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  • As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

    As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

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    Now that he’s back on Twitter, neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin wants somebody to explain the rules.

    Anglin, the founder of an infamous neo-Nazi website, was reinstated Thursday, one of many previously banned users to benefit from an amnesty granted by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk. The next day, Musk banished Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he posted a swastika with a Star of David in it.

    “That’s cool,” Anglin tweeted Friday. “I mean, whatever the rules are, people will follow them. We just need to know what the rules are.”

    Ask Musk. Since the world’s richest man paid $44 billion for Twitter, the platform has struggled to define its rules for misinformation and hate speech, issued conflicting and contradictory announcements, and failed to full address what researchers say is a troubling rise in hate speech.

    As the “ chief twit ” may be learning, running a global platform with nearly 240 million active daily users requires more than good algorithms and often demands imperfect solutions to messy situations — tough choices that must ultimately be made by a human and are sure to displease someone.

    A self-described free speech absolutist, Musk has said he wants to make Twitter a global digital town square. But he also said he wouldn’t make major decisions about content or about restoring banned accounts before setting up a “ content moderation council ” with diverse viewpoints.

    He soon changed his mind after polling users on Twitter, and offered reinstatement to a long list of formerly banned users including ex-President Donald Trump, Ye, the satire site The Babylon Bee, the comedian Kathy Griffin and Anglin, the neo-Nazi.

    And while Musk’s own tweets suggested he would allow all legal content on the platform, Ye’s banishment shows that’s not entirely the case. The swastika image posted by the rapper falls in the “lawful but awful” category that often bedevils content moderators, according to Eric Goldman, a technology law expert and professor at Santa Clara University law school.

    While Europe has imposed rules requiring social media platforms to create policies on misinformation and hate speech, Goldman noted that in the U.S. at least, loose regulations allow Musk to run Twitter as he sees fit, despite his inconsistent approach.

    “What Musk is doing with Twitter is completely permissible under U.S. law,” Goldman said.

    Pressure from the EU may force Musk to lay out his policies to ensure he is complying with the new law, which takes effect next year. Last month, a senior EU official warned Musk that Twitter would have to improve its efforts to combat hate speech and misinformation; failure to comply could lead to huge fines.

    In another confusing move, Twitter announced in late November that it would end its policy prohibiting COVID-19 misinformation. Days later, it posted an update claiming that “None of our policies have changed.”

    On Friday, Musk revealed what he said was the inside story of Twitter’s decision in 2020 to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

    Twitter initially blocked links to the story on its platform, citing concerns that it contained material obtained through computer hacking. That decision was reversed after it was criticized by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Facebook also took actions to limit the story’s spread.

    The information revealed by Musk included Twitter’s decision to delete a handful of tweets after receiving a request from Joe Biden’s campaign. The tweets included nude photos of Hunter Biden that had been shared without his consent — a violation of Twitter’s rules against revenge porn.

    Instead of revealing nefarious conduct or collusion with Democrats, Musk’s revelation highlighted the kind of difficult content moderation decisions that he will now face.

    “Impossible, messy and squishy decisions” are unavoidable, according to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety who resigned a few weeks into Musk’s ownership.

    While far from perfect, the old Twitter strove to be transparent with users and steady in enforcing its rules, Roth said. That changed under Musk, he told a Knight Foundation forum this week.

    “When push came to shove, when you buy a $44 billion thing, you get to have the final say in how that $44 billion thing is governed,” Roth said.

    While much of the attention has been on Twitter’s moves in the U.S., the cutbacks of content-moderation workers is affecting other parts of the world too, according to activists with the #StopToxicTwitter campaign.

    “We’re not talking about people not having resilience to hear things that hurt feelings,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, which works to combat caste-based discrimination in South Asia. “We are talking about the prevention of dangerous genocidal hate speech that can lead to mass atrocities.”

    Soundararajan’s organization sits on Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, which hasn’t met since Musk took over. She said “millions of Indians are terrified about who is going to get reinstated,” and the company has stopped responding to the group’s concerns.

    “So what happens if there’s another call for violence? Like, do I have to tag Elon Musk and hope that he’s going to address the pogrom?” Soundararajan said.

    Instances of hate speech and racial epithets soared on Twitter after Musk’s purchase as some users sought to test the new owner’s limits. The number of tweets containing hateful terms continues to rise, according to a report published Friday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that tracks online hate and extremism.

    Musk has said Twitter has reduced the spread of tweets containing hate speech, making them harder to find unless a user searches for them. But that failed to satisfy the center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, who called the rise in hate speech a “clear failure to meet his own self-proclaimed standards.”

    Immediately after Musk’s takeover and the firing of much of Twitter’s staff, researchers who previously had flagged harmful hate speech or misinformation to the platform reported that their pleas were going unanswered.

    Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause, said his group reached out to Twitter last week about a tweet from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that alleged election fraud in Arizona. Musk had reinstated Greene’s personal account after she was kicked off Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

    This time, Twitter was quick to respond, telling Common Cause that the tweet didn’t violate any rules and would stay up — even though Twitter requires the labeling or removal of content that spreads false or misleading claims about election results.

    Twitter gave Littlewood no explanation for why it wasn’t following its own rules.

    “I find that pretty confounding,” Littlewood said.

    Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story. Musk has defended the platform’s sometimes herky-jerky moves since he took over, and said mistakes will happen as it evolves. “We will do lots of dumb things,” he tweeted.

    To Musk’s many online fans, the disarray is a feature, not a bug, of the site under its new ownership, and a reflection of the free speech mecca they hope Twitter will be.

    “I love Elon Twitter so far,” tweeted a user who goes by the name Some Dude. “The chaos is glorious!”

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  • Biden’s efforts to protect abortion access hit roadblocks

    Biden’s efforts to protect abortion access hit roadblocks

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is still actively searching for ways to safeguard abortion access for millions of women, even as it bumps up against a complex web of strict new state laws enacted in the months after the Supreme Court stripped the constitutional right.

    Looking to seize on momentum following a midterm election where voters widely rebuked tougher abortion restrictions, there’s a renewed push at the White House to find ways to help women in states that have virtually outlawed or limited the treatment, and to keep the issue top of mind for voters.

    In reality, though, the administration is shackled by a ban on federal funding for most abortions, a conservative-leaning Supreme Court inclined to rule against abortion rights and a split Congress unwilling to pass legislation on the matter.

    Meanwhile, frustration on the ground in the most abortion-restricted states is mounting.

    “This is not going away anytime soon,” said Jen Klein of the Biden administration’s Gender Policy Council. “Tens of millions of Americans are living under bans of various sorts, many of them quite extreme, and even in states where abortion is legal, we’re all seeing the impact on providers and on systems being loaded by people who are coming across state lines.”

    Since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in June, roughly half the states have some type of abortion restrictions in place, with at least 11 states essentially banning the procedure.

    Administration officials are meeting Tuesday and Wednesday with state lawmakers ahead of their 2023 sessions, including in states with more extreme bans on the table, and will discuss safeguarding rights and helping women access care as top issues. The meetings follow sit-downs with roughly nine governors, attorneys general and Democratic state legislators from more than 30 states.

    The administration, meanwhile, is implementing Biden’s executive orders signed in July and August that directed federal agencies to push back on abortion restrictions and protect women traveling out of their state to seek one, though some women’s rights advocates say it doesn’t go far enough.

    And there are still other avenues left for the administration to explore, said Kathleen Sebelius, a former U.S. health and human services secretary.

    HHS might look to wield its power around federal protections for health care providers, life-saving abortions, abortion pills and travel for women in abortion-restricted states, she said. During her tenure, for example, the agency did some policy maneuvering to expand rights for same-sex couples, including a requirement that any hospitals receiving federal funds allow their patients to select a same-sex partner as a visitor, years before gay marriage was legalized.

    “It’s amazing how broad a lot of the agency’s authorities are and how much creative thinking can go on,” Sebelius said.

    Already, the Justice Department has sued Idaho over its restrictive abortion policy and indicted at least 20 people who have been accused of obstructing access to abortion clinics. Attorney General Merrick Garland has said he would protect the right for women to travel between states for medical care.

    Veterans and their beneficiaries are able to access abortion, even in states that have outlawed it, through the Department of Veteran Affairs in cases where the woman’s life or health is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. The Defense Department will cover leave and travel costs for troops seeking abortions if they are not available in their state.

    The Federal Trade Commission has sued at least one data broker for selling information that tracks people at reproductive health care clinics, while the Federal Communication Commission reminded 15 mobile carriers of privacy laws in a recent letter.

    Perhaps most consequentially, the Department of Health and Human Services told hospitals they “must” provide abortions if a mother’s life is at risk. The agency cited federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, that requires medical facilities to provide treatment if a person may be in labor or faces an emergency health situation.

    But “no executive action can replace a precedent of nearly 50 years,” Klein said. “The most important thing is to fight for national legislation.”

    None is upcoming in the lame-duck session before Republicans take control of the House. And Biden is limited in what else he can do.

    Indeed, the administration’s moves so far have made little difference in Ohio, said Kellie Copeland, the executive director at Pro-Choice Ohio. A law that would essentially ban abortion once fetal cardiac activity is detected is awaiting a court ruling. Currently, abortion is banned at 22 weeks, state Medicaid funds can’t be used for abortion and parental consent is required for a minor to receive care.

    “I can say as an advocate in Ohio, no one is saying, ‘Oh wow, this has made a difference,’” Copeland said. “The impact has not been felt.”

    Copeland’s organization is one of about 50 local advocacy groups and abortion clinics entrenched in states and cities that asked the president in an August letter to offer federal travel and childcare vouchers for people living in states where abortion is banned, introduce federal protections for mailing abortion pills, and gather hospital attorneys to reiterate that doctors must give abortions in life-saving situations.

    Chaos has ensued at hospitals located in the country’s most restrictive states, where doctors treating critically ill pregnant patients must weigh their medical recommendations against potential punishments like prison time. Reports of sick pregnant women turned away by doctors or facing unsafe delays in medical care are pouring in.

    “It’s made it incredibly dangerous for patients, it’s put physicians in a terrible position,” American Medical Association President Jack Resneck, Jr. said during a meeting with reporters Tuesday. “And yet, when we go and talk about it, we’re seeing purveyors of disinformation say, ’oh those stories are exaggerated or that’s not true.”

    Resneck said for physicians it feels as though “state’s attorneys general or governors or law enforcement officers” are standing over their shoulders in the exam room. He worries it could drive an already problematic health care worker shortage to worsen in those states.

    “I’m worried about … whether we’re going to have the workforce in those states in the future to take care of pregnant patients,” he said.

    HHS is investigating at least one hospital in Missouri after officials there refused to let doctors perform an abortion on a woman during a medical emergency, but won’t say how many complaints it has received against providers or hospital system for failing to provide life-saving care.

    In August, HHS also invited states to apply for Medicaid waivers that would unlock federal funds to pay for travel costs for women who live in states where abortion procedures have been severely restricted.

    Not a single state has applied, although the agency said it is in talks with officials in some states about applications.

    In Louisiana, where abortion is banned except in certain cases where a mother’s life is at stake, federal policies around travel are likely to have the most impact, said Michelle Erenberg of the New Orleans-based abortion rights advocacy group Lift Louisiana.

    She’s not hopeful that other federal proposals will ease how women access abortion directly in the state.

    “It’s a little frustrating,” Erenberg said. “Also, we understand there’s only so much the administration is going to be able to do when a state like Louisiana has decided to enact a near total ban on abortion care.”

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  • Democratic Sen. Warnock wins Georgia runoff against Walker

    Democratic Sen. Warnock wins Georgia runoff against Walker

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a Georgia runoff election Tuesday, ensuring Democrats an outright majority in the Senate for the rest of President Joe Biden’s current term and capping an underwhelming midterm cycle for the GOP in the last major vote of the year.

    With Warnock’s second runoff victory in as many years, Democrats will have a 51-49 Senate majority, gaining a seat from the current 50-50 split with John Fetterman’s victory in Pennsylvania. There will be divided government, however, with Republicans having narrowly flipped House control.

    “After a hard-fought campaign — or, should I say, campaigns — it is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy: The people have spoken,” Warnock, 53, told jubilant supporters who packed a downtown Atlanta hotel ballroom.

    “I often say that a vote is a kind of prayer for the world we desire for ourselves and for our children,” declared Warnock, a Baptist pastor and his state’s first Black senator. “Georgia, you have been praying with your lips and your legs, your hands and your feet, your heads and your hearts. You have put in the hard work, and here we are standing together.”

    In last month’s election, Warnock led Walker by 37,000 votes out of almost 4 million cast, but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff. The senator appeared to be headed for a wider final margin in Tuesday’s runoff, with Walker, a football legend at the University of Georgia and in the NFL, unable to overcome a bevy of damaging allegations, including claims that he paid for two former girlfriends’ abortions despite supporting a national ban on the procedure.

    “The numbers look like they’re not going to add up,” Walker, an ally and friend of former President Donald Trump, told supporters late Tuesday at the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta. “There’s no excuses in life, and I’m not going to make any excuses now because we put up one heck of a fight.”

    Democrats’ Georgia victory solidifies the state’s place as a Deep South battleground two years after Warnock and fellow Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff won 2021 runoffs that gave the party Senate control just months after Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate in 30 years to win Georgia. Voters returned Warnock to the Senate in the same cycle they reelected Republican Gov. Brian Kemp by a comfortable margin and chose an all-GOP slate of statewide constitutional officers.

    Walker’s defeat bookends the GOP’s struggles this year to win with flawed candidates cast from Trump’s mold, a blow to the former president as he builds his third White House bid ahead of 2024.

    Democrats’ new outright majority in the Senate means the party will no longer have to negotiate a power-sharing deal with Republicans and won’t have to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to break as many tie votes.

    National Democrats celebrated Tuesday, with Biden tweeting a photo of his congratulatory phone call to the senator. “Georgia voters stood up for our democracy, rejected Ultra MAGAism, and … sent a good man back to the Senate,” Biden tweeted, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

    About 1.9 million runoff votes were cast in Georgia by mail and during early voting. A robust Election Day turnout added about 1.4 million more, slightly more than the Election Day totals in November and in 2020.

    Total turnout still trailed the 2021 runoff turnout of about 4.5 million. Voting rights groups pointed to changes made by state lawmakers after the 2020 election that shortened the period for runoffs, from nine weeks to four, as a reason for the decline in early and mail voting.

    Warnock emphasized his willingness to work across the aisle and his personal values, buoyed by his status as senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.

    Walker benefited during the campaign from nearly unmatched name recognition from his football career, yet was dogged by questions about his fitness for office.

    A multimillionaire businessman, Walker faced questions about his past, including his exaggerations of his business achievements, academic credentials and philanthropic activities.

    In his personal life, Walker faced new attention on his ex-wife’s previous accounts of domestic violence, including details that he once held a gun to her head and threatened to kill her. He has never denied those specifics and wrote of his violent tendencies in a 2008 memoir that attributed the behavior to mental illness.

    As a candidate, he sometimes mangled policy discussions, attributing the climate crisis to China’s “bad air” overtaking “good air” from the United States and arguing that diabetics could manage their health by “eating right,” a practice that isn’t enough for insulin-dependent diabetic patients.

    On Tuesday, Atlanta voter Tom Callaway praised the Republican Party’s strength in Georgia and said he’d supported Kemp in the opening round of voting. But he said he cast his ballot for Warnock because he didn’t think “Herschel Walker has the credentials to be a senator.”

    “I didn’t believe he had a statement of what he really believed in or had a campaign that made sense,” Callaway said.

    Walker, meanwhile, sought to portray Warnock as a yes-man for Biden. He sometimes made the attack in especially personal terms, accusing Warnock of “being on his knees, begging” at the White House — a searing charge for a Black challenger to level against a Black senator about his relationship with a white president.

    Warnock promoted his Senate accomplishments, touting a provision he sponsored to cap insulin costs for Medicare patients. He hailed deals on infrastructure and maternal health care forged with Republican senators, mentioning those GOP colleagues more than he did Biden or other Washington Democrats.

    Warnock distanced himself from Biden, whose approval ratings have lagged as inflation remains high. After the general election, Biden promised to help Warnock in any way he could, even if it meant staying away from Georgia. Bypassing the president, Warnock decided instead to campaign with former President Barack Obama in the days before the runoff election.

    Walker, meanwhile, avoided campaigning with Trump until the campaign’s final day, when the pair conducted a conference call Monday with supporters.

    Walker joins failed Senate nominees Dr. Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania, Blake Masters of Arizona, Adam Laxalt of Nevada and Don Bolduc of New Hampshire as Trump loyalists who ultimately lost races that Republicans once thought they would — or at least could — win.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy and Ron Harris contributed to this report.

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  • North Carolina blackouts caused by shootings could last days

    North Carolina blackouts caused by shootings could last days

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    CARTHAGE, N.C. (AP) — Tens of thousands of people braced Monday for days without electricity in a North Carolina county where authorities say two power substations were shot up by one or more people with apparent criminal intent.

    Across Moore County, many businesses and restaurants displayed “Closed” signs in windows and had empty parking lots at a time of year when they are normally full of tourists and holiday shoppers. Others handed out free food or coffee, or were able to open by conducting transactions in cash.

    The county, located about 60 miles (95 kilometers) southwest of the state capital of Raleigh, announced schools would be closed Tuesday for a second day.

    Duke Energy has restored power to roughly 9,000 customers after a peak of about 45,000 customers were without electricity in the county of about 100,000 inhabitants. Jeff Brooks, a Duke spokesman, said recovery will be gradual, noting “a pretty sophisticated repair with some fairly large equipment” will continue into Thursday.

    Gov. Roy Cooper said state and federal investigators “are leaving no stone unturned in this investigation to find those who are responsible.

    “Protecting critical infrastructure like our power system must be a top priority,” Cooper said at a news conference. “This kind of attack raises a new level of threat. We will be evaluating ways to work with our utility providers and our state and federal officials to make sure that we harden our infrastructure where necessary.”

    Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields declined to elaborate Monday about the shootings other than to say the damage was done by gunfire. But whoever was responsible, he said, “knew exactly what they were doing to … cause the outage that they did.”

    Meanwhile, traffic lights were out countywide. Drivers treated intersections as four-way stops, snarling traffic in places such as downtown Carthage amid a consistent hum of honks at each nonfunctional light.

    Noah Hartford, an 18-year-old civil engineering student at Sandhills Community College, said his family has been struggling to stay warm since losing power at their home in Aberdeen. Temperatures dropped below freezing early Monday, and lows in the 40s were expected during the week.

    “It’s real cold,” Hartford said as he warmed beside a fire pit in nearby Southern Pines. “It’s just me, my mom and my brother. We have a fire and stuff outside and a fireplace, but we’re really hoping we get the heat back soon.”

    Kalai and Christine Balutski of Pinebluff sat under a heater Monday morning drinking warm beverages at the Red’s Corner food truck lot in Southern Pines. The couple has been without power since 7 p.m. Saturday. They said they have been driving to restaurants the next county over to eat warm meals and watch football while awaiting updates.

    “We got two dogs at home, so we can’t just up and leave,” Kalai Balutski said. “We’re working off of a power brick to keep our phones charged and candles in one room to keep it warm enough to sleep.”

    Bundled in a beanie, boots and a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket, Christine Balutski said she has been struggling to get work done for her remote IT job for the hospital system without home WiFi access.

    About 20 people spent the night at an emergency shelter at the county sports complex in Carthage, said Phil Harris, executive director of the local American Red Cross chapter. Harris said plenty more have stopped by for food, warmth or to charge their devices.

    “If you’ve got no power, you probably don’t have any heat, so with winter weather coming in, it’s a nice place to stay,” Harris said.

    The Pinehurst Resort & Country Club also was affected. With limited power generation capability at The Carolina Hotel, the resort consolidated all guests into rooms with available power. Golf courses remained open but the main clubhouse was closed.

    Golf is played year-round in the Sandhills region and the Pinehurst resort is the No. 3 employer in Moore County — behind the local hospital and school systems, according to government employment data. Moore County generated a record in visitor spending in 2021, leading to an economic impact of $673 million from the tourism industry, the county’s economic development office said.

    Moore County has dozens of golf courses, anchored by nine at the Pinehurst Resort. Pinehurst’s famed No. 2 course has hosted three men’s U.S. Opens. The World Golf Hall of Fame is also moving soon from Florida to Pinehurst.

    Andrew Wilkins, a conservation advocate who grew up in Moore County, was driving Saturday night from Washington to his parents’ small farm in Whispering Pines when he noticed the street lights were out in Carthage. He arrived to a “pitch black street.”

    Wilkins spent the weekend helping his parents prepare for cold nights without heat, and linked a generator to their well to pump fresh drinking water.

    Said Wilkins, “People are going to really feel the pinch from this as it goes on.”

    ___

    Hannah Schoenbaum 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.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

    ___ A previous version of this report incorrectly said Pinehurst Resort has eight golf courses instead of nine.

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  • Seoul arrests ex-top security official over border killing

    Seoul arrests ex-top security official over border killing

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    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s former national security director was arrested Saturday over a suspected cover-up surrounding North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official near the rivals’ sea boundary in 2020.

    Suh Hoon’s arrest early Saturday came as President Yoon Suk Yeol’s conservative government investigates his liberal predecessor’s handling of that killing and another border incident the same year, cases that prompted criticism Seoul was desperately trying to appease the North to improve relations.

    Former President Moon Jae-in, who staked his single-term on inter-Korean rapprochement before leaving office in May, has reacted angrily to the investigation into Suh’s actions. Moon issued a statement this week accusing Yoon’s government of raising groundless allegations and politicizing sensitive security matters.

    Judge Kim Jeong-min of the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutor’s request to arrest Suh over concerns that he may attempt to destroy evidence, the court said in a statement. Suh didn’t answer reporters’ questions about the allegations on Friday as he appeared at the court for a review over the prosecution’s warrant request.

    A previous inquiry by South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection concluded that officials from Moon’s government made no meaningful attempt to rescue Lee Dae-jun after learning that the 47-year-old fisheries official was drifting in waters near the Koreas’ western sea boundary in September 2020.

    After confirming that Lee had been fatally shot by North Korean troops, officials publicly played up the possibility that he had tried to defect to North Korea, citing his gambling debts and family issues, while withholding evidence suggesting he had no such intention, the audit board said in an October report.

    Suh also served as Moon’s spy chief before being appointed as national security director two months before the killing. He faces suspicions that he used a Cabinet meeting to instruct officials to delete intelligence records related to the incident while the government crafted a public explanation of Lee’s death.

    Suh is also suspected of ordering the Defense Ministry, National Intelligence Service, and the Coast Guard to portray Lee as trying to defect in their reports on his killing.

    Critics say the Moon government went out of its way to paint Lee as unsympathetic as it tried to appease a nuclear-armed rival with a brutal human rights record.

    In June, the Defense Ministry and coast guard reversed the Moon government’s description of the incident, saying there was no evidence that Lee had tried to defect.

    Moon’s Democratic Party issued a statement criticizing Suh’s arrest, saying suspicions he might destroy evidence were unreasonable since “all the materials are in the hands of the Yoon Suk Yeol government.”

    “The Defense Ministry, Coast Guard, National Intelligence Service and other security-related agencies have made a judgment on the Western Sea incident based on an analysis of information and circumstances,” the party said in a statement. It called the investigation a type of political vendetta.

    Yoon’s government is separately investigating the 2019 forced repatriation of two North Korean fishermen, despite their reported wish to resettle in South Korea.

    In July, the National Intelligence Service filed charges against Suh and his spy chief successor Park Jie-won for alleged abuse of power, destruction of public records and falsification of documents regarding the two cases.

    The agency accused Park, who served as its director until May, of ordering the destruction of intelligence reports on Lee’s death. It accused Suh of forcibly closing an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 2019 repatriation of the two North Korean fisherman captured in South Korean waters.

    Critics say Moon’s government never provided a clear explanation of why it sent the two escapees back to the North to face possible execution. Moon’s officials described the men as criminals who confessed to murder and questioned the sincerity of their wish to defect.

    Dozens of international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, issued a joint statement accusing Moon’s government of failing to provide due process or to “protect anyone who would be at substantial risk of torture or other serious human rights violations after repatriation.”

    Moon left office with little to show for his engagement efforts with the North and the investigations into the two incidents have further tarnished his legacy.

    Moon met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times in 2018 and lobbied hard to set up Kim’s meetings with former U.S. President Donald Trump as part of efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff and improve inter-Korean ties.

    But the diplomacy never recovered from the failure of the second Kim-Trump meeting in 2019 in Vietnam. Talks collapsed when the sides could not agree on exchanging an end to crippling U.S.-led sanctions against North Korea for steps by the North to wind down its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

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  • US intel chief thinking ‘optimistically’ for Ukraine forces

    US intel chief thinking ‘optimistically’ for Ukraine forces

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    KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of U.S. intelligence says fighting in Russia’s war in Ukraine is running at a “reduced tempo” and suggests Ukrainian forces could have brighter prospects in coming months.

    Avril Haines alluded to past allegations by some that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advisers could be shielding him from bad news — for Russia — about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia.”

    “But it’s still not clear to us that he has a full picture of at this stage of just how challenged they are,” Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

    She said her team was “seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict” and looking ahead expects both sides will look to refit, resupply, and reconstitute for a possible Ukrainian counter-offensive in the spring.

    “But we actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be in fact prepared to do that,” said Haines, speaking to NBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “And I think more optimistically for the Ukrainians in that time frame.”

    On Sunday, the British Ministry of Defense, in its latest intelligence estimate, pointed to new signs from an independent Russian media outlet that public support in Russia for the military campaign was “falling significantly.”

    Meduza said it obtained a recent confidential opinion survey conducted by the Federal Protection Service, which is in charge of guarding the Kremlin and providing security to top government officials.

    The survey, commissioned by the Kremlin, found that 55% of respondents backed peace talks with Ukraine while 25% wanted the war to go on. The report didn’t mention the margin of error.

    Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster, found in a similar poll carried out in November that 53% of respondents supported peace talks, 41% spoke in favor of continuing the fight, and 6% were undecided. It said that poll of 1,600 people had a margin of error of no more than 3.4%.

    The British Defense Ministry noted that “despite the Russian authorities’ efforts to enforce pervasive control of the information environment, the conflict has become increasingly tangible for many Russians” since Putin in September ordered a “partial mobilization” of reservists to bolster his forces in Ukraine.

    “With Russia unlikely to achieve major battlefield successes in the next several months, maintaining even tacit approval of the war amongst the population is likely to be increasingly difficult for the Kremlin,” the British ministry said.

    In recent weeks, Russia’s military focus has been on striking Ukrainian infrastructure nationwide, pressing an offensive in the Donetsk region city of Bakhmut and shelling sites in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an 8-month Russian occupation.

    In his nightly address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at Western efforts to crimp Russia’s crucial oil industry, a key source of funds for Putin’s war machine, saying their $60-per-barrel price cap on imports of most Russian oil was insufficient.

    “It is not a serious decision to set such a limit for Russian prices, which is quite comfortable for the budget of the terrorist state,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Russia. He said the $60-per-barrel level would still allow Russia to bring in $100 billion in revenues per year.

    “This money will go not only to the war and not only to further sponsorship by Russia of other terrorist regimes and organisations. This money will be used for further destabilisation of those countries that are now trying to avoid serious decisions,” Zelenskyy said.

    Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, the United States and the 27-nation European Union agreed Friday to cap what they would pay for Russian oil at $60 per barrel. The limit is set to take effect Monday, along with an EU embargo on Russian oil shipped by sea.

    Russian authorities have rejected the price cap and threatened Saturday to stop supplying the nations that endorsed it.

    “We will sell oil and oil products to those countries, which will work with us on market conditions, even if we have to somewhat cut production,” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Sunday.

    In yet another show of Western support for Ukraine’s efforts to battle back Russian forces and cope with fallout from the war, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on Saturday visited the operations of a Ukrainian aid group that provides support for internally displaced people in Ukraine, among her other visits with top Ukrainian officials.

    Nuland assembled dolls out of yarn in the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag with youngsters from regions including Kharkiv in the northeast, Kherson in the south and Donetsk in the east.

    “This is psychological support for them at an absolutely crucial time,” Nuland said.

    “As President Putin knows best, this war could stop today, if he chose to stop it and withdrew his forces — and then negotiations can begin,” she added.

    ___

    Merchant reported from Washington.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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  • EU warns Musk to beef up Twitter controls ahead of new rules

    EU warns Musk to beef up Twitter controls ahead of new rules

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    LONDON (AP) — A top European Union official warned Elon Musk on Wednesday that Twitter needs to beef up measures to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content to avoid violating new rules that threaten tech giants with big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc.

    Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, told the billionaire Tesla CEO that the social media platform will have to significantly increase efforts to comply with the new rules, known as the Digital Services Act, set to take effect next year.

    The two held a video call to discuss Twitter’s preparedness for the law, which will require tech companies to better police their platforms for material that, for instance, promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams.

    It’s part of a new digital rulebook that has made Europe the global leader in the push to rein in the power of social media companies, potentially setting up a clash with Musk’s vision for a more unfettered Twitter. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also said Wednesday that an investigation into Musk’s $44 billion purchase was not off the table.

    Breton said he was pleased to hear that Musk considers the EU rules “a sensible approach to implement on a worldwide basis.”

    “But let’s also be clear that there is still huge work ahead,” Musk said, according to a readout of the call released by Breton’s office. “Twitter will have to implement transparent user policies, significantly reinforce content moderation and protect freedom of speech, tackle disinformation with resolve, and limit targeted advertising.”

    After Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” bought Twitter a month ago, groups that monitor the platform for racist, antisemitic and other toxic speech, such the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, say it’s been on the rise on the world’s de facto digital public square.

    Musk has signaled an interest in rolling back many of Twitter’s previous rules meant to combat misinformation, most recently by abandoning enforcement of its COVID-19 misinformation policy. He already reinstated some high-profile accounts that had violated Twitter’s content rules and had promised a “general amnesty” restoring most suspended accounts starting this week.

    Twitter didn’t respond to an email request for comment. In a separate blog post Wednesday, the company said “human safety” is its top priority and that its trust and safety team “continues its diligent work to keep the platform safe from hateful conduct, abusive behavior, and any violation of Twitter’s rules.”

    Musk, however, has laid off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce, along with an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Many others have resigned, including the company’s head of trust and safety.

    In the call Wednesday, Musk agreed to let the EU’s executive Commission carry out a “stress test” at Twitter’s headquarters early next year to help the platform comply with the new rules ahead of schedule, the readout said.

    That will also help the company prepare for an “extensive independent audit” as required by the new law, which is aimed at protecting internet users from illegal content and reducing the spread of harmful but legal material.

    Violations could result in huge fines of up to 6% of a company’s annual global revenue or even a ban on operating in the European Union’s single market.

    Along with European regulators, Musk risks running afoul of Apple and Google, which power most of the world’s smartphones. Both have stringent policies against misinformation, hate speech and other misconduct, previously enforced to boot apps like the social media platform Parler from their devices. Apps must also meet certain data security, privacy and performance standards.

    Musk tweeted without providing evidence this week that Apple “threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.” Apple hasn’t commented but Musk backtracked on his claim Wednesday, saying he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook who “was clear that Apple never considered” removing Twitter.

    Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen walked back her statements about whether Musk’s purchase of Twitter warrants government review.

    “I misspoke,” she said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday, referring to a CBS interview this month where she said there was “no basis” to review the Twitter purchase.

    The Treasury secretary oversees the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency committee that investigates the national security risks from foreign investments in American firms.

    “If there are such risks, it would be appropriate for the Treasury to have a look,” Yellen told The New York Times.

    She declined to confirm whether CFIUS is currently investigating Musk’s Twitter purchase.

    Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is, through his investment company, Twitter’s biggest shareholder after Musk.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein in Washington and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed.

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  • Chinese users play cat-and-mouse with censors amid protests

    Chinese users play cat-and-mouse with censors amid protests

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    HONG KONG (AP) — Videos of hundreds protesting in Shanghai started to appear on WeChat on Saturday night. Showing chants about removing COVID-19 restrictions and demanding freedom, they would stay up only a few minutes before being censored.

    Elliot Wang, a 26-year-old in Beijing, was amazed.

    “I started refreshing constantly, and saving videos, and taking screenshots of what I could before it got censored,” said Wang, who only agreed to be quoted using his English name, in fear of government retaliation. “A lot of my friends were sharing the videos of the protests in Shanghai. I shared them too, but they would get taken down quickly.”

    More on Virus Outbreak in China

    That Wang was able to glimpse the extraordinary outpouring of grievances highlights the cat-and-mouse game that goes on between millions of Chinese internet users and the country’s gargantuan censorship machine.

    Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the country’s internet via a complex, multi-layered censorship operation that blocks access to almost all foreign news and social media, and blocks topics and keywords considered politically sensitive or detrimental to the Chinese Communist Party’s rule. Videos of or calls to protest are usually deleted immediately.

    But images of protests began to spread on WeChat, a ubiquitous Chinese social networking platform used by over 1 billion, in the wake of a deadly fire Nov. 24 in the northwestern city of Urumqi. Many suspected that lockdown measures prevented residents from escaping the flames, something the government denies.

    The sheer number of unhappy Chinese users who took to the Chinese internet to express their frustration, together with the methods they used to evade censors, led to a brief period of time in which government censors were overwhelmed, according to Han Rongbin, an associate professor at the University of Georgia’s International Affairs department.

    “It takes censors some time to study what is happening and to add that to their portfolio in terms of censorship, so it’s a learning process for the government on how to conduct censorship effectively,” Han said.

    In 2020, the death from COVID-19 of Li Wenliang, a doctor who was arrested for allegedly spreading rumors following an attempt to alert others about a “SARS-like” virus, sparked widespread outrage and an outpouring of anger against the Chinese censorship system. Users posted criticism for hours before censors moved to delete posts.

    As censors took down posts related to the fire, Chinese internet users often used humor and metaphor to spread critical messages.

    “Chinese netizens have always been very creative because every idea used successfully once will be discovered by censors the next time,” said Liu Lipeng, a censor-turned-critic of China’s censorship practices.

    Chinese users started posting images of blank sheets of white paper, said Liu, in a silent reminder of words they weren’t allowed to post.

    Others posted sarcastic messages like “Good good good sure sure sure right right right yes yes yes,” or used Chinese homonyms to evoke calls for President Xi Jinping to resign, such as “shrimp moss,” which sounds like the words for “step down,” and “banana peel,” which has the same initials as Xi’s name.

    But within days, censors moved to contain images of white paper. They would have used a range of tools, said Chauncey Jung, a policy analyst who previously worked for several Chinese internet companies based in Beijing.

    Most content censorship is not done by the state, Jung said, but outsourced to content moderation operations at private social media platforms, who use a mix of humans and AI. Some censored posts are not deleted, but may be made visible only to the author, or removed from search results. In some cases, posts with sensitive key phrases may be published after review.

    A search on Weibo on Thursday for the term “white paper” mostly turned up posts that were critical of the protests, with no images of a single sheet of blank paper, or of people holding white papers at protests.

    It’s possible to access the global internet from China by using virtual private networks that disguise internet traffic, but these systems are illegal and many Chinese internet users access only the domestic internet. Wang does not use a VPN.

    “I think I can say for all the mainlanders in my generation that we are really excited,” said Wang. “But we’re also really disappointed because we can’t do anything. … They just keep censoring, keep deleting, and even releasing fake accounts to praise the cops.”

    But the system works well enough to stop many users from ever seeing them. When protests broke out across China over the weekend, Carmen Ou, who lives in Beijing, initially didn’t notice.

    Ou learned of the protests only later, after using a VPN service to access Instagram.

    “I tried looking at my feed on WeChat, but there was no mention of any protests,” she said. “If not for a VPN and access to Instagram, I might not have found out that such a monumental event had taken place.”

    Han, the international affairs professor, said censorship “doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.”

    “Censorship might be functioning to prevent a big enough size of the population from accessing the critical information to be mobilized,” he said.

    China’s opaque approach to tamping down the spread of online dissent also makes it difficult to distinguish government campaigns from ordinary spam.

    Searching Twitter using the Chinese words for Shanghai or other Chinese cities reveals protest videos, but also a near-constant flood of new posts showing racy photos of young women. Some researchers proposed that a state-backed campaign could be seeking to drown out news of the protests with “not safe for work” content.

    A preliminary analysis by the Stanford Internet Observatory found lots of spam but no “compelling evidence” that it was specifically intended to suppress information or dissent, said Stanford data architect David Thiel.

    “I’d be skeptical of anyone claiming clear evidence of government attribution,” Thiel said in an email.

    Twitter searches for more specific protest-related terms, such as “Urumqi Middle Road, Shanghai,” produced mainly posts related to the protests.

    Israeli data analysis firm Cyabra and another research group that shared analysis with the AP said it was hard to distinguish between a deliberate attempt to drown out protest information sought by the Chinese diaspora and a run-of-the-mill commercial spam campaign.

    Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment. It hasn’t answered media inquiries since billionaire Elon Musk took over the platform in late October and cut back much of its workforce, including many of those tasked with moderating spam and other content. Musk often tweets about how he’s enacting or enforcing new Twitter content rules but hasn’t commented on the recent protests in China.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan in London and AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this story.

    ___

    This story corrects that the Urumqi fire was on Thursday, Nov. 24, not Friday.

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  • Prosecutor: Evidence shows Trump ‘explicitly’ OK’d tax fraud

    Prosecutor: Evidence shows Trump ‘explicitly’ OK’d tax fraud

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    NEW YORK (AP) — In the end, it wasn’t a last-minute smoking gun but a prosecutor insisting that evidence shows Donald Trump was aware of a scheme that his Trump Organization’s executives hatched to avoid paying personal income taxes on millions of dollars worth of company-paid perks.

    After telling jurors on Thursday that Trump “knew exactly what was going on” with the scheme, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass followed up by citing trial evidence and testimony that he said made clear “Mr. Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud.”

    Steinglass, speaking on the last day before deliberations at the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud, showed jurors a lease Trump signed for one executive’s Manhattan apartment and a memo the former president initialed authorizing a pay cut for another executive who got perks.

    He also cited Weisselberg’s claim, during his three days of testimony, that he told Trump he would pay him back after Trump agreed to cover his grandchildren’s hefty private school tuition cost. Weisselberg then adjusted his payroll records to cut his pre-tax salary by the cost of the tuition.

    “I mention this all to show that this whole narrative that Mr. Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,” Steinglass said.

    Trump himself is not on trial, as Steinglass reminded jurors, but Judge Juan Manuel Merchan gave him the green light to talk about Trump’s possible awareness of the scheme after the company’s lawyers, in their summations, claimed that Trump knew nothing about it.

    Trump has denied knowing that Weisselberg and other executives were dodging taxes, writing on his Truth Social platform this week: “There was no gain for ‘Trump,’ and we had no knowledge of it.”

    After Steinglass finished Friday, Trump Organization lawyer Michael van der Veen asked Merchan to declare a mistrial, arguing that the prosecutor had irreparably harmed the defense by effectively portraying Trump as a co-conspirator in the tax fraud scheme.

    “I don’t believe it’s necessary to declare a mistrial. That’s not really even a thought,” Merchan said, agreeing to instead caution jurors about Steinglass’ remarks.

    But Steinglass’ sudden focus on Trump’s knowledge of the scheme, right as the Trump company’s trial was ambling to a conclusion, begged the question: Why wasn’t he charged, too?

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment, citing the ongoing trial. District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who inherited the case when he took office in January, has said that an investigation of Trump is “active and ongoing,” and that no decision has been made on whether to charge him.

    The Trump Organization, the entity through which Trump manages his golf courses, hotels and other ventures, is charged with helping some top executives avoid paying income taxes on non-monetary compensation. The company’s case is the only trial to arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s office’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices.

    Prosecutors argue that the company is liable because Weisselberg and an underling he worked with on the scheme, controller Jeffrey McConney, were “high managerial” agents entrusted to act on behalf of the company and its various entities. If convicted, the company could be fined more than $1 million.

    The defense has alleged that Weisselberg came up with the tax dodge scheme on his own, without Trump or the Trump family knowing, and that the company didn’t benefit from his actions.

    “We are here today for one reason and one reason only: the greed of Allen Weisselberg,” Trump Organization lawyer Susan Necheles said Thursday.

    Weisselberg testified that Trump didn’t know, but that the Trump Organization did derive some benefit because it didn’t have to pay him as much in actual salary. Van der Veen peppered his summation Thursday with the defense’s mantra: “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg.”

    “Their entire theory of the case is a fraud,” Steinglass said Friday morning before the jury entered the courtroom, as company lawyers were seeking to temper his rhetoric.

    One company-paid Manhattan apartment even went to Weisselberg’s son, Barry, ostensibly so he could respond quickly to emergencies at the Central Park ice rink the company managed.

    “This is all part of the Trump executive compensation package: free cars for you, free cars for your wife, free apartments for you, free apartments for your kids,” Steinglass said. Barry Weisselberg, he quipped, “wasn’t living on a Zamboni in Wollman Rink. He was living in an apartment on Central Park South.”

    At the outset of the trial, Merchan cautioned the defense and prosecution to avoid talking about Trump so as to not give jurors the impression that longtime real estate honcho was, or should have been, sitting at the defense table.

    But the judge noted Friday that the tenor of the trial changed after defense lawyers and prosecutors frequently mentioned Trump during arguments and testimony, even though he did not testify and did not attend the trial.

    Steinglass, wrapping his summation, told jurors that Trump was “the elephant that’s not in the room.”

    __

    Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.

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  • Jury begins deliberations in Harvey Weinstein rape trial

    Jury begins deliberations in Harvey Weinstein rape trial

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Friday in the Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, after a final push from the prosecution.

    “You have irrefutable, overwhelming evidence of the nature of this man, and what he did to these women,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson told the jurors in his rebuttal to the closing argument delivered by the defense a day earlier.

    Thompson urged them to find the 70-year-old former movie mogul guilty of the two rape counts and five sexual assault counts he’s charged with.

    The charges involve accusations from four women spanning from 2005 to 2013. The jury heard from 49 witness in more than four weeks of testimony.

    In his closing, Weinstein’s defense attorney Alan Jackson emphasized the absence of physical evidence of the assaults, none of which were reported to authorities until years later. He told jurors two of the accusers were clearly lying, and the other two had reframed “transactional” and “100% consensual” sexual acts with Weinstein as assaults after he became a magnet for the #MeToo movement in 2017.

    “Regret is not rape,” Jackson said.

    In his rebuttal, Thompson guided jurors back through the evidence for each woman. He said the defense failed to show that any of the women had gained anything “transactional” from Weinstein, or that they had anything to gain by lying.

    “Where is the evidence that there is any motivation,” Thompson said, “other than to get justice for being sexually assaulted?”

    Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench gave the jurors final instructions then gave them the case. They had just a few hours to deliberate on Friday afternoon before a weekend break.

    Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence for a conviction in New York and could be sentenced to more than 60 years in prison in California if convicted on all counts.

    ___

    For more on the Harvey Weinstein trial, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/harvey-weinstein

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  • Uvalde shooting victims seek $27B, class action in lawsuit

    Uvalde shooting victims seek $27B, class action in lawsuit

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    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Victims of the Uvalde school shooting that left 21 people dead have filed a lawsuit against local and state police, the city and other school and law enforcement officials seeking $27 billion due to delays in confronting the attacker, court documents show.

    The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Austin on Tuesday, says officials failed to follow active shooter protocol when they waited more than an hour to confront the attacker inside a fourth-grade classroom.

    It seeks class action status and damages for survivors of the May 24 shooting who have sustained “emotional or psychological damages as a result of the defendants’ conduct and omissions on that date.”

    Among those who filed the lawsuit are school staff and representatives of minors who were present at Robb Elementary when a gunman stormed the campus, killing 19 children and two teachers in the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in nearly a decade.

    Instead of following previous training to stop an active shooter “the conduct of the three hundred and seventy-six (376) law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustively torturous seventy- seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards,” the lawsuit claims.

    City of Uvalde officials said they had not been served the paperwork as of Friday and did not comment on pending litigation.

    The Texas Department of Public Safety and the Uvalde Consolidated School District did not respond to requests for comment.

    A group of the survivors also sued Daniel Defense, the company that made the gun used by the shooter, and the store where he bought the gun. That separate lawsuit seeks $6 billion in damages.

    Daniel Defense, based in Black Creek, Georgia, did not respond to a request for comment. In a congressional hearing over the summer, CEO Marty Daniels called the Uvalde shooting and others like it “deeply disturbing” but separated the weapons themselves from the violence, saying America’s mass shootings are local problems to be solved locally.

    Earlier this week, the mother of a child killed in the shooting filed another federal lawsuit against many of the same people and entities.

    Two officers have been fired because of their actions at the scene and others have resigned or been placed on leave. In October, Col. Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, acknowledged mistakes by officers when confronted for the first time by families of the Uvalde victims over false and shifting accounts from law enforcement and lack of transparency in the available information. But McCraw defended his agency, saying they “did not fail” Uvalde.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

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  • Infowars host Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy

    Infowars host Alex Jones files for personal bankruptcy

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    Infowars host Alex Jones filed for personal bankruptcy protection Friday in Texas, citing debts that include nearly $1.5 billion he has been ordered to pay to families who sued him over his conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre.

    Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Houston. His filing listed $1 billion to $10 billion in liabilities and $1 million to $10 million in assets.

    Jones acknowledged the filing on his Infowars broadcast, saying the case will prove that he’s broke and asking viewers to shop on his website to help keep the show on the air.

    “I’m officially out of money, personally,” Jones said. “It’s all going to be filed. It’s all going to be public. And you will see that Alex Jones has almost no cash.”

    Jones, who sells dietary supplements and other items on his Infowars site and promotes them during his shows, said he would not be commenting further on the bankruptcy.

    For years, Jones described the 2012 massacre as a hoax. A Connecticut jury in October awarded victims’ families $965 million in compensatory damages, and a judge later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages. Earlier in the year, a Texas jury awarded the parents of a child killed in the shooting $49 million in damages.

    The bankruptcy filing temporarily halted all proceedings in the Connecticut case. A judge was forced to cancel a hearing scheduled for Friday on the Sandy Hook families’ request to secure the assets of Jones and his company to help pay the more than $1.4 billion in damages awarded there.

    Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families in the Connecticut case, criticized the bankruptcy filing.

    “Like every other cowardly move Alex Jones has made, this bankruptcy will not work,” Mattei said in a statement. “The bankruptcy system does not protect anyone who engages in intentional and egregious attacks on others, as Mr. Jones did. The American judicial system will hold Alex Jones accountable, and we will never stop working to enforce the jury’s verdict.”

    An attorney representing Jones in the bankruptcy case did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

    In the Texas and Connecticut cases, some relatives of the 20 children and six adults killed in the school shooting testified that they were threatened and harassed for years by people who believed the lies told on Jones’ show. One parent testified that conspiracy theorists urinated on his 7-year-old son’s grave and threatened to dig up the coffin.

    Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung, testified that people mailed rape threats to her house.

    Jones has laughed at the awards on his Infowars show, saying he has less than $2 million to his name and won’t be able to pay such high amounts. Those comments contradicted the testimony of a forensic economist at the Texas trial, who said Jones and his company Free Speech Systems have a combined net worth as high as $270 million. Free Speech Systems is also seeking bankruptcy protection.

    In documents filed in July in Free Speech Systems’ bankruptcy case in Texas, a budget for the company for Nov. 26 to Dec. 23 estimated product sales will total nearly $3 million, while operating expenses will be nearly $739,000. Jones’ salary is listed at $20,000 every two weeks.

    Sandy Hook families have alleged in another lawsuit in Texas that Jones hid millions of dollars in assets after victims’ relatives began taking him to court. Jones’ lawyer denied the allegation.

    A third trial over Jones’ comments on Sandy Hook is expected to begin within the next two months in Texas, in a lawsuit brought by the parents of another child killed in the shooting.

    ___

    Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut, and Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this report.

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  • Macron hits New Orleans’ French Quarter, meets with Musk

    Macron hits New Orleans’ French Quarter, meets with Musk

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron arrived Friday in Louisiana, the American state most closely aligned historically with his country, to celebrate their longstanding cultural ties and discuss energy policy and climate change.

    Macron met with political leaders and strolled through New Orleans’ historic French Quarter, the heart of the city, stopping to talk and shake hands with bystanders. He paused next to a street brass band and nodded and clapped as they played “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

    Macron also said he met with billionaire Elon Musk for what he called a “clear and honest discussion” about Twitter, days after a top European Union official warned the social media platform’s new owner that the company must do more to protect users from harmful content.

    The visit is the first by a French president since Valery Giscard d’Estaing traveled to Lafayette and New Orleans in 1976. The only other French president to visit Louisiana was Charles de Gaulle in 1960.

    Macron’s itinerary started at Jackson Square. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell walked him to the Historic New Orleans Collection where Macron discussed climate change impacts with Gov. John Bel Edwards. The French president also met with energy company representatives.

    “This state visit enables us to put France, and with France Europe, at the heart of the American agenda. That’s a good thing,” Macron told journalists in French, according to a translation from pool reporters.

    Macron told Edwards he was overcome by the reception in the city.

    “What I think this signifies is a special relationship we have with France. It is historical and cultural,” Edwards said.

    Edwards, a Democrat, has been outspoken about the perils of climate change in a state where tens of thousands of jobs are tied to the oil and gas industry. This makes the stop to New Orleans “very emblematic” of climate-related efforts, French officials said.

    During a brief meeting in the presence of Macron, the governor and the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, signed a memorandum of understanding “to further expand and enhance the strong cultural connections between France and Louisiana in the areas of the economy, clean energy and the environment,” Edwards’ office said.

    “Like me, President Macron believes that climate change is real,” Edwards said.

    The governor’s office said the agreement formally creates a Louisiana-based position for a French technical expert on the transition to clean energy.

    During Macron’s visit to Washington on Thursday, he and President Joe Biden released a joint statement expressing “their deep concern regarding the growing impact of climate change and nature loss” and said they “intend to continue to galvanize domestic and global action to address it.”

    On Friday evening Macron posted a photo on Twitter of his encounter with Musk, the two men sitting across from each other at a table in an empty room. He said he and the Tesla CEO discussed “future green industrial projects,” and also the social media platform.

    “Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations,” the president said in one of a series of tweets.

    Earlier this week Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for digital policy, told Musk that Twitter will have to significantly increase efforts to comply with new rules known as the Digital Services Act that take effect next year, or potentially face hefty fines or even a ban in the continental bloc.

    Louisiana is named for Louis XIV, the famous Sun King who ruled France for 72 years starting in 1643. New Orleans is where the Louisiana Purchase was finalized. The deal transferred the Louisiana Territory, which encompassed much of what is today the central United States, from France to the U.S. in 1803.

    Macron’s New Orleans visit included a stop with first lady Brigitte Macron at the Cabildo, where ceremonies marking the land transfer were held.

    Macron was also scheduled to visit the New Orleans Museum of Art and dine downtown before departing.

    Holding the U.S. and French flags, Christiane Geisler, who was born in France and moved to Louisiana six years ago, was one of the spectators who stood in the streets hoping to see the president Friday. She was thrilled that she got to shake Macron’s hand and have a brief conversation with him in French.

    “For me, when I moved here, it had a good feeling of French,” Geisler said.

    The French Quarter, 13 blocks long and roughly six wide, was first settled in the 1700s and was later ravaged twice by fire. It best known as a tourist spot and commercial district where a reimagined French Market, fine restaurants, antique shops and art galleries coexist alongside T-shirt shops, strip joints and bars blasting live music by cover bands.

    ___

    Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

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  • World Cup Viewer’s Guide: Americans face the Netherlands

    World Cup Viewer’s Guide: Americans face the Netherlands

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    DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Christian Pulisic became an American star with the winning goal — and the injury he got while scoring it — that lifted the United States into the round of 16 at the World Cup.

    He injured his pelvic bone, Pulisic insisted, when he collided with Iran’s goalkeeper on the goal that sent him to the hospital as the United States won 1-0 and advanced in soccer’s biggest tournament.

    Pulisic was cleared to play Saturday, when the Americans face the Netherlands in the knockout round.

    Everybody expected him to be on the field even before doctors gave him the medical go-ahead on Friday.

    “I will do everything in my power to work with this medical team and make sure that I can play,” Pulisic said of his intention to be on the field.

    The United States is trying to get to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002 and continue to delight the American audience, which has tuned into the first three matches in record numbers.

    A win against the Netherlands might be enough to convince fans back at home that the United States can, indeed, compete on the biggest stage in soccer.

    “The support from the U.S. has been a bit surreal,” captain Tyler Adams said. “My dad’s a teacher at school, and they were all watching during their classes, the game and supporting me. And I was getting videos from the family, all the watch parties in my town and whatnot.

    “It’s really, really cool to see how much just a tournament can change that perspective on people supporting soccer.”

    The United States is winless in its last 11 World Cup games against European teams, a streak that includes five losses and six draws. On Saturday, the Americans face a Dutch squad that, like several other World Cup teams at this tournament, is battling the flu. The bug ran through the U.S. squad last week.

    Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal gave his team the day off on Thursday instead of running a typical 11-on-11 match.

    “I gave them a day of rest,” Van Gaal said Friday. “With this group, they communicate that to me. I listen to my players.”

    He declined to elaborate on how many players are affected, but by abandoning the typical training schedule Van Gaal created speculation that at least six players are ill.

    “We are not going to elaborate on that,” he said. “But if it goes around in the group, it is worrying.”

    Frenkie de Jong has said a scratchy throat disrupted his ability to communicate during a victory over Qatar, and Marten de Roon told reporters he had a cold earlier this week.

    Netherlands midfielder Cody Gapko is trying to become the first player from his country to score in four straight World Cup matches, and the Dutch team is on an 18-game winning streak that the United States is determined to snap.

    “We felt a responsibility to use this World Cup to create momentum in the United States for soccer,” U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter said. “And that’s why we want to keep going and we want to keep doing well and make the country proud.”

    AUSTRALIA-ARGENTINA

    Lionel Messi goes into yet another match that could be his last on the World Cup stage.

    “No one expects us to win,” Australia forward Mathew Leckie said. “So let’s shock the world.”

    Argentina was shocked by Saudi Arabia in its opening match and had to beat Poland earlier this week to ensure that Messi could continue in his fifth World Cup. One of the greatest players of all-time has never won this tournament, and this one in Qatar is expected to be his last.

    Argentina turned a corner with wins over Mexico and Poland and emerged as the winner of Group C to face Australia, ranked 38th in the world. Australia is in the knockout round for only the second time, its previous trip a 1-0 loss to Italy in 2006.

    Argentina won’t take Australia for granted, even though it has five wins, one draw and one loss in eight meetings dating to 1988. This is the first match between the two teams since 2007.

    “We know, at the moment, everything is very difficult,” Messi said. “All the opponents are complicated. We know it as well as anyone.”

    ___

    AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Dems move to make South Carolina, not Iowa, 1st voting state

    Dems move to make South Carolina, not Iowa, 1st voting state

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats voted Friday to remove Iowa as the leadoff state on the presidential nominating calendar and replace it with South Carolina starting in 2024, a dramatic shakeup championed by President Joe Biden to better reflect the party’s deeply diverse electorate.

    The Democratic National Committee’s rule-making arm made the move to strip Iowa from the position it has held for five decades after technical meltdowns sparked chaos and marred results of the state’s 2020 caucus. The change also comes after a long push by some of the party’s top leaders to start choosing a president in states that are less white, especially given the importance of Black voters as Democrats’ most loyal electoral base.

    Discussion on prioritizing diversity drew such impassioned reaction at the committee gathering in Washington that DNC chair Jaime Harrison wiped away tears as committee member Donna Brazile suggested that Democrats had spent years failing to fight for Black voters: “Do you know what it’s like to live on a dirt road? Do you know what it’s like to try to find running water that is clean?”

    “Do you know what it’s like to wait and see if the storm is going to pass you by and your roof is still intact?” Brazile asked. “That’s what this is about.”

    The committee approved moving South Carolina’s primary to Feb. 3 and having Nevada and New Hampshire vote three days later. Georgia would go the following week and Michigan two weeks after that.

    The move marks a dramatic shift from the current calendar, which has had Iowa holding the first-in-the-nation caucuses since 1972, followed by New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary since 1920. Nevada and South Carolina have gone next since the 2008 presidential election, when Democrats last did a major overhaul of their primary calendar.

    The changes will still have to be approved by the full DNC in a vote likely early next year, but it will almost certainly follow the rule-making committee’s lead.

    The revamped schedule could largely be moot for 2024 if Biden opts to seek a second term, but may remake Democratic presidential cycles after that. The president has said for months that he intends to run again, and White House aides have begun making staffing discussions for his likely reelection campaign, even though no final decision has been made.

    The DNC also plans to revisit the primary calendar again before 2028 — meaning more changes could be coming before then.

    Biden wrote in a letter to rules committee members on Thursday that the party should scrap “restrictive” caucuses altogether because their rules on in-person participation can sometimes exclude working-class and other voters. He told also told party leaders privately that he’d like to see South Carolina go first to better ensure that voters of color aren’t marginalized as Democrats choose a presidential nominee.

    Four of the five states now poised to start the party’s primary are presidential battlegrounds, meaning the eventual Democratic winner would be able to lay groundwork in important general election locales. That’s especially true for Michigan and Georgia, which both voted for Donald Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020. The exception is South Carolina, which hasn’t gone Democratic in a presidential race since 1976.

    The first five voting states would be positioned to cast ballots before Super Tuesday, the day when much of the rest of the country holds primaries. That gives the early states outsize influence since White House hopefuls struggling to raise money or gain political traction often drop out before visiting much of the rest of the country.

    Scott Brennan, a rules committee member from Iowa, said “small, rural states” like his “must have a voice in the presidential nominating process.”

    “Democrats cannot forget about entire groups of voters in the heart of the Midwest without doing significant damage to the party in newer generations,” Brennan said.

    The Republican National Committee has already decided to keep Iowa’s caucus as the first contest in its 2024 presidential primary, ensuring that GOP White House hopefuls — which include Trump — have continued to frequently campaign there.

    House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, South Carolina’s lone congressional Democrat and one of Biden’s top supporters in Congress, said the president called him Thursday to inform him of his push to move his state up.

    “I didn’t ask to be first,” Clyburn said. “It was his idea to be first.”

    Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 boosted the candidate’s flagging presidential campaign just ahead of South Carolina’s primary, which he won big. That helped Biden shake off early losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada and eventually take the White House.

    “He knows what South Carolina did for him, and he’s demonstrated that time and time again, by giving respect to South Carolina,” Clyburn said.

    Still, the vote by the rules committee has faced serious pushback, with some states vowing to ignore the changes altogether. That’s despite the panel approving language saying states could lose all of their delegates to the party’s national convention if they attempt to violate new rules.

    Iowa and New Hampshire have said laws in their states mandate them going before others, and they intend to abide by those, not DNC decrees. Only committee members from Iowa and New Hampshire objected to the proposal that passed Friday, with everyone else supporting it.

    Nevada, with its heavily Hispanic population, initially balked at sharing the second-place slot with New Hampshire, a state 2,500 miles away. Nevada committee member Artie Blanco’s voice cracked as she argued against the change.

    “If we want to build a strong relationship with Latinos,” Blanco said, “then Nevada must stand alone on a date and not have to share that date.”

    After more discussion, Blanco said later that she would support the new calendar. It was “not ideal” for her state to go the same day as another, she said, but “we accept what the will of the president is.”

    Harrison said the new slate of five early voting states will need to show they are working toward moving their primaries to those dates by early next year or risk losing their place. Some state legislatures set primary dates; others have their secretaries of state or the directors of their state parties do it.

    The DNC chair choked up after the vote as he talked about South Carolina once having been the site of the first attack of the Civil War and now being in line to lead off his party’s primary.

    “This proposal reflects the best of our party as a whole, and it will continue to make our party and our country stronger,” Harrison said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard contributed from Columbia, S.C.

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  • GOP’s new committee leaders prepare blitz of investigations

    GOP’s new committee leaders prepare blitz of investigations

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are promising aggressive oversight of the Biden administration once they assume the majority next year, with a particular focus on the business dealings of presidential son Hunter Biden, illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and the originations of COVID-19.

    Republicans won’t have enough votes to advance key legislative priorities if there is no Democratic buy-in, but their oversight of government agencies could put Democrats on the defensive and dampen support for the Biden administration going into the 2024 presidential elections.

    Some of the lawmakers expected to lead those investigations once House Republicans select their new committee chairs:

    JUDICIARY’S BIG ROLE

    Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Jordan helped form and then lead the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and voted on Jan. 6, 2021, to object to counting Pennsylvania’s electoral vote. President Donald Trump thought so highly of Jordan that he presented the congressman with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    The Judiciary Committee handles oversight of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and issues such as crime, immigration and protection of civil liberties. It’s typically one of the most partisan committees on Capitol Hill, yet Jordan’s combative style stands out even there. The committee would be the place where any effort would begin to impeach a member of the Biden administration, as some Republicans have been proposing for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

    Jordan’s inquiries to the administration in recent months make clear the committee will investigate the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. He has also advocated for a wide-ranging look at the Biden administration’s immigration policies and the origins of COVID-19.

    “All those things need to be investigated just so you have the truth,” Jordan told conservative activists last summer at a conference. “Plus that will frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”

    OVERSIGHT’S LONG LIST

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and has made clear that investigating President Joe Biden’s son Hunter will be one of his top priorities. The Republicans say their investigation of Hunter Biden’s business dealings is to “determine whether these activities compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.”

    Comer has also been laying the groundwork for investigating the situation on the U.S-Mexico border. He sent a letter to Mayorkas seeking an array of documents and communications pertaining to the administration’s border policy. “We cannot endure another year of the Biden Administration’s failed border policies,” the letter said.

    But that’s just a slice the committee’s focus.

    “We’re going to investigate between 40 and 50 different things,” Comer said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “We have the capacity. We’ll have 25 members on the committee, and we’re going to have a staff close to 70. So we have the ability to investigate a lot of things.”

    The federal government’s spending in response to COVID-19 will also be scrutinized.

    “We believe that there have been hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars wasted over the past three years, so that spans two administrations, in the name of COVID.

    “We want to have hearings on that. We want to try to determine what happened with the fraudulent unemployment insurance funds, the fraudulent PPP loan funds, some of this money that’s being spent for state and local governments in the COVID stimulus money,” Comer said.

    AFGHANISTAN IN FOCUS

    Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is expected to serve as the next chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which will be investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. McCaul reiterated a request in mid-October for various documents and directed the State Department to preserve all records related to the chaotic withdrawal, which included the loss of 13 U.S. service members killed during a suicide bombing attack.

    “The way it was done was such a disaster and such a disgrace to our veterans that served in Afghanistan. They deserve answers to the many questions we have,” McCaul said on ABC’s “This Week.” He added: “Why wasn’t there a plan to evacuate? How did it go so wrong?”

    SPOTLIGHT ON ENERGY AND TAXES

    Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., is expected to serve as the next chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress, from health care to environmental protection to national energy policy. Republicans on the committee have already spent months investigating the origins of COVID-19 and are expected to continue that work in the next Congress.

    Reps. Jason Smith, R-Mo., Adrian Smith, R-Neb., and Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., have expressed interest in serving as the next chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, which has already been seeking documents related to the spending in the nearly $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that Democrats passed early last year. The committee also has oversight over the IRS, a frequent target of GOP scrutiny and scorn.

    OTHER KEY SPOTS

    Likely leaders of other prominent committees:

    — Agriculture Committee: Glenn Thompson, R-Pa.

    — Appropriations Committee: Kay Granger, R-Texas.

    — Armed Services Committee: Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

    — Budget Committee: Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., Buddy Carter, R-Ga., and Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, have all expressed interest in the chairmanship.

    — Financial Services Committee: Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

    — Homeland Security Committee: Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Clay Higgins, R-La., have all expressed interest in the chairmanship.

    — Intelligence Committee: Michael Turner, R-Ohio

    — Natural Resources Committee: Bruce Westerman, R-Ark.

    — Science, Space and Technology Committee: Frank Lucas, R-Okla.

    — Transportation and Infrastructure Committee: Sam Graves, R-Mo.

    — Veterans’ Affairs Committee: Mike Bost, R-Ill.

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  • Landmark same-sex marriage bill wins Senate passage

    Landmark same-sex marriage bill wins Senate passage

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate passed bipartisan legislation Tuesday to protect same-sex marriages, an extraordinary sign of shifting national politics on the issue and a measure of relief for the hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples who have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide.

    The bill, which would ensure that same-sex and interracial marriages are enshrined in federal law, was approved 61-36 on Tuesday, including support from 12 Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation was “a long time coming” and part of America’s “difficult but inexorable march towards greater equality.”

    Democrats are moving quickly, while the party still holds the majority in both chambers of Congress. The legislation now moves to the House for a final vote, likely next week.

    President Joe Biden praised the bipartisan vote and said he will sign the bill “promptly and proudly” if it is passed by the House. He said it will ensure that LGBTQ youth “will grow up knowing that they, too, can lead full, happy lives and build families of their own.”

    The bill has gained steady momentum since the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion, a ruling that included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested same-sex marriage could also come under threat. Bipartisan Senate negotiations got a kick-start this summer when 47 Republicans unexpectedly voted for a House bill and gave supporters new optimism.

    The legislation would not force any state to allow same-sex couples to marry. But it would require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed, and protect current same-sex unions, if the court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision were to be overturned. It’s a stunning bipartisan endorsement, and evidence of societal change, after years of bitter divisiveness on the issue.

    A new law protecting same-sex marriages would also be a major victory for Democrats as they relinquish their two years of consolidated power in Washington, and a massive win for advocates who have been pushing for decades for federal legislation. It comes as the LGBTQ community has faced violent attacks, such as the shooting last weekend at a gay nightclub in Colorado that killed five people and injured at least 17.

    “Our community really needs a win, we have been through a lot,” said Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of Human Rights Campaign, which advocates on LGBTQ issues. “As a queer person who is married, I feel a sense of relief right now. I know my family is safe.”

    Robinson was in the Senate chamber for the vote with her wife, Becky, and toddler son. “It was more emotional than I expected,” she said.

    The vote was personal for many senators, too. Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat who is the first openly gay senator and was the lead sponsor of the bill, tearfully hugged Schumer and others as the final vote was called. Baldwin, who has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, tweeted thanks to the same-sex and interracial couples who she said made the moment possible.

    “By living as your true selves, you changed the hearts and minds of people around you,” she wrote.

    Schumer said on Tuesday that he was wearing the tie he wore at his daughter’s wedding, “one of the happiest moments of my life.” He also recalled the “harrowing conversation” he had with his daughter and her wife in September 2020 when they heard that liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had passed away. “Could our right to marry be undone?” they asked at the time.

    With conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ginsburg, the court has now overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to an abortion, stoking fears about Obergefell and other rights protected by the court. But sentiment has shifted on same-sex marriage, with more than two-thirds of the public now in support.

    Still, Schumer said it was notable that the Senate was even having the debate after years of Republican opposition. “A decade ago, it would have strained all of our imaginations to envision both sides talking about protecting the rights of same-sex married couples,” he said.

    Passage came after the Senate rejected three Republican amendments to protect the rights of religious institutions and others to still oppose such marriages. Supporters of the legislation argued those amendments were unnecessary because the bill had already been amended to clarify that it does not affect rights of private individuals or businesses that are currently enshrined in law. The bill would also make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

    Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has been lobbying his fellow GOP senators to support the legislation for months, pointed to the number of religious groups supporting the bill, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of those groups were part of negotiations on the bipartisan amendment.

    “They see this as a step forward for religious freedom,” Tillis says.

    The nearly 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement this month that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships to be against God’s commandments.

    Most Republicans still oppose the legislation, saying it is unnecessary and citing concerns about religious liberty. And some conservative groups stepped up opposition in recent weeks, lobbying Republican supporters to switch their votes.

    “Marriage is the exclusive, lifelong, conjugal union between one man and one woman, and any departure from that design hurts the indispensable goal of having every child raised in a stable home by the mom and dad who conceived him,” the Heritage Foundation’s Roger Severino, vice president of domestic policy, wrote in a recent blog post arguing against the bill.

    In an effort to win the 10 Republican votes necessary to overcome a filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, Democrats delayed consideration until after the midterm elections, hoping that would relieve political pressure on GOP senators who might be wavering.

    Eventual support from 12 Republicans gave Democrats the votes they needed.

    Along with Tillis, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman supported the bill early on and have lobbied their GOP colleagues to support it. Also voting for the legislation were Republican Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Todd Young of Indiana, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Mitt Romney of Utah, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska.

    Just before passage, Collins thanked her fellow Republicans who supported it. “I know it has not been easy, but they have done the right thing,” Collins said.

    Lummis, one of the more conservative members of the Senate, spoke ahead of the final vote about her “fairly brutal self soul searching” before supporting the bill. She said that she accepts her church’s beliefs that a marriage is between a man and a woman, but noted that the country was founded on the separation of church and state.

    “We do well by taking this step, not embracing or validating each other’s devoutly held views, but by the simple act of tolerating them,” Lummis said.

    Baldwin said earlier this month that the newfound openness from many Republicans on the subject reminds her “of the arc of the LBGTQ movement to begin with, in the early days when people weren’t out and people knew gay people by myths and stereotypes.”

    “And slowly laws have followed,” she said. “It is history.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

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  • GOP-controlled Arizona county refuses to certify election

    GOP-controlled Arizona county refuses to certify election

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    PHOENIX (AP) — Republican officials in a rural Arizona county refused Monday to certify the 2022 election despite no evidence of anything wrong with the count, a decision that was quickly challenged in court by the state’s top election official.

    The refusal to certify by Cochise County in southeastern Arizona comes amid pressure from prominent Republicans to reject results showing Democrats winning top races.

    Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat who narrowly won the race for governor, asked a judge to order county officials to canvass the election, which she said is an obligation under Arizona law. Lawyers representing a Cochise County voter and a group of retirees filed a similar lawsuit Monday, the deadline for counties to approve the official tally of votes, known as the canvass.

    The two Republican county supervisors delayed the canvass vote until Friday, when they want to hear once more about concerns over the certification of ballot tabulators, though election officials have repeatedly said the equipment is properly approved.

    State Elections Director Kori Lorick wrote in a letter last week that Hobbs is required by law to approve the statewide canvass by next week and will have to exclude Cochise County’s votes if they aren’t received in time.

    That would threaten to flip the victor in at least two close races — a U.S. House seat and state schools chief — from a Republican to a Democrat.

    Hobbs’ lawsuit asks the Cochise County Superior Court to order officials to certify by Thursday. Failing to certify would undermine the will of the county’s voters “and sow further confusion and doubt about the integrity of Arizona’s election system,” lawyers for Hobbs wrote.

    “The Board of Supervisors had all of the information they needed to certify this election and failed to uphold their responsibility for Cochise voters,” Sophia Solis, a spokeswoman for Hobbs, said in an email.

    Arizona law requires county officials to approve the election canvass, and lawyers in several counties warned Republican supervisors they could face criminal charges for failing to carry out their obligations.

    Election results have largely been certified without issue in jurisdictions across the country. That’s not been the case in Arizona, which was a focal point for efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election and push false narratives of fraud.

    Officials in a northeastern Pennsylvania county where paper shortages caused Election Day ballot problems deadlocked Monday on whether to report official vote tallies to the state, effectively preventing their certification of the results.

    Arizona was long a GOP stronghold, but this month Democrats won most of the highest profile races over Republicans who aggressively promoted Trump’s 2020 election lies. Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for governor who lost to Hobbs, and Mark Finchem, the candidate for secretary of state, have refused to acknowledge their losses.

    They blame Republican election officials in Maricopa County, the state’s largest, including metro Phoenix, for a problem with some ballot printers. Officials in Maricopa County said everyone had a chance to vote and all legal ballots were counted.

    Navajo, a rural Republican-leaning county, and Coconino, which is staunchly Democratic, voted to certify on Monday. In conservative Mohave and Yavapai counties, supervisors voted to canvass the results despite their own misgivings and several dozen speakers urging them not to.

    “Delaying this vote again will only prolong the agony without actually changing anything,” said Mohave County Supervisor Hildy Angius, a Republican. The county last week delayed its certification vote to register a protest against voting issues in Maricopa County.

    In Cochise County, GOP supervisors abandoned plans to hand count all ballots, which a court said would be illegal, but demanded last week that the secretary of state prove vote-counting machines were legally certified before they would approve the election results. On Monday, they said they wanted to hear again about those concerns.

    There are two companies that are accredited by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to conduct testing and certification of voting equipment, such as the electronic tabulators used in Arizona to read and count ballots.

    Conspiracy theories surrounding this process surfaced in early 2021, focused on what appeared to be an outdated accreditation certificate for one of the companies that was posted online. Federal officials investigated and reported that an administrative error had resulted in the agency failing to reissue an updated certificate as the company remained in good standing and underwent audits in 2018 and in early 2021.

    Officials also noted federal law dictates the only way a testing company can lose certification is for the commission to revoke it, which did not occur.

    Lake has pointed to problems on Election Day in Maricopa County, where printers at some vote centers produced ballots with markings that were too light to be read by on-site tabulators. Lines backed up amid the confusion, and Lake says an unknown number of her supporters may have been dissuaded from voting as a result.

    She filed a public records lawsuit last week, demanding the county produce documents shedding light on the issue before voting to certify the election on Monday. Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich also demanded an explanation ahead of the vote.

    The county responded on Sunday, saying nobody was prevented from voting, and 85% of vote centers never had lines longer than 45 minutes. Most vote centers with long lines had others nearby with shorter waits, county officials said.

    The response blamed prominent Republicans, including party chair Kelli Ward, for sowing confusion by telling supporters on Twitter not to place their ballots in a secure box to be tabulated later by more robust machines at county elections headquarters.

    The county said that just under 17,000 Election Day ballots were placed in those secure boxes and all were counted. Officials also said the problem was distributed across the county, dispelling claims by Lake that it was concentrated in Republican areas. Election Day ballots went overwhelmingly for Republicans, though only 16% of the 1.56 million votes cast in Maricopa County were made in-person on Election Day.

    Maricopa County supervisors heard for hours from dozens of people angry about the election, some demanding the county hold a revote, though there is no provision in state law allowing that. Supervisors unanimously approved the canvass.

    “This was not a perfect election,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates, a Republican. “But it was safe and secure. The votes have been counted accurately.”

    Meanwhile, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Randall Warner said he would decide in the next few days whether to allow an election challenge by Abraham Hamadeh, the Republican candidate for Arizona attorney general, to move ahead.

    Warner, who was appointed to the court in 2007 by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, spoke after a Monday afternoon hearing. Hamadeh filed the lawsuit earlier this month against his opponent, Democrat Kris Mayes, who holds a 510-vote lead in the race, along with every county recorder in Arizona and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is now governor-elect.

    The lawsuit alleges errors and inaccuracies at some voting centers and seeks to have Hamadeh installed as attorney general. A lawyer for Mayes says the suit is premature.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Terry Tang and Anita Snow in Phoenix and Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

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  • Supreme Court wrestles with Biden’s deportation policy

    Supreme Court wrestles with Biden’s deportation policy

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday wrestled with a politically tinged dispute over a Biden administration policy that would prioritize deportation of people in the country illegally who pose the greatest public safety risk.

    It was not clear after arguments that stretched past two hours and turned highly contentious at times whether the justices would allow the policy to take effect, or side with Republican-led states that have so far succeeded in blocking it.

    At the center of the case is a September 2021 directive from the Department of Homeland Security that paused deportations unless individuals had committed acts of terrorism, espionage or “egregious threats to public safety.” The guidance, issued after Joe Biden became president, updated a Trump-era policy that removed people in the country illegally regardless of criminal history or community ties.

    On Tuesday, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer told the justices that federal law does “not create an unyielding mandate to apprehend and remove” every one of the more than 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

    Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said it would be “incredibly destabilizing on the ground” for the high court to require that. Congress has not given DHS enough money to vastly increase the number of people it holds and deports, the Biden administration has said.

    But Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone told the court the administration is violating federal law that requires the detention and deportation of people who are in the U.S. illegally and who have been convicted of any serious crime, not just the most serious, specifically defined ones.

    Chief Justice John Roberts was among the conservative justices who pushed back strongly on the Biden administration’s arguments. “It’s our job to say what the law is, not whether or not it can be possibly implemented or whether there are difficulties there, and I don’t think we should change that responsibility just because Congress and the executive can’t agree on something … I don’t think we should let them off the hook,” he said.

    Yet Roberts, in questioning Stone, also called Prelogar’s argument compelling.

    “It’s impossible for the executive to do what you want it to do, right?” Roberts asked.

    Roberts wasn’t totally satisfied when Stone said the number of people potentially affected total 60,000 to 80,000.

    Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that whatever the actual number, “the resources still aren’t there.”

    The court’s three liberal justices, on the other hand, were sympathetic to the Biden administration’s arguments. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, made clear they believed that Texas and Louisiana, which joined Texas in suing over the directive, weren’t even entitled to bring their case.

    The case is the latest example of a Republican litigation strategy that has succeeded in slowing Biden administration initiatives by going to GOP-friendly courts. Kagan picked up on that during arguments, saying that Texas could file its suit in a courthouse where it was guaranteed to get a sympathetic hearing and that one judge stopped “a federal immigration policy in its tracks.”

    In a separate ongoing legal dispute, three judges chosen by then-President Donald Trump are among the four Republican-appointed judges who have so far prevented the administration’s student loan cancellation program from taking effect.

    The states said they would face added costs of having to detain people the federal government might allow to remain free inside the United States, despite their criminal records.

    Federal appeals courts had reached conflicting decisions over DHS guidance.

    The federal appeals court in Cincinnati earlier overturned a district judge’s order that put the policy on hold in a lawsuit filed by Arizona, Ohio and Montana.

    But in the separate suit filed by Texas and Louisiana, a federal judge in Texas ordered a nationwide halt to the guidance and a federal appellate panel in New Orleans declined to step in.

    In July, the court voted 5-4 to leave the immigration policy frozen nationwide. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in saying they would have allowed the Biden administration to put in place the guidance.

    At the same time, the court said it would hear arguments in the case in late November.

    The justices have several questions to sort through, whether the states should have been permitted to file their challenge in the first place, whether the policy violates immigration law and, if it does, whether it was appropriate for the Texas-based judge to block it.

    On that last point, Prelogar said the judge’s decision to “vacate” the policy was wrong, and her argument questioned whether judges have been getting it all wrong for decades.

    The issue touched a nerve, especially among Roberts, Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justices who once served on the federal appeals court in Washington that regularly vacates policies it determines are unlawful.

    “Fairly radical,” Roberts said. “Pretty astonishing,” Kavanaugh said. Jackson, more restrained, also questioned Prelogar’s reasoning.

    “There seems to be a kind of D.C. Circuit cartel,” Kagan joked.

    A decision in U.S. v. Texas, 22-58, is expected by late June.

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  • Sober or bright? Europe faces holidays during energy crunch

    Sober or bright? Europe faces holidays during energy crunch

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    VERONA, Italy (AP) — Early season merrymakers sipping mulled wine and shopping for holiday decorations packed the Verona Christmas market for its inaugural weekend. But beyond the wooden market stalls, the Italian city still has not decked out its granite-clad pedestrian streets with twinkling holiday lights as officials debate how bright to make the season during an energy crisis.

    In cities across Europe, officials are wrestling with a choice as energy prices have gone up because of Russia’s war in Ukraine: Dim Christmas lighting to send a message of energy conservation and solidarity with citizens squeezed by higher utility bills and inflation, while protecting public coffers. Or let the lights blaze in a message of defiance after two years of pandemic-suppressed Christmas seasons, illuminating cities with holiday cheer that retailers hope will loosen people’s purse strings.

    “If they take away the lights, they might as well turn off Christmas,” said Estrella Puerto, who sells traditional Spanish mantillas, or women’s veils, in a small store in Granada, Spain, and says Christmas decorations draw business.

    Fewer lights are sparkling from the centerpiece tree at the famed Strasbourg Christmas market, which attracts 2 million people every year, as the French city seeks to reduce public energy consumption by 10% this year.

    From Paris to London, city officials are limiting hours of holiday illumination, and many have switched to more energy-efficient LED lights or renewable energy sources. London’s Oxford Street shopping district hopes to cut energy consumption by two-thirds by limiting the illumination of its lights to 3-11 p.m. and installing LED bulbs.

    “Ecologically speaking, it’s the only real solution,” said Paris resident Marie Breguet, 26, as she strolled the Champs-Elysees, which is being lit up only until 11:45 p.m., instead of 2 a.m. as in Christmases past. “The war and energy squeeze is a reality. No one will be hurt with a little less of the illuminations this year.”

    It’s lights out along Budapest’s Andrassy Avenue, often referred to as Hungary’s Champs-Elysees, which officials decided would not be bathed in more than 2 kilometers (1.5 miles) of white lights as in years past. Lighting also is being cut back on city landmarks, including bridges over the Danube River.

    “Saving on decorative lighting is about the fact that we are living in times when we need every drop of energy,” said Budapest’s deputy mayor, Ambrus Kiss.

    He doesn’t think economizing on lighting will dissuade tourists from coming to the city, which holds two Christmas markets that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

    “I think it’s an overblown debate,” he said.

    Festive lights, composed of LEDs this year, also will be dimmed from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. in the old city center of Brasov in central Romania and switched off elsewhere, officials said.

    The crisis, largely spurred by Russia cutting off most natural gas to Europe, is sparking innovation. In the Italian mountain town of Borno, in Lombardy, cyclists will provide power to the town’s Christmas tree by fueling batteries with kinetic energy. Anyone can hop on, and the faster they pedal, the brighter the lights. No holiday lighting will be put up elsewhere in town to raise awareness about energy conservation, officials said.

    In Italy, many cities traditionally light Christmas trees in public squares on Dec. 8, the Assumption holiday, still allowing time to come up with plans for festive street displays. Officials in the northern city of Verona are discussing limiting lighting to just a few key shopping streets and using the savings to help needy families.

    “In Verona, the atmosphere is there anyway,” said Giancarlo Peschiera, whose shop selling fur coats overlooks Verona’s Piazza Bra, where officials on Saturday will light a huge shooting star arching from the Roman-era Arena amphitheater into the square.

    The city also will put up a Christmas tree in the main piazza and a holiday cake maker has erected light-festooned trees in three other spots.

    “We can do without the lights. There are the Christmas stalls, and shop windows are decked for the holidays,” Peschiera said.

    After two Christmases under COVID-19 restrictions, some are calling “bah humbug” on conservation efforts.

    “It’s not Christmas all year round,” said Parisian Alice Betout, 39. “Why can’t we just enjoy the festive season as normal, and do the (energy) savings the rest of the year?”

    The holiday will shine brightly in Germany, where the year-end season is a major boost to retailers and restaurants. Emergency cutbacks announced this fall specifically exempted religious lighting, “in particular Christmas,” even as environmental activists called for restraint.

    “Many yards look like something out of an American Christmas film,” grumbled Environmental Action Germany.

    In Spain, the northwestern port city of Vigo is not letting the energy crisis get in the way of its tradition of staging the country’s most extravagant Christmas light display. Ahead of other cities, Vigo switched on the light show Nov. 19 in what has become a significant tourist attraction.

    Despite the central government urging cities to reduce illuminations, this year’s installation is made up of 11 million LED lights across more than 400 streets — 30 more than last year and far more than any other Spanish city. In a small contribution to energy savings, they will remain on for one hour less each day.

    The lights are Mayor Abel Caballero’s pet project. “If we didn’t celebrate Christmas, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would win,” he said.

    Caballero says the economic return is vital, both for commerce and for businesses in Vigo. Hotels in the city and the surrounding area were completely full for the launch of the lighting and are expected to be close to 100% every week.

    Germany’s Christmas markets have crunched numbers that could make any lighting Grinch’s heart grow at least three sizes.

    The market exhibitor’s association said a family Christmas market visit consumes less energy than staying home. A family of four spending an hour to cook dinner on an electric stove, streaming a two-hour film, running a video console and lighting the kids’ rooms would use 0.711 kilowatt-hour per person vs. 0.1 to 0.2 kilowatt-hour per person to stroll a Christmas market.

    “If people stay at home, they don’t sit in the corner in the dark,” said Frank Hakelberg, managing director of the German Showmen’s Association. “The couch potatoes use more energy than when they are out at a Christmas market.”

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    Associated Press reporters Thomas Adamson in Paris; David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany; Ciaran Gilles in Madrid; Justin Spike in Budapest; Giovanna Dell’Orto in Granada, Spain; Courtney Bonnell in London; and Stephen McGrath in Brasov, Romania, contributed.

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