office overseeing reams of copyrighted material of untold value.\n\nThere is a research institute that has long been protected from outside influence. Its servers house extremely sensitive information regarding claims of workplace violations on Capitol Hill, as well as payments and other financial data for the legislative branch's more than 30,000 employees. There's even speculation that the whole affair is tied to an ongoing debate over whether big tech companies can use copyrighted material for artificial intelligence systems.\n\nBecause of this, the battle over control of the Library of Congress has prompted Republican leaders on Capitol Hill to deliver rare pushback against a president who has pressed to expand the boundaries of his own power to enact his priorities. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other Republicans have been talking with the White House about a potential path to détente.\n\nThis all has left the library in a bizarre state of purgatory.\n\nFor now, Trump's choices for interim library leaders — most notably Todd Blanche, a deputy attorney general who had represented the president in his criminal proceedings — have not appeared to challenge the assertion by the library that one of its veteran officials would be the acting head. It would be unheard of for an executive branch official such as Blanche to simultaneously serve in the legislative branch, according to experts.\n\nAll the while, the agency-slashing Department of Government Efficiency has been trying to access legislative branch offices — with leaders there refusing.\n\n\"This egregious overreach into the legislature by the executive branch is just unwarranted and, we believe, unprecedented,\" said New York Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the Library of Congress.\n\n## One firing, then another ... then questions about who steps in\n\nThe controversy began to unfold publicly last week, when Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden was fired in a terse email from a White House official. She had just one year left in her 10-year term.\n\nThen this week, Blanche was tapped by the White House to be the interim librarian, and two other Justice Department officials were chosen for other senior library posts. Those officials, Brian Nieves and Paul Perkins, tried unsuccessfully to enter the U.S. Copyright Office on Monday, but left voluntarily after library officials called Capitol Police.\n\nThune told The Associated Press that Congress was \"not entirely\" consulted ahead of Trump's dismissal of Hayden.\n\nLawmakers want to ensure that \"congressional legislative branch equities are protected,\" Thune said. He speculated that discussions with the White House to resolve the standoff would bleed into next week.\n\nThe White House has said Trump was within his authority to dismiss Hayden, a former head of the library systems in Baltimore. It cited \"quite concerning\" behavior from Hayden involving diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as well as books for children that the White House found inappropriate.\n\nA copy of virtually every book published in the U.S. is sent to the Copyright Office, then the library decides whether to include it in the main collection. No one under 16 can get a reader card to access the collection.\n\nExisting regulations and past practices call for an acting librarian to come from the Library of Congress' current ranks if there is a vacancy. But the White House has argued that a law governing federal vacancies applies, even though the 1998 law deals with the executive branch, according to two people familiar with the discussions.\n\nWhen Nieves and Perkins showed up on Monday, they held a letter that invoked the vacancies law to justify their appointments, according to one of the people.\n\nOklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, who leads the panel overseeing funding for the Library of Congress, argued that in practice, the librarian is not a legislative branch employee, saying: \"It's an appointment by the president of the United States, because we have to confirm her.\"\n\n## Worries about research services, information about workers, and more\n\nYet there is deep concern among lawmakers and aides about any unjustified intrusion of the administration into the Library of Congress and its operations.\n\nEspecially worrisome to them is potential meddling with the Congressional Research Service, known as the nonpartisan think tank of Capitol Hill. It fields roughly 75,000 requests from members of Congress every year for research, legal expertise and other information critical for policymaking.\n\nThe discussions between lawmakers and the Congressional Research Service are considered so sensitive that they are protected under the speech or debate clause of the Constitution, which shields members of Congress from being questioned -– such as in court -– about official legislative acts.\n\nThe service's \"utility and trustworthiness would be substantially undercut if these inquiries were not protected or the Administration sought to shape responses to reflect its priorities,\" said Hope O'Keeffe, a former associate general counsel at the Library of Congress.\n\nIt stores financial information about legislative branch employees, who include not just those at the Library of Congress, lawmakers and their aides, but employees of the Capitol Police, the Architect of the Capitol and the Government Accountability Office. The library also houses the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights, which functions as the human resources office of the legislative branch, fielding complaints about harassment, discrimination and other workplace violations.\n\nDOGE officials reached out to the workplace office this week to discuss assigning one of its teams there, according to emails obtained by the AP. The office promptly denied DOGE's request, noting that it was a legislative branch agency and not subject to Trump's executive order on streamlining government, the emails show. DOGE made similar requests to the GAO this week, according to other emails and letters seen by the AP.\n\nRobert Newlen, the principal deputy librarian, told library staffers shortly after Hayden's firing that he will serve as the acting librarian. He said in a note this week that while the White House had appointed its own acting librarian, \"we have not yet received direction from Congress about how to move forward,\" indicating that the library was defying Trump's wishes.\n\nCalifornia Sen. Alex Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, this week said flatly that Newlen is the acting librarian of Congress. Asked whether Blanche was respecting that, Padilla said, \"that's my understanding.\"\n\nBut a White House official stressed on Thursday that Trump selected Blanche to be the acting librarian. The official, granted anonymity because of the ongoing private discussions with lawmakers, said Trump chose Blanche because the president is \"appointing highly-qualified individuals who are wholeheartedly committed to advancing the America-first agenda.\" The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.\n\n## Library drama could be linked to AI debate\n\nSome suspect that the Copyright Office is the true aim of the administration. Housed in the Library of Congress with a leader chosen by the librarian, the office accepts millions of copies of copyrighted material such as books, artwork and music every year as part of the copyright registration process.\n\nShortly before the director of the office, Shira Perlmutter, was fired, her office released a report that questioned whether it was legal for the tech industry to use copyrighted material to \"train\" their artificial intelligence systems. Tech companies contend that doing so is legal when used for educational or research purposes or creating something new. Perlmutter's report said doing so, in some circumstances, would go beyond established boundaries of fair use when the AI-generated content is competing with creative works made by people.\n\nThe material there is extremely valuable. For instance, copyright violation damages for the office's existing collection — if, for instance, tech companies scraped the material for AI purposes and then later were found liable for copyright infringement — would likely exceed $1.5 trillion, according to a person familiar with the calculations.\n\nMorelle noted that the firing came \"one day after, and I doubt there's any coincidence to this, a report which is in many ways at odds with what Elon Musk wants to do around intellectual property and copyright.\" Musk is the billionaire outside adviser for Trump who operates his own AI startup, called xAI. The White House did not respond to a request for comment." } ]
813dd2ef4f5f7fe407f3ebb0389ce336d43d49f05673e3eac2a59d9ca812fe47	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Iowa lawmakers don't want cities to limit people's use of fireworks\n\nBy John Hanna \nMay 13th, 2025, 06:50 PM\n\n---\n\nIowa lawmakers want President Donald Trump to know that their state is eager to be at the center of next year's celebration of the nation's 250th birthday and shares his vision of fireworks filling the skies — so much so that they don't want local officials blocking any small, neighborhood displays.\n\nThe Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill this week that would ban local limits on people setting off their own rockets, mortars, aerial spinners and Roman candles on July 3 or 4, or Dec. 31. There was nothing to stop big, public shows — say, a Fourth of July display as part of Trump's proposed \"Great American State Fair\" in Iowa's capital of Des Moines — but a relative handful of cities, including Des Moines, haven't allowed people to shoot them off, even on the nation's birthday or New Year's Eve.\n\nThe bill headed to Republican Gov. Kim Reynold's desk after the state House approved it Tuesday, 51-39, with the GOP majority overriding Democrats' concerns that it could undermine fire safety or harm military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Des Moines and at least six of its suburbs, as well as the cities of Ames, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque bar people from setting off their own fireworks even on Independence Day.\n\nIn arguing for the bill, Republican state Rep. Bill Gustoff quoted founding father John Adams' desire for national celebrations involving parades and \"illuminations\" of fireworks, from \"one end of this continent to the other.\" Gustoff, who is from the Des Moines area, also cited the proposal Trump first floated in 2023 to have a yearlong national exposition on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.\n\n\"Mr. President, we welcome that idea in Iowa and we're ready, willing and able to host the party,\" Gustoff said during Tuesday's short debate. \"We need to enable Iowans to be part of that celebration.\"\n\nWhile communities around the world have celebrated events with fireworks for hundreds of years, people's fondness for setting them off themselves has often been a bane of local police and firefighters. Still, only one state — Adams' home of Massachusetts — imposes an outright ban on their use by individual consumers.\n\nFor years, Pennsylvania only allowed the use of sparklers and similar novelty fireworks. But in 2017, it permitted the sale of the full array of products, only to narrow those sales in 2022 to July 2-4 and Dec. 31 amid complaints. Georgia ended a decades-long ban on consumer fireworks in 2015 and doesn't allow cities and counties to restrict them.\n\nIowa banned consumer sales of fireworks for decades, spurred on by a June 1931 fire that engulfed about 100 buildings in the small town of Spencer, which started with a sparkler at a drugstore. However, in 2017, Iowa lawmakers allowed cities and counties to license firework sellers and allow people to set off fireworks from June 1 through July 8 and from Dec. 10 through Jan. 3.\n\nIowa state health department data shows that in 2017, the number of fireworks-related emergency room visits in Iowa nearly doubled from 2016 and remained higher than pre-legalization levels through 2023. The state associations for fire marshals, fire chiefs, firefighters and emergency managers, opposed the fireworks law, as did the Iowa League of Cities.\n\nDemocratic state Rep. Larry McBurney, from the Des Moines area, said the flash, noise and smell of gunpowder from fireworks can trigger veterans' PTSD. Fellow Democratic state Rep. Eric Gjerde, a Cedar Rapids police officer, said people who call to complain about fireworks in his city often think they're hearing gunfire.\n\n\"We have to take every single one of those extremely seriously, so we send multiple officers to investigate,\" he told his colleagues.\n\nFireworks manufacturers and retailers supported the bill, as did the state association for retail stores and the small-government, free-market group Americans for Prosperity. But in arguing in favor of the bill, Gustoff cited next year's celebration of the Declaration of Independence's signing in 1776.\n\n\"Current law allows a patchwork of ordinances that are a trap for the unwary, patriotic American in Iowa who simply wants to celebrate Independence Day the way it was intended by our founding fathers,\" he said.\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press Writers Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Marc Levy, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, also contributed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Iowa lawmakers don't want cities to limit people's use of fireworks\n\nBy John Hanna \nMay 13th, 2025, 06:50 PM\n\n---\n\nIowa lawmakers want President Donald Trump to know that their state is eager to be at the center of next year's celebration of the nation's 250th birthday and shares his vision of fireworks filling the skies — so much so that they don't want local officials blocking any small, neighborhood displays.\n\nThe Republican-controlled Legislature passed a bill this week that would ban local limits on people setting off their own rockets, mortars, aerial spinners and Roman candles on July 3 or 4, or Dec. 31. There was nothing to stop big, public shows — say, a Fourth of July display as part of Trump's proposed \"Great American State Fair\" in Iowa's capital of Des Moines — but a relative handful of cities, including Des Moines, haven't allowed people to shoot them off, even on the nation's birthday or New Year's Eve.\n\nThe bill headed to Republican Gov. Kim Reynold's desk after the state House approved it Tuesday, 51-39, with the GOP majority overriding Democrats' concerns that it could undermine fire safety or harm military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Des Moines and at least six of its suburbs, as well as the cities of Ames, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque bar people from setting off their own fireworks even on Independence Day.\n\nIn arguing for the bill, Republican state Rep. Bill Gustoff quoted founding father John Adams' desire for national celebrations involving parades and \"illuminations\" of fireworks, from \"one end of this continent to the other.\" Gustoff, who is from the Des Moines area, also cited the proposal Trump first floated in 2023 to have a yearlong national exposition on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines.\n\n\"Mr. President, we welcome that idea in Iowa and we're ready, willing and able to host the party,\" Gustoff said during Tuesday's short debate. \"We need to enable Iowans to be part of that celebration.\"\n\nWhile communities around the world have celebrated events with fireworks for hundreds of years, people's fondness for setting them off themselves has often been a bane of local police and firefighters. Still, only one state — Adams' home of Massachusetts — imposes an outright ban on their use by individual consumers.\n\nFor years, Pennsylvania only allowed the use of sparklers and similar novelty fireworks. But in 2017, it permitted the sale of the full array of products, only to narrow those sales in 2022 to July 2-4 and Dec. 31 amid complaints. Georgia ended a decades-long ban on consumer fireworks in 2015 and doesn't allow cities and counties to restrict them.\n\nIowa banned consumer sales of fireworks for decades, spurred on by a June 1931 fire that engulfed about 100 buildings in the small town of Spencer, which started with a sparkler at a drugstore. However, in 2017, Iowa lawmakers allowed cities and counties to license firework sellers and allow people to set off fireworks from June 1 through July 8 and from Dec. 10 through Jan. 3.\n\nIowa state health department data shows that in 2017, the number of fireworks-related emergency room visits in Iowa nearly doubled from 2016 and remained higher than pre-legalization levels through 2023. The state associations for fire marshals, fire chiefs, firefighters and emergency managers, opposed the fireworks law, as did the Iowa League of Cities.\n\nDemocratic state Rep. Larry McBurney, from the Des Moines area, said the flash, noise and smell of gunpowder from fireworks can trigger veterans' PTSD. Fellow Democratic state Rep. Eric Gjerde, a Cedar Rapids police officer, said people who call to complain about fireworks in his city often think they're hearing gunfire.\n\n\"We have to take every single one of those extremely seriously, so we send multiple officers to investigate,\" he told his colleagues.\n\nFireworks manufacturers and retailers supported the bill, as did the state association for retail stores and the small-government, free-market group Americans for Prosperity. But in arguing in favor of the bill, Gustoff cited next year's celebration of the Declaration of Independence's signing in 1776.\n\n\"Current law allows a patchwork of ordinances that are a trap for the unwary, patriotic American in Iowa who simply wants to celebrate Independence Day the way it was intended by our founding fathers,\" he said." } ]
2d778bd281a25e7ddcbbac60ac7fb74f3290bca21ae1744c841872475106cc1a	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Salt-N-Pepa sue record label to reclaim rights to their recordings including 'Push It'\n\nBy Andrew Dalton \nMay 19th, 2025, 08:07 PM\n\n---\n\nSalt-N-Pepa are telling their record label not to push it as they fight for the rights to their music.\n\nThe groundbreaking duo behind hip-hop classics including 1993's \"Shoop\" and 1987's \"Push It\" say in a lawsuit that Universal Music Group is violating copyright law by refusing to agree to turn over the rights to their master recordings.\n\nCheryl \"Salt\" James and Sandra \"Pepa\" Denton filed the lawsuit in federal court in New York on Monday asserting that the copyright act of 1976, which says that after several decades artists can terminate previous agreements and reclaim ownership of their recordings, clearly now applies to them.\n\nThe fight, which has led to UMG pulling Salt-N-Pepa's music from streaming services, comes as many artists with beloved legacies are making lucrative sales of their catalogs, while others get stuck in classic record-label battles over old contracts.\n\n\"UMG has indicated that it will hold Plaintiffs' rights hostage even if it means tanking the value of Plaintiffs' music catalogue and depriving their fans of access to their work,\" the suit says.\n\nUMG representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.\n\nThe lawsuit suggests that situations like Salt-N-Pepa's are the very reason the provision of the copyright act exists. It allows artists who made deals \"at the beginning of their careers\" when they were relatively powerless to use the cultural standing and musical legacy they later established.\n\nThe suit says James and Denton filed to terminate their agreement under the law in 2022, \"eager to retake full ownership of their art and legacy,\" but that, \"Inexplicably, UMG has refused to honor\" their rights.\n\nJames and Denton say that by law, they should now be able to own early recordings including those from their 1986 debut album, \"Hot, Cool & Vicious,\" and 1987's \"Push It,\" a B-side whose remix caught on and became their breakthrough hit.\n\nThey say other recordings should legally be theirs later this year and in 2026, including the 1993 album \"Very Necessary,\" which includes \"Shoop\" and \"Whatta Man.\"\n\nThe duo is seeking both actual damages for money lost and punitive damages in amounts to be determined for UMG's actions. The suit says actual damages could \"well exceed $1 million.\" They also want a permanent injunction confirming their rights to the recordings.\n\nThey said by pulling the songs from streaming and other commercial platforms, the label has \"maliciously punished\" Salt-N-Pepa \"for daring to assert their rights.\"\n\nThe label's lawyers said in letters included as exhibits in the lawsuit that they have encouraged mediation and want to reach a \"mutually acceptable resolution.\"\n\nBut the UMG lawyers said in the letters that James and Denton were not even personally parties in the 1986 agreement that covered their initial albums, and there is no evidence that they granted the label copyright that they can now reclaim.\n\nUMG maintains that the recordings were \"works made for hire,\" which would not allow for the reclaiming of rights. Salt-N-Pepa's lawsuit says the women's agreements with the label make it very clear that they were not.\n\nThe Queens, New York, duo of James and Denton became Salt-N-Pepa in 1985. They were later joined by DJ Spinderella, who was not part of the early agreements under dispute and is not involved in the lawsuit.\n\n\"Salt-N-Pepa boldly changed the look of rap and hip-hop,\" the lawsuit says. \"They were not afraid to talk about sex and to share their thoughts about men. Their sound recordings 'Let's Talk About Sex' and 'None of Your Business,' for example, were huge hits. They talked candidly about women's sexuality and empowerment when such topics were frowned upon, heavily criticized, and called taboo.\"\n\nIn 1995 they became the first female rap group to win a Grammy, and in 2021, they received a Grammy lifetime achievement award.\n\nLater this year they'll become members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when they receive the organization's Musical Influence Award.\n\n___\n\nAP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Salt-N-Pepa sue record label to reclaim rights to their recordings including 'Push It'\n\nBy Andrew Dalton \nMay 19th, 2025, 08:07 PM\n\n---\n\nSalt-N-Pepa are telling their record label not to push it as they fight for the rights to their music.\n\nThe groundbreaking duo behind hip-hop classics including 1993's \"Shoop\" and 1987's \"Push It\" say in a lawsuit that Universal Music Group is violating copyright law by refusing to agree to turn over the rights to their master recordings.\n\nCheryl \"Salt\" James and Sandra \"Pepa\" Denton filed the lawsuit in federal court in New York on Monday asserting that the copyright act of 1976, which says that after several decades artists can terminate previous agreements and reclaim ownership of their recordings, clearly now applies to them.\n\nThe fight, which has led to UMG pulling Salt-N-Pepa's music from streaming services, comes as many artists with beloved legacies are making lucrative sales of their catalogs, while others get stuck in classic record-label battles over old contracts.\n\n\"UMG has indicated that it will hold Plaintiffs' rights hostage even if it means tanking the value of Plaintiffs' music catalogue and depriving their fans of access to their work,\" the suit says.\n\nUMG representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.\n\nThe lawsuit suggests that situations like Salt-N-Pepa's are the very reason the provision of the copyright act exists. It allows artists who made deals \"at the beginning of their careers\" when they were relatively powerless to use the cultural standing and musical legacy they later established.\n\nThe suit says James and Denton filed to terminate their agreement under the law in 2022, \"eager to retake full ownership of their art and legacy,\" but that, \"Inexplicably, UMG has refused to honor\" their rights.\n\nJames and Denton say that by law, they should now be able to own early recordings including those from their 1986 debut album, \"Hot, Cool & Vicious,\" and 1987's \"Push It,\" a B-side whose remix caught on and became their breakthrough hit.\n\nThey say other recordings should legally be theirs later this year and in 2026, including the 1993 album \"Very Necessary,\" which includes \"Shoop\" and \"Whatta Man.\"\n\nThe duo is seeking both actual damages for money lost and punitive damages in amounts to be determined for UMG's actions. The suit says actual damages could \"well exceed $1 million.\" They also want a permanent injunction confirming their rights to the recordings.\n\nThey said by pulling the songs from streaming and other commercial platforms, the label has \"maliciously punished\" Salt-N-Pepa \"for daring to assert their rights.\"\n\nThe label's lawyers said in letters included as exhibits in the lawsuit that they have encouraged mediation and want to reach a \"mutually acceptable resolution.\"\n\nBut the UMG lawyers said in the letters that James and Denton were not even personally parties in the 1986 agreement that covered their initial albums, and there is no evidence that they granted the label copyright that they can now reclaim.\n\nUMG maintains that the recordings were \"works made for hire,\" which would not allow for the reclaiming of rights. Salt-N-Pepa's lawsuit says the women's agreements with the label make it very clear that they were not.\n\nThe Queens, New York, duo of James and Denton became Salt-N-Pepa in 1985. They were later joined by DJ Spinderella, who was not part of the early agreements under dispute and is not involved in the lawsuit.\n\n\"Salt-N-Pepa boldly changed the look of rap and hip-hop,\" the lawsuit says. \"They were not afraid to talk about sex and to share their thoughts about men. Their sound recordings 'Let's Talk About Sex' and 'None of Your Business,' for example, were huge hits. They talked candidly about women's sexuality and empowerment when such topics were frowned upon, heavily criticized, and called taboo.\"\n\nIn 1995 they became the first female rap group to win a Grammy, and in 2021, they received a Grammy lifetime achievement award.\n\nLater this year they'll become members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame when they receive the organization's Musical Influence Award." } ]
b008392f517affe8c9ae4f29dbac87e3b8d293f435249e9a2e48a7f0b6342375	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Cambodia hosts China for their latest and largest joint military exercise\n\nBy Sopheng Cheang \nMay 14th, 2025, 12:06 PM\n\n---\n\nPHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's armed forces on Wednesday launched their latest — and largest — Golden Dragon joint military exercise with China, with land, sea and air operations planned over the next two weeks.\n\nThe initial exercise was in 2016, marking deepening relations between Cambodia and China while Cambodia canceled similar exercises with the United States. Cambodian officials recently proposed reviving exercises with U.S. forces, after Washington in the past year has sent several high-ranking military and civilian officials in an effort to increase its influence.\n\nCambodia is China's closest ally in Southeast Asia, while Beijing is Cambodia's most important ally and benefactor, whose aid and investment have fueled Cambodia's rapid growth in recent decades. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to Cambodia in April.\n\nBeijing has helped fund an expansion of the Ream Naval Base on Cambodia's southern coast, raising worries it could become a strategic outpost for the Chinese navy in the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodia has repeatedly denied any agreement granting China special privileges or the establishment of a foreign military base.\n\nCambodian leaders have said warships from all friendly countries are welcome to dock at its new pier, provided they comply with certain conditions. Two Japanese naval ships and one from Vietnam docked last month at the base, and a Chinese vessel arrived at Ream on Monday to take part in the exercises.\n\nA Cambodian military statement said the theme of this year's exercises is joint counter-terrorism operations and humanitarian relief. Among the equipment the militaries will use are reconnaissance and attack drones, surgical robots and robot dogs.\n\nThis year's exercise is the biggest in the series.\n\n\"We conduct this exercise only to exchange experiences, strengthen our ability to defend ourselves and be able to participate in building peace in the region and the world,\" Cambodian army spokesperson Gen. Thong Solimo told The Associated Press." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Cambodia hosts China for their latest and largest joint military exercise\n\nBy Sopheng Cheang \nMay 14th, 2025, 12:06 PM\n\n---\n\nPHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Cambodia's armed forces on Wednesday launched their latest — and largest — Golden Dragon joint military exercise with China, with land, sea and air operations planned over the next two weeks.\n\nThe initial exercise was in 2016, marking deepening relations between Cambodia and China while Cambodia canceled similar exercises with the United States. Cambodian officials recently proposed reviving exercises with U.S. forces, after Washington in the past year has sent several high-ranking military and civilian officials in an effort to increase its influence.\n\nCambodia is China's closest ally in Southeast Asia, while Beijing is Cambodia's most important ally and benefactor, whose aid and investment have fueled Cambodia's rapid growth in recent decades. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a state visit to Cambodia in April.\n\nBeijing has helped fund an expansion of the Ream Naval Base on Cambodia's southern coast, raising worries it could become a strategic outpost for the Chinese navy in the Gulf of Thailand. Cambodia has repeatedly denied any agreement granting China special privileges or the establishment of a foreign military base.\n\nCambodian leaders have said warships from all friendly countries are welcome to dock at its new pier, provided they comply with certain conditions. Two Japanese naval ships and one from Vietnam docked last month at the base, and a Chinese vessel arrived at Ream on Monday to take part in the exercises.\n\nA Cambodian military statement said the theme of this year's exercises is joint counter-terrorism operations and humanitarian relief. Among the equipment the militaries will use are reconnaissance and attack drones, surgical robots and robot dogs.\n\nThis year's exercise is the biggest in the series.\n\n\"We conduct this exercise only to exchange experiences, strengthen our ability to defend ourselves and be able to participate in building peace in the region and the world,\" Cambodian army spokesperson Gen. Thong Solimo told The Associated Press." } ]
1f827811748a2c6a48553d12852d549d806ec16951d30d244058617be3b16176	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Three climbers fell 400 feet to their death. One climber survived and drove to a pay phone\n\nBy Jesse Bedayn \nMay 13th, 2025, 11:27 PM\n\n---\n\nA rock climber who fell hundreds of feet descending a steep gully in Washington's North Cascades mountains survived the fall that killed his three companions, hiked to his car in the dark and then drove to a pay phone to call for help, authorities said Tuesday.\n\nThe surviving climber, Anton Tselykh, 38, extricated himself from a tangle of ropes, helmets and other equipment after the fall Saturday evening. Despite suffering internal bleeding and head trauma, Tselykh eventually, over at least a dozen hours, made the trek to the pay phone, Okanogan County Undersheriff Dave Yarnell said.\n\nThe climbers who were killed were Vishnu Irigireddy, 48, Tim Nguyen, 63, Oleksander Martynenko, 36, Okanogan County Coroner Dave Rodriguez said.\n\nAuthorities haven't yet been able to interview the survivor, who is in a Seattle hospital, said Rodriguez, so much is still unknown of the fall and Tselykh's journey.\n\nFalls like this leading to three deaths are extremely rare, said Cristina Woodworth, who leads the sheriff's search and rescue team. Seven years ago, two climbers were killed in a fall on El Capitan at Yosemite National Park in California.\n\nThe group of four were scaling the Early Winters Spires, jagged peaks split by a cleft that is popular with climbers in the North Cascade Range, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) northeast of Seattle. Tselykh was hospitalized in Seattle.\n\nThe group of four met with disaster that night when the anchor used to secure their ropes was torn from the rock while they were descending, Rodriguez said. The anchor they were using, a metal spike called a piton, appeared to have been placed there by past climbers, he said.\n\nThey plummeted for about 200 feet (60 meters) into a slanted gulch and then tumbled another 200 feet before coming to rest, Yarnell said. Authorities believe the group had been ascending but turned around when they saw a storm approaching.\n\nA three-person search and rescue team reached the site of the fall Sunday, Woodworth said. The team used coordinates from a device the climbers had been carrying, which had been shared by a friend of the men.\n\nOnce they found the site, they called in a helicopter to remove the bodies one at a time because of the rough terrain, Woodworth said.\n\nOn Monday, responders poured over the recovered equipment trying to decipher what caused the fall, Woodworth said. They found a piton — basically a small metal spike that is driven into rock cracks or ice and used as anchors by climbers — that was still clipped into the climbers' ropes.\n\n\"There's no other reason it would be hooked onto the rope unless it pulled out of the rock,\" said Rodriguez, the coroner, noting that pitons are typically stuck fast in the rock. Rodriguez added that when rappelling, all four men would not have be hanging from the one piton at the same time, but taking turns moving down the mountain.\n\nPitons are oftentimes left in walls. They can be there for years or even decades, and they may become less secure over time.\n\n\"It looked old and weathered, and the rest of their equipment looked newer, so we are making the assumption that it was an old piton,\" Woodworth said.\n\nRock climbers secure themselves by ropes to anchors, such as pitons or other climbing equipment. The ropes are intended to arrest their fall if they should slip, and typically climbers use backup anchors, said Joshua Cole, a guide and co-owner of North Cascades Mountain Guides, who has been climbing in the area for about 20 years.\n\nGenerally, it would be unusual to rappel off a single piton, said Cole, adding that it is still unknown exactly what happened on the wall that night.\n\n\"We eventually, if possible, would like to get more information from surviving party,\" Woodworth said.\n\nThe spires are a popular climbing spot. The route the climbers were taking, said Cole, was of moderate difficulty, and requires moving between ice, snow and rock.\n\nBut the conditions, the amount of ice versus rock for example, can change rapidly with the weather, he said, even week to week or day to day, changing the route's risks.\n\n___\n\nBedayn reported from Denver." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Three climbers fell 400 feet to their death. One climber survived and drove to a pay phone\n\nBy Jesse Bedayn \nMay 13th, 2025, 11:27 PM\n\n---\n\nA rock climber who fell hundreds of feet descending a steep gully in Washington's North Cascades mountains survived the fall that killed his three companions, hiked to his car in the dark and then drove to a pay phone to call for help, authorities said Tuesday.\n\nThe surviving climber, Anton Tselykh, 38, extricated himself from a tangle of ropes, helmets and other equipment after the fall Saturday evening. Despite suffering internal bleeding and head trauma, Tselykh eventually, over at least a dozen hours, made the trek to the pay phone, Okanogan County Undersheriff Dave Yarnell said.\n\nThe climbers who were killed were Vishnu Irigireddy, 48, Tim Nguyen, 63, Oleksander Martynenko, 36, Okanogan County Coroner Dave Rodriguez said.\n\nAuthorities haven't yet been able to interview the survivor, who is in a Seattle hospital, said Rodriguez, so much is still unknown of the fall and Tselykh's journey.\n\nFalls like this leading to three deaths are extremely rare, said Cristina Woodworth, who leads the sheriff's search and rescue team. Seven years ago, two climbers were killed in a fall on El Capitan at Yosemite National Park in California.\n\nThe group of four were scaling the Early Winters Spires, jagged peaks split by a cleft that is popular with climbers in the North Cascade Range, about 160 miles (257 kilometers) northeast of Seattle. Tselykh was hospitalized in Seattle.\n\nThe group of four met with disaster that night when the anchor used to secure their ropes was torn from the rock while they were descending, Rodriguez said. The anchor they were using, a metal spike called a piton, appeared to have been placed there by past climbers, he said.\n\nThey plummeted for about 200 feet (60 meters) into a slanted gulch and then tumbled another 200 feet before coming to rest, Yarnell said. Authorities believe the group had been ascending but turned around when they saw a storm approaching.\n\nA three-person search and rescue team reached the site of the fall Sunday, Woodworth said. The team used coordinates from a device the climbers had been carrying, which had been shared by a friend of the men.\n\nOnce they found the site, they called in a helicopter to remove the bodies one at a time because of the rough terrain, Woodworth said.\n\nOn Monday, responders poured over the recovered equipment trying to decipher what caused the fall, Woodworth said. They found a piton — basically a small metal spike that is driven into rock cracks or ice and used as anchors by climbers — that was still clipped into the climbers' ropes.\n\n\"There's no other reason it would be hooked onto the rope unless it pulled out of the rock,\" said Rodriguez, the coroner, noting that pitons are typically stuck fast in the rock. Rodriguez added that when rappelling, all four men would not have be hanging from the one piton at the same time, but taking turns moving down the mountain.\n\nPitons are oftentimes left in walls. They can be there for years or even decades, and they may become less secure over time.\n\n\"It looked old and weathered, and the rest of their equipment looked newer, so we are making the assumption that it was an old piton,\" Woodworth said.\n\nRock climbers secure themselves by ropes to anchors, such as pitons or other climbing equipment. The ropes are intended to arrest their fall if they should slip, and typically climbers use backup anchors, said Joshua Cole, a guide and co-owner of North Cascades Mountain Guides, who has been climbing in the area for about 20 years.\n\nGenerally, it would be unusual to rappel off a single piton, said Cole, adding that it is still unknown exactly what happened on the wall that night.\n\n\"We eventually, if possible, would like to get more information from surviving party,\" Woodworth said.\n\nThe spires are a popular climbing spot. The route the climbers were taking, said Cole, was of moderate difficulty, and requires moving between ice, snow and rock.\n\nBut the conditions, the amount of ice versus rock for example, can change rapidly with the weather, he said, even week to week or day to day, changing the route's risks." } ]
7aba7d45de72238dc491b22d5ca1c002fca6859c2e7e6ab1974fe4e10e200abf	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Drones strike ship carrying aid to Gaza, organizers say, in latest confrontation over assistance\n\nBy Sam Mednick and Renata Brito \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:11 AM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Drones attacked a vessel carrying aid to Gaza on Friday in international waters off Malta, the group organizing the shipment said, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.\n\nA nearby tugboat responded to a distress call from the Conscience, which authorities said experienced a fire that was brought under control. The vessel was carrying 12 crew members and four civilians, the Maltese government said, adding that those aboard refused to leave the ship. The group was safe and no serious injuries were reported, it said.\n\nThe Freedom Flotilla Coalition accused Israel of attacking its ship. The group did not provide evidence for that claim or to show that the fire was caused by drones, but in a video it shared an explosion could be heard. Another video showed a fire blazing.\n\nThe Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment. Israel has cut off Gaza from all imports, including food and medicine, since the beginning of March, leading to what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the war with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.\n\n## Explosions in the night\n\nMecid Bagcivan, an activist from Turkey who was aboard the Conscience, was getting ready for bed when two explosions rocked the ship about two minutes apart, he said. At first it seemed there had been a collision. Then the crew saw fire and realized it was an attack, Bagcivan told The Associated Press.\n\nAs the crew radioed Malta for help, Bagcivan said someone impersonated them on the same channel saying help was no longer needed. Those on board scrambled to fight the fire on their own, leaving some with minor injuries, he said. Help later arrived, and after hours the fire was extinguished.\n\nThe ship was trying to reenter Maltese waters amid fears of a second attack, according to a statement from the crew.\n\n\"We feel like right now we're safe, but we don't know what Israel is going to do,\" Bagcivan said. \"We can't trust no one in this situation after we get bombed in the middle of the night.\"\n\n## Stranded in international waters\n\nVideo taken after the explosions showed two large holes in the ship's deck, with thick smoke surrounding the vessel. The person recording the footage said the ship had been hit twice and was on fire about 14 miles from Malta. The video was provided by Codepink, a grassroots peace and social justice movement.\n\nThe ship's generator was badly damaged and will need to be repaired before continuing, said Charlie Andreasson, who has been involved with the Freedom Flotilla for more than a decade.\n\nIt's unclear where the ship will be able to stop for repairs, said Tighe Barry, a Codepink member who was among a group of activists who took speedboats to the Conscience after the attack. The boats were turned away by Maltese authorities, he said, but one person made it aboard and spoke to the captain.\n\nBarry said the nation of Palau revoked its flag from the Conscience prior to the attack, and authorities in Malta, Greece and Turkey have threatened to confiscate the ship if it comes to port. Barry said the ship is loaded with medicine and food supplies.\n\n\"To get a new flag will take months, so they're just stuck out there,\" Barry said of the crew.\n\n## Conflict over Israel's blockade\n\nIsrael says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.\n\nIn response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel's bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.\n\nWhen an aid flotilla attempted to break a blockade of Gaza in 2010, Israeli forces stormed a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, killing nine people on board.\n\nOn Friday, the Conscience was hit about 16 miles (26 kilometers) from Malta, according to the Freedom Flotilla.\n\nPhotos provided by Cypriot authorities showed the ship with damage to its side.\n\n## Ship sailed from Tunisia on route to Gaza\n\nAccording to the ship-monitoring website Marine Traffic, the Conscience left the Tunisian port of Bizerte on Tuesday and arrived Thursday morning in the area where it reported being attacked.\n\nVolunteers who had traveled to Malta were meant to board the ship to go to Gaza, the group said. Andreasson said climate activist Greta Thunberg was supposed to have participated. The organization said Thunberg did not board and was safe.\n\nThe ship's 12 crew members are from Turkey and Azerbaijan, said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Codepink.\n\nTurkey condemned the attack and pledged to hold the perpetrators accountable.\n\nThe assault \"threatens freedom of navigation and maritime security in international waters,\" Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli said in a statement posted on the X social media platform.\n\nThe attack happened as aid groups have warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.\n\nThe International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday that it will not have access to food, medicine and life-saving supplies needed for many of its Gaza programs if aid deliveries don't resume immediately.\n\nPrograms at risk include \"common kitchens\" that often give residents the only meal they receive each day and could be forced to halt operations in a few weeks, the ICRC said.\n\n\"Aid must be allowed to enter Gaza. Hostages must be released. Civilians must be protected,\" the committee said. \"Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.\"\n\n___\n\nBrito contributed from Barcelona, Spain. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Giada Zampano in Rome; Kevin Schembri Orland in St. Julian's, Malta; Colleen Barry in Soave, Italy; Elena Becatoros and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus; Jon Gambrell in Dubai; and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.\n\n___\n\nFollow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Drones strike ship carrying aid to Gaza, organizers say, in latest confrontation over assistance\n\nBy Sam Mednick and Renata Brito \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:11 AM\n\n---\n\nTEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Drones attacked a vessel carrying aid to Gaza on Friday in international waters off Malta, the group organizing the shipment said, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.\n\nA nearby tugboat responded to a distress call from the Conscience, which authorities said experienced a fire that was brought under control. The vessel was carrying 12 crew members and four civilians, the Maltese government said, adding that those aboard refused to leave the ship. The group was safe and no serious injuries were reported, it said.\n\nThe Freedom Flotilla Coalition accused Israel of attacking its ship. The group did not provide evidence for that claim or to show that the fire was caused by drones, but in a video it shared an explosion could be heard. Another video showed a fire blazing.\n\nThe Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment. Israel has cut off Gaza from all imports, including food and medicine, since the beginning of March, leading to what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the war with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group.\n\n## Explosions in the night\n\nMecid Bagcivan, an activist from Turkey who was aboard the Conscience, was getting ready for bed when two explosions rocked the ship about two minutes apart, he said. At first it seemed there had been a collision. Then the crew saw fire and realized it was an attack, Bagcivan told The Associated Press.\n\nAs the crew radioed Malta for help, Bagcivan said someone impersonated them on the same channel saying help was no longer needed. Those on board scrambled to fight the fire on their own, leaving some with minor injuries, he said. Help later arrived, and after hours the fire was extinguished.\n\nThe ship was trying to reenter Maltese waters amid fears of a second attack, according to a statement from the crew.\n\n\"We feel like right now we're safe, but we don't know what Israel is going to do,\" Bagcivan said. \"We can't trust no one in this situation after we get bombed in the middle of the night.\"\n\n## Stranded in international waters\n\nVideo taken after the explosions showed two large holes in the ship's deck, with thick smoke surrounding the vessel. The person recording the footage said the ship had been hit twice and was on fire about 14 miles from Malta. The video was provided by Codepink, a grassroots peace and social justice movement.\n\nThe ship's generator was badly damaged and will need to be repaired before continuing, said Charlie Andreasson, who has been involved with the Freedom Flotilla for more than a decade.\n\nIt's unclear where the ship will be able to stop for repairs, said Tighe Barry, a Codepink member who was among a group of activists who took speedboats to the Conscience after the attack. The boats were turned away by Maltese authorities, he said, but one person made it aboard and spoke to the captain.\n\nBarry said the nation of Palau revoked its flag from the Conscience prior to the attack, and authorities in Malta, Greece and Turkey have threatened to confiscate the ship if it comes to port. Barry said the ship is loaded with medicine and food supplies.\n\n\"To get a new flag will take months, so they're just stuck out there,\" Barry said of the crew.\n\n## Conflict over Israel's blockade\n\nIsrael says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 59 hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive.\n\nIn response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel's bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.\n\nWhen an aid flotilla attempted to break a blockade of Gaza in 2010, Israeli forces stormed a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, killing nine people on board.\n\nOn Friday, the Conscience was hit about 16 miles (26 kilometers) from Malta, according to the Freedom Flotilla.\n\nPhotos provided by Cypriot authorities showed the ship with damage to its side.\n\n## Ship sailed from Tunisia on route to Gaza\n\nAccording to the ship-monitoring website Marine Traffic, the Conscience left the Tunisian port of Bizerte on Tuesday and arrived Thursday morning in the area where it reported being attacked.\n\nVolunteers who had traveled to Malta were meant to board the ship to go to Gaza, the group said. Andreasson said climate activist Greta Thunberg was supposed to have participated. The organization said Thunberg did not board and was safe.\n\nThe ship's 12 crew members are from Turkey and Azerbaijan, said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Codepink.\n\nTurkey condemned the attack and pledged to hold the perpetrators accountable.\n\nThe assault \"threatens freedom of navigation and maritime security in international waters,\" Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oncu Keceli said in a statement posted on the X social media platform.\n\nThe attack happened as aid groups have warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of collapse.\n\nThe International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday that it will not have access to food, medicine and life-saving supplies needed for many of its Gaza programs if aid deliveries don't resume immediately.\n\nPrograms at risk include \"common kitchens\" that often give residents the only meal they receive each day and could be forced to halt operations in a few weeks, the ICRC said.\n\n\"Aid must be allowed to enter Gaza. Hostages must be released. Civilians must be protected,\" the committee said. \"Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.\"" } ]
daa81941969094124083a17dd095520667841f3f63e8ce6b60623da229c85541	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# British banking analyst jailed in Saudi Arabia for 10 years over 'unknown tweet'\n\nBy Gabe Levin \nMay 14th, 2025, 06:10 AM\n\n---\n\nDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A British Bank of America analyst has been sentenced to a decade in a Saudi Arabian prison apparently over a since-deleted social media post, according to his lawyer.\n\nThe family of Ahmed al-Doush, 41, believes the charges against him stemmed from a deleted 2018 tweet about Sudan that did not mention Saudi Arabia and his relationship with the son of a Saudi critic in exile, Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday.\n\nThe father-of-four was sentenced Monday after being accused of violating terrorism and anti-cyber crime laws.\n\n\"The exact tweet is unknown,\" Haydee Dijkstal, al-Doush's international counsel, posted Tuesday on X. \"His trial and detention involved fair trial and due process violations.\" The lawyer said the U.K. government \"should stand firmly against a British national's imprisonment for allegedly exercising his free speech rights.\"\n\nThe Saudi Arabian government did not respond to requests for comment.\n\n\"We are supporting a British man who is detained in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with his family and local authorities,\" a spokesperson for the Foreign Office in London said in a statement.\n\nAl-Doush, a British national, was arrested in August 2024 at a Riyadh airport where he was waiting for a flight to Manchester, England, with his family following a holiday. His wife has since given birth to their fourth child.\n\n\"I rarely speak to my husband, but in the few snatched conversations we have managed, it is clear that Ahmed is struggling,\" al-Doush's wife, Amaher Nour, said ahead of her husband's sentencing, citing his thyroid problems and distress after nine months of detention.\n\nThe developments came while U.S. President Donald Trump was in Saudi Arabia, where several dual nationals with Western ties and Saudis have been detained in recent years over social media posts that could be viewed as critical to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto ruler.\n\nIn 2021, a Saudi-American dual national was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison by Saudi Arabia on terrorism-related charges stemming from tweets.\n\nSaad Almadi, now 75, was jailed in connection with tweets he had posted over the past several years in the U.S. He was released in 2023 but has been banned from leaving the kingdom.\n\nOn Wednesday, the kingdom's foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was asked during a press conference if Almadi's case had been discussed during Trump's trip.\n\n\"We obviously have robust conversations with our U.S. partners about a number of issues,\" Prince Faisal said, without directly commenting on Almadi. He added that Saudi Arabia \"will always, you know, welcome those conversations.\"\n\nAssociated Press writer Baraa Anwer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed to this report" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# British banking analyst jailed in Saudi Arabia for 10 years over 'unknown tweet'\n\nBy Gabe Levin \nMay 14th, 2025, 06:10 AM\n\n---\n\nDUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A British Bank of America analyst has been sentenced to a decade in a Saudi Arabian prison apparently over a since-deleted social media post, according to his lawyer.\n\nThe family of Ahmed al-Doush, 41, believes the charges against him stemmed from a deleted 2018 tweet about Sudan that did not mention Saudi Arabia and his relationship with the son of a Saudi critic in exile, Amnesty International said in a statement Tuesday.\n\nThe father-of-four was sentenced Monday after being accused of violating terrorism and anti-cyber crime laws.\n\n\"The exact tweet is unknown,\" Haydee Dijkstal, al-Doush's international counsel, posted Tuesday on X. \"His trial and detention involved fair trial and due process violations.\" The lawyer said the U.K. government \"should stand firmly against a British national's imprisonment for allegedly exercising his free speech rights.\"\n\nThe Saudi Arabian government did not respond to requests for comment.\n\n\"We are supporting a British man who is detained in Saudi Arabia and are in contact with his family and local authorities,\" a spokesperson for the Foreign Office in London said in a statement.\n\nAl-Doush, a British national, was arrested in August 2024 at a Riyadh airport where he was waiting for a flight to Manchester, England, with his family following a holiday. His wife has since given birth to their fourth child.\n\n\"I rarely speak to my husband, but in the few snatched conversations we have managed, it is clear that Ahmed is struggling,\" al-Doush's wife, Amaher Nour, said ahead of her husband's sentencing, citing his thyroid problems and distress after nine months of detention.\n\nThe developments came while U.S. President Donald Trump was in Saudi Arabia, where several dual nationals with Western ties and Saudis have been detained in recent years over social media posts that could be viewed as critical to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country's de facto ruler.\n\nIn 2021, a Saudi-American dual national was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison by Saudi Arabia on terrorism-related charges stemming from tweets.\n\nSaad Almadi, now 75, was jailed in connection with tweets he had posted over the past several years in the U.S. He was released in 2023 but has been banned from leaving the kingdom.\n\nOn Wednesday, the kingdom's foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was asked during a press conference if Almadi's case had been discussed during Trump's trip.\n\n\"We obviously have robust conversations with our U.S. partners about a number of issues,\" Prince Faisal said, without directly commenting on Almadi. He added that Saudi Arabia \"will always, you know, welcome those conversations.\"" } ]
d2e6ac5b173e6393a4c76c758a15bb3e1430a4e61c6af9fe8243d13815acd25c	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# India's steel expansion threatens climate goals and global efforts to clean up industry: report\n\nBy Sibi Arasu \nMay 20th, 2025, 12:01 AM\n\n---\n\nBENGALURU, India (AP) — India's plans to double steel production by the end of the decade could jeopardize its national climate goals and a key global target to reduce planet-heating gas emissions from the steel industry, according to a report released Tuesday.\n\nThe report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks energy projects around the globe, said efforts to decarbonize steelmaking are gaining traction around the world. However, in India, which is the world's second largest steel-producing nation, overwhelming reliance on coal-based technologies presents a big challenge.\n\n\"India is now the bellwether of global steel decarbonization,\" said Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager of the Global Iron and Steel Tracker at GEM and report co-author. \"If the country does not increase its plans for green steel production, the entire sector will miss an important milestone. So goes India, so goes the world.\"\n\nCurrently, up to 12% of India's greenhouse gas emissions, which go into the atmosphere and heat the planet, come from steelmaking. That number could double in five years if steel is produced in line with the government's plans, according to the report.\n\nAt the same time, India wants to produce 500 gigawatts of clean power — enough to power nearly 300 million Indian homes — by the end of this decade. The South Asian nation recently crossed the milestone of installing 100 gigawatts of solar power, most of which was installed in the last 10 years.\n\nBy 2070, India also aims to go net zero, that is, it will either eliminate all carbon dioxide pollution it emits or cancel it out by using other methods, such as planting trees that absorb carbon.\n\nSteel production is one of the most carbon polluting industries, responsible for nearly 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency has set a target for 37% of global steelmaking capacity to rely on lower-emission electric arc furnaces by 2030. Current projections by GEM show the world reaching just 36% — a shortfall largely due to India's coal-heavy pipeline.\n\nIndia plans to expand its steel production capacity from 200 million to over 330 million tonnes per year by 2030. According to the new data, over 40% of global capacity in development — about 352 million tonnes per annum — is in India, with more than half of that using coal-based capacity.\n\n\"India is the only major steel-producing nation that has so much coal-based capacity in the pipeline,\" said Henna Khadeeja, a research analyst with GEM who also worked on the report.\n\nIndia's steel sector releases approximately 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of steel, roughly 25% more than the global average. China, the world's largest steelmaker, has managed to keep its emissions lower per ton by producing more scrap-based steel and retiring older coal-based plants.\n\nIndia's heavy dependence on coal for steelmaking is driven by a combination of factors: low-cost domestic coal, a relatively young fleet of blast furnaces that still have 20–25 years of operational life left, and a lack of natural gas and steel scrap. The country's scrap recycling ecosystem remains informal, and high-quality iron ore is scarce.\n\n\"There is potential for India to change course,\" said Khadeeja of GEM. \"Much of the planned capacity is still on paper. Only 8% of it has actually broken ground. This means there is still a window to shift toward lower-emission technologies.\"\n\nThe consequences of producing carbon polluting steel may go beyond climate goals. While India's steel exports are only a small share of its overall production, they could suffer as major markets like the European Union begin enforcing carbon border taxes next year.\n\n\"India may be better off tolerating some short-term pain of technological upgrading to make its steel cleaner for long-term competitiveness gain,\" said Easwaran Narassimhan of the New Delhi-based think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative.\n\n___\n\nFollow Sibi Arasu on X at @sibi123 ___\n\nThe Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# India's steel expansion threatens climate goals and global efforts to clean up industry: report\n\nBy Sibi Arasu \nMay 20th, 2025, 12:01 AM\n\n---\n\nBENGALURU, India (AP) — India's plans to double steel production by the end of the decade could jeopardize its national climate goals and a key global target to reduce planet-heating gas emissions from the steel industry, according to a report released Tuesday.\n\nThe report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks energy projects around the globe, said efforts to decarbonize steelmaking are gaining traction around the world. However, in India, which is the world's second largest steel-producing nation, overwhelming reliance on coal-based technologies presents a big challenge.\n\n\"India is now the bellwether of global steel decarbonization,\" said Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager of the Global Iron and Steel Tracker at GEM and report co-author. \"If the country does not increase its plans for green steel production, the entire sector will miss an important milestone. So goes India, so goes the world.\"\n\nCurrently, up to 12% of India's greenhouse gas emissions, which go into the atmosphere and heat the planet, come from steelmaking. That number could double in five years if steel is produced in line with the government's plans, according to the report.\n\nAt the same time, India wants to produce 500 gigawatts of clean power — enough to power nearly 300 million Indian homes — by the end of this decade. The South Asian nation recently crossed the milestone of installing 100 gigawatts of solar power, most of which was installed in the last 10 years.\n\nBy 2070, India also aims to go net zero, that is, it will either eliminate all carbon dioxide pollution it emits or cancel it out by using other methods, such as planting trees that absorb carbon.\n\nSteel production is one of the most carbon polluting industries, responsible for nearly 9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The International Energy Agency has set a target for 37% of global steelmaking capacity to rely on lower-emission electric arc furnaces by 2030. Current projections by GEM show the world reaching just 36% — a shortfall largely due to India's coal-heavy pipeline.\n\nIndia plans to expand its steel production capacity from 200 million to over 330 million tonnes per year by 2030. According to the new data, over 40% of global capacity in development — about 352 million tonnes per annum — is in India, with more than half of that using coal-based capacity.\n\n\"India is the only major steel-producing nation that has so much coal-based capacity in the pipeline,\" said Henna Khadeeja, a research analyst with GEM who also worked on the report.\n\nIndia's steel sector releases approximately 2.6 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of steel, roughly 25% more than the global average. China, the world's largest steelmaker, has managed to keep its emissions lower per ton by producing more scrap-based steel and retiring older coal-based plants.\n\nIndia's heavy dependence on coal for steelmaking is driven by a combination of factors: low-cost domestic coal, a relatively young fleet of blast furnaces that still have 20–25 years of operational life left, and a lack of natural gas and steel scrap. The country's scrap recycling ecosystem remains informal, and high-quality iron ore is scarce.\n\n\"There is potential for India to change course,\" said Khadeeja of GEM. \"Much of the planned capacity is still on paper. Only 8% of it has actually broken ground. This means there is still a window to shift toward lower-emission technologies.\"\n\nThe consequences of producing carbon polluting steel may go beyond climate goals. While India's steel exports are only a small share of its overall production, they could suffer as major markets like the European Union begin enforcing carbon border taxes next year.\n\n\"India may be better off tolerating some short-term pain of technological upgrading to make its steel cleaner for long-term competitiveness gain,\" said Easwaran Narassimhan of the New Delhi-based think tank Sustainable Futures Collaborative." } ]
0d1cec30603343d97ec9bafec78490c336f2330d1ce9a52ef32b605b3256536e	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# AP PHOTOS: Holy tchotchkes: Rome is awash with papal souvenirs\n\nMay 5th, 2025, 05:05 AM\n\n---\n\nROME (AP) — Like all major tourist destinations, Rome is awash in souvenirs. With Holy Year Catholic pilgrims, Pope Francis ' funeral and the buzz surrounding the conclave to elect his successor, the most popular tchotchkes these days are those about the papacy.\n\nThere are books, booklets and prayer cards of the last three popes and others dating back to the mid-20th century. Their images also appear in snow globes, bobblehead dolls and, in Francis' case, even in nail clippers, bottle openers and key chains.\n\nAmong the most popular, and cheapest, are rosaries, which the faithful prayed in St. Peter's Square for many nights while Francis was hospitalized in February and March. He died on April 21 at age 88.\n\nThe often uneasy combination of worship and social-media-fueled blockbuster tourism is a growing concern across Europe.\n\nWith the choice of the next leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic church now hanging in the balance, it's no wonder that even solemn moments like the funeral are becoming collectible experiences.\n\nHardly a person lining Francis' route from funeral Mass to burial last Saturday wasn't holding a smartphone to record the moment.\n\nAnd on the arms of many hung shopping bags with small plastic rosaries, papal pendants and even a mini \"popemobile\" reproduction.\n\n___\n\nThis is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# AP PHOTOS: Holy tchotchkes: Rome is awash with papal souvenirs\n\nMay 5th, 2025, 05:05 AM\n\n---\n\nROME (AP) — Like all major tourist destinations, Rome is awash in souvenirs. With Holy Year Catholic pilgrims, Pope Francis ' funeral and the buzz surrounding the conclave to elect his successor, the most popular tchotchkes these days are those about the papacy.\n\nThere are books, booklets and prayer cards of the last three popes and others dating back to the mid-20th century. Their images also appear in snow globes, bobblehead dolls and, in Francis' case, even in nail clippers, bottle openers and key chains.\n\nAmong the most popular, and cheapest, are rosaries, which the faithful prayed in St. Peter's Square for many nights while Francis was hospitalized in February and March. He died on April 21 at age 88.\n\nThe often uneasy combination of worship and social-media-fueled blockbuster tourism is a growing concern across Europe.\n\nWith the choice of the next leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic church now hanging in the balance, it's no wonder that even solemn moments like the funeral are becoming collectible experiences.\n\nHardly a person lining Francis' route from funeral Mass to burial last Saturday wasn't holding a smartphone to record the moment.\n\nAnd on the arms of many hung shopping bags with small plastic rosaries, papal pendants and even a mini \"popemobile\" reproduction." } ]
979cd68f8f1c59aa9873c84984d02f42ba125a26c6face721d83201642830dc6	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or in Cannes. Here's his history with the festival\n\nMay 9th, 2025, 01:48 PM\n\n---\n\nCANNES, France (AP) — Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a culmination for the 81-year-old actor whose history with the French film festival stretches back half a century.\n\nIn 1976, De Niro starred in two films — Martin Scorsese's \"Taxi Driver\" and Bernardo Bertolucci's \"1900\" — that premiered in competition at Cannes. \"Taxi Driver\" was an immediate sensation, and went home with the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or.\n\nSince then, De Niro has been a regular on the Croisette, returning with \"The King of Comedy\" in 1983, Sergio Leone's \"Once Upon a Time in America\" in 1984 and Roland Joffé's \"The Mission\" in 1986. Joffé's film also won the Palme, making De Niro the rare actor to star in two Palme d'Or winners.\n\nThough De Niro helps run his own film festival back in New York, the Tribeca Festival, he has remained a mainstay in Cannes. He presided over the jury in 2011 that selected Terrence Malick's \"The Tree of Life\" for the Palme. Most recently, he and Scorsese returned to premiere \"Killers of the Flower Moon\" in 2023.\n\n\"I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes,\" De Niro said when his honorary Palme d'Or was announced last month. \"Especially now when there's so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together — storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It's like coming home.\"\n\nDe Niro is to receive the award in the festival's opening ceremony on May 13.\n\n___\n\nFor more coverage of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or in Cannes. Here's his history with the festival\n\nMay 9th, 2025, 01:48 PM\n\n---\n\nCANNES, France (AP) — Robert De Niro will receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a culmination for the 81-year-old actor whose history with the French film festival stretches back half a century.\n\nIn 1976, De Niro starred in two films — Martin Scorsese's \"Taxi Driver\" and Bernardo Bertolucci's \"1900\" — that premiered in competition at Cannes. \"Taxi Driver\" was an immediate sensation, and went home with the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or.\n\nSince then, De Niro has been a regular on the Croisette, returning with \"The King of Comedy\" in 1983, Sergio Leone's \"Once Upon a Time in America\" in 1984 and Roland Joffé's \"The Mission\" in 1986. Joffé's film also won the Palme, making De Niro the rare actor to star in two Palme d'Or winners.\n\nThough De Niro helps run his own film festival back in New York, the Tribeca Festival, he has remained a mainstay in Cannes. He presided over the jury in 2011 that selected Terrence Malick's \"The Tree of Life\" for the Palme. Most recently, he and Scorsese returned to premiere \"Killers of the Flower Moon\" in 2023.\n\n\"I have such close feelings for Festival de Cannes,\" De Niro said when his honorary Palme d'Or was announced last month. \"Especially now when there's so much in the world pulling us apart, Cannes brings us together — storytellers, filmmakers, fans, and friends. It's like coming home.\"\n\nDe Niro is to receive the award in the festival's opening ceremony on May 13." } ]
004f9ff5b2d4151ab07f39d8ce09ec8e646ab158a1455608c2bdb0b2f32565af	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of US deaths over 15 years, study says\n\nBy Dorany Pineda \nMay 7th, 2025, 04:53 PM\n\n---\n\nWildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.\n\nThe paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.\n\n\"We're seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,\" said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: \"What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?\"\n\nLisa Thompson, a professor at Emory University who studies air pollution and climate change and was not involved in the paper, said it is one of the first studies she has seen to isolate the effect of climate change on mortality. Looking at the impacts across time and space also made it unique, she said.\n\nThe paper's researchers focused on deaths linked to exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — the main concern from wildfire smoke.\n\nThese particles can lodge deep into lungs and trigger coughing and itchy eyes with short-term exposure. But longer term they can make existing health problems worse and lead to a range of chronic and deadly health issues. Children, pregnant people, the elderly and outdoor workers are among the most vulnerable. The Health Effects Institute estimated the pollutant caused 4 million deaths worldwide.\n\nEvidence is emerging that PM2.5 from wildfire smoke is more toxic than other pollution sources. When wildfires encroach into cities, burning cars and other toxics-containing materials, it adds to the danger.\n\nNumerous studies have tied human-caused climate change — caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas — to a growth in fires in North America. Global warming is increasing drought, especially in the West, and other extreme weather. Drier conditions suck moisture from plants, which act as fuel for fires. When drier vegetation and seasons are mixed with hotter temperatures, that increases the frequency, extent and severity of wildfires and the smoke they spew.\n\n## Findings dismaying but not surprising, scholar says\n\nJacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and environment at Syracuse University, said he was \"dismayed\" by the findings but not surprised.\n\n\"(T) hese numbers are really significant. I think there's a tendency for people outside of the areas actually burning to see increasing fires as a distant inconvenience … This study drives home how far-reaching the impacts are,\" said Bendix in an email. He wasn't involved in the study.\n\nThe study's authors drew on modeled and existing data to reach their findings. First, they sought to understand how much area burned by wildfires was attributable to climate change. They did that by analyzing the real climate conditions — heat and rain, for instance — when wildfires erupted from 2006 to 2020, and compared that to a scenario where weather measurements would be different without climate change.\n\nFrom there, they estimated the levels of PM2.5 from wildfire smoke tied to climate change using the same approach. Lastly, integrating the current understanding of how particulate matter affects mortality based on published research, they quantified the number of deaths related to PM2.5 from wildfires and calculated their economic impact.\n\nThis framework showed that of 164,000 deaths related to wildfire-PM2.5 exposure from 2006 to 2020, 10% were attributable to climate change. The mortalities were 30% to 50% higher in some western states and counties.\n\n## Questions about the study's conclusions\n\nMarshall Burke, global environmental policy professor at Stanford University, said the evidence linking climate change to burned areas was \"rock solid,\" but the subsequent steps were harder.\n\n\"Linking burned area to smoke is trickier because you never know exactly which way the wind's going to blow,\" he said, and he wondered how the death estimates compared to fatalities tied to general air pollution.\n\nStill, their approach was sensible and reasonable, Burke said.\n\nJohns Hopkins University lecturer in climate and energy policy Patrick Brown said he had some concerns about the study. One was conceptual. The study acknowledges the power non-climate drivers have on wildfires, but it doesn't give them proper weight, he said in an email.\n\nBrown, who was not involved in the study, worries decision-makers could wrongly conclude that mitigating planet-warming carbon emissions is the only solution. \"Yet in many regions, the more immediate life‑saving action may be fuel breaks, prescribed burns, ignition‑source regulation, public health efforts, etc.,\" he said.\n\nLand management practices such as prescribed burns can reduce wildfire fuel, Nassikas said. But ultimately, the study notes, the problem of deaths from wildfire smoke will only get worse without the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.\n\n\"Part of the study is raising awareness,\" he said. \"And then once we kind of understand that … now what are the interventions that we can deploy at a personal level, at a community level, and then obviously at a larger level across the country and across the world?\"\n\n———\n\nThe Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP's environmental coverage, visit apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Smoke from climate-fueled wildfires contributed to thousands of US deaths over 15 years, study says\n\nBy Dorany Pineda \nMay 7th, 2025, 04:53 PM\n\n---\n\nWildfires driven by climate change contribute to as many as thousands of annual deaths and billions of dollars in economic costs from wildfire smoke in the United States, according to a new study.\n\nThe paper, published Friday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment, found that from 2006 to 2020, climate change contributed to about 15,000 deaths from exposure to small particulate matter from wildfires and cost about $160 billion. The annual range of deaths was 130 to 5,100, the study showed, with the highest in states such as Oregon and California.\n\n\"We're seeing a lot more of these wildfire smoke events,\" said Nicholas Nassikas, a study author and a physician and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. So he and multidisciplinary team of researchers wanted to know: \"What does it really mean in a changing environment for things like mortality, which is kind of the worst possible health outcome?\"\n\nLisa Thompson, a professor at Emory University who studies air pollution and climate change and was not involved in the paper, said it is one of the first studies she has seen to isolate the effect of climate change on mortality. Looking at the impacts across time and space also made it unique, she said.\n\nThe paper's researchers focused on deaths linked to exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — the main concern from wildfire smoke.\n\nThese particles can lodge deep into lungs and trigger coughing and itchy eyes with short-term exposure. But longer term they can make existing health problems worse and lead to a range of chronic and deadly health issues. Children, pregnant people, the elderly and outdoor workers are among the most vulnerable. The Health Effects Institute estimated the pollutant caused 4 million deaths worldwide.\n\nEvidence is emerging that PM2.5 from wildfire smoke is more toxic than other pollution sources. When wildfires encroach into cities, burning cars and other toxics-containing materials, it adds to the danger.\n\nNumerous studies have tied human-caused climate change — caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas — to a growth in fires in North America. Global warming is increasing drought, especially in the West, and other extreme weather. Drier conditions suck moisture from plants, which act as fuel for fires. When drier vegetation and seasons are mixed with hotter temperatures, that increases the frequency, extent and severity of wildfires and the smoke they spew.\n\n## Findings dismaying but not surprising, scholar says\n\nJacob Bendix, professor emeritus of geography and environment at Syracuse University, said he was \"dismayed\" by the findings but not surprised.\n\n\"(T) hese numbers are really significant. I think there's a tendency for people outside of the areas actually burning to see increasing fires as a distant inconvenience … This study drives home how far-reaching the impacts are,\" said Bendix in an email. He wasn't involved in the study.\n\nThe study's authors drew on modeled and existing data to reach their findings. First, they sought to understand how much area burned by wildfires was attributable to climate change. They did that by analyzing the real climate conditions — heat and rain, for instance — when wildfires erupted from 2006 to 2020, and compared that to a scenario where weather measurements would be different without climate change.\n\nFrom there, they estimated the levels of PM2.5 from wildfire smoke tied to climate change using the same approach. Lastly, integrating the current understanding of how particulate matter affects mortality based on published research, they quantified the number of deaths related to PM2.5 from wildfires and calculated their economic impact.\n\nThis framework showed that of 164,000 deaths related to wildfire-PM2.5 exposure from 2006 to 2020, 10% were attributable to climate change. The mortalities were 30% to 50% higher in some western states and counties.\n\n## Questions about the study's conclusions\n\nMarshall Burke, global environmental policy professor at Stanford University, said the evidence linking climate change to burned areas was \"rock solid,\" but the subsequent steps were harder.\n\n\"Linking burned area to smoke is trickier because you never know exactly which way the wind's going to blow,\" he said, and he wondered how the death estimates compared to fatalities tied to general air pollution.\n\nStill, their approach was sensible and reasonable, Burke said.\n\nJohns Hopkins University lecturer in climate and energy policy Patrick Brown said he had some concerns about the study. One was conceptual. The study acknowledges the power non-climate drivers have on wildfires, but it doesn't give them proper weight, he said in an email.\n\nBrown, who was not involved in the study, worries decision-makers could wrongly conclude that mitigating planet-warming carbon emissions is the only solution. \"Yet in many regions, the more immediate life‑saving action may be fuel breaks, prescribed burns, ignition‑source regulation, public health efforts, etc.,\" he said.\n\nLand management practices such as prescribed burns can reduce wildfire fuel, Nassikas said. But ultimately, the study notes, the problem of deaths from wildfire smoke will only get worse without the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.\n\n\"Part of the study is raising awareness,\" he said. \"And then once we kind of understand that … now what are the interventions that we can deploy at a personal level, at a community level, and then obviously at a larger level across the country and across the world?\"" } ]
2ebe9904de729faf51bc8dc5b8e9c5dcca41940c90b1393325356abf48f307aa	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Kash Patel says he can achieve FBI's mission with steep budget cuts\n\nBy Eric Tucker \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:40 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday that he would make the bureau's mission \"work on whatever budget we're given,\" striking a different tone from comments a day earlier in which he called for the agency to be funded at far higher levels than what the Trump administration had proposed.\n\nThe 2026 budget proposal released on Friday calls for a funding cut of about $545 million for the FBI as part of what the White House said was a desire to \"reform and streamline\" the bureau and reduce \"non-law enforcement missions that do not align\" with the priorities of President Donald Trump\n\nPatel told lawmakers at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the FBI needs \"more than what has been proposed\" to operate as it should and that it \"can't do the mission on those 2011 budget levels.\"\n\nBut on Thursday, appearing at a separate hearing of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, he took a different stance when asked by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland about his earlier testimony that the FBI required substantially more money than what the Trump budget plan had called for.\n\n\"My view is that we agree with this budget as it stands and (will) make it work for the operational necessity of the FBI, and as the head of the FBI, I was simply asking for more funds because I can do more with more money,\" he said.\n\nHe added that he would \"make the mission work on whatever budget we're given.\"\n\n__" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Kash Patel says he can achieve FBI's mission with steep budget cuts\n\nBy Eric Tucker \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:40 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday that he would make the bureau's mission \"work on whatever budget we're given,\" striking a different tone from comments a day earlier in which he called for the agency to be funded at far higher levels than what the Trump administration had proposed.\n\nThe 2026 budget proposal released on Friday calls for a funding cut of about $545 million for the FBI as part of what the White House said was a desire to \"reform and streamline\" the bureau and reduce \"non-law enforcement missions that do not align\" with the priorities of President Donald Trump\n\nPatel told lawmakers at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday that the FBI needs \"more than what has been proposed\" to operate as it should and that it \"can't do the mission on those 2011 budget levels.\"\n\nBut on Thursday, appearing at a separate hearing of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, he took a different stance when asked by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland about his earlier testimony that the FBI required substantially more money than what the Trump budget plan had called for.\n\n\"My view is that we agree with this budget as it stands and (will) make it work for the operational necessity of the FBI, and as the head of the FBI, I was simply asking for more funds because I can do more with more money,\" he said.\n\nHe added that he would \"make the mission work on whatever budget we're given.\"" } ]
25e8b60f4716f25668b37720f79974d14aee6677d7d89f23f028f040e1af4e95	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# There's an environmental crisis left from migrants in the Darien Gap\n\nBy Megan Janetsky and Matias Delacroix \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:03 AM\n\n---\n\nVILLA CALETA, Panama (AP) — For centuries, the Comarca Embera people have fished and bathed in the Turquesa River, a jungle waterway flowing out of the Darien Gap. They've long been accustomed to changes in the water — rainy season brings mud and sediment in the faster-flowing river. But now, they're seeing unprecedented change in the wake of a migratory crisis: Trash, gasoline and fecal matter have been left behind from the 1.2 million vulnerable people who trekked through one of the Earth's most biodiverse rainforests.\n\nMigration through the Darien Gap — a remote area along the Colombia-Panama that sat largely untouched until it became the epicenter of 2021's crush of migration — has virtually vanished, but families in the small community of Villa Caleta still fear bathing in the winding river. Fish, their main food source, reek of fuel from boats that carried people down the Turquesa. And deeper in the jungle, criminal groups that pushed into the region to profit off the migratory route are part of illegal gold mining and deforestation operations.\n\nPanamanian authorities and residents say that with the humanitarian crisis came an environmental crisis that will take years to reverse, while local communities suffer the consequences.\n\n\"The water is polluted with garbage,\" said Militza Olea, 43, eyeing the red sores still dotting the skin of her 3-year-old nephew days after he bathed in the Turquesa. \"We have to be careful. Everyone climbs out of the river with hives on their skin, especially the children.\"\n\n## 2,500 tons of trash with a $12 million cleanup cost\n\nIt's been months since migration in the once-untouched jungles and rivers plummeted, but authorities say pollution and other environmental concerns are at a high. They estimate that 2,500 tons of trash were left in the Darien Gap and that just cleaning it up along the migratory route will cost around $12 million.\n\nAt the height of migration, as many as 3,000 people a day floated down the Turquesa past Villa Caleta and other communities on their way out of the jungle.\n\nToday, floating in the water and tangled in trees are foam mats migrants used to sleep, tattered shirts plastered with dirt, backpacks, plastic bottles and more.\n\nPanamanian Environmental Minister Juan Carlos Navarro blames the American government. He said the Trump administration should foot the bill for cleaning because the vast majority of migrants traversing the Darien Gap were headed to the U.S.\n\nNavarro noted Panama's lack of money and resources and said the government was promised $3 million by the outgoing Biden administration in January, but that under President Donald Trump the promised funds haven't arrived.\n\n\"They're not cleaning up their mess,\" he said. \"If the United States is responsible because it opened its borders, then the United States should pay for it.\"\n\nThe White House didn't respond to an emailed request for comment.\n\n## Fecal matter and other contaminants\n\nBeyond the trash that can be seen floating in the river, officials say tests show dangerous levels of contamination.\n\nThe most recent test by government hydrologists, in August, showed high amounts of fecal coliform bacteria in the Turquesa River, typically indicating human waste. Communities also found decomposing bodies floating past their homes, leaders said.\n\nOfficials said they need to carry out more tests on the water's current state. But they believe the issues likely remain, as most of what's leftover from migration remains farther upstream, where border police blocked Associated Press journalists despite permission granted by Panamanian environmental authorities.\n\nOlea and others in the Indigenous Comarca Embera community — consisting of about 12,000 people who long lived off fertile lands deep in Panama's southern jungle, until their territory intersected with the migratory route running from Colombia — attribute the rashes appearing on residents' arms to the pollution.\n\nWhile doctors and officials have made no medical diagnosis, residents say symptoms appeared only when migration began to surge, around 2021.\n\nOlea said her family spends money from its plantain crops for expensive antibiotic creams, brought by family members who travel hours by boat from the closest towns. Not everyone can afford it, and they say their rashes spread.\n\nOlea also worries about water supply. There's fresh drinking water for now, thanks to a small plant installed by an aid organization, but she said their small water stores won't be enough during the summer dry season.\n\n\"When the time comes, the people here are going to need that water,\" she said. \"The river has to be clean.\"\n\nFood scarcity was already an issue, with the economy suffering from the disappearance of the migrants. Many say environmental effects are exacerbating the problem.\n\n\"The fish we catch, they still smell of gasoline,\" community leader Cholino de Gracia said. \"We can't fish anymore because you'd practically be eating a fish full of gasoline.\"\n\n## Deforestation and criminal activity\n\nWith the flow of migrants, the Colombian criminal group known as the Gulf Clan pushed into the region, seizing control of the migration route, said Henry Shuldiner, a researcher with Insight Crime investigating organized crime in the Darien Gap.\n\nThe group has long cultivated coca, the plant used to produce cocaine, and illegally mined gold — a process that uses mercury to extract gold from ore, poisoning lands and waters around the mines.\n\nOn the Colombian side of the Darien Gap, Shuldiner said, the group has taken advantage of its control of large swathes of jungle to expand operations and rake in money from environmental crimes. In some cases, that's included taking a cut from existing illegal logging operations. In others, they've sliced and burnt through dense jungle to replace with fields of coca.\n\n\"We're seeing increased land clearings around these municipalities that bordered the Darien, mostly for coca cultivation,\" Shuldiner said. Along the former migrant trail, \"there are environmental crimes happening, and the (Gulf Clan) is profiting directly.\"\n\nIn some cases, that criminal activity has trickled into Panama as groups set up illegal mining operations in federally protected national parks. In January, authorities said they had dismantled an illegal gold mining network and detained 10 Colombians and Panamanians who left the jungle contaminated with mercury and cyanide.\n\nIn other places, Environmental Minister Navarro and residents said, criminals rent land on Indigenous reservations to launder money earned during the economic boom from migration, and they burn and chop down dense jungle to make way for cattle ranches.\n\nIn 2023, deforestation in the Darien shot up after years of decline, according to the latest data from Global Forest Watch, which monitors deforestation using satellites. Local leaders say that will deal a long-term blow to the communities that have lived off the land for centuries.\n\n## A state of \"environmental anarchy\"\n\nNavarro said Panama's government must try to rescue the jungle from a state of \"environmental anarchy.\"\n\n\"This is a treasure trove of biodiversity,\" Navarro said. \"They've disrupted the whole system of life in this community and damaged some of them forever. ... Now that this disaster has ended, we're going to be able to conserve our forests.\"\n\nBut community leader De Gracia and others in the region say the area has long been neglected. They blame Panama's government for not doing more to clean their waters or develop the region in a way that would allow them to bounce back faster.\n\nOlea, watching her nephew play even with the rash running along his arms, worries most for the children in places like Villa Caleta.\n\n\"Without water, there's no life here,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# There's an environmental crisis left from migrants in the Darien Gap\n\nBy Megan Janetsky and Matias Delacroix \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:03 AM\n\n---\n\nVILLA CALETA, Panama (AP) — For centuries, the Comarca Embera people have fished and bathed in the Turquesa River, a jungle waterway flowing out of the Darien Gap. They've long been accustomed to changes in the water — rainy season brings mud and sediment in the faster-flowing river. But now, they're seeing unprecedented change in the wake of a migratory crisis: Trash, gasoline and fecal matter have been left behind from the 1.2 million vulnerable people who trekked through one of the Earth's most biodiverse rainforests.\n\nMigration through the Darien Gap — a remote area along the Colombia-Panama that sat largely untouched until it became the epicenter of 2021's crush of migration — has virtually vanished, but families in the small community of Villa Caleta still fear bathing in the winding river. Fish, their main food source, reek of fuel from boats that carried people down the Turquesa. And deeper in the jungle, criminal groups that pushed into the region to profit off the migratory route are part of illegal gold mining and deforestation operations.\n\nPanamanian authorities and residents say that with the humanitarian crisis came an environmental crisis that will take years to reverse, while local communities suffer the consequences.\n\n\"The water is polluted with garbage,\" said Militza Olea, 43, eyeing the red sores still dotting the skin of her 3-year-old nephew days after he bathed in the Turquesa. \"We have to be careful. Everyone climbs out of the river with hives on their skin, especially the children.\"\n\n## 2,500 tons of trash with a $12 million cleanup cost\n\nIt's been months since migration in the once-untouched jungles and rivers plummeted, but authorities say pollution and other environmental concerns are at a high. They estimate that 2,500 tons of trash were left in the Darien Gap and that just cleaning it up along the migratory route will cost around $12 million.\n\nAt the height of migration, as many as 3,000 people a day floated down the Turquesa past Villa Caleta and other communities on their way out of the jungle.\n\nToday, floating in the water and tangled in trees are foam mats migrants used to sleep, tattered shirts plastered with dirt, backpacks, plastic bottles and more.\n\nPanamanian Environmental Minister Juan Carlos Navarro blames the American government. He said the Trump administration should foot the bill for cleaning because the vast majority of migrants traversing the Darien Gap were headed to the U.S.\n\nNavarro noted Panama's lack of money and resources and said the government was promised $3 million by the outgoing Biden administration in January, but that under President Donald Trump the promised funds haven't arrived.\n\n\"They're not cleaning up their mess,\" he said. \"If the United States is responsible because it opened its borders, then the United States should pay for it.\"\n\nThe White House didn't respond to an emailed request for comment.\n\n## Fecal matter and other contaminants\n\nBeyond the trash that can be seen floating in the river, officials say tests show dangerous levels of contamination.\n\nThe most recent test by government hydrologists, in August, showed high amounts of fecal coliform bacteria in the Turquesa River, typically indicating human waste. Communities also found decomposing bodies floating past their homes, leaders said.\n\nOfficials said they need to carry out more tests on the water's current state. But they believe the issues likely remain, as most of what's leftover from migration remains farther upstream, where border police blocked Associated Press journalists despite permission granted by Panamanian environmental authorities.\n\nOlea and others in the Indigenous Comarca Embera community — consisting of about 12,000 people who long lived off fertile lands deep in Panama's southern jungle, until their territory intersected with the migratory route running from Colombia — attribute the rashes appearing on residents' arms to the pollution.\n\nWhile doctors and officials have made no medical diagnosis, residents say symptoms appeared only when migration began to surge, around 2021.\n\nOlea said her family spends money from its plantain crops for expensive antibiotic creams, brought by family members who travel hours by boat from the closest towns. Not everyone can afford it, and they say their rashes spread.\n\nOlea also worries about water supply. There's fresh drinking water for now, thanks to a small plant installed by an aid organization, but she said their small water stores won't be enough during the summer dry season.\n\n\"When the time comes, the people here are going to need that water,\" she said. \"The river has to be clean.\"\n\nFood scarcity was already an issue, with the economy suffering from the disappearance of the migrants. Many say environmental effects are exacerbating the problem.\n\n\"The fish we catch, they still smell of gasoline,\" community leader Cholino de Gracia said. \"We can't fish anymore because you'd practically be eating a fish full of gasoline.\"\n\n## Deforestation and criminal activity\n\nWith the flow of migrants, the Colombian criminal group known as the Gulf Clan pushed into the region, seizing control of the migration route, said Henry Shuldiner, a researcher with Insight Crime investigating organized crime in the Darien Gap.\n\nThe group has long cultivated coca, the plant used to produce cocaine, and illegally mined gold — a process that uses mercury to extract gold from ore, poisoning lands and waters around the mines.\n\nOn the Colombian side of the Darien Gap, Shuldiner said, the group has taken advantage of its control of large swathes of jungle to expand operations and rake in money from environmental crimes. In some cases, that's included taking a cut from existing illegal logging operations. In others, they've sliced and burnt through dense jungle to replace with fields of coca.\n\n\"We're seeing increased land clearings around these municipalities that bordered the Darien, mostly for coca cultivation,\" Shuldiner said. Along the former migrant trail, \"there are environmental crimes happening, and the (Gulf Clan) is profiting directly.\"\n\nIn some cases, that criminal activity has trickled into Panama as groups set up illegal mining operations in federally protected national parks. In January, authorities said they had dismantled an illegal gold mining network and detained 10 Colombians and Panamanians who left the jungle contaminated with mercury and cyanide.\n\nIn other places, Environmental Minister Navarro and residents said, criminals rent land on Indigenous reservations to launder money earned during the economic boom from migration, and they burn and chop down dense jungle to make way for cattle ranches.\n\nIn 2023, deforestation in the Darien shot up after years of decline, according to the latest data from Global Forest Watch, which monitors deforestation using satellites. Local leaders say that will deal a long-term blow to the communities that have lived off the land for centuries.\n\n## A state of \"environmental anarchy\"\n\nNavarro said Panama's government must try to rescue the jungle from a state of \"environmental anarchy.\"\n\n\"This is a treasure trove of biodiversity,\" Navarro said. \"They've disrupted the whole system of life in this community and damaged some of them forever. ... Now that this disaster has ended, we're going to be able to conserve our forests.\"\n\nBut community leader De Gracia and others in the region say the area has long been neglected. They blame Panama's government for not doing more to clean their waters or develop the region in a way that would allow them to bounce back faster.\n\nOlea, watching her nephew play even with the rash running along his arms, worries most for the children in places like Villa Caleta.\n\n\"Without water, there's no life here,\" she said." } ]
78245bfbc8099e247536c1dd9f61616cd16a3d2b80fc66268dfae98e45cac505	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Older people in crosshairs as government restarts Social Security garnishment on student loans\n\nBy Matt Sedensky \nMay 15th, 2025, 10:00 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she's put off taking two cats and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.\n\nBut it's about to get far tighter.\n\nAs the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs: Hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.\n\n\"I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could never pay it off,\" says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, California.\n\nLike millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in 2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would restart \"involuntary collections\" by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.\n\nFarro's loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a bachelor's degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered she couldn't earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school and got a master's degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got worse.\n\nAround 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one suggestion.\n\n\"They said, 'Move to a cheaper state,'\" says Farro, who rents a 400-square-foot casita from a friend. \"I realized I was living in a different reality than they were.\"\n\nStudent loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold increase from 20 years ago.\n\nThat has led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% — from approximately 6,200 beneficiaries to 192,300 — between 2001 and 2019, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.\n\nThis year, an estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default and are likely to experience the Department of Education's renewed forced collections, according to the January report from CFPB.\n\nDebbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky, is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two decades and they've used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews. McIntyre doesn't know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.\n\nShe floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won't automatically clear her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.\n\n\"I don't know what more I can do,\" says McIntyre, who is too afraid to check what her loan balance is. \"I'll never get out of this hole.\"\n\nBraxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it's striking how many older people dial into the organization's calls and attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts cancelled but fell victim to a system \"riddled with flaws and illegalities and flukes.\" Many whose educations have left them in late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans, sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and fees.\n\nFor those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results can be devastating.\n\n\"We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,\" he says. \"We know folks that have been driven into homelessness.\"\n\nCollections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750 of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a debtor far below the poverty line.\n\n\"We're basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand and taking them away with another,\" says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New America think tank.\n\nLinda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction, Arizona, went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.\n\n\"It's going to mean restrictions,\" says Hilton. \"There won't be any travel. There won't be any frills.\"\n\nSome debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more are living in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the Department of Education's dismantling and, for those seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting calls answered.\n\nWhile Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a necessary step for debtors \"both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation's economic outlook,\" even some of Trump's most fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives harder.\n\nRandall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn't strike him as fair, but he's not sure Trump's approach is either. He supported Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors. Countryman thinks Americans don't realize how many older people are affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.\n\n\"What's a young person's problem today,\" he says, \"is an old person's problem tomorrow.\"\n\nCountryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He's worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been complicated by his criminal record.\n\nHe lives off his wife's Social Security check and the kindness of his mother-in-law. He doesn't know how they'd get by if the government demands repayment.\n\n\"I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,\" he says.\n\n___\n\nMatt Sedensky can be reached at [email protected] and https://x.com/sedensky" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Older people in crosshairs as government restarts Social Security garnishment on student loans\n\nBy Matt Sedensky \nMay 15th, 2025, 10:00 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW YORK (AP) — Christine Farro has cut back on the presents she sends her grandchildren on their birthdays, and she's put off taking two cats and a dog for their shots. All her clothes come from thrift stores and most of her vegetables come from her garden. At 73, she has cut her costs as much as she can to live on a tight budget.\n\nBut it's about to get far tighter.\n\nAs the Trump administration resumes collections on defaulted student loans, a surprising population has been caught in the crosshairs: Hundreds of thousands of older Americans whose decades-old debts now put them at risk of having their Social Security checks garnished.\n\n\"I worked ridiculous hours. I worked weekends and nights. But I could never pay it off,\" says Farro, a retired child welfare worker in Santa Ynez, California.\n\nLike millions of debtors with federal student loans, Farro had her payments and interest paused by the government five years ago when the pandemic thrust many into financial hardship. That grace period ended in 2023 and, earlier this month, the Department of Education said it would restart \"involuntary collections\" by garnishing paychecks, tax refunds and Social Security retirement and disability benefits. Farro previously had her Social Security garnished and expects it to restart.\n\nFarro's loans date back 40 years. She was a single mother when she got a bachelor's degree in developmental psychology and when she discovered she couldn't earn enough to pay off her loans, she went back to school and got a master's degree. Her salary never caught up. Things only got worse.\n\nAround 2008, when she consolidated her loans, she was paying $1,000 a month, but years of missed payments and piled-on interest meant she was barely putting a dent in a bill that had ballooned to $250,000. When she sought help to resolve her debt, she says the loan company had just one suggestion.\n\n\"They said, 'Move to a cheaper state,'\" says Farro, who rents a 400-square-foot casita from a friend. \"I realized I was living in a different reality than they were.\"\n\nStudent loan debt among older people has grown at a staggering rate, in part due to rising tuitions that have forced more people to borrow greater sums. People 60 and older hold an estimated $125 billion in student loans, according to the National Consumer Law Center, a six-fold increase from 20 years ago.\n\nThat has led Social Security beneficiaries who have had their payments garnished to balloon by 3,000% — from approximately 6,200 beneficiaries to 192,300 — between 2001 and 2019, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.\n\nThis year, an estimated 452,000 people aged 62 and older had student loans in default and are likely to experience the Department of Education's renewed forced collections, according to the January report from CFPB.\n\nDebbie McIntyre, a 62-year-old adult education teacher in Georgetown, Kentucky, is among them. She dreams of retiring and writing more historical fiction, and of boarding a plane for the first time since high school. But her husband has been out of work on disability for two decades and they've used credit cards to get by on his meager benefits and her paycheck. Their rent will be hiked $300 when their lease renews. McIntyre doesn't know what to do if her paycheck is garnished.\n\nShe floats the idea of bankruptcy, but that won't automatically clear her loans, which are held to a different standard than other debt. She figures if she picks up extra jobs babysitting or tutoring, she could put $50 toward her loans here and there. But she sees no real solution.\n\n\"I don't know what more I can do,\" says McIntyre, who is too afraid to check what her loan balance is. \"I'll never get out of this hole.\"\n\nBraxton Brewington of the Debt Collective debtors union says it's striking how many older people dial into the organization's calls and attend its protests. Many of them, he says, should have had their debts cancelled but fell victim to a system \"riddled with flaws and illegalities and flukes.\" Many whose educations have left them in late-life debt have, in fact, paid back the principal on their loans, sometimes several times over, but still owe more due to interest and fees.\n\nFor those who are subject to garnishment, Brewington says, the results can be devastating.\n\n\"We hear from people who skip meals. We know people who dilute their medication or cut their pills in half. People take drastic measures like pulling all their savings out or dissolving their 401ks,\" he says. \"We know folks that have been driven into homelessness.\"\n\nCollections on defaulted loans may have restarted no matter who was president, though the Biden administration had sought to limit the amount of income that could be garnished. Federal law protects just $750 of Social Security benefits from garnishment, an amount that would put a debtor far below the poverty line.\n\n\"We're basically providing people with federal benefits with one hand and taking them away with another,\" says Sarah Sattelmeyer of the New America think tank.\n\nLinda Hilton, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Apache Junction, Arizona, went through garnishment before COVID and says she will survive it again. But flights to see her children, occasional meals at a restaurant and other pleasures of retired life may disappear.\n\n\"It's going to mean restrictions,\" says Hilton. \"There won't be any travel. There won't be any frills.\"\n\nSome debtors have already received notice about collections. Many more are living in fear. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order calling for the Department of Education's dismantling and, for those seeking answers about their loans, mass layoffs have complicated getting calls answered.\n\nWhile Education Secretary Linda McMahon says restarting collections is a necessary step for debtors \"both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation's economic outlook,\" even some of Trump's most fervent supporters are questioning a move that will make their lives harder.\n\nRandall Countryman, 55, of Bonita, California, says a Biden administration proposal to forgive some student debt didn't strike him as fair, but he's not sure Trump's approach is either. He supported Trump but wishes the government made case-by-case decisions on debtors. Countryman thinks Americans don't realize how many older people are affected by policies on student loans, often thought to be the turf of the young, and how difficult it can be for them to repay.\n\n\"What's a young person's problem today,\" he says, \"is an old person's problem tomorrow.\"\n\nCountryman started working on a degree while in prison, then continued it at the University of Phoenix when he was released. He started growing nervous as he racked up loan debt and never finished his degree. He's worked a host of different jobs, but finding work has often been complicated by his criminal record.\n\nHe lives off his wife's Social Security check and the kindness of his mother-in-law. He doesn't know how they'd get by if the government demands repayment.\n\n\"I kind of wish I never went to school in the first place,\" he says." } ]
7412239319e8b3befcd120c0ef71a804764f73983f3e57ceacc3977af66dc1b8	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# How major US stock indexes fared Thursday, 5/1/2025\n\nBy The Associated Press \nMay 1st, 2025, 08:19 PM\n\n---\n\nMicrosoft and Meta Platforms drove Wall Street higher after delivering profits for the start of the year that were even bigger than analysts expected.\n\nThe S&P 500 rose 0.6% Thursday and was back within 8.8% of its record set earlier this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.5%.\n\nTreasury yields swiveled in the bond market following some mixed reports on the economy. Yields initially sank after a report showed more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected, but they later recovered following a better-than-feared update on U.S. manufacturing.\n\nOn Thursday:\n\nThe S&P 500 rose 35.08 points, or 0.6%, to 5,604.14.\n\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 83.60 points, or 0.2%, to 40,752.96.\n\nThe Nasdaq composite rose 264.40 points, or 1.5%, to 17,710.74.\n\nThe Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 11.74 points, or 0.6%, to 1,975.86.\n\nFor the week:\n\nThe S&P 500 is up 78.93 points, or 1.4%.\n\nThe Dow is up 639.46 points, or 1.6%.\n\nThe Nasdaq is up 327.80, or 1.9%.\n\nThe Russell 2000 is up 18.25 points, or 0.9%.\n\nFor the year:\n\nThe S&P 500 is down 277.49 points, or 4.7%.\n\nThe Dow is down 1,791.26 points, or 4.2%.\n\nThe Nasdaq is down 1,600.05, or 8.3%.\n\nThe Russell 2000 is down 254.30 points, or 11.4%." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# How major US stock indexes fared Thursday, 5/1/2025\n\nBy The Associated Press \nMay 1st, 2025, 08:19 PM\n\n---\n\nMicrosoft and Meta Platforms drove Wall Street higher after delivering profits for the start of the year that were even bigger than analysts expected.\n\nThe S&P 500 rose 0.6% Thursday and was back within 8.8% of its record set earlier this year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.5%.\n\nTreasury yields swiveled in the bond market following some mixed reports on the economy. Yields initially sank after a report showed more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than expected, but they later recovered following a better-than-feared update on U.S. manufacturing.\n\nOn Thursday:\n\nThe S&P 500 rose 35.08 points, or 0.6%, to 5,604.14.\n\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 83.60 points, or 0.2%, to 40,752.96.\n\nThe Nasdaq composite rose 264.40 points, or 1.5%, to 17,710.74.\n\nThe Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 11.74 points, or 0.6%, to 1,975.86.\n\nFor the week:\n\nThe S&P 500 is up 78.93 points, or 1.4%.\n\nThe Dow is up 639.46 points, or 1.6%.\n\nThe Nasdaq is up 327.80, or 1.9%.\n\nThe Russell 2000 is up 18.25 points, or 0.9%.\n\nFor the year:\n\nThe S&P 500 is down 277.49 points, or 4.7%.\n\nThe Dow is down 1,791.26 points, or 4.2%.\n\nThe Nasdaq is down 1,600.05, or 8.3%.\n\nThe Russell 2000 is down 254.30 points, or 11.4%." } ]
d78ff84158c2bd7a103a4e332fcf3e901d06afe49539540776144eaaeab27832	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# People moving into the South change the famous US dialect\n\nBy Mike Schneider \nMay 10th, 2025, 04:07 AM\n\n---\n\nGrowing up in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s, Susan Levine's visits to New York City relatives included being the star of an impromptu novelty show: Her cousin invited over friends and charged 25 cents a pop for them to listen to Levine's Southern accent.\n\nEven though they too grew up in Atlanta, Levine's two sons, born more than a quarter century after her, never spoke with the accent that is perhaps the most famous regional dialect in the United States, with its elongated vowels and soft \"r\" sounds.\n\n\"My accent is nonexistent,\" said Ira Levine, her oldest son. \"People I work with, and even in school, people didn't believe I was from Atlanta.\"\n\nThe Southern accent, which has many variations, is fading in some areas of the South as people migrate to the region from other parts of the U.S. and around the world. A series of research papers published in December documented the diminishment of the regional accent among Black residents of the Atlanta area, white working-class people in the New Orleans area and people who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina.\n\nMore than 5.8 million people have moved into the U.S. South so far in the 2020s, more than four times the combined total of the nation's three other regions. Linguists don't believe mass media has played a significant role in the language change, which tends to start in urban areas and radiate out to more rural places.\n\n## Late 20th century migration surge affects accents\n\nThe classical white Southern accent in the Atlanta area and other parts of the urban South peaked with baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and then dropped off with Gen Xers born between 1965 and 1980 and subsequent generations, in large part because of the tremendous in-migration of people in the second half of the 20th century.\n\nIt has been replaced among the youngest speakers in the 21st century with a dialect that was first noticed in California in the late 1980s, according to recent research from linguists at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Brigham Young University. That dialect, which also was detected in Canada, has become a pan-regional accent as it has spread to other parts of the U.S., including Boston, New York and Michigan, contributing to the diminishment of their regional accents.\n\nIn Raleigh, North Carolina, the trigger point in the decline of the Southern accent was the opening in 1959 of the Research Triangle Park, a sprawling complex of research and technology firms that attracted tens of thousands of highly educated workers from outside the South. White residents born after 1979, a generation after the Research Triangle's establishment, typically don't talk with a Southern accent, linguist Sean Lundergan wrote in a paper published in December.\n\nOften, outsiders wrongly associate a Southern accent with a lack of education, and some younger people may be trying to distance themselves from that stereotype.\n\n\"Young people today, especially the educated young people, they don't want to sound too much like they are from a specific hometown,\" said Georgia Tech linguist Lelia Glass, who co-wrote the Atlanta study. \"They want to sound more kind of, nonlocal and geographically mobile.\"\n\n## Accents change for younger people\n\nThe Southern dialect among Black people in Atlanta has dropped off in recent decades mainly because of an influx of African Americans from northern U.S. cities in what has been described as the \"Reverse Great Migration.\"\n\nDuring the Great Migration, from roughly 1910 to 1970, African Americans from the South moved to cities in the North like New York, Detroit and Chicago. Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have moved back South in large numbers to places like Atlanta during the late 20th and early 21st centuries and are more likely to be college-educated.\n\nResearchers found Southern accents among African Americans dropped off with Gen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012, according to a study published in December. The same researchers previously studied Southern accents among white people in Atlanta.\n\nMichelle and Richard Beck, Gen Xers living in the Atlanta area, have Southern accents, but it's missing in their two sons born in 1998 and 2001.\n\n\"I think they speak clearer than I do,\" Richard Beck, a law enforcement officer, said of his sons. \"They don't sound as country as I do when it comes to the Southern drawl.\"\n\n## New Orleans 'yat' accent diminished\n\nUnlike other accents that have changed because of an influx of new residents, the distinctive, white working-class \"yat\" accent of New Orleans has declined as many locals left following the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The accent is distinct from other regional accents in the South and often described as sounding as much like Brooklynese as Southern.\n\nThe hurricane was a \"catastrophic\" language change event for New Orleans since it displaced around a quarter million residents in the first year after the storm and brought in tens of thousands of outsiders in the following decade.\n\nThe diminishment of the \"yat\" accent is most noticeable in millennials, who were adolescents when Katrina hit, since they were exposed to other ways of speaking during a key time for linguistic development, Virginia Tech sociolinguist Katie Carmichael said in a paper published in December.\n\nCheryl Wilson Lanier, a 64-year-old who grew up in Chalmette, Louisiana, one of the New Orleans suburbs where the accent was most prevalent, worries that part of the region's uniqueness will be lost if the accent disappears.\n\n\"It's kind of like we're losing our distinct personality,\" she said.\n\n## Southern identity changing\n\nWhile it is diminishing in many urban areas, the Southern accent is unlikely to disappear completely because \"accents are an incredibly straightforward way of showing other people something about ourselves,\" said University of Georgia linguist Margaret Renwick, one of the authors of the Atlanta studies.\n\nIt may instead reflect a change in how younger speakers view Southern identity, with a regional accent not as closely associated with what is considered Southern as in previous generations, and linguistic boundaries less important than other factors, she said.\n\n\"So young people in the Atlanta area or Raleigh area have a different vision of what life is in the South,\" Renwick said. \"And it's not the same as the one that their parents or grandparents grew up with.\"\n\n___\n\nFollow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# People moving into the South change the famous US dialect\n\nBy Mike Schneider \nMay 10th, 2025, 04:07 AM\n\n---\n\nGrowing up in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s, Susan Levine's visits to New York City relatives included being the star of an impromptu novelty show: Her cousin invited over friends and charged 25 cents a pop for them to listen to Levine's Southern accent.\n\nEven though they too grew up in Atlanta, Levine's two sons, born more than a quarter century after her, never spoke with the accent that is perhaps the most famous regional dialect in the United States, with its elongated vowels and soft \"r\" sounds.\n\n\"My accent is nonexistent,\" said Ira Levine, her oldest son. \"People I work with, and even in school, people didn't believe I was from Atlanta.\"\n\nThe Southern accent, which has many variations, is fading in some areas of the South as people migrate to the region from other parts of the U.S. and around the world. A series of research papers published in December documented the diminishment of the regional accent among Black residents of the Atlanta area, white working-class people in the New Orleans area and people who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina.\n\nMore than 5.8 million people have moved into the U.S. South so far in the 2020s, more than four times the combined total of the nation's three other regions. Linguists don't believe mass media has played a significant role in the language change, which tends to start in urban areas and radiate out to more rural places.\n\n## Late 20th century migration surge affects accents\n\nThe classical white Southern accent in the Atlanta area and other parts of the urban South peaked with baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and then dropped off with Gen Xers born between 1965 and 1980 and subsequent generations, in large part because of the tremendous in-migration of people in the second half of the 20th century.\n\nIt has been replaced among the youngest speakers in the 21st century with a dialect that was first noticed in California in the late 1980s, according to recent research from linguists at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Brigham Young University. That dialect, which also was detected in Canada, has become a pan-regional accent as it has spread to other parts of the U.S., including Boston, New York and Michigan, contributing to the diminishment of their regional accents.\n\nIn Raleigh, North Carolina, the trigger point in the decline of the Southern accent was the opening in 1959 of the Research Triangle Park, a sprawling complex of research and technology firms that attracted tens of thousands of highly educated workers from outside the South. White residents born after 1979, a generation after the Research Triangle's establishment, typically don't talk with a Southern accent, linguist Sean Lundergan wrote in a paper published in December.\n\nOften, outsiders wrongly associate a Southern accent with a lack of education, and some younger people may be trying to distance themselves from that stereotype.\n\n\"Young people today, especially the educated young people, they don't want to sound too much like they are from a specific hometown,\" said Georgia Tech linguist Lelia Glass, who co-wrote the Atlanta study. \"They want to sound more kind of, nonlocal and geographically mobile.\"\n\n## Accents change for younger people\n\nThe Southern dialect among Black people in Atlanta has dropped off in recent decades mainly because of an influx of African Americans from northern U.S. cities in what has been described as the \"Reverse Great Migration.\"\n\nDuring the Great Migration, from roughly 1910 to 1970, African Americans from the South moved to cities in the North like New York, Detroit and Chicago. Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have moved back South in large numbers to places like Atlanta during the late 20th and early 21st centuries and are more likely to be college-educated.\n\nResearchers found Southern accents among African Americans dropped off with Gen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012, according to a study published in December. The same researchers previously studied Southern accents among white people in Atlanta.\n\nMichelle and Richard Beck, Gen Xers living in the Atlanta area, have Southern accents, but it's missing in their two sons born in 1998 and 2001.\n\n\"I think they speak clearer than I do,\" Richard Beck, a law enforcement officer, said of his sons. \"They don't sound as country as I do when it comes to the Southern drawl.\"\n\n## New Orleans 'yat' accent diminished\n\nUnlike other accents that have changed because of an influx of new residents, the distinctive, white working-class \"yat\" accent of New Orleans has declined as many locals left following the devastating Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The accent is distinct from other regional accents in the South and often described as sounding as much like Brooklynese as Southern.\n\nThe hurricane was a \"catastrophic\" language change event for New Orleans since it displaced around a quarter million residents in the first year after the storm and brought in tens of thousands of outsiders in the following decade.\n\nThe diminishment of the \"yat\" accent is most noticeable in millennials, who were adolescents when Katrina hit, since they were exposed to other ways of speaking during a key time for linguistic development, Virginia Tech sociolinguist Katie Carmichael said in a paper published in December.\n\nCheryl Wilson Lanier, a 64-year-old who grew up in Chalmette, Louisiana, one of the New Orleans suburbs where the accent was most prevalent, worries that part of the region's uniqueness will be lost if the accent disappears.\n\n\"It's kind of like we're losing our distinct personality,\" she said.\n\n## Southern identity changing\n\nWhile it is diminishing in many urban areas, the Southern accent is unlikely to disappear completely because \"accents are an incredibly straightforward way of showing other people something about ourselves,\" said University of Georgia linguist Margaret Renwick, one of the authors of the Atlanta studies.\n\nIt may instead reflect a change in how younger speakers view Southern identity, with a regional accent not as closely associated with what is considered Southern as in previous generations, and linguistic boundaries less important than other factors, she said.\n\n\"So young people in the Atlanta area or Raleigh area have a different vision of what life is in the South,\" Renwick said. \"And it's not the same as the one that their parents or grandparents grew up with.\"" } ]
6da56d15fde1b2a2ba272823be31c0211ff8d4e6d38122b5822534fb50176113	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Federal Bureau of Prisons faces tough task in reopening Alcatraz\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak and Michael Balsamo \nMay 6th, 2025, 01:12 AM\n\n---\n\nEleven inmate deaths in less than two months. More than 4,000 staff vacancies. A $3 billion repair backlog.\n\nAnd now, a stunning directive from President Donald Trump for the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons to \"REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!\" — the notorious penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay that last held inmates more than 60 years ago.\n\nEven as the Bureau of Prisons struggles with short staffing, chronic violence and crumbling infrastructure at its current facilities, Trump is counting on the agency to fulfill his vision of rebooting the infamously inescapable prison known in movies and pop culture as \"The Rock.\"\n\nTrump declared in a social media post Sunday that a \"substantially enlarged and rebuilt\" Alcatraz will house the nation's \"most ruthless and violent Offenders.\" It will \"serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE,\" he wrote on Truth Social.\n\nNewly appointed Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III said Monday that the agency \"will vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President's agenda\" and that he has ordered \"an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps.\"\n\n\"USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice,\" Marshall said in a statement, echoing Trump's post. \"We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission.\"\n\n## Alcatraz was once an exemplar\n\nAlcatraz, a 22-acre (8.9 hectare) islet with views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, was once the crown jewel of the federal prison system and home to some of the nation's most notorious criminals, including gangsters Al Capone and George \"Machine Gun\" Kelly.\n\nBut skyrocketing repair and supply costs compelled the Justice Department to close the prison in 1963, just 29 years after it opened, and the Bureau of Prisons has long since replaced Alcatraz with modern penitentiaries, including a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado.\n\nThe former and perhaps future penitentiary is now a popular tourist attraction and a national historic landmark. It's controlled by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, meaning the Bureau of Prisons could be in for an interagency tug of war if it tries to wrest away control of the island.\n\nTrump's Alcatraz directive is yet another challenge for the Bureau of Prisons as it struggles to fix lingering problems while responding to the president's priorities on incarceration and immigrant detention. The agency's mission, as redefined under Trump, includes taking in thousands of immigration detainees under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.\n\nThe problems at the Bureau of Prisons transcend administrations and facilities.\n\nAn ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons over the last few years, including widespread criminal activity by employees, dozens of escapes, the free flow of guns, drugs and other contraband, and severe understaffing that has hampered responses to emergencies.\n\nLast year, then-President Joe Biden signed a law strengthening oversight of the agency. It remains the Justice Department's largest agency, with more than 30,000 employees, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion, but the Trump administration's cost-cutting measures have eliminated some pay bonuses that were credited with retaining and attracting new staff.\n\nThat has resulted in long overtime shifts for some workers and the continued use of a policy known as augmentation, where prison nurses, cooks, teachers and other workers are pressed into duty to guard inmates.\n\nInfrastructure is buckling, too. A Bureau of Prisons official told Congress at a hearing in February that more than 4,000 beds within the system — the equivalent of at least two full prisons — are unusable because of dangerous conditions like leaking or failing roofs, mold, asbestos or lead.\n\n## Deaths have plagued the federal prison system\n\nSince mid-March, 11 federal prison inmates have died. They include David Knezevich, a 37-year-old Florida businessman who was found dead April 28 in a suspected suicide at a federal jail in Miami. He was awaiting trial on charges he kidnapped and killed his estranged wife in Spain.\n\nAnd on April 24, inmate Ramadhan Jaabir Justice was killed in a fight at the federal penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, where he was serving a nearly 11-year sentence for a conviction related to an armed robbery.\n\nAs Trump was ordering Alcatraz's reopening Sunday, correctional officers at the same Miami jail were fighting to curb the spread of tuberculosis and COVID-19, isolating inmates after they tested positive for the diseases. Last month, immigration detainees at the facility ripped out a fire sprinkler and flooded a holding cell during a lengthy intake process.\n\nMeanwhile, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Alcatraz, the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, has sat idle for more than a year after the Bureau of Prisons cleared it of inmates in the wake of rampant sexual abuse by employees, including the warden.\n\nIn December, the agency made the closure permanent and idled six prison camps across the country to address \"significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources.\"\n\nWhile Trump hails Alcatraz as a paragon of the federal prison system's cherished past, other facilities stand as reminders of its recent troubles.\n\nThey include the federal jail in Manhattan, which remains idle after Jeffrey Epstein's suicide there in 2019 exposed deep flaws in its operations, and a troubled federal lockup in Brooklyn, where 23 inmates have been charged in recent months with crimes ranging from smuggling weapons in a Doritos bag to the stabbing last month of a man convicted in the killing of hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Federal Bureau of Prisons faces tough task in reopening Alcatraz\n\nBy Michael R. Sisak and Michael Balsamo \nMay 6th, 2025, 01:12 AM\n\n---\n\nEleven inmate deaths in less than two months. More than 4,000 staff vacancies. A $3 billion repair backlog.\n\nAnd now, a stunning directive from President Donald Trump for the crisis-plagued federal Bureau of Prisons to \"REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!\" — the notorious penitentiary on an island in San Francisco Bay that last held inmates more than 60 years ago.\n\nEven as the Bureau of Prisons struggles with short staffing, chronic violence and crumbling infrastructure at its current facilities, Trump is counting on the agency to fulfill his vision of rebooting the infamously inescapable prison known in movies and pop culture as \"The Rock.\"\n\nTrump declared in a social media post Sunday that a \"substantially enlarged and rebuilt\" Alcatraz will house the nation's \"most ruthless and violent Offenders.\" It will \"serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE,\" he wrote on Truth Social.\n\nNewly appointed Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III said Monday that the agency \"will vigorously pursue all avenues to support and implement the President's agenda\" and that he has ordered \"an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps.\"\n\n\"USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice,\" Marshall said in a statement, echoing Trump's post. \"We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission.\"\n\n## Alcatraz was once an exemplar\n\nAlcatraz, a 22-acre (8.9 hectare) islet with views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, was once the crown jewel of the federal prison system and home to some of the nation's most notorious criminals, including gangsters Al Capone and George \"Machine Gun\" Kelly.\n\nBut skyrocketing repair and supply costs compelled the Justice Department to close the prison in 1963, just 29 years after it opened, and the Bureau of Prisons has long since replaced Alcatraz with modern penitentiaries, including a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado.\n\nThe former and perhaps future penitentiary is now a popular tourist attraction and a national historic landmark. It's controlled by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, meaning the Bureau of Prisons could be in for an interagency tug of war if it tries to wrest away control of the island.\n\nTrump's Alcatraz directive is yet another challenge for the Bureau of Prisons as it struggles to fix lingering problems while responding to the president's priorities on incarceration and immigrant detention. The agency's mission, as redefined under Trump, includes taking in thousands of immigration detainees under an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security.\n\nThe problems at the Bureau of Prisons transcend administrations and facilities.\n\nAn ongoing Associated Press investigation has uncovered deep, previously unreported flaws within the Bureau of Prisons over the last few years, including widespread criminal activity by employees, dozens of escapes, the free flow of guns, drugs and other contraband, and severe understaffing that has hampered responses to emergencies.\n\nLast year, then-President Joe Biden signed a law strengthening oversight of the agency. It remains the Justice Department's largest agency, with more than 30,000 employees, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion, but the Trump administration's cost-cutting measures have eliminated some pay bonuses that were credited with retaining and attracting new staff.\n\nThat has resulted in long overtime shifts for some workers and the continued use of a policy known as augmentation, where prison nurses, cooks, teachers and other workers are pressed into duty to guard inmates.\n\nInfrastructure is buckling, too. A Bureau of Prisons official told Congress at a hearing in February that more than 4,000 beds within the system — the equivalent of at least two full prisons — are unusable because of dangerous conditions like leaking or failing roofs, mold, asbestos or lead.\n\n## Deaths have plagued the federal prison system\n\nSince mid-March, 11 federal prison inmates have died. They include David Knezevich, a 37-year-old Florida businessman who was found dead April 28 in a suspected suicide at a federal jail in Miami. He was awaiting trial on charges he kidnapped and killed his estranged wife in Spain.\n\nAnd on April 24, inmate Ramadhan Jaabir Justice was killed in a fight at the federal penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, where he was serving a nearly 11-year sentence for a conviction related to an armed robbery.\n\nAs Trump was ordering Alcatraz's reopening Sunday, correctional officers at the same Miami jail were fighting to curb the spread of tuberculosis and COVID-19, isolating inmates after they tested positive for the diseases. Last month, immigration detainees at the facility ripped out a fire sprinkler and flooded a holding cell during a lengthy intake process.\n\nMeanwhile, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Alcatraz, the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, has sat idle for more than a year after the Bureau of Prisons cleared it of inmates in the wake of rampant sexual abuse by employees, including the warden.\n\nIn December, the agency made the closure permanent and idled six prison camps across the country to address \"significant challenges, including a critical staffing shortage, crumbling infrastructure and limited budgetary resources.\"\n\nWhile Trump hails Alcatraz as a paragon of the federal prison system's cherished past, other facilities stand as reminders of its recent troubles.\n\nThey include the federal jail in Manhattan, which remains idle after Jeffrey Epstein's suicide there in 2019 exposed deep flaws in its operations, and a troubled federal lockup in Brooklyn, where 23 inmates have been charged in recent months with crimes ranging from smuggling weapons in a Doritos bag to the stabbing last month of a man convicted in the killing of hip-hop legend Jam Master Jay." } ]
a3449c80568fcc7fc683a7a1ed81323fd6b1aae333687462eb703fce7a360657	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Brazilian police arrest 2 people over alleged plot targeting Lady Gaga concert in Rio\n\nMay 4th, 2025, 03:18 PM\n\n---\n\nRIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Police in Brazil said on Sunday that two people have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to detonate explosives at a free Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro.\n\nThe Rio event on Saturday was the biggest show of the pop star's career that attracted an estimated 2.5 million fans to Copacabana Beach and had crowds screaming and dancing along.\n\nFelipe Cury, secretary of the Rio police, said authorities believed the suspects sought to target Brazil's LGBTQ community.\n\n\"They were clearly saying that they were planning an attack at Lady Gaga's concert motivated by sexual orientation,\" Cury told a press conference on Sunday.\n\nRio Police chief Luiz Lima said the group disseminated hate speech and violent content online \"aimed at gaining notoriety in order to attract more viewers, more participants — most of them teenagers, many of them children.\"\n\nEven as Brazilian authorities said they arrested suspects in the hours before Lady Gaga's show, the event went ahead without disruption — leading some to question the seriousness of the threat. Serious security concerns typically lead organizers to cancel such massive events — as happened with Taylor Swift's concerts in Vienna last year.\n\nPolice said said nothing about the alleged plot at the time to in an effort to \"avoid panic\" and \"the distortion of information.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Lady Gaga said the pop star and her team \"learned about this alleged threat via media reports this morning. Prior to and during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any potential risks.\"\n\nThe statement added: \"Her team worked closely with law enforcement throughout the planning and execution of the concert and all parties were confident in the safety measures in place.\"\n\nSecurity was tight at Saturday's concert, with 5,200 military and police officers deployed to the beach where fans were reveling in the pop singer's classic hits like \"Born This Way,\" which became something of an LGBTQ anthem after its 2011 release.\n\n## Homes in several states raided\n\nAuthorities arrested two people in connection with the alleged plot — a man described as the group's leader in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on illegal weapons possession charges, and a teenager in Rio on child pornography charges. Police did not elaborate on their exact roles in the plot or on how the group came to target Lady Gaga's free concert.\n\n\"Those involved were recruiting participants, including teenagers, to carry out integrated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,\" police said.\n\nThe Justice Ministry said that it determined the group posed a \"risk to public order.\" It said the group falsely presented themselves online as \"Little Monsters\" — Lady Gaga's nickname for her fans — in order to lure teeangers into \"networks with violent and self-destructive content.\"\n\nDuring a series of raids on the homes of 15 suspects across several Brazilian states, authorities confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Although police said they believed homemade bombs were intended for use in the planned attack, there was no mention of the raids turning up any weapons or explosive material.\n\nCury said one of the suspects whose home was raided in the city of Macaé, near Rio, \"had a religious motivation\" and \"claimed the singer (Lady Gaga) was a Satanist.\"\n\n## 'Historical moment'\n\nLady Gaga has expressed gratitude for the enormous crowd in an Instagram post that said nothing of the alleged plot.\n\n\"Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I had during last night's show — the absolute pride and joy I felt singing for the people of Brazil,\" she wrote. \"The sight of the crowd during my opening songs took my breath away. Your heart shines so bright, your culture is so vibrant and special, I hope you know how grateful I am to have shared this historical moment with you.\"\n\nHer free beach concert stood out at a time of surging ticket prices for live music around the world as concert-goers pay budget-busting costs to see their favorite artists. Last month she performed at Coachella Valley music festival in California, where tickets fetched upwards of $600 for one weekend.\n\nRio has done this before — last May, superstar Madonna performed the finale to her latest world tower for some 1.6 million fans on the sprawling sands of Copacabana Beach." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Brazilian police arrest 2 people over alleged plot targeting Lady Gaga concert in Rio\n\nMay 4th, 2025, 03:18 PM\n\n---\n\nRIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Police in Brazil said on Sunday that two people have been arrested in connection with an alleged plot to detonate explosives at a free Lady Gaga concert in Rio de Janeiro.\n\nThe Rio event on Saturday was the biggest show of the pop star's career that attracted an estimated 2.5 million fans to Copacabana Beach and had crowds screaming and dancing along.\n\nFelipe Cury, secretary of the Rio police, said authorities believed the suspects sought to target Brazil's LGBTQ community.\n\n\"They were clearly saying that they were planning an attack at Lady Gaga's concert motivated by sexual orientation,\" Cury told a press conference on Sunday.\n\nRio Police chief Luiz Lima said the group disseminated hate speech and violent content online \"aimed at gaining notoriety in order to attract more viewers, more participants — most of them teenagers, many of them children.\"\n\nEven as Brazilian authorities said they arrested suspects in the hours before Lady Gaga's show, the event went ahead without disruption — leading some to question the seriousness of the threat. Serious security concerns typically lead organizers to cancel such massive events — as happened with Taylor Swift's concerts in Vienna last year.\n\nPolice said said nothing about the alleged plot at the time to in an effort to \"avoid panic\" and \"the distortion of information.\"\n\nA spokesperson for Lady Gaga said the pop star and her team \"learned about this alleged threat via media reports this morning. Prior to and during the show, there were no known safety concerns, nor any communication from the police or authorities to Lady Gaga regarding any potential risks.\"\n\nThe statement added: \"Her team worked closely with law enforcement throughout the planning and execution of the concert and all parties were confident in the safety measures in place.\"\n\nSecurity was tight at Saturday's concert, with 5,200 military and police officers deployed to the beach where fans were reveling in the pop singer's classic hits like \"Born This Way,\" which became something of an LGBTQ anthem after its 2011 release.\n\n## Homes in several states raided\n\nAuthorities arrested two people in connection with the alleged plot — a man described as the group's leader in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul on illegal weapons possession charges, and a teenager in Rio on child pornography charges. Police did not elaborate on their exact roles in the plot or on how the group came to target Lady Gaga's free concert.\n\n\"Those involved were recruiting participants, including teenagers, to carry out integrated attacks using improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails,\" police said.\n\nThe Justice Ministry said that it determined the group posed a \"risk to public order.\" It said the group falsely presented themselves online as \"Little Monsters\" — Lady Gaga's nickname for her fans — in order to lure teeangers into \"networks with violent and self-destructive content.\"\n\nDuring a series of raids on the homes of 15 suspects across several Brazilian states, authorities confiscated phones and other electronic devices. Although police said they believed homemade bombs were intended for use in the planned attack, there was no mention of the raids turning up any weapons or explosive material.\n\nCury said one of the suspects whose home was raided in the city of Macaé, near Rio, \"had a religious motivation\" and \"claimed the singer (Lady Gaga) was a Satanist.\"\n\n## 'Historical moment'\n\nLady Gaga has expressed gratitude for the enormous crowd in an Instagram post that said nothing of the alleged plot.\n\n\"Nothing could prepare me for the feeling I had during last night's show — the absolute pride and joy I felt singing for the people of Brazil,\" she wrote. \"The sight of the crowd during my opening songs took my breath away. Your heart shines so bright, your culture is so vibrant and special, I hope you know how grateful I am to have shared this historical moment with you.\"\n\nHer free beach concert stood out at a time of surging ticket prices for live music around the world as concert-goers pay budget-busting costs to see their favorite artists. Last month she performed at Coachella Valley music festival in California, where tickets fetched upwards of $600 for one weekend.\n\nRio has done this before — last May, superstar Madonna performed the finale to her latest world tower for some 1.6 million fans on the sprawling sands of Copacabana Beach." } ]
c5733deb4ea8b064ac19ab31047c39d8b135951a75dfb1c3c2b43a275be6d88c	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# FedEx board member David Steiner is picked as next USPS postmaster general\n\nBy Susan Haigh \nMay 9th, 2025, 03:49 PM\n\n---\n\nDavid Steiner, a former CEO of the nation's largest waste management company who currently serves on the FedEx board of directors, is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation's 76th postmaster general.\n\nThe announcement of Steiner's appointment, which heightened concerns from postal unions over possible efforts to privatize the USPS, was made Friday by Amber McReynolds, chairperson of the USPS' Board of Governors, during a meeting of the independent group that oversees the service.\n\n\"We anticipate that Mr. Steiner will join the organization in July, assuming his successful completion of the ethics and security clearance processes that are currently underway,\" McReynolds said.\n\nFriday's announcement by the the Board of Governors comes as President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have raised the idea of privatizing the nearly 250-year-old Postal Service, which has faced financial challenges amid a changing mail mix and other issues.\n\nThe choice of Steiner has been seen by the postal unions as a harbinger for possible privatization of some or all of the venerable quasi-public institution, which is largely self-funded and has a mission to serve every address in the country — nearly 167 million residences, businesses and post office boxes.\n\nPostal unions have held protests throughout the country over potential privatization, job cuts and possibly ending the universal service obligation.\n\nBrian L. Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said Steiner is not just any executive from the private sector but someone who sits on the board of one of the Postal Service's top competitors.\n\n\"His selection isn't just a conflict of interest — it's an aggressive step toward handing America's mail system over to corporate interests,\" Renfroe said in a statement. \"Private shippers have been waiting to get USPS out of parcel delivery for years. Steiner's selection is an open invitation to do just that.\"\n\nRenfroe's union represents 205,000 active city letter carriers and around 90,000 retirees.\n\nMark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 220,000 USPS employees and retirees, likened the appointment of Steiner to a fox guarding a hen house.\n\n\"FedEx has a very different agenda than the public postal service. And they're a major competitor of the United States Postal Service,\" he said. \"I'm not talking about any attributes of an individual, but to me, that's the last type of person you will put in charge of the public institution as the anchor of the mailing package industry in the country.\"\n\nDon Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, urged Steiner to \"embrace the legacy\" of \"one of our nation's oldest and most trusted institutions\" and its values to serve the entire country.\n\n\"The Postal Service is not a business in the traditional sense — it is a national network that binds the country together, serving every American, no matter how remote their address,\" he said in statement.\n\nSteiner, who will leave the FedEx board, said in a written statement that he admires the public service and business missions of the USPS and called it \"an incredible honor to be asked to lead the world's greatest postal organization.\"\n\n\"I believe strongly in maintaining its role as an independent establishment of the executive branch,\" said Steiner, who served as CEO of Waste Management Inc. from 2004 through October 2016.\n\nIn a written statement, McReynolds called Steiner \"the right person to lead the Postal Service at this time to ensure this magnificent and historic organization thrives into the future.\"\n\n\"Dave is a highly regarded leader and executive with tremendous vision, experience and skill that can be applied to the long-term mission and business needs of the Postal Service,\" she added. \"Our Board looks forward to working with Dave as he takes on the core mandates of providing universal and excellent service for the American public and doing so in a financially sustainable manner.\"\n\nDimondstein questioned Trump's possible influence on the decision to appoint Steiner, saying the board may have \"shamelessly and outrageously abdicated their independent responsibility in selecting a new PMG.\"\n\nA message was left with a USPS spokesperson, seeking comment about his accusations. A statement from the board noted the selection of the postmaster general \"rests solely\" with the board, whose members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. McReynolds said the board hired Egon Zehnder, a global leadership advisory firm, to conduct an executive search to find candidates for the job.\n\nThe Postal Service is in the midst of a 10-year modernization and cost-cutting plan that began in 2021 under Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who resigned in March. The plan is an attempt to stop losses at the agency, which has a budget of about $78 billion a year and is mostly self-funded, including through stamps and packages.\n\nKnown as \"Deliver for America,\" the initiative has received markedly mixed reviews. While postal officials contend it has led to major efficiency improvements, some members of Congress have criticized it for leading to mail delays, unsustainable postage increases and declines in business.\n\nA financial report released Friday revealed the Postal Service lost $3.3 billion in the last quarter, $2.5 billion of which is considered \"uncontrollable\" costs, such as adjustments to workers' compensation premiums. However, it noted continued revenue growth from package deliveries, coupled with lower transportation costs and work hour reductions.\n\nBesides privatization, there's also been talk of possibly moving the USPS under the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce.\n\nThe choice of Steiner was first reported by The Washington Post." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# FedEx board member David Steiner is picked as next USPS postmaster general\n\nBy Susan Haigh \nMay 9th, 2025, 03:49 PM\n\n---\n\nDavid Steiner, a former CEO of the nation's largest waste management company who currently serves on the FedEx board of directors, is poised to take over control of the U.S. Postal Service, becoming the nation's 76th postmaster general.\n\nThe announcement of Steiner's appointment, which heightened concerns from postal unions over possible efforts to privatize the USPS, was made Friday by Amber McReynolds, chairperson of the USPS' Board of Governors, during a meeting of the independent group that oversees the service.\n\n\"We anticipate that Mr. Steiner will join the organization in July, assuming his successful completion of the ethics and security clearance processes that are currently underway,\" McReynolds said.\n\nFriday's announcement by the the Board of Governors comes as President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have raised the idea of privatizing the nearly 250-year-old Postal Service, which has faced financial challenges amid a changing mail mix and other issues.\n\nThe choice of Steiner has been seen by the postal unions as a harbinger for possible privatization of some or all of the venerable quasi-public institution, which is largely self-funded and has a mission to serve every address in the country — nearly 167 million residences, businesses and post office boxes.\n\nPostal unions have held protests throughout the country over potential privatization, job cuts and possibly ending the universal service obligation.\n\nBrian L. Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said Steiner is not just any executive from the private sector but someone who sits on the board of one of the Postal Service's top competitors.\n\n\"His selection isn't just a conflict of interest — it's an aggressive step toward handing America's mail system over to corporate interests,\" Renfroe said in a statement. \"Private shippers have been waiting to get USPS out of parcel delivery for years. Steiner's selection is an open invitation to do just that.\"\n\nRenfroe's union represents 205,000 active city letter carriers and around 90,000 retirees.\n\nMark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 220,000 USPS employees and retirees, likened the appointment of Steiner to a fox guarding a hen house.\n\n\"FedEx has a very different agenda than the public postal service. And they're a major competitor of the United States Postal Service,\" he said. \"I'm not talking about any attributes of an individual, but to me, that's the last type of person you will put in charge of the public institution as the anchor of the mailing package industry in the country.\"\n\nDon Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association, urged Steiner to \"embrace the legacy\" of \"one of our nation's oldest and most trusted institutions\" and its values to serve the entire country.\n\n\"The Postal Service is not a business in the traditional sense — it is a national network that binds the country together, serving every American, no matter how remote their address,\" he said in statement.\n\nSteiner, who will leave the FedEx board, said in a written statement that he admires the public service and business missions of the USPS and called it \"an incredible honor to be asked to lead the world's greatest postal organization.\"\n\n\"I believe strongly in maintaining its role as an independent establishment of the executive branch,\" said Steiner, who served as CEO of Waste Management Inc. from 2004 through October 2016.\n\nIn a written statement, McReynolds called Steiner \"the right person to lead the Postal Service at this time to ensure this magnificent and historic organization thrives into the future.\"\n\n\"Dave is a highly regarded leader and executive with tremendous vision, experience and skill that can be applied to the long-term mission and business needs of the Postal Service,\" she added. \"Our Board looks forward to working with Dave as he takes on the core mandates of providing universal and excellent service for the American public and doing so in a financially sustainable manner.\"\n\nDimondstein questioned Trump's possible influence on the decision to appoint Steiner, saying the board may have \"shamelessly and outrageously abdicated their independent responsibility in selecting a new PMG.\"\n\nA message was left with a USPS spokesperson, seeking comment about his accusations. A statement from the board noted the selection of the postmaster general \"rests solely\" with the board, whose members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. McReynolds said the board hired Egon Zehnder, a global leadership advisory firm, to conduct an executive search to find candidates for the job.\n\nThe Postal Service is in the midst of a 10-year modernization and cost-cutting plan that began in 2021 under Postmaster Louis DeJoy, who resigned in March. The plan is an attempt to stop losses at the agency, which has a budget of about $78 billion a year and is mostly self-funded, including through stamps and packages.\n\nKnown as \"Deliver for America,\" the initiative has received markedly mixed reviews. While postal officials contend it has led to major efficiency improvements, some members of Congress have criticized it for leading to mail delays, unsustainable postage increases and declines in business.\n\nA financial report released Friday revealed the Postal Service lost $3.3 billion in the last quarter, $2.5 billion of which is considered \"uncontrollable\" costs, such as adjustments to workers' compensation premiums. However, it noted continued revenue growth from package deliveries, coupled with lower transportation costs and work hour reductions.\n\nBesides privatization, there's also been talk of possibly moving the USPS under the control of the U.S. Department of Commerce.\n\nThe choice of Steiner was first reported by The Washington Post." } ]
147690d78801ea9aed02554d53c7a09032417975142c4ba958a53e39ead8f0e5	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Historic Planting Fields Arboretum combines tradition and change\n\nBy Jessica Damiano \nMay 20th, 2025, 12:23 PM\n\n---\n\nOYSTER BAY, N.Y. (AP) — Some places seem to communicate with you when you visit. Not audibly, of course, but they somehow impart the echo of a life lived long ago. That's the feeling I get at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park.\n\nThe 409-acre remnant of Long Island's grand Gold Coast is one of the region's last surviving estates with its original acreage intact, which is remarkable when you consider how many of its cohorts have been divided up into housing developments or golf courses.\n\nBut it isn't frozen in time. Recently, the site has been undergoing a multi-million dollar revitalization with a focus on biodiversity and native plantings rather than adherence to the plant palette selected for the property more than a century ago.\n\nIt's a shift in emphasis that's gaining traction in many historic gardens.\n\nThe new focus on sustainability was also evident when the arboretum recently replaced its storied half-mile-long double allée of European beech trees with native oaks. And meadows throughout the property, which have historically been mowed regularly, are now cut back just once or twice a year to allow a natural habitat to thrive.\n\n## A new book\n\nA new book, \"Planting Fields: A Place on Long Island,\" offers fresh perspective into the now-public arboretum. Full of color photography, both vintage and current (by David Almeida); sketches and plans by the famed Olmsted Brothers, who designed the landscape; and essays by architect Witold Rybczynski, landscape historian John Dixon Hunt and others, it's an homage to the home and property.\n\nAt Planting Fields, the rolling lawns, gardens and woodland paths still command attention, anchored by Coe Hall, a sprawling Tudor Revival mansion.\n\nThe estate started taking shape in 1913, when English immigrant William Robertson Coe, chairman of the marine insurance company Johnson and Higgins, and his wife, Mai Rogers Coe, an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, bought the land, which had once been a working farm. The couple used it as a country retreat.\n\nCoe Hall was something of a 20th-century fantasy, deliberately built to look centuries old.\n\n\"The Coes were new money, but they didn't want it to look like new money,\" said Gina J. Wouters, president and CEO of Planting Fields Foundation and co-editor of the book, with Jerome E. Singerman. \"They wanted it to look like they had generations of wealth.\"\n\nSo, they brought in the best craftspeople of their time. There's ironwork by Samuel Yellin, murals by Everett Shinn and Robert Winthrop Chanler and interiors by Elsie de Wolfe, who imparted a whimsical flair to the home.\n\nThe landscape, originally drafted by Boston landscape architect Andrew Sargent and his partner Guy Lowell, became a full-fledged Olmsted Brothers vision after Sargent died in 1918. There's a formal Italian Garden, circular pool garden and greenhouses, including one that holds the largest camellia collection in the Northeast.\n\n\"Without a doubt, our claim to fame is that Planting Fields is the largest, still-existing Olmsted Brothers residential commission,\" Wouters said. \"Other properties have been sold off, turned into wedding venues, etc., but Planting Fields is the original 409 acres. Even on a national scale, that's extraordinary.\"\n\n## A continued emphasis on craftsmanship\n\nThe Coes themselves were hands-on, taking interest in breeding animals, collecting and hybridizing plants, patronizing contemporary artists and interior decorating.\n\nIn keeping with the couple's penchant for hiring first-rate contemporary experts, Planting Fields has recently invited renowned Dutch garden and landscape designer Piet Oudolf to create a 1-acre garden for the property. The plan, Wouters said, is to use Oudolf's four-season approach and include perennial gardens and year-round beauty in keeping with the historic design of the property.\n\nWouters hopes the book imparts \"an understanding of the incredibly layered history of Planting Fields and the stewardship model that is guiding us today and ushering us into the future.\"\n\nShe hopes readers will also feel compelled to visit.\n\n\"W.R. Coe gifted the property to the people of the state of New York – not the state of New York – the people,\" she said. \"That's important.\"\n\n___\n\nJessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.\n\n___\n\nFor more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Historic Planting Fields Arboretum combines tradition and change\n\nBy Jessica Damiano \nMay 20th, 2025, 12:23 PM\n\n---\n\nOYSTER BAY, N.Y. (AP) — Some places seem to communicate with you when you visit. Not audibly, of course, but they somehow impart the echo of a life lived long ago. That's the feeling I get at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park.\n\nThe 409-acre remnant of Long Island's grand Gold Coast is one of the region's last surviving estates with its original acreage intact, which is remarkable when you consider how many of its cohorts have been divided up into housing developments or golf courses.\n\nBut it isn't frozen in time. Recently, the site has been undergoing a multi-million dollar revitalization with a focus on biodiversity and native plantings rather than adherence to the plant palette selected for the property more than a century ago.\n\nIt's a shift in emphasis that's gaining traction in many historic gardens.\n\nThe new focus on sustainability was also evident when the arboretum recently replaced its storied half-mile-long double allée of European beech trees with native oaks. And meadows throughout the property, which have historically been mowed regularly, are now cut back just once or twice a year to allow a natural habitat to thrive.\n\n## A new book\n\nA new book, \"Planting Fields: A Place on Long Island,\" offers fresh perspective into the now-public arboretum. Full of color photography, both vintage and current (by David Almeida); sketches and plans by the famed Olmsted Brothers, who designed the landscape; and essays by architect Witold Rybczynski, landscape historian John Dixon Hunt and others, it's an homage to the home and property.\n\nAt Planting Fields, the rolling lawns, gardens and woodland paths still command attention, anchored by Coe Hall, a sprawling Tudor Revival mansion.\n\nThe estate started taking shape in 1913, when English immigrant William Robertson Coe, chairman of the marine insurance company Johnson and Higgins, and his wife, Mai Rogers Coe, an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune, bought the land, which had once been a working farm. The couple used it as a country retreat.\n\nCoe Hall was something of a 20th-century fantasy, deliberately built to look centuries old.\n\n\"The Coes were new money, but they didn't want it to look like new money,\" said Gina J. Wouters, president and CEO of Planting Fields Foundation and co-editor of the book, with Jerome E. Singerman. \"They wanted it to look like they had generations of wealth.\"\n\nSo, they brought in the best craftspeople of their time. There's ironwork by Samuel Yellin, murals by Everett Shinn and Robert Winthrop Chanler and interiors by Elsie de Wolfe, who imparted a whimsical flair to the home.\n\nThe landscape, originally drafted by Boston landscape architect Andrew Sargent and his partner Guy Lowell, became a full-fledged Olmsted Brothers vision after Sargent died in 1918. There's a formal Italian Garden, circular pool garden and greenhouses, including one that holds the largest camellia collection in the Northeast.\n\n\"Without a doubt, our claim to fame is that Planting Fields is the largest, still-existing Olmsted Brothers residential commission,\" Wouters said. \"Other properties have been sold off, turned into wedding venues, etc., but Planting Fields is the original 409 acres. Even on a national scale, that's extraordinary.\"\n\n## A continued emphasis on craftsmanship\n\nThe Coes themselves were hands-on, taking interest in breeding animals, collecting and hybridizing plants, patronizing contemporary artists and interior decorating.\n\nIn keeping with the couple's penchant for hiring first-rate contemporary experts, Planting Fields has recently invited renowned Dutch garden and landscape designer Piet Oudolf to create a 1-acre garden for the property. The plan, Wouters said, is to use Oudolf's four-season approach and include perennial gardens and year-round beauty in keeping with the historic design of the property.\n\nWouters hopes the book imparts \"an understanding of the incredibly layered history of Planting Fields and the stewardship model that is guiding us today and ushering us into the future.\"\n\nShe hopes readers will also feel compelled to visit.\n\n\"W.R. Coe gifted the property to the people of the state of New York – not the state of New York – the people,\" she said. \"That's important.\"" } ]
5ac09a62bad56e4db9eabe8c0d395d2a640a08671f1a82aef34f3f0a12574462	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 2 men convicted in chainsaw massacre of UK's beloved Sycamore Gap tree\n\nBy Brian Melley \nMay 9th, 2025, 09:52 AM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — In late September 2023, as the first big storm of the fall was kicking up in the U.K., a malicious plan was hatched to take down one of England's favorite trees.\n\nDaniel Graham sent a message to his buddy, Adam Carruthers, telling him to \"get the saws warmed up,\" suggesting they might get some work clearing fallen trees.\n\nBut it wasn't high winds that brought down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that night, jurors determined Friday. It was Graham and Carruthers — not cleaning up damage from the storm, but creating a mess of their own.\n\nThe pair were convicted of two counts each of criminal damage by a jury in Newcastle Crown Court after little more than five hours of deliberations over two days.\n\nEven without the smoking chainsaw, prosecutors were able to prove the case through a trove of digital evidence that either put the men near the tree at the time it was felled or showed them excitedly discussing it the next day as the story of the tree's demise went viral.\n\n## Crime caught in the act\n\nThe prime piece of evidence was a grainy video on Graham's phone of the crime being committed on the dark and stormy night.\n\nFootage of the tree's last stand showed a solitary figure silhouetted beneath the towering canopy in a struggle with the trunk as the unmistakable sound of the chainsaw whined above the wind. With a single crack, the buzz of the saw died down, the person stepped back and the tree that had stood about 150 years crashed to earth.\n\nMetadata pinpointed the location of the video at the tree's location in Northumberland National Park. Other data showed Graham's Range Rover had traveled there.\n\nThe Sycamore Gap tree was not Britain's biggest or oldest sycamore, but it was prized for its picturesque setting, symmetrically planted between two hills along the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire, and had attracted generations of followers.\n\nThe tree had long been known to locals but received international attention in Kevin Costner's 1991 film \"Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.\" It drew tourists, lovers, landscape photographers and even those who spread the ashes of loved ones.\n\n\"For over a century, Sycamore Gap has been an iconic natural landmark in the northeast of England, bringing immeasurable joy to those visiting the area,\" Gale Gilchrist, chief prosecutor for the region, said in a statement after the verdict. \"In just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction.\"\n\n## Convicts could face 'lengthy' sentences\n\nNeither Graham, who had a small construction business, nor Carruthers, a mechanic who sometimes worked with him, showed any visible reaction as the verdicts were read.\n\nJustice Christina Lambert ordered both men held in custody until sentencing on July 15 and said they could face \"a lengthy period in custody.\" The maximum sentence for criminal damage is 10 years in prison.\n\nThe defendants, once close friends, both testified that they were at their respective homes that night and had nothing to do with the crime.\n\nGraham pointed the finger at Carruthers, saying he was obsessed with the tree. Graham said his friend and another man had taken his Range Rover and phone to the site to frame him.\n\nCarruthers said he didn't understand why people were so upset about \"just a tree,\" saying it was \"almost as if someone had been murdered.\" His lawyer suggested Graham told a desperate lie after being caught.\n\nProsecutor Richard Wright said the two men were in on it together from the start, with evidence showing Carruthers had gone far out of his way earlier in the day to go near the tree on a reconnaissance mission.\n\nWright said he couldn't say who cut the tree and who held the phone, but the two men were the only people in the world with the video on their devices.\n\nAs Graham's vehicle was tracked on its way back toward his home in Carlisle — about 40 minutes away — Carruthers received a video from his partner of their infant and replied, \"I've got a better video than that,\" Wright said.\n\n\"At the time of that text conversation, the only people in the world who knew the tree had been felled were the men who had had cut it down,\" Wright said. \"And the only people in the world who had access to the video were the men who had filmed themselves in the act of cutting down the tree: the defendants Graham and Carruthers.\"\n\n## Missing: one chainsaw and a 'trophy' wedge of wood\n\nThe next day, the two feverishly exchanged messages after the tree was discovered.\n\n\"It's gone viral. It is worldwide,\" Graham said.\n\nCarruthers forwarded a Facebook comment by a man who criticized the \"disgusting behavior\" of the \"weak\" vandals.\n\nCarruthers said he'd like to see the man \"launch an operation like we did last night.\"\n\nWright said police never located the chainsaw used to fell the tree, but each man had access to plenty of saws — a fact they both tried to downplay. Investigators also couldn't find a wedge of wood cut from the trunk to drop the tree in the right direction.\n\nBut images on Graham's phone showed a slice of wood and a chainsaw in the back of his vehicle at his home. A forensic botanist said there was \"very strong evidence\" it was the missing wedge that Wright suggested had been taken as a trophy.\n\nProsecutors offered no evidence of a motive for the crime other than calling it senseless vandalism. But Wright suggested to jurors in his closing argument that the men cut the tree down for \"a bit of a laugh\" but had failed to realize the anger they would spark in the \"arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery.\"\n\nThe tree was originally valued at more than 620,000 pounds (around $830,000) and damage to the wall was estimated at 1,100 pounds (nearly $1,500).\n\nBut on Friday prosecutor Rebecca Brown said those figures are in dispute and are likely lower, but would still easily fit in the top category of harm for sentencing purposes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 2 men convicted in chainsaw massacre of UK's beloved Sycamore Gap tree\n\nBy Brian Melley \nMay 9th, 2025, 09:52 AM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — In late September 2023, as the first big storm of the fall was kicking up in the U.K., a malicious plan was hatched to take down one of England's favorite trees.\n\nDaniel Graham sent a message to his buddy, Adam Carruthers, telling him to \"get the saws warmed up,\" suggesting they might get some work clearing fallen trees.\n\nBut it wasn't high winds that brought down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that night, jurors determined Friday. It was Graham and Carruthers — not cleaning up damage from the storm, but creating a mess of their own.\n\nThe pair were convicted of two counts each of criminal damage by a jury in Newcastle Crown Court after little more than five hours of deliberations over two days.\n\nEven without the smoking chainsaw, prosecutors were able to prove the case through a trove of digital evidence that either put the men near the tree at the time it was felled or showed them excitedly discussing it the next day as the story of the tree's demise went viral.\n\n## Crime caught in the act\n\nThe prime piece of evidence was a grainy video on Graham's phone of the crime being committed on the dark and stormy night.\n\nFootage of the tree's last stand showed a solitary figure silhouetted beneath the towering canopy in a struggle with the trunk as the unmistakable sound of the chainsaw whined above the wind. With a single crack, the buzz of the saw died down, the person stepped back and the tree that had stood about 150 years crashed to earth.\n\nMetadata pinpointed the location of the video at the tree's location in Northumberland National Park. Other data showed Graham's Range Rover had traveled there.\n\nThe Sycamore Gap tree was not Britain's biggest or oldest sycamore, but it was prized for its picturesque setting, symmetrically planted between two hills along the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire, and had attracted generations of followers.\n\nThe tree had long been known to locals but received international attention in Kevin Costner's 1991 film \"Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.\" It drew tourists, lovers, landscape photographers and even those who spread the ashes of loved ones.\n\n\"For over a century, Sycamore Gap has been an iconic natural landmark in the northeast of England, bringing immeasurable joy to those visiting the area,\" Gale Gilchrist, chief prosecutor for the region, said in a statement after the verdict. \"In just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction.\"\n\n## Convicts could face 'lengthy' sentences\n\nNeither Graham, who had a small construction business, nor Carruthers, a mechanic who sometimes worked with him, showed any visible reaction as the verdicts were read.\n\nJustice Christina Lambert ordered both men held in custody until sentencing on July 15 and said they could face \"a lengthy period in custody.\" The maximum sentence for criminal damage is 10 years in prison.\n\nThe defendants, once close friends, both testified that they were at their respective homes that night and had nothing to do with the crime.\n\nGraham pointed the finger at Carruthers, saying he was obsessed with the tree. Graham said his friend and another man had taken his Range Rover and phone to the site to frame him.\n\nCarruthers said he didn't understand why people were so upset about \"just a tree,\" saying it was \"almost as if someone had been murdered.\" His lawyer suggested Graham told a desperate lie after being caught.\n\nProsecutor Richard Wright said the two men were in on it together from the start, with evidence showing Carruthers had gone far out of his way earlier in the day to go near the tree on a reconnaissance mission.\n\nWright said he couldn't say who cut the tree and who held the phone, but the two men were the only people in the world with the video on their devices.\n\nAs Graham's vehicle was tracked on its way back toward his home in Carlisle — about 40 minutes away — Carruthers received a video from his partner of their infant and replied, \"I've got a better video than that,\" Wright said.\n\n\"At the time of that text conversation, the only people in the world who knew the tree had been felled were the men who had had cut it down,\" Wright said. \"And the only people in the world who had access to the video were the men who had filmed themselves in the act of cutting down the tree: the defendants Graham and Carruthers.\"\n\n## Missing: one chainsaw and a 'trophy' wedge of wood\n\nThe next day, the two feverishly exchanged messages after the tree was discovered.\n\n\"It's gone viral. It is worldwide,\" Graham said.\n\nCarruthers forwarded a Facebook comment by a man who criticized the \"disgusting behavior\" of the \"weak\" vandals.\n\nCarruthers said he'd like to see the man \"launch an operation like we did last night.\"\n\nWright said police never located the chainsaw used to fell the tree, but each man had access to plenty of saws — a fact they both tried to downplay. Investigators also couldn't find a wedge of wood cut from the trunk to drop the tree in the right direction.\n\nBut images on Graham's phone showed a slice of wood and a chainsaw in the back of his vehicle at his home. A forensic botanist said there was \"very strong evidence\" it was the missing wedge that Wright suggested had been taken as a trophy.\n\nProsecutors offered no evidence of a motive for the crime other than calling it senseless vandalism. But Wright suggested to jurors in his closing argument that the men cut the tree down for \"a bit of a laugh\" but had failed to realize the anger they would spark in the \"arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery.\"\n\nThe tree was originally valued at more than 620,000 pounds (around $830,000) and damage to the wall was estimated at 1,100 pounds (nearly $1,500).\n\nBut on Friday prosecutor Rebecca Brown said those figures are in dispute and are likely lower, but would still easily fit in the top category of harm for sentencing purposes." } ]
8c6512b217dee4da598159f5add51f4f1e847a84b004894bb44e83c51a154904	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Federal worker union leader says Trump downsizing will 'be devastating'\n\nBy Ryan J. Foley \nMay 5th, 2025, 06:43 PM\n\n---\n\nIOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The president of the nation's largest union for federal workers said Monday the organization's ongoing staff downsizing will devastate the services it provides members and threatens the group's survival.\n\nEverett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March removed over 200,000 of its dues-paying members, or about two-thirds of the total.\n\nThe order stripped union rights from employees in several executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.\n\nAFGE and other unions are fighting the order in court as illegal and retaliatory. But Kelley said the order has already taken a \"very direct hit\" on the group's finances because agencies stopped collecting union dues from paychecks.\n\nSaying it had lost over half of its dues revenue and faced a major budget shortfall, AFGE's National Executive Council last month approved a plan to slash its staffing levels from 355 to 151. The union has offered early retirements and buyouts to some staff, and employees are anticipating layoffs in the coming days.\n\n\"It's going to be devastating,\" Kelley told reporters on a Zoom conference celebrating Public Service Recognition Week. \"I don't know if we'll overcome it, to be honest with you, because members have joined this union because they expect us to provide a certain amount of services.\"\n\nLocal unions have already been warned that they will face longer response times from national staff members and less legal help on non-essential matters.\n\nKelley said AFGE is pushing its remaining members to sign up to have their dues withdrawn automatically from their bank accounts. The union said Monday that about 120,000 of its members have signed up. In all, the union represents about 820,000 federal workers.\n\nKelley said the group had been successful in pushing back against Trump's dramatic downsizing and reshaping of the federal government, filing nine lawsuits and rallying the public to its cause.\n\n\"We've been beating him in the court of law and also in the court of public opinion,\" he said. \"But he wants AFGE silent.\"\n\nWhite House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump issued the order to cancel collective bargaining agreements that he believed risked national security interests.\n\n\"He will always prioritize public safety for the American people,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Federal worker union leader says Trump downsizing will 'be devastating'\n\nBy Ryan J. Foley \nMay 5th, 2025, 06:43 PM\n\n---\n\nIOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The president of the nation's largest union for federal workers said Monday the organization's ongoing staff downsizing will devastate the services it provides members and threatens the group's survival.\n\nEverett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in March removed over 200,000 of its dues-paying members, or about two-thirds of the total.\n\nThe order stripped union rights from employees in several executive branch agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.\n\nAFGE and other unions are fighting the order in court as illegal and retaliatory. But Kelley said the order has already taken a \"very direct hit\" on the group's finances because agencies stopped collecting union dues from paychecks.\n\nSaying it had lost over half of its dues revenue and faced a major budget shortfall, AFGE's National Executive Council last month approved a plan to slash its staffing levels from 355 to 151. The union has offered early retirements and buyouts to some staff, and employees are anticipating layoffs in the coming days.\n\n\"It's going to be devastating,\" Kelley told reporters on a Zoom conference celebrating Public Service Recognition Week. \"I don't know if we'll overcome it, to be honest with you, because members have joined this union because they expect us to provide a certain amount of services.\"\n\nLocal unions have already been warned that they will face longer response times from national staff members and less legal help on non-essential matters.\n\nKelley said AFGE is pushing its remaining members to sign up to have their dues withdrawn automatically from their bank accounts. The union said Monday that about 120,000 of its members have signed up. In all, the union represents about 820,000 federal workers.\n\nKelley said the group had been successful in pushing back against Trump's dramatic downsizing and reshaping of the federal government, filing nine lawsuits and rallying the public to its cause.\n\n\"We've been beating him in the court of law and also in the court of public opinion,\" he said. \"But he wants AFGE silent.\"\n\nWhite House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump issued the order to cancel collective bargaining agreements that he believed risked national security interests.\n\n\"He will always prioritize public safety for the American people,\" she said." } ]
796ea03653c7d3e6784ac7440fb38993675fd0d91d4a0a98a67a1b7189d54f16	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Hundreds of Rwandans who fled to Congo after the 1994 genocide return in UN repatriation\n\nBy Ruth Alonga \nMay 17th, 2025, 05:50 PM\n\n---\n\nGOMA, Congo (AP) — Hundreds of Rwandan refugees who were living in eastern Congo since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda were repatriated on Saturday, the U.N. refugee agency said, after Rwandan-backed rebels seized key parts of the region.\n\nMost of the refugees were women and children, and 360 of them crossed the border in buses provided by Rwandan authorities and were escorted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and aid group Save the Children, local authorities said. The goal is to repatriate 2,000 people, UNHCR said.\n\n\"We are happy to welcome our compatriots. They are a valuable workforce for the country's development,\" said Prosper Mulindwa, the Rwandan mayor of Rubavu, during a brief ceremony at the border.\n\nThe returnees were transported to a transit center where they will receive emergency assistance and support for reintegration.\n\nThey were among the hundreds of thousands of Hutus who fled Rwanda after the state-sponsored 1994 genocide that left up to a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. Most had returned when Tutsi-led Rwandan troops first invaded Congo in 1996. But Rwandan authorities said thousands of Hutu militiamen and ex-soldiers had stayed and joined Congo's army to destabilize Rwanda.\n\nFor decades, mineral-rich eastern Congo has been ripped apart by violence from government forces and different armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent resurgence has escalated the conflict and worsened an already acute humanitarian crisis.\n\nThe rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts.\n\nAmong the Rwandan returnees, personal testimonies highlighted journeys marked by exile and a deep connection to a homeland some have never known.\n\nNyirakajumba Twizere was born in 1996 in Congo and had never seen Rwanda.\n\n\"I never thought this day would come,\" he said. \"I'm finally going back to the land of my ancestors.\"\n\nThe repatriation is based on a tripartite agreement between Rwanda, Congo and UNHCR that has been in place for more than a decade. According to Rwandan authorities, more than 101,000 refugees have already been repatriated, including 1,500 since the beginning of 2025." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Hundreds of Rwandans who fled to Congo after the 1994 genocide return in UN repatriation\n\nBy Ruth Alonga \nMay 17th, 2025, 05:50 PM\n\n---\n\nGOMA, Congo (AP) — Hundreds of Rwandan refugees who were living in eastern Congo since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda were repatriated on Saturday, the U.N. refugee agency said, after Rwandan-backed rebels seized key parts of the region.\n\nMost of the refugees were women and children, and 360 of them crossed the border in buses provided by Rwandan authorities and were escorted by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and aid group Save the Children, local authorities said. The goal is to repatriate 2,000 people, UNHCR said.\n\n\"We are happy to welcome our compatriots. They are a valuable workforce for the country's development,\" said Prosper Mulindwa, the Rwandan mayor of Rubavu, during a brief ceremony at the border.\n\nThe returnees were transported to a transit center where they will receive emergency assistance and support for reintegration.\n\nThey were among the hundreds of thousands of Hutus who fled Rwanda after the state-sponsored 1994 genocide that left up to a million minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. Most had returned when Tutsi-led Rwandan troops first invaded Congo in 1996. But Rwandan authorities said thousands of Hutu militiamen and ex-soldiers had stayed and joined Congo's army to destabilize Rwanda.\n\nFor decades, mineral-rich eastern Congo has been ripped apart by violence from government forces and different armed groups, including the Rwanda-backed M23, whose recent resurgence has escalated the conflict and worsened an already acute humanitarian crisis.\n\nThe rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts.\n\nAmong the Rwandan returnees, personal testimonies highlighted journeys marked by exile and a deep connection to a homeland some have never known.\n\nNyirakajumba Twizere was born in 1996 in Congo and had never seen Rwanda.\n\n\"I never thought this day would come,\" he said. \"I'm finally going back to the land of my ancestors.\"\n\nThe repatriation is based on a tripartite agreement between Rwanda, Congo and UNHCR that has been in place for more than a decade. According to Rwandan authorities, more than 101,000 refugees have already been repatriated, including 1,500 since the beginning of 2025." } ]
b8d1fcfac9954c144a79530757ca67602384ff1657015594c3f1e8d15316fb1f	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Australia election: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wins second three-year term\n\nBy Rod Mcguirk and Tristan Lavelette \nMay 2nd, 2025, 10:04 PM\n\n---\n\nMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Anthony Albanese claimed victory as the first Australian prime minister to clinch a second consecutive term in 21 years on Saturday and suggested his government had increased its majority by not modeling itself on U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.\n\n\"Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future,\" Albanese told supporters in a victory speech in Sydney.\n\n\"We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else. We do not seek our inspiration overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people,\" he added.\n\nHis center-left Labor Party had branded Albanese's rival Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, \"DOGE-y Dutton\" and accused his conservative Liberal Party of mimicking Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency.\n\nDutton had earlier conceded his alliance of conservative parties had been defeated at the election and that he had lost his own parliamentary seat that he had held for 24 years.\n\nDutton's plight parallels that of Canada's opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat after Trump declared economic war on the U.S. neighbor to the north. Poilievre had previously been regarded as a shoo-in to become Canada's next prime minister and shepherd his Conservative Party back into power for the first time in a decade.\n\nAnalysts argue that mirroring Trump switched from a political positive for Australian conservatives to a negative after Trump imposed global tariffs.\n\nTrumpet of Patriots, a minor party inspired by Trump policies with an advertising budget funded by mining magnate Clive Palmer that eclipsed the major parties, attracted only 2% of the vote.\n\nZareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, in Melbourne, questioned the significance of the \"DOGE-y Dutton\" lable in the election result.\n\n\"We won't know. But I'm not sure it had a massive impact,\" Ghazarian said. \"It is a huge win for Labor and it's a massive rebuke for the Liberal Party.\"\n\n## US congratulates Albanese on re-election\n\nU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Albanese on his election to a second three-year term.\n\n\"Australia is a valued ally, partner, and friend of the United States. Our shared values and democratic traditions provide the bedrock for an enduring alliance and for the deep ties between our peoples,' Rubio said in a statement.\n\n\"The United States looks forward to deepening its relationship with Australia to advance our common interests and promote freedom and stability in the Indo-Pacific and globally,\" he added.\n\nBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a fellow center-left leader, congratulated Albanese on his victory.\n\n\"The U.K. and Australia are as close as ever – which goes to show that long-distance friendships can be the strongest,\" Starmer said. \"I know that we will continue to work together on our shared ambitions, including on trade, investment and energy, working towards a better life for working people in the U.K. and Australia.\"\n\nLabor had held a narrow majority of 78 seats in the 151-seat house House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties form governments.\n\nAustralian governments are usually elected for at least a second term, but are expected to lose seats at the second election. But Labor is on track to increase its majority in its second term.\n\n## High prices are a major election issue\n\nEnergy policy and inflation have been major issues in the campaign, with both sides agreeing the country faces a cost of living crisis.\n\nThe Liberal Party blamed government waste for fueling inflation and increasing interest rates, and has pledged to ax more than one in five public service jobs to reduce government spending.\n\nWhile both said the country should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Dutton argues that relying on nuclear power instead of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind turbines would deliver less expensive electricity.\n\nLabor argued Dutton's administration would slash services to pay for its ambitions to build seven government-funded nuclear generators. Australia currently has no nuclear power.\n\nOpposition senator Jacinta Nampijnpa Price would have been responsible for cutting 41,000 public service jobs in Dutton's administration. She attracted media attention last month when she told supporters her government would \"make Australia great again.\"\n\n## Echoes of Trump\n\nPrice told reporters at the time she didn't recall using the words reminiscent of the Republicans' \"Make America Great Again\" slogan.\n\nPrice, who said she was photographed wearing a MAGA cap \"in jest at Christmas time,\" on Saturday blamed the news media for focusing on Trump in the election campaign.\n\n\"You made it all about Donald Trump,\" Price told Australian Broadcasting Corp. \"We really couldn't care less about the way Donald Trump is governing for America. We were concerned with the way Australia is being governed under an Albanese government.\"\n\nThe election took place against a backdrop of what both sides of politics describe as a cost of living crisis.\n\nFoodbank Australia, the nation's largest food relief charity, reported 3.4 million households in the country of 27 million people experienced food insecurity last year. That meant Australians were skipping meals, eating less or worrying about running out of food before they could afford to buy more.\n\nThe central bank reduced its benchmark cash interest rate by a quarter percentage point in February to 4.1% in an indication that the worst of the financial hardship had passed. The rate is widely expected to be cut again at the bank's next board meeting on May 20, this time to encourage investment amid the international economic uncertainty generated by Trump's tariff policies.\n\n____\n\nLavalette reported from Perth, Australia" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Australia election: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wins second three-year term\n\nBy Rod Mcguirk and Tristan Lavelette \nMay 2nd, 2025, 10:04 PM\n\n---\n\nMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Anthony Albanese claimed victory as the first Australian prime minister to clinch a second consecutive term in 21 years on Saturday and suggested his government had increased its majority by not modeling itself on U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.\n\n\"Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future,\" Albanese told supporters in a victory speech in Sydney.\n\n\"We do not need to beg or borrow or copy from anywhere else. We do not seek our inspiration overseas. We find it right here in our values and in our people,\" he added.\n\nHis center-left Labor Party had branded Albanese's rival Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, \"DOGE-y Dutton\" and accused his conservative Liberal Party of mimicking Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency.\n\nDutton had earlier conceded his alliance of conservative parties had been defeated at the election and that he had lost his own parliamentary seat that he had held for 24 years.\n\nDutton's plight parallels that of Canada's opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, who lost his seat after Trump declared economic war on the U.S. neighbor to the north. Poilievre had previously been regarded as a shoo-in to become Canada's next prime minister and shepherd his Conservative Party back into power for the first time in a decade.\n\nAnalysts argue that mirroring Trump switched from a political positive for Australian conservatives to a negative after Trump imposed global tariffs.\n\nTrumpet of Patriots, a minor party inspired by Trump policies with an advertising budget funded by mining magnate Clive Palmer that eclipsed the major parties, attracted only 2% of the vote.\n\nZareh Ghazarian, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, in Melbourne, questioned the significance of the \"DOGE-y Dutton\" lable in the election result.\n\n\"We won't know. But I'm not sure it had a massive impact,\" Ghazarian said. \"It is a huge win for Labor and it's a massive rebuke for the Liberal Party.\"\n\n## US congratulates Albanese on re-election\n\nU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Albanese on his election to a second three-year term.\n\n\"Australia is a valued ally, partner, and friend of the United States. Our shared values and democratic traditions provide the bedrock for an enduring alliance and for the deep ties between our peoples,' Rubio said in a statement.\n\n\"The United States looks forward to deepening its relationship with Australia to advance our common interests and promote freedom and stability in the Indo-Pacific and globally,\" he added.\n\nBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a fellow center-left leader, congratulated Albanese on his victory.\n\n\"The U.K. and Australia are as close as ever – which goes to show that long-distance friendships can be the strongest,\" Starmer said. \"I know that we will continue to work together on our shared ambitions, including on trade, investment and energy, working towards a better life for working people in the U.K. and Australia.\"\n\nLabor had held a narrow majority of 78 seats in the 151-seat house House of Representatives, the lower chamber where parties form governments.\n\nAustralian governments are usually elected for at least a second term, but are expected to lose seats at the second election. But Labor is on track to increase its majority in its second term.\n\n## High prices are a major election issue\n\nEnergy policy and inflation have been major issues in the campaign, with both sides agreeing the country faces a cost of living crisis.\n\nThe Liberal Party blamed government waste for fueling inflation and increasing interest rates, and has pledged to ax more than one in five public service jobs to reduce government spending.\n\nWhile both said the country should reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, Dutton argues that relying on nuclear power instead of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind turbines would deliver less expensive electricity.\n\nLabor argued Dutton's administration would slash services to pay for its ambitions to build seven government-funded nuclear generators. Australia currently has no nuclear power.\n\nOpposition senator Jacinta Nampijnpa Price would have been responsible for cutting 41,000 public service jobs in Dutton's administration. She attracted media attention last month when she told supporters her government would \"make Australia great again.\"\n\n## Echoes of Trump\n\nPrice told reporters at the time she didn't recall using the words reminiscent of the Republicans' \"Make America Great Again\" slogan.\n\nPrice, who said she was photographed wearing a MAGA cap \"in jest at Christmas time,\" on Saturday blamed the news media for focusing on Trump in the election campaign.\n\n\"You made it all about Donald Trump,\" Price told Australian Broadcasting Corp. \"We really couldn't care less about the way Donald Trump is governing for America. We were concerned with the way Australia is being governed under an Albanese government.\"\n\nThe election took place against a backdrop of what both sides of politics describe as a cost of living crisis.\n\nFoodbank Australia, the nation's largest food relief charity, reported 3.4 million households in the country of 27 million people experienced food insecurity last year. That meant Australians were skipping meals, eating less or worrying about running out of food before they could afford to buy more.\n\nThe central bank reduced its benchmark cash interest rate by a quarter percentage point in February to 4.1% in an indication that the worst of the financial hardship had passed. The rate is widely expected to be cut again at the bank's next board meeting on May 20, this time to encourage investment amid the international economic uncertainty generated by Trump's tariff policies." } ]
0eb3b680e9ad045138732cc54a7d9a876164d62eadbd5a8a8b5639c7860dd6c7	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Iran's top diplomat in Pakistan to mediate in the escalation with India over the Kashmir attack\n\nBy Munir Ahmed and Muhammad Yousaf \nMay 5th, 2025, 05:44 AM\n\n---\n\nISLAMABAD (AP) — Iran's foreign minister held talks with top Pakistani officials on Monday to try and mediate in the escalation between Islamabad and New Delhi after last month's deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, as the United Nations urged both sides to exercise restraint.\n\nAbbas Araghchi's visit to Islamabad was the first by a foreign dignitary since tensions flared in the wake of the April 22 massacre of 26 people, most of them Indian Hindu tourists, in the town of Pahalgam, which India blames on Pakistan. Islamabad denies the accusation.\n\n## A call for restraint\n\nTehran has offered to help ease tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.\n\nAraghchi held separate meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who thanked him for his peace efforts, according to government statements. Araghchi will visit India this week, according to Pakistani state-run media.\n\nAntonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary General, also urged both sides later Monday to exercise restraint: \"Make no mistake: A military solution is no solution,\" he told reporters.\n\n\"Now is the time for maximum restraint and stepping back from the brink,\" Guterres said. \"The United Nations stands ready to support any initiative that promotes de-escalation, diplomacy, and a renewed commitment to peace.\"\n\nIslamabad has offered to cooperate with an international investigation. India hasn't accepted the offer so far, and several world leaders have urged both sides to show restraint and avoid further escalation.\n\n## Trading accusations\n\nPakistan's military has been on high alert after Cabinet Minister Attaullah Tarar cited intelligence indicating that India could attack.\n\nForeign Minister Ishaq Dar said in televised remarks Monday that Pakistan \"will exercise full restraint, but if India takes any adventurous step, then we will give a befitting response.\"\n\nAccording to a ministry statement, Dar, in talks with Araghchi, rejected what he described as India's attempts to implicate Pakistan in the Kashmir attack.\n\nDar had earlier welcomed mediation to defuse the tensions with India. Since last week, he said that he's spoken to more than a dozen foreign dignitaries, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.\n\n\"We will not be the first to take any escalatory step,\" Dar said, adding that he had warned the international community should there be \"any act of aggression by India, Pakistan will resolutely defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.\"\n\nHe also accused the Indian air force of attempting to breach Pakistani airspace on April 29. Pakistan scrambled aircraft and forced Indian jets to turn back, he said. There was no immediate comment from India on those claims.\n\nPakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar led Monday a group of journalists to the mountain village of Bella Noor Shah, near Muzaffarabad — the main city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir — where he said that New Delhi had falsely claimed the presence of a militant training camp.\n\nResidents of the village told reporters they had never seen any such camp in the area.\n\nMeanwhile, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wrote on X that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday and \"strongly condemned the terror attack in Pahalgam.\"\n\n## Pakistan test fires another short-range missile\n\nPakistan's military said Monday that it test fired a short-range missile, the second such test launch after a medium-range missile on Saturday.\n\nThe military said that the Fatah surface-to-surface missile has a range of 120 kilometers (75 miles) and was launched from an undisclosed location. Such missiles are never fired toward India, and usually end up reaching the Arabian Sea or the deserts of southern Balochistan province\n\n## A region split between nuclear-armed rivals\n\nKashmir is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region and their ties have been shaped by conflict, aggressive diplomacy and mutual suspicion, mostly because of their competing claims over Kashmir.\n\nMilitants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi's rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels' goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.\n\nMushaal Hussein, the wife of a top Kashmiri rebel leader, Mohammed Yasin Malik, accused India of falsely implicating Pakistan in the attack on tourists. She made her remarks Monday after attending a flag-lowering ceremony, a dramatic daily show of strength on both sides of the border. Malik, who is imprisoned in India on terror charges, married her in Pakistan in 2009.\n\n## A diplomatic tit-for-tat\n\nThe latest flare-up led the two countries to expel each other's diplomats and nationals, as well as the shuttering of airspace.\n\nDar, Pakistan's foreign minister, denounced India's unilateral decision to suspend a water-sharing treaty.\n\nIn the town of Akhnoor in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where the Chenab River flows into Pakistan, residents said that water levels were so low, people could walk across the river on Monday.\n\n\"I have never seen this river dry in my life,\" said 55-year-old farmer Bal Krishan, adding that he agreed with \"Modi's decision to suspend the treaty and punish\" Pakistan.\n\nThere was no immediate comment from officials.\n\n___\n\nMuhammad Yousaf reported from Muzaffarabad. Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Rajesh Roy in New Delhi, Channi Anand in Akhnoor, India, and Ishfaq Hussain in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Iran's top diplomat in Pakistan to mediate in the escalation with India over the Kashmir attack\n\nBy Munir Ahmed and Muhammad Yousaf \nMay 5th, 2025, 05:44 AM\n\n---\n\nISLAMABAD (AP) — Iran's foreign minister held talks with top Pakistani officials on Monday to try and mediate in the escalation between Islamabad and New Delhi after last month's deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, as the United Nations urged both sides to exercise restraint.\n\nAbbas Araghchi's visit to Islamabad was the first by a foreign dignitary since tensions flared in the wake of the April 22 massacre of 26 people, most of them Indian Hindu tourists, in the town of Pahalgam, which India blames on Pakistan. Islamabad denies the accusation.\n\n## A call for restraint\n\nTehran has offered to help ease tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.\n\nAraghchi held separate meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who thanked him for his peace efforts, according to government statements. Araghchi will visit India this week, according to Pakistani state-run media.\n\nAntonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary General, also urged both sides later Monday to exercise restraint: \"Make no mistake: A military solution is no solution,\" he told reporters.\n\n\"Now is the time for maximum restraint and stepping back from the brink,\" Guterres said. \"The United Nations stands ready to support any initiative that promotes de-escalation, diplomacy, and a renewed commitment to peace.\"\n\nIslamabad has offered to cooperate with an international investigation. India hasn't accepted the offer so far, and several world leaders have urged both sides to show restraint and avoid further escalation.\n\n## Trading accusations\n\nPakistan's military has been on high alert after Cabinet Minister Attaullah Tarar cited intelligence indicating that India could attack.\n\nForeign Minister Ishaq Dar said in televised remarks Monday that Pakistan \"will exercise full restraint, but if India takes any adventurous step, then we will give a befitting response.\"\n\nAccording to a ministry statement, Dar, in talks with Araghchi, rejected what he described as India's attempts to implicate Pakistan in the Kashmir attack.\n\nDar had earlier welcomed mediation to defuse the tensions with India. Since last week, he said that he's spoken to more than a dozen foreign dignitaries, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.\n\n\"We will not be the first to take any escalatory step,\" Dar said, adding that he had warned the international community should there be \"any act of aggression by India, Pakistan will resolutely defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.\"\n\nHe also accused the Indian air force of attempting to breach Pakistani airspace on April 29. Pakistan scrambled aircraft and forced Indian jets to turn back, he said. There was no immediate comment from India on those claims.\n\nPakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar led Monday a group of journalists to the mountain village of Bella Noor Shah, near Muzaffarabad — the main city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir — where he said that New Delhi had falsely claimed the presence of a militant training camp.\n\nResidents of the village told reporters they had never seen any such camp in the area.\n\nMeanwhile, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wrote on X that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday and \"strongly condemned the terror attack in Pahalgam.\"\n\n## Pakistan test fires another short-range missile\n\nPakistan's military said Monday that it test fired a short-range missile, the second such test launch after a medium-range missile on Saturday.\n\nThe military said that the Fatah surface-to-surface missile has a range of 120 kilometers (75 miles) and was launched from an undisclosed location. Such missiles are never fired toward India, and usually end up reaching the Arabian Sea or the deserts of southern Balochistan province\n\n## A region split between nuclear-armed rivals\n\nKashmir is split between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region and their ties have been shaped by conflict, aggressive diplomacy and mutual suspicion, mostly because of their competing claims over Kashmir.\n\nMilitants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi's rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels' goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.\n\nMushaal Hussein, the wife of a top Kashmiri rebel leader, Mohammed Yasin Malik, accused India of falsely implicating Pakistan in the attack on tourists. She made her remarks Monday after attending a flag-lowering ceremony, a dramatic daily show of strength on both sides of the border. Malik, who is imprisoned in India on terror charges, married her in Pakistan in 2009.\n\n## A diplomatic tit-for-tat\n\nThe latest flare-up led the two countries to expel each other's diplomats and nationals, as well as the shuttering of airspace.\n\nDar, Pakistan's foreign minister, denounced India's unilateral decision to suspend a water-sharing treaty.\n\nIn the town of Akhnoor in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where the Chenab River flows into Pakistan, residents said that water levels were so low, people could walk across the river on Monday.\n\n\"I have never seen this river dry in my life,\" said 55-year-old farmer Bal Krishan, adding that he agreed with \"Modi's decision to suspend the treaty and punish\" Pakistan.\n\nThere was no immediate comment from officials." } ]
c83f9f58edd59cef132a10f74ecff8f0915a20ed09881e7d8e830d7855fead33	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# How the Trump administration plans to keep tabs on 450,000 migrant kids\n\nBy Amanda Seitz and Alanna Durkin Richer \nMay 2nd, 2025, 05:24 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration is conducting a nationwide, multi-agency review of 450,000 migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents during President Joe Biden's term.\n\nTrump officials say they want to track down those children and ensure their safety. Many of the children came to the U.S. during surges at the border in recent years and were later placed in homes with adult sponsors, typically parents, relatives or family friends.\n\nMigrant advocates are dubious of the Republican administration's tactics, which include dispatching Homeland Security and FBI agents to visit the children. Trump's zero-tolerance approach to immigrants in the U.S. illegally, which has resulted in small children being flown out of the country, has raised deep suspicion his administration may use the review to deport any sponsors or children who are not living in the country legally.\n\nTrump officials say the adult sponsors who took in migrant children were not always properly vetted, leaving some at risk for exploitation. The Department of Justice has indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S. and then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.\n\n## Trump officials will do house checks and interviews\n\nTrump officials expect more problematic sponsors will surface as the administration conducts door knocks and interviews to check on cases in which complaints — about 65,000 of them since 2023 — have been filed. This year, about 450 cases with complaints have been referred to federal law enforcement officials, according to a senior Health and Human Services official who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the review and spoke on the condition of anonymity.\n\n\"We're combing through every report, every detail — because protecting children isn't optional,\" HHS said in a social media post on X. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to reference the review during a Cabinet meeting with Trump on Wednesday, saying his agency was trying to \"find the children.\"\n\nFor at least a decade, the federal government has allowed adults to apply to house migrant children who crossed the border without a parent or legal guardian. The program, however, was plagued with problems during the Democratic Biden administration years as officials struggled to process an influx of thousands of children. Federal officials failed to conduct background or address checks in some cases before placing children with sponsors. In other instances, sponsors provided plainly false identification, a federal watchdog report last year concluded.\n\nAfter that report was issued, the Biden administration said it had already worked to improve the issues through \"training, monitoring, technology and evaluation.\"\n\n## Thousands of kids were placed with legitimate sponsors\n\nBut thousands of children were also placed with legitimate families, some of whom now fear they'll be swept up in the Trump administration's review and targeted for deportation, said Mary Miller Flowers, the policy director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights.\n\nThe center is assigned to work with some of the most vulnerable children who cross the border. Flowers said that many children have been placed with their parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles.\n\nIn some cases, children may arrive at the border separately from their parents who already live in the U.S. and reunite with them through the program.\n\n\"Now you have a situation where the government is checking on the wellness of children and encountering their undocumented parents and deporting their parents,\" Flowers said. \"I don't know what about that is good for children.\"\n\n## Government has taken custody of 100 kids\n\nSo far, about 100 kids in the past two months have been removed from their sponsors and put back into custody of the federal government, typically in private shelters, according to the health department official.\n\nIn Cleveland, federal prosecutors allege that one man, who was living in the U.S. illegally, arranged for the 14-year-old girl to get a copy of his sister's birth certificate and then coordinated her journey from Guatemala to the U.S. He claimed to be her brother, but no fingerprinting or DNA testing was done to verify his claim, according to a senior Justice Department official who could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing case and spoke on condition of anonymity.\n\nThe man pleaded guilty to sexual battery of the child in Ohio state court in 2024 and was sentenced to eight years in prison, the official said. The man now faces federal charges including inducing illegal entry for financial gain and aggravated identity theft. Attorneys for the man declined to comment.\n\nAs part of the review, the Trump administration is working to identify the location of every child who has been placed with a sponsor, according to the Justice Department official. Investigators are going through suspicious sponsorship applications, like so-called \"super sponsors,\" who have claimed to have family relationships with, in some cases, more than a dozen unaccompanied children, the official said.\n\nVideos and reports of armed law enforcement officers showing up to conduct wellness checks at the doorsteps of unaccompanied minors and their sponsors have surfaced from across the country.\n\nIn an emailed statement, the FBI said that it is conducting \"nationwide\" welfare checks because \"protecting children is a critical mission,\" adding that it would continue to work with its \"federal, state and local partners to secure their safety and well-being.\"\n\nBut advocates have raised doubts that children will open up about abuse or other concerns about their sponsors to armed law enforcement officers from federal agencies who are simultaneously executing mass deportation campaigns.\n\n## The search for kids has resulted in deportation of some adults\n\nIn Hawaii, homeland security agents have been scouring Kona for unaccompanied minors and their sponsors, with two families deported as a result and another child put back into federal custody, according to a news report from Honolulu Civil Beat. Last month, a northern Virginia attorney posted video of five federal agents visiting the home of his client, who is awaiting a green card, for a welfare check. And in Omaha, a 10-year-old who came to the U.S. unaccompanied about three years ago and was placed with his uncle was visited by armed agents in \"black, tactical gear\" two weeks ago, according to his attorney. He was asked a series of questions, including the status of his case and the whereabouts of his sponsor, according to his attorney Julia Cryne.\n\n\"They're using this as a way to go after the kids,\" Cryne said. Her client, she added, has recently had his application for a green card approved.\n\n## New rules make it more difficult for sponsors\n\nThe Trump administration has dramatically altered the way the sponsorship program works. It's cut funding for the attorneys who represented the most vulnerable migrant children, leaving even toddlers or preschool aged-children with no federally-funded representation.\n\nThe administration has also rolled out a number of new rules for adults who want to sponsor a migrant child, according to guidance obtained by the Associated Press. In recent weeks, the office began requiring sponsors to submit fingerprinting, DNA testing and income verification to strengthen its screening procedures.\n\nThat could be a hurdle for many sponsors who may not have an income or might be undocumented, Flowers said. Children cannot leave federal custody until they are released to a sponsor.\n\n\"They have put in a trifecta of policies that essentially make it impossible for them to leave federal detention,\" Flowers said.\n\n—\n\nBeatrice Dupuy in New York contributed.\n\n__\n\nThis story was first published May 2, 2025. It was updated May 5, 2025,, to correct the name of Honolulu Civil Beat, not the Honolulu Civil Report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# How the Trump administration plans to keep tabs on 450,000 migrant kids\n\nBy Amanda Seitz and Alanna Durkin Richer \nMay 2nd, 2025, 05:24 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration is conducting a nationwide, multi-agency review of 450,000 migrant children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents during President Joe Biden's term.\n\nTrump officials say they want to track down those children and ensure their safety. Many of the children came to the U.S. during surges at the border in recent years and were later placed in homes with adult sponsors, typically parents, relatives or family friends.\n\nMigrant advocates are dubious of the Republican administration's tactics, which include dispatching Homeland Security and FBI agents to visit the children. Trump's zero-tolerance approach to immigrants in the U.S. illegally, which has resulted in small children being flown out of the country, has raised deep suspicion his administration may use the review to deport any sponsors or children who are not living in the country legally.\n\nTrump officials say the adult sponsors who took in migrant children were not always properly vetted, leaving some at risk for exploitation. The Department of Justice has indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S. and then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.\n\n## Trump officials will do house checks and interviews\n\nTrump officials expect more problematic sponsors will surface as the administration conducts door knocks and interviews to check on cases in which complaints — about 65,000 of them since 2023 — have been filed. This year, about 450 cases with complaints have been referred to federal law enforcement officials, according to a senior Health and Human Services official who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the review and spoke on the condition of anonymity.\n\n\"We're combing through every report, every detail — because protecting children isn't optional,\" HHS said in a social media post on X. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared to reference the review during a Cabinet meeting with Trump on Wednesday, saying his agency was trying to \"find the children.\"\n\nFor at least a decade, the federal government has allowed adults to apply to house migrant children who crossed the border without a parent or legal guardian. The program, however, was plagued with problems during the Democratic Biden administration years as officials struggled to process an influx of thousands of children. Federal officials failed to conduct background or address checks in some cases before placing children with sponsors. In other instances, sponsors provided plainly false identification, a federal watchdog report last year concluded.\n\nAfter that report was issued, the Biden administration said it had already worked to improve the issues through \"training, monitoring, technology and evaluation.\"\n\n## Thousands of kids were placed with legitimate sponsors\n\nBut thousands of children were also placed with legitimate families, some of whom now fear they'll be swept up in the Trump administration's review and targeted for deportation, said Mary Miller Flowers, the policy director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights.\n\nThe center is assigned to work with some of the most vulnerable children who cross the border. Flowers said that many children have been placed with their parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles.\n\nIn some cases, children may arrive at the border separately from their parents who already live in the U.S. and reunite with them through the program.\n\n\"Now you have a situation where the government is checking on the wellness of children and encountering their undocumented parents and deporting their parents,\" Flowers said. \"I don't know what about that is good for children.\"\n\n## Government has taken custody of 100 kids\n\nSo far, about 100 kids in the past two months have been removed from their sponsors and put back into custody of the federal government, typically in private shelters, according to the health department official.\n\nIn Cleveland, federal prosecutors allege that one man, who was living in the U.S. illegally, arranged for the 14-year-old girl to get a copy of his sister's birth certificate and then coordinated her journey from Guatemala to the U.S. He claimed to be her brother, but no fingerprinting or DNA testing was done to verify his claim, according to a senior Justice Department official who could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing case and spoke on condition of anonymity.\n\nThe man pleaded guilty to sexual battery of the child in Ohio state court in 2024 and was sentenced to eight years in prison, the official said. The man now faces federal charges including inducing illegal entry for financial gain and aggravated identity theft. Attorneys for the man declined to comment.\n\nAs part of the review, the Trump administration is working to identify the location of every child who has been placed with a sponsor, according to the Justice Department official. Investigators are going through suspicious sponsorship applications, like so-called \"super sponsors,\" who have claimed to have family relationships with, in some cases, more than a dozen unaccompanied children, the official said.\n\nVideos and reports of armed law enforcement officers showing up to conduct wellness checks at the doorsteps of unaccompanied minors and their sponsors have surfaced from across the country.\n\nIn an emailed statement, the FBI said that it is conducting \"nationwide\" welfare checks because \"protecting children is a critical mission,\" adding that it would continue to work with its \"federal, state and local partners to secure their safety and well-being.\"\n\nBut advocates have raised doubts that children will open up about abuse or other concerns about their sponsors to armed law enforcement officers from federal agencies who are simultaneously executing mass deportation campaigns.\n\n## The search for kids has resulted in deportation of some adults\n\nIn Hawaii, homeland security agents have been scouring Kona for unaccompanied minors and their sponsors, with two families deported as a result and another child put back into federal custody, according to a news report from Honolulu Civil Beat. Last month, a northern Virginia attorney posted video of five federal agents visiting the home of his client, who is awaiting a green card, for a welfare check. And in Omaha, a 10-year-old who came to the U.S. unaccompanied about three years ago and was placed with his uncle was visited by armed agents in \"black, tactical gear\" two weeks ago, according to his attorney. He was asked a series of questions, including the status of his case and the whereabouts of his sponsor, according to his attorney Julia Cryne.\n\n\"They're using this as a way to go after the kids,\" Cryne said. Her client, she added, has recently had his application for a green card approved.\n\n## New rules make it more difficult for sponsors\n\nThe Trump administration has dramatically altered the way the sponsorship program works. It's cut funding for the attorneys who represented the most vulnerable migrant children, leaving even toddlers or preschool aged-children with no federally-funded representation.\n\nThe administration has also rolled out a number of new rules for adults who want to sponsor a migrant child, according to guidance obtained by the Associated Press. In recent weeks, the office began requiring sponsors to submit fingerprinting, DNA testing and income verification to strengthen its screening procedures.\n\nThat could be a hurdle for many sponsors who may not have an income or might be undocumented, Flowers said. Children cannot leave federal custody until they are released to a sponsor.\n\n\"They have put in a trifecta of policies that essentially make it impossible for them to leave federal detention,\" Flowers said." } ]
807e03b2c6078545895f85d759873b9245f96b489d6d6478590b7e196ffe0477	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Hungarians rally in mass protest against bill allowing blacklisting of Orbán critics\n\nMay 18th, 2025, 04:57 PM\n\n---\n\nBUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A mass protest in Hungary on Sunday drew around 10,000 people in what some demonstrators called an act of resistance against recent actions by the right-wing populist government to restrict basic rights and crack down on independent media.\n\nThe protest, the latest in a recent wave of anti-government demonstrations, came days after a lawmaker from the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán submitted a bill that would allow the government to monitor, restrict, penalize and potentially ban media outlets and non-governmental organizations it deems a threat to the country's sovereignty.\n\nThe bill, which has been compared to Russia's \"foreign agent\" law, is expected to pass in the parliament where the ruling Fidesz party holds a two-thirds majority. It is seen by many of Orbán's opponents as among the most repressive policies the long-serving leader has leveled at his critics in the last 15 years of his rule.\n\nProtesters on Sunday filled the square beside Hungary's parliament in central Budapest to denounce the bill, which would allow the government to blacklist organizations that receive any amount of financial support from outside Hungary, and subject them to intrusive monitoring, searches, major fines and possible bans on their activities.\n\nPoliticians in Orbán's party, as well as the Sovereignty Protection Office, a controversial government body tasked with identifying alleged threats to Hungary's sovereignty, have specifically identified numerous media outlets and anti-corruption organizations that they claim are serving foreign interests.\n\nFrom a stage at the protest on Sunday, speaker Jakab Tóth said the bill submitted this week \"is nothing more than a threat, a threat against people being able to express their opinions clearly and freely.\"\n\nTóth added he believes the government has a responsibility to protect the sovereignty of citizens to exercise free speech and take part in public life. \"If it doesn't belong to all of us, if not all of us are free, then sovereignty is solely and exclusively the sovereignty of the government,\" he said.\n\nOrbán, who polls show faces the most serious challenge yet to his power in elections scheduled for next year, has claimed that foreign interests, primarily originating in the United States and in neighboring Ukraine, have sought to instrumentalize independent media outlets and anti-corruption watchdogs in Hungary to influence public opinion with the aim of toppling his government.\n\nThose organizations have vehemently denied such claims, and argued that the work they perform is done to professional standards and in the public interest.\n\nOrbán has for years enacted crackdowns on NGOs and independent media, passing laws that critics say seek to stigmatize and obstruct groups that provide protection for women and minorities, offer legal and human rights assistance and expose official corruption.\n\nThose efforts ramped up in 2023 when Orbán's right-wing populist government launched the Sovereignty Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating organizations and media outlets it deems to be exerting foreign influence.\n\nThe bill introduced last week outlines a broad definition of what constitutes a threat to sovereignty. Organizations may be targeted if they oppose or portray in a negative light values such as Hungary's democratic character, national unity, traditional family structures, or Christian culture — suggesting that even legitimate criticism of government policy could be treated as a national security threat.\n\nSunday's demonstration came after two-and-a-half months of weekly protests against an anti-LGBTQ+ law passed in March that banned Pride events and allows authorities to use facial recognition software to identify individuals attending the festivities.\n\nHungary's government has argued its policies on LGBTQ+ rights are necessary to protect children from it calls \"gender madness.\" But many critics believe the measures were designed to stir up animosity against sexual minorities and help Orbán mobilize his right-wing base ahead of next year's elections." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Hungarians rally in mass protest against bill allowing blacklisting of Orbán critics\n\nMay 18th, 2025, 04:57 PM\n\n---\n\nBUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A mass protest in Hungary on Sunday drew around 10,000 people in what some demonstrators called an act of resistance against recent actions by the right-wing populist government to restrict basic rights and crack down on independent media.\n\nThe protest, the latest in a recent wave of anti-government demonstrations, came days after a lawmaker from the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán submitted a bill that would allow the government to monitor, restrict, penalize and potentially ban media outlets and non-governmental organizations it deems a threat to the country's sovereignty.\n\nThe bill, which has been compared to Russia's \"foreign agent\" law, is expected to pass in the parliament where the ruling Fidesz party holds a two-thirds majority. It is seen by many of Orbán's opponents as among the most repressive policies the long-serving leader has leveled at his critics in the last 15 years of his rule.\n\nProtesters on Sunday filled the square beside Hungary's parliament in central Budapest to denounce the bill, which would allow the government to blacklist organizations that receive any amount of financial support from outside Hungary, and subject them to intrusive monitoring, searches, major fines and possible bans on their activities.\n\nPoliticians in Orbán's party, as well as the Sovereignty Protection Office, a controversial government body tasked with identifying alleged threats to Hungary's sovereignty, have specifically identified numerous media outlets and anti-corruption organizations that they claim are serving foreign interests.\n\nFrom a stage at the protest on Sunday, speaker Jakab Tóth said the bill submitted this week \"is nothing more than a threat, a threat against people being able to express their opinions clearly and freely.\"\n\nTóth added he believes the government has a responsibility to protect the sovereignty of citizens to exercise free speech and take part in public life. \"If it doesn't belong to all of us, if not all of us are free, then sovereignty is solely and exclusively the sovereignty of the government,\" he said.\n\nOrbán, who polls show faces the most serious challenge yet to his power in elections scheduled for next year, has claimed that foreign interests, primarily originating in the United States and in neighboring Ukraine, have sought to instrumentalize independent media outlets and anti-corruption watchdogs in Hungary to influence public opinion with the aim of toppling his government.\n\nThose organizations have vehemently denied such claims, and argued that the work they perform is done to professional standards and in the public interest.\n\nOrbán has for years enacted crackdowns on NGOs and independent media, passing laws that critics say seek to stigmatize and obstruct groups that provide protection for women and minorities, offer legal and human rights assistance and expose official corruption.\n\nThose efforts ramped up in 2023 when Orbán's right-wing populist government launched the Sovereignty Protection Office, an authority tasked with investigating organizations and media outlets it deems to be exerting foreign influence.\n\nThe bill introduced last week outlines a broad definition of what constitutes a threat to sovereignty. Organizations may be targeted if they oppose or portray in a negative light values such as Hungary's democratic character, national unity, traditional family structures, or Christian culture — suggesting that even legitimate criticism of government policy could be treated as a national security threat.\n\nSunday's demonstration came after two-and-a-half months of weekly protests against an anti-LGBTQ+ law passed in March that banned Pride events and allows authorities to use facial recognition software to identify individuals attending the festivities.\n\nHungary's government has argued its policies on LGBTQ+ rights are necessary to protect children from it calls \"gender madness.\" But many critics believe the measures were designed to stir up animosity against sexual minorities and help Orbán mobilize his right-wing base ahead of next year's elections." } ]
06d78fee9ae5aeedd8f7486a45b7a0a11c4abf3501e39b208f9b164746fa4d16	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 6 people are charged in a Texas elections investigation involving 'vote harvesting'\n\nBy Nadia Lathan and Juan Lozano \nMay 7th, 2025, 10:36 PM\n\n---\n\nAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Six people in a rural Texas county, including two City Council members and a school board trustee, have been indicted in a widening elections investigation led by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, bringing felony charges to a case that Latino rights activists have criticized as politically driven.\n\nThe top executive in Frio County, home to about 18,000 residents, a county elections worker and a local resident were also among those indicted on May 1, Paxton said Wednesday. The charges expand an investigation that included raids last year on the homes of Latino campaign volunteers near San Antonio, including an 87-year-old woman, although none of them have been indicted.\n\nMost of the six are charged with what is known in Texas as vote harvesting, a felony that often involves payment for collecting and dropping off other people's absentee ballots. Several of the officials indicted in Frio County are accused of using Cash App to pay for vote harvesting services.\n\n\"The people of Texas deserve fair and honest elections, not backroom deals and political insiders rigging the system. Elected officials who think they can cheat to stay in power will be held accountable,\" Paxton said in a statement.\n\nThe League of United Latin American Citizens last year called for a federal investigation into Texas authorities after its members' homes were raided. No charges have been filed against any targets of those searches, according to spokesperson David Cruz, and the organization said it had not made decisions on whether to represent those who were indicted.\n\nGabriel Rosales, the Texas director for LULAC, called the charges unsubstantiated.\n\n\"This is voter suppression 101,\" he said. \"There's no vote harvesting going on. There's nobody creating these ballots. That's a lie.\"\n\nThe vote harvesting charges are third-degree felonies and carry up to 10 years in prison. Those accused are Frio County Judge Rochelle Camacho, the county's top official; Pearsall City Council members Ramiro Trevino and Racheal Garza; Pearsall ISD Trustee Adriann Ramirez; and Frio County resident Rosa Rodriguez.\n\nAnother official, former Frio County Elections Administrator Carlos Segura, is charged with tampering with evidence.\n\n\"The only word I have right now is that it's ridiculous,\" Segura said. He added that his lawyer advised him not to speak further.\n\nCamacho, Trevino, Garza and Ramirez did not immediately respond to phone calls or an email requesting comment. A number could not be found for Rodriguez.\n\nThe indictments were the latest development in an investigation that Paxton started after the 2020 election to root out voter fraud, which is rare and typically occurs in isolated instances. Texas has tightened its voter laws in recent years and increased penalties that Democrats and opponents say are attempts to suppress turnout among Black and Latino voters.\n\nInvestigators with the Texas Attorney General's Office were first told of allegations of vote harvesting by Mary Moore, who was Camacho's opponent in the March 2022 Democratic primary for county judge, according to search warrant affidavits.\n\nMoore accused Camacho of hiring a woman who had been collecting mail ballots for candidates in Frio County for nearly three decades. Moore alleged that the woman charged candidates anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500 to collect mail ballots, applications for ballot by mail and to even drive people to vote curbside, according to the affidavit.\n\nInvestigators allege that the vote harvesting scheme targeted elderly people at a Pearsall subdivision. Camacho and Ramirez, who were identified in court documents as sisters, allegedly took part in an effort in October 2022 to gather mail-in ballots from residents there, according to the affidavit.\n\nInvestigators allege the woman who was Camacho's main vote harvester hid ballots underneath her shirt and used different vehicles \"to throw off investigators.\"\n\nSegura would provide the woman with information on when ballots were mailed and delivered, investigators allege.\n\nA federal appeals court last year upheld the state's law that tightened voter restrictions and increased penalties for vote harvesting.\n\n___\n\nLozano contributed from Houston. Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 6 people are charged in a Texas elections investigation involving 'vote harvesting'\n\nBy Nadia Lathan and Juan Lozano \nMay 7th, 2025, 10:36 PM\n\n---\n\nAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Six people in a rural Texas county, including two City Council members and a school board trustee, have been indicted in a widening elections investigation led by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, bringing felony charges to a case that Latino rights activists have criticized as politically driven.\n\nThe top executive in Frio County, home to about 18,000 residents, a county elections worker and a local resident were also among those indicted on May 1, Paxton said Wednesday. The charges expand an investigation that included raids last year on the homes of Latino campaign volunteers near San Antonio, including an 87-year-old woman, although none of them have been indicted.\n\nMost of the six are charged with what is known in Texas as vote harvesting, a felony that often involves payment for collecting and dropping off other people's absentee ballots. Several of the officials indicted in Frio County are accused of using Cash App to pay for vote harvesting services.\n\n\"The people of Texas deserve fair and honest elections, not backroom deals and political insiders rigging the system. Elected officials who think they can cheat to stay in power will be held accountable,\" Paxton said in a statement.\n\nThe League of United Latin American Citizens last year called for a federal investigation into Texas authorities after its members' homes were raided. No charges have been filed against any targets of those searches, according to spokesperson David Cruz, and the organization said it had not made decisions on whether to represent those who were indicted.\n\nGabriel Rosales, the Texas director for LULAC, called the charges unsubstantiated.\n\n\"This is voter suppression 101,\" he said. \"There's no vote harvesting going on. There's nobody creating these ballots. That's a lie.\"\n\nThe vote harvesting charges are third-degree felonies and carry up to 10 years in prison. Those accused are Frio County Judge Rochelle Camacho, the county's top official; Pearsall City Council members Ramiro Trevino and Racheal Garza; Pearsall ISD Trustee Adriann Ramirez; and Frio County resident Rosa Rodriguez.\n\nAnother official, former Frio County Elections Administrator Carlos Segura, is charged with tampering with evidence.\n\n\"The only word I have right now is that it's ridiculous,\" Segura said. He added that his lawyer advised him not to speak further.\n\nCamacho, Trevino, Garza and Ramirez did not immediately respond to phone calls or an email requesting comment. A number could not be found for Rodriguez.\n\nThe indictments were the latest development in an investigation that Paxton started after the 2020 election to root out voter fraud, which is rare and typically occurs in isolated instances. Texas has tightened its voter laws in recent years and increased penalties that Democrats and opponents say are attempts to suppress turnout among Black and Latino voters.\n\nInvestigators with the Texas Attorney General's Office were first told of allegations of vote harvesting by Mary Moore, who was Camacho's opponent in the March 2022 Democratic primary for county judge, according to search warrant affidavits.\n\nMoore accused Camacho of hiring a woman who had been collecting mail ballots for candidates in Frio County for nearly three decades. Moore alleged that the woman charged candidates anywhere from $1,500 to $2,500 to collect mail ballots, applications for ballot by mail and to even drive people to vote curbside, according to the affidavit.\n\nInvestigators allege that the vote harvesting scheme targeted elderly people at a Pearsall subdivision. Camacho and Ramirez, who were identified in court documents as sisters, allegedly took part in an effort in October 2022 to gather mail-in ballots from residents there, according to the affidavit.\n\nInvestigators allege the woman who was Camacho's main vote harvester hid ballots underneath her shirt and used different vehicles \"to throw off investigators.\"\n\nSegura would provide the woman with information on when ballots were mailed and delivered, investigators allege.\n\nA federal appeals court last year upheld the state's law that tightened voter restrictions and increased penalties for vote harvesting." } ]
2021a2e68a6a1ebfcbda5550bcd567b3de3daad545f3b659d4419765a1d5768b	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 100-year-old veteran kicks off V-E Day events as Britain thanks those who saved it during WWII\n\nBy Danica Kirka \nMay 5th, 2025, 12:07 PM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — A 100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran accepted the thanks of a nation Monday as Britain paused to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day and honor the men and women who fought to save the country during World War II.\n\nThe day featured a procession by 1,300 members of the British armed forces, accompanied by troops from Ukraine and the U.K.'s NATO allies. The parade didn't begin until Alan Kennett, who landed in northern France on D-Day, accepted the salute from Garrison Sgt. Major Andrew Stokes in front of an audience that included King Charles III.\n\n\"Thank you and your generation for securing our freedom 80 years ago,\" Stokes, in scarlet tunic and bearskin hat, said before saluting the RAF veteran, wearing a navy blue blazer with his medals pinned on the left breast.\n\nThis year's V-E Day events have taken on increased significance because they are likely to be the last major observance to include significant numbers of World War II veterans.\n\nAfter Big Ben tolled at noon, actor Timothy Spall recited the victory speech wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered to a roaring crowd in central London on May 8, 1945. Britain started its V-E Day ceremonies three days early because Monday is a public holiday in the U.K.\n\n\"I think we've been very lucky that we've had 80 years of peace … and we've got to think about all those that have (made) the ultimate sacrifice, and there's very few of them left now because they're all over 100,″ said Michael Burn, 67, who wore a suit patterned after Britain's red, white and blue Union flag. \"This is the last time we will celebrate the day in this sort of scale.\"\n\nThen it was time for the parade from the Houses of Parliament, through Trafalgar Square and down the Mall to Buckingham Palace. The Ukrainian contingent, though small, won a huge round of applause as their flag swept past the royal viewing platform.\n\nThe event ended with a flyover by British military aircraft, including a wartime Lancaster bomber and the RAF's Red Arrows aerobatic team.\n\nIn the down moments, the Princess of Wales chatted amiably with Bernard Morgan, 101, a veteran who worked as a code breaker during the conflict. Afterward, she introduced Morgan to her children, George, 11, Charlotte, 10 and Louis, 7.\n\nTheir place in the front row was a reminder of the gulf between those who fought in World War II and the present generation. With even the youngest of those men and women nearing their 100th birthdays and their ranks dwindling rapidly, many have said they feel a special imperative to tell their stories and attend events that honor their fallen comrades.\n\nKennett, a mechanic who landed in Normandy to set up an airfield, said he was proud to represent the veterans.\n\n\"I just remember those that didn't come back,\" he said. \"That's the thing that sticks in my mind. I'm lucky. I got out. There's a lot that didn't, believe me. Luck of the draw. It shouldn't be forgotten.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 100-year-old veteran kicks off V-E Day events as Britain thanks those who saved it during WWII\n\nBy Danica Kirka \nMay 5th, 2025, 12:07 PM\n\n---\n\nLONDON (AP) — A 100-year-old Royal Air Force veteran accepted the thanks of a nation Monday as Britain paused to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day and honor the men and women who fought to save the country during World War II.\n\nThe day featured a procession by 1,300 members of the British armed forces, accompanied by troops from Ukraine and the U.K.'s NATO allies. The parade didn't begin until Alan Kennett, who landed in northern France on D-Day, accepted the salute from Garrison Sgt. Major Andrew Stokes in front of an audience that included King Charles III.\n\n\"Thank you and your generation for securing our freedom 80 years ago,\" Stokes, in scarlet tunic and bearskin hat, said before saluting the RAF veteran, wearing a navy blue blazer with his medals pinned on the left breast.\n\nThis year's V-E Day events have taken on increased significance because they are likely to be the last major observance to include significant numbers of World War II veterans.\n\nAfter Big Ben tolled at noon, actor Timothy Spall recited the victory speech wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered to a roaring crowd in central London on May 8, 1945. Britain started its V-E Day ceremonies three days early because Monday is a public holiday in the U.K.\n\n\"I think we've been very lucky that we've had 80 years of peace … and we've got to think about all those that have (made) the ultimate sacrifice, and there's very few of them left now because they're all over 100,″ said Michael Burn, 67, who wore a suit patterned after Britain's red, white and blue Union flag. \"This is the last time we will celebrate the day in this sort of scale.\"\n\nThen it was time for the parade from the Houses of Parliament, through Trafalgar Square and down the Mall to Buckingham Palace. The Ukrainian contingent, though small, won a huge round of applause as their flag swept past the royal viewing platform.\n\nThe event ended with a flyover by British military aircraft, including a wartime Lancaster bomber and the RAF's Red Arrows aerobatic team.\n\nIn the down moments, the Princess of Wales chatted amiably with Bernard Morgan, 101, a veteran who worked as a code breaker during the conflict. Afterward, she introduced Morgan to her children, George, 11, Charlotte, 10 and Louis, 7.\n\nTheir place in the front row was a reminder of the gulf between those who fought in World War II and the present generation. With even the youngest of those men and women nearing their 100th birthdays and their ranks dwindling rapidly, many have said they feel a special imperative to tell their stories and attend events that honor their fallen comrades.\n\nKennett, a mechanic who landed in Normandy to set up an airfield, said he was proud to represent the veterans.\n\n\"I just remember those that didn't come back,\" he said. \"That's the thing that sticks in my mind. I'm lucky. I got out. There's a lot that didn't, believe me. Luck of the draw. It shouldn't be forgotten.\"" } ]
65b5ba68087479f5b8b74f49c8add02b2ac5169f05686988ef0ce455e57f7e87	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Sen. Cornyn of Texas says federal probe started into Muslim-centered community near Dallas\n\nBy Jim Vertuno \nMay 9th, 2025, 09:45 PM\n\n---\n\nAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state's largest mosques near Dallas, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said Friday.\n\nCornyn requested the federal probe of the development last month, citing concerns it could discriminate against Christians and Jews. He announced in a post on X that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had notified him of the investigation.\n\nThe developers of the proposed planned community tied to the East Plano Islamic Center, which has not yet been built, have said they are being bullied because they are Muslim.\n\nThe Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment or to confirm Cornyn's announcement.\n\nA federal probe would further escalate pressure on the proposed EPIC City, which is already facing mounting criticism and multiple investigations from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP state officials who claim the group is trying to create a Muslim-exclusive community that would impose Islamic law on residents.\n\nAmong its chief critics is the state's hard-right Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for his Senate seat in 2026.\n\n\"Religious discrimination and Sharia Law have no home in Texas,\" Cornyn, of Texas, wrote in his post on X. \"Any violations of federal law must be swiftly prosecuted, and I know under (President Donald Trump's) administration, they will be.\"\n\nDan Cogdell, an attorney for EPIC City who defended Paxton in his 2023 impeachment trial when he was acquitted by the state Senate, said the developers have \"done nothing illegal and we will cooperate fully with all investigations-regardless of how misguided and unnecessary they are.\"\n\nThe state investigations include whether the development is violating financial and fair housing laws and whether the mosque has conducted illegal funerals.\n\nCogdell has said none of the investigations would be happening if the community was planned around a church or temple.\n\nThe attacks on the project about Islamic law and other claims \"are not only completely without merit and totally misleading but they are dangerous as well,\" Cogdell said Friday. \"These folks are US Citizens, law abiding and Texans.\"\n\nThe Council on American-Islamic Relations in the Dallas area also has criticized the state probes as bullying the Muslim community and a violation of constitutionally protected religious expression.\n\nPlans for the mixed-used development include more than 1,000 homes and apartments, a faith-based school for kindergarten through 12th grade, a community college, assisted living for older residents and athletics fields.\n\nEPIC City would be near the community of Josephine, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Dallas." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Sen. Cornyn of Texas says federal probe started into Muslim-centered community near Dallas\n\nBy Jim Vertuno \nMay 9th, 2025, 09:45 PM\n\n---\n\nAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a federal civil rights investigation into a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state's largest mosques near Dallas, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said Friday.\n\nCornyn requested the federal probe of the development last month, citing concerns it could discriminate against Christians and Jews. He announced in a post on X that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had notified him of the investigation.\n\nThe developers of the proposed planned community tied to the East Plano Islamic Center, which has not yet been built, have said they are being bullied because they are Muslim.\n\nThe Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment or to confirm Cornyn's announcement.\n\nA federal probe would further escalate pressure on the proposed EPIC City, which is already facing mounting criticism and multiple investigations from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other GOP state officials who claim the group is trying to create a Muslim-exclusive community that would impose Islamic law on residents.\n\nAmong its chief critics is the state's hard-right Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is challenging Cornyn for his Senate seat in 2026.\n\n\"Religious discrimination and Sharia Law have no home in Texas,\" Cornyn, of Texas, wrote in his post on X. \"Any violations of federal law must be swiftly prosecuted, and I know under (President Donald Trump's) administration, they will be.\"\n\nDan Cogdell, an attorney for EPIC City who defended Paxton in his 2023 impeachment trial when he was acquitted by the state Senate, said the developers have \"done nothing illegal and we will cooperate fully with all investigations-regardless of how misguided and unnecessary they are.\"\n\nThe state investigations include whether the development is violating financial and fair housing laws and whether the mosque has conducted illegal funerals.\n\nCogdell has said none of the investigations would be happening if the community was planned around a church or temple.\n\nThe attacks on the project about Islamic law and other claims \"are not only completely without merit and totally misleading but they are dangerous as well,\" Cogdell said Friday. \"These folks are US Citizens, law abiding and Texans.\"\n\nThe Council on American-Islamic Relations in the Dallas area also has criticized the state probes as bullying the Muslim community and a violation of constitutionally protected religious expression.\n\nPlans for the mixed-used development include more than 1,000 homes and apartments, a faith-based school for kindergarten through 12th grade, a community college, assisted living for older residents and athletics fields.\n\nEPIC City would be near the community of Josephine, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Dallas." } ]
0e0d40f8fecd102fac60729dd046e0081c7b3cef84ea4ee3d6ddccde40c736e7	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Judge: US claim of state secrets privilege in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is 'inadequate'\n\nBy Ben Finley and Michael Kunzelman \nMay 16th, 2025, 04:13 AM\n\n---\n\nGREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge told the Trump administration Friday that its explanation for invoking the state secrets privilege in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is inadequate, describing the government's reasoning for withholding information as \"take my word for it.\"\n\nTrump administration attorneys have argued that releasing details in open court — or even to the judge in private – about returning Abrego Garcia to the United States would jeopardize national security. For example, they said it would reveal confidential negotiations with foreign countries.\n\nBut U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said she was at a loss for how she could independently determine the nature of the government's concerns with the information it provided.\n\n\"There's simply no details,\" she said. \"This is basically 'take my word for it.'\"\n\nJonathan Guynn, a Justice Department attorney, disagreed that the explanation was inadequate.\n\n\"We think we've provided significant information,\" he said.\n\nThe focus of Friday's hearing was primarily on the Trump administration's desire to invoke the state secrets privilege, a legal doctrine that is more often used in cases involving the military and spy agencies. But how Xinis ultimately rules could impact the central question looming over the case: Has the Trump administration followed her order to bring back Abrego Garcia?\n\nAbrego Garcia's attorneys argued that the Trump administration has done nothing to return the Maryland construction worker. They say the government is invoking the privilege to hide behind the misconduct of mistakenly deporting him to El Salvador and refusing to bring him back.\n\n\"The government is delaying for delay's sake at the expense of someone who was wrongly removed from this country,\" said Andrew Rossman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia.\n\nRossman said he isn't arguing that there are no conceivable state secrets at play.\n\n\"The question is: 'What have you actually done?'\" Rossman said. \"I suspect there are no steps, and nothing has happened.\"\n\nHe urged Xinis to reject the notion that the government \"can throw a shroud of state secrets\" over her order and not comply with it, adding that \"simply saying, 'national security,' is not sufficient.\"\n\nXinis appeared skeptical of the government's position, particularly after Guynn said there was no need for the judge to review the information the Trump administration deems secret.\n\n\"He has been wrongly removed,\" Xinis responded. \"How is it not central to understand what, if anything, you've done to return him? How is it not a need?\"\n\nAbrego Garcia's attorneys have also cited recent pronouncements by President Donald Trump and others that Abrego Garcia isn't coming back. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said \"there is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again.\"\n\nGuynn, the Justice Department attorney, told the judge that such statements are not inconsistent with the government's legal arguments when \"read with the appropriate nuance.\"\n\nGuynn suggested the meaning was that, \"He'll never walk free in the United States.\"\n\nXinis said she reads Noem's comments as a sign that the government won't take steps to facilitate his return.\n\n\"That's about as clear as it can get,\" the judge said.\n\n\"I disagree,\" Guynn said, eliciting laughter in the courtroom.\n\nGuynn also denied any wrongdoing by the administration.\n\n\"The removal of Mr. Abrego Garcia was inadvertent error,\" he said. \"We don't concede that is misconduct by the government.\"\n\nA portion of Friday's hearing was closed to the public, during which Xinis gave the government a week to provide more information for its state secrets claim, according to Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia.\n\nThe Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March. The expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to his native country because he faced likely persecution by a local gang that had terrorized his family.\n\nAbrego Garcia's American wife sued, and Xinis ordered his return on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.\n\nXinis later lambasted the administration for failing to explain what it has done to retrieve him and instructed the government to provide documents and testimony showing what it has done, if anything, to comply. The Trump administration appealed, but the appeals court backed Xinis in a blistering order.\n\nThe debate over state secrets privilege is the latest development in the case.\n\nTrump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police that he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said.\n\nThe Trump administration later acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador was \" an administrative error \" because of the immigration judge's 2019 order. But Trump and others have continued to insist that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13.\n\n___\n\nFinley reported from Norfolk, Virginia." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Judge: US claim of state secrets privilege in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is 'inadequate'\n\nBy Ben Finley and Michael Kunzelman \nMay 16th, 2025, 04:13 AM\n\n---\n\nGREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge told the Trump administration Friday that its explanation for invoking the state secrets privilege in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case is inadequate, describing the government's reasoning for withholding information as \"take my word for it.\"\n\nTrump administration attorneys have argued that releasing details in open court — or even to the judge in private – about returning Abrego Garcia to the United States would jeopardize national security. For example, they said it would reveal confidential negotiations with foreign countries.\n\nBut U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said she was at a loss for how she could independently determine the nature of the government's concerns with the information it provided.\n\n\"There's simply no details,\" she said. \"This is basically 'take my word for it.'\"\n\nJonathan Guynn, a Justice Department attorney, disagreed that the explanation was inadequate.\n\n\"We think we've provided significant information,\" he said.\n\nThe focus of Friday's hearing was primarily on the Trump administration's desire to invoke the state secrets privilege, a legal doctrine that is more often used in cases involving the military and spy agencies. But how Xinis ultimately rules could impact the central question looming over the case: Has the Trump administration followed her order to bring back Abrego Garcia?\n\nAbrego Garcia's attorneys argued that the Trump administration has done nothing to return the Maryland construction worker. They say the government is invoking the privilege to hide behind the misconduct of mistakenly deporting him to El Salvador and refusing to bring him back.\n\n\"The government is delaying for delay's sake at the expense of someone who was wrongly removed from this country,\" said Andrew Rossman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia.\n\nRossman said he isn't arguing that there are no conceivable state secrets at play.\n\n\"The question is: 'What have you actually done?'\" Rossman said. \"I suspect there are no steps, and nothing has happened.\"\n\nHe urged Xinis to reject the notion that the government \"can throw a shroud of state secrets\" over her order and not comply with it, adding that \"simply saying, 'national security,' is not sufficient.\"\n\nXinis appeared skeptical of the government's position, particularly after Guynn said there was no need for the judge to review the information the Trump administration deems secret.\n\n\"He has been wrongly removed,\" Xinis responded. \"How is it not central to understand what, if anything, you've done to return him? How is it not a need?\"\n\nAbrego Garcia's attorneys have also cited recent pronouncements by President Donald Trump and others that Abrego Garcia isn't coming back. For example, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said \"there is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be in the United States again.\"\n\nGuynn, the Justice Department attorney, told the judge that such statements are not inconsistent with the government's legal arguments when \"read with the appropriate nuance.\"\n\nGuynn suggested the meaning was that, \"He'll never walk free in the United States.\"\n\nXinis said she reads Noem's comments as a sign that the government won't take steps to facilitate his return.\n\n\"That's about as clear as it can get,\" the judge said.\n\n\"I disagree,\" Guynn said, eliciting laughter in the courtroom.\n\nGuynn also denied any wrongdoing by the administration.\n\n\"The removal of Mr. Abrego Garcia was inadvertent error,\" he said. \"We don't concede that is misconduct by the government.\"\n\nA portion of Friday's hearing was closed to the public, during which Xinis gave the government a week to provide more information for its state secrets claim, according to Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia.\n\nThe Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March. The expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to his native country because he faced likely persecution by a local gang that had terrorized his family.\n\nAbrego Garcia's American wife sued, and Xinis ordered his return on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back.\n\nXinis later lambasted the administration for failing to explain what it has done to retrieve him and instructed the government to provide documents and testimony showing what it has done, if anything, to comply. The Trump administration appealed, but the appeals court backed Xinis in a blistering order.\n\nThe debate over state secrets privilege is the latest development in the case.\n\nTrump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police that he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said.\n\nThe Trump administration later acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador was \" an administrative error \" because of the immigration judge's 2019 order. But Trump and others have continued to insist that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13." } ]
e879541254995a7433a9aa8120943dbf8e88a02119265feef66e97e0143ea0db	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval to face Cory Bowman, JD Vance's half brother, this fall\n\nBy Julie Carr Smyth \nMay 6th, 2025, 04:16 AM\n\n---\n\nCOLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval will face Cory Bowman, the half brother of Vice President JD Vance, this fall after the pair were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday's primary.\n\nPureval placed a dominant first in the nonpartisan three-way contest, in which third-place finisher Republican Brian Frank was eliminated. Under the rules of the southwest Ohio city's nonpartisan primaries, only the top two primary finishers advance to the November general election.\n\nWith nearly all votes counted, Pureval led Bowman by about 70 percentage points Tuesday night, highlighting the uphill fight that Bowman will face in November.\n\nIf Bowman pulls an upset in this predominantly Democratic city, he would be the latest family member of a president or vice president to serve in office. That includes the brother of Mike Pence, President Donald Trump's first vice president, elected to Congress during their previous administration.\n\nIn a statement, Pureval said the city deserves a \"substantive and healthy debate of ideas about the future of our city\" headed into the fall.\n\n\"There is work ahead of us in Cincinnati, but I am incredibly proud of what we've accomplished over the past few years,\" he said. \"We have made meaningful, tangible progress for folks across our community, and this is a moment to keep building on the momentum we've worked so hard to create.\"\n\nBowman did not have an immediate comment. He has said he wants to improve his city, not get involved in national politics.\n\nPureval, 42, is viewed as a Democratic up-and-comer. A former special assistant U.S. attorney, congressional candidate and Hamilton County clerk of courts. He won the 2021 mayor's race with nearly 66% of the vote to lead Ohio's third-largest city.\n\nBowman, 36, co-founded an evangelical church on the city's West End and owns a coffee shop. He has never held public office but says his half brother's inauguration inspired him to enter politics.\n\nVance didn't take an active role in the campaign, but he posted a message of support for Bowman on Tuesday.\n\n\"He's a good guy with a heart for serving his community,\" the vice president wrote on X. \"Get out there and vote for him!\" Bowman thanked Vance in reply: \"Love you brother!\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval to face Cory Bowman, JD Vance's half brother, this fall\n\nBy Julie Carr Smyth \nMay 6th, 2025, 04:16 AM\n\n---\n\nCOLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval will face Cory Bowman, the half brother of Vice President JD Vance, this fall after the pair were the top two vote-getters in Tuesday's primary.\n\nPureval placed a dominant first in the nonpartisan three-way contest, in which third-place finisher Republican Brian Frank was eliminated. Under the rules of the southwest Ohio city's nonpartisan primaries, only the top two primary finishers advance to the November general election.\n\nWith nearly all votes counted, Pureval led Bowman by about 70 percentage points Tuesday night, highlighting the uphill fight that Bowman will face in November.\n\nIf Bowman pulls an upset in this predominantly Democratic city, he would be the latest family member of a president or vice president to serve in office. That includes the brother of Mike Pence, President Donald Trump's first vice president, elected to Congress during their previous administration.\n\nIn a statement, Pureval said the city deserves a \"substantive and healthy debate of ideas about the future of our city\" headed into the fall.\n\n\"There is work ahead of us in Cincinnati, but I am incredibly proud of what we've accomplished over the past few years,\" he said. \"We have made meaningful, tangible progress for folks across our community, and this is a moment to keep building on the momentum we've worked so hard to create.\"\n\nBowman did not have an immediate comment. He has said he wants to improve his city, not get involved in national politics.\n\nPureval, 42, is viewed as a Democratic up-and-comer. A former special assistant U.S. attorney, congressional candidate and Hamilton County clerk of courts. He won the 2021 mayor's race with nearly 66% of the vote to lead Ohio's third-largest city.\n\nBowman, 36, co-founded an evangelical church on the city's West End and owns a coffee shop. He has never held public office but says his half brother's inauguration inspired him to enter politics.\n\nVance didn't take an active role in the campaign, but he posted a message of support for Bowman on Tuesday.\n\n\"He's a good guy with a heart for serving his community,\" the vice president wrote on X. \"Get out there and vote for him!\" Bowman thanked Vance in reply: \"Love you brother!\"" } ]
bb140b82a6b8d2f47f43e2562c2dd2620feb34995f0e23d7e1cc52859e6604ae	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Some Democrats push the economy, not immigration, for Latino voters\n\nBy Adriana Gomez Licon \nMay 13th, 2025, 11:21 AM\n\n---\n\nFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Democrats have long focused on immigration when courting Latino voters in states like Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, and Florida, where generations of Mexican, Cuban and other Latin American immigrants have settled and gained permanent legal status.\n\nBut Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election and the rightward shift of Latino voters have some liberals reconsidering traditional wisdom.\n\n\"People do care about it, but they don't vote on it. They vote on the economy,\" said Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor activist who ran for the U.S. Senate last year in New Jersey and is now advising U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, one of the Democrats running for governor in next month's primary.\n\nLiberal strategists, organizers and some politicians are urging Democrats to focus on the economy in this year's elections rather than on immigration. Some argue a broad economic message would be more effective with the wide range of nationalities and experiences in the Latino community rather than customized efforts based on perceived cultural or political interests.\n\nLast year, Trump, a Republican, made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania and turned South Texas' Rio Grande Valley while improving his numbers along Florida's Interstate 4 corridor. His message to Latinos focused heavily on the economy and border security.\n\n\"Latino operatives have been saying, 'Don't treat us all as a monolith,'\" said Tory Gavito, who co-founded Way to Win, a progressive group formed after Trump's 2016 win that recently conducted focus groups with Latinos who skipped the 2024 election. \"They were pretty monolithic.\"\n\n## Economic concerns topped everything else\n\nInflation was top of mind for nearly half of Latinos who voted last fall, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the 2024 electorate. About three-quarters of Latino Trump voters were very concerned about housing costs in their community, compared with about 6 in 10 white Trump voters.\n\n\"Where we fell short was failing to fully appreciate the bread-and-butter economic issues that were driving them,\" said Tom Perez, a former Democratic National Committee chair who advised President Joe Biden. He is now co-chair of the American Bridge 21st Century, a group that does opposition research on Republicans. \"Many folks felt like we were too focused on identity politics and not focused enough on the cost of eggs, the cost of gas, the cost of living.\"\n\nAlex Berrios, co-founder of the organizing group Mi Vecino, which mobilizes Latino voters in Florida, Arizona and Maine, said Democrats focused too much on using buzzwords and trying to micro-target specific nationalities. The result, he argues, left voters feeling as though the party's message was staged.\n\n\"It's like they were saying, 'Let me get my Venezuelan script out,'\" Berrios said. \"No. The first thing is just be relatable.\"\n\nChuck Rocha is a Democratic strategist who mobilized Latinos for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid in 2020 and for U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego last year and started a super political action committee, or PAC, to reach out to Latinos in key races. He argued that Democrats \"mess up by bringing a policy book to a boxing match.\"\n\n\"It's about three things: affordability, affordability, affordability,\" he said. \"Affordability is the only thing that they care about because that's what's hitting them in the face every day.\"\n\n## New Jersey becomes an early test\n\nNew Jersey's primary for governor is an early test of the different Democratic points of view. Last year, Trump flipped two Hispanic-majority towns that he had lost by more than 30 and 50 percentage points in 2016. Democrat Kamala Harris won a traditionally blue state by just 6 percentage points, the closest presidential contest there since 2004.\n\nSherrill, who flipped a longtime Republican district in winning her House seat in 2018, has focused on her biography and her military service while also arguing she will stand up to Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk. One of her ads promises she will \"drive down costs from health care to housing.\"\n\nHer campaign manager, Alex Ball, outlined during the weekend in a memo that one of its goals is meeting in person Hispanic voters from two suburban counties who have voted in three of the four past Democratic primaries.\n\n\"There is a real risk of a Republican winning in November, but Mikie is the candidate who can win just like she has won tough elections before, even driving out a long-time Republican incumbent in a Trump district — something no one thought was possible,\" Ball wrote.\n\nMeanwhile, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has frequently campaigned against U.S. immigration authorities' plans to open a detention facility in his city. The mayor was arrested by immigration authorities on Friday while demonstrating outside, with video of his detention and release spreading widely and leading to his competitors in the Democratic primary rallying to his side.\n\n## Democrats see an opening\n\nA May AP-NORC poll found that 38% of Hispanic adults approve of Trump's handling of the economy, which is roughly in line with U.S. adults overall.\n\nBut there's growing unease as Trump's plans to revive manufacturing and reshape the global economy have been rolled out with constant changes, creating uncertainty and sparking concerns of prices rising and products disappearing from shelves. From January through March, the economy shrank for the first time in three years as businesses were disrupted by Trump's trade wars. Trump fired thousands of federal workers, with impacts felt outside of Washington.\n\nThe Libre Initiative, a Koch Network-affiliated conservative group, is running ads targeting Latinos in support of tax breaks approved during Trump's first term that may expire at year's end.\n\nDaniel Garza, president of the group, acknowledged \"nervousness\" among Latino voters, with some wondering if maybe Trump took on too much and too fast. But Garza said that it's too soon to make a fair assessment of his second term, which began in January.\n\nHe argues voters should wait and see how Trump negotiates trade and whether the Republican Party can pass his \"big, beautiful bill\" with both tax breaks and spending cuts and promises he made such as exempting tips, overtime and Social Security from taxation.\n\n\"My sense is that Latinos are a very patient lot,\" he said. \"Aguantamos mucho.\"\n\nThat is Spanish for \"We put up with a lot.\"\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press Polling Editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Some Democrats push the economy, not immigration, for Latino voters\n\nBy Adriana Gomez Licon \nMay 13th, 2025, 11:21 AM\n\n---\n\nFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Democrats have long focused on immigration when courting Latino voters in states like Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, and Florida, where generations of Mexican, Cuban and other Latin American immigrants have settled and gained permanent legal status.\n\nBut Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election and the rightward shift of Latino voters have some liberals reconsidering traditional wisdom.\n\n\"People do care about it, but they don't vote on it. They vote on the economy,\" said Patricia Campos-Medina, a labor activist who ran for the U.S. Senate last year in New Jersey and is now advising U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, one of the Democrats running for governor in next month's primary.\n\nLiberal strategists, organizers and some politicians are urging Democrats to focus on the economy in this year's elections rather than on immigration. Some argue a broad economic message would be more effective with the wide range of nationalities and experiences in the Latino community rather than customized efforts based on perceived cultural or political interests.\n\nLast year, Trump, a Republican, made inroads in heavily Puerto Rican areas of eastern Pennsylvania and turned South Texas' Rio Grande Valley while improving his numbers along Florida's Interstate 4 corridor. His message to Latinos focused heavily on the economy and border security.\n\n\"Latino operatives have been saying, 'Don't treat us all as a monolith,'\" said Tory Gavito, who co-founded Way to Win, a progressive group formed after Trump's 2016 win that recently conducted focus groups with Latinos who skipped the 2024 election. \"They were pretty monolithic.\"\n\n## Economic concerns topped everything else\n\nInflation was top of mind for nearly half of Latinos who voted last fall, according to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the 2024 electorate. About three-quarters of Latino Trump voters were very concerned about housing costs in their community, compared with about 6 in 10 white Trump voters.\n\n\"Where we fell short was failing to fully appreciate the bread-and-butter economic issues that were driving them,\" said Tom Perez, a former Democratic National Committee chair who advised President Joe Biden. He is now co-chair of the American Bridge 21st Century, a group that does opposition research on Republicans. \"Many folks felt like we were too focused on identity politics and not focused enough on the cost of eggs, the cost of gas, the cost of living.\"\n\nAlex Berrios, co-founder of the organizing group Mi Vecino, which mobilizes Latino voters in Florida, Arizona and Maine, said Democrats focused too much on using buzzwords and trying to micro-target specific nationalities. The result, he argues, left voters feeling as though the party's message was staged.\n\n\"It's like they were saying, 'Let me get my Venezuelan script out,'\" Berrios said. \"No. The first thing is just be relatable.\"\n\nChuck Rocha is a Democratic strategist who mobilized Latinos for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid in 2020 and for U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego last year and started a super political action committee, or PAC, to reach out to Latinos in key races. He argued that Democrats \"mess up by bringing a policy book to a boxing match.\"\n\n\"It's about three things: affordability, affordability, affordability,\" he said. \"Affordability is the only thing that they care about because that's what's hitting them in the face every day.\"\n\n## New Jersey becomes an early test\n\nNew Jersey's primary for governor is an early test of the different Democratic points of view. Last year, Trump flipped two Hispanic-majority towns that he had lost by more than 30 and 50 percentage points in 2016. Democrat Kamala Harris won a traditionally blue state by just 6 percentage points, the closest presidential contest there since 2004.\n\nSherrill, who flipped a longtime Republican district in winning her House seat in 2018, has focused on her biography and her military service while also arguing she will stand up to Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk. One of her ads promises she will \"drive down costs from health care to housing.\"\n\nHer campaign manager, Alex Ball, outlined during the weekend in a memo that one of its goals is meeting in person Hispanic voters from two suburban counties who have voted in three of the four past Democratic primaries.\n\n\"There is a real risk of a Republican winning in November, but Mikie is the candidate who can win just like she has won tough elections before, even driving out a long-time Republican incumbent in a Trump district — something no one thought was possible,\" Ball wrote.\n\nMeanwhile, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has frequently campaigned against U.S. immigration authorities' plans to open a detention facility in his city. The mayor was arrested by immigration authorities on Friday while demonstrating outside, with video of his detention and release spreading widely and leading to his competitors in the Democratic primary rallying to his side.\n\n## Democrats see an opening\n\nA May AP-NORC poll found that 38% of Hispanic adults approve of Trump's handling of the economy, which is roughly in line with U.S. adults overall.\n\nBut there's growing unease as Trump's plans to revive manufacturing and reshape the global economy have been rolled out with constant changes, creating uncertainty and sparking concerns of prices rising and products disappearing from shelves. From January through March, the economy shrank for the first time in three years as businesses were disrupted by Trump's trade wars. Trump fired thousands of federal workers, with impacts felt outside of Washington.\n\nThe Libre Initiative, a Koch Network-affiliated conservative group, is running ads targeting Latinos in support of tax breaks approved during Trump's first term that may expire at year's end.\n\nDaniel Garza, president of the group, acknowledged \"nervousness\" among Latino voters, with some wondering if maybe Trump took on too much and too fast. But Garza said that it's too soon to make a fair assessment of his second term, which began in January.\n\nHe argues voters should wait and see how Trump negotiates trade and whether the Republican Party can pass his \"big, beautiful bill\" with both tax breaks and spending cuts and promises he made such as exempting tips, overtime and Social Security from taxation.\n\n\"My sense is that Latinos are a very patient lot,\" he said. \"Aguantamos mucho.\"\n\nThat is Spanish for \"We put up with a lot.\"" } ]
dd7fe266573b2173d3276ad435fe64116ea56d75b1aea19d3ec9af298885f7d8	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Widow of Little Rock airport director killed in raid sues ATF over husband's death\n\nBy Andrew Demillo \nMay 15th, 2025, 10:59 PM\n\n---\n\nLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The widow of an Arkansas airport director who was killed during a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raid on his home last year sued the agency and several officials, claiming the agency and officers acted recklessly and negligently.\n\nBill and Hillary Clinton National Airport Executive Director Bryan Malinowski died days after he was shot when ATF agents were executing a warrant March 19, 2024, at his home in Little Rock. The ATF said Malinowski shot at agents, striking and injuring one, after which agents returned fire.\n\nAn affidavit released after the shooting said the warrant was related to accusations that Malinowski bought over 150 guns between May 2021 and February 2024 and that he resold many without a dealer's license.\n\nIn the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Little Rock, Maria \"Maer\" Malinowski accused the ATF and 10 agents and task force officers of violating hers and her husband's constitutional rights. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and requested a jury trial.\n\n\"The Constitution requires reasonableness and, specifically here, that defendants both knock and announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before entry,\" the lawsuit said. \"The ATF failed to do so, resulting in an entirely predictable, needless and tragic outcome.\"\n\nThe ATF said it does not comment on ongoing legislation.\n\nA local prosecutor last year said an ATF agent was justified in fatally shooting Bryan Malinowski. Malinowski's death prompted criticism from some Republican lawmakers in Arkansas who have called for more information from the ATF.\n\nMalinowski was a lifelong gun collector who would attend shows on weekends where he would buy, sell and trade with others, the lawsuit said. He did not know he was under investigation and reasonably believed the agents entering his home were intruders because they didn't knock and give him adequate time to come to the door, the complaint said.\n\n\"Today's lawsuit seeks justice for the nightmare I've been living for the last 14 months,\" Maria Malinowski said in a news release." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Widow of Little Rock airport director killed in raid sues ATF over husband's death\n\nBy Andrew Demillo \nMay 15th, 2025, 10:59 PM\n\n---\n\nLITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The widow of an Arkansas airport director who was killed during a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives raid on his home last year sued the agency and several officials, claiming the agency and officers acted recklessly and negligently.\n\nBill and Hillary Clinton National Airport Executive Director Bryan Malinowski died days after he was shot when ATF agents were executing a warrant March 19, 2024, at his home in Little Rock. The ATF said Malinowski shot at agents, striking and injuring one, after which agents returned fire.\n\nAn affidavit released after the shooting said the warrant was related to accusations that Malinowski bought over 150 guns between May 2021 and February 2024 and that he resold many without a dealer's license.\n\nIn the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Little Rock, Maria \"Maer\" Malinowski accused the ATF and 10 agents and task force officers of violating hers and her husband's constitutional rights. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and requested a jury trial.\n\n\"The Constitution requires reasonableness and, specifically here, that defendants both knock and announce their presence and purpose and wait a reasonable time before entry,\" the lawsuit said. \"The ATF failed to do so, resulting in an entirely predictable, needless and tragic outcome.\"\n\nThe ATF said it does not comment on ongoing legislation.\n\nA local prosecutor last year said an ATF agent was justified in fatally shooting Bryan Malinowski. Malinowski's death prompted criticism from some Republican lawmakers in Arkansas who have called for more information from the ATF.\n\nMalinowski was a lifelong gun collector who would attend shows on weekends where he would buy, sell and trade with others, the lawsuit said. He did not know he was under investigation and reasonably believed the agents entering his home were intruders because they didn't knock and give him adequate time to come to the door, the complaint said.\n\n\"Today's lawsuit seeks justice for the nightmare I've been living for the last 14 months,\" Maria Malinowski said in a news release." } ]
63b74453b2fe2e951b240b8edc3056373f51ff091ec3f05545b39aed9a2851be	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Photo group says it has 'suspended attribution' of historic Vietnam picture because of doubts\n\nBy David Bauder \nMay 16th, 2025, 07:37 PM\n\n---\n\nAn organization that honored The Associated Press' Nick Ut with its \" photo of the year \" in 1973 for a picture of a girl running from a napalm attack in the Vietnam War says it has \"suspended its attribution\" to Ut because of doubts over who actually took it.\n\nWorld Press Photo's report Friday adds to the muddle over an issue that has split the photographic community since a movie earlier this year, \"The Stringer,\" questioned Ut's authorship. The photo of a naked and terrified Kim Phuc became an iconic symbol of the war's tragedy.\n\nAfter two investigations, The Associated Press said it found no definitive evidence to warrant stripping Ut's photo credit. The AP said it was possible Ut took the picture, but the passage of time made it impossible to fully prove, and could find no evidence to prove anyone else did.\n\nWorld Press Photo said its probe found that two other photographers — Nguyen Thanh Nghe, the man mentioned in \"The Stringer,\" and Huynh Cong Phuc — \"may have been better positioned\" to take the shot.\n\n\"We conclude that the level of doubt is too significant to maintain the existing attribution,\" said Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo. \"At the same time, lacking conclusive evidence pointing definitively to another photographer, we cannot reassign authorship, either.\"\n\nWorld Press Photo, an organization whose awards are considered influential in photography, won't attempt to recover the cash award given to Ut, a spokeswoman said.\n\nUt's lawyer, James Hornstein, said his client hadn't spoken to World Press Photo after some initial contact before \"The Stringer\" was released. \"It seems they had already made up their mind to punish Nick Ut from the start,\" he said.\n\nGary Knight, a producer of \"The Stringer,\" is a four-time judge of the World Press Photo awards and was once a consultant to the World Press Photo Foundation.\n\nThe AP said Friday that its standards \"require proof and certainty to remove a credit and we have found that it is impossible to prove exactly what happened that day on the road or in the (AP) bureau over 50 years ago.\"\n\n\"We understand World Press Photo has taken different action based on the same available information, and that is their prerogative,\" the statement said. \"There is no question over AP's ownership of the photo.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Pulitzer Prize that Ut won for the photo appears safe. The Pulitzers depend on news agencies who enter the awards to determine authorship, and administrator Marjorie Miller — a former AP senior editor — pointed to the AP's study showing insufficient proof to withdraw credit. \"The board does not anticipate future action at this time,\" she said Friday.\n\n___\n\nDavid Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social\n\n___\n\nThis story has been corrected to reflect that Gary Knight was once a consultant to the World Press Photo Foundation, but is not now." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Photo group says it has 'suspended attribution' of historic Vietnam picture because of doubts\n\nBy David Bauder \nMay 16th, 2025, 07:37 PM\n\n---\n\nAn organization that honored The Associated Press' Nick Ut with its \" photo of the year \" in 1973 for a picture of a girl running from a napalm attack in the Vietnam War says it has \"suspended its attribution\" to Ut because of doubts over who actually took it.\n\nWorld Press Photo's report Friday adds to the muddle over an issue that has split the photographic community since a movie earlier this year, \"The Stringer,\" questioned Ut's authorship. The photo of a naked and terrified Kim Phuc became an iconic symbol of the war's tragedy.\n\nAfter two investigations, The Associated Press said it found no definitive evidence to warrant stripping Ut's photo credit. The AP said it was possible Ut took the picture, but the passage of time made it impossible to fully prove, and could find no evidence to prove anyone else did.\n\nWorld Press Photo said its probe found that two other photographers — Nguyen Thanh Nghe, the man mentioned in \"The Stringer,\" and Huynh Cong Phuc — \"may have been better positioned\" to take the shot.\n\n\"We conclude that the level of doubt is too significant to maintain the existing attribution,\" said Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo. \"At the same time, lacking conclusive evidence pointing definitively to another photographer, we cannot reassign authorship, either.\"\n\nWorld Press Photo, an organization whose awards are considered influential in photography, won't attempt to recover the cash award given to Ut, a spokeswoman said.\n\nUt's lawyer, James Hornstein, said his client hadn't spoken to World Press Photo after some initial contact before \"The Stringer\" was released. \"It seems they had already made up their mind to punish Nick Ut from the start,\" he said.\n\nGary Knight, a producer of \"The Stringer,\" is a four-time judge of the World Press Photo awards and was once a consultant to the World Press Photo Foundation.\n\nThe AP said Friday that its standards \"require proof and certainty to remove a credit and we have found that it is impossible to prove exactly what happened that day on the road or in the (AP) bureau over 50 years ago.\"\n\n\"We understand World Press Photo has taken different action based on the same available information, and that is their prerogative,\" the statement said. \"There is no question over AP's ownership of the photo.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the Pulitzer Prize that Ut won for the photo appears safe. The Pulitzers depend on news agencies who enter the awards to determine authorship, and administrator Marjorie Miller — a former AP senior editor — pointed to the AP's study showing insufficient proof to withdraw credit. \"The board does not anticipate future action at this time,\" she said Friday." } ]
d9c0c77c3bde30d4809eb426720a1bf7cc5f1eba4329a6a9f45bcc428dff6c50	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Australian PM Albanese to visit Indonesia in first overseas trip since re-election\n\nBy Rod Mcguirk \nMay 7th, 2025, 12:52 PM\n\n---\n\nMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia's newly re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday he would visit Indonesia next a week to underscore a key bilateral relationship.\n\nAlbanese said he would meet with President Prabowo Subianto on May 14, a day after his new government is sworn in.\n\n\"That is … a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will in the fastest growing region of the world in human history,\" Albanese said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.\n\nAlbanese described Subianto as a \"good friend of mine on a personal level as well as our countries being close.\"\n\n\"We have no more important relationship than Indonesia. We have an important economic relationship with them. They will grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an important defense and security relationship with them as well,\" Albanese said.\n\nAlbanese's center-left Labor Party won a second three-year term in an emphatic election victory on Saturday.\n\nNewly-elected Australian prime ministers typically make their first bilateral visit to Asia, usually Indonesia. But Albanese's election rival Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative opposition, had proposed breaking from tradition by making his first overseas trip as prime minister to the United States to strike a better tariff deal with President Donald Trump.\n\nAustralia was hit during the election campaign with a global-minimum 10% tariff on exports to the U.S. despite trading with its bilateral free trade partner at a deficit for decades.\n\nMedia reports last month that Russia had told Jakarta it wanted to base long-range warplanes in Papua, the most eastern Indonesian province, were also raised as a security issue during the election campaign. Indonesia has told Australia that no such Russian base would be allowed.\n\nCementing Australia's bilateral relationship with Indonesia is critical, according to Natalie Sambhi, a policy expert with the Sydney-based Asia Society Australia educational institute.\n\n\"Indonesia is our closest strategic partner in the region. Visiting again is just sending that message home that Indonesia really matters to Australia and that we have to work together given our proximity as emerging middle-powers in the region,\" Sambhi said.\n\nAlbanese will travel to Alberta, Canada, in June to attend a Group of 7 summit and is expected to meet Trump during a U.S. bilateral state visit while in North America." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Australian PM Albanese to visit Indonesia in first overseas trip since re-election\n\nBy Rod Mcguirk \nMay 7th, 2025, 12:52 PM\n\n---\n\nMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia's newly re-elected Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday he would visit Indonesia next a week to underscore a key bilateral relationship.\n\nAlbanese said he would meet with President Prabowo Subianto on May 14, a day after his new government is sworn in.\n\n\"That is … a signal to our region of the importance that we place on this region. We will in the fastest growing region of the world in human history,\" Albanese said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.\n\nAlbanese described Subianto as a \"good friend of mine on a personal level as well as our countries being close.\"\n\n\"We have no more important relationship than Indonesia. We have an important economic relationship with them. They will grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world. We have an important defense and security relationship with them as well,\" Albanese said.\n\nAlbanese's center-left Labor Party won a second three-year term in an emphatic election victory on Saturday.\n\nNewly-elected Australian prime ministers typically make their first bilateral visit to Asia, usually Indonesia. But Albanese's election rival Peter Dutton, leader of the conservative opposition, had proposed breaking from tradition by making his first overseas trip as prime minister to the United States to strike a better tariff deal with President Donald Trump.\n\nAustralia was hit during the election campaign with a global-minimum 10% tariff on exports to the U.S. despite trading with its bilateral free trade partner at a deficit for decades.\n\nMedia reports last month that Russia had told Jakarta it wanted to base long-range warplanes in Papua, the most eastern Indonesian province, were also raised as a security issue during the election campaign. Indonesia has told Australia that no such Russian base would be allowed.\n\nCementing Australia's bilateral relationship with Indonesia is critical, according to Natalie Sambhi, a policy expert with the Sydney-based Asia Society Australia educational institute.\n\n\"Indonesia is our closest strategic partner in the region. Visiting again is just sending that message home that Indonesia really matters to Australia and that we have to work together given our proximity as emerging middle-powers in the region,\" Sambhi said.\n\nAlbanese will travel to Alberta, Canada, in June to attend a Group of 7 summit and is expected to meet Trump during a U.S. bilateral state visit while in North America." } ]
a4d3bea44aeb6968f663d652a329055db7121b3001fc231d4cef44751ed57aef	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# South Korea remains confident about $18b nuclear deal put on hold by Czech court\n\nMay 7th, 2025, 08:49 AM\n\n---\n\nSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials on Wednesday downplayed a Czech court's decision to put on hold an $18 billion project for South Korea to build two nuclear reactors in the country, describing it as a temporary setback and expressing confidence that the deal will eventually proceed.\n\nA South Korean consortium led by the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power had expected to finalize the deal this week with a subsidiary of CEZ, the Czech Republic's largest electricity supplier. However, a Czech court blocked CEZ from signing the contract while it reviews a complaint from French company EDF, which lost the bid to the South Koreans.\n\nSouth Korean Industry Minister Ahn Dukgeun told reporters in Prague that the court's decision would only delay the signing of the official contract, and that all other procedures would proceed on schedule, assuming that the deal goes through. He said that the Czech government clearly didn't anticipate the court's decision to pause the agreement, and that CEZ plans to appeal.\n\nIt is not clear when the Czech Supreme Administrative Court could rule on that appeal.\n\n\"The Czech government did not think of (EDF's claims) as a major problem and invited us for the scheduled\" signing ceremony, Ahn said. \"It seems that the Czech government's judgement did not align with the court's ruling.\"\n\nCzech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said Wednesday his government respects the court's decision, before adding: \"I believe that the judges and the court realize how important this decision is and its impact on security of the Czech Republic and our national interests.\"\n\nLee Ju-Ho, South Korea's acting president, said that Seoul would communicate closely with the Czech side to ensure that the deal is finalized quickly.\n\nIn July, CEZ selected KHNP over EDF as the preferred bidder to build two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors at the Dukovany plant. EDF filed a court complaint last week after the Czech Republic's competition regulator rejected its appeal over the bidding process.\n\nBefore he was ousted last month over an ill-fated martial law imposition in December, former conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had pledged to boost the country's nuclear power exports, arguing that they had suffered under the previous liberal government's push to reduce domestic reliance on nuclear energy. Yoon's government had set a goal of exporting 10 nuclear power reactors by 2030." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# South Korea remains confident about $18b nuclear deal put on hold by Czech court\n\nMay 7th, 2025, 08:49 AM\n\n---\n\nSEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials on Wednesday downplayed a Czech court's decision to put on hold an $18 billion project for South Korea to build two nuclear reactors in the country, describing it as a temporary setback and expressing confidence that the deal will eventually proceed.\n\nA South Korean consortium led by the state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power had expected to finalize the deal this week with a subsidiary of CEZ, the Czech Republic's largest electricity supplier. However, a Czech court blocked CEZ from signing the contract while it reviews a complaint from French company EDF, which lost the bid to the South Koreans.\n\nSouth Korean Industry Minister Ahn Dukgeun told reporters in Prague that the court's decision would only delay the signing of the official contract, and that all other procedures would proceed on schedule, assuming that the deal goes through. He said that the Czech government clearly didn't anticipate the court's decision to pause the agreement, and that CEZ plans to appeal.\n\nIt is not clear when the Czech Supreme Administrative Court could rule on that appeal.\n\n\"The Czech government did not think of (EDF's claims) as a major problem and invited us for the scheduled\" signing ceremony, Ahn said. \"It seems that the Czech government's judgement did not align with the court's ruling.\"\n\nCzech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said Wednesday his government respects the court's decision, before adding: \"I believe that the judges and the court realize how important this decision is and its impact on security of the Czech Republic and our national interests.\"\n\nLee Ju-Ho, South Korea's acting president, said that Seoul would communicate closely with the Czech side to ensure that the deal is finalized quickly.\n\nIn July, CEZ selected KHNP over EDF as the preferred bidder to build two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors at the Dukovany plant. EDF filed a court complaint last week after the Czech Republic's competition regulator rejected its appeal over the bidding process.\n\nBefore he was ousted last month over an ill-fated martial law imposition in December, former conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol had pledged to boost the country's nuclear power exports, arguing that they had suffered under the previous liberal government's push to reduce domestic reliance on nuclear energy. Yoon's government had set a goal of exporting 10 nuclear power reactors by 2030." } ]
e4f09dfbe3b884ea298d9b411bfbaaf517d112acbbe552d958ddb4c6b940e19b	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Leo XIV's brother recalls feeling of 'disbelief' over his sibling becoming pope\n\nBy Obed Lamy and Hallie Golden \nMay 9th, 2025, 05:00 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW LENOX, Ill. (AP) — When white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel revealing that a new pope had been chosen, John Prevost turned on his television in Illinois, called his niece and they watched in awe as his brother's name was announced.\n\n\"She started screaming because it was her uncle and I was in the moment of disbelief that this cannot be possible because it's too far from what we thought would happen,\" Prevost said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press from his home in New Lenox, Illinois.\n\nNext, he said he felt an intense sense of pride that his brother, Cardinal Robert Prevost, had become the 267th pontiff to lead the Catholic Church, making the Chicago-born missionary the first U.S. pope.\n\n\"It's quite an honor; it's quite a once in a lifetime,\" he said. \"But I think it's quite a responsibility and I think it's going to lead to bigger and better things, but I think people are going to watch him very closely to see what he's doing.\"\n\nRobert Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order who spent his career ministering in Peru, took the name Leo XIV.\n\nJohn Prevost described his brother as being very concerned for the poor and those who don't have a voice. He said he expects him to be a \"second Pope Francis.\"\n\n\"He's not going to be real far left and he's not going to be real far right,\" he added. \"Kind of right down the middle.\"\n\nAt one point during the interview, John Prevost realized he had missed several calls from his brother, so he gave the new pope a call back.\n\nLeo told him he wasn't interested in being part of the interview and after a brief message of congratulations and discussion in which they talked like any two brothers about travel arrangements, they hung up.\n\nThe new pope grew up the youngest of three boys. John Prevost, who was only a year older than him, said he remembers Robert Prevost being very good in school as a kid and enjoying playing tag, Monopoly and Risk.\n\nFrom a young age, he said he knew his brother was going to be a priest. Although he didn't expect him to become pope, he recalled a neighbor predicting that very thing when Robert Prevost was only a first grader.\n\n\"She sensed that at 6 years old,\" he said. \"How she did that, who knows. It took this long, but here he is, first American pope.\"\n\nWhen Robert Prevost graduated eighth grade, he left for seminary school, his brother said.\n\n\"There's a whole period there where we didn't really grow up together,\" he said. \"It was just on vacations that we had contact together.\"\n\nThese days, the brothers talk on the phone every day, John Prevost said. Robert Prevost will call him and they'll discuss everything from politics to religion and even play the day's Wordle.\n\nJohn Prevost said he's not sure how much time his brother will have to talk as the new pope and how they'll handle staying in touch in the future.\n\n\"It's already strange not having someone to talk to,\" he said.\n\n___\n\nGolden reported from Seattle." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Leo XIV's brother recalls feeling of 'disbelief' over his sibling becoming pope\n\nBy Obed Lamy and Hallie Golden \nMay 9th, 2025, 05:00 AM\n\n---\n\nNEW LENOX, Ill. (AP) — When white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel revealing that a new pope had been chosen, John Prevost turned on his television in Illinois, called his niece and they watched in awe as his brother's name was announced.\n\n\"She started screaming because it was her uncle and I was in the moment of disbelief that this cannot be possible because it's too far from what we thought would happen,\" Prevost said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press from his home in New Lenox, Illinois.\n\nNext, he said he felt an intense sense of pride that his brother, Cardinal Robert Prevost, had become the 267th pontiff to lead the Catholic Church, making the Chicago-born missionary the first U.S. pope.\n\n\"It's quite an honor; it's quite a once in a lifetime,\" he said. \"But I think it's quite a responsibility and I think it's going to lead to bigger and better things, but I think people are going to watch him very closely to see what he's doing.\"\n\nRobert Prevost, a 69-year-old member of the Augustinian religious order who spent his career ministering in Peru, took the name Leo XIV.\n\nJohn Prevost described his brother as being very concerned for the poor and those who don't have a voice. He said he expects him to be a \"second Pope Francis.\"\n\n\"He's not going to be real far left and he's not going to be real far right,\" he added. \"Kind of right down the middle.\"\n\nAt one point during the interview, John Prevost realized he had missed several calls from his brother, so he gave the new pope a call back.\n\nLeo told him he wasn't interested in being part of the interview and after a brief message of congratulations and discussion in which they talked like any two brothers about travel arrangements, they hung up.\n\nThe new pope grew up the youngest of three boys. John Prevost, who was only a year older than him, said he remembers Robert Prevost being very good in school as a kid and enjoying playing tag, Monopoly and Risk.\n\nFrom a young age, he said he knew his brother was going to be a priest. Although he didn't expect him to become pope, he recalled a neighbor predicting that very thing when Robert Prevost was only a first grader.\n\n\"She sensed that at 6 years old,\" he said. \"How she did that, who knows. It took this long, but here he is, first American pope.\"\n\nWhen Robert Prevost graduated eighth grade, he left for seminary school, his brother said.\n\n\"There's a whole period there where we didn't really grow up together,\" he said. \"It was just on vacations that we had contact together.\"\n\nThese days, the brothers talk on the phone every day, John Prevost said. Robert Prevost will call him and they'll discuss everything from politics to religion and even play the day's Wordle.\n\nJohn Prevost said he's not sure how much time his brother will have to talk as the new pope and how they'll handle staying in touch in the future.\n\n\"It's already strange not having someone to talk to,\" he said." } ]
5e0b2d2761cd1f5ba038e29a974dbbb0fca6de4325500a0916dec9534238a10d	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Trump lawsuits: A simple guide to common legal jargon\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 7th, 2025, 04:03 AM\n\n---\n\nIt may feel like you have to attend law school to understand the American legal system. However, that is not the case. We broke down some of the most common legal terms used in the lawsuits surrounding the Trump administration.\n\n## What's the general process for a lawsuit?\n\nLawsuits are sometimes called \" complaints \" for good reason: They tell a judge about something that allegedly caused you harm, and why you think someone else is to blame. Lawsuits also include a request for the kind of \"relief\" sought, like money or an order stopping the harmful actions.\n\nThe person being sued is always given a chance to respond. They might tell the judge the lawsuit is wrong, argue that someone else is to blame, or say the conduct wasn't actually harmful. Often, the person being sued will file a \" motion to dismiss,\" asking the judge to reject the lawsuit entirely.\n\n## What's a plaintiff?\n\nThe people who file a lawsuit are the \"plaintiffs,\" and the people being sued are the \"defendants.\" If a lawsuit is brought on behalf of a big group of people, it might become a \"class action\" lawsuit.\n\n## What's a TRO? And what's a PI?\n\nResolving a lawsuit can take months, so plaintiffs often ask the judge to temporarily stop the defendants from doing whatever allegedly caused the harm while the case is decided.\n\nA \" temporary restraining order \" or \"TRO\" is a short-term emergency order designed to stop immediate, irreparable harm.\n\nA \" preliminary injunction \" or \"PI\" lasts until the lawsuit is resolved. A PI typically isn't granted unless the plaintiff shows they are likely to \"succeed on the merits,\" or win the case.\n\n## What's the difference between an appeal and a stay?\n\nIf one side thinks the judge made the wrong call, they can \" appeal \" by asking a higher court to decide if the ruling was correct.\n\nThey can also ask for a \" stay,\" which puts a judge's order on pause while a dispute or appeal is worked out.\n\n## What does contempt of court mean?\n\nIf someone disobeys a court order or disrespects the judicial process, the judge might hold them in \" contempt of court.\"\n\nContempt of court convictions can carry big penalties, including fines or imprisonment. The punishments are designed to pressure the troublesome party to comply, so they typically end once the disobedience stops.\n\n## What's 'discovery,' and why is some 'privileged?'\n\n\" Discovery \" happens when both sides request information from each other as they search for facts supporting their side of the case. Discovery can include witness names, documents, or sworn statements from people.\n\nIf one side thinks something should be kept confidential, they might claim \"privilege.\" Attorney-client communications are generally privileged. \" State secrets \" privilege is invoked if the government thinks sharing the information would put national security at risk.\n\n## Why all the jargon?\n\nLegal terms carry very specific definitions. The jargon can feel fussy, but it's all meant to help lawyers and judges avoid any ambiguity.\n\nFor instance, the term \"jurisdiction\" refers to whether a court has the authority to decide a case. It might seem simpler to just use the word \"venue,\" but there are many different types of legal jurisdiction, and the word venue just doesn't cover it all.\n\nJurisdiction can be based on a geographic area or on the subject matter of the lawsuit. It can even be based on timing, or which court gets first dibs on a case." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Trump lawsuits: A simple guide to common legal jargon\n\nBy Rebecca Boone \nMay 7th, 2025, 04:03 AM\n\n---\n\nIt may feel like you have to attend law school to understand the American legal system. However, that is not the case. We broke down some of the most common legal terms used in the lawsuits surrounding the Trump administration.\n\n## What's the general process for a lawsuit?\n\nLawsuits are sometimes called \" complaints \" for good reason: They tell a judge about something that allegedly caused you harm, and why you think someone else is to blame. Lawsuits also include a request for the kind of \"relief\" sought, like money or an order stopping the harmful actions.\n\nThe person being sued is always given a chance to respond. They might tell the judge the lawsuit is wrong, argue that someone else is to blame, or say the conduct wasn't actually harmful. Often, the person being sued will file a \" motion to dismiss,\" asking the judge to reject the lawsuit entirely.\n\n## What's a plaintiff?\n\nThe people who file a lawsuit are the \"plaintiffs,\" and the people being sued are the \"defendants.\" If a lawsuit is brought on behalf of a big group of people, it might become a \"class action\" lawsuit.\n\n## What's a TRO? And what's a PI?\n\nResolving a lawsuit can take months, so plaintiffs often ask the judge to temporarily stop the defendants from doing whatever allegedly caused the harm while the case is decided.\n\nA \" temporary restraining order \" or \"TRO\" is a short-term emergency order designed to stop immediate, irreparable harm.\n\nA \" preliminary injunction \" or \"PI\" lasts until the lawsuit is resolved. A PI typically isn't granted unless the plaintiff shows they are likely to \"succeed on the merits,\" or win the case.\n\n## What's the difference between an appeal and a stay?\n\nIf one side thinks the judge made the wrong call, they can \" appeal \" by asking a higher court to decide if the ruling was correct.\n\nThey can also ask for a \" stay,\" which puts a judge's order on pause while a dispute or appeal is worked out.\n\n## What does contempt of court mean?\n\nIf someone disobeys a court order or disrespects the judicial process, the judge might hold them in \" contempt of court.\"\n\nContempt of court convictions can carry big penalties, including fines or imprisonment. The punishments are designed to pressure the troublesome party to comply, so they typically end once the disobedience stops.\n\n## What's 'discovery,' and why is some 'privileged?'\n\n\" Discovery \" happens when both sides request information from each other as they search for facts supporting their side of the case. Discovery can include witness names, documents, or sworn statements from people.\n\nIf one side thinks something should be kept confidential, they might claim \"privilege.\" Attorney-client communications are generally privileged. \" State secrets \" privilege is invoked if the government thinks sharing the information would put national security at risk.\n\n## Why all the jargon?\n\nLegal terms carry very specific definitions. The jargon can feel fussy, but it's all meant to help lawyers and judges avoid any ambiguity.\n\nFor instance, the term \"jurisdiction\" refers to whether a court has the authority to decide a case. It might seem simpler to just use the word \"venue,\" but there are many different types of legal jurisdiction, and the word venue just doesn't cover it all.\n\nJurisdiction can be based on a geographic area or on the subject matter of the lawsuit. It can even be based on timing, or which court gets first dibs on a case." } ]
ae682d218121f136ba46c9e166e7eb7d150218c774250dda9444f0e92cacf83e	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Trump's tariff onslaught casts shadow over European economy, even in best case scenario\n\nBy David Mchugh \nMay 19th, 2025, 10:04 AM\n\n---\n\nFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff offensive has led European officials to cut their growth forecasts for this year and next — even in a best-case scenario in which the highest rates on most goods could be negotiated away.\n\nThe forecast for this year for the 20 countries that use the euro currency was cut to 0.9% from the previous forecast in November of 1.3%, the European Union's executive commission said Monday in its regular spring forecast.\n\nThe forecast for 2026 was cut to 1.4% from 1.6%.\n\nOne reason for the lower growth estimate was the stagnating economy in Germany, where growth is expected to be zero this year after two years of shrinking output. Germany's economy is heavily dependent on exports but has faced strong headwinds from higher energy costs after the loss of Russian natural gas due to the invasion of Ukraine as well from lack of pro-growth infrastructure spending and competition from China in autos and industrial machinery.\n\nThe proposal for a 20% U.S. tariff, or import tax, on goods from Europe in addition to its suspension for 90 days have meant uncertainty \"not seen since the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic,\" said Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.\n\nHe said the European economy remained \"resilient\" and that the jobs market remained robust, with the commission predicting a fall in unemployment to a record low 5.7% next year.\n\nAnd the risks are \"tilted to the downside,\" he said. One reason: The forecast assumes that the proposed 20% rate can be reduced through negotiations with Washington to the base tariff rate imposed on all countries of 10%.\n\nWhile the EU's top trade official, Maros Sefcovic, has spoken several times with administration officials it remains uncertain how willing Trump might be to reduce the rate. European officials have paused any retaliatory tariffs for 90 days and made a \"zero for zero\" offer in which each side would drop tariffs on industrial goods such as autos.\n\nThe forecast assumed that 25% tariffs on steel and autos from all countries will remain in place, as would exemptions on computer chips and pharmaceuticals.\n\nThe eurozone economy grew 0.3% in the first three months of the year, amid hopeful signs of a stronger upswing. But the mood was darkened just two days after the first quarter ended, when Trump on April 2 announced a slew of new, higher than expected tariffs on almost all US trading partners." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Trump's tariff onslaught casts shadow over European economy, even in best case scenario\n\nBy David Mchugh \nMay 19th, 2025, 10:04 AM\n\n---\n\nFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff offensive has led European officials to cut their growth forecasts for this year and next — even in a best-case scenario in which the highest rates on most goods could be negotiated away.\n\nThe forecast for this year for the 20 countries that use the euro currency was cut to 0.9% from the previous forecast in November of 1.3%, the European Union's executive commission said Monday in its regular spring forecast.\n\nThe forecast for 2026 was cut to 1.4% from 1.6%.\n\nOne reason for the lower growth estimate was the stagnating economy in Germany, where growth is expected to be zero this year after two years of shrinking output. Germany's economy is heavily dependent on exports but has faced strong headwinds from higher energy costs after the loss of Russian natural gas due to the invasion of Ukraine as well from lack of pro-growth infrastructure spending and competition from China in autos and industrial machinery.\n\nThe proposal for a 20% U.S. tariff, or import tax, on goods from Europe in addition to its suspension for 90 days have meant uncertainty \"not seen since the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic,\" said Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.\n\nHe said the European economy remained \"resilient\" and that the jobs market remained robust, with the commission predicting a fall in unemployment to a record low 5.7% next year.\n\nAnd the risks are \"tilted to the downside,\" he said. One reason: The forecast assumes that the proposed 20% rate can be reduced through negotiations with Washington to the base tariff rate imposed on all countries of 10%.\n\nWhile the EU's top trade official, Maros Sefcovic, has spoken several times with administration officials it remains uncertain how willing Trump might be to reduce the rate. European officials have paused any retaliatory tariffs for 90 days and made a \"zero for zero\" offer in which each side would drop tariffs on industrial goods such as autos.\n\nThe forecast assumed that 25% tariffs on steel and autos from all countries will remain in place, as would exemptions on computer chips and pharmaceuticals.\n\nThe eurozone economy grew 0.3% in the first three months of the year, amid hopeful signs of a stronger upswing. But the mood was darkened just two days after the first quarter ended, when Trump on April 2 announced a slew of new, higher than expected tariffs on almost all US trading partners." } ]
e37fd0ef5cd2d0bb06d20569f61eed5db755c3a553fb5f85a5387adc2b3a6974	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Two judges rule Trump improperly used Alien Enemies Act for Venezuelan gang\n\nBy Nicholas Riccardi \nMay 6th, 2025, 05:08 PM\n\n---\n\nTwo separate federal judges 2,000 miles apart ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump improperly used an 18th century wartime law to try to speed the deportations of people his administration labels members of a Venezuelan gang, adding to mounting judicial skepticism over the president's attempt to avoid deportation hearings by invoking a measure last used in World War II.\n\nFirst, District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in New York found the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 cannot be used against the Tren de Aragua gang because it is not attacking the United States. \"TdA may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking, but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion,\" Hellerstein wrote barring deportations from most of New York City and surrounding areas.\n\nHours later, District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney reached a similar conclusion, expanding on an earlier order that barred the removals of Venezuelans accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua from Colorado. She was aghast at administration arguments that no one can second-guess the president's designation of the gang as a foreign invader.\n\nThat contention \"staggers. It is wrong as a matter of law and attempts to read an entire provision out of the Constitution,\" Sweeney wrote.\n\nThe double-barreled rejections of Trump come a week after a Trump-appointed judge in South Texas became the first in the nation to reject the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act, also barring the administration from removing people from that region. None of the orders prevent deportations for reasons other than the act.\n\nThe decisions are the latest in a long line of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration's effort to speed deportations of people in the country illegally. The president and his supporters have increasingly complained about having to provide due process for people they contend didn't follow U.S. immigration laws.\n\nIn his ruling, Hellerstein, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also ruled that the government cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to shortcut the legal process for deportations that Congress has laid out.\n\nSeveral other judges across the country are hearing cases challenging Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act in their jurisdictions. Those follow a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court last month that challenges to Trump's use of the law have to occur in areas where immigrants are being detained for deportation. The high court unanimously ruled that people held under the Alien Enemies Act had the right to contest their removal in court.\n\nThat led the Supreme Court to have to weigh in a second time, in an unusual post-midnight ruling that barred the deportation of people from northern Texas who, the ACLU argued, were about to be shipped out of the country without adequate chance to appeal their designation.\n\nThe Trump administration has deported people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador where it argues U.S. courts cannot order them freed. Hellerstein referred to the facility as a \"notoriously evil jail.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Two judges rule Trump improperly used Alien Enemies Act for Venezuelan gang\n\nBy Nicholas Riccardi \nMay 6th, 2025, 05:08 PM\n\n---\n\nTwo separate federal judges 2,000 miles apart ruled Tuesday that President Donald Trump improperly used an 18th century wartime law to try to speed the deportations of people his administration labels members of a Venezuelan gang, adding to mounting judicial skepticism over the president's attempt to avoid deportation hearings by invoking a measure last used in World War II.\n\nFirst, District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in New York found the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 cannot be used against the Tren de Aragua gang because it is not attacking the United States. \"TdA may well be engaged in narcotics trafficking, but that is a criminal matter, not an invasion or predatory incursion,\" Hellerstein wrote barring deportations from most of New York City and surrounding areas.\n\nHours later, District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney reached a similar conclusion, expanding on an earlier order that barred the removals of Venezuelans accused of belonging to Tren de Aragua from Colorado. She was aghast at administration arguments that no one can second-guess the president's designation of the gang as a foreign invader.\n\nThat contention \"staggers. It is wrong as a matter of law and attempts to read an entire provision out of the Constitution,\" Sweeney wrote.\n\nThe double-barreled rejections of Trump come a week after a Trump-appointed judge in South Texas became the first in the nation to reject the president's use of the Alien Enemies Act, also barring the administration from removing people from that region. None of the orders prevent deportations for reasons other than the act.\n\nThe decisions are the latest in a long line of judicial setbacks for the Trump administration's effort to speed deportations of people in the country illegally. The president and his supporters have increasingly complained about having to provide due process for people they contend didn't follow U.S. immigration laws.\n\nIn his ruling, Hellerstein, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, also ruled that the government cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to shortcut the legal process for deportations that Congress has laid out.\n\nSeveral other judges across the country are hearing cases challenging Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act in their jurisdictions. Those follow a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court last month that challenges to Trump's use of the law have to occur in areas where immigrants are being detained for deportation. The high court unanimously ruled that people held under the Alien Enemies Act had the right to contest their removal in court.\n\nThat led the Supreme Court to have to weigh in a second time, in an unusual post-midnight ruling that barred the deportation of people from northern Texas who, the ACLU argued, were about to be shipped out of the country without adequate chance to appeal their designation.\n\nThe Trump administration has deported people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador where it argues U.S. courts cannot order them freed. Hellerstein referred to the facility as a \"notoriously evil jail.\"" } ]
54d7ce207494571ba0b7fe69e8305e757d1cdb4c042391f92bc46b7dfc1027f4	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Rights groups sue to free Venezuelans deported from the US and held in El Salvador\n\nBy Marcos Alemán and Christopher Sherman \nMay 9th, 2025, 02:01 PM\n\n---\n\nSAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — International human rights organizations on Friday filed a lawsuit with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asking that the commission order El Salvador's government to release Venezuelans deported from the United States and held in a maximum-security prison.\n\nIn March, the U.S. government deported more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador, paying the Salvadoran government to imprison them.\n\nSince then, they have had no access to lawyers or ability to communicate with their families. Neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments have said how the men could eventually regain their freedom.\n\n\"These individuals have been stripped from their families and subject to a state-sponsored enforced disappearance regime, effectively, completely against the law,\" said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which helped bring the suit.\n\nOne of them is Euder José Torres.\n\n## Tattoos flagged\n\nIn September, Torres boarded a Houston-bound flight in Quito, Ecuador with his 21-year-old stepson after successfully completing a monthslong screening process that included health exams and criminal history checks.\n\nThe 41-year-old Venezuelan and the young man he had raised since early childhood had been approved for family reunification through the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration and were headed to the U.S. to join his long-time partner and his stepson's brother.\n\nBut at the airport in Houston, immigration agents saw a tattoo of a compass on the stepson's forearm with the initials of his mother, father and brother in place of the cardinal directions. They said it signaled him as a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The next day he was on a flight back to Ecuador.\n\nBut Torres didn't have an Ecuadorian visa, so agents placed him in immigration detention in Texas. He had tattoos too, the name of his saint Elegua in script on one forearm – he is a practitioner of Santeria, a fusion of African religions and Catholicism – and skull on the other.\n\nTorres sought U.S. asylum and passed his credible fear interview, but at an immigration hearing in January the government lawyer told the judge, without providing evidence, he too was a member of Tren de Aragua. The judge issued a deportation order, according to his longtime partner, who requested anonymity due to fears of retaliation despite her legal status in the U.S.\n\nIn March, Torres found himself among more than 200 Venezuelans sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.\n\nHis partner questions how the U.S. government could send him to a prison there without any evidence that he had broken the law or has a criminal record.\n\n## Lack of due process\n\nEl Salvador has been living under a state of emergency for more than three years, which has suspended some fundamental rights and given the administration of President Nayib Bukele extraordinary powers. More than 85,000 Salvadorans have been arrested over the period for alleged ties to the country's once-powerful street gangs.\n\nThe improvement in El Salvador's security has won Bukele widespread domestic support and some admirers in the region who seek to imitate his success. But the lack of due process and numerous arbitrary arrests have drawn international condemnation. Bukele has dismissed those critics as defenders of criminals.\n\nA spokesperson for Bukele's office declined to comment Friday.\n\nWith the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump taking a hard line on immigration and portraying migrants broadly as criminals, neither government has been swayed by legal maneuvers in their own country to seek the men's release or return to the U.S.\n\nA judge in Washington this week said he would order the U.S. government to provide more information about its prison deal with El Salvador as he moved closer to requiring the government to return the men to the U.S.\n\nThe human rights organizations hope that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will accept this emergency petition. The commission is an arm of the regional Organization of American States. The groups presented the case on behalf of the families of 18 of the men sent to El Salvador, who provided sworn statements about their cases.\n\nSome of the men had pending asylum applications in the U.S., while others had been vetted and approved for refugee resettlement by the U.S. government, still others had temporary protected status allowing them to work in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.\n\nBukele has said he has the room to hold the men and the payments from the U.S. will help cover the costs of his new prison.\n\n## Legal maneuvers unsuccessful\n\nWhile both the Venezuelan government and nongovernmental organizations have filed habeas corpus petitions — essentially compelling the government to prove someone's detention was justified — in El Salvador's courts, none have advanced.\n\nThe groups are asking the human right commission to order precautionary measures, basically an emergency action to prevent irreparable harm. Among them are the ability to communicate with their families, access to legal counsel and return to the United States. The commission would seek a response from El Salvador's government before making a decision, but is expected to move quickly.\n\nThe other organizations involved in the lawsuit are the Boston University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.\n\n____\n\nFollow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Rights groups sue to free Venezuelans deported from the US and held in El Salvador\n\nBy Marcos Alemán and Christopher Sherman \nMay 9th, 2025, 02:01 PM\n\n---\n\nSAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — International human rights organizations on Friday filed a lawsuit with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asking that the commission order El Salvador's government to release Venezuelans deported from the United States and held in a maximum-security prison.\n\nIn March, the U.S. government deported more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants alleged to have ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to El Salvador, paying the Salvadoran government to imprison them.\n\nSince then, they have had no access to lawyers or ability to communicate with their families. Neither the U.S. nor Salvadoran governments have said how the men could eventually regain their freedom.\n\n\"These individuals have been stripped from their families and subject to a state-sponsored enforced disappearance regime, effectively, completely against the law,\" said Bella Mosselmans, director of the Global Strategic Litigation Council, which helped bring the suit.\n\nOne of them is Euder José Torres.\n\n## Tattoos flagged\n\nIn September, Torres boarded a Houston-bound flight in Quito, Ecuador with his 21-year-old stepson after successfully completing a monthslong screening process that included health exams and criminal history checks.\n\nThe 41-year-old Venezuelan and the young man he had raised since early childhood had been approved for family reunification through the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration and were headed to the U.S. to join his long-time partner and his stepson's brother.\n\nBut at the airport in Houston, immigration agents saw a tattoo of a compass on the stepson's forearm with the initials of his mother, father and brother in place of the cardinal directions. They said it signaled him as a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The next day he was on a flight back to Ecuador.\n\nBut Torres didn't have an Ecuadorian visa, so agents placed him in immigration detention in Texas. He had tattoos too, the name of his saint Elegua in script on one forearm – he is a practitioner of Santeria, a fusion of African religions and Catholicism – and skull on the other.\n\nTorres sought U.S. asylum and passed his credible fear interview, but at an immigration hearing in January the government lawyer told the judge, without providing evidence, he too was a member of Tren de Aragua. The judge issued a deportation order, according to his longtime partner, who requested anonymity due to fears of retaliation despite her legal status in the U.S.\n\nIn March, Torres found himself among more than 200 Venezuelans sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.\n\nHis partner questions how the U.S. government could send him to a prison there without any evidence that he had broken the law or has a criminal record.\n\n## Lack of due process\n\nEl Salvador has been living under a state of emergency for more than three years, which has suspended some fundamental rights and given the administration of President Nayib Bukele extraordinary powers. More than 85,000 Salvadorans have been arrested over the period for alleged ties to the country's once-powerful street gangs.\n\nThe improvement in El Salvador's security has won Bukele widespread domestic support and some admirers in the region who seek to imitate his success. But the lack of due process and numerous arbitrary arrests have drawn international condemnation. Bukele has dismissed those critics as defenders of criminals.\n\nA spokesperson for Bukele's office declined to comment Friday.\n\nWith the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump taking a hard line on immigration and portraying migrants broadly as criminals, neither government has been swayed by legal maneuvers in their own country to seek the men's release or return to the U.S.\n\nA judge in Washington this week said he would order the U.S. government to provide more information about its prison deal with El Salvador as he moved closer to requiring the government to return the men to the U.S.\n\nThe human rights organizations hope that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will accept this emergency petition. The commission is an arm of the regional Organization of American States. The groups presented the case on behalf of the families of 18 of the men sent to El Salvador, who provided sworn statements about their cases.\n\nSome of the men had pending asylum applications in the U.S., while others had been vetted and approved for refugee resettlement by the U.S. government, still others had temporary protected status allowing them to work in the U.S., according to the lawsuit.\n\nBukele has said he has the room to hold the men and the payments from the U.S. will help cover the costs of his new prison.\n\n## Legal maneuvers unsuccessful\n\nWhile both the Venezuelan government and nongovernmental organizations have filed habeas corpus petitions — essentially compelling the government to prove someone's detention was justified — in El Salvador's courts, none have advanced.\n\nThe groups are asking the human right commission to order precautionary measures, basically an emergency action to prevent irreparable harm. Among them are the ability to communicate with their families, access to legal counsel and return to the United States. The commission would seek a response from El Salvador's government before making a decision, but is expected to move quickly.\n\nThe other organizations involved in the lawsuit are the Boston University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights." } ]
57e520fe94f9342d526f8922d9f08b017990dd6485189a028e2e4079d0d5f88c	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Americans in St. Peter's Square were stunned by choice of new pope\n\nBy Giada Zampano, Trisha Thomas, and Vanessa Gera \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:46 PM\n\n---\n\nVATICAN CITY (AP) — Americans in St. Peter's Square were stunned and joyous when they learned that an American cardinal, Robert Provost, was elected pope Thursday and had taken the name Leo XIV.\n\n\"Who in our lifetime would have thought that we would see a North American Holy Father?\" said Father Thomas Montanaro, an American priest with the Legionaries of Christ.\n\nMontanaro was among the many tens of thousands of people who filled St. Peter's Square for the historic moment.\n\nCheers of \"viva il papa\" and applause rippled across the crowd to celebrate the new pope.\n\nFather Darius Lawrence, a priest from California, said the announcement caught him completely off guard.\n\n\"As an American, it's a huge surprise,\" he said. \"I would have never expected an American to be named as pope. He wasn't on any of the lists I'd seen — and I'd been looking into it a little bit.\"\n\nThe flags of many nations waved. But tellingly there very few American flags.\n\nThe Americans had not come prepared.\n\nThey also did not hear Leo speak to them in their native tongue. He used Italian to greet the crowds before turning to Spanish, using a language he used during years of missionary work in Peru, where he also obtained citizenship.\n\nPast popes have shaped the larger world beyond the Catholic Church, and it was not lost on some that Leo might too.\n\n\"I'm just hoping that the new pope can help steer us in a good direction and in terms of politics, you know, right now it's very complicated,\" said Andrea Gallardo, a Texan. \"I'm just hoping that he's able to rekindle a good relationship with our president and all the government officials so that we can start going into a good route, I would say.\"\n\nIn Washington, President Donald Trump said it was an honor for an American to be chosen.\n\n\"What greater honor can there be?\" Trump said. \"We're a little bit surprised and we're happy.\"\n\nOnce white smoke started billowing out from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, \"an extraordinary influx of over 150,000 people\" came from elsewhere in Rome to fill the square, police said in a statement.\n\n\"I was at home, but as soon as the smoke went up, I put on my clothes and I came to the Vatican,\" said Thomas Nicolini, 22, a Peruvian from Lima, who is studying economics in Rome.\n\n\"I'm really happy about this. I know he's American, but he was in Peru for a long time, 20 years. He worked in the region of Chiclayo. That's a beautiful area, but one of the regions that needs lots of hope. So now I'm expecting that the new pope helps as many people as possible, and tries to reignite, let's say, the faith young people have lost.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Americans in St. Peter's Square were stunned by choice of new pope\n\nBy Giada Zampano, Trisha Thomas, and Vanessa Gera \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:46 PM\n\n---\n\nVATICAN CITY (AP) — Americans in St. Peter's Square were stunned and joyous when they learned that an American cardinal, Robert Provost, was elected pope Thursday and had taken the name Leo XIV.\n\n\"Who in our lifetime would have thought that we would see a North American Holy Father?\" said Father Thomas Montanaro, an American priest with the Legionaries of Christ.\n\nMontanaro was among the many tens of thousands of people who filled St. Peter's Square for the historic moment.\n\nCheers of \"viva il papa\" and applause rippled across the crowd to celebrate the new pope.\n\nFather Darius Lawrence, a priest from California, said the announcement caught him completely off guard.\n\n\"As an American, it's a huge surprise,\" he said. \"I would have never expected an American to be named as pope. He wasn't on any of the lists I'd seen — and I'd been looking into it a little bit.\"\n\nThe flags of many nations waved. But tellingly there very few American flags.\n\nThe Americans had not come prepared.\n\nThey also did not hear Leo speak to them in their native tongue. He used Italian to greet the crowds before turning to Spanish, using a language he used during years of missionary work in Peru, where he also obtained citizenship.\n\nPast popes have shaped the larger world beyond the Catholic Church, and it was not lost on some that Leo might too.\n\n\"I'm just hoping that the new pope can help steer us in a good direction and in terms of politics, you know, right now it's very complicated,\" said Andrea Gallardo, a Texan. \"I'm just hoping that he's able to rekindle a good relationship with our president and all the government officials so that we can start going into a good route, I would say.\"\n\nIn Washington, President Donald Trump said it was an honor for an American to be chosen.\n\n\"What greater honor can there be?\" Trump said. \"We're a little bit surprised and we're happy.\"\n\nOnce white smoke started billowing out from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel, \"an extraordinary influx of over 150,000 people\" came from elsewhere in Rome to fill the square, police said in a statement.\n\n\"I was at home, but as soon as the smoke went up, I put on my clothes and I came to the Vatican,\" said Thomas Nicolini, 22, a Peruvian from Lima, who is studying economics in Rome.\n\n\"I'm really happy about this. I know he's American, but he was in Peru for a long time, 20 years. He worked in the region of Chiclayo. That's a beautiful area, but one of the regions that needs lots of hope. So now I'm expecting that the new pope helps as many people as possible, and tries to reignite, let's say, the faith young people have lost.\"" } ]
e47781a4b0cd0464505cead35ba4e3c0002f2f678364ac0515a9189a41f81b50	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Aid group closes soup kitchens across Gaza due to dwindling supplies\n\nBy Wafaa Shurafa and Kareem Chehayeb \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:25 AM\n\n---\n\nDEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Israel's ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group to shut its community soup kitchens Thursday as it faced empty warehouses and no replenishment of supplies in the war-battered enclave.\n\nU.S.-based World Central Kitchen, which was serving 133,000 meals per day, said there is almost no food left in Gaza with which to cook.\n\nThe ongoing hunger is threatening Gaza's population, already battered by 19 months of war. In April, the World Food Program said its food stocks in Gaza had run out under Israel's blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.\n\nA UNICEF spokesperson said most of Gaza's water system is damaged, while fuel shortages make it harder to operate desalination plants or water trucks.\n\n## Shortages due to blockade drive hunger, malnutrition\n\nMalnutrition and hunger are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Gaza Strip as Israel's total blockade enters its third month, and aid agencies say supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are running out.\n\nIsrael imposed the blockade on March 2, then shattered a two-month ceasefire by resuming military operations in the territory on March 18. It said both steps aim to pressure the militant Hamas group to release hostages. Rights groups call the blockade a \"starvation tactic\" and a potential war crime.\n\nWith restaurants and bakeries closed, community kitchens are often the only way for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to eat a daily meal. But a third of those supported by the U.N. have closed in the past 10 days for lack of food or fuel, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, or OCHA, which said more closures could be imminent.\n\n\"The hot meals provided by these kitchens constitute one of the last remaining lifelines\" for Palestinians, OCHA said.\n\nAt those still open, chaotic scenes of desperate men, women and children fighting to get meager rations are common.\n\n## Scarce water supplies\n\nUNICEF spokesperson Jonathan Crickx on Thursday said 65-70% of Gaza's water system is damaged. Aid workers have instead set up water distribution points that rely on trucking.\n\nBut it's difficult to reach people when fuel has become scarce, Crickx told The Associated Press.\n\n\"The children are, of course, bearing the brunt of this war,\" he said.\n\nWater availability has plummeted to an average of 3-5 liters per person per day, according to the Palestinian Water Authority. That's less than the 15 liters that the World Health Organization says people need to survive.\n\nA pipeline operated by Israel had been supplying 70% of Gaza City's water since the war began, but it was damaged with the renewed Israeli offensive in April. Desalination plants had supplied about 7% of Gaza's water needs before the war, until the aquifer became contaminated and depleted.\n\n## Aid is waiting on the borders\n\nSince the start of the war, World Central Kitchen said it has served more than 130 million meals and baked 80 million loaves of bread. On Thursday, the group said it had no flour left in their mobile bakery.\n\n\"Our trucks — loaded with food and supplies — are waiting in Egypt, Jordan and Israel, ready to enter Gaza,\" said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the organization. \"But they cannot move without permission. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow.\"\n\nCOGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid to Gaza, said the blockade would continue unless the Israeli government changed its policy.\n\n## 'Hamas is engineering hunger'\n\nIsraeli government spokesperson David Mencer said the government was concerned that Hamas controlled the humanitarian aid, and that Israeli officials were exploring ways to get it only to \"those in need.\"\n\nMencer said the hunger had been \"engineered by Hamas,\" and said the blockade would end when the group lays down its weapons, he said.\n\nHowever, Israel has provided no evidence that Hamas syphons off aid. The U.N and aid workers deny there is significant diversion of aid to militants, saying the U.N. strictly monitors distribution.\n\nSince the start of the year, more than 10,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization. The number climbed dramatically in March, to 3,600 cases from 2,000 the month before, UNICEF reported.\n\nNearly half the 200 nutrition centers around Gaza have shut down because of displacement and bombardment.\n\nWorld Central Kitchen had previously suspended operations in April of last year after seven aid workers were killed in Israeli strikes on their convoy, before resuming weeks later.\n\n## Toll in Gaza continues to rise\n\nThe Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday the bodies of 106 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.\n\nHospitals also received 367 wounded, the ministry said in its daily report.\n\nThe overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war rose to at least 52,760 since Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry said. Another 119,264 have been wounded, it said.\n\nIt said the tally includes 2,651 dead and 7,223 wounded since Israel shattered the nearly two-month ceasefire on March 18.\n\nThe ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead were women and children.\n\nThe Israeli military said they are targeting Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. On Wednesday, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told commanders that Israel plans to \"expand and intensify our operations\" in Gaza.\n\n## Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon\n\nAlso on Thursday, a series of Israeli airstrikes hit hilltops in the vicinity of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, killing at least one person and wounding eight others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.\n\nThe Israeli military said it bombed infrastructure that belonged to the Hezbollah militant group and included weapons and tunnels. Israel said that Hezbollah's activities at the site violated a November ceasefire.\n\nHezbollah did not immediately comment on the strikes. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said public institutions in the area were closed after the attacks as families rushed to schools to take their children home.\n\nSince the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November stopped the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon have continued. Hezbollah says its has largely disarmed south of the Litani River, while Israel insists the militants are rearming themselves. Some 4,000 people in Lebanon were killed during the war, including many civilians.\n\n## Journalist from Jenin detained for six months\n\nA renowned Palestinian journalist arrested by the Israeli military and suffering from multiple chronic illnesses has been placed on six months of administrative detention, the Israeli military said.\n\nAli Samoudi, who has worked for international news outlets including CNN and Al Jazeera, was detained late last month by the Israeli military from his family home in the city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has spent part of the time in the hospital due to chronic health issues.\n\nThe Israeli military said Samoudi was detained based on involvement in \"actions endangering regional security\" but that a police investigation did not find sufficient evidence against him to issue an arrest. However, on Thursday, a military court decided to place him under administrative detention for six months.\n\nIsraeli authorities can renew administrative detentions indefinitely. Detainees are held without charge or trial. Israel says the controversial tactic is necessary for security reasons, but Palestinians and rights groups say the system denies due process and is widely abused.\n\n___\n\nChehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut, Lebanon contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Aid group closes soup kitchens across Gaza due to dwindling supplies\n\nBy Wafaa Shurafa and Kareem Chehayeb \nMay 8th, 2025, 08:25 AM\n\n---\n\nDEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza (AP) — Israel's ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group to shut its community soup kitchens Thursday as it faced empty warehouses and no replenishment of supplies in the war-battered enclave.\n\nU.S.-based World Central Kitchen, which was serving 133,000 meals per day, said there is almost no food left in Gaza with which to cook.\n\nThe ongoing hunger is threatening Gaza's population, already battered by 19 months of war. In April, the World Food Program said its food stocks in Gaza had run out under Israel's blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.\n\nA UNICEF spokesperson said most of Gaza's water system is damaged, while fuel shortages make it harder to operate desalination plants or water trucks.\n\n## Shortages due to blockade drive hunger, malnutrition\n\nMalnutrition and hunger are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Gaza Strip as Israel's total blockade enters its third month, and aid agencies say supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are running out.\n\nIsrael imposed the blockade on March 2, then shattered a two-month ceasefire by resuming military operations in the territory on March 18. It said both steps aim to pressure the militant Hamas group to release hostages. Rights groups call the blockade a \"starvation tactic\" and a potential war crime.\n\nWith restaurants and bakeries closed, community kitchens are often the only way for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to eat a daily meal. But a third of those supported by the U.N. have closed in the past 10 days for lack of food or fuel, according to the U.N. humanitarian office, or OCHA, which said more closures could be imminent.\n\n\"The hot meals provided by these kitchens constitute one of the last remaining lifelines\" for Palestinians, OCHA said.\n\nAt those still open, chaotic scenes of desperate men, women and children fighting to get meager rations are common.\n\n## Scarce water supplies\n\nUNICEF spokesperson Jonathan Crickx on Thursday said 65-70% of Gaza's water system is damaged. Aid workers have instead set up water distribution points that rely on trucking.\n\nBut it's difficult to reach people when fuel has become scarce, Crickx told The Associated Press.\n\n\"The children are, of course, bearing the brunt of this war,\" he said.\n\nWater availability has plummeted to an average of 3-5 liters per person per day, according to the Palestinian Water Authority. That's less than the 15 liters that the World Health Organization says people need to survive.\n\nA pipeline operated by Israel had been supplying 70% of Gaza City's water since the war began, but it was damaged with the renewed Israeli offensive in April. Desalination plants had supplied about 7% of Gaza's water needs before the war, until the aquifer became contaminated and depleted.\n\n## Aid is waiting on the borders\n\nSince the start of the war, World Central Kitchen said it has served more than 130 million meals and baked 80 million loaves of bread. On Thursday, the group said it had no flour left in their mobile bakery.\n\n\"Our trucks — loaded with food and supplies — are waiting in Egypt, Jordan and Israel, ready to enter Gaza,\" said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the organization. \"But they cannot move without permission. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow.\"\n\nCOGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid to Gaza, said the blockade would continue unless the Israeli government changed its policy.\n\n## 'Hamas is engineering hunger'\n\nIsraeli government spokesperson David Mencer said the government was concerned that Hamas controlled the humanitarian aid, and that Israeli officials were exploring ways to get it only to \"those in need.\"\n\nMencer said the hunger had been \"engineered by Hamas,\" and said the blockade would end when the group lays down its weapons, he said.\n\nHowever, Israel has provided no evidence that Hamas syphons off aid. The U.N and aid workers deny there is significant diversion of aid to militants, saying the U.N. strictly monitors distribution.\n\nSince the start of the year, more than 10,000 children have been treated for acute malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization. The number climbed dramatically in March, to 3,600 cases from 2,000 the month before, UNICEF reported.\n\nNearly half the 200 nutrition centers around Gaza have shut down because of displacement and bombardment.\n\nWorld Central Kitchen had previously suspended operations in April of last year after seven aid workers were killed in Israeli strikes on their convoy, before resuming weeks later.\n\n## Toll in Gaza continues to rise\n\nThe Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday the bodies of 106 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.\n\nHospitals also received 367 wounded, the ministry said in its daily report.\n\nThe overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war rose to at least 52,760 since Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry said. Another 119,264 have been wounded, it said.\n\nIt said the tally includes 2,651 dead and 7,223 wounded since Israel shattered the nearly two-month ceasefire on March 18.\n\nThe ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead were women and children.\n\nThe Israeli military said they are targeting Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. On Wednesday, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told commanders that Israel plans to \"expand and intensify our operations\" in Gaza.\n\n## Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon\n\nAlso on Thursday, a series of Israeli airstrikes hit hilltops in the vicinity of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, killing at least one person and wounding eight others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.\n\nThe Israeli military said it bombed infrastructure that belonged to the Hezbollah militant group and included weapons and tunnels. Israel said that Hezbollah's activities at the site violated a November ceasefire.\n\nHezbollah did not immediately comment on the strikes. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said public institutions in the area were closed after the attacks as families rushed to schools to take their children home.\n\nSince the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November stopped the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon have continued. Hezbollah says its has largely disarmed south of the Litani River, while Israel insists the militants are rearming themselves. Some 4,000 people in Lebanon were killed during the war, including many civilians.\n\n## Journalist from Jenin detained for six months\n\nA renowned Palestinian journalist arrested by the Israeli military and suffering from multiple chronic illnesses has been placed on six months of administrative detention, the Israeli military said.\n\nAli Samoudi, who has worked for international news outlets including CNN and Al Jazeera, was detained late last month by the Israeli military from his family home in the city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has spent part of the time in the hospital due to chronic health issues.\n\nThe Israeli military said Samoudi was detained based on involvement in \"actions endangering regional security\" but that a police investigation did not find sufficient evidence against him to issue an arrest. However, on Thursday, a military court decided to place him under administrative detention for six months.\n\nIsraeli authorities can renew administrative detentions indefinitely. Detainees are held without charge or trial. Israel says the controversial tactic is necessary for security reasons, but Palestinians and rights groups say the system denies due process and is widely abused." } ]
b1e3bb9d4dc81d46db2711a7c4247a52826b94fa301ce9e00e202a9df13cf9d6	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# States compete for top billing on Democrats' 2028 election calendar\n\nBy Hannah Fingerhut, Meg Kinnard, and Holly Ramer \nMay 11th, 2025, 11:29 AM\n\n---\n\nDES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Before they can name their next presidential nominee, Democrats will have to decide which state will weigh in first.\n\nIn 2022, President Joe Biden forced a shake-up of the 2024 election calendar, moving South Carolina's primary ahead of contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Officials in those traditionally four early-voting states are now positioning themselves to get top billing nearly two years before the Democratic National Committee solidifies the order. Others may make a play, too.\n\nIt's a fraught choice for a party already wrestling with questions about its direction after losing November's White House election to Republican Donald Trump. Each state offers advantages to different candidates and elevates — or diminishes — different parts of the Democratic base.\n\nFor now, 2028 prospects are making early-state visits, giving a glimpse into what they may see as their own path to the nomination.\n\nIllinois Gov. JB Pritzker was the keynote speaker at adinner last month for New Hampshire Democrats, visiting a majority white state known for its engaged electorate and independent streak. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the state's first Black governor, will appear later this month at a similar party event in South Carolina, where Black voters are the party's most influential voting group.\n\nPete Buttigieg will join a VoteVets Action Fund gathering in Iowa on Tuesday, marking the former presidential candidate's first public in-person event since leaving his post as Biden's transportation secretary. Buttigieg performed well in the 2020 caucuses, which were marred by technical glitches that prevented the declaration of a winner.\n\n## Iowa looks past snub for 'fair' shot in 2028\n\nBiden and others pushed to open the 2024 cycle with a more diverse state than traditional leadoff Iowa, which is 90% white, according to census data.\n\nGone was a five-decade institution of Iowa Democrats engaging in a one-night spectacle where community members publicly signaled their support for a candidate. Last year, they held caucuses eight days before any other state's contest, as is required by Iowa law. But Democratic voters had cast their 2024 presidential preference ballots by mail, with results released that March on Super Tuesday alongside other states.\n\nBiden \"picked the calendar that worked for him,\" said Scott Brennan, who serves on the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee and previously chaired the Iowa Democratic Party. \"When you're the president, you can do those things. But I don't know that people in Iowa thought it was very fair.\"\n\nFor now, Iowa Democratic leaders emphasize that their focus is on the 2026 election, when two of Iowa's four congressional districts will be competitive opportunities to unseat Republicans. Democrats have recently struggled on all electoral fronts in Iowa and have significantly diminished party registration numbers, which some blamed on the loss of the caucuses.\n\nBut Brennan said many Iowa Democrats continue to believe that the presidential nominating process is well served by Iowa's early role in it, even if the 2028 format is up in the air.\n\n\"We took everyone at their word that all bets are off for 2028,\" Brennan said. \"We expect that there will be a fair process and that we will be given every consideration to be an early state.\"\n\nFormer U.S. Rep. Dave Nagle was more blunt in proposing that the state party commit to first-in-the-nation status regardless, as he did as chair in 1984 when the national party threatened to upend Iowa and New Hampshire's delegate selection process over noncompliance with timing rules. The two states formed an alliance, getting six of the presidential candidates on their side.\n\n\"All we have to do is look at the Democratic National Committee and say, 'Sorry, we're going first,'\" Nagle said. \"It's ours if we have the courage.\"\n\n## New Hampshire survives threats after rebellion\n\nNew Hampshire rebelled in 2024, holding an unsanctioned primary in January. Biden did not put his name on the ballot or campaign there but won as a write-in.\n\nThree months later, the DNC dropped its threat to not seat the state's national convention delegates.\n\nUntil Biden's formal request of the DNC to approve his proposed calendar, New Hampshire Democrats thought they were in a good place with work behind the scenes, said the state party chairman, Ray Buckley. He said that effort will continue heading into 2028.\n\n\"This is going to be much more of a level playing field,\" Buckley said. \"There's no reason to come in with a two-ton thumb and put it on the scale.\"\n\nIt does not hurt their case that New Hampshire law requires the primary to be scheduled before any other similar contest.\n\nKathy Sullivan, formerly a state party chair and member of the DNC's rulemaking arm, said it is possible that the \"train has left the station\" for Iowa's hope of returning to its first-place position, given the 2020 problems and the fact that it gave in to the DNC in 2024.\n\n\"I don't know if that helps them in terms of goodwill or hurts them in that they basically gave up the caucuses,\" she said. \"New Hampshire took the opposite tack, we had our primary despite what the DNC said, and our delegates ended up being seated despite the threats.\"\n\n## Never-first Nevada wants top billing\n\nDemocratic leaders in Nevada, which held its 2024 Democratic primary just days after South Carolina's, have also been pushing to keep their state early in the nominating conversation, although the state's location in the West has traditionally made it less-visited by White House hopefuls.\n\nIn a December statement, the state party chair, Daniele Monroe-Moreno, pointed to the state's nonwhite population, union representation and education-level diversity as reasons for Nevada to kick off the 2028 calendar. Nevada is 30% Latino, census data shows, and has significant Black and Asian populations.\n\n\"If Democrats want to win back working class voters and rebuild our broad coalition of voters of color, we should elevate the most working class and most diverse battleground state in the nation to be the first presidential preference primary for the 2028 cycle,\" Monroe-Moreno said.\n\n\"Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation,\" she said, and the party \"cannot afford to let overwhelmingly college-educated, white or less competitive states start the process of winnowing the field again in 2028.\"\n\n## South Carolina seeks another go at No. 1\n\nAs the first-in-the-South primary state, where Black voters play a significant role in Democratic voting, South Carolina long promoted its role in picking a nominee after the first set of contests winnowed the field.\n\nBut Christale Spain, who is expected to win her second term as state party chair, said she will make the argument to national Democratic leaders that South Carolina should stay in the No. 1 slot.\n\n\"It's our plan to really work to stay first in the nation,\" Spain said.\n\nAt the end of May, Moore is set to headline the South Carolina Democratic Party's Blue Palmetto Dinner, a signature fundraiser that has recently hosted Democratic stars as its keynote speakers, including Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor and Biden energy secretary, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.\n\nThen-Vice President Kamala Harris used her 2022 speech as an official \"thank you\" to South Carolina for providing the key primary support that revived Biden's flagging 2020 presidential campaign after a series of losses in other early-voting states.\n\nSpain will have to make her argument anew without Biden in the White House and Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native who recently ended his term as national Democratic chair, helming the party.\n\n\"I think you get what you need from an electorate in South Carolina,\" Spain said. \"All those things matter — the stuff that's happening with the veterans, all our colleges and institutions, the role of Black folks — in a Democratic primary.\n\n\"We have more to offer than other states do,\" she said.\n\n___\n\nKinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and Ramer from Concord, New Hampshire." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# States compete for top billing on Democrats' 2028 election calendar\n\nBy Hannah Fingerhut, Meg Kinnard, and Holly Ramer \nMay 11th, 2025, 11:29 AM\n\n---\n\nDES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Before they can name their next presidential nominee, Democrats will have to decide which state will weigh in first.\n\nIn 2022, President Joe Biden forced a shake-up of the 2024 election calendar, moving South Carolina's primary ahead of contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. Officials in those traditionally four early-voting states are now positioning themselves to get top billing nearly two years before the Democratic National Committee solidifies the order. Others may make a play, too.\n\nIt's a fraught choice for a party already wrestling with questions about its direction after losing November's White House election to Republican Donald Trump. Each state offers advantages to different candidates and elevates — or diminishes — different parts of the Democratic base.\n\nFor now, 2028 prospects are making early-state visits, giving a glimpse into what they may see as their own path to the nomination.\n\nIllinois Gov. JB Pritzker was the keynote speaker at adinner last month for New Hampshire Democrats, visiting a majority white state known for its engaged electorate and independent streak. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the state's first Black governor, will appear later this month at a similar party event in South Carolina, where Black voters are the party's most influential voting group.\n\nPete Buttigieg will join a VoteVets Action Fund gathering in Iowa on Tuesday, marking the former presidential candidate's first public in-person event since leaving his post as Biden's transportation secretary. Buttigieg performed well in the 2020 caucuses, which were marred by technical glitches that prevented the declaration of a winner.\n\n## Iowa looks past snub for 'fair' shot in 2028\n\nBiden and others pushed to open the 2024 cycle with a more diverse state than traditional leadoff Iowa, which is 90% white, according to census data.\n\nGone was a five-decade institution of Iowa Democrats engaging in a one-night spectacle where community members publicly signaled their support for a candidate. Last year, they held caucuses eight days before any other state's contest, as is required by Iowa law. But Democratic voters had cast their 2024 presidential preference ballots by mail, with results released that March on Super Tuesday alongside other states.\n\nBiden \"picked the calendar that worked for him,\" said Scott Brennan, who serves on the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee and previously chaired the Iowa Democratic Party. \"When you're the president, you can do those things. But I don't know that people in Iowa thought it was very fair.\"\n\nFor now, Iowa Democratic leaders emphasize that their focus is on the 2026 election, when two of Iowa's four congressional districts will be competitive opportunities to unseat Republicans. Democrats have recently struggled on all electoral fronts in Iowa and have significantly diminished party registration numbers, which some blamed on the loss of the caucuses.\n\nBut Brennan said many Iowa Democrats continue to believe that the presidential nominating process is well served by Iowa's early role in it, even if the 2028 format is up in the air.\n\n\"We took everyone at their word that all bets are off for 2028,\" Brennan said. \"We expect that there will be a fair process and that we will be given every consideration to be an early state.\"\n\nFormer U.S. Rep. Dave Nagle was more blunt in proposing that the state party commit to first-in-the-nation status regardless, as he did as chair in 1984 when the national party threatened to upend Iowa and New Hampshire's delegate selection process over noncompliance with timing rules. The two states formed an alliance, getting six of the presidential candidates on their side.\n\n\"All we have to do is look at the Democratic National Committee and say, 'Sorry, we're going first,'\" Nagle said. \"It's ours if we have the courage.\"\n\n## New Hampshire survives threats after rebellion\n\nNew Hampshire rebelled in 2024, holding an unsanctioned primary in January. Biden did not put his name on the ballot or campaign there but won as a write-in.\n\nThree months later, the DNC dropped its threat to not seat the state's national convention delegates.\n\nUntil Biden's formal request of the DNC to approve his proposed calendar, New Hampshire Democrats thought they were in a good place with work behind the scenes, said the state party chairman, Ray Buckley. He said that effort will continue heading into 2028.\n\n\"This is going to be much more of a level playing field,\" Buckley said. \"There's no reason to come in with a two-ton thumb and put it on the scale.\"\n\nIt does not hurt their case that New Hampshire law requires the primary to be scheduled before any other similar contest.\n\nKathy Sullivan, formerly a state party chair and member of the DNC's rulemaking arm, said it is possible that the \"train has left the station\" for Iowa's hope of returning to its first-place position, given the 2020 problems and the fact that it gave in to the DNC in 2024.\n\n\"I don't know if that helps them in terms of goodwill or hurts them in that they basically gave up the caucuses,\" she said. \"New Hampshire took the opposite tack, we had our primary despite what the DNC said, and our delegates ended up being seated despite the threats.\"\n\n## Never-first Nevada wants top billing\n\nDemocratic leaders in Nevada, which held its 2024 Democratic primary just days after South Carolina's, have also been pushing to keep their state early in the nominating conversation, although the state's location in the West has traditionally made it less-visited by White House hopefuls.\n\nIn a December statement, the state party chair, Daniele Monroe-Moreno, pointed to the state's nonwhite population, union representation and education-level diversity as reasons for Nevada to kick off the 2028 calendar. Nevada is 30% Latino, census data shows, and has significant Black and Asian populations.\n\n\"If Democrats want to win back working class voters and rebuild our broad coalition of voters of color, we should elevate the most working class and most diverse battleground state in the nation to be the first presidential preference primary for the 2028 cycle,\" Monroe-Moreno said.\n\n\"Nevada is the battleground state that best reflects our growing nation,\" she said, and the party \"cannot afford to let overwhelmingly college-educated, white or less competitive states start the process of winnowing the field again in 2028.\"\n\n## South Carolina seeks another go at No. 1\n\nAs the first-in-the-South primary state, where Black voters play a significant role in Democratic voting, South Carolina long promoted its role in picking a nominee after the first set of contests winnowed the field.\n\nBut Christale Spain, who is expected to win her second term as state party chair, said she will make the argument to national Democratic leaders that South Carolina should stay in the No. 1 slot.\n\n\"It's our plan to really work to stay first in the nation,\" Spain said.\n\nAt the end of May, Moore is set to headline the South Carolina Democratic Party's Blue Palmetto Dinner, a signature fundraiser that has recently hosted Democratic stars as its keynote speakers, including Jennifer Granholm, a former Michigan governor and Biden energy secretary, and Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia.\n\nThen-Vice President Kamala Harris used her 2022 speech as an official \"thank you\" to South Carolina for providing the key primary support that revived Biden's flagging 2020 presidential campaign after a series of losses in other early-voting states.\n\nSpain will have to make her argument anew without Biden in the White House and Jaime Harrison, a South Carolina native who recently ended his term as national Democratic chair, helming the party.\n\n\"I think you get what you need from an electorate in South Carolina,\" Spain said. \"All those things matter — the stuff that's happening with the veterans, all our colleges and institutions, the role of Black folks — in a Democratic primary.\n\n\"We have more to offer than other states do,\" she said." } ]
c7ab9344856cb4beedf153bdfa40af17c05f3ddb201d384d5390ec803e6589c8	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Japan's finance minister calls US Treasury holdings 'a card' in tariff talks with Trump\n\nBy Yuri Kageyama \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:57 AM\n\n---\n\nTOKYO (AP) — Japan's massive holdings of U.S. Treasurys can be \"a card on the table\" in negotiations over tariffs with the Trump administration, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Friday.\n\n\"It does exist as a card, but I think whether we choose to use it or not would be a separate decision,\" Kato said during a news show on national broadcaster TV Tokyo.\n\nKato did not elaborate and he did not say Japan would step up sales of its holdings of U.S. government bonds as part of its talks over President Donald Trump's tariffs on exports from Japan.\n\nEarlier, Japanese officials including Kato had ruled out such an option.\n\nJapan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt, at $1.13 trillion as of late February. China, also at odds with the Trump administration over trade and tariffs, is the second largest foreign investor in Treasurys.\n\nKato stressed that various factors would be on the negotiating table with Trump, implying that a promise not to sell Treasurys could help coax Washington into an agreement favorable for Japan.\n\nTrump has disrupted decades of American trade policies, including with key security allies like Japan, by i mposing big import taxes, or tariffs, on a wide range of products.\n\nA team of Japanese officials was in Washington this week for talks on the tariffs.\n\nThe U.S. is due to soon begin imposing a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and auto parts, as well as an overall 10% baseline tariff. The bigger tariffs will hurt at a time when Japanese economic growth is weakening.\n\nAsian holdings of Treasurys have remained relatively steady in recent years, according to the most recent figures.\n\nBut some analysts worry China or other governments could liquidate their U.S. Treasury holdings as trade tensions escalate.\n\nU.S. government bonds are traditionally viewed as a safe financial asset, and recent spikes in yields of those bonds have raised worries that they might be losing that status due to Trump's tariff policies." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Japan's finance minister calls US Treasury holdings 'a card' in tariff talks with Trump\n\nBy Yuri Kageyama \nMay 2nd, 2025, 08:57 AM\n\n---\n\nTOKYO (AP) — Japan's massive holdings of U.S. Treasurys can be \"a card on the table\" in negotiations over tariffs with the Trump administration, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said Friday.\n\n\"It does exist as a card, but I think whether we choose to use it or not would be a separate decision,\" Kato said during a news show on national broadcaster TV Tokyo.\n\nKato did not elaborate and he did not say Japan would step up sales of its holdings of U.S. government bonds as part of its talks over President Donald Trump's tariffs on exports from Japan.\n\nEarlier, Japanese officials including Kato had ruled out such an option.\n\nJapan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt, at $1.13 trillion as of late February. China, also at odds with the Trump administration over trade and tariffs, is the second largest foreign investor in Treasurys.\n\nKato stressed that various factors would be on the negotiating table with Trump, implying that a promise not to sell Treasurys could help coax Washington into an agreement favorable for Japan.\n\nTrump has disrupted decades of American trade policies, including with key security allies like Japan, by i mposing big import taxes, or tariffs, on a wide range of products.\n\nA team of Japanese officials was in Washington this week for talks on the tariffs.\n\nThe U.S. is due to soon begin imposing a 25% tariff on imported vehicles and auto parts, as well as an overall 10% baseline tariff. The bigger tariffs will hurt at a time when Japanese economic growth is weakening.\n\nAsian holdings of Treasurys have remained relatively steady in recent years, according to the most recent figures.\n\nBut some analysts worry China or other governments could liquidate their U.S. Treasury holdings as trade tensions escalate.\n\nU.S. government bonds are traditionally viewed as a safe financial asset, and recent spikes in yields of those bonds have raised worries that they might be losing that status due to Trump's tariff policies." } ]
a17e2631d1117e4883a8396f9ce91704ca97588149b156062e133ecba8cbb949	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# A massive coastal restoration project is in peril amid claims Louisiana concealed a critical report\n\nBy Jack Brook and Jim Mustian \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:04 AM\n\n---\n\nBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An ambitious project to restore a rapidly vanishing stretch of Louisiana coast that was devastated by the 2010 Gulf oil spill has been thrown deeper into disarray amid claims by Gov. Jeff Landry that his predecessor concealed an unfavorable study that it was feared could imperil the $3 billion effort.\n\nIt's a controversy that was even predicted by the previous administration as it grappled with how to handle conflicting environmental analyses for the project, according to a confidential memo obtained by The Associated Press.\n\nThe nine-page document, prepared by five attorneys working for then-Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration, sheds new light on a study Landry says was improperly withheld from the public and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as it was approving a permit for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.\n\nThe stakes were so high the attorneys even weighed whether state officials could face federal charges for withholding from the Corps a report that the diversion would generate significantly less land than another modeling projection used in a federal review.\n\nProsecution seemed \"extremely unlikely,\" the lawyers wrote to the heads of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which oversees the diversion project, but they added that \"the severe consequences and criminalization of the action warranted mention.\"\n\nThe attorneys also warned that the Corps might suspend or revoke the permit if it discovered the study after the fact, the 2022 memo shows, foreshadowing actions taken last month when the Corps cited \"deliberately withheld\" information among its reasons for suspending its permit for the project. The move halts construction despite more than half a billion dollars already spent.\n\n\"They hid the bad stuff and only showed the (Corps) the version they liked,\" Landry wrote in a post on X. \"Science is easy when you just delete the inconvenient parts!\"\n\nEdwards denied his administration withheld information from the Corps and said \"Gov. Landry's accusations are demonstrably false.\"\n\n\"When all the facts are presented, the public will see that his administration has played political games and botched this important project,\" Edwards said in a statement to AP.\n\nLandry countered in his own statement that \"the facts speak for themselves.\"\n\nAmid the finger-pointing, conservation proponents have called the report in question a red herring that Landry is using to tank the project. The diversion, funded mostly from a settlement arising from BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is the largest of its kind in Louisiana's history.\n\n## Confidential memo warns of legal consequences\n\nThe Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion would puncture levees in southeast Louisiana, diverting some of the river's sediment-rich flow to restore wetlands. The long-delayed project was intended to mitigate a disappearing coastline caused by a range of factors such as climate change-induced sea-level rise and the river's vast levee system. Ground was broken in 2023, but state and federal litigation has stalled it.\n\nOpponents have blasted its ballooning cost and crippling effects on the local fishing and oyster industries. Landry has said the project would \"break\" Louisiana's culture of shrimp and oyster harvesting, likening it to government efforts a century ago to punish schoolchildren for speaking Cajun French.\n\nEarlier this year, Landry's administration approached the Corps with a list of concerns about the project, including a 2022 study it said \"does not appear to have been disclosed to the public nor considered by all necessary persons within the Corps.\"\n\nOfficials working for the state at the time defended their handling of the report in question, saying it had been focused on analyzing maintenance and operational costs related to the diversion and was not intended to be part of the federal environmental impact statement process.\n\nThe report, prepared by AECOM Technical Services and a subcontractor, produced \"inconsistent\" results such as a significantly lower projected land creation — as few as 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) compared to the 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) estimated under the primary model, according to the confidential memo.\n\nOfficials familiar with the study said its lower projection resulted from not properly accounting for sea level rise and underestimating the river's flow. The memo also pointed to the need for \"significant dredging\" to maintain the diversion channel, which Landry's administration now says will cost tens of millions of dollars.\n\nIn the memo, the attorneys outlined a series of \"reputational concerns\" about withholding the study and warned it would be more difficult to keep \"controlling the narrative\" if the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority \"is on the defensive.\"\n\n## An informal discussion\n\nThe memo noted the Corps and other federal agencies could delay the project for years if they attempted to integrate the modeling results into their environmental impact analysis. Failing to formally disclose the modeling results to federal agencies like the Corps, the attorneys warned, also would leave the project vulnerable to litigation.\n\nThey suggested the Edwards administration \"informally discuss\" the issue with federal agencies and then strategize the best way to \"formally\" enter it into the public record for the agencies to review.\n\nThe report's findings eventually were verbally communicated to at least one Corps official, who indicated it was insignificant, according to multiple former Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority officials familiar with the exchange. But the complete analysis itself was not submitted into the public record, nor was the official's response at the time, they said.\n\nThe former state officials weren't authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.\n\nCol. Cullen Jones, head of the Corps' New Orleans District, told Landry's administration last month that the Corps recently conducted a \"technical review\" of the modeling analysis in question and concluded it \"would not affect\" the permit.\n\nBut Jones said the Corps suspended the project's permit in part because \"the State deliberately withheld information … that the State knew it should provide.\"\n\n## What does this mean for the future of the project?\n\nThe Corps also pointed to actions taken by Landry's administration, including a 90-day work stoppage announced last month amid plans to study an alternative \"smaller diversion\" and claims the state can't afford the project.\n\nIt's unclear how Landry intends to respond to the permit's suspension. The state has until Monday to take action to dispute the permit suspension. At that point, the Corps could revoke or modify the permit as it sees fit.\n\nLouisiana's coastal agency earmarked about $573 million in its 2025 budget for the project, an amount now being reviewed by the legislature. Last fall, federal agencies tasked with managing Deepwater Horizon settlement money warned that if Louisiana backs out of or alters the Mid-Barataria diversion, money allocated for it would need to be returned.\n\nLauren Bourg, director of the National Audubon Society's Mississippi River Delta program, told lawmakers that ending or altering the project \"sends the message that any infrastructure project in this state may be undone by a few stakeholders who engage in politics with the right people, distorting the scientific and engineering principles upon which all of these projects are grounded.\"\n\nBut many in southeast Louisiana's fishing industry applauded the move to halt the project.\n\n\"If all this water comes down, it's going to kill everything,\" said Mitch Jurisich, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force.\n\n__ Brook reported from New Orleans. He is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on X at @jack_brook96" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# A massive coastal restoration project is in peril amid claims Louisiana concealed a critical report\n\nBy Jack Brook and Jim Mustian \nMay 5th, 2025, 04:04 AM\n\n---\n\nBATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — An ambitious project to restore a rapidly vanishing stretch of Louisiana coast that was devastated by the 2010 Gulf oil spill has been thrown deeper into disarray amid claims by Gov. Jeff Landry that his predecessor concealed an unfavorable study that it was feared could imperil the $3 billion effort.\n\nIt's a controversy that was even predicted by the previous administration as it grappled with how to handle conflicting environmental analyses for the project, according to a confidential memo obtained by The Associated Press.\n\nThe nine-page document, prepared by five attorneys working for then-Gov. John Bel Edwards' administration, sheds new light on a study Landry says was improperly withheld from the public and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as it was approving a permit for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.\n\nThe stakes were so high the attorneys even weighed whether state officials could face federal charges for withholding from the Corps a report that the diversion would generate significantly less land than another modeling projection used in a federal review.\n\nProsecution seemed \"extremely unlikely,\" the lawyers wrote to the heads of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which oversees the diversion project, but they added that \"the severe consequences and criminalization of the action warranted mention.\"\n\nThe attorneys also warned that the Corps might suspend or revoke the permit if it discovered the study after the fact, the 2022 memo shows, foreshadowing actions taken last month when the Corps cited \"deliberately withheld\" information among its reasons for suspending its permit for the project. The move halts construction despite more than half a billion dollars already spent.\n\n\"They hid the bad stuff and only showed the (Corps) the version they liked,\" Landry wrote in a post on X. \"Science is easy when you just delete the inconvenient parts!\"\n\nEdwards denied his administration withheld information from the Corps and said \"Gov. Landry's accusations are demonstrably false.\"\n\n\"When all the facts are presented, the public will see that his administration has played political games and botched this important project,\" Edwards said in a statement to AP.\n\nLandry countered in his own statement that \"the facts speak for themselves.\"\n\nAmid the finger-pointing, conservation proponents have called the report in question a red herring that Landry is using to tank the project. The diversion, funded mostly from a settlement arising from BP's 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, is the largest of its kind in Louisiana's history.\n\n## Confidential memo warns of legal consequences\n\nThe Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion would puncture levees in southeast Louisiana, diverting some of the river's sediment-rich flow to restore wetlands. The long-delayed project was intended to mitigate a disappearing coastline caused by a range of factors such as climate change-induced sea-level rise and the river's vast levee system. Ground was broken in 2023, but state and federal litigation has stalled it.\n\nOpponents have blasted its ballooning cost and crippling effects on the local fishing and oyster industries. Landry has said the project would \"break\" Louisiana's culture of shrimp and oyster harvesting, likening it to government efforts a century ago to punish schoolchildren for speaking Cajun French.\n\nEarlier this year, Landry's administration approached the Corps with a list of concerns about the project, including a 2022 study it said \"does not appear to have been disclosed to the public nor considered by all necessary persons within the Corps.\"\n\nOfficials working for the state at the time defended their handling of the report in question, saying it had been focused on analyzing maintenance and operational costs related to the diversion and was not intended to be part of the federal environmental impact statement process.\n\nThe report, prepared by AECOM Technical Services and a subcontractor, produced \"inconsistent\" results such as a significantly lower projected land creation — as few as 7 square miles (18 square kilometers) compared to the 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) estimated under the primary model, according to the confidential memo.\n\nOfficials familiar with the study said its lower projection resulted from not properly accounting for sea level rise and underestimating the river's flow. The memo also pointed to the need for \"significant dredging\" to maintain the diversion channel, which Landry's administration now says will cost tens of millions of dollars.\n\nIn the memo, the attorneys outlined a series of \"reputational concerns\" about withholding the study and warned it would be more difficult to keep \"controlling the narrative\" if the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority \"is on the defensive.\"\n\n## An informal discussion\n\nThe memo noted the Corps and other federal agencies could delay the project for years if they attempted to integrate the modeling results into their environmental impact analysis. Failing to formally disclose the modeling results to federal agencies like the Corps, the attorneys warned, also would leave the project vulnerable to litigation.\n\nThey suggested the Edwards administration \"informally discuss\" the issue with federal agencies and then strategize the best way to \"formally\" enter it into the public record for the agencies to review.\n\nThe report's findings eventually were verbally communicated to at least one Corps official, who indicated it was insignificant, according to multiple former Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority officials familiar with the exchange. But the complete analysis itself was not submitted into the public record, nor was the official's response at the time, they said.\n\nThe former state officials weren't authorized to discuss internal deliberations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.\n\nCol. Cullen Jones, head of the Corps' New Orleans District, told Landry's administration last month that the Corps recently conducted a \"technical review\" of the modeling analysis in question and concluded it \"would not affect\" the permit.\n\nBut Jones said the Corps suspended the project's permit in part because \"the State deliberately withheld information … that the State knew it should provide.\"\n\n## What does this mean for the future of the project?\n\nThe Corps also pointed to actions taken by Landry's administration, including a 90-day work stoppage announced last month amid plans to study an alternative \"smaller diversion\" and claims the state can't afford the project.\n\nIt's unclear how Landry intends to respond to the permit's suspension. The state has until Monday to take action to dispute the permit suspension. At that point, the Corps could revoke or modify the permit as it sees fit.\n\nLouisiana's coastal agency earmarked about $573 million in its 2025 budget for the project, an amount now being reviewed by the legislature. Last fall, federal agencies tasked with managing Deepwater Horizon settlement money warned that if Louisiana backs out of or alters the Mid-Barataria diversion, money allocated for it would need to be returned.\n\nLauren Bourg, director of the National Audubon Society's Mississippi River Delta program, told lawmakers that ending or altering the project \"sends the message that any infrastructure project in this state may be undone by a few stakeholders who engage in politics with the right people, distorting the scientific and engineering principles upon which all of these projects are grounded.\"\n\nBut many in southeast Louisiana's fishing industry applauded the move to halt the project.\n\n\"If all this water comes down, it's going to kill everything,\" said Mitch Jurisich, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force." } ]
8f4b2b42a40ef06d95a91433ab61967dd58483bad5e94a7ca1ac389cd1dadd83	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Supreme Court revives lawsuit over fatal Texas police traffic stop shooting\n\nMay 15th, 2025, 02:41 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday revived a civil rights lawsuit against a Texas police officer who shot a man to death during a traffic stop over unpaid tolls.\n\nThe justices ordered the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take a new look at the case of Ashtian Barnes, who died in his rental car in April 2016 on the shoulder of the Sam Houston Tollway in Houston.\n\nBarnes was shot by Officer Roberto Felix Jr., who jumped on the sill of the driver's door of Barnes' car as it began to pull away from the stop. Felix fired twice in two seconds because he \"reasonably feared for his life,\" his lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court brief.\n\nLower courts had dismissed the excessive force lawsuit filed against Felix by Barnes' mother, Janice Hughes. The issue before the justices was whether those lower courts used the right standard, evaluating Felix's actions only at the \"moment of the threat\" that caused him to shoot Barnes.\n\nJustice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that courts should look at the \"totality of the circumstances\" to evaluate the suit against Felix. The standard embraced by the court Thursday often will be friendlier to plaintiffs in civil rights cases.\n\nBarnes had been driving to pick up his girlfriend's daughter from day care when he was pulled over by Felix, who received a radio message that the license plate on Barnes' car had unpaid tolls associated with it. Barnes' girlfriend had rented the car, and Barnes was unaware of the outstanding tolls, according to court records." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Supreme Court revives lawsuit over fatal Texas police traffic stop shooting\n\nMay 15th, 2025, 02:41 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday revived a civil rights lawsuit against a Texas police officer who shot a man to death during a traffic stop over unpaid tolls.\n\nThe justices ordered the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take a new look at the case of Ashtian Barnes, who died in his rental car in April 2016 on the shoulder of the Sam Houston Tollway in Houston.\n\nBarnes was shot by Officer Roberto Felix Jr., who jumped on the sill of the driver's door of Barnes' car as it began to pull away from the stop. Felix fired twice in two seconds because he \"reasonably feared for his life,\" his lawyers wrote in their Supreme Court brief.\n\nLower courts had dismissed the excessive force lawsuit filed against Felix by Barnes' mother, Janice Hughes. The issue before the justices was whether those lower courts used the right standard, evaluating Felix's actions only at the \"moment of the threat\" that caused him to shoot Barnes.\n\nJustice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that courts should look at the \"totality of the circumstances\" to evaluate the suit against Felix. The standard embraced by the court Thursday often will be friendlier to plaintiffs in civil rights cases.\n\nBarnes had been driving to pick up his girlfriend's daughter from day care when he was pulled over by Felix, who received a radio message that the license plate on Barnes' car had unpaid tolls associated with it. Barnes' girlfriend had rented the car, and Barnes was unaware of the outstanding tolls, according to court records." } ]
94d094a4d475206d1da2d29cb029af122276ce5d190d0eb1ef563ff11531076d	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# What's in Trump and Starmer's US-UK trade deal, and what's not\n\nBy Christopher Rugaber \nMay 8th, 2025, 04:56 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced a trade deal with the United Kingdom Thursday in grandiose terms, but with only limited details about what it will achieve.\n\nThe agreement will open up the British market to American beef, ethanol, and other agricultural products, the White House said. It will also allow British cars and steel better access to U.S. consumers.\n\nThe pact provides some support for President Donald Trump's arguments that his steep tariffs could lead to agreements that open up overseas markets. But economists' initial reactions were cool, with many noting that the United Kingdom isn't a large enough trading partner for the U.S. to really move the needle for the U.S. economy.\n\n\"It's more symbolic than economic,\" Beata Caranci, chief economist at the bank TD Economics, said in an email. \"What we have learned is that these initial announcements are going to be more fine-tuning around the edges and easing of pain points, rather than an end to the trade war.\"\n\nTrump said in the Oval Office Thursday that additional details will be worked out in the \"coming weeks.\" But in a fact sheet the administration said the deal is \"historic\" and \"a great deal for America.\"\n\nU.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the deal would protect thousands of auto jobs and stressed the importance of the relationship between the two countries.\n\nThe U.K. is the United States' fourth largest export market, though has received just 4.5% of U.S. exports this year.\n\n## What's in the deal:\n\n—The United States will maintain the 10% duty on nearly all imports from the U.K., which Trump imposed April 2. Many economists had hoped that the tariff would be dropped as part of any trade deal, but Trump suggested that the 10% universal duty was likely to be a floor in any future talks with other countries.\n\n—The U.S. will cut its tariffs on car imports from the U.K. to 10% from 27.5%, according to the U.K. government, but only up to 100,000 cars. The U.K. exported 92,000 cars to the U.S. in 2024, which means the U.K. auto industry won't be able to boost its shipments without paying higher duties.\n\n—U.K. steel exports will enter the U.S. duty-free, rather than face the 25% tariff the White House has placed on imported steel.\n\n—The two countries have agreed to greater market access for each other's beef, with both nations able to export 13,000 metric tons of beef to each others' countries.\n\n—The U.K. will eliminate its tariff on ethanol from the U.S., up to 1.4 billion liters.\n\n—The U.S. will lift all duties on airplane engines and other aerospace parts from the U.K.'s Rolls Royce. In return, a U.K. airline will soon announce the purchase of $10 billion in planes from Boeing.\n\n—The U.K. will reduce its average tariff on U.S. goods to 1.8%, which would amount to a $200 million cut in duties, the British government said. The U.K. will also lower import taxes on about 2,500 U.S. products including olive oil, wine and sports equipment.\n\n—The U.K. will \"reduce or eliminate\" non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports, the White House said, though it did not provide details. The agreement creates opportunities for $5 billion in new exports of U.S. agricultural and other goods, according to the administration's fact sheet.\n\n## What's not in the deal, at least not yet\n\n—The agreement does not provide U.S. companies any additional access to the U.K.'s government-run national health service.\n\n—There also aren't any changes on the U.K.'s digital services tax, which hits U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Alphabet's Google, and Facebook parent Meta. Trump has strongly criticized the tax. The U.K. government said, however, that the two nations have agreed to negotiate on a digital trade deal.\n\n—Trump said the deal did not exempt the U.K. from the 100% tariffs on foreign-made films he has proposed.\n\n—Negotiations are still ongoing in areas such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, critical minerals, copper and lumber, a British trade official said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# What's in Trump and Starmer's US-UK trade deal, and what's not\n\nBy Christopher Rugaber \nMay 8th, 2025, 04:56 PM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced a trade deal with the United Kingdom Thursday in grandiose terms, but with only limited details about what it will achieve.\n\nThe agreement will open up the British market to American beef, ethanol, and other agricultural products, the White House said. It will also allow British cars and steel better access to U.S. consumers.\n\nThe pact provides some support for President Donald Trump's arguments that his steep tariffs could lead to agreements that open up overseas markets. But economists' initial reactions were cool, with many noting that the United Kingdom isn't a large enough trading partner for the U.S. to really move the needle for the U.S. economy.\n\n\"It's more symbolic than economic,\" Beata Caranci, chief economist at the bank TD Economics, said in an email. \"What we have learned is that these initial announcements are going to be more fine-tuning around the edges and easing of pain points, rather than an end to the trade war.\"\n\nTrump said in the Oval Office Thursday that additional details will be worked out in the \"coming weeks.\" But in a fact sheet the administration said the deal is \"historic\" and \"a great deal for America.\"\n\nU.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the deal would protect thousands of auto jobs and stressed the importance of the relationship between the two countries.\n\nThe U.K. is the United States' fourth largest export market, though has received just 4.5% of U.S. exports this year.\n\n## What's in the deal:\n\n—The United States will maintain the 10% duty on nearly all imports from the U.K., which Trump imposed April 2. Many economists had hoped that the tariff would be dropped as part of any trade deal, but Trump suggested that the 10% universal duty was likely to be a floor in any future talks with other countries.\n\n—The U.S. will cut its tariffs on car imports from the U.K. to 10% from 27.5%, according to the U.K. government, but only up to 100,000 cars. The U.K. exported 92,000 cars to the U.S. in 2024, which means the U.K. auto industry won't be able to boost its shipments without paying higher duties.\n\n—U.K. steel exports will enter the U.S. duty-free, rather than face the 25% tariff the White House has placed on imported steel.\n\n—The two countries have agreed to greater market access for each other's beef, with both nations able to export 13,000 metric tons of beef to each others' countries.\n\n—The U.K. will eliminate its tariff on ethanol from the U.S., up to 1.4 billion liters.\n\n—The U.S. will lift all duties on airplane engines and other aerospace parts from the U.K.'s Rolls Royce. In return, a U.K. airline will soon announce the purchase of $10 billion in planes from Boeing.\n\n—The U.K. will reduce its average tariff on U.S. goods to 1.8%, which would amount to a $200 million cut in duties, the British government said. The U.K. will also lower import taxes on about 2,500 U.S. products including olive oil, wine and sports equipment.\n\n—The U.K. will \"reduce or eliminate\" non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports, the White House said, though it did not provide details. The agreement creates opportunities for $5 billion in new exports of U.S. agricultural and other goods, according to the administration's fact sheet.\n\n## What's not in the deal, at least not yet\n\n—The agreement does not provide U.S. companies any additional access to the U.K.'s government-run national health service.\n\n—There also aren't any changes on the U.K.'s digital services tax, which hits U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Alphabet's Google, and Facebook parent Meta. Trump has strongly criticized the tax. The U.K. government said, however, that the two nations have agreed to negotiate on a digital trade deal.\n\n—Trump said the deal did not exempt the U.K. from the 100% tariffs on foreign-made films he has proposed.\n\n—Negotiations are still ongoing in areas such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, critical minerals, copper and lumber, a British trade official said." } ]
932159883fc2b0f5a06271a301454dcbc9e0ac5ec9020d158e3c48fc61af5029	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# The bodies of a Belgian mother and her son were recovered in southern Jordan after flash flooding\n\nMay 5th, 2025, 09:20 AM\n\n---\n\nAMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Search and rescue teams recovered the bodies of a Belgian mother and her son on Monday in Jordan, police said a day after the woman and her three children were reported missing in flash flooding. The other two children were found alive.\n\nSunday's flooding in southern Jordan also led to the evacuation of hundreds of tourists from the Petra archaeological site, the country's main tourist attraction.\n\nThe mother and children had been part of a group of 18 tourists who had been on an adventure trip in Wadi al-Nakhil when they were caught up in the flash flood, Ma'an district local governor Hassan al-Jabour told state media broadcaster Al-Mamlaka TV.\n\nFourteen tourists, all Czechs, were rescued on Sunday. Rescue crews located two of the children alive late Sunday, al-Jabour said. The search and rescue operation was suspended at about 2 a.m. because of the complicated weather conditions and terrain. The bodies of the woman and her son were found Monday morning after the search resumed, he said.\n\nFurther details about the family and the ages of the children weren't immediately available.\n\nJordan often experiences flash flooding as heavy seasonal rains send torrents of water through dry desert valleys. At least three people died in 2021 when floodwaters swept away their car, while more than 30 people in the Dead Sea region and other parts of Jordan were killed in flash flooding in 2018." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# The bodies of a Belgian mother and her son were recovered in southern Jordan after flash flooding\n\nMay 5th, 2025, 09:20 AM\n\n---\n\nAMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Search and rescue teams recovered the bodies of a Belgian mother and her son on Monday in Jordan, police said a day after the woman and her three children were reported missing in flash flooding. The other two children were found alive.\n\nSunday's flooding in southern Jordan also led to the evacuation of hundreds of tourists from the Petra archaeological site, the country's main tourist attraction.\n\nThe mother and children had been part of a group of 18 tourists who had been on an adventure trip in Wadi al-Nakhil when they were caught up in the flash flood, Ma'an district local governor Hassan al-Jabour told state media broadcaster Al-Mamlaka TV.\n\nFourteen tourists, all Czechs, were rescued on Sunday. Rescue crews located two of the children alive late Sunday, al-Jabour said. The search and rescue operation was suspended at about 2 a.m. because of the complicated weather conditions and terrain. The bodies of the woman and her son were found Monday morning after the search resumed, he said.\n\nFurther details about the family and the ages of the children weren't immediately available.\n\nJordan often experiences flash flooding as heavy seasonal rains send torrents of water through dry desert valleys. At least three people died in 2021 when floodwaters swept away their car, while more than 30 people in the Dead Sea region and other parts of Jordan were killed in flash flooding in 2018." } ]
77d1ecbf6c5f0e4caa714f7706f03f36695fa3b60a3b4ac63c3c373cd0df1bec	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Trump alleges 'genocide' in South Africa. Afrikaner farmers reject that\n\nBy Mogomotsi Magome \nMay 20th, 2025, 01:05 AM\n\n---\n\nBOTHAVILLE, South Africa (AP) — Days before South Africa's president meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Afrikaner farmers at the center of an extraordinary new U.S. refugee policy roamed a memorial to farm attacks in their country's agricultural heartland, some touching the names of the dead — both Black and white.\n\nHere in Bothaville, where thousands of farmers gathered for a lively agricultural fair with everything from grains to guns on display, even some conservative white Afrikaner groups denied the Trump administration's \"genocide\" and land seizure claims that led it to cut all financial aid to South Africa.\n\nThe bustling scene was business as usual, with milkshakes and burgers and tow-headed children pulled in wagons.\n\nThe late President Nelson Mandela — South Africa's first Black leader — stood in Bothaville over a quarter-century ago and acknowledged the increasing number of violent attacks on farmers in the first years following the decades-long racial segregation system of apartheid. \"But the complex problem of crime on our farms, as elsewhere, demands long-term solutions,\" he said.\n\nSome at the agricultural fair said fleeing the country isn't one of them.\n\n\"I really hope that during the upcoming visit to Washington, (President Cyril Ramaphosa) is going to be able to put the facts before his counterpart and to demonstrate that there is no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa, and there is no genocide taking place,\" John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture, told The Associated Press. He will be part of the delegation for Wednesday's meeting.\n\nThe minority white Afrikaner community is in the spotlight after the U.S. granted refugee status to at least 49 Afrikaners claiming to flee racial and violent persecution and widespread seizures of white-owned land — despite evidence that such claims are untrue.\n\nWhile many at the agricultural fair raised serious concerns about the safety of farmers and farm workers, others were quick to point out that crime targeted both Black and white farmers and farm workers, as shown by South Africa's crime statistics.\n\nThobani Ntonga, a Black farmer from Eastern Cape province, told the AP he had been attacked on his farm by criminals and almost kidnapped but a Black neighbor intervened.\n\n\"Crime affects both Black and white. ... It's an issue of vulnerability,\" he said. \"Farmers are separated from your general public. We're not near towns, we are in the rural areas. And I think it's exactly that. So, perpetrators, they thrive on that, on the fact that farms are isolated.\"\n\nWhite farmers echoed his thoughts and called for more resources and policing — but said there wasn't any genocide that would make them flee South Africa.\n\n\"Crime especially hits small-scale farmers worse because they don't have resources for private security,\" said Afrikaner farmer Willem de Chavonnes Vrugt. He and other farmers wondered why they would leave the land where they have been rooted for decades.\n\n\"We are not interested in going anywhere,\" he added. \"The thing we want to do is be part of this country.\"\n\nRamaphosa, himself a cattle farmer, also visited the agricultural fair for the first time in about 20 years — to buy equipment but also do outreach as many in South Africa puzzle over the Trump administration's focus on their country.\n\n\"We must not run away from our problems,\" the president said during his visit. \"When you run away, you're a coward.\"\n\n## Applying to be a refugee\n\nThe fast-tracking of the Afrikaners' refugee applications has raised questions about a system where many seeking asylum in the U.S. can languish for years, waiting.\n\nThe State Department has not made details of the process public, but one person who has applied to be resettled told the AP the online application process was \"rigorous.\"\n\nKatia Beeden, a member of an advocacy group established to assist white South Africans seeking resettlement, said applicants have to go through at least three online interviews and answer questions about their health and criminal background.\n\nThey are also required to submit information or proof of being persecuted in South Africa, she said. She said she has been robbed in her house, with robbers locking her in her bedroom.\n\n\"They've already warned that you can't lie or hide anything from them. So it's quite a thorough process and not everyone is guaranteed,\" she said.\n\n## By the numbers\n\nViolent crime is rife in South Africa, but experts say the vast majority of victims are Black and poor. Police statistics show that up to 75 people are killed daily across the country.\n\nAfrikaner agriculture union TLU SA says it believes farmers are more susceptible to such attacks because of their isolation.\n\nTwelve murders occurred on farms in 2024, police statistics show. One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on farms and a security guard. The data don't reflect the victims' race.\n\nOverall across South Africa last year, 6,953 people were killed.\n\nGovernment data also show that white farmers own the vast majority of South Africa's farmland — 80% of it, according to the 2017 census of commercial agriculture, which recorded over 40,000 white farmers.\n\nThat data, however, only reflects farmers who have revenue of $55,396 a year, which excludes many small-scale farmers, the majority of them Black.\n\nOverall, the white minority — just 7% of the population is white — still owns the vast majority of the land in South Africa, which the World Bank has called \"the most unequal country in the world.\"\n\nAccording to the 2017 government land audit, white South Africans hold about 72% of individually owned land — while Black South Africans own 15%.\n\n___\n\nAssociated Press writer Michelle Gumede in Johannesburg contributed to this report. ____\n\nFollow AP's Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Trump alleges 'genocide' in South Africa. Afrikaner farmers reject that\n\nBy Mogomotsi Magome \nMay 20th, 2025, 01:05 AM\n\n---\n\nBOTHAVILLE, South Africa (AP) — Days before South Africa's president meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, Afrikaner farmers at the center of an extraordinary new U.S. refugee policy roamed a memorial to farm attacks in their country's agricultural heartland, some touching the names of the dead — both Black and white.\n\nHere in Bothaville, where thousands of farmers gathered for a lively agricultural fair with everything from grains to guns on display, even some conservative white Afrikaner groups denied the Trump administration's \"genocide\" and land seizure claims that led it to cut all financial aid to South Africa.\n\nThe bustling scene was business as usual, with milkshakes and burgers and tow-headed children pulled in wagons.\n\nThe late President Nelson Mandela — South Africa's first Black leader — stood in Bothaville over a quarter-century ago and acknowledged the increasing number of violent attacks on farmers in the first years following the decades-long racial segregation system of apartheid. \"But the complex problem of crime on our farms, as elsewhere, demands long-term solutions,\" he said.\n\nSome at the agricultural fair said fleeing the country isn't one of them.\n\n\"I really hope that during the upcoming visit to Washington, (President Cyril Ramaphosa) is going to be able to put the facts before his counterpart and to demonstrate that there is no mass expropriation of land taking place in South Africa, and there is no genocide taking place,\" John Steenhuisen, minister of agriculture, told The Associated Press. He will be part of the delegation for Wednesday's meeting.\n\nThe minority white Afrikaner community is in the spotlight after the U.S. granted refugee status to at least 49 Afrikaners claiming to flee racial and violent persecution and widespread seizures of white-owned land — despite evidence that such claims are untrue.\n\nWhile many at the agricultural fair raised serious concerns about the safety of farmers and farm workers, others were quick to point out that crime targeted both Black and white farmers and farm workers, as shown by South Africa's crime statistics.\n\nThobani Ntonga, a Black farmer from Eastern Cape province, told the AP he had been attacked on his farm by criminals and almost kidnapped but a Black neighbor intervened.\n\n\"Crime affects both Black and white. ... It's an issue of vulnerability,\" he said. \"Farmers are separated from your general public. We're not near towns, we are in the rural areas. And I think it's exactly that. So, perpetrators, they thrive on that, on the fact that farms are isolated.\"\n\nWhite farmers echoed his thoughts and called for more resources and policing — but said there wasn't any genocide that would make them flee South Africa.\n\n\"Crime especially hits small-scale farmers worse because they don't have resources for private security,\" said Afrikaner farmer Willem de Chavonnes Vrugt. He and other farmers wondered why they would leave the land where they have been rooted for decades.\n\n\"We are not interested in going anywhere,\" he added. \"The thing we want to do is be part of this country.\"\n\nRamaphosa, himself a cattle farmer, also visited the agricultural fair for the first time in about 20 years — to buy equipment but also do outreach as many in South Africa puzzle over the Trump administration's focus on their country.\n\n\"We must not run away from our problems,\" the president said during his visit. \"When you run away, you're a coward.\"\n\n## Applying to be a refugee\n\nThe fast-tracking of the Afrikaners' refugee applications has raised questions about a system where many seeking asylum in the U.S. can languish for years, waiting.\n\nThe State Department has not made details of the process public, but one person who has applied to be resettled told the AP the online application process was \"rigorous.\"\n\nKatia Beeden, a member of an advocacy group established to assist white South Africans seeking resettlement, said applicants have to go through at least three online interviews and answer questions about their health and criminal background.\n\nThey are also required to submit information or proof of being persecuted in South Africa, she said. She said she has been robbed in her house, with robbers locking her in her bedroom.\n\n\"They've already warned that you can't lie or hide anything from them. So it's quite a thorough process and not everyone is guaranteed,\" she said.\n\n## By the numbers\n\nViolent crime is rife in South Africa, but experts say the vast majority of victims are Black and poor. Police statistics show that up to 75 people are killed daily across the country.\n\nAfrikaner agriculture union TLU SA says it believes farmers are more susceptible to such attacks because of their isolation.\n\nTwelve murders occurred on farms in 2024, police statistics show. One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on farms and a security guard. The data don't reflect the victims' race.\n\nOverall across South Africa last year, 6,953 people were killed.\n\nGovernment data also show that white farmers own the vast majority of South Africa's farmland — 80% of it, according to the 2017 census of commercial agriculture, which recorded over 40,000 white farmers.\n\nThat data, however, only reflects farmers who have revenue of $55,396 a year, which excludes many small-scale farmers, the majority of them Black.\n\nOverall, the white minority — just 7% of the population is white — still owns the vast majority of the land in South Africa, which the World Bank has called \"the most unequal country in the world.\"\n\nAccording to the 2017 government land audit, white South Africans hold about 72% of individually owned land — while Black South Africans own 15%." } ]
41812e13e2c616f7aadfb89935c8a37d416e780de870d68c9c67ab7ad10b7ae1	false	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Hundreds of flights delayed by runway equipment issue at Atlanta airport\n\nMay 11th, 2025, 05:18 PM\n\n---\n\nATLANTA (AP) — Hundreds of flights have been delayed at Atlanta's airport — one of the world's busiest — on Sunday because of a runway equipment issue.\n\nThe Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it has temporarily slowed arrivals into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, while technicians work to address the problem.\n\nAs of 1 p.m. EDT, more than 200 departure flights were delayed, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. More than 250 incoming flights were also delayed." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Hundreds of flights delayed by runway equipment issue at Atlanta airport\n\nMay 11th, 2025, 05:18 PM\n\n---\n\nATLANTA (AP) — Hundreds of flights have been delayed at Atlanta's airport — one of the world's busiest — on Sunday because of a runway equipment issue.\n\nThe Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that it has temporarily slowed arrivals into Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, while technicians work to address the problem.\n\nAs of 1 p.m. EDT, more than 200 departure flights were delayed, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. More than 250 incoming flights were also delayed." } ]
057236a6b752f6483d67100f01a20f223de88f1c64e8287f2ca6986fd5b83817	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# Rubio takes on 2 top national security roles\n\nBy Matthew Lee and Farnoush Amiri \nMay 2nd, 2025, 04:07 AM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been thrown into two top national security jobs at once as President Donald Trump presses forward with his top-to-bottom revamp of U.S. foreign policy, upending not only longstanding policies that the former Florida senator once supported but also the configuration of the executive branch.\n\nTrump's appointment of Rubio to temporarily replace Mike Waltz as national security adviser is the first major leadership shake-up of the nascent administration, but Waltz's removal had been rumored for weeks — ever since he created a Signal group chat and accidentally added a journalist to the conversation where top national security officials shared sensitive military plans.\n\nSo, just over 100 days into his tenure as America's top diplomat, Rubio now becomes just the second person to hold both positions. He follows only the late Henry Kissinger, who served as both secretary of state and national security adviser for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s.\n\nRubio — a one-time Trump rival and hawkish conservative who was derided by the president as \"Little Marco\" during the 2016 presidential campaign — has proven adept at aligning himself with Trump's \"America First\" foreign policy positions. Rubio has largely eschewed his staunch advocacy of providing foreign aid and promoting democracy overseas since taking over the State Department, repeating a refrain that every policy or program should make America safer, stronger or more prosperous.\n\n## Rubio leads during Trump's massive changes\n\nSince being confirmed in a 99-0 Senate floor vote, Rubio has presided over a radical reorganization of the State Department. That includes the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and plans to cut U.S. jobs by 15% while closing or consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide. He has also begun a major cull of the visa system, revoking hundreds, if not thousands, of visas issued to foreign students.\n\nHe has overseen the negotiation of agreements to send immigrants accused of crimes to third countries, most notably to El Salvador, in cases that are now being challenged in federal courts.\n\n\"Marco Rubio, unbelievable,\" Trump said Thursday before announcing on social media that Waltz would be nominated as ambassador to the United Nations and Rubio would take over as national security adviser in the interim. \"When I have a problem, I call up Marco, he gets it solved.\"\n\nThat's a far cry from 2016, when Rubio and Trump were competing for the GOP presidential nomination and Rubio warned that Trump was a threat. After Trump won, the relationship remained contentious, but eight years later, Rubio was an enthusiastic Trump supporter who worked his Florida bona fides to get into the president's inner circle.\n\nYet, even after Rubio was nominated to the top diplomatic job, doubts remained. Many pundits suggested he would last only a short time in office before Trump dismissed him in the same way he did his first-term secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who was fired by tweet in 2018 just 18 months into the job.\n\nYet Rubio has been resilient. And as of Thursday, he oversees both the State Department and the National Security Council, which is responsible for coordinating all executive branch foreign policy functions, ranging from diplomatic to military and intelligence operations.\n\nThomas Wright, an NSC official during the Biden administration who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the national security adviser post alone is \"more than a full-time job.\"\n\n\"It is just very hard to comprehend the idea that you can do this job sort of part time,\" Wright said.\n\nHe said he watched national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy work 14-15 hour days, six to seven days a week: \"I think they felt that they had to do that to do the job properly.\"\n\n## Rubio says little so far on his additional role\n\nAppearing Thursday night on Fox News Channel's \"Hannity,\" Rubio was not asked to weigh in on the president's decision to tap him as national security adviser but did joke that he was barred from adding pope to his list of many jobs because he is married.\n\nBut as he marked the first 100 days of Trump's latest term, Rubio applauded the president for his vision.\n\n\"I am honored by the trust President Trump placed in me and I am proud of the work the Department of State has done over the past hundred days to implement his agenda and put the American people first,\" he wrote Wednesday in a State Department Substack post.\n\nOne of Rubio's former Florida statehouse colleagues, Dan Gelber, a Democrat, said of Rubio's increasing responsibilities that \"Marco is probably, to a certain extent, one of the more reliable Cabinet officers, if not the most reliable.\"\n\n\"And I can only believe those qualities are even more vital to his current confluence of positions and growing portfolio,\" Gelber said. \"He's not a chaos guy, and I've always sort of wondered how he's going to do in an administration where there seems to be so much chaos. And maybe that's why he's getting all these positions.\"\n\nRubio's dual-hatted role comes on top of him serving as acting administrator of the largely shut down USAID and as acting head of the National Archives. It puts him in a similar position to that of Trump's longtime personal friend and golfing buddy Steve Witkoff.\n\nAs a special envoy, Witkoff is the lead U.S. negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks and in administration peace efforts for the Israel-Hamas war and the Ukraine-Russia war.\n\nIn many ways, Rubio and Witkoff are following in the footsteps of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had multiple roles in the first administration, ranging from the Middle East to Latin America and immigration.\n\n## How Rubio's expanded duties are seen at the State Department\n\nState Department officials appeared taken aback by Trump's appointment of Rubio as acting national security adviser. Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said at a briefing Thursday that she learned the news from a journalist who asked her a question about Trump's post minutes after it appeared on social media.\n\nOfficials, however, have noted that Rubio in recent weeks has spent an increasingly large amount of time at the White House away from his posh seventh-floor State Department office in what is known as \"Mahogany Row,\" a corridor known for its wood paneling.\n\nAt the same time, these officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel shift, said they did not expect Rubio's duties as secretary of state to change significantly. He still plans to travel on diplomatic missions abroad and likely will delegate at least some of the NSC management to others, they said.\n\n____\n\nAmiri reported from the United Nations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# Rubio takes on 2 top national security roles\n\nBy Matthew Lee and Farnoush Amiri \nMay 2nd, 2025, 04:07 AM\n\n---\n\nWASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been thrown into two top national security jobs at once as President Donald Trump presses forward with his top-to-bottom revamp of U.S. foreign policy, upending not only longstanding policies that the former Florida senator once supported but also the configuration of the executive branch.\n\nTrump's appointment of Rubio to temporarily replace Mike Waltz as national security adviser is the first major leadership shake-up of the nascent administration, but Waltz's removal had been rumored for weeks — ever since he created a Signal group chat and accidentally added a journalist to the conversation where top national security officials shared sensitive military plans.\n\nSo, just over 100 days into his tenure as America's top diplomat, Rubio now becomes just the second person to hold both positions. He follows only the late Henry Kissinger, who served as both secretary of state and national security adviser for two years under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970s.\n\nRubio — a one-time Trump rival and hawkish conservative who was derided by the president as \"Little Marco\" during the 2016 presidential campaign — has proven adept at aligning himself with Trump's \"America First\" foreign policy positions. Rubio has largely eschewed his staunch advocacy of providing foreign aid and promoting democracy overseas since taking over the State Department, repeating a refrain that every policy or program should make America safer, stronger or more prosperous.\n\n## Rubio leads during Trump's massive changes\n\nSince being confirmed in a 99-0 Senate floor vote, Rubio has presided over a radical reorganization of the State Department. That includes the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and plans to cut U.S. jobs by 15% while closing or consolidating more than 100 bureaus worldwide. He has also begun a major cull of the visa system, revoking hundreds, if not thousands, of visas issued to foreign students.\n\nHe has overseen the negotiation of agreements to send immigrants accused of crimes to third countries, most notably to El Salvador, in cases that are now being challenged in federal courts.\n\n\"Marco Rubio, unbelievable,\" Trump said Thursday before announcing on social media that Waltz would be nominated as ambassador to the United Nations and Rubio would take over as national security adviser in the interim. \"When I have a problem, I call up Marco, he gets it solved.\"\n\nThat's a far cry from 2016, when Rubio and Trump were competing for the GOP presidential nomination and Rubio warned that Trump was a threat. After Trump won, the relationship remained contentious, but eight years later, Rubio was an enthusiastic Trump supporter who worked his Florida bona fides to get into the president's inner circle.\n\nYet, even after Rubio was nominated to the top diplomatic job, doubts remained. Many pundits suggested he would last only a short time in office before Trump dismissed him in the same way he did his first-term secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, who was fired by tweet in 2018 just 18 months into the job.\n\nYet Rubio has been resilient. And as of Thursday, he oversees both the State Department and the National Security Council, which is responsible for coordinating all executive branch foreign policy functions, ranging from diplomatic to military and intelligence operations.\n\nThomas Wright, an NSC official during the Biden administration who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the national security adviser post alone is \"more than a full-time job.\"\n\n\"It is just very hard to comprehend the idea that you can do this job sort of part time,\" Wright said.\n\nHe said he watched national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy work 14-15 hour days, six to seven days a week: \"I think they felt that they had to do that to do the job properly.\"\n\n## Rubio says little so far on his additional role\n\nAppearing Thursday night on Fox News Channel's \"Hannity,\" Rubio was not asked to weigh in on the president's decision to tap him as national security adviser but did joke that he was barred from adding pope to his list of many jobs because he is married.\n\nBut as he marked the first 100 days of Trump's latest term, Rubio applauded the president for his vision.\n\n\"I am honored by the trust President Trump placed in me and I am proud of the work the Department of State has done over the past hundred days to implement his agenda and put the American people first,\" he wrote Wednesday in a State Department Substack post.\n\nOne of Rubio's former Florida statehouse colleagues, Dan Gelber, a Democrat, said of Rubio's increasing responsibilities that \"Marco is probably, to a certain extent, one of the more reliable Cabinet officers, if not the most reliable.\"\n\n\"And I can only believe those qualities are even more vital to his current confluence of positions and growing portfolio,\" Gelber said. \"He's not a chaos guy, and I've always sort of wondered how he's going to do in an administration where there seems to be so much chaos. And maybe that's why he's getting all these positions.\"\n\nRubio's dual-hatted role comes on top of him serving as acting administrator of the largely shut down USAID and as acting head of the National Archives. It puts him in a similar position to that of Trump's longtime personal friend and golfing buddy Steve Witkoff.\n\nAs a special envoy, Witkoff is the lead U.S. negotiator in the Iran nuclear talks and in administration peace efforts for the Israel-Hamas war and the Ukraine-Russia war.\n\nIn many ways, Rubio and Witkoff are following in the footsteps of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had multiple roles in the first administration, ranging from the Middle East to Latin America and immigration.\n\n## How Rubio's expanded duties are seen at the State Department\n\nState Department officials appeared taken aback by Trump's appointment of Rubio as acting national security adviser. Spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said at a briefing Thursday that she learned the news from a journalist who asked her a question about Trump's post minutes after it appeared on social media.\n\nOfficials, however, have noted that Rubio in recent weeks has spent an increasingly large amount of time at the White House away from his posh seventh-floor State Department office in what is known as \"Mahogany Row,\" a corridor known for its wood paneling.\n\nAt the same time, these officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel shift, said they did not expect Rubio's duties as secretary of state to change significantly. He still plans to travel on diplomatic missions abroad and likely will delegate at least some of the NSC management to others, they said." } ]
fd828789909483a9a2f98e5c9d22a8b7bff2e1f8ff226abcbcf0a9d8a7c00790	true	[ { "from": "human", "value": "# 'Home of the American Circus' review: Allison Larkin's heartfelt story of small-town America\n\nBy Donna Edwards \nMay 12th, 2025, 01:57 PM\n\n---\n\nA heartfelt presentation of small-town American life and the joys and struggles that go with it, \"Home of the American Circus\" centers on Freya who, at 30, must move back home and deal with the house her parents left her. As she addresses the neglected property, Freya faces memories of childhood neglect.\n\nAllison Larkin keeps her fifth novel close to home, set mostly in Somers, New York, where she was born. The title refers to the town, which boasts itself as the birthplace of the American circus. The novel is interspersed with snippets from a school paper on the history of Old Bet — the elephant whose statue marks the town center — and the more famous keeper of said elephant.\n\nThese asides challenge the spottiness of the historical record, reflecting the way Freya relates to Bet as someone whom history is not concerned with, when her tormentors get to write their own version of what happened.\n\nFlashbacks reveal a cascade of abuses suffered at the hands of her family, and seemingly gone unnoticed by the community. The present tense helps differentiate current happenings — with the novel starting in 2007 — from trips down memory lane that crop up as the town's people and places are introduced, stirring up the past like mud in a pond.\n\nThe silver lining: Somers has Freya's beloved niece, Aubrey, whom she hasn't seen in a decade since she left town. The exceptionally written, touching connection between these two characters is, by itself, worth picking up the novel.\n\nLarkin abandons the typical story arc in favor of a more naturally flowing up-and-down journey that basks in beautiful moments like a slice-of-life story. Whether it's banter at the bar Freya's working or a leaking roof that is simply one more thing than she can possibly handle right now, the characters and their experiences are so real and pure that their joys and sorrows are amplified tenfold.\n\nAs the novel progresses and Freya starts to rebuild her life in Somers, we learn bit by bit the horrific events that led to her departure.\n\nReconnecting with childhood friends, avoiding the demons of her past, and navigating an entirely new level of adulthood via being thrust into homeownership, \"Home of the American Circus\" is Freya's journey of empowerment, to reclaim her life and the people and things she holds most dear; to recognize her own resilience and inherent self-worth. Larkin builds a robust picture of Freya's life, her family, and a small American town home to a circus elephant.\n\n___\n\nAP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "# 'Home of the American Circus' review: Allison Larkin's heartfelt story of small-town America\n\nBy Donna Edwards \nMay 12th, 2025, 01:57 PM\n\n---\n\nA heartfelt presentation of small-town American life and the joys and struggles that go with it, \"Home of the American Circus\" centers on Freya who, at 30, must move back home and deal with the house her parents left her. As she addresses the neglected property, Freya faces memories of childhood neglect.\n\nAllison Larkin keeps her fifth novel close to home, set mostly in Somers, New York, where she was born. The title refers to the town, which boasts itself as the birthplace of the American circus. The novel is interspersed with snippets from a school paper on the history of Old Bet — the elephant whose statue marks the town center — and the more famous keeper of said elephant.\n\nThese asides challenge the spottiness of the historical record, reflecting the way Freya relates to Bet as someone whom history is not concerned with, when her tormentors get to write their own version of what happened.\n\nFlashbacks reveal a cascade of abuses suffered at the hands of her family, and seemingly gone unnoticed by the community. The present tense helps differentiate current happenings — with the novel starting in 2007 — from trips down memory lane that crop up as the town's people and places are introduced, stirring up the past like mud in a pond.\n\nThe silver lining: Somers has Freya's beloved niece, Aubrey, whom she hasn't seen in a decade since she left town. The exceptionally written, touching connection between these two characters is, by itself, worth picking up the novel.\n\nLarkin abandons the typical story arc in favor of a more naturally flowing up-and-down journey that basks in beautiful moments like a slice-of-life story. Whether it's banter at the bar Freya's working or a leaking roof that is simply one more thing than she can possibly handle right now, the characters and their experiences are so real and pure that their joys and sorrows are amplified tenfold.\n\nAs the novel progresses and Freya starts to rebuild her life in Somers, we learn bit by bit the horrific events that led to her departure.\n\nReconnecting with childhood friends, avoiding the demons of her past, and navigating an entirely new level of adulthood via being thrust into homeownership, \"Home of the American Circus\" is Freya's journey of empowerment, to reclaim her life and the people and things she holds most dear; to recognize her own resilience and inherent self-worth. Larkin builds a robust picture of Freya's life, her family, and a small American town home to a circus elephant." } ]

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