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  • House Republicans push off Biden impeachment bid for now as hard-right clamors for action

    House Republicans push off Biden impeachment bid for now as hard-right clamors for action

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Eager to impeach President Joe Biden, hard-right House Republicans forced a vote Thursday that sent the matter to congressional committees in a clear demonstration of the challenge that Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces in controlling the majority party.

    The ability of single lawmaker in the 435-member House to drive an impeachment resolution this week caught Republicans off guard and many of them viewed it as a distraction from other priorities.

    The measure charges Biden with “high crimes and misdemeanors” over his handling of the U.S. border with Mexico.

    Rep. Lauren Boebert, backed by allies, was able to use House rules to force a snap vote on such a grave constitutional matter. The 219-208 party-line vote sent her resolution to committees for possible consideration, like any other bill. They are under no obligation to do anything.

    Still, Boebert, R-Colo., argued during debate, “The House is taking historic action.”

    The episode underscores the hold that the House conservative flank exerts over McCarthy, compelling him to accommodate their hard-right priorities if he wants to stay in power.

    Conservatives are gearing up for more. The process Boebert employed is the same method that Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., relied on to force a vote Wednesday to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff over his investigations into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

    “There’s going to be no end to this,” Schiff said.

    “Kevin McCarthy has no control over his conference,” Schiff said. ”The race to the extreme is now running the House of Representatives and of course it’s doing terrible damage to the institution.”

    During Thursday’s debate, Republicans were admonished multiple times by the presiding officer to tone down their remarks.

    Democrats argued that the case against Biden made a mockery of the seriousness of impeachment and was merely an attempt to distract from the twice-impeached Trump, the former Republican president now indicted for hording classified documents under the Espionage Act.

    “Today they’re dishonoring this House and dishonoring themselves by bringing to the floor this ridiculous impeachment referral resolution,” said Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, suggesting Trump put his allies up to it.

    “This body has become a place where extreme, outlandish and nutty issues get debated passionately, and important ones not at all,” McGovern said. “In short, the Republican Party is a joke.”

    The vote capped days of maneuvering by McCarthy, R-Calif., to quell the uprising within his party over a roll call that many did not to take.

    A sudden vote to impeach Biden would have been politically difficult for GOP lawmakers and a potentially embarrassing spectacle for McCarthy, splitting his party. In a private meeting Wednesday, McCarthy encouraged lawmakers to consider the traditional process for bringing such consequential legislation forward. Boebert had used what is called a privileged resolution to force the vote.

    In the end, McCarthy negotiated a deal with her to send the Biden impeachment resolution for review to the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee, fending off a vote for some time.

    “I think it’s best for everybody,” McCarthy said.

    But conservatives said more such votes are ahead.

    “We are just beginning,” said Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, an influential member of the House Freedom Caucus.

    Conservatives are lining up votes, for example, to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and censure Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who was the chairman of the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. It’s part of their effort to steer control of the House from the traditional centers of power, including the speaker’s office.

    “This is what we were talking about,” said Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, a leader in the conservative efforts to block McCarthy’s rise to speaker.

    Boebert said that if the committees drag their feet, she would bring her resolution back to the floor “every day for the rest of my time here in Congress,” forcing a House vote on Biden’s impeachment.

    Rank-and-file Republicans were angry at being forced into the position of having to vote on a resolution to impeach Biden even though they had not gone through the traditional process of an impeachment inquiry. They resented a single lawmaker jumping the queue of priorities.

    In one fiery exchange overheard Wednesday on the House floor, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., laid into Boebert for taking the Biden impeachment on her own. Greene has her own articles of impeachment against the president.

    Greene confirmed a report about the exchange later and said of Boebert, “She has a great skill and talent for making most people here not like her.”

    Boebert declined to comment about the conversation, only saying it’s “not middle school.”

    Trump was impeached twice — on corruption and obstruction charges over withholding military aid to Ukraine while seeking political dirt on Biden, and later on charges of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Both times, Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

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  • Pittsburgh synagogue gunman is found guilty in the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history

    Pittsburgh synagogue gunman is found guilty in the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history

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    PITTSBURGH (AP) — A truck driver who spewed hatred of Jews was convicted Friday of storming a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find on a Sabbath morning, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.

    The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers’ lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole as the federal trial shifts to a penalty phase expected to last several weeks.

    Bowers was convicted of all 63 criminal counts he faced, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. His attorneys had offered a guilty plea in return for a life sentence, but prosecutors refused, opting instead to take the case to trial and pursue the death penalty. Most of the victims’ families supported that decision.

    “I am grateful to God for getting us to this day,” Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation, who survived the attack, said in a written statement. “And I am thankful for the law enforcement who ran into danger to rescue me, and the U.S. Attorney who stood up in court to defend my right to pray.”

    The jury deliberated for about five hours over two days before reaching a verdict. Bowers, wearing a dark sweater and blue shirt, had little reaction. Several survivors and victims’ relatives were in the courtroom, bearing quiet witness. Sniffles could be heard in the gallery as the judge intoned “guilty” dozens of times.

    Bowers, who had raged against Jews online and at the synagogue, turned a sacred house of worship into a “hunting ground,” targeting his victims because of their religion, a prosecutor said Thursday.

    Reading each of the 11 victims’ names, prosecutor Mary Hahn asked the jury to “hold this defendant accountable … and hold him accountable for those who cannot testify.”

    All three congregations sharing the building — Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life — lost members in the attack. The victims ranged in age from 54 to 97.

    Congregational leaders said the trial opened new wounds but was also validating.

    “We learned things that we did not know,” said Stephen Cohen, co-president of New Light. “… In that sense, it was traumatizing. But it’s also, in a sense, cathartic because you did hear what happened.”

    Jo Recht, president of Dor Hadash, applauded the prosecutors’ solid case.

    “They drew a picture that was even more horrific than we had imagined,” Recht said. “And the level of antisemitism, the level of hatred, the volume of the outrageous (social media) posts was really sobering and really frightening. So for the jury to come back so quickly with the verdict of guilty on all 63 counts was affirming, and it was a relief.”

    Prosecutors presented evidence of Bowers’ deep-seated animosity toward Jews and immigrants. Over 11 days of testimony, jurors learned that he had extensively posted, shared or liked antisemitic and white supremacist content on Gab, a social media platform popular with the far right, and praised Hitler and the Holocaust. Bowers told police that “all these Jews need to die,” Hahn said.

    Jewish community members were bracing for the next stage of the trial, which would determine if Bowers is eligible for and should receive the death penalty. The penalty phase is scheduled to start June 26.

    “It’s just as traumatic,” Cohen said. “Because now we get into learning about the shooter. In four and a half years, he has said nothing. We don’t know who he is. … There’s no background, nothing other than the Gab posts. So we’re going to be learning what kind of horrible human being he really is.”

    Bowers, who was armed with an AR-15 rifle and other weapons, also shot and wounded seven, including five responding police officers.

    Survivors testified about their terror on that day, including a woman who recounted how she was shot in the arm and then realized her 97-year-old-mother had been shot and killed right next to her. Andrea Wedner, the trial’s last witness, told jurors she touched her mother’s lifeless body and cried out, “Mommy,” before SWAT officers led her to safety.

    Other survivors testified of hiding or fleeing for their lives, of making final prayers as they expected to die, of saying farewell to their slain fellow congregants. The slain were among the congregations’ stalwarts, always on time for Sabbath activities, many of which they led.

    Bowers’ attorneys did not mount a defense at the guilt stage of the trial, signaling they will focus their efforts on trying to save his life. They plan to introduce evidence that Bowers has schizophrenia, epilepsy and brain impairments. Defense lawyer Judy Clarke had also sought to raise questions about Bowers’ motive, suggesting to jurors that his rampage was not motivated by religious hatred but his delusional belief that Jews were committing genocide by helping refugees settle in the United States.

    The congregations have spoken out against antisemitism and other bigotry since the attack. The Tree of Life congregation also is working on a plan to overhaul the synagogue building — which still stands but has been closed since the shootings — by creating a complex that would house a sanctuary, museum, memorial and center for fighting antisemitism.

    President Joe Biden said during his 2020 campaign that he would work to end capital punishment at the federal level and in states that still use it, and Attorney General Merrick Garland has paused executions to review policies and procedures. But federal prosecutors continue to work to uphold already-issued death sentences and, in some cases, to pursue the death penalty at trial for crimes that are eligible, as in Bowers’ case.

    Killed were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; Irving Younger, 69.

    Ellen Surloff, who was Dor Hadash president at the time of the attack, said hearing the guilty verdicts was a relief.

    “Fighting antisemitism was always important to my family,” she said. “My mother passed away not long after the shooting. So from a personal matter, the first thought that went to my head was, I wish she could have been alive to hear the verdict, to hear this horrible, horrible monster convicted for what he did on Oct. 27.”

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania contributed to this report.

    ___

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Central Park birder Christian Cooper is turning his viral video fame into a memoir and TV show

    Central Park birder Christian Cooper is turning his viral video fame into a memoir and TV show

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    By LEANNE ITALIE

    June 16, 2023 GMT

    NEW YORK (AP) — There’s nothing that can keep Christian Cooper from enjoying his “happy place,” the bird-friendly Ramble of Central Park — not even his tense, viral video encounter three years ago with a woman walking her dog off leash in his refuge.

    Cooper is a lifelong birder, and Black, a relative rarity for the pastime. The dog owner is Amy Cooper, who is white and no relation. His video of her pleading with a 911 operator to “send the cops” because, she falsely claimed, an African American man was threatening her life has been viewed more than 45 million times on social media.

    Much has happened to each Cooper since.

    She was fired by an investment firm and a judge tossed her lawsuit challenging the dismissal. Later, a misdemeanor charge against her was dropped after she completed a program on racial bias.

    He scored a memoir, out this week, and has his own series on Nat Geo Wild, traveling the U.S. doing what he loves most: birding. “Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper” premieres Saturday.

    Something else happened the day the two Coopers clashed. Just hours later, George Floyd was killed under the knee of a white police officer more than 1,000 miles away in Minneapolis. They had no way of knowing that, of course, but Christian Cooper told The Associated Press in a recent interview he had another Black man, Philando Castile, on his mind when he flipped his phone camera to record.

    Castile was fatally shot in the Minneapolis area in 2016 by an officer who wrongly thought the 32-year-old was reaching for a gun during a traffic stop. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, had the presence of mind to hit record on her phone, and her livestream on Facebook touched off protests around the country. (The officer who shot Castile was acquitted by a jury.)

    Christian Cooper’s decision to record was personal but routine for birders trying to convince park officials to do something about dogs off leashes where signs clearly prohibited it to protect plantings in The Ramble and leave the birds undisturbed. He was polite but firm as he spoke off-camera while Amy Cooper raged.

    “I thought to myself, you know what? They’re going to shoot us dead no matter what we do. And if that’s the case, I’m going out with my dignity intact,” he told the AP.

    For a second, he added, “I was like, oh, yeah, when a white woman accuses a Black man, I know what that means. I know what trouble that can mean in my life. Maybe I should just stop recording and maybe this will all go away in a split second. Then I thought, nah, I’m not going to be complicit in my own dehumanization.”

    Amy Cooper never apologized directly to him, though she issued a statement of regret. And since then, Christian Cooper has done some soul-searching on what it must be like, at least sometimes, for women to feel unsafe in public outdoor spaces.

    “I would hate to think that I would go through a situation like that and not learn something myself. And so I try to keep in mind now that, yes, I’m perfectly comfortable in The Ramble. It’s my happy place. But that’s not necessarily true of everyone,” he said.

    Amy Cooper demanded he stop recording, upset when he offered her cocker spaniel, Henry, a dog treat. It’s a tactic controversial among birders frustrated by unleashed dogs in The Ramble. “It’s a very in-your-face move. You know, no bones about that. I haven’t done it since,” he said.

    He declined to cooperate with prosecutors in the criminal case against Amy Cooper. It was an election cycle, he said, so it felt performative. But also, he felt, she had been punished enough through public disgrace.

    “I decided I kind of have to err on the side of mercy, particularly weighing with that a sense of proportionality because I had not been harmed. I had not been thrown to the ground by the police or, God forbid, worse. I had never even had to interact with the police. I’m sure my opinion would be different if I had,” he said.

    Now, Cooper is all about spreading the gospel of birding once again. His book, “Better Living through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World,” opens with the Central Park encounter, and then launches into his life:

    How birding helped him connect to the world as a closeted gay child in his predominantly white Long Island hometown. How all things Star Trek, science fiction and Marvel Comics have sustained him to this day, at age 60.

    “The cure to my outsider status was to go outside, outside of myself, outside of my own head, outside into nature. Because you can’t go looking for birds without really focusing on what you’re doing, and focusing on the natural world around you,” he said.

    “And when you do that, you can’t be preoccupied anymore about, ‘Oh my God, I feel so horrible.’”

    As a longtime board member of the New York City Audubon Society, Cooper has seen the ranks of Black birders increase, and he has participated in a movement among National Audubon Society chapters to cast off the name of John James Audubon. The 19th-century artist and naturalist known for his paintings of North American bird species was an anti-abolitionist who owned, purchased and sold enslaved people.

    Cooper’s chapter of the society is in the process of coming up with a new name, though the parent organization declined to do the same.

    With his book, Cooper said, “I hope to reach a whole mass of people who have never really thought about birds or maybe haven’t engaged with nature on that level. If I can communicate some of my passion for birding, for birds, and get them to sort of open their awareness just a little bit more to these creatures around them, because they are spectacular, then the book will have achieved its goal.”

    On Nat Geo (the series hits Disney+ on June 21), Cooper serves as host and was a consulting producer. He’s a kid in a wonderful, winged candy shop.

    The six episodes have him scaling a Manhattan bridge tagging peregrine falcon chicks, navigating volcanic terrain in Hawaii in search of elusive honeycreepers, and trekking rainforests in Puerto Rico to check on fertility issues among parrots. He also shot in Palm Springs, California, and Washington, D.C., as well as Selma, Alabama, where members of his father’s family once lived.

    Cooper has spent time in public schools teaching kids about birding. He wants to reach even more with the fame he earned the hard way.

    “I’m hopeful that a lot of young Black kids will see maybe one of the first big birding shows on TV with a black host leading the show and think, ‘Oh, maybe that’s something I can do, too.’ That would be awesome.”

    ___

    Find Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

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  • A beginner’s guide to Juneteenth: How can all Americans celebrate?

    A beginner’s guide to Juneteenth: How can all Americans celebrate?

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    For more than one-and-a-half centuries, the Juneteenth holiday has been sacred to many Black communities.

    It marks the day in 1865 enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out they had been freed — after the end of the Civil war, and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

    Since it was designated a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth has become more universally recognized beyond Black America. Many people get the day off work or school, and there are a plethora of street festivals, fairs, concerts and other events.

    People who never gave the holiday on June 19 more than a passing thought may be asking themselves, is there a “right” way to celebrate Juneteenth?

    For beginners and those brushing up history, here are some answers:

    IS JUNETEENTH A SOLEMN DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OR MORE OF A PARTY?

    It just depends on what you want. Juneteenth festivities are rooted in cookouts and barbecues. In the beginnings of the holiday celebrated as Black Americans’ true Independence Day, the outdoors allowed for large, raucous reunions among formerly enslaved family, many of whom had been separated. The gatherings were especially revolutionary because they were free of restrictive measures, known as “Black Codes,” enforced in Confederate states, controlling whether liberated slaves could vote, buy property, gather for worship and other aspects of daily life.

    Alan Freeman, 60, grew up celebrating Juneteenth every year in Houston, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Galveston. A comedian who is producing Galveston’s first ever Juneteenth Comedy Festival on Saturday, he has vivid memories of smoke permeating his entire neighborhood because so many people were using their barbecue pits for celebratory cookouts. You could go to anyone’s house and be welcomed to join in the feast, which could include grilled chicken and beef and other regional cuisines — jerk meats, fried fish, Jamaican plantains.

    “It’s where I began to really see Black unity because I realized that that was the one day that African Americans considered ours,” Freeman said. “The one holiday that was ours. We didn’t have to share with anybody. And it was about freedom because what we understood is that we were emancipated from slavery. But, there was so many beautiful activities.”

    Others may choose to treat Juneteenth as a day of rest and remembrance. That can mean doing community service, attending an education panel or taking time off.

    The important thing is to make people feel they have options on how to observe the occasion, said Dr. David Anderson, a Black pastor and CEO of Gracism Global, a consulting firm helping leaders navigate conversations bridging divides across race and culture.

    “Just like the Martin Luther King holiday, we say it’s a day of service and a lot of people will do things. There are a lot of other people who are just ‘I appreciate Dr. King, I’ll watch what’s on the television, and I’m gonna rest,’” Anderson said. “I don’t want to make people feel guilty about that. What I want to do is give everyday people a choice.”

    WHAT IF YOU’VE NEVER CELEBRATED JUNETEENTH?

    Anderson, 57, of Columbia, Maryland, never did anything on Juneteenth in his youth. He didn’t learn about it until his 30s.

    “I think many folks haven’t known about it — who are even my color as an African American male. Even if you heard about it and knew about it, you didn’t celebrate it,” Anderson said. “It was like just a part of history. It wasn’t a celebration of history.”

    For many African Americans, the farther away from Texas that they grew up increased the likelihood they didn’t have big Juneteenth celebrations regularly. In the South, the day can vary based on when word of Emancipation reached each state.

    Anderson has no special event planned other than giving his employees Friday and Monday off. If anything, Anderson is thinking about the fact it’s Father’s Day this weekend.

    “If I can unite Father’s Day and Juneteenth to be with my family and honor them, that would be wonderful,” he said.

    WHAT KIND OF PUBLIC JUNETEENTH EVENTS ARE GOING ON AROUND THE COUNTRY?

    Search online and you will find a smorgasbord of gatherings in major cities and suburbs all varying in scope and tone. Some are more carnival-esque festivals with food trucks, arts and crafts and parades. Within those festivals, you’ll likely find access to professionals in health care, finance and community resources. There also are concerts and fashion shows to highlight Black excellence and creativity. For those who want to look back, plenty of organizations and universities host panels to remind people of Juneteenth’s history.

    ARE THERE SPECIAL FOODS SERVED ON JUNETEENTH?

    Aside from barbecue, the color red has been a through line for Juneteenth food for generations. Red symbolizes the bloodshed and sacrifice of enslaved ancestors. A Juneteenth menu might incorporate items like barbecued ribs or other red meat, watermelon and red velvet cake. Drinks like fruit punch and red Kool-Aid may make an appearance at the table.

    DOES HOW YOU CELEBRATE JUNETEENTH MATTER IF YOU AREN’T BLACK?

    Dr. Karida Brown, a sociology professor at Emory University whose research focuses on race, said there’s no reason to feel awkward about wanting to recognize Juneteenth because you have no personal ties or you’re not Black. In fact, embrace it.

    “I would reframe that and challenge my non-Black folks who want to lean into Juneteenth and celebrate,” Brown said. “It absolutely is your history. It absolutely is a part of your experience. … Isn’t this all of our history? The good, the bad, the ugly, the story of emancipation and freedom for for your Black brothers and sisters under the Constitution of the law.”

    If you want to bring some authenticity to your recognition of Juneteenth, educate yourself. Attending a street festival or patronizing a Black-owned business is a good start but it also would be good to “make your mind better,” Anderson said.

    “That goes longer than a celebration,” Anderson said. “I think Black people need to do it too because it’s new for us as well, in America. But for non-Black people, if they could read on this topic and read on Black history beyond Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, that would show me that you’re really serious about growing in this area.”

    If you’re struggling with how to “ethically” mark the day, Brown also suggested expanding your knowledge of why the holiday matters so much. That can be through reading, attending an event or going to an African American history museum if there’s one nearby.

    “Have that full human experience of seeing yourself in and through the eyes of others, even if that’s not your own lived experience,” she said. “That is a radical human act that is awesome and should be encouraged and celebrated.”

    WHAT ARE OTHER NAMES USED TO REFER TO JUNETEENTH?

    Over the decades, Juneteenth has also been called Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, Black Fourth of July and second Independence Day among others.

    “Because 1776, Fourth of July, where we’re celebrating freedom and liberty and all of that, that did not include my descendants,” Brown said. “Black people in America were still enslaved. So that that holiday always comes with a bittersweet tinge to it.”

    IS THERE A PROPER JUNETEENTH GREETING?

    It’s typical to wish people a “Happy Juneteenth” or “Happy Teenth,” said Freeman, the comedian.

    “You know how at Christmas people will say ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other and not even know each other? You can get a ‘Merry Christmas’ from everybody. This is the same way,” Freeman said.

    No matter what race you are, you will “absolutely” elicit a smile if you utter either greeting, he said.

    “I believe that a non-Black person who celebrates Juneteenth … it’s their one time to have a voice, to participate.”

    ___

    Tang, who reported from Phoenix, is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at @ttangAP.

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  • How Europe is leading the world in the push to regulate AI

    How Europe is leading the world in the push to regulate AI

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    LONDON (AP) — Lawmakers in Europe signed off Wednesday on the world’s first set of comprehensive rules for artificial intelligence, clearing a key hurdle as authorities across the globe race to rein in AI.

    The European Parliament vote is one of the last steps before the rules become law, which could act as a model for other places working on similar regulations.

    A yearslong effort by Brussels to draw up guardrails for AI has taken on more urgency as rapid advances in chatbots like ChatGPT show the benefits the emerging technology can bring — and the new perils it poses.

    Here’s a look at the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act:

    HOW DO THE RULES WORK?

    The measure, first proposed in 2021, will govern any product or service that uses an artificial intelligence system. The act will classify AI systems according to four levels of risk, from minimal to unacceptable.

    Riskier applications, such as for hiring or tech targeted to children, will face tougher requirements, including being more transparent and using accurate data.

    It will be up to the EU’s 27 member states to enforce the rules. Regulators could force companies to withdraw their apps from the market.

    In extreme cases, violations could draw fines of up to 40 million euros ($43 million) or 7% of a company’s annual global revenue, which in the case of tech companies like Google and Microsoft could amount to billions.

    WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

    One of the EU’s main goals is to guard against any AI threats to health and safety and protect fundamental rights and values.

    That means some AI uses are an absolute no-no, such as “social scoring” systems that judge people based on their behavior.

    Also forbidden is AI that exploits vulnerable people, including children, or uses subliminal manipulation that can result in harm, for example, an interactive talking toy that encourages dangerous behavior.

    Predictive policing tools, which crunch data to forecast who will commit crimes, is also out.

    Lawmakers beefed up the original proposal from the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, by widening the ban on real-time remote facial recognition and biometric identification in public. The technology scans passers-by and uses AI to match their faces or other physical traits to a database.

    A contentious amendment to allow law enforcement exceptions such as finding missing children or preventing terrorist threats did not pass.

    AI systems used in categories like employment and education, which would affect the course of a person’s life, face tough requirements such as being transparent with users and taking steps to assess and reduce risks of bias from algorithms.

    Most AI systems, such as video games or spam filters, fall into the low- or no-risk category, the commission says.

    WHAT ABOUT CHATGPT?

    The original measure barely mentioned chatbots, mainly by requiring them to be labeled so users know they’re interacting with a machine. Negotiators later added provisions to cover general purpose AI like ChatGPT after it exploded in popularity, subjecting that technology to some of the same requirements as high-risk systems.

    One key addition is a requirement to thoroughly document any copyright material used to teach AI systems how to generate text, images, video and music that resemble human work.

    That would let content creators know if their blog posts, digital books, scientific articles or songs have been used to train algorithms that power systems like ChatGPT. Then they could decide whether their work has been copied and seek redress.

    WHY ARE THE EU RULES SO IMPORTANT?

    The European Union isn’t a big player in cutting-edge AI development. That role is taken by the U.S. and China. But Brussels often plays a trend-setting role with regulations that tend to become de facto global standards and has become a pioneer in efforts to target the power of large tech companies.

    The sheer size of the EU’s single market, with 450 million consumers, makes it easier for companies to comply than develop different products for different regions, experts say.

    But it’s not just a crackdown. By laying down common rules for AI, Brussels is also trying to develop the market by instilling confidence among users.

    “The fact this is regulation that can be enforced and companies will be held liable is significant” because other places like the United States, Singapore and Britain have merely offered “guidance and recommendations,” said Kris Shrishak, a technologist and senior fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

    “Other countries might want to adapt and copy” the EU rules, he said.

    Businesses and industry groups warn that Europe needs to strike the right balance.

    “The EU is set to become a leader in regulating artificial intelligence, but whether it will lead on AI innovation still remains to be seen,” said Boniface de Champris, a policy manager for the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a lobbying group for tech companies.

    “Europe’s new AI rules need to effectively address clearly defined risks, while leaving enough flexibility for developers to deliver useful AI applications to the benefit of all Europeans,” he said.

    Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, has voiced support for some guardrails on AI and signed on with other tech executives to a warning about the risks it poses to humankind. But he also has said it’s “a mistake to go put heavy regulation on the field right now.”

    Others are playing catch up on AI rules. Britain, which left the EU in 2020, is jockeying for a position in AI leadership. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to host a world summit on AI safety this fall.

    “I want to make the U.K. not just the intellectual home but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation,” Sunak said at a tech conference this week.

    WHAT’S NEXT?

    It could be years before the rules fully take effect. The next step is three-way negotiations involving member countries, the Parliament and the European Commission, possibly facing more changes as they try to agree on the wording.

    Final approval is expected by the end of this year, followed by a grace period for companies and organizations to adapt, often around two years.

    Brando Benifei, an Italian member of the European Parliament who is co-leading its work on the AI Act, said they would push for quicker adoption of the rules for fast-evolving technologies like generative AI.

    To fill the gap before the legislation takes effect, Europe and the U.S. are drawing up a voluntary code of conduct that officials promised at the end of May would be drafted within weeks and could be expanded to other “like-minded countries.”

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show that Kris Shrishak’s last name was misspelled.

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  • Chinese spies breached hundreds of public, private networks, security firm says

    Chinese spies breached hundreds of public, private networks, security firm says

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    Suspected state-backed Chinese hackers used a security hole in a popular email security appliance to break into the networks of hundreds of public and private sector organizations globally, nearly a third of them government agencies including foreign ministries, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Thursday.

    “This is the broadest cyber espionage campaign known to be conducted by a China-nexus threat actor since the mass exploitation of Microsoft Exchange in early 2021,” Charles Carmakal, Mandiant’s chief technical officer, said in a emailed statement. That hack compromised tens of thousands of computers globally.

    In a blog post Thursday, Google-owned Mandiant expressed “high confidence” that the group exploiting a software vulnerability in Barracuda Networks’ Email Security Gateway was engaged in “espionage activity in support of the People’s Republic of China.” It said the activivity began as early as October.

    The hackers sent emails containing malicious file attachments to gain access to targeted organizations’ devices and data, Mandiant said. Of those organizations, 55% were from the Americas, 22% from Asia Pacific and 24% from Europe, the Middle East and Africa and they included foreign ministries in Southeast Asia, foreign trade offices and academic organizations in Taiwan and Hong Kong. the company said.

    Mandiant said the majority impact in the Americas may partially reflect the geography of Barracuda’s customer base.

    Barracuda announced on June 6 that some of its its email security appliances had been hacked as early as October, giving the intruders a back door into compromised networks. The hack was so severe the California company recommended fully replacing the appliances.

    After discovering it in mid-May, Barracuda released containment and remediation patches but the hacking group, which Mandiant identifies as UNC4841, altered their malware to try to maintain access, Mandiant said. The group then “countered with high frequency operations targeting a number of victims located in at least 16 different countries.”

    Word of the breach arrived with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken departing for China this weekend as part of the Biden administration’s push to repair deteriorating ties between Washington and Beijing.

    His visit had initially been planned for early this year but was postponed indefinitely after the discovery and shootdown of what the U.S. said was a Chinese spy balloon over the United States.

    Mandiant said the targeting at both the organizational and individual account levels, focused on issues that are high policy priorities for China, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. It said the hackers searched for email accounts of people working for governments of political or strategic interest to China at the time they were participating in diplomatic meetings with other countries.

    In a emailed statement Thursday, Barracuda said about 5% of its active Email Security Gateway appliances worldwide showed evidence of potential compromise. It said it was providing replacement appliances to affected customers at no cost.

    The U.S. government has accused Beijing of being its principal cyberespionage threat, with state-backed Chinese hackers stealing data from both the private and public sector.

    In terms of raw intelligence affecting the U.S., China’s largest electronic infiltrations have targeted OPM, Anthem, Equifax and Marriott.

    Earlier this year, Microsoft said state-backed Chinese hackers have been targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and could be laying the technical groundwork for the potential disruption of critical communications between the U.S. and Asia during future crises.

    China says the U.S. also engages in cyberespionage against it, hacking into computers of its universities and companies.

    ——

    AP Business Writer Zen Soo contributed from Hong Kong.

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  • A Russian ransomware gang breaches the Energy Department and other federal agencies

    A Russian ransomware gang breaches the Energy Department and other federal agencies

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    The Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were compromised in a Russian cyber-extortion gang’s global hack of a file-transfer program popular with corporations and governments, but the impact was not expected to be great, Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

    But for others among what could be hundreds of victims from industry to higher education — including patrons of at least two state motor vehicle agencies — the hack was beginning to show some serious impacts.

    Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters that unlike the meticulous, stealthy SolarWinds hacking campaign attributed to state-backed Russian intelligence agents that was months in the making, this campaign was short, relatively superficial and caught quickly.

    “Based on discussions we have had with industry partners … these intrusions are not being leveraged to gain broader access, to gain persistence into targeted systems, or to steal specific high value information— in sum, as we understand it, this attack is largely an opportunistic one,” Easterly said.

    “Although we are very concerned about this campaign and working on it with urgency, this is not a campaign like SolarWinds that presents a systemic risk to our national security or our nation’s networks,” she added.

    A senior CISA official said neither the U.S. military nor intelligence community was affected. Energy Department spokesperson Chad Smith said two agency entities were compromised but did not provide more detail.

    Known victims to date include Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles, Oregon’s Department of Transportation, the Nova Scotia provincial government, British Airways, the British Broadcasting Company and the U.K. drugstore chain Boots. The exploited program, MOVEit, is widely used by businesses to securely share files. Security experts say that can include sensitive financial and insurance data.

    Louisiana officials said Thursday that people with a driver’s license or vehicle registration in the state likely had their personal information exposed. That included their name, address, Social Security number and birthdate. They encouraged Louisiana residents to freeze their credit to guard against identity theft.

    The Oregon Department of Transportation confirmed Thursday that the attackers accessed personal information, some sensitive, for about 3.5 million people to whom the state issued identity cards or driver’s licenses.

    The Cl0p ransomware syndicate behind the hack announced last week on its dark web site that its victims, who it suggested numbered in the hundreds, had until Wednesday to get in touch to negotiate a ransom or risk having sensitive stolen data dumped online.

    The gang, among the world’s most prolific cybercrime syndicates, also claimed it would delete any data stolen from governments, cities and police departments.

    The senior CISA official told reporters a “small number” of federal agencies were hit — declining to name them — and said “this is not a widespread campaign affecting a large number of federal agencies.” The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the breach, said no federal agencies had received extortion demands and no data from an affected federal agency had been leaked online by Cl0p.

    U.S. officials “have no evidence to suggest coordination between Cl0p and the Russian government,” the official said.

    The parent company of MOVIEit’s U.S. maker, Progress Software, alerted customers to the breach on May 31 and issued a patch. But cybersecurity researchers say scores if not hundreds of companies could by then have had sensitive data quietly exfiltrated.

    “At this point, we are seeing industry estimates of several hundred of victims across the country,” the senior CISA official said. Federal officials encouraged victims to come forward, but they often don’t. The U.S. lacks a federal data breach law, and disclosure of hacks varies by state. Publicly traded corporations, health care providers and some critical infrastructure purveyors do have regulatory obligations.

    The cybersecurity firm SecurityScorecard says it detected 2,500 vulnerable MOVEit servers across 790 organizations, including 200 government agencies. It said it was not able to break down those agencies by country.

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the Treasury Department uses MOVEit, according to federal contracting data. Spokeswoman Stephanie Collins said the agency was aware of the hack and has been monitoring the situation closely. She said it was “conducting detailed forensic analysis of system activity and has not found any indications of a breach of sensitive information.” She would not say how the agency uses the file-transfer program.

    The hackers were actively scanning for targets, penetrating them and stealing data at least as far back as March 29, said SecurityScorecard threat analyst Jared Smith.

    This is far from the first time Cl0p has breached a file-transfer program to gain access to data it could then use to extort companies. Other instances include GoAnywhere servers in early 2023 and Accellion File Transfer Application devices in 2020 and 2021.

    The Associated Press emailed Cl0p on Thursday asking what government agencies it had hacked. It did not receive a response, but the gang posted a new message on its dark web leak site saying: “We got a lot of emails about government data, we don’t have it we have completely deleted this information we are only interested in business.”

    Cybersecurity experts say the Cl0p criminals are not to be trusted to keep their word. Allan Liska of the firm Recorded Future has said he is aware of at least three cases in which data stolen by ransomware crooks appeared on the dark web six to 10 months after victims paid ransoms.

    —

    AP reporters Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Eugene Johnson in Seattle and Nomaan Merchant and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • An Amazon rainforest rite of passage in threatened territory

    An Amazon rainforest rite of passage in threatened territory

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    By LUCAS DUMPHREYS and DAVID BILLER

    June 14, 2023 GMT

    ALTO RIO GUAMA INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil (AP) — The Indigenous adolescents danced in a circle under the thatched-roof hut from nearly dawn to dusk while parents looked on from the perimeter. Some of the adults smoked tobacco mixed with the wood from a local tree in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

    The seemingly endless loop of the procession, taking place over six long days this month, was leaving some Tembé Tenehara youngsters with swollen and bandaged feet. They were receiving little to eat and spending each night sleeping in hammocks slung in the hut. But in the Alto Rio Guama territory, it is all part of a vital rite of passage known as “Wyra’whaw.”

    Full Coverage: Photography

    Girls taking part in the coming-of-age ritual had already had their first period. Boys’ voices had begun to slip into lower registers. Upon the final day, the girls and boys would be viewed by the Teko-Haw village as women and men, and assume their roles leading the community into an uncertain future.

    “We know of other ethnic (Indigenous) groups in Brazil that have already lost their culture, their tradition, their language. So we have this concern,” Sergio Muti Tembé, leader of the Tembé people in the territory, told The Associated Press. Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon customarily adopt their ethnic group’s name as their surname.

    Their culture has been increasingly threatened over recent years. The Alto Rio Guama territory is a 280,000-hectare (1,081-square-mile) triangle of preserved forest surrounded by severely logged landscape in the northeastern Amazon, home to 2,500 people of the Tembé, Timbira and Kaapor ethnicities.

    But it has also been occupied by some 1,600 non-Indigenous settlers. Some of those invaders have been there for decades. Many log the territory’s trees or grow marijuana, according to public prosecutors in Para state.

    The local Indigenous people already patrol and try to expel outsiders themselves. With limited capacity and authority, however, they have been eager for help. State and federal authorities last month put into motion a plan to remove them. The operation represents the first effort under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to remove landgrabbers, following an initiative to remove illegal gold miners from the Yanomami people’s territory.

    Authorities threatened forcible expulsion of settlers who failed to leave, and pledged to eliminate access roads and irregular installations, according to a prosecutors’ statement detailing plans. As of Monday, 90% of settlers had voluntarily departed, with rain-ravaged roads impeding the rest, according to a statement from the general secretariat of Brazil’s presidency.

    “The expectation is that, by the end of the week, we can complete the total eviction,” Nilton Tubino, the operation’s coordinator, was quoted as saying in the statement.

    Sergio Muti Tembé, the leader, said the government’s effort came not a moment too soon, and that his people are hopeful it will ensure the future of both their land and their customs.

    On the second to last day of the Wyra’whaw ritual, mothers painted their children’s bodies with the juice of the genipap fruit. Within hours, it had dyed their skin black; girls were transformed from head to toe, while boys exhibited designs and an upside-down triangle across the lower half of their face, almost resembling a beard.

    The following morning, each adorned adolescent was given a white headband with dangling feathers. Pairs of boys and girls locked arms as they skipped barefoot around villagers gathered in the circle’s center, and made their final approach to adulthood.

    ___

    Biller reported from Rio de Janeiro. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.

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  • Movie review: Ezra Miller speeds back to the future in ‘The Flash,’ fueled by calories and cameos

    Movie review: Ezra Miller speeds back to the future in ‘The Flash,’ fueled by calories and cameos

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    “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” went a famous ’70s commercial catchphrase. But we learn in “The Flash” — the much awaited, long gestated new DC Studios offering — that it’s Father Time one musn’t cross. Because trying to change the past can really mess you up when you get back to the future and realize you’ve inadvertently changed that, too.

    But of course, we already knew that. We learned it from Marty McFly, immortalized by Eric Stoltz in “Back to the Future.”

    Relax! Of course it was Michael J. Fox, though Stoltz was initially cast in the role. But in “The Flash,” Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) realizes just how badly he’s messed up the space-time continuum when he arrives back from changing the past — just one teensy little thing, really — and learns that in his current world, Fox never replaced Stoltz. “I’ve destroyed the universe,” he frets in a laugh-out-loud moment.

    If only the whole film, directed by Andy Muschietti and written by Christina Hodson, felt this breezily clever and entertaining. Alas, the final act bogs down in what feels like an endless, generic CGI battle and a kitchen-sink resolution that leaves one feeling just a little exhausted and somewhat confused.

    We first meet Barry — Miller, whose naturally jittery energy is an excellent fit here — on the way to his job at a forensics lab, stopping to order breakfast. But then he gets a call from Alfred — yes, you know the one — needing his help in an imminent disaster. Barry turns into his red-suited alter-ego but desperately needs calories for fuel, begging a bystander for her candy bar.

    Soon, in a rescue scene that’s audacious but also a little absurd, Barry is saving falling newborn babies from a collapsing hospital while desperately eating snacks. He also saves a maternity nurse — then suggests she seek the help of a mental health professional to cope with the trauma, noting “the Justice League is not very good at that yet.”

    And now we must take a moment to consider the elephant in the room. Because it sure seems the movie wants us to.

    If you’ve been reading about Miller lately, you know about the talented actor’s offscreen troubles. They’ve apologized for past behavior and said they’re undergoing mental health treatment.

    So it hardly seems the line to the nurse is a coincidence, even if much of the trouble emerged during lengthy post-production. Could this be a subtle plea for empathy, so we can then appreciate what is, certainly, a compelling performance from Miller as not one, but two lead characters (why two? We’re getting to that.)

    In any case, that line also sets a tone for many self-referential quips and sequences in a film that seems to thrive on, well, referring to itself and its roots. In this, the first standalone “Flash” film, the lineage of past Batmans, Supermans and associated characters is evoked early and often through surprise cameos. At one moment it feels like we’re watching an Oscar memorial reel; it garnered reverential applause at the screening I attended.

    But back to the plot: Barry needs food, but what really powers him is the tragic murder of his mother (Maribel Verdu) in their home when he was a boy. Even worse, his father (Ron Livingston) is imprisoned — unjustly — for the crime.

    Barry, desperate to prove his father innocent, suddenly discovers a way to go back in time (technical details are sparse, but it partly involves running REALLY fast) and comes up with a grander idea still. What if he could go back and prevent the whole sequence of events that led to his mother’s death? His friend and current Batman (the Ben Affleck version) tells him what a bad idea this is.

    But Barry goes back anyway and makes a change, and what do you know — oops! – a younger Barry shows up (you may have seen them both in the trailer.) And now, for reasons too tough to explain within our word limit, Barry senior is potentially stuck in the wrong universe, with Barry junior.

    What’s more, villainous General Zod (Michael Shannon) has returned, threatening total destruction. The Barrys need help. That’s how we find them with Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne, analyzing a pack of spaghetti.

    It’s Keaton, having a fine time in his return as a graying, reluctant superhero, who explains the whole multiverse thing, showing with a deft manipulation of pasta strands how the past can’t change without the future changing. It all ends up with a gaggle of crazy spaghetti drowning under a shower of tomato sauce: a hot mess.

    And we haven’t had time to mention Supergirl — newcomer Sasha Calle, who doesn’t get much to do before the battling starts, but at least provides some minimal female presence. Kiersey Clemons as a vague love interest has even less to do.

    At one point in this 184-minute drama, I started wondering if I was seeing a bunch of disco balls trying to destroy each other. But maybe this was a moment of sensory overload.

    Is a sequel in the offing, if the stars align offscreen as well? They’d have to come up with even more cameos, more surprises. Speaking of surprise: it’s probably never a good idea to leave while the credits are still rolling.

    But again, we already knew that.

    “The Flash,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release, has been rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America “for sequences of violence and action, some strong language and partial nudity.” Running time: 184 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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  • ‘Hair,’ ‘Everwood’ actor Treat Williams dies after Vermont motorcycle crash

    ‘Hair,’ ‘Everwood’ actor Treat Williams dies after Vermont motorcycle crash

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    DORSET, Vt. (AP) — Actor Treat Williams, whose nearly 50-year career included starring roles in the TV series “Everwood” and the movie “Hair,” died Monday after a motorcycle crash in Vermont, state police said. He was 71.

    Shortly before 5 p.m., a Honda SUV was turning left into a parking lot when it collided with Williams’ motorcycle in the town of Dorset, according to a statement from Vermont State Police.

    “Williams was unable to avoid a collision and was thrown from his motorcycle. He suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, where he was pronounced dead,” according to the statement.

    Williams was wearing a helmet, police said.

    The SUV’s driver received minor injuries and wasn’t hospitalized. He had signaled the turn and wasn’t immediately detained although the crash investigation continued, police said.

    Williams, whose full name was Richard Treat Williams, lived in Manchester Center in southern Vermont, police said.

    His agent, Barry McPherson, also confirmed the actor’s death.

    “I’m just devastated. He was the nicest guy. He was so talented,” McPherson told People magazine.

    “He was an actor’s actor,” McPherson said. “Filmmakers loved him. He’s been the heart of … Hollywood since the late 1970s.”

    The Connecticut-born Williams made his movie debut in 1975 as a police officer in the movie “Deadly Hero” and went on to appear in more than 120 TV and film roles, including the movies “The Eagle Has Landed,” “Prince of the City” and “Once Upon a Time in America.”

    He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role as hippie leader George Berger in the 1979 movie version of the hit musical “Hair.”

    He appeared in dozens of television shows but was perhaps best known for his starring role from 2002 to 2006 in “Everwood” as Dr. Andrew Brown, a widowed brain surgeon from Manhattan who moves with his two children to the Colorado mountain town of that name.

    Williams also had a recurring role as Lenny Ross on the TV show “Blue Bloods.”

    Williams’ stage appearances included Broadway shows, including “Grease” and “Pirates of Penzance.”

    Colleagues and friends praised Williams as kind, generous and creative.

    “Treat Williams was a passionate, adventurous, creative man,” actor Wendell Pierce tweeted. “In a short period of time, he quickly befriended me & his adventurous spirit was infectious. We worked on just 1 film together but occasionally connected over the years. Kind and generous with advice and support. RIP.”

    Justine Williams, a writer, director and producer, tweeted that Williams was “the best.” Actor James Woods said, “I really loved him and am devastated that he’s gone.”

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  • Marlon Wayans cited after luggage dispute with United worker at Denver airport

    Marlon Wayans cited after luggage dispute with United worker at Denver airport

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    DENVER (AP) — Comedian and actor Marlon Wayans was cited for disturbing the peace after a dispute he said he had with a United Airlines employee over carry-on luggage at the Denver airport last week, police said Monday.

    Wayans said on Instagram that a gate agent told him he had too many bags and, despite consolidating his luggage, he was told he would have to gate check his bag rather than carry it on. Wayans, who said his treatment constituted harassment, said he took his ticket and began walking onto the plane.

    In response to questions about what had occurred, United issued a statement that did not refer to Wayans by name.

    “In Denver on Friday, a customer who had been told he would have to gate-check his bag instead pushed past a United employee at the jet bridge and attempted to board the aircraft. The customer did not fly on United to his destination,” it said.

    Wayans said he booked a flight instead on American Airlines to Kansas City, saying he would rather fly coach on another airline than fly first-class on United. He apologized to his fans in Kansas City for missing a performance.

    “Sorry KC I’m gonna miss tonight’s shows due to a United gate agent who probably hated white chicks,” Wayans said on Twitter, referring to his 2004 movie which also starred his brother Shawn Wayans.

    A spokesperson for Wayans, Leslie Sloane, said Wayans had a backpack, a small carry-on and garment bag with a suit jacket in it and put his backpack inside the garment bag but was still told he had to check his bag on a flight that was not full.

    She said it’s important to Wayans that everyone feels safe and respected when flying, no matter what class they are in.

    “He felt none of that,” she said.

    The citation issued to Wayans says he must appear in court in Denver on July 11.

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  • Tom Holland describes ‘The Crowded Room’ as his ‘hardest’ and ‘most rewarding’ job so far

    Tom Holland describes ‘The Crowded Room’ as his ‘hardest’ and ‘most rewarding’ job so far

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    The words “Tom Holland” and “spoilers” can immediately illicit snickering. There are compilation videos on YouTube of the “Spider-Man ” star accidentally revealing too much about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. His slip-ups and near-giveaways have become a running joke among his co-stars and filmmakers. The actor found himself in familiar territory with his new twisty, surprise-laden series “The Crowded Room,” now streaming on Apple TV+ — and says by comparison, keeping quiet about Marvel is a piece of cake.

    “With Marvel… it’s all about the villain, the costume, the locations, the end result. They’re relatively easy to keep those things a secret,” said Holland in a recent interview. “I know that sounds stupid coming from me because I spoil everything, but with ‘The Crowded Room’ there are so many twists and turns in this show that people won’t be expecting. It really is a puzzle.”

    The limited-series takes place in 1970s New York with Holland as Danny, a young man arrested in connection with a crime. His accomplices are nowhere to be found and an investigator assigned to the case (played by Amanda Seyfried) conducts a series of interviews with Danny to piece together his involvement.

    Holland and Seyfried filmed their scenes — out of order — “for almost three weeks straight” in an interrogation room.

    “It sometimes was confusing. I needed to know exactly where I was in the process with Danny, how much we knew or how much the audience knew and how much (Seyfried’s character) Rya knew,” she explained. “It was tricky.”

    Holland credits Seyfried for keeping him on track as they “did over 100 pages of dialogue at that one table in that one room.”

    “Amanda is so talented, she’s so professional. She’s able to keep it light when it’s dark,” he said. “There were certain times in that room where we were both just losing our minds, just scenes after scenes, after scenes after scenes. We were just a great team.”

    Holland describes his work on ‘The Crowded Room’ as “the hardest job I’ve ever had, but equally probably the most rewarding.

    “Danny is an exhausting character. Going to those places on a daily basis, having that haircut, shooting on the streets of New York, it was tough. It was not an easy show to make,” but says watching the end result made him “happy that I dug my heels in and stuck with it.”

    “It was a really, really tough experience without a shadow of a doubt.” He says halfway through filming he “was counting down the days that I could take … off and have some time to myself.”

    He also served as a co-executive producer for the first time, which helped him to finally understand what the job entails.

    “I spent the first 15 years of my career on set being like, ‘What do all of these people do? They’re all just sitting there.’ But having been a producer now myself, it is one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done. You’re shooting in a car and the car breaks down and all of a sudden you’re trying to figure out how to get a new car or how to turn the scene into a walking scene and all that sort of stuff.”

    Since beginning his performing career at 11 in “Billy Elliott the Musical,” in London’s West End, Holland says his formal education has been “somewhat non-existent” so he appreciates the learning opportunities he gets from working.

    With “The Crowded Room” Holland says “I learned a lot about myself. I learned about my capabilities as an actor. I learned about things that I can put up with. I feel like I’m much more capable at dealing with adversities and fighting against things that are going wrong on set. I learned a lot about mental health. I learned a lot about the power of the human mind and the amazing things we can do to protect ourselves, to heal and to survive.”

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  • California Gov. Newsom spars with Fox News host Hannity over Biden, immigration and the economy

    California Gov. Newsom spars with Fox News host Hannity over Biden, immigration and the economy

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sparred with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night, insisting President Joe Biden is physically fit for a second term as president while refusing to say whether supporters have urged him to run against Biden on the 2024 ballot.

    Asked if he believes Biden is “cognitively strong enough to be president,” Newsom said yes, adding that he talks with the president “all the time” and has traveled with him aboard Air Force One.

    ’You never answered my question directly,” Hannity responded. “How many times does your phone ping a day, people saying you need to get in this race because they agree with me that he’s not up to the job.”

    Newsom stammered somewhat before responding: “I’m not answering.”

    Newsom has repeatedly said he has no interest in running for president, saying he completely supports Biden’s reelection campaign. In April, Newsom raised money for Biden during a fundraiser in Washington shortly after the president announced his reelection campaign.

    But Newsom has continued to raise his national profile, fueling more speculation that he is laying the groundwork for a presidential campaign beyond 2024. After coasting to reelection as governor in 2022, Newsom took the millions of dollars left over in his campaign account to start a new political action committee.

    Newsom said he plans to use the money to support Democrats running for office in Republican-dominated states like Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi. Last week, Newsom said the committee would campaign for a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution to harden federal gun laws.

    Fox News said Monday was Newsom’s first interview on the network since 2010, back when Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco. Since then, Newsom has often joined the chorus of criticism against the conservative news outlet from Democrats who object to its coverage of guns and how some of the network’s hosts have embraced former President Donald Trump.

    Last year, Newsom conceded that Republicans were “winning right now” in part because he said Democrats were too timid, giving conservatives the most compelling narrative over the airwaves. He has since opted for a more confrontational style — which includes Fox News. Newsom has said he is a regular viewer of the network. Last year, his campaign paid for an ad on Fox News in Florida and urging residents there to “join us in California.”

    “We need more of these kinds of conversations, and we need to not just accuse each other of misleading the American people, but I think confront each other in the context of providing opportunities to address some of the facts that are often omitted in terms of the conversations and topics we choose to pick up,” Newsom said.

    Monday’s interview had plenty of confrontation, with Hannity and Newsom often talking over each other. Hannity noted California lost population for the first time in its history as a state while Newsom was in office, offering that as evidence that the policies of Newsom and his fellow Democrats have failed. That includes California’s income taxes, with a top rate of 13.3% that is the highest in the nation.

    Newsom pushed back that only the wealthy pay that 13.3% income tax rate. He said that top tax rate was established before he was governor, emphasizing that he has opposed new tax increases on the wealthy, including campaigning against a proposal on the 2022 ballot that would have raised taxes on the wealthy to pay for more zero-emission vehicles and to help fight wildfires.

    “I’ve never been a profligate Democrat. I’ve balanced budgets. We make the hard choices. I’m a business guy,” Newsom said.

    The interview was recorded previously in Sacramento before airing on Monday night. Hannity defended Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ use of taxpayer funds to fly migrants to California.

    “You are an open sanctuary state! Why don’t you embrace them,” Hannity asked

    “We embrace everybody here,” Newsom said. “I sat down with these migrants. I talked to every single one of them. They were lied to, they were misled.”

    But it wasn’t all criticism from Newsom. The governor said he had a good relationship with former Republican President Donald Trump during the coronavirus pandemic, saying Trump “played no politics during COVID with California.”

    “I’ve got a lot of critique from the left by saying that,” Newsom said.

    While the interview took up the full hour of Hannity’s show on Monday, the two men still had more to talk about. Hannity said the rest of the interview will air later this week.

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  • Microsoft stakes Xbox video game sales on long-awaited space adventure Starfield

    Microsoft stakes Xbox video game sales on long-awaited space adventure Starfield

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    One small step for an intrepid crew of 24th century space explorers could be a giant leap — or flop — for Microsoft when the Xbox-maker launches its long-awaited video game Starfield.

    Players must fend off pirates, navigate strange moons, build outposts and fix their own starships in a space epic that is due out on Xbox in September after years of development and delay. Microsoft gave its most detailed glimpse of the upcoming game at a Los Angeles event Sunday.

    The release could be one of the most important in Xbox’s history as it looks to attract gamers with a headliner on par with Nintendo’s latest Zelda game and PlayStation’s upcoming Spider-Man 2, said Mat Piscatella, a game industry analyst for market researcher Circana.

    After months of watching Nintendo’s Switch console and Sony’s PlayStation steal the momentum in a lagging market — with boosts from Hollywood adaptions of Nintendo’s Super Mario and the PlayStation exclusive Last of Us — Microsoft could use a blockbuster to drive sales of its Xbox consoles and its monthly game subscription service.

    “Starfield may have the potential to be as big or bigger than” popular games on rival platforms, especially thanks to the strong track record of the studio that made it, Piscatella said. “But the ‘may’ there is a big one.”

    Much of the anticipation centers on the past commercial successes of Microsoft-owned Bethesda Softworks, the studio behind long-running series such as Doom, Elder Scrolls and Fallout. Bethesda describes Starfield as its “first new universe in over 25 years.”

    Bethesda was already well on its way toward developing it when Microsoft acquired its parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in 2021. In fact, Bethesda first sought to trademark the Starfield name a decade ago, and teased the game in a brief trailer five years later in 2018.

    Now Starfield is caught up in another planned Microsoft takeover — of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard. Sony has raised antitrust objections to the $69 billion deal over concerns that Microsoft could make some of Activision’s best games exclusive to Xbox.

    PlayStation has its own exclusives — including top-sellers Last of Us, the Marvel Spider-Man games and some Final Fantasy games. But Sony has argued to British and European antitrust regulators that Microsoft’s decision to make ZeniMax games like Starfield and Redfall exclusive to Xbox provides “further compelling evidence of Microsoft’s ability and incentives to foreclose rivals” to games it acquires through acquisitions.

    British and U.S. antitrust authorities have sought to block the Activision deal, though neither has mentioned the Starfield example as a concern. Other countries, including regulators representing the 27-nation European Union, have approved the acquisition.

    Microsoft’s ongoing battle to close the Activision deal and build enthusiasm for its existing stock of games comes at a slow period for game sales after interest soared at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Consumer spending on video games and hardware in the U.S. was $4.1 billion in April, a 5% drop from a year ago, according to Circana.

    A 6% decline in game revenue was partly offset by 7% growth in hardware sales, particularly for the PlayStation 5 and Switch. It marked the best April for console sales since the pandemic caused a sales spike in 2020.

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  • Officials say driver lost control of gas-filled tanker before fire collapsed main East Coast highway

    Officials say driver lost control of gas-filled tanker before fire collapsed main East Coast highway

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    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver of a tractor-trailer hauling gasoline lost control on an off-ramp and flipped the tanker truck on its side in a wreck that set it afire and destroyed a section of the East Coast’s main north-south highway, Pennsylvania’s top transportation official said Monday.

    In the first official accounting of a wreck that threw hundreds of thousands of morning commutes into chaos and disrupted untold numbers of businesses, state Transportation Secretary Mike Carroll said the driver was northbound “trying to navigate the curve, lost control of the vehicle, landed on its side and ruptured the tank.”

    The driver was feared dead, and a relative of a New Jersey truck driver who has not been heard from since Sunday told The Philadelphia Inquirer that investigators had contacted the family in an effort to identify human remains recovered from the wreckage.

    Pennsylvania State Police said a body was turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner and coroner, but did not identify the remains or respond when asked if they belonged to the driver.

    Gov. Josh Shapiro, speaking of those on the roadway and not the trucker, said he “found myself thanking the Lord that no motorists who were on I-95 were injured or died.”

    Interstate 95 will be closed in both directions for weeks as the summer travel season kicks into high gear. The elevated southbound portion of I-95 will have to be demolished, as well as the northbound side, Carroll said. Motorists should avoid the northeast corner of the sixth-largest city in the country, transportation officials said.

    The accident also disrupted the automotive route from Canada to Florida through the Boston, New York and Washington metropolitan areas, increasing Americans’ dependence on air travel and on the interstate rail network.

    Videos shared on social media showed a number of close calls around the accident, with people driving through the area as flames licked upward from the fire below.

    The National Transportation Safety Board was on the scene Sunday night. Federal investigators have been collecting information about the truck and talking with the company and emergency responders in order to understand the sequence of events. They are expected to make a preliminary report within weeks.

    The damaged I-95 segment carries about 160,000 vehicles daily, Carroll said. State police don’t know if the driver was speeding, and no other vehicle has been found. Officials said they had been in contact with the trucking company, but they did not identify it.

    Carroll said the highway span was 10 to 12 years old, had appeared sound, and officials blamed the damage on the heat of the fire, which took about an hour to control.

    Shapiro signed a disaster declaration Monday, saying it gives state agencies the ability to skip normal bidding-and-contracting requirements so the span can be repaired faster.

    He said a flight he took over the area showed “just remarkable devastation.”

    High heat from the fire or the impact of an explosion could have weakened the steel beams supporting the overpass, according to Drexel University structural engineering Professor Abi Aghayere. Bridges like the one that collapsed don’t typically have fire protection, like concrete casing, he added. It could have been coated in a fire-retarding paint, but even then the beams could have been weakened.

    “It just gives you time,” he said.

    Among many transportation changes across the region, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority said it was operating three extra morning and late afternoon trains on its Trenton, New Jersey, line, and adding capacity to regularly scheduled lines during peak hours following the collapse.

    The collapsed section of I-95 was part of a $212 million reconstruction project that wrapped up four years ago, state Transportation Department spokesman Brad Rudolph said. PennDOT rated the 104-foot span as in “good” condition earlier this year, with another inspection set for 2025.

    Shapiro, a Democrat, said the complete rebuild of I-95 would take “some number of months,” and in the meantime officials were looking at “interim solutions to reconnect I-95 and get traffic through the area.”

    Joseph L. Schofer, a retired professor of civil and environmental engineering from Northwestern University, said a big challenge for PennDOT in quickly replacing the bridge could be getting heavy-duty steel beams of a hundred feet or more.

    Ensuring the precise length necessary — either by finding the construction records or taking measurements — and finding a fabricator to make them could take time, he said.

    “You can’t go online to Amazon and order it and have it delivered the next day,” said Schofer, who also hosts a podcast on infrastructure.

    In California, a similar situation happened with a highway ramp in Oakland. It was replaced in 26 days, he said.

    “Now that’s almost a miracle,” Schofer said. In Atlanta, an elevated portion of Interstate 85 collapsed in a fire, shutting down the heavily traveled route through the heart of the city in March 2017. It took authorities there 43 days to replace it, Schofer said.

    In Pennsylvania, officials were also concerned about the environmental effects of runoff into the nearby Delaware River.

    After a sheen was seen in the Delaware River near the collapse site, the Coast Guard deployed a boom to contain the material. Ensign Josh Ledoux said the tanker had a capacity of 8,500 gallons (32,176 liters), but the contents did not appear to be spreading into the environment.

    ___

    Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey and Levy from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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  • Oldest of 4 siblings who survived Colombian plane crash told family their mother lived for days

    Oldest of 4 siblings who survived Colombian plane crash told family their mother lived for days

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    BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The four Indigenous children who survived 40 days in the Amazon jungle after their plane crashed have shared limited but harrowing details of their ordeal with their family, including that their mother survived the crash for days before she died.

    The siblings, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1, are expected to remain for at least two weeks in a hospital receiving treatment after their rescue Friday, but some are already speaking and wanting to do more more than lie in bed, relatives said.

    Manuel Ranoque, father of the two youngest children, told reporters outside the hospital Sunday that the oldest of the four siblings — 13-year-old Lesly Jacobombaire Mucutuy — had described to him how their mother was alive for about four days after the plane crashed on May 1 in the Colombian jungle.

    Ranoque said before she died, the mother likely would have told them: “Go away,” apparently asking them to leave the wreckage site to survive. He provided no more details. Authorities have not said anything about this version.

    Details of what happened to the youngsters, and what they did, have been emerging gradually and in small pieces, so it could take some time to have a better picture of their ordeal, during which the youngest, Cristin, turned 1 year old.

    Henry Guerrero, an Indigenous man who was part of the search group, told reporters that the children were found with two small bags containing some clothes, a towel, a flashlight, two cellphones, a music box and a soda bottle.

    He said they used the bottle to collect water in the jungle, and he added that after they were rescued the youngsters complained of being hungry. “They wanted to eat rice pudding, they wanted to eat bread,” he said.

    Fidencio Valencia, a child’s uncle, told the media outlet Noticias Caracol that the children were starting to talk and one of them said they hid in tree trunks to protect themselves in a jungle area filled with snakes, animals and mosquitoes. He said they were exhausted.

    “They at least are already eating, a little, but they are eating,” he said after visiting them at the military hospital in Bogota, Colombia. On Saturday, Defense Minister Iván Velásquez had said the children were being rehydrated and couldn’t eat food yet.

    Later, Valencia provided new details of the children’s recovery two days after the rescue: “They have been drawing. Sometimes they need to let off steam.” He said family members are not talking a lot with them to give them space and time to recover from the shock.

    The children were traveling with their mother from the Amazonian village of Araracuara to the town of San Jose del Guaviare when the plane went down.

    The Cessna single-engine propeller plane was carrying three adults and the four children when the pilot declared an emergency due to engine failure. The small aircraft fell off the radar a short time later and a search for survivors began.

    Dairo Juvenal Mucutuy, another uncle, told local media that one of kids said he wanted to start walking.

    “Uncle, I want shoes, I want to walk, but my feet hurt,” Mucutuy said the child told him.

    “The only thing that I told the kid (was), ’When you recover, we will play soccer,” he said.

    Authorities and family members have said the siblings survived eating cassava flour and seeds, and that some familiarity with the rainforest’s fruits were also key to their survival. The kids are members of the Huitoto Indigenous group.

    After being rescued on Friday, the children were transported in a helicopter to Bogota and then to the military hospital, where President Gustavo Petro, government and military officials, as well as family members met with the children on Saturday.

    An air force video released Friday showed a helicopter using lines to pull the youngsters up because it couldn’t land in the dense rainforest where they were found. The military on Friday tweeted pictures showing a group of soldiers and volunteers posing with the children, who were wrapped in thermal blankets. One of the soldiers held a bottle to the smallest child’s lips.

    Gen. Pedro Sanchez, who was in charge of the rescue efforts, said that the children were found 5 kilometers (3 miles) away from the crash site in a small forest clearing. He said rescue teams had passed within 20 to 50 meters (66 to 164 feet) of where the children were found on a couple of occasions but had missed them.

    Two weeks after the crash, on May 16, a search team found the plane in a thick patch of the rainforest and recovered the bodies of the three adults on board, but the small children were nowhere to be found.

    Soldiers on helicopters dropped boxes of food into the jungle, hoping that it would help sustain the children. Planes flying over the area fired flares to help search crews on the ground at night, and rescuers used speakers that blasted a message recorded by the siblings’ grandmother telling them to stay in one place.

    Colombia’s army sent 150 soldiers with dogs into the area, where mist and thick foliage greatly limited visibility. Dozens of volunteers from Indigenous tribes also joined the search.

    Ranoque, the father of the youngest children, said the rescue shows how as an “Indigenous population, we are trained to search” in the middle of the jungle.

    “We proved the world that we found the plane… we found the children,” he added.

    Some Indigenous community members burned incense as part of a ceremony outside the Bogota military hospital Sunday to give thanks for the rescue of the kids.

    Luis Acosta, coordinator of the Indigenous guard that was part of the search in the Amazon, said the children were found as part of what he called a “combination of ancestral wisdom and Western wisdom… between a military technique and a traditional technique.”

    The Colombian government, which is trying to end internal conflicts in the country, has highlighted the joint work of the military and Indigenous communities to find the children.

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  • Jeffrey Epstein victims settle sex trafficking lawsuit against JPMorgan for $290 million

    Jeffrey Epstein victims settle sex trafficking lawsuit against JPMorgan for $290 million

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    JPMorgan Chase announced a tentative $290 million settlement Monday with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein who had accused the bank of being the financial conduit that allowed the financier to continue operating a sex trafficking operation.

    Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Florida and New York. He was found dead in jail in August of that year, at age 66. A medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

    The lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court in November sought to hold JPMorgan financially liable for Epstein’s decades-long abuse of teenage girls and young women. A related lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    The proposed settlement comes roughly two weeks after JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified in a deposition for the case, where he denied knowing about Epstein and his crimes until the financier was arrested in 2019, according to a transcript of the videotaped deposition released last month.

    “We all now understand that Epstein’s behavior was monstrous, and we believe this settlement is in the best interest of all parties, especially the survivors, who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of this man,” JPMorgan Chase said in a written statement early Monday.

    The proposed settlement, which must still be approved by the judge in the case, totals $290 million, according to lead plaintiff attorney David Boies.

    According to the lawsuits, JPMorgan provided Epstein loans and regularly allowed him to withdraw large sums of cash from 1998 through August 2013 even though it was aware of his participation in sex trafficking. The anonymous victim in the suit, referred to as Jane Doe, said she was sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 and 2013.

    Also on Monday, a judge ruled in favor of making Doe’s lawsuit into a class-action lawsuit for all victims of Epstein’s sex crimes.

    “Money, which for far too long flowed with impunity between Jeffrey Epstein’s global sex trafficking enterprise and Wall Street’s leading banks, is decisively being used for good,” said Sigrid McCawley, an attorney for Jane Doe and other Epstein victims, in a prepared statement. “The settlements signal that financial institutions have an important role to play in spotting and shutting down sex trafficking.”

    The bank continued to count Epstein as a client despite the fact that he was arrested and pled guilty in 2008 to sex crimes in Florida.

    “Any association with him was a mistake and we regret it,” the bank said in a prepared statement. “We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes.”

    Both lawsuits were filed after New York state in November enacted a temporary law letting adult victims of sexual abuse to sue others for the abuse they suffered, even if the abuse occurred long ago.

    Lawsuits are still pending between the U.S. Virgin Islands and JPMorgan Chase, and the bank is still pursuing its lawsuit against JPMorgan former executive Jes Staley.

    The bank has denied the allegations and sued Staley, saying he hid Epstein’s crimes to keep him as a client. Staley left JPMorgan in 2013 to later become CEO of the British bank Barclays. Staley stepped down from that role in 2021 due to his prior relationship with Epstein.

    __________________________________________________

    AP Writer Michael Hill contributed to this report from Albany. AP Writer Larry Neumeister contributed from New York.

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  • Trump prepares for court appearance as 1st ex-president to face federal criminal charges

    Trump prepares for court appearance as 1st ex-president to face federal criminal charges

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of a history-making federal court appearance on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to get them back.

    Trump’s Tuesday afternoon appearance in Miami will mark his second time since April facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case some legal analysts derided as relatively trivial, the Justice Department’s first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardized national security, with Espionage Act charges carrying the prospect of a significant prison sentence.

    Ahead of his court date, he and his allies have been escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests. He’s ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case, calling Jack Smith “deranged” as he repeated without any evidence his claims that he was the target of a political persecution. And even as his supporters accuse the Justice Department of being weaponized against him, he vowed Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family if Trump is elected to a second term.

    Trump landed in Miami around 3 p.m. Monday and got into a waiting SUV. He was expected to huddle with advisers before his court appearance, as he looks to line up additional lawyers following the departure before his indictment last week of two attorneys who had handled the defense for months.

    He’s encouraged supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse Tuesday, where he will face the charges and surrender to authorities.

    “We need strength in our country now,” Trump said Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio. “And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out.”

    “Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We’ve lost everything,” he went on.

    He also said there were no circumstances “whatsoever” under which he would leave the 2024 race, where he’s been dominating the Republican primary.

    Other Trump supporters have rallied to his defense with similar language, including Kari Lake, the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who pointedly said over the weekend that if prosecutors “want to get to President Trump,” they’re ”going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.”

    Trump’s calls for protest echoed exhortations he made ahead of a New York court appearance in April, where he faces charges arising from hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, though he complained that those who showed up to protest then were “so far away that nobody knew about ’em,” And just like in that case, he plans to address supporters in a Tuesday evening speech hours after his court date.

    After his court appearance, he will return to New Jersey, where he’s scheduled a press event to publicly respond to the charges. He’ll also be holding a private fundraiser.

    Trump supporters were also planning to load buses to head to Miami from other parts of Florida, raising concerns for law enforcement officials who are preparing for the potential of unrest around the courthouse. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city would be ready, and police chief Manuel A. Morales said downtown could see anywhere from a few thousand up to 50,000 protesters. He said the city would be diverting traffic and possibly blocking streets depending on crowd size.

    “Make no mistake about it,” Morales said. “We are taking this event extremely serious. We know there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse but that’s not the Miami way.”

    The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defense information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.

    The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House in January 2021. The material he stored, including in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom and shower, included material on nuclear programs, defense and weapons capabilities of the U.S. and foreign governments and a Pentagon “attack plan,” the indictment says. The information, if exposed, could have put at risk members of the military, confidential human sources and intelligence collection methods, prosecutors said.

    Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents, including by directing personal aide Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside Trump — to move boxes to conceal them and also suggesting to his own lawyer that he hide or destroy documents sought by a Justice Department subpoena.

    Some fellow Republicans have sought to press the case that Trump is being treated unfairly, citing the Justice Department’s decision in 2016 to not charge Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information through a private email server she relied on as secretary of state. But those arguments overlook that FBI investigators did not find any evidence that Clinton or her aides had willfully broken laws regarding classified information or had obstructed the investigation.

    New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, speaking Sunday on CBS News, said there was a “huge difference” between the two investigations but that it “has to be explained to the American people.”

    The Justice Department earlier this month informed former Vice President Mike Pence that it would not bring charges over the presence of classified documents in his Indiana home. A separate Justice Department special counsel investigation into the discovery of classified records at a home and office of President Joe Biden continues, though as in the Clinton case, no evidence of obstruction or intentional law-breaking has surfaced.

    Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, offered a grim assessment of Trump’s predicament, saying on Fox News that Trump had no right to hold onto such sensitive records.

    “If even half of it is true,” Barr said of the allegations, “then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a pretty — it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous.”

    ___

    Colvin reported from New York. Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami and Terry Spencer in Doral, Florida contributed to this report.

    Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

    ___

    More on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

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  • Protesters brawl as Southern California school district decides whether to recognize Pride Month

    Protesters brawl as Southern California school district decides whether to recognize Pride Month

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    GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) — Protesters briefly scuffled and punches flew Tuesday as a Southern California school district decided whether to recognize June as Pride month.

    Several hundred people gathered in the parking lot of the Glendale Unified School District headquarters, split between those who support or oppose exposing youngsters to LGBTQ+ issues in schools.

    Some opponents wore T-shirts emblazoned with: “Leave our kids alone.”

    It was the same slogan used by some demonstrators last Friday outside Saticoy Elementary School in Los Angeles to protest a planned Pride assembly.

    As in Glendale, police officers had to separate groups of protesters and counterprotesters who came to blows.

    Across the nation, Pride month celebrations are kicking off amid rising backlash in some places against LGBTQ+ rights. Community parade organizers, school districts and even professional sports terms have faced protests for flying rainbow flags and honoring drag performers. While some Republican-led states are limiting classroom conversations about gender and sexuality and banning gender-affirming care, some Democratic cities and states are seeking to expand LGBTQ+ rights and to honor the community’s contributions.

    In Glendale, police quickly moved in to stop clashes, separated the two groups and cleared the parking lot. Police said they arrested two people on suspicion of obstructing officers and one person for unlawful use of pepper spray. TV reports also showed a man being taken away after lying down in the street and refusing to move.

    No injuries were reported.

    Inside the packed meeting room, the school board late Tuesday night approved, for the fifth year in a row, a resolution designating June as LGBTQ+ Pride month.

    However, most of those who addressed the school board discussed broader issues of how sex and gender are handled under district policy, with supporters arguing that LGBTQ+ children need to feel safe and included in classrooms while opponents contended that schools are usurping parental authority and pushing unnecessary and even harmful views on gender.

    In an earlier statement, the district said “intentional and harmful disinformation has been circulating about what is being taught” and said it follows state law and education policies.

    Earlier Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District school board unanimously voted to recognize Pride Month. The resolution also encouraged all schools in the nation’s second-largest district to incorporate lessons on the LGBTQ+ community into the curriculum and affirmed a “commitment to creating a safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning environment for all LGBTQ+ students, families, and staff members.”

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  • 2 dead in shooting after high school graduation ceremony in Virginia capital

    2 dead in shooting after high school graduation ceremony in Virginia capital

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    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Seven people were shot, two fatally, when gunfire rang out Tuesday outside a downtown theater in Richmond, Virginia, where a high school graduation ceremony had just ended, causing hundreds of attendees to flee in panic, weep and clutch their children, authorities and witnesses said.

    A 19-year-old suspect tried to escape on foot but was arrested and will be charged with two counts of second-degree murder, Interim Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards said during a nighttime news conference at which he confirmed the two fatalities.

    Five others were wounded by the gunfire outside the state capital’s city-owned Altria Theater, which is across the street from a large, grassy park and in the middle of the Virginia Commonwealth University campus. At least 12 others were injured or treated for anxiety due to the mayhem, according to police.

    “As they heard the gunfire, it was obviously chaos,” Edwards said. “We had hundreds of people in Monroe Park, so people scattered. It was very chaotic at the scene.”

    Edwards said one of the people who was killed was an 18-year-old male student who had just graduated, while the other was a 36-year-old man who was there for the graduation. Their names were not released, but police believe the suspect, who was not immediately identified, knew at least one of the victims.

    “This should have been a safe space. People should have felt safe at a graduation,” Edwards said.

    “It’s just incredibly tragic that someone decided to bring a gun to this incident and rain terror on our community.”

    Six people were brought to VCU Medical Center and their conditions ranged from serious to critical late Tuesday, VCU Health System spokesperson Mary Kate Brogan said.

    Multiple handguns were recovered. Police initially said two suspects were detained, but Edwards said later that they determined one of them was not involved.

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney vowed to ensure anyone responsible faces justice.

    “This should not be happening anywhere,” Stoney said.

    Officers inside the theater, where the graduation ceremony for Huguenot High School had been taking place, heard gunfire around 5:15 p.m. and radioed to police stationed outside, who found multiple victims, Edwards said.

    School board member Jonathan Young told Richmond TV station WWBT that graduates and other attendees were leaving the building when they heard about 20 gunshots in rapid succession.

    “That prompted, as you would expect, hundreds of persons in an effort to flee the gunfire to return to the building,” Young said.

    “It materialized in a stampede,” he said.

    Two people were treated for falls; one juvenile was struck by a car and sustained injuries that were not life-threatening; and nine people were treated at the scene for minor injuries or anxiety, according to police spokeswoman Tracy Walker.

    Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said the new graduates were outside taking photos with families and friends when the shooting broke out.

    “I don’t have any more words on this,” Kamras said. “I’m just tired of seeing people get shot, our kids get shot. And I beg of the entire community to stop, to just stop.”

    As he heard the gunshots and then sirens, neighbor John Willard, 69, stepped onto the balcony of his 18th-floor apartment. Below, he saw students fleeing in their graduation outfits and parents hugging children.

    “There was one poor woman in front of the apartment block next to ours who was wailing and crying,” Willard said, adding that the scene left him deeply saddened.

    Edythe Payne was helping her daughter sell flowers outside the theater to students as they left the ceremony. She told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the shooting caused a panic on nearby Main Street, which was packed with people at the time.

    “I felt bad because some elderly people were at the graduation and they got knocked down to the ground,” Payne said.

    The school district said a different graduation scheduled for later Tuesday had been canceled “out of an abundance of caution” and schools would be closed Wednesday.

    The mass shooting, the latest in a nation increasingly accustomed to them, prompted calls for reform.

    “The gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis that we must address,” U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan, a Democrat whose district includes Richmond, said in a statement. “We cannot continue to live in fear. We must address the root causes of gun violence and pass common sense gun safety policies that protect our communities.”

    Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, an ardent gun-rights advocate, said in remarks to news outlets near the scene that the problem lies not with guns but with criminals.

    “We have to figure out what’s going on in our communities,” she said.

    ___ Associated Press journalists Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Beatrice Dupuy in New York contributed to this report.

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