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  • North Korean charged in cyberattacks on US hospitals, NASA and military bases

    North Korean charged in cyberattacks on US hospitals, NASA and military bases

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    KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A North Korean military intelligence operative has been indicted in a conspiracy to hack into American health care providers, NASA, U.S. military bases and international entities, stealing sensitive information and installing ransomware to fund more attacks, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

    The indictment of Rim Jong Hyok by a grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, accuses him of laundering the money through a Chinese bank and then using it to buy computer servers and fund more cyberattacks on defense, technology and government entities around the world.

    The hacks on American hospitals and other health care providers disrupted the treatment of patients, officials said. He’s accused of targeting 17 entities across 11 U.S. states, including NASA and U.S. military bases, as well as defense and energy companies in China, Taiwan and South Korea.

    For more than three months, Rim and other members of the Andariel Unit of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau had access to NASA’s computer system, extracting over 17 gigabytes of unclassified data, the indictment says. They also reached inside computer systems for defense companies in Michigan and California, as well as Randolph Air Force base in Texas and Robins Air Force base in Georgia, authorities say.

    The malware enabled the state-sponsored Andariel group to send stolen information to North Korean military intelligence, furthering the country’s military and nuclear aspirations, federal prosecutors said. They’ve gone after details of fighter aircraft, missile defense systems, satellite communications and radar systems, a senior FBI official said.

    “While North Korea uses these types of cyber crimes to circumvent international sanctions and fund its political and military ambitions, the impact of these wanton acts have a direct impact on the citizens of Kansas,” said Stephen A. Cyrus, an FBI agent based in Kansas City.

    Online court records do not list an attorney for Rim, who has lived in North Korea and worked at the military intelligence agency’s offices in both Pyongyang and Sinuiju, according to court records. A reward of up to $10 million has been offered for information that could lead to him or other foreign government operatives who target critical U.S. infrastructure.

    The Justice Department has prosecuted multiple cases related to North Korean hacking, often alleging a profit-driven motive that sets the nation’s cybercriminals apart from hackers in Russia and China. In 2021, for instance, the department charged three North Korean computer programmers in a broad range of hacks including a destructive attack targeting an American movie studio and the attempted theft and extortion of more than $1.3 billion from banks and companies around the world.

    In this case, the FBI was alerted by a Kansas medical center that was hit in May 2021. Hackers had encrypted its files and servers, blocking access to patient files, laboratory test results and computers needed to operate hospital equipment. A Colorado health care provider was affected by the same Maui ransomware variant.

    A ransom note sent to the Kansas hospital demanded Bitcoin payments valued then at about $100,000, to be sent to a cryptocurrency address.

    “Otherwise all of your files will be posted in the Internet which may lead you to loss of reputation and cause the troubles for your business,” the note reads. “Please do not waste your time! You have 48 hours only! After that the Main server will double your price.”

    Federal investigators said they traced blockchains to follow the money: An unnamed co-conspirator transferred the Bitcoin to a virtual currency address belonging to two Hong Kong residents before it was converted into Chinese currency and transferred to a Chinese bank. The money was then accessed from an ATM in China next to the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge connecting China and North Korea, according to court records.

    In 2022, the Justice Department said the FBI seized approximately $500,000 in ransom payments from the money laundering accounts, including the entire ransom payment from the hospital.

    An arrest of Rim is unlikely, so the biggest outcome of the indictment is that it may lead to sanctions that could cripple the ability of North Korea to collect ransoms this way, which could in turn remove the motivation to conduct cyber attacks on entities like hospitals in the future, according to Allan Liska, an analyst with the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

    “Now, unfortunately, that will force them to do more cryptocurrency theft. So it’s not going to stop their activity. But the hope is that we won’t have hospitals disrupted by ransomware attacks because they’ll know that they can’t get paid,” Liska said.

    He also noted that a Chinese entity was among the victims and questioned what the country, which is an ally of North Korea, thinks of being targeted.

    “China can’t be too thrilled about that,” he said.

    ___

    Goldberg reported from Minneapolis. Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington, D.C.

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  • ‘Twisters’ tears through Oklahoma on the big screen. Moviegoers in the state are buying up tickets

    ‘Twisters’ tears through Oklahoma on the big screen. Moviegoers in the state are buying up tickets

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    MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Grace Evans lived through one of the most powerful and deadly twisters in Oklahoma history: a roaring top-of-the-scale terror in 2013 that plowed through homes, tore through a school and killed 24 people in the small suburb of Moore.

    A hospital and bowling alley were also destroyed. But not the movie theater next door — where almost a decade later, Evans and her teenage daughter this week felt no pause buying two tickets to a showing of the blockbuster “Twisters.”

    “I was looking for that element of excitement and I guess drama and danger,” Evans said.

    Her daughter also walked out a fan. “It was very realistic. I was definitely frightened,” said Charis Evans, 15.

    The smash success of “Twisters” has whipped up moviegoers in Oklahoma who are embracing the summer hit, including in towns scarred by deadly real-life tornadoes. Even long before it hit theaters, Oklahoma officials had rolled out the red carpet for makers of the film, authorizing what is likely to wind up being millions of dollars in incentives to film in the state.

    In its opening weekend, the action-packed film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell generated $80.5 million from more than 4,150 theaters in North America. Some of the largest audiences have been in the tornado-prone Midwest.

    The top-performing theater in the country on opening weekend was the Regal Warren in Moore, which screened the film in 10 of its 17 auditoriums on opening weekend from 9 a.m. to midnight. John Stephens, the theater’s general manager, said many moviegoers mentioned wanting to see the film in a theater that survived a massive tornado.

    “The people who live in Tornado Alley have a certain defiance towards mother nature,” he said, “almost like a passion to fight storms, which was depicted by the characters in ‘Twisters.’”

    Lee Isaac Chung, who directed the film, considered placing the movie in Oklahoma to be critically important.

    “I told everyone this is something that we have to do. We can’t just have blue screens,” Chung told the AP earlier this year. “We’ve got to be out there on the roads with our pickup trucks and in the green environments where this story actually takes place.”

    The film was shot at locations across Oklahoma, with the studio taking advantage of a rebate incentive in which the state directly reimburses production companies for up to 30% of qualifying expenditures, including labor.

    State officials said the exact amount of money Oklahoma spent on “Twisters” is still being calculated. But the film is exactly the kind of blockbuster Sooner State policymakers envisioned when they increased the amount available for the program in 2021 from $8 million annually to $30 million, said Jeanette Stanton, director of Oklahoma’s Film and Music Office.

    Among the major films and television series that took advantage of Oklahoma’s film incentives in recent years were “Reagan” ($6.1 million), “Killers of the Flower Moon” ($12.4 million), and the television shows “Reservoir Dogs” ($13 million) and “Tulsa King” ($14.1 million).

    Stanton said she’s not surprised by the success of “Twisters,” particularly in Oklahoma.

    “You love seeing your state on the big screen, and I think for locals across the state, when they see that El Reno water tower falling down, they think: ‘I know where that is!’” she said.

    “It’s almost as if Oklahoma was a character in the film,” she added.

    In the northeast Oklahoma community of Barnsdall, where two people were killed and more than 80 homes were destroyed by a tornado in May, Mayor Johnny Kelley said he expects most residents will embrace the film.

    “Some will and some won’t. Things affect people differently, you know?” said Kelley, who is a firefighter in nearby Bartlesville. “I really don’t ever go to the movies or watch TV, but I might go see that one.”

    ___

    Follow Sean Murphy at www.x.com/apseanmurphy

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  • Northern Wyoming plane crash causes fatalities, sparks wildfire

    Northern Wyoming plane crash causes fatalities, sparks wildfire

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    GILLETTE, Wyo. (AP) — A plane crash in a remote area of northeastern Wyoming caused an unspecified number of fatalities and sparked a wildfire, authorities said Friday.

    The plane crashed at about 1 p.m. north of the town of Gillette near the Wyoming state line, Campbell County officials said in a social media post. The number of fatalities was not immediately released.

    A distress signal was sent out by the plane before the crash, Campbell County Undersheriff Quentin Reynolds told the Gillette News Record. Callers later reported seeing smoke columns rising into the air near the suspected crash site, he said.

    The wildfire that resulted from the crash was being suppressed using aircraft, heavy equipment and engine crews, officials said.

    The National Transportation Safety Board was dispatching a team to investigate, local officials said.

    Federal investigators were not yet on the scene of the remote crash site as of Friday evening, NTSB spokesperson Keith Holloway said. More information was expected to be released Saturday.

    A spokesperson for Campbell County could not be reached immediately for further comment.

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  • Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

    Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

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    ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — As the presidential campaign enters a critical final 100 day stretch, Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, rallied supporters on Saturday in a state that hasn’t backed a GOP candidate for the White House since 1972.

    The rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was designed as a sign of the campaign’s bullishness about its prospects across the Midwest, particularly when President Joe Biden was showing signs of weakness ahead of his decision to exit the campaign. Trump, who won Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to lose them four years later, has increasingly focused on Minnesota as a state where he’d like to put Democrats on defense.

    The rally is something of a gamble, potentially forcing the likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats to devote resources in a state they would likely otherwise ignore. But it could also be a risk for Trump if he spends time in places that might prove to be a reach with Harris leading the ticket when he could otherwise focus on maintaining his support in more traditional battlegrounds.

    Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half to cheering crowds holding signs supporting police and calling for the deportation of migrants in the country illegally. He continued a pattern of escalating attacks against Harris on immigration and crime.

    He called her a “crazy liberal” and accused her of wanting to “defund the police,” while he said by contrast, he wants to “overfund the police.”

    “She has no clue, she’s evil,” Trump said, suggesting Harris had failed at her tasks related to the border as vice president. “Kamala Harris’ deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying for her to be president.”

    Trump called out Harris for a 2020 post she made after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police. The post had encouraged people to help protesters by donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which had been working on reforming the bail system and posted criminal bail for people as part of a campaign to address inequities in the system.

    Though Harris did not contribute to the fund herself, her tweet was among those from celebrities and high-profile people that helped donations flow into the cash-strapped nonprofit, helping it quickly raise $34 million. In the immediate aftermath of the protests and unrest, the group actually spent little bailing out protesters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, called Trump’s attack line “a desperate lie from a desperate campaign” that can’t change the fact that its candidate has been convicted of multiple felonies.

    Trump also knocked Harris as an “absolute radical” on abortion, seemingly sensing an opening to attack her on the issue after she has become the Biden administration’s most vocal proponent of abortion rights. He wrongly suggested Harris wants abortion “right up until birth and after birth.” Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

    Yet the former president also recycled much of his past material targeting Biden, showing how his campaign has sought to keep Biden’s pitfalls fresh in voters’ minds even after the president has ended his candidacy and endorsed Harris.

    Trump’s remarks followed a spirited speech from Vance, in which he leaned heavily into issues that animate the GOP base, particularly security at the U.S.-Mexico border and crime. He also took a broadside against the news media, arguing that journalists were comparing the first Black woman and person of south Asian descent to lead a major party ticket to Martin Luther King, Jr.

    In May, Trump headlined a GOP fundraiser in St. Paul, where he boasted he could win the state and made explicit appeals to the iron-mining range in northeast Minnesota, where he hopes a heavy population of blue-collar and union workers will shift to Republicans after years of being solidly Democratic.

    Appealing to that population has also helped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz land on the list of about a dozen Democrats who are being vetted to potentially be Harris’ running mate.

    Walz posted on the social platform X on Friday poking fun at Trump’s visit to his state.

    “Donald Trump is coming back to the State of Hockey tomorrow for the hat trick,” Walz wrote. “He lost Minnesota in ’16, ’20, and he’ll lose it again in ’24.”

    Saturday’s rally took place at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, a 5,159-seat hockey arena. After surviving the July 13 assassination attempt on him at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump has only had events at indoor venues. But he said in a post on his social media network Saturday that he will schedule outdoor stops and the “SECRET SERVICE HAS AGREED TO SUBSTANTIALLY STEP UP THEIR OPERATION.”

    Secret Service officials would not say whether the agency had agreed to expand operations at Trump’s campaign events or had any concerns about him potentially resuming outdoor gatherings. “Ensuring the safety and security of our protectees is our highest priority,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Saturday. “In the interest of maintaining operational integrity, we are not able to comment on specifics of our protective means or methods.”

    Earlier Saturday, Trump spoke at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, laying out a plan to embrace cryptocurrency if elected and promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and a “bitcoin superpower.”

    Trump didn’t always support cryptocurrency but has changed his attitude toward the digital tokens in recent years and in May, his campaign started accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

    Also Saturday, Harris ramped up her campaign for president with her first fundraiser since becoming the Democrats’ likely White House nominee.

    The event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday was expected to raise more than $1.4 million, her campaign announced, from an audience of hundreds at the Colonial Theatre. That would be $1 million-plus more than the original goal set for the event before Biden dropped out of the race.

    ___

    Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Brian Slodysko in Washington and Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Robert Downey Jr. is returning to ‘Avengers’ films as a villain in 1 of Marvel’s Comic-Con twists

    Robert Downey Jr. is returning to ‘Avengers’ films as a villain in 1 of Marvel’s Comic-Con twists

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    SAN DIEGO (AP) — Marvel Studios returned to San Diego Comic-Con with dancing Deadpool variants and a choir for a panel that included news about the next two “Avengers” films and surprise guests, including Harrison Ford and Robert Downey Jr.

    Downey is returning to Marvel’s films, but not as Iron Man. He’ll play the villain Victor Von Doom, or Doctor Doom, in at least one of the upcoming “Avengers” movies. Downey kicked off Marvel’s movie successes in “Iron Man” and played the popular character in nine films, but on Saturday appeared wearing Dr. Doom’s mask and a green cloak.

    “New mask, same task,” Downey said to frenzied cheers.

    The Russo brothers, who will be directing the movie featuring Downey, said his appearance in the film is “proof of the unimaginable possibilities in the Marvel multi-universe.”

    The reveal capped a jubilant return by Marvel to Comic-Con’s Hall H.

    Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige kicked off the panel by saying that due to this weekend’s success of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe had now topped $30 billion in box-office earnings. In a nod to a scene in the movie, a choir sang Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” before Feige spoke.

    “Deadpool & Wolverine,” released Thursday, has already broken one record and could shatter more in its opening weekend. Feige used Saturday’s panel to chart the course ahead for the MCU, revealing Ford’s character in the next “Captain America” film and revealing “Avengers: Secret Wars and “Avengers: Doomsday” as the titles of the next two films in the epic superhero team-up series. “Doomsday” will hit theaters in 2026.

    Feige said all the actors introduced Saturday would appear in the upcoming “Avengers” movies, which will be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo. The brothers guided the “Avengers” franchise through its sprawling storyline capped by “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019 that included the death of Downey’s Tony Stark/Iron Man character.

    “When we directed ”Avengers: Endgame,” Joe and I truly believed that it was the end of the road for us in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because we had put all of our passion, our love, our imagination into “The Winter Soldier,” into “Civil War,” into “Infinity War,” climaxing all of it with “Avengers: Endgame,” Anthony Russo said. “That four movie run was incredible and it left us creatively spent with all of our emotions on the film. In the time since, through a very special story, Joe and I have come to potentially see a road forward with you.”

    They called “Secret Wars” the “biggest story that Marvel Comics ever told,” and Joe said it was the first comic book run he read as a child that made him “fall in love with comics.”

    Saturday’s session comes after Marvel skipped the convention last year due to the Hollywood strikes, which prevented writers and actors from speaking on panels.

    The cast of “Captain America: Brave New World” — Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, Danny Ramirez and Anthony Mackie — joined the stage first and teased details about the upcoming film. Esposito revealed that he will be playing the villain, Seth Voelker, also known as Sidewinder.

    When asked about what it was like to join a Marvel project, Esposito said it was a “dream come true.

    “When your dreams come true and you get the call, you walk through the door,” he continued. “I have a great deal of gratitude for all the fans who really had this dream come true, because it was fan casting that linked us together.”

    The cast then stepped aside to share a scene from the movie on the big screen, which revealed that President Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, played by Ford, is hoping to rebuild the Avengers with Mackie’s Sam Wilson. It also showed Ford’s character transform into the Red Hulk.

    Ford joined the panel after fans were treated to clips from the movie and flexed his muscles to the roaring crowd. He also expressed excitement over his latest role, saying, “I am delighted, and proud to become a member of the Marvel Universe.”

    The cast and director of “Thunderbolts(asterisk)” also surprised fans with a short clip from the movie. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan and David Harbour (in full costume and speaking in character as the Red Guardian at first) stormed the stage and shared some more details about their characters.

    The film is slated to be released in May 2025.

    The final film teased at the panel was “The Fantastic Four,” starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. The movie will begin filming on Tuesday in London, Feige said.

    He said the film will hit theaters in almost exactly one year in July 2025.

    Following a video director Matt Shakman created specifically for Comic-Con that featured the cast in full ’60s glory, he and Feige revealed the official title of the film, “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

    The session included no mention of Jonathan Majors, who played the villain Kang the Conqueror and was previously a major part of Marvel’s “Avengers” plans. The actor was fired by the studio after he was convicted in December of assaulting a former girlfriend. He was sentenced to a yearlong counseling program in April and avoided jail time.

    Marvel already took over Hall H on Thursday with an electric panel celebrating “Deadpool & Wolverine,” in which the audience was treated to a full screening and surprise guests joining stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman on stage.

    The mounting enthusiasm for the film at Comic-Con was reflected across the country as the fans rushed to see it in theaters, securing the film as the new record holder for the Thursday preview for an R-rated movie. The comic book film sold an estimated $38.5 million worth of movie tickets from preview screenings Thursday.

    The “Deadpool & Wolverine” success woke up a sleepy year for Marvel and assuaged worries about its box-office underperformance in late 2023. The superhero factory hit a record low in November with the launch of “The Marvels,” which opened with just $47 million.

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  • Homeless people say they will likely return to sites if California clears them under Newsom’s order

    Homeless people say they will likely return to sites if California clears them under Newsom’s order

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three years ago, Joel Hernandez built a small wooden shack under the 405 freeway cutting through Los Angeles.

    He had the help of a friend who lives in his own shack, just a few steps down the stairs he painstakingly dug out of the dirt hillside and reinforced with wooden planks.

    Hernandez has had similar homes be cleared in homeless encampment sweeps by state or city authorities over the years, so the 62-year-old is taking in stride that his days in his makeshift shelter on state-owned land might be numbered. California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday issued an executive order directing state agencies to start clearing homeless encampments on state land, including lots under freeways.

    “You get used to it,” Hernandez said. “I have to rebuild it every time.”

    Many people living in these encampments echoed a similar sentiment of quiet resignation. Some simply wonder: Where else is there to go?

    The order comes on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling earlier this summer allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces, even if there are no shelter beds available.

    Newsom’s order directs state agencies to act soon and follow the lead of the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, which has removed 11,188 encampments and more than 248,000 cubic yards (189,600 cubic meters) of debris from these encampments along the state rights of way, mostly freeways and highways, since July 2021. Caltrans oversees much of the land under and near the state’s freeways and highways.

    But most of the time, the people living in those encampments return after officials leave.

    “I haven’t found a better place,” said Hernandez, who has been on the waiting list for a shelter for three years. At least in this spot, he lives close to his friends and gets along with most of the people in the encampment, Hernandez said.

    Hernandez and others admit it is not the safest place to live. A recent fire destroyed many of the shelters in the underpass, leaving the underside of the highway blackened and the area scattered with burnt trash, a broken grill, abandoned shopping carts and more.

    Esca Guernon lives next to the freeway further away from the underpass with her dog, Champion. Sometimes people disturb her tent while she is sleeping or steal her belongings. But she always comes back after an encampment sweep.

    “We have to take what we have, like our bikes or something, and we go over there for them to clean up,” said Guernon, pointing across the street. “I come back, because I don’t know where to go.”

    On Friday, an outreach team from Hope the Mission of Van Nuys, California, handed out cold bottles of water and snacks to Guernon and her friend. They will come back in a few days to begin the intake process and get them on the waiting list for a shelter.

    “For us we’re just building our rapport with them,” said Armando Covarrubias, an outreach team leader with the organization. It can take repeated visits for someone to accept their offer of help, he said.

    Covarrubias said Newsom’s executive order does nothing to reduce the population of homeless people, many who have to remain outside while waiting for a shelter bed.

    “It’s not a solution. It’s not fair for them,” Covarrubias said. “This just puts more stress on them.”

    Newsom and supporters of his order, including many businesses, say the encampments cannot be left to exist because they pose health and safety issues both for homeless people and residents who live nearby.

    His executive order is about “getting the sense of urgency that’s required of local government to do their job,” Newsom said.

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  • ‘Gen Z feels the Kamalove’: Youth-led progressive groups hope Harris will energize young voters

    ‘Gen Z feels the Kamalove’: Youth-led progressive groups hope Harris will energize young voters

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    CHICAGO (AP) — “ Brats for Harris.” “ We need a Kamalanomenon. ” “ Gen Z feels the Kamalove.”

    In the days since President Joe Biden exited the presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, Gen Z voters jumped to social media to share coconut tree and “brat summer” memes — reflecting a stark shift in tone for a generation that’s voiced feeling left behind by the Democratic Party.

    Youth-led progressive organizations have warned for months that Biden had a problem with young voters, pleading with the president to work more closely with them to refocus on the issues most important to younger generations or risk losing their votes. With Biden out of the race, many of these young leaders are now hoping Harris can overcome his faltering support among Gen Z and harness a new explosion of energy among young voters.

    Since last Sunday, statements have poured out from youth-led organizations across the country, including in Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, California, Minnesota, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as leaders thanked Biden for stepping aside and celebrated the opportunity to organize around a new candidate. On Friday, a coalition of 17 youth-led groups endorsed Harris.

    “This changes everything,” said Zo Tobi, director of communication for the Movement Voter Project, a national progressive funding group focusing on youth-led organizations, when he heard the news that Biden was dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris. “The world as it is suddenly shifted into the world as it could be.”

    As the campaign enters a new phase, both Harris and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, are delivering messages aimed at younger voters who could prove decisive in some of the most hotly contested states.

    Harris recorded a brief video message shown Saturday at a conference of Gen Z activists and elected officials in Atlanta.

    “We know young voters will be key, and we know your vote cannot be taken for granted,” Harris told the gathering, highlighting her support for gun safety, abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and action to combat climate change.

    Eve Levenson, the national youth engagement director for Harris’ campaign, attended the conference in Atlanta, and she praised young voters across the country for their response to the vice president’s elevation to likely nominee.

    “As amazing as it is to see the tremendous youth enthusiasm online, what has been even more incredible is how that online energy has already translated into a tangible desire to take action and get involved with our campaign,” she said, citing new voter registrations, small donations from young voters and student requests to help start campus-based campaign organizations.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    • Democracy: American democracy has overcome big stress tests since 2020. More challenges lie ahead in 2024.
    • AP’s Role: The Associated Press is the most trusted source of information on election night, with a history of accuracy dating to 1848. Learn more.
    • Stay informed. Keep your pulse on the news with breaking news email alerts. Sign up here.

    Trump, in his own address Friday in Florida to a conference on faith hosted by Turning Point USA, derided Harris as an “incompetent” and a “far left” vice president. He vowed to champion religious Americans’ causes in a second White House term.

    “With your vote, I will defend religious liberty in all of its forms,” Trump told the conservative group that focuses on high school, college and university campuses. “I will protect Christians in our schools and our military and our government and our workplaces and our hospitals, in our public square and I will also protect other religions.”

    John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, who has worked with Biden, said the “white-hot energy” among young people is something he hasn’t seen since former President Barack Obama’s campaign. While there’s little reliable polling so far, he described the dynamic as “a combination of the hopefulness we saw with Obama and the urgency and fight we saw after the Parkland shooting.”

    In many ways, it was the first time many young people felt heard and felt like their actions could have an impact on politics, he and several young leaders said.

    “It’s reset this election in profound ways,” he said. “People, especially young people, for so long, for so many important reasons have been despondent about politics, despondent about the direction of the country. It’s weighed on them. And then they wake up the next morning, and it seems like everything’s changed.”

    About 6 in 10 adults under 30 voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, but his ratings with the group have dipped substantially since then, with only about a quarter of the group saying they had a favorable opinion of him in the most recent AP-NORC poll, conducted before Biden withdrew from the race.

    That poll, along with polls from The New York Times/Siena and from CNN that were conducted after Biden dropped out, suggest that Harris starts off with somewhat better favorable ratings than Biden among young adults.

    Sunjay Muralitharan, vice president of College Democrats of America, said it felt like a weight was lifted off his chest when Harris entered the race.

    Despite monthly coalition calls between youth-led groups and the Biden campaign, Muralitharan spent months worrying about how Biden would fare among young voters as he watched young people leave organizations such as the College Democrats and Young Democrats to join more leftist groups.

    College Democrats issued statements and social media posts encouraging the party to prioritize young people and to change course on the war in Gaza and have “worked tirelessly to get College Dems programming” at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this summer. But they received limited outreach in return, Muralitharan said.

    A Harris campaign represents an opportunity to move in a new direction, he said. The vice president has shown her vocal support for issues important to young voters such as climate change and reproductive rights, Muralitharan said, adding that she may also be able to change course and distance herself from Biden’s approach to the war in Gaza.

    “The perpetual roadblock we’ve run into is that Biden is the lesser of two evils and his impact on the crisis in Gaza,” he said. “For months, we’ve been given this broken script that’s made it difficult for us to organize young voters. But that changes now.”

    Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Gen Z voter engagement organization Voters of Tomorrow, said the Biden campaign “created an entirely new framework for operating with youth organizations” that can now be transitioned into supporting Harris’ campaign.

    “Gen Z loves VP Harris, and VP Harris loves Gen Z,” he said. “So we’re ready to get to work for her.”

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • Singing, ceremonies and straw hats: Olympics opening ceremony in Tahiti centers Polynesian culture

    Singing, ceremonies and straw hats: Olympics opening ceremony in Tahiti centers Polynesian culture

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    PAPARA, Tahiti (AP) — Tahitian dancers in palm-leaf skirts mingled with Olympic surfers, locals and tourists as the opening ceremony for the Summer Games commenced in French Polynesia on Friday morning, some 10,000 miles away from the main ceremony in Paris.

    “The people of Tahiti, we are all enchanted to have these Olympics games here and to welcome all our friends from all over the world,” President of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson told The Associated Press. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us. All the world is looking at us for this mighty wave.”

    Just steps from the ocean and set against the lush green mountains of Tahiti, the event was heavily centered on Polynesian culture: Visitors were welcomed with traditional Tahitian singing, dancing and ceremonies. Local government, Olympics and surfing officials had hand-woven palms placed around their necks upon arrival. White tents provided a shady spot for vendors to sell local vegetables, Polynesian crafts and food.

    Dancers perform during an opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics surfing competition Friday, July 26, 2024, in Papara, Tahiti. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

    During one part of the ceremony athletes sealed banana leaves into a vessel, following an ancestral tradition in Polynesian culture — called Rahiri — used as a prelude to important events to secure the peace and union of those competing. During another part of the ceremony, athletes from different countries poured sand into a single communal container, symbolizing unity and respect for the ocean.

    Before the event, surfer Caroline Marks from the United States said she was excited to be returning to the Olympics after she placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics, where Olympic surfing first debuted.

    “This is way different from Tokyo, when we were in pandemic and there were no spectators — it felt secluded,” she told AP. “This Olympics definitely have a different vibe and it’s great to be back.”

    The event was open to the public, with locals and tourists alike attending.

    “I think it’s a really great opportunity for us to show our culture to the world and really demonstrate that we exist,” said local guesthouse owner Hiro Boosie, 25. “We want to show what kind of people we are to the world.”

    Despite extra security such as police checkpoints and some road closures closer to the Olympic venues, tourists said that they felt their visit to Tahiti during the Olympics was so far a smooth and welcoming experience.

    “The locals are amazing, and I feel that it’s actually very well organized for tourists to be here,” said Dhikra Bahri, 23, who was visiting from Tunisia.

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    Dancers perform during an opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics surfing competition Friday, July 26, 2024, in Papara, Tahiti. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

    International Surfing Association president Fernando Aguerre announced that the surfing competition would start the following day. Surf forecasts predict the conditions will be favorable. Only four days of a 10-day window will be allotted for the competition, dependent upon wave conditions.

    Throughout the week, competitors were seen paddling out to the world-famous waves of Teahupo’o starting before sunrise to take advantage of exclusive access to the location for training ahead of the competition.

    In Teahupo’o, residents have spent the final days before the competition preparing their town for the influx of extra people: Families have cleaned trash and debris from beachside walking paths, extended their business hours and building homemade dirt road bumps.

    The 2024 surfing event sets the Olympic record for the competition held furthest away from a host city. ___

    AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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  • Paris glitters in the rain for ambitious Olympic opening ceremony

    Paris glitters in the rain for ambitious Olympic opening ceremony

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    Paris has kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century with a rain-soaked, rule-breaking opening ceremony.

    Widespread travel disruptions triggered by what French officials said were coordinated arson attacks on high-speed rail lines and rains in Paris had dampened the mood ahead of the ceremony’s start on Friday evening.

    But as global audiences tuned in, the show’s spectacular launch immediately lifted spirits. Crowds crammed along the River Seine and watching from balconies “oohed” and “aahed” as Olympic teams began parading in boats along the waterway.

    In a most grand finale, a hot-air balloon brought an Olympic ring of fire into a rainy sky and singer Celine Dion belted from the Eiffel Tower as Paris kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century.

    Spectators with various international flags cheering on from their balconies are pictured from the boat of Brazil’s delegation sailing on the river Seine during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Carl de Souza/Pool Photo via AP)

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    Athletes travel by boat along the Seine River during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan)

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    Members of Team Switzerland wave to spectators in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Martin Meissner/Pool Photo via AP)

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    A torchbearer carries the Olympic flame over a building along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, Pool)

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    Athletes from Brazil’s delegation wave Brazilian flags as they sail in a boat on the river Seine duringt the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Carl de Souza/Pool Photo via AP)

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    Spectators wait for the start of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

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    A worker sweeps rain water at the Trocadero during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024 in Paris, France. (Stephanie Lecocq/Pool Photo via AP)

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    Lady Gaga performs in Paris, France, ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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    Acrobats perform during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Maddie Meyer/Pool Photo via AP)

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    A tight rope walker performs in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

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    Smoke billows near windows as performers participate during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, Pool)

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    Athletes of Greece aboard a boat as it makes its way along the Seine in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Ann Wang/Pool Photo via AP)

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    Members of the United States Team travel along the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool)

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    The Olympic torch travels by boat as ceremonial smoke in the colors of the France flag appear over the Seine River Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

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    A French fan waits in Paris, France, before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

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    A light show is displayed on the Eiffel Tower during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

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    A performer sits on a bridge in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

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    Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal carries the torch during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

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    Celine Dion performs in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

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    Egyptian athletes leap while participating in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

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    Performers dance along the banks of the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros GiannakourisPool)

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    Entertainer’s perform in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

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    United States athletes on a boat make their way on the Seine River, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

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    A Canadian athlete reacts while participating in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

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    The Olympic Flame rises on a balloon after being lit in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

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    Rafael Nadal carries the Olympic flame flanked by Serena Williams, right, in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

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    The cauldron is lit by torch bearers Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

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    Zinedine Zidane carries the torch in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

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    The cauldron rises by the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

    ___

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  • A ‘Bachelorette’ Pick-Me-Up

    A ‘Bachelorette’ Pick-Me-Up

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    Juliet welcomes Jared Freid back to the pod for an attitude reversal. They talk about a wide range of topics related to The Bachelorette, including who Jenn has a genuine connection with, ideal dates if Jared were the Bachelor, how to feel about Devin, and predictions for the final two. They also talk about a lot of real-world dating topics, including dating in your 30s, why Charlotte could be a good dating city, dating apps and Jared’s return to Hinge, and the language of dating. Jared is always a Bachelor Nation pick-me-up!

    Host: Juliet Litman
    Guest: Jared Freid
    Producer: Olivia Crerie
    Theme Music: Devon Renaldo

    Subscribe: Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Stitcher / RSS

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  • Vajra Will Finally Open Its Dining Room After a Year in Wicker Park

    Vajra Will Finally Open Its Dining Room After a Year in Wicker Park

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    It’s been a year since scintillating South Asian restaurant Vajra moved from West Town into the Wicker Park space where to Spring and Trencherman called home. But until last week, the restaurant was take-out only as ownership worked out what it wanted to do inside their new home near Wicker Park’s six corners.

    Last weekend Vajra began bar service. They’ll serve cocktails and bar bites like momos and a goat burger. But the big news for fans of Vajra’s delectable dishes like Sichuan Chicken Chili, Goan Shrimp Curry, and malai kofta is that the dining room will finally debut to the public on Thursday, August 1. Reservations are live via Tock.

    Restablishing the bar means a reunion with star bartender Juanjo Pulgarin. Vajra specializes in Nepali and Indian cuisine, with the two countries diverging but coming from the same culinary traditions. But until recently, South Asian restaurants in America didn’t focus too much on cocktails. Liquor licenses are expensive, especially for the first wave of immigrant restaurant owners. There are also cultural taboos surrounding alcohol in some South Asian communities.

    Juanjo Pulgarin
    Ashok Selvam/Eater Chicago

    But not everyone carries those old-school traditions, and often time dissolves those binds. Pulgarin, who is Colombian and grew up in Spain, thrilled customers with a high-end program utilizing mixology tricks and ingredients seen at fancy cocktail bars. That earned Pulgarin a 2020 Jean Banchet Award nomination for best bartender. But as management closed Vajra’s dining room and bar during the pandemic, Pulgarin left Vajra and is now the lead bartender at Gold Coast steakhouse Maple & Ash where he’s helping the company relaunch its 8 Bar to open more locations across the country.

    Pulgarin’s drinks include a riff on mango lassi, called Xanadu y El Cielo. Lassi, a non-alcoholic drink famous in northern India, is known for its viscous texture. When served traditionally it’s akin to a cheesecake milkshake and it comes in sweet or savory versions. Vajra’s version captures the flavor without the thickness, creating a light drink made with whisky, amaro, nixta, yogurt, coconut milk, mango, and citrus. Pulgarin loves the looks of drinkers expecting the traditional take and seeing their surprise when they see and taste his version. Another drink, Sakura Garden, is made with gin, sake, watermelon, saffron, lychee, and lime. Pulgarin helped create the menu and he’s close with management so he can pursue other projects, like Maple & Ash, while contributing to Vajra.

    When Vajra opened in 2019, they were ahead of the South Asian cocktail revolution. This was before Lilac Tiger and Kama opened.

    Co-owner Dipesh Kakshapaty says his team was worried that folks would want a full at the bar and that’s why they scaled back. They served a version of the goat burger in the past, as many restaurants pivoted to simpler food during the pandemic because of to-go operations — It’s also cheaper from a labor standpoint. The burger’s return made sense as Vajra builds out its bar menu.

    It’s been a journey since 2020 when the restaurant shifted to takeout and delivery-only, pushed by the pandemic, and then challenges at their original location, 1329 W. Chicago Avenue — now home to Jook Sing — prevent them from reopening. Vajra closed in January 2022 but some members of ownership pursued a new restaurant venture but that never gained much traction. It would reopen for takeout and delivery in September 2022 inside the same West Town location. They moved to Wicker Park nine months later.

    The previous tenant, Ooh Wee It Is, never opened — despite putting up signs. That stretch of Wicker Park has been tough to crack, but Vajra hopes a hearty cocktail program, an established takeout and delivery business, and some of the best Indian and Nepali food in town can create a sustainable operation.

    Vajra, 2039 W. North Avenue, bar open now, dining room opening Thursday, August 1, reservations via Tock.

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    Ashok Selvam

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  • A Oaxacan Chef Sets a New Goal in Lakeview

    A Oaxacan Chef Sets a New Goal in Lakeview

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    While not abundant, Mexican food does exist in Finland. Carlos López Muñoz found out firsthand after spending a year in the country, encouraged to make the journey from a high school exchange student. He attended school and played semiprofessional soccer for VG-62 Naantali in the southwestern part of Finland. He played as an attacking forward.

    Muñoz found one “legit” restaurant while in Finland, in Turko: “Everything else I had was tacos, burritos, hard shells,” he says, recalling when he was 17. His time abroad sparked questions about his Oaxacan heritage and he began wondering more about gastronomy.

    Last week, he launched his restaurant, Istmo, in Lakeview on Clark, just north of Belmont. Istmo will eventually introduce dinner — including a prix fixe option. But for now, they’ll focus on breakfast and lunch,

    The chef’s resume also includes more traditional culinary experience. He returned home to Mexico, finished culinary school, and eventually moved to Chicago where he staged with Carlos Gaytán at Michelin-starred Mexique (Muñoz was originally enrolled in a program through Disney which would have stationed him at Disney World in Orlando. The partnership with the Mouse didn’t work out as Muñoz fell in love with cooking).

    Muñoz also worked with Rick Bayless, joining a list of Mexican-born chefs who honed their skills in Chicago. Muñoz also befriended Diego chef Stephen Sandoval and oversaw the kitchen at Leña Brava, working there before and after Bayless exited the West Loop restaurant. Muñoz’s black mole, which unites the culinary traditions of both his grandmothers — sweet and rich, with tart from pineapple — remains at the restaurant. Muñoz says he worked four to five years perfecting the recipe, but he’s not possessive. He’s happy when others enjoy his family’s culinary traditions.

    After spending seven months in D.C., he returned home to Chicago. This brings us back to the present, as Istmo provides an enticing option for Cubs fans who want an alternative to the Ricketts family’s Hotel Zachary complex.

    Istmo is backed by Juan Carlos, the owner of Xurro Churro Factory, a popular dessert chain with locations all over the city. Istmo’s beverage program is also top-notch. Carlos owns North Center cocktail bar Raizes, so expect serious drinks. There’s also a full espresso bar with coffee imported from Nicaragua and Mexico.

    Istmo is named Istmo de Tehuantepec, the largest region in the state of Oaxacan — where Muñoz hails. While Oaxacan food isn’t new to Chicago, Muñoz says Istmo’s menu is distinctive and underrepresented. He’d joke that during preshift Bayless would needle him and observe that all his menu ideas stemmed from family dishes. Istmo food is heavy on seafood and pickled and cured ingredients. There are also Lebanese influences.

    “These are flavors that I honestly haven’t seen in Chicago,” Muñoz says.

    Muñoz hopes his restaurant can cater to a variety of tastes, even vegans. It’s easy when you have a cheat code: “If you have a good mole, it’s going to be a great dish,” Muñoz says, knowing mole is naturally vegan.

    Lakeview and Wrigleyville can be a challenging space for a restaurant that wants to challenge the status quo. That’s why Muñoz is starting with breakfast and lunch while easing into dinner. But he’s confident that “everyone surrenders to Mexican cuisine at some point.”

    Walk around the space and check out more food photos below.

    Istmo, 3231 N. Clark Street, open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday through Sunday

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  • Kansas won’t force providers to ask patients why they want abortions while a lawsuit proceeds

    Kansas won’t force providers to ask patients why they want abortions while a lawsuit proceeds

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    TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas isn’t enforcing a new law requiring abortion providers to ask patients why they want to terminate their pregnancies, as a legal challenge against that rule and other older requirements makes its way through the courts.

    Attorneys for the state and for providers challenging the new law along with other requirements announced a deal Thursday. In return for not enforcing the law, the state will get another four months to develop its defense of the challenged restrictions ahead of a trial now delayed until late June 2025. The agreement was announced during a Zoom hearing in Johnson County District Court in the Kansas City area.

    Kansas doesn’t ban most abortions until the 22nd week of pregnancy. Its clinics now see thousands of patients from other states with near bans on abortion, most notably Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

    Last fall, District Judge K. Christopher Jayaram blocked enforcement of requirements that include rules spelling out what providers must tell their patients, and a longstanding requirement that patients wait 24 hours after consulting a provider to undergo a procedure. On July 1, he allowed the providers to add a challenge to the new reporting law to their existing lawsuit rather than making them file a separate case.

    The new law was supposed to take effect July 1 and would require providers to ask patients questions from a state script about their reasons for an abortion, although patients wouldn’t be forced to answer. Potential reasons include not being able to afford a child, not wanting a disabled child, not wanting to put schooling or a career on hold, and having an abusive spouse or partner. Clinics would be required to send data about patients’ answers to the state health department for a public report every six months.

    “We are relieved that this intrusive law will not take effect,” the Center for Reproductive Rights, the national organization for abortion provider Planned Parenthood and the regional Planned Parenthood affiliate said in a joint statement. “This law would have forced abortion providers to collect deeply personal information — an unjustifiable invasion of patient privacy that has nothing to do with people’s health.”

    Kansas already collects data about each abortion, such as the method and the week of pregnancy, but abortion opponents argue that having more information will aid in setting policies for helping pregnant women and new mothers. The Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the law over a veto from Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

    At least eight other states have such reporting requirements, but the Kansas Supreme Court declared in 2019 that the state constitution protects access to abortion as a part of a “fundamental” right to bodily autonomy. In August 2022, Kansas voters decisively rejected a proposed amendment to say that the constitution doesn’t grant any right to abortion access.

    The trial of the providers’ lawsuit had been set for late February 2025 before Jayaram delayed it in responded to the parties’ deal.

    “The state is prepared to accept an agreement not to enforce the new law until the final judgment, provided that we get a schedule that accommodates the record that we think we need to develop in this case,” said Lincoln Wilson, a senior counsel for the anti-abortion Alliance Defending Freedom, which is leading the state’s defense of its laws.

    Abortion providers suggested July 1 that the state wouldn’t enforce the new reporting requirement while the lawsuit proceeded, but the health department did not confirm that when reporters asked about it.

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  • Educators wonder how to teach the writings of Alice Munro in wake of daughter’s revelations

    Educators wonder how to teach the writings of Alice Munro in wake of daughter’s revelations

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    NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, Robert Lecker has read, taught and written about Alice Munro, the Nobel laureate from Canada renowned for her short stories. A professor of English at McGill University in Montreal, and author of numerous critical studies of Canadian fiction, he has thought of Munro as the “jewel” in the crown of her country’s literature and source of some of the richest material for classroom discussion.

    But since learning that Munro declined to leave her husband after he had sexually assaulted and harassed her daughter, Lecker now wonders how to teach her work, or if he should even try.

    “I had decided to teach a graduate course on Munro in the winter of 2025,” Lecker says. “Now I have serious questions whether I feel ethically capable of offering that course.”

    Andrea Robin Skinner, daughter of Munro and James Munro, wrote in the Toronto Star earlier this month that she had been assaulted at age 9 by Munro’s second husband, Gerard Fremlin. She alleged that he continued to harass and abuse her for the next few years, losing interest when she reached her teens. In her 20s, she told her mother about Fremlin’s abuse. But Munro, after briefly leaving Fremlin, returned and remained with him until his death in 2013. She would explain to Skinner that she “loved him too much” to remain apart.

    When Munro died in May at age 92, she was celebrated worldwide for narratives which documented rare insight into her characters’ secrets, motivations, passions and cruelties, especially those of girls and women. Admirers cited her not just as a literary inspiration, but as a kind of moral guide, sometimes described as “Saint Alice.” A New York Times essay that ran shortly after her death, by Canadian author Sheila Heti, was titled “I Don’t Write Like Alice Munro, But I Want to Live Like Her.”

    “No one knows the compromises another makes, especially when that person is as private as she was and transforms her trials into fiction,” Heti wrote. “Yet whatever the truth of her daily existence, she still shines as a symbol of artistic purity.”

    Educators in Canada and beyond are now rethinking her life and work. At Western University in London, Ontario, Munro’s alma mater, the school has posted a statement on its website saying that it was “taking time to carefully consider the impact” of the revelations. Since 2018, Western University has offered an Alice Munro Chair in Creativity, with a mission to “Lead the creative culture of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, serving as a mentor and a model.” That chair, held for the past academic year by Heti, will be left unfilled as “we carefully consider Munro’s legacy and her ties to Western,” according to the school.

    Requests with Heti’s agent and publicists for comment were not immediately answered.

    For the fall semester at Harvard University, authors and faculty members Laura van den Berg and Neel Mukherjee will be co-teaching “Reading for Fiction Writers,” a review of literary works ranging from the science fiction of Octavia Butler to the “realist” fiction of Munro. Van den Berg, a prize-winning writer whose books include the story collection “The Isle of Youth” and the novel “State of Paradise,” says that Munro’s failure to support Skinner has forced her to rethink her approach to the class.

    “I’ll never read Munro the same away again, and won’t be teaching her the same way,” she says. “To me, what was so painful about what Andrea Skinner has been through is the silence. And feeling that she could break her silence after her mother was gone. To me, to just stand in front a group of students and read the lecture I had originally prepared would feel like a second silencing.”

    A former student of Lecker’s, Kellie Elrick, says she is still figuring out how Munro should be taught and how to think of her work. Munro’s stories have enriched her life, she says, and she doesn’t regret reading them. Elrick, entering her fourth year at McGill, sees parallel narratives, “difficult to reconcile,” of “Munro the writer” and “Munro the mother.”

    “I think that it’s perhaps both productive and dangerous to read an author’s work biographically,” she added. “It may allow us (the readers) to think we may understand things, but there are things we can never truly know about the lives and intentions of writers.”

    One of the Munro stories that van den Berg and Mukherjee plan to teach is “Friend of My Youth,” narrated by a woman long estranged from her mother, whose “ideas were in line with some progressive notions of her times, and mine echoed the notions that were favored in mine.” Mukherjee, a Booker Prize finalist in 2014 for the novel “The Lives of Others,” is unsure about how, or whether, to work in the recent news about Munro when teaching ”Friend of My Youth,” which the author had dedicated to her own mother.

    He believes in separating the “art from the artist, that we all have done bad things.” He considers himself “very conflicted,” sharing van den Berg’s horror that Munro chose her husband over her daughter, but also finding that her work may have gained “richer depth, now that we know something in her life that she may have been trying to come to terms with.”

    “I don’t see writers as would-be saints,” he says.

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  • Trump’s escape from disaster by mere inches reveals a tiny margin with seismic impact

    Trump’s escape from disaster by mere inches reveals a tiny margin with seismic impact

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Jarring, chaotic and sudden, the bullet whizzed toward the stage where former President Donald Trump stood behind a podium speaking. In its wake: the potential for a horrifying and tragic chapter in American history.

    But the Republican presidential candidate had a narrow escape — mere inches, possibly less — in Saturday’s assassination attempt. The projectile from the shooter on a nearby rooftop left Trump with just a bloodied right ear, initially shaken but otherwise unharmed as he dropped down and Secret Service swarmed, his campaign continuing as the Republican National Convention got underway.

    A tiny margin for survival, with a potentially seismic impact. And an unforgettable example of something many were talking about Monday — a hard truth about the events that shape us, our daily lives, and our society:

    Sometimes, it’s all about chance, about circumstances falling in one direction and not another, about interventions in the nick of time or missteps that allow for disruption.

    Sometimes history can come down to inches.

    Near misses and the hinge of history

    It’s a truth that often gets obscured as we look over dates, places, people and events with the perspective of hindsight and blanket media coverage. The past gets covered with a patina of inevitability — as if it could have only occurred the way it did.

    But “what just happened to us is a kind of humbling lesson about how contingent all of this is,” says Susan Schulten, a history professor at the University of Denver. “And nothing’s foreordained.”

    No matter what, of course, there will be fallout and an impact from the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, where an attendee was killed and two others wounded, and law enforcement killed the shooter. But what it will be, in this election year and in the years to come, will unfold differently than it would have in an America where events had gone differently.

    History is filled with examples of chance, randomness or luck playing a part in how things turn out, says Mark Rank, a professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis and author of “The Random Factor: How Chance and Luck Profoundly Shape Our Lives and the World around Us.”

    In his book, he recounts an incident during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when a submarine from what was then the Soviet Union came close to firing a nuclear-tipped torpedo at U.S. forces out of a belief it was being attacked. But a circumstantial delay in getting the order carried out allowed enough time for another officer to recognize that wasn’t the case.

    There are plenty of other moments where there can be endless “what-if” discussions, from assassinations of figures like Abraham Lincoln and John and Robert Kennedy to other attempted killings such as the attack on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, two months after he assumed the presidency.

    Police snipers return fire after shots were fired while Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump was speaking at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

    It’s also events like the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, Rank points out, when there were ordinary people who “missed their subway connection or were late or were early and just missed being killed in that disaster, whereas other folks were not as lucky.”

    Trying to find meaning

    Often, people respond to events like these by trying to make sense of them through a belief in coherence — to summon some kind of universal meaning, or divine plan.

    That’s because people want a sense of control, says Daryl Van Tongeren, a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan. It’s too unnerving, he says, to admit that life is random and chance-filled. “It’s safer for us to think that we can just control everything that happens.”

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    A campaign rally site for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is empty and littered with debris Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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    Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is covered by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

    And in the United States of America, where part of the national mythology is the idea that we are masters of our own destinies — that we can pull ourselves up by our own efforts — the idea of randomness can land as particularly unnerving, Rank says.

    “In the United States, we’re really steeped in the idea of rugged individualism and self-reliance and meritocracy and you do it on your own, and you’re in control, and you have agency,” he says. “And to some extent, we are in control. We do make decisions. But another aspect of life is that … there are things that happen to you that you have no control over.

    “That’s kind of unsettling,” he says. “But that’s the way life plays out. That’s the world.”

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  • A sweet, native and nutritious snack from the garden? Look no further than blueberries

    A sweet, native and nutritious snack from the garden? Look no further than blueberries

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    I’ve been growing dwarf blueberries for three years, and my plants are covered in green fruits right now. Deliciously sweet and rich in fiber, manganese, potassium, vitamins C and K, and antioxidants, the berries are native to North America and can be grown throughout most of the continent.

    There are several categories of blueberries to choose from:

    • Lowbush have a low-growing, spreading habit and are reputed to produce the tastiest fruit.

    • Highbush grow upright to 6 feet tall.

    • Half-high types grow to 3-4 feet tall.

    • Rabbiteyes, most of which are hardy in zones 7-9, are more heat- and drought-tolerant than the others and can reach 8-15 feet tall.

    • Dwarf varieties can be any type that have been bred to grow in small containers, like window boxes or hanging baskets.

    New plants can take up to five years to produce a good crop, so I’ve been managing my expectations while giving them the best care.

    That meant allowing them to do their own thing without any fertilizer in their first year, then giving each plant a single 4-ounce dose of ammonium sulfate in the spring of their second year. That not only nourished them but also worked to lower the soil’s pH, which is essential for blueberries.

    Along with cranberries and huckleberries, blueberries have the lowest pH requirement of any edible plant, thriving only when the soil measures between 4.0 and 5.2. So applying a fertilizer labeled for acid-loving plants immediately after they flower in every subsequent year is important to keep them healthy and productive.

    I’m also letting my plants grow wild until after their fifth birthday, when I’ll start annual early-spring prunings by removing old growth and thinning them to allow more air to circulate and allow sunlight to reach their centers.

    With the exception of rabbiteyes, which must be cross-pollinated with other varieties (three or more is best) in order to produce fruit, most varieties are self-pollinating. Still, planting two or three different varieties together will result in bigger berries and a larger crop. That’s why I planted my Sapphire Cascade and Midnight Cascade plants in the same large pot on the back deck.

    Growing conditions

    All blueberries can be grown in containers (for highbush plants, use wide pots that are at least 18 inches deep).

    Blueberries require a site that provides full sun, protection from strong winds and plenty of air circulation, so they shouldn’t be crowded. They also need a lot of water, with container-grown plants requiring even more than those planted in the garden.

    Apply 2-3 inches of mulch around plants after the soil warms up every spring, and again in late autumn if you live in an area that experiences frosts and freezes.

    And if rabbits or deer visit your garden, surrounding the plants with a temporary fencing barrier will help protect them over winter.

    After harvesting (or bringing any types of berries home from the market), I give them a quick soak in a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water, then drain and store in the fridge. The few minutes spent doing that increases their life immensely. Try it!

    ___

    Jessica 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.

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    For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

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  • Kenney Grant, founder of iconic West Virginia pizza chain Gino’s, dies

    Kenney Grant, founder of iconic West Virginia pizza chain Gino’s, dies

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    HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — William Kenneth “Kenney” Grant, the founder and owner of the iconic West Virginia chain Gino’s Pizza and Spaghetti House, has died. He was 94.

    Grant died Wednesday, according to an obituary posted by Beard Mortuary funeral home.

    A native of Huntington, Grant founded Gino’s in 1961. He gradually expanded the business, which currently has around 40 locations around West Virginia. Grant also owned several locations of another West Virginia staple, Tudor’s Biscuit World.

    Grant remained committed to supporting the Huntington community throughout his life, including the Marshall Artist Series, the arts and entertainment organization for Marshall University.

    “Kenney was a visionary, he was not one to be satisfied with being just another pizza place, he always wanted more for his hometown and tried to bring that to them,” the obituary said. “In his attempt to become a successful businessman, Kenney never failed to forget his roots.”

    He is survived by three children, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

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  • Biden administration cancels another $1.2 billion in student loans for public service workers

    Biden administration cancels another $1.2 billion in student loans for public service workers

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    The Biden administration is cancelling an additional $1.2 billion in student loans for borrowers who work in public service through changes to an existing forgiveness program.

    The relief for roughly 35,000 borrowers was announced Thursday by the Education Department and made through changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which benefits workers such as teachers, nurses and firefighters. Those qualifying for forgiveness have their remaining loan balance eliminated after making 120 qualifying monthly payments.

    “These 35,000 borrowers approved for forgiveness today are public service workers — teachers, nurses, law enforcement officials, and first responders who have dedicated their lives to strengthening their communities, and because of the fixes we made to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, they will now have more breathing room to support themselves and their families,” Biden said in a statement.

    The public service forgiveness program was created by Congress in 2007, but many borrowers were not able to get the cancellation they had worked towards due to strict rules and mistakes by loan servicers in tallying their payments. Under the Biden administration, some rules were adjusted and retroactively gave many borrowers credit toward their 10 years of payments.

    The announcement comes amid legal back and forth over the administration’s larger plans for student loan forgiveness, which faces challenges from Republican-led states. In June, judges in two federal cases opposing the new SAVE plan, which included lowered monthly payments and a faster path to forgiveness, issued injunctions stopping the plan from going into effect.

    But shortly after, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay in one of the lawsuits, allowing the Education Department to move ahead with lowered monthly payments.

    Biden’s original plan for one-time debt cancellation was overturned by the Supreme Court, which said the move overstepped the president’s authority.

    With this latest round of loan cancellation, the administration has now forgiven $168.5 billion in student debt for 4.76 million borrowers, including $69.2 billion for 946,000 million borrowers through the public service forgiveness program.

    ___

    The 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.

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  • Stellantis tells owners of over 24,000 hybrid minivans to park outdoors due to battery fire risk

    Stellantis tells owners of over 24,000 hybrid minivans to park outdoors due to battery fire risk

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    AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Stellantis is telling the owners of more than 24,000 plug-in hybrid minivans to park them outdoors away from buildings, and to stop charging them due to the possibility of battery fires.

    The company said Thursday that it’s recalling certain 2017 through 2021 Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrids, mainly in North America. Some are being recalled for a second time. All can still be driven.

    Stellantis, maker of Jeep, Chrysler, Ram and other vehicle brands, said its investigation is ongoing but the company has linked the problem to a rare abnormality in individual battery cells. The risk of fires is reduced when the battery is depleted.

    A company review of warranty data discovered seven fires within the group of vans being recalled. All happened when the vehicles were turned off, and some occurred during charging, Stellantis said. Four customers reported symptoms of smoke inhalation.

    Engineers are still testing the remedy, which involves a software update designed to detect the battery abnormality. If a problem is found, dealers will replace the high-voltage battery at no cost to owners.

    Owners will be notified by mail when to take their minivans in for service. After July 24, they can go to recalls.mopar.com or checktoprotect.org and key in their vehicle identification numbers to see if their vans are part of the recall. Later models have an improved manufacturing process and are not being recalled, the company said.

    The recall comes six months after U.S. safety regulators began investigating a 2022 recall of nearly 17,000 of the vans. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents that it would review the effectiveness of the recall and try to understand the cause of the battery fires.

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  • Over 3 million steam cleaners are under recall because they can spew hot water and cause burns

    Over 3 million steam cleaners are under recall because they can spew hot water and cause burns

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Some 3.3 million steam cleaners are being recalled across North America due to a burn hazard that has resulted in consumers reporting more than 150 injuries.

    Select models of Bissell-branded “Steam Shot Handheld Steam Cleaners” can spew hot water or steam while the products are in use or being heated up, according to notices Thursday from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada. That poses a risk of burns to users.

    Bissell has received a 183 reports of hot water or steam expelling from the products. That includes 157 reports of minor burns, the regulators noted, with 145 injuries reported in the U.S. and 12 in Canada as of June 4, according to Health Canada.

    Consumers are urged to immediately stop using the now-recalled steam cleaners and contact Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Bissell for a refund or store credit. Impacted customers will have a choice between $60 (CA$82) in store credit or a $40 (CA$55) refund for each.

    The recalled steam cleaners, which were made in China, can be identified by model numbers — listed on Bissell’s website. There, consumers can also find more information about registering for the recall and follow instructions for cutting the products’ cord and uploading photos.

    On its site, Bissell said that “safety is our top priority,” later adding that the company chose to voluntarily recall these steam cleaners “out of an abundance of caution.”

    The Bissell steam cleaners under recall were sold at major retailers including Target and Walmart, as well as online at sites like www.bissell.com and Amazon, from August 2008 through May 2024.

    An estimated 3.2 million were purchased in the U.S. Nearly 355,000 were sold in Canada.

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