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  • Fight still ahead for Texas’ Ken Paxton after historic impeachment deepens GOP divisions

    Fight still ahead for Texas’ Ken Paxton after historic impeachment deepens GOP divisions

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    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The historic impeachment of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was just the first round of a Republican brawl over whether to banish one of their own in America’s biggest red state after years of criminal accusations.

    Paxton and his allies, from former President Donald Trump to hard-right grassroots organizations across Texas, now wait to fight back in what Paxton hopes will be a friendlier arena: a trial in the state Senate.

    It was still unclear Sunday when this will take place. The Republican-led Senate met to pass bills in the final days of the legislative session. But the chamber’s presiding officer, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, did not immediately address the Paxton impeachment.

    Late Sunday, the House of Representatives investigating panel that initiated Paxton’s impeachment issued a dozen new subpoenas for testimony and records from Paxton associates, businesses, banks and financial trusts. It was unclear how quickly those records and testimony could be collected ahead of a Senate trial.

    Paxton has said he has “full confidence” as he awaits a Senate trial. His conservative allies there include his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, who has not said whether she will recuse herself from the proceedings to determine whether her husband will be permanently removed from office.

    For now, Texas’ three-term attorney general is immediately suspended after the state House of Representatives on Saturday impeached Paxton on 20 articles that included bribery and abuse of public trust.

    The decisive 121-23 vote amounted to a clear rebuke from the GOP-controlled chamber after nearly a decade of Republican lawmakers taking a mostly muted stance on Paxton’s alleged misdeeds, which include felony securities fraud charges from 2015 and an ongoing FBI investigation into corruption accusations.

    He is just the third sitting official in Texas’ nearly 200-year history to have been impeached.

    “No one person should be above the law, least not the top law officer of the state of Texas,” said Republican state Rep. David Spiller, who was part of a House investigative committee that this week revealed it had quietly been looking into Paxton for months.

    Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has remained silent about Paxton all week , including after Saturday’s impeachment. Abbott, who was the state’s attorney general prior to Paxton’s taking the job in 2015, has the power to appoint a temporary replacement pending the outcome in the Senate trial.

    Final removal of Paxton would require a two-thirds vote in the Senate, where Republican members are generally aligned with the party’s hard right. Patrick, the presiding officer, has served as state chairman for Trump’s campaigns in Texas.

    A group of Senate Republicans issued identical statements late Saturday and Sunday saying they “welcome and encourage communication from our constituents.” But the group also said they now consider themselves jurors and will not discuss the Paxton case.

    Before the vote Saturday, Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz came to Paxton’s defense, with the senator calling the impeachment process “a travesty” and saying the attorney general’s legal troubles should be left to the courts.

    “Free Ken Paxton,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, warning that if House Republicans proceeded with the impeachment, “I will fight you.”

    Paxton, 60, decried the outcome in the House moments after scores of his fellow partisans voted for impeachment. His office pointed to internal reports that found no wrongdoing.

    “The ugly spectacle in the Texas House today confirmed the outrageous impeachment plot against me was never meant to be fair or just,” Paxton said. “It was a politically motivated sham from the beginning.”

    Lawmakers allied with Paxton tried to discredit the investigation by noting that hired investigators, not panel members, interviewed witnesses. They also said several of the investigators had voted in Democratic primaries, tainting the impeachment, and that Republican legislators had too little time to review evidence.

    “I perceive it could be political weaponization,” Rep. Tony Tinderholt, one of the House’s most conservative members, said before the vote. Republican Rep. John Smithee compared the proceeding to “a Saturday mob out for an afternoon lynching.”

    Rice University political science professor Mark P. Jones said the swift move to impeach kept Paxton from rallying significant support and allowed quietly frustrated Republicans to come together.

    “If you ask most Republicans privately, they feel Paxton is an embarrassment. But most were too afraid of the base to oppose him,” Jones said. By voting as a large bloc, he added, the lawmakers gained political cover.

    To Paxton’s longstanding detractors, however, the rebuke was years overdue.

    In 2014, he admitted to violating Texas securities law, and a year later was indicted on securities fraud charges in his hometown near Dallas, accused of defrauding investors in a tech startup. He pleaded not guilty to two felony counts carrying a potential sentence of five to 99 years.

    He opened a legal defense fund and accepted $100,000 from an executive whose company was under investigation by Paxton’s office for Medicaid fraud. An additional $50,000 was donated by an Arizona retiree whose son Paxton later hired to a high-ranking job but soon was fired after displaying child pornography in a meeting. In 2020, Paxton intervened in a Colorado mountain community where a Texas donor and college classmate faced removal from his lakeside home under coronavirus orders.

    But what ultimately unleashed the impeachment push was Paxton’s relationship with Austin real estate developer Nate Paul.

    In 2020, eight top aides told the FBI they were concerned Paxton was misusing his office to help Paul over the developer’s unproven claims about an elaborate conspiracy to steal $200 million of his properties. The FBI searched Paul’s home in 2019, but he has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. Paxton also told staff members he had an affair with a woman who, it later emerged, worked for Paul.

    The impeachment accuses Paxton of attempting to interfere in foreclosure lawsuits and issuing legal opinions to benefit Paul. The bribery charges included in the impeachment allege Paul employed the woman with whom Paxton had an affair in exchange for legal help and that he paid for expensive renovations to the attorney general’s home. A senior lawyer for Paxton’s office, Chris Hilton, said Friday that the attorney general paid for all repairs and renovations.

    Other charges, including lying to investigators, date back to Paxton’s still-pending securities fraud indictment.

    Four aides who reported Paxton to the FBI later sued under Texas’ whistleblower law, and in February he agreed to settle the case for $3.3 million. The House committee said the probe was sparked by Paxton seeking legislative approval for the payout.

    “But for Paxton’s own request for a taxpayer-funded settlement over his wrongful conduct, Paxton would not be facing impeachment,” the panel said.

    ___

    Bleiberg reported from Dallas.

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  • Ford electric vehicle owners to get access to Tesla Supercharger network starting next spring

    Ford electric vehicle owners to get access to Tesla Supercharger network starting next spring

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    DETROIT (AP) — All of Ford Motor Co.’s current and future electric vehicles will have access to about 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations in the U.S. and Canada starting next spring.

    Ford CEO Jim Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the agreement Thursday during a “Twitter Spaces” audio chat.

    “We think this is a huge move for our industry and for all electric customers,” Farley said.

    Musk said he didn’t want Tesla’s network to be a “walled garden” and that he wants to use it to support sustainable transportation.

    “It is our intent to do everything possible to support Ford and have Ford be on an equal footing at Tesla Superchargers,” Musk said.

    Farley said there will be a cost to Ford owners, perhaps a monthly subscription, but he didn’t give specifics. Details of any financial arrangement between Ford and Tesla were not announced.

    At first, Ford’s current electric vehicles will need an adapter to hook into the Tesla stations, which have their own connector. But Ford will switch to Tesla’s North American Charging Standard connector with its second-generation EVs starting in 2025, Farley said.

    Ford said Tesla’s connector is smaller and lighter than those in use by other automakers.

    Farley said Tesla’s Superchargers have great locations.

    “We love the locations. We love the reliability,” he said. They will join Ford’s own Blue Oval charging network which has about 10,000 fast-charging stations, he said.

    Ford EV owners will be able to access the Tesla chargers seamlessly with Ford’s app, Musk said.

    Tesla has about 17,000 Supercharger stations in the U.S. There are about 54,000 public charging stations in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, but many charge much more slowly than the Tesla stations.

    The Ford-Tesla deal is separate from a plan to open part of Tesla’s charging network to all EVs.

    The White House announced in February that at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger network would be available to non-Tesla electric vehicles by the end of 2024.

    The chat between Musk, who last fall bought Twitter for $44 billion, and Farley came off without the embarrassing technical glitches that plagued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ announcement Wednesday that he was running for president.

    With Musk, DeSantis released the news that he would seek the Republican nomination, but the chat was delayed by glitches for nearly a half hour. Musk blamed it on straining of servers because so many were trying to listen in.

    The Farley-Musk chat had a much smaller audience, than DeSantis, about 18,000 listeners at the start.

    The number on the DeSantis chat topped out at 420,000, far from the millions who have watched televised presidential announcements. After the problems were fixed, the audience remained under 500,000.

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  • Microsoft: State-sponsored Chinese hackers could be laying groundwork for disruption

    Microsoft: State-sponsored Chinese hackers could be laying groundwork for disruption

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    BOSTON (AP) — 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, Microsoft said Wednesday.

    The targets include sites in Guam, where the U.S. has a major military presence, the company said.

    Hostile activity in cyberspace — from espionage to the advanced positioning of malware for potential future attacks — has become a hallmark of modern geopolitical rivalry.

    Microsoft said in a blog post that the state-sponsored group of hackers, which it calls Volt Typhoon, has been active since mid-2021. It said organizations affected by the hacking — which seeks persistent access — are in the communications, manufacturing, utility, transportation, construction, maritime, information technology and education sectors.

    Separately, the National Security Agency, the FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and their counterparts from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain published a joint advisory sharing technical details on “the recently discovered cluster of activity.”

    A Microsoft spokesman would not say why the software giant was making the announcement now or whether it had recently seen an uptick in targeting of critical infrastructure in Guam or at adjacent U.S. military facilities there, which include a major air base.

    John Hultquist, chief analyst at Google’s Mandiant cybersecurity intelligence operation, called Microsoft’s announcement “potentially a really important finding.”

    “We don’t see a lot of this sort of probing from China. It’s rare,” Hultquist said. “We know a lot about Russian and North Korean and Iranian cyber-capabilities because they have regularly done this.” China has generally withheld use of the kinds of tools that could be used to seed, not just intelligence-gathering capabilities, but also malware for disruptive attacks in an armed conflict, he added.

    Microsoft said the intrusion campaign placed a “strong emphasis on stealth” and sought to blend into normal network activity by hacking small-office network equipment, including routers. It said the intruders gained initial access through internet-facing Fortiguard devices, which are engineered to use machine-learning to detect malware.

    The maker of Fortiguard devuces, Fortinet, did not immediately respond to an email seeking further details.

    “For years, China has conducted aggressive cyber operations to steal intellectual property and sensitive data from organizations around the globe,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly, urging mitigation of affected networks to prevent possible disruption. Bryan Vorndran, the FBI cyber division assistant director, called the intrusions “unacceptable tactics” in the same statement.

    Tensions between Washington and Beijing — which the U.S. national security establishment considers its main military, economic and strategic rival — have been on the rise in recent months.

    Those tensions spiked last year after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to democratically governed Taiwan, leading China, which claims the island as its territory, to launch military exercises around Taiwan.

    U.S.-China relations became further strained earlier this year after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had crossed the United States.

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  • Companies are finding it’s not so simple to leave Russia. Some are quietly staying put

    Companies are finding it’s not so simple to leave Russia. Some are quietly staying put

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    When Russia invaded Ukraine, global companies were quick to respond, some announcing they would get out of Russia immediately, others curtailing imports or new investment. Billions of dollars’ worth of factories, energy holdings and power plants were written off or put up for sale, accompanied by fierce condemnation of the war and expressions of solidarity with Ukraine.

    More than a year later, it’s clear: Leaving Russia was not as simple as the first announcements might have made it seem.

    Increasingly, Russia has put hurdles in the way of companies that want out, requiring approval by a government commission and in some cases from President Vladimir Putin himself, while imposing painful discounts and taxes on sale prices.

    Though companies’ stories vary, a common theme is having to thread an obstacle course between Western sanctions and outraged public opinion on one side and Russia’s efforts to discourage and penalize departures on the other. Some international brands such as Coke and Apple are trickling in informally through third countries despite a decision to exit.

    Many companies are simply staying put, sometimes citing responsibility to shareholders or employees or legal obligations to local franchisees or partners. Others argue that they’re providing essentials like food, farm supplies or medicine. Some say nothing.

    One is Italian fashion chain Benetton, whose store at Moscow’s now ironically named Evropeisky Mall — meaning “European” in Russian — was busy on a recent weekday evening, with customers browsing and workers tidying piles of brightly colored clothing. At Italian lingerie retailer Calzedonia, shoppers looked through socks and swimwear. Neither company responded to emailed questions.

    For consumers in Moscow, what they can buy hasn’t changed much. While baby products store Mothercare became Mother Bear under new local ownership, most of the items in the Evropeisky Mall shop still bear the Mothercare brand.

    That’s also what student Alik Petrosyan saw as he shopped at Maag, which now owns Zara’s former flagship clothing store in Moscow.

    “The quality hasn’t changed at all, everything has stayed the same,” he said. “The prices haven’t changed much, taking into account the inflation and the economic scenarios that happened last year.”

    “Overall Zara — Maag — had competitors,” Petrosyan said, correcting himself, “but I wouldn’t say that there are any now with whom they could compete equally. Because the competitors who stayed are in a higher price segment, but the quality doesn’t match up.”

    The initial exodus from Russia was led by big automakers, oil, tech and professional services companies, with BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and Equinor ending joint ventures or writing off stakes worth billions. McDonald’s sold its 850 restaurants to a local franchisee, while France’s Renault took a symbolic single ruble for its majority stake in Avtovaz, Russia’s largest carmaker.

    Since the initial wave of departures, new categories have emerged: companies that are biding their time, those struggling to shed assets and others attempting business as usual. Over 1,000 international companies have publicly said they are voluntarily curtailing Russian business beyond what’s required by sanctions, according to a database by Yale University.

    But the Kremlin keeps adding requirements, recently a “voluntary” 10% departure tax directly to the government, plus an understanding that companies would sell at a 50% discount.

    Putin recently announced that the government would take over the assets of Finnish energy company Fortum and Germany’s Uniper utility, barring a sale with an eye to offsetting any Western moves to seize more Russian assets abroad.

    Danish brewer Carlsberg announced its intention to divest its Russia business — one of Russia’s largest brewing operations — in March 2022 but faced complications clarifying the impact of sanctions and finding suitable buyers.

    “This is a complex process, and it has taken longer than we originally hoped for” but now is “almost completed,” said Tanja Frederiksen, global head of external communications.

    She called the Russia business a deeply integrated part of Carlsberg. Separating it has involved all parts of the company and more than 100 million Danish kroner ($14.8 million) in investment in new brewing equipment and IT infrastructure, Frederiksen said.

    Another beer giant, Anheuser-Busch InBev, is trying to sell a stake in a Russian joint venture to Turkey-based partner Anadolu Efes and has forgone revenue from it.

    Companies are lost in “a Bermuda Triangle between EU sanctions, U.S. sanctions and Russia sanctions,” said Michael Harms, executive director of the German Eastern Business Association.

    They must find a partner not sanctioned by the West. In Russia, major business figures are often people who are “well connected with the government,” Harms said. “For one thing, they have to sell at a large discount or almost give assets away, and then they go to people whom politically we don’t like — people who are close to the regime.”

    The 10% exit tax mandated by Russia is particularly tricky. American companies would have to get permission from the Treasury Department to pay it or run afoul of U.S. sanctions, said Maria Shagina, a sanctions expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin.

    Hundreds of companies quietly decided not to leave.

    In a rare, frank explanation, Steffen Greubel, CEO of German cash and carry firm Metro AG, said at this year’s shareholder meeting that the company condemns the war “without any ifs, ands or buts.”

    However, the decision to stay was motivated by a responsibility for 10,000 local employees and is “also in the interest of preserving the value of this company for its shareholders,” he said.

    Metro gets around 10% of its annual sales from Russia — more than 2.9 billion euros ($3.1 billion).

    Meanwhile, shelves are just as full as before the war at Globus superstores, a Germany-based chain with some 20 locations operating in Moscow.

    A closer look reveals that most Western beer brands have vanished, and many cosmetic brands have jumped in price by some 50% to 70%. There are more vegetables from Russia and Belarus, which cost less. Procter & Gamble products are abundant even after the company said it would narrow its product range to essentials.

    Globus says it has “drastically” cut new investment but kept its stores open to ensure food supply for people, noting that food has not been sanctioned and citing “the threat of confiscation of considerable asset value through a forced nationalization as well as severe consequences in criminal law for our local management.”

    Similarly, Germany’s Bayer AG, which supplies medicine, agricultural chemicals and seeds, argues that doing some business in Russia is the right move.

    “Withholding essential healthcare and agriculture products from the civilian populations — like cancer or cardiovascular treatments, health products for pregnant women and children as well as seeds to grow food — would only multiply the war’s ongoing toll on human life,” the company said in a statement.

    Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, head of the Yale database, said leaving was the only valid business decision, citing research showing company share prices rising afterward.

    “The companies that have pulled out have been rewarded for pulling out,” he said. “It is not good for shareholders to be associated with Putin’s war machine.”

    Marianna Fotaki, professor of business ethics at Warwick Business School, says business is “not just about the bottom line. … You don’t want to be an accomplice to what is a criminal regime.”

    Even if competitors stay, she said, “following the race to the bottom” is not the answer.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show that the name of the head of the Yale database was misspelled. He’s Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, not Jeffrey Sonnenberger.

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  • Car seats and baby formula are regulated. Is social media next?

    Car seats and baby formula are regulated. Is social media next?

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    The U.S. surgeon general is warning there is not enough evidence to show that social media is safe for children and teens — and is calling on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now.”

    With young people’s social media use “near universal” but its true impact on mental health not fully understood, Dr. Vivek Murthy is asking tech companies to share data and increase transparency with researchers and the public and prioritize users’ health and safety when designing their products.

    “I recognize technology companies have taken steps to try to make their platforms healthier and safer, but it’s simply not enough,” Murthy told The Associated Press in an interview. “You can just look at the age requirements, where platforms have said 13 is the age at which people can start using their platforms. Yet 40% of kids 8 through 12 are on social media. How does that happen if you’re actually enforcing your policies?”

    To comply with federal regulation, social media companies already ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms — but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents’ consent.

    Other measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children’s mental health are also easily circumvented. For instance, TikTok recently introduced a default 60-minute time limit for users under 18. But once the limit is reached, minors can simply enter a passcode to keep watching.

    It’s not that the companies are unaware of the harms their platforms are causing. Meta, for instance, studied the effects of Instagram on teens’ mental health years ago and found that the peer pressure generated by the visually focused app led to mental health and body-image problems, and in some cases, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts in teens — especially in girls. One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.

    The research was revealed in 2021 by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Meta sought to downplay the harmful effects of its platform on teens at the time, but put on hold its work on a kids’ version of Instagram, which the company says is meant mainly for tweens aged 10 to 12.

    “The bottom line is we do not have enough evidence to conclude that social media is, in fact, sufficiently safe for our kids. And that’s really important for parents to know,” said Murthy, who’s been traveling around the country talking to parents and young people about the youth mental health crisis. “The most common question I get from parents is whether social media is safe for their kids.”

    Policymakers need to address the harms of social media the same way they regulate things like car seats, baby formula, medication and other products children use, Murthy said in a report published Tuesday. Parents — and kids — simply can’t do it all.

    “We’re asking parents to manage a technology that’s rapidly evolving that fundamentally changes how their kids think about themselves, how they build friendships, how they experience the world — and technology, by the way, that prior generations never had to manage,” Murthy said. “And we’re putting all of that on the shoulders of parents, which is just simply not fair.”

    While Murthy is calling for more research, he says there is ample evidence now that social media can have a “profound risk of harm” on the mental health and well-being of children and teenagers.

    One critical factor is children’s brain development. Adults can suffer from the harmful effects of social media. But children and adolescents are at a “fundamentally different stage of brain development, where the pathways in their brains, their social relationships, their self-esteem and identity are all under development,” Murthy said. “And in this case, they’re even more prone to be influenced by social cues, social pressure and social comparison — and those three things exist in overwhelming abundance on social media.”

    In fact, frequent social media use may be associated with “distinct changes” in the developing brain, and could could increase sensitivity to social rewards and punishments, according to a study cited in the surgeon general’s report.

    How and how often they use social media, as well as extreme, inappropriate and harmful content they see could have profound effects on kids’ and teens’ mental health.

    And research shows they are using it a lot. al. Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center.

    A systematic review of 42 studies found a “consistent relationship between social media use and poor sleep quality, reduced sleep duration, sleep difficulties, and depression among youth.” On a typical weekday, nearly one in three adolescents report using screen media until midnight or later.

    What they see on social media also matters. From being bombarded unrealistic body images to a culture of “hyper-comparison” to bullying, hate and abuse, Murthy said he’s worried that its effects on young people’s mental health are showing up in the “disturbing mental health statistics that we are seeing in our country, which are telling us that depression, anxiety, suicide, loneliness are all going up.”

    Murthy’s report doesn’t tell young people to stop using social media altogether. There are benefits, too. It’s where teens can find a community and have a space for self-expression. LGBTQ+ youth, in particular, have been shown to benefit from social media through connecting with peers, developing an identity and finding social support.

    “For every family, it may not be feasible to stop your child from using social media or there may be benefit,” Murthy said. “But drawing boundaries around the use of social media in your child’s life so there are times and spaces that are protected, that are tech free, that can be really helpful.”

    Murthy’s own children are 5 and 6, but like many parents, he’s already thinking about their future on social media.

    “We are planning to delay the use of social media for our kids until after middle school,” he said. “And you know, that’s not going to be easy. But we’re hoping to find other parents and families that we can partner with to make this a little easier, because we know there’s strength in numbers and sometimes making changes on your own is hard.”

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  • 8 tips for parents and teens on social media use — from the US surgeon general

    8 tips for parents and teens on social media use — from the US surgeon general

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    The U.S. surgeon general is calling for tech companies and lawmakers to take “immediate action” to protect kids’ and adolescents’ mental health on social media.

    But after years of insufficient action by both social media platforms and policymakers, parents and young people still bear most of the burden in navigating the fast-changing, often harmful world of secretive algorithms, addictive apps and extreme and inappropriate content found on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

    So what can parents and young people do now? Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has some tips.

    “Our children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s impact,” Murthy said in an advisory released Tuesday. “Their childhoods and development are happening now.”

    TIPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

    — Reach out for help: If you or someone you know is being negatively affected by social media, reach out to a trusted friend or adult for help. Check the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidance on social media.

    — Create boundaries: Limit the use of phones, tablets, and computers for at least one hour before bedtime and through the night to make sure you get enough sleep. Keep mealtimes and in-person gatherings device‑free to help build social bonds and engage in two‑way conversations with others. Connect with people in person and make unplugged interactions a daily priority.

    — Be cautious about what you share: Personal information about you has value. Be selective with what you post and share online and with whom, as it is often public and can be stored permanently. If you aren’t sure if you should post something, it’s usually best if you don’t.

    — Don’t keep harassment or abuse a secret: Reach out to at least one person you trust, such as a close friend, family member, counselor, or teacher, who can give you the help and support you deserve. Visit stopbullying.gov for tips on how to report cyberbullying. If you have experienced online harassment and abuse by a dating partner, contact an expert at Love is Respect for support. If your private images have been taken and shared online without your permission, visit Take It Down to help get them removed.

    TIPS FOR PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS

    — Create a family media plan: Agreed-upon expectations can help establish healthy technology boundaries at home – including social media use. A family media plan can promote open family discussion and rules about media use and include topics such as balancing screen/online time, content boundaries, and not disclosing personal information

    — Create tech-free zones: Restrict the use of electronics at least one hour before bedtime and through the night. Keep meal times and other in-person gatherings tech-free. Help children develop social skills and nurture their in‑person relationships by encouraging unstructured and offline connections with others.

    — Model responsible behavior: Parents can set a good example of what responsible and healthy social media use looks like by limiting their own use, being mindful of social media habits (including when and how parents share information or content about their child), and modeling positive behavior on your social media accounts.

    — Empower kids: Teach kids about technology and empower them to be responsible online participants at the appropriate age. Discuss with children the benefits and risks of social media as well as the importance of respecting privacy and protecting personal information in age-appropriate ways. Have conversations with children about who they are connecting with, their privacy settings, their online experiences, and how they are spending their time online.

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  • Success coaches ‘dig a little deeper’ to help community college students

    Success coaches ‘dig a little deeper’ to help community college students

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    DALLAS (AP) — Daisy Donjuan’s family never saw the value in college. After graduating from high school, she did what was expected of her — dropped education, worked and pitched in at home.

    When she enrolled in Dallas College after a five-year break in school, she had to navigate a dizzying array of options and decisions as she sought a career outside of retail management.

    With the help of a success coach, Donjuan created a plan to graduate through the college’s paralegal program. She avoided taking classes that didn’t advance her goals and stayed on top of coursework.

    “It felt good, the fact that someone is actually checking up on you and that they’re keeping up with you,” Donjuan, 24, said. “They actually care about us succeeding.”

    Amid declines in enrollment in community colleges nationally and low completion rates, Dallas College invested nearly three years ago in hiring counselors who take a more hands-on approach to advising. The program pairs students with success coaches to navigate any challenges that stand in the way of their graduation.

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    EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of Saving the College Dream, a series by the Education Reporting Collaborative involving AL.com, The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, The Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina, and The Seattle Times, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

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    Supporting students — particularly those who come from nontraditional paths — is key as difficult circumstances, unclear pathways to a career and uncertainty about the value of a college degree can derail their education, experts say.

    More on Community Colleges:

    Without purposeful guidance on choosing the right classes or taking advantage of available resources, students can easily get lost and end up “making decisions that don’t get them to a degree,” said Josh Wyner, who leads higher education programs at The Aspen Institute.

    About half of Dallas College’s students are first-generation; a little more than 20% are parents; and about 22% are adult learners who are at least 25 with a full-time job, according to self-reported responses and data from a fall 2022 survey.

    Donjuan’s father, a car salesman, often boasted that he was able to create a business without a high school diploma or degree. Following his lead, she began working at a retail store but quickly ran out of room for growth after reaching a management position.

    Mulling over the sacrifices her father made when he upended his life in Mexico in pursuit of a better life, Donjuan saw this as wasted potential.

    “I felt lost,” she said. “I wanted to break that cycle. We can do better than this … we came for a reason.”

    Such details about a student’s life usually aren’t immediately available to success coaches. That’s why it’s key to ask probing questions that “dig a little deeper” to find the underlying challenges interfering in students’ education, said Garry Johnson, a success coach at Dallas College’s Richland Campus.

    If a student is missing classes due to transportation issues, Johnson can point those who take six credits or more to a free bus pass. Experiencing food insecurity? Here’s the campus’ food pantry. Need last-minute child care? These are the four system campuses that offer flexible assistance.

    “No student should be hungry, homeless or hopeless,” Johnson said. “Our job … is to address the whole student, not just mere academics.”

    Nationally, the number of students at community colleges has fallen 37% since 2010, or by nearly 2.6 million, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

    Their student-to-advisor ratio at community colleges is usually quite high and labor costs are among the biggest barriers for such institutions, said Nikki Edgecombe, a senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.

    “The underlying hope is that these navigators and these coaches help students manage to navigate the inevitable bumps that will come up and be able to persist in their academic studies,” Edgecombe said.

    Trustees approved $10 million for the success coaches at Dallas College, nearly doubling the school’s advising capacity. More than 64,500 students are enrolled at Dallas College, and the system employs nearly 240 success coaches across its seven campuses.

    Students are assigned to one coach, allowing them to develop more meaningful relationships with someone who can help them “navigate the Dallas College maze,” said Jermain Pipkins, dean of success coaching at the school.

    Building rapport with students is key, said Lisa Frost, a success coach. After Frost coached a student on how to ask her instructor about grades and opportunities to earn extra credit, the student soon opened up about how she had never been able to speak her own mind with her family.

    “This simple skill alone helped this student overcome a barrier of being shy to ask what she wanted without holding back,” Frost said.

    Lawmakers in Texas have called for factoring student success into how much state money goes to each community college. Dallas College leaders say they’re ahead because of their emphasis on keeping students on track.

    Kianna Vaughn, 28, didn’t immediately go to college after graduating from high school in 2013 because of the cost. Although she was accepted by Texas Southern University, she didn’t qualify for financial aid.

    A well-paying job cushioned Vaughn’s worries for some years, but she noticed younger people were often filling positions above her own. Despite her years of experience, the absence of a degree was holding her back.

    After enrolling at Dallas College last year, Vaughn met with a success coach who helped her lay out a plan that allowed her to juggle school and a full-time job. Now, Vaughn is set to transfer to Jarvis Christian University, a historically Black institution, starting next year to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

    “I was stagnant for a very long time,” she said. “If you want more you have to go for it, it’s not as easy as being comfortable where you are. But it’s worth it.”

    ___

    The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Dubai’s next big thing? Perhaps a $5 billion man-made ‘moon’ as the city’s real estate market booms

    Dubai’s next big thing? Perhaps a $5 billion man-made ‘moon’ as the city’s real estate market booms

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Who says you cannot reach for the moon? A proposed $5 billion real estate project wants to take skyscraper-studded Dubai to new heights — by bringing a symbol of the heavens down to Earth.

    Canadian entrepreneur Michael Henderson envisions building a 274-meter (900-foot) replica of the moon atop a 30-meter (100-foot) building in Dubai, already home to the world’s tallest building and other architectural wonders.

    Henderson’s project, dubbed MOON, may sound out of this world, but it could easily fit in this futuristic city-state. Dubai already has a red-hot real estate market, fueled by the wealthy who fled restrictions imposed in their home countries during the coronavirus pandemic and Russians seeking refuge amid Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

    And even though a previous booms-and-bust cycle saw many grand projects collapse, Henderson and others suggest his vision, funded by Moon World Resorts Inc., where he is the co-founder, might not be that far-fetched.

    “We have the biggest ‘brand’ in the world,” Henderson told The Associated Press, alluding that the moon itself — the heavenly body — was his brand. “Eight billion people know our brand, and we haven’t even started yet.”

    The project Henderson proposes includes a destination resort inside the spherical structure, complete with a 4,000-room hotel, an arena capable of hosting 10,000 people and a “lunar colony” that would give guests the sensation of actually walking on the moon.

    The MOON would sit on a pedestal-like circular building beneath it and would glow at night. Henderson discussed the project at the Arabian Travel Market earlier in May in Dubai.

    Already, artist renderings commissioned by Moon World Resorts have played with the location for his MOON — including at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at a height of 828 meters (2,710 feet). Others have placed it at the Dubai Pearl, a long-dormant project now being destroyed near the man-made Palm Jumeirah archipelago, and on its unfinished sister, the Palm Jebel Ali.

    The Pearl and the Palm Jebel Ali represent two “white elephant” projects left over from the 2009 financial crisis that rocked the sheikhdom and forced Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, to provide Dubai with a $20 billion bailout.

    Now nearly 15 years later, Dubai largely has turned around. Rents on average across Dubai are up 26.9% year-on-year, even with anti-price-gouging protections. Dubai saw 86,849 residential sales last year, beating a previous record of 80,831 from 2009.

    “Dubai is in a completely different world compared to” 2009, said Lewis Allsopp, the CEO of the prominent Dubai real estate agency Allsopp & Allsopp. Launched products are “selling out on the spot.”

    Inflation and interest rate hikes around the world have led to fears of a global recession. The UAE’s currency, the dirham, is pegged to the dollar, meaning it has followed lock-step the hikes imposed by the Federal Reserve.

    But cash still remains king for Dubai buyers, with fourth-fifths of transactions paid in currency without financing in 2022, said Faisal Durrani, the head of Middle East research at real estate agency Knight Frank.

    “You could argue that the interest rate hikes that are taking place, to an extent the market is a little bit shielded from that given the fact that so much of the transactional activity has been driven by cash,” Durrani said.

    Other major projects are moving ahead.

    Nakheel, the state-owned developer behind the Palm Jebel Ali, has relaunched development plans for it. The developer also unveiled a multibillion-dollar plan to build 80 resorts and hotels on the man-made Dubai Islands, though it remains largely empty and under the flight path of the nearby Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel.

    The MOON project also includes space for a possible casino as well. Gambling remains illegal in the UAE, a federation of seven hereditarily ruled sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula. However, major brands like Caesar’s Palace already exist or hope to build in Dubai. Wynn Resorts plans to build a $3.9 resort in Ras al-Khaimah north of Dubai with gambling to open in 2027 — meaning a change to the law is likely to come.

    Like other high-profile, eye-catching marvels, the MOON could fit well into “the legitimacy formula of Dubai’s ruling elite,” said Christopher Davidson, a Middle East expert who wrote the recent book “From Sheikhs to Sultanism.” Dubai also hosts the UAE’s space center, which has sent a probe to Mars and unsuccessfully tried to put a rover on the moon.

    “They can be seen as a non-democratic elite but nonetheless believe strongly in science and progress — and that’s ultimately very legitimizing and a megaproject like this would seem to tick all of those boxes,” Davidson said.

    Henderson’s plan would go a step further than other globe-shaped projects, such as the MSG Sphere, a $2.3 billion dome blanketed by LED screens, that is set to open in Las Vegas later this year.

    His structure would be fully spherical, and could be illuminated alternatively as a full, half or crescent moon.

    The brightness may not go down well with potential neighbors — plans to build another MSG Sphere in London were halted after residents protested the significant light pollution and disruption the structure would cause.

    “It’s hard to please everybody,” Henderson acknowledged. “You might need dark curtains.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

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  • From Xerox to TV box, long awaited adaptation of ‘American Born Chinese’ book hits Disney+

    From Xerox to TV box, long awaited adaptation of ‘American Born Chinese’ book hits Disney+

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    Gene Luen Yang remembers feeling pumped in 2007 when Hollywood came calling about his trailblazing graphic novel “American Born Chinese.” But that excitement turned into exasperation when it became clear the interested party completely missed the point of the book.

    “It came out that the reason why they were interested is because the Beijing Olympics were coming up in 2008. And they wanted some property that had the word China or Chinese in it,” Yang said in a recent interview. “Every now and then there would be an inquiry. But I really think the world needed to change in order for there to be an appetite for a story about an Asian American protagonist.”

    Change has finally come. After 17 years, the cartoonist is seeing his American dream play out.

    “American Born Chinese” debuts on Disney+ on Wednesday with a mostly Asian cast that now includes two new Oscar winners — Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. The show, which also boasts Asian American showrunners, centers on high school soccer player Jin Wang (Ben Wang) growing up amid pressure to reconcile his American and Chinese sides. Mixing elements of teen drama, fantasy and fight sequences, the show, like the book, jumps between Jin’s storyline and one involving the Monkey King, an iconic character in Chinese folklore. The story threads eventually intertwine.

    “It feels like a very surreal moment to have this book that I did as Xerox copies that I would put together at my local Kinko’s eventually become a show on Disney+,” Yang said.

    The first two episodes have been screened around the country from San Francisco to New York City to the White House, partly to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. The predominantly Asian American audiences have praised the show’s heartfelt and at times humorous portrayal of an Asian American family

    “‘American Born Chinese,’ you can’t do it in one long movie,” said Yeoh, who’s proud of how the series turned out. “There’s so many different aspects of it that need to be shown, it needs that space and time on screen.”

    Yeoh, who made history as the first Asian to win her Oscar category for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” plays Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. She was invited to the project by her “Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings” director, Destin Daniel Cretton, an executive producer.

    In the show, Yeoh gets to don a sweeping gown and headdress as well as sweats and a baseball cap. Being a revered Chinese folklore figure, many people already have an image of Guanyin. The Malaysia-born Yeoh didn’t dwell on the pressure of playing someone larger than life.

    “What I do think about is how we have to be very respectful of this goddess of mercy because she represents so many things to so many followers all around the world,” Yeoh said. “We gave her the gravitas the she deserved and the respect to show you what we love about her.”

    Yeoh and Quan had already wrapped up “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” when they started filming “American Born Chinese.” Castmates Stephanie Hsu and James Hong also guest-star in an episode. The best picture winner premiered in the middle of production and then “we watched the whole world change,” executive producer Kelvin Yu said.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wang is the star after doing mostly one-episode guest spots. He still isn’t quite used to seeing himself on posters. Having grown up seeing little on-screen Asian representation, it’s a novel concept that he could be an example for a teenage Asian American boy today.

    “It’s very surreal and strange,” Wang said. “I still can’t believe that it’s me. I just feel like it’s someone who looks like me, which is double weird. It’s like seeing your doppelgänger.”

    The television adaptation comes in the wake of other teen shows with an Asian American lens. Disney+ also has “Ms. Marvel” featuring a Muslim American female superhero. Jenny Han’s two book series, “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” have been hits for Netflix and Amazon Prime, respectively. The fourth and final season of “Never Have I Ever,” about an Indian American high schooler, drops in June.

    “We’re standing on the shoulders of those kinds of things, going back to ‘Joy Luck Club’ … all the way up to ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ and shows like ‘Never Have I Ever,’” Yu said. “We’ll take all that momentum. We’ll take all that sort of education for an audience to get used to faces like ours and we’ll embrace it and move forward.”

    The graphic novel was landmark literature for Asian American millennials. Reviews lauded it as a fresh take on adolescence, bi-cultural identity and racism. It won several accolades and was a National Book Awards finalist.

    For many young Chinese American readers, it was the first time they had seen themselves and the Monkey King — a legend they likely heard about from their parents — in that genre. The character first appeared in the epic 16th century Chinese novel, “Journey to the West.” The tome has been adapted several times including a memorable 1980s TV series created by China Central Television (CCTV). The super-powered simian is well-known across Asia like Batman or Spider-Man, according to Yu.

    Daniel Wu, who grew up in California but began his acting career in Hong Kong, plays the Monkey King. This project brings him full circle from when he dealt with his own “American-born Chinese” issues.

    “Even though I was warmly accepted by the audiences there, I always felt like slightly being an outsider because I was American,” Wu said. “Because we knew we were trying to tell Gene’s story of what it’s like to be of both sides, there was this kind of special energy that was on set. We knew that we were trying to tell authentically what our story was.”

    ___

    Terry Tang is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

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  • FACT FOCUS: Who’s to blame for the national debt? It’s more complicated than one culprit

    FACT FOCUS: Who’s to blame for the national debt? It’s more complicated than one culprit

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    The U.S. is inching closer to a deadline to raise the debt ceiling or risk defaulting on the nation’s $31 trillion in debt and political leaders have not yet reached a deal to avert such a crisis.

    Amid those negotiations, politicians and commentators online have pointed fingers at who they say is to blame for the nation’s exorbitant debt.

    One claim circulating widely on social media, prompted by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, posits that former President Donald Trump contributed more to the debt than any other in the White House occupant in history.

    But that isn’t quite right — and experts say the issue is much more nuanced than a political talking point might let on.

    Here are the facts.

    CLAIM: Trump “ran up more debt than any other President in American history.”

    AP’S ASSESSMENT: That’s incorrect. The debt incurred during the Trump era was very high. But in terms of raw dollars, the total debt rose more under former President Barack Obama, with Trump in second place — though Obama held office for two terms, while Trump served one.

    There are other ways to slice and dice the numbers, experts say. But more importantly, the debt has been ballooning for years and it’s more complicated than blaming any one leader or party. Trump, for example, was faced with the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting bipartisan support for a massive federal response.

    Jeffries offered a more simplistic view when casting blame on the 45th president in a tweet, which was copied in a popular Instagram post shared by Occupy Democrats.

    “Trump ran up more debt than any other President in American history,” the post reads. “He wants Republicans to force a dangerous default if they don’t get their way. We cannot let right-wing extremists hold our economy hostage.”

    Jeffries’ office didn’t provide a response to an inquiry asking how the measure was calculated.

    But in terms of all presidents, the Trump years did not record the most debt added — although they did add a lot.

    Looking at historical federal debt data by fiscal year, the total gross U.S. debt was about $19.5 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2016, which ended several months before Trump took office, said G. William Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That rose to about $26.9 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2020, or a $7.4 trillion increase, just before Trump left office.

    The debt added under Obama’s two terms, however, amounted to about $9.5 trillion.

    There are some caveats: Those figures are not adjusted for inflation. A federal fiscal year begins in October, so there is some overlap when administrations change. And the total debt includes debt held by the public, which accounts for most of the debt, but also debt owed by one part of the government to another.

    There are also different ways to analyze the data.

    Evaluating only full one-term presidencies, for example, the rise under Trump may well be on paper the largest increase. But the increase under former President George H. W. Bush — about $1.4 trillion — represented a larger percentage increase than under Trump, Hoagland noted.

    And some economists prefer to view the national debt as a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, because it indicates the ability of the country to handle its debt.

    “Compare it to a household,” explained Eugene Steuerle, co-founder of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “The higher the household’s wages, the more it can pay off its debt.”

    Looking at it that way, the gross debt as a percentage of GDP reached an all-time high of nearly 128% at the end of Trump’s tenure, according to the historical federal data. That said, it’s represented more than 100% of GDP since 2013; that burden in relation to the size of the economy was previously unseen since World War II.

    But the debt accumulated under specific presidents isn’t just a result of their own policies — it reflects decisions made by their predecessors as well as by members of Congress.

    “The point is that fiscal policy reflects joint action by Congress and the president,” said David Primo, a University of Rochester professor of political science and business administration. Statements like Jeffries’ imply presidents have sole control over fiscal policy, he noted.

    Similarly, Hoagland said: “All presidents inherit spending from previous administrations and in turn they create spending for the future president.”

    The cost of programs like Social Security and Medicare continue to drive up the debt, as do factors beyond a president’s control, like COVID-19 or the recession inherited by Obama.

    “As a budget expert, what pains me is that partisan bickering about who is to blame for the debt obscures an important truth: both parties have abdicated their budgetary responsibilities,” Primo said, noting that about two-thirds of the debt has been incurred since 2001.

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Videos of empty store aisles are unrelated to Florida’s immigration bill

    FACT FOCUS: Videos of empty store aisles are unrelated to Florida’s immigration bill

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    A sweeping immigration bill recently signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is sparking fears of deserted workplaces – and barren grocery shelves.

    The new law, set to take effect in July, will require businesses with more than 25 staffers to verify that their employees can legally work in the U.S. through a federal system, among other restrictions. Critics have said the change could lead to a shortage of workers on farms and construction sites.

    Amid outcry, a pair of videos circulating widely on social media are claiming to show empty supermarkets in the Sunshine State, purportedly due to truck drivers boycotting deliveries to the state in protest of the immigration overhaul.

    But the footage is unrelated. And while some truckers have posted on social media calling on drivers to curb deliveries to Florida, immigration advocates say it’s too soon to tell if there will be any widespread action.

    Here are the facts.

    CLAIM: Videos show empty grocery store shelves in Florida because truckers are boycotting the state over a new immigration law.

    THE FACTS: While both clips show Florida stores, neither has anything to do with the new law or a boycott. One is from October and shows shortages during Hurricane Ian, while another shows a recent refrigeration issue at a single Walmart Supercenter.

    The first video shows a shopper panning their camera around the refrigerators and freezers at a Winn-Dixie, while saying “Supermarkets are empty in Florida. There’s nothing, nothing, look.”

    “Undocumented workers are leaving Florida in droves. It’s affecting farmers, hotels, restaurants, construction, lawn companies, & especially grocery stores w perishables,” reads one Twitter post of the footage, which had received more than 6,000 likes as of Wednesday. “Understandably many Hispanic truck drivers are refusing to enter the state. Nicely done DeSantis!”

    However, the video was originally posted on TikTok in Oct. 2, 2022, after Hurricane Ian made landfall. The caption on the original post includes the hashtag “hurricaneian” and says, “no food in the Winn-Dixie in Florida on 17 and 92,” referring to a store in Fern Park, a suburb of Orlando.

    The second video shared on social media platforms shows a large sign that reads “Packaged Deli” and above a partially empty refrigerated aisle. “No groceries smh sad these truckers weren’t playing when they said they were not delivering anything to Florida !!!” reads the caption on a TikTok post tagging the location as Palmetto, Florida, with more than 800,000 likes.

    The signage in the video matches a Walmart store in Palmetto, but the grocery chain said the lack of groceries in the clip was unrelated to any supply issues.

    Charles Crowson, a spokesperson for Walmart, said in an email that it was a result of a refrigerator malfunction and should be repaired within the next few days.

    While the videos are unrelated to the recent legislation, there have been posts on social media from Latino truck drivers responding to the new laws by threatening to boycott deliveries to the state and calling on others to do so.

    In addition to the new rules around E-Verify, the law would provide $12 million for DeSantis’ migrant relocation initiative, require hospitals that accept Medicaid to include a citizenship question on its intake forms and prohibit local governments from providing money to organizations that issue identification cards to immigrants lacking permanent legal status in the country. It would also invalidate out-of-state driver’s licenses for that same group.

    Immigration advocacy groups tell the AP it’s too early to have data on the impacts of the law since it was only signed last week and does not go into effect until July 1.

    Thomas Kennedy, a spokesperson with the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said he was aware of the truckers’ boycott threats, but said it is too soon to say if there will be large-scale scale actions.

    “It remains to be seen, I mean, you know, boycotts and strikes and work stoppages take a lot of time, a lot of a lot of organization. And this is bubbling up. But again, the law hasn’t even gone into effect,” said Kennedy. “There’s definitely the ingredients and some energy there.”

    Kennedy said the coalition has heard anecdotal reports that many migrants are afraid to show up to work since the law was signed and there was apprehension in the community.

    The new legislation will impact construction and factory workers, according to Bethzaida Olivera Vazquez, who is the national director of policy and legislation for The League of United Latin American Citizens, which is the oldest Latino civil rights group in the U.S.

    “This law would have a very harmful effect for businesses,” said Vazquez. “If there were to be a boycott among truckers the impacts could be significant.”

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • Father and son sentenced for decadelong, $20 million lottery fraud scheme

    Father and son sentenced for decadelong, $20 million lottery fraud scheme

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    BOSTON (AP) — A father and son from Massachusetts have both been sent to prison for running an elaborate lottery fraud scheme designed to enrich themselves and help prize winners avoid paying taxes on their windfall, prosecutors said.

    Ali Jaafar, 63, and Yousef Jaafar, 29, both of Watertown, cashed in 14,000 winning lottery tickets over a roughly 10-year period, laundered more than $20 million in proceeds, and then lied on their tax returns to cheat the IRS out of about $6 million, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston announced Monday.

    The Jaafars purchased winning lottery tickets at a discount from people who wanted to avoid identification by the state lottery commission, which withholds taxes and outstanding child support payments from payouts.

    After purchasing the tickets, using the stores that sold them as go-betweens, the Jaafars claimed the full prize amount. Although they reported the winnings on their tax returns, they also claimed equivalent fake gambling losses as an offset to avoid federal income taxes, prosecutors said.

    Ali Jaafar was sentenced to five years in prison. Yousef Jaafar received a sentence of more than four years. They were also ordered to pay $6 million in restitution and forfeit the profits from their scheme.

    They were convicted in December of conspiracy to defraud the IRS, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and filing a false tax return.

    Mohamed Jaafar, another of Ali Jaafar’s sons, pleaded guilty to his role in the scheme in November and awaits sentencing.

    The defendants paid the owners of dozens of stores that sell lottery tickets to facilitate the transactions, and the state lottery commission is in the process of revoking or suspending the licenses of more than 40 lottery agents, authorities said.

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  • Missouri man accused of deliberately crashing U-Haul truck into security barrier near White House

    Missouri man accused of deliberately crashing U-Haul truck into security barrier near White House

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri man flew to Washington, rented a U-Haul truck and drove straight to the White House, where he crashed the truck into a security barrier and began waving around a Nazi flag in the culmination of a six-month plan to “seize power” from the government, authorities said Tuesday.

    Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, removed the flag from a backpack shortly after smashing the box truck into the barrier near the north side of Lafayette Square on Monday around 10 p.m., according to charging documents. He was quickly arrested by a U.S. Park Police officer who rushed to the scene of the crash and saw him take out the flag.

    Kandula later told Secret Service agents that he’d flown from St. Louis on a one-way ticket that night after months of planning. He wanted to “get to the White House, seize power, and be put in charge of the nation,” and he said he would “kill the president, if that’s what I have to do,” charges state.

    Kandula, who is from the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield, Missouri, said he bought the flag online because he admires the Nazis’ “great history” as well as their “authoritarian nature, eugenics, and their one world order.”

    No one was injured in the crash. No explosives or weapons were found in the truck or on Kandula.

    Kandula rented the U-Haul in Herndon, Virginia, and had a valid contract in his own name, the company said. People can rent a truck from U-Haul at age 18, and there were no red flags on his rental record that would have prevented the contract, according to U-Haul.

    A witness, Chris Zaboji, said the driver smashed into the barrier at least twice. Zaboji, a 25-year-old pilot who lives in Washington, was finishing a run close by Lafayette Square when he heard the loud crash of the U-Haul truck hitting the barrier. He said he took out his phone and captured the moment the truck struck the barrier again before he heard sirens approaching.

    “When the van backed up and rammed it again, I decided I wanted to get out of there,” he said.

    Officers from the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department searched the truck after the crash. Video posted by WUSA-TV shows a police officer at the scene picking up and inventorying several pieces of evidence from the truck, including a Nazi flag.

    Kandula was arrested on multiple charges, and prosecutors charged him with damaging U.S. property.

    Biden was briefed on the crash Tuesday morning by the Secret Service and Park Police, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “He’s relieved that no one was injured last night,” she said.

    The U.S. Secret Service monitors hundreds of people who have made threats to the president, but it’s not clear whether Kandula was on their radar at all or if he had threatened the president before, which would trigger the Secret Service’s involvement.

    No attorney was listed for Kandula in court records, multiple telephone numbers listed under his surname in public records were out of service, and efforts by The Associated Press to reach relatives who could speak on his behalf on Tuesday were not immediately successful. People at a Missouri home listed as being associated with Kandula would not speak with an AP reporter.

    Lafayette Square offers perhaps the best view of the White House available to the public, and Kandula sent multiple people running when he drove onto the sidewalk to reach the barrier.

    The square has also long been one of the nation’s most prominent venues for demonstrations. The park was closed for nearly a year after federal authorities fenced off the area at the height of nationwide protests over policing following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, but it reopened in May 2021.

    U-Haul is a moving truck, trailer and self-storage rental company based in Phoenix.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Jim Salter in Chesterfield, Missouri, Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo in Washington and newsgathering producer Beatrice Dupuy in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Trump makes video appearance in New York criminal case, trial date set for March primary season

    Trump makes video appearance in New York criminal case, trial date set for March primary season

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump threw up his hands in frustration Tuesday as a judge scheduled his criminal trial for March 25, putting the former president and current candidate in a Manhattan courtroom in the heat of next year’s presidential primary season.

    Trump, appearing by video conference at a pretrial hearing in the hush-money case, glowered at the camera as Judge Juan Manuel Merchan advised him to cancel all other obligations for the duration of the trial, which could last several weeks.

    Trump, wearing a blue suit against a backdrop of American flags at his Florida estate, then turned to a lawyer by his side — their brief discussion inaudible on the video feed — before sitting with his arms folded for the remainder of the hearing.

    Trump said little during the hearing, but lashed out afterward on social media, writing: “Just had New York County Supreme Court hearing where I believe my First Amendment Rights, ‘Freedom of Speech,’ have been violated, and they forced upon us a trial date of March 25th, right in the middle of Primary season.”

    “Very unfair, but this is exactly what the Radical Left Democrats wanted,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “It’s called ELECTION INTERFERENCE, and nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before!!!”

    Trump pleaded not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing.

    Merchan said he arrived at the March 25 trial date after discussions with Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors. Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump knew about the date prior to Tuesday’s hearing and said she didn’t see his exasperated reaction.

    Trump’s case is proceeding in state court even as his lawyers seek to have it moved to federal court because some of the alleged conduct occurred while he was president. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has until next week to file paperwork stating why it should remain in state court, where the historic indictment was brought.

    Trump has made the New York case and the long list of other investigations into his personal, professional and presidential conduct central to his campaign to reclaim the White House in 2024. The Republican has portrayed himself as the victim of a coordinated, politically motivated effort to sully his chances.

    Trump often discusses the cases at his rallies, in speeches, TV appearances and on social media. He has repeatedly attacked prosecutors, accusers and judges by name, including Merchan, and has shown no willingness to back down — even after a recent $5 million verdict in a writer’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against him.

    The plaintiff in that case, writer E. Jean Carroll, filed a new claim Monday seeking an additional $10 million or more to hold Trump liable for remarks he made bashing her on CNN the day after the May 9 verdict.

    Trump responded Tuesday by doubling down on his contention that Carroll’s allegations were a “Fake, Made Up Story” and a “TOTAL SCAM” and that her case is “part of the Democrats playbook to tarnish my name and person.”

    Merchan spent the bulk of Tuesday’s 15-minute hearing reviewing an order he issued May 8 that sets ground rules for Trump’s behavior in the lead-up to the trial.

    It’s not a gag order and Trump is free to speak about the case and defend himself, Merchan said, but he can’t use evidence turned over by prosecutors to attack witnesses or post sensitive documents to social media. If he violates the order, he risks being held in contempt.

    Among concerns raised by prosecutors were that Trump could weaponize “highly personal information” found on witnesses’ cellphones, such as personal photos and text messages with family and friends, as well as secret grand jury testimony and other material, to rile up anger amongst his supporters.

    Nothing in the order prevents Trump from being able to speak “powerfully and persuasively” in his defense without the need to “start attacking individuals, disclosing names, addresses, cellphones’ numbers, identity, dates of birth, or anything along those lines,” Merchan said. Certain sensitive material shared by prosecutors must be kept only by Trump’s lawyers, not Trump himself.

    Prosecutors sought the order soon after Trump’s arrest, citing what they say is his history of making “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about people he’s tangled with in legal disputes.

    Trump was spared a personal appearance at the courthouse Tuesday, avoiding the mammoth security and logistical challenges that accompanied his arraignment last month. Instead, the Republican was connected by video conference, with his face beamed onto TV monitors positioned around the courtroom.

    Trump isn’t required to appear in court in person again until Jan. 4, just weeks before the first primary votes are expected to be cast.

    __

    Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed to this report. __

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

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  • Nuggets shaking off team history, staking claim for first NBA title

    Nuggets shaking off team history, staking claim for first NBA title

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Denver Nuggets played with disruption on their minds in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

    Everybody on that tight-knit bench Monday night seemed to know their team had never reached the NBA Finals, had never swept a playoff opponent and had never beaten the Los Angeles Lakers in a postseason series. The Nuggets have given their fans comparatively little to cheer in their 47 seasons in the NBA, and they’ve rarely seized the basketball world’s attention despite a solid list of famous alumni.

    But with their confidence soaring in the midst of a dominant playoff run, these Nuggets were determined to secure their latest bit of history Monday night. They kept that attitude even after LeBron James dropped a 31-point first half that could have made a lesser team with a 3-0 series lead start thinking about Game 5 back home.

    “Yeah, that’s never been our mentality,” Aaron Gordon said. “That hasn’t been our mentality all year, like, to concede. We’re not that type of team.”

    After Nikola Jokic conjured his latest triple-double playoff masterpiece and Gordon blocked James’ shot at the buzzer, the Nuggets had torn up their franchise’s history and written a bold new chapter with a clinching 113-111 victory.

    They’re the first Denver team to earn the right to play for an NBA title, and this often-overlooked franchise will be favored to win when the Nuggets get back on the court in nine days. No wonder the conference championship celebration had a little extra energy, with the Nuggets mobbing Jokic after he received his conference finals MVP trophy.

    High-scoring Jamal Murray took a moment to savor the slow growth of a team that has finally blossomed into something beautiful and sturdy.

    “We just want to make the most of the opportunity,” Murray said. “First Nuggets team to do this and that. We want to go all the way and stay locked in. I think our chemistry is at an all-time high, the way we play, the way we read the game without even speaking. We talk that language on the court. It’s just beautiful basketball, honestly. It’s so fun to play with this team and with (Jokic) and with the coaching staff that has groomed us into the team that we are.”

    This group led by Jokic and Murray has surpassed all the greats who have worn the many, many uniforms of the team that started life as the ABA’s Denver Rockets in 1967. The Nuggets had plenty of winning seasons and kept their fans entertained while frequently playing a high-octane, high-altitude style of ball in the NBA, but they never got closer to a title than the conference finals.

    The team that showcased David “Skywalker” Thompson, Alex English, Dan Issel, Dikembe Mutombo, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Carmelo Anthony to the world finally has the chance to hang its first championship banner, thanks to a Serbian second-round pick, a Canadian sharpshooter and its talented, selfless supporting cast.

    “It’s just a great mixture,” Gordon said. “It’s a great group of guys. The camaraderie is there, the chemistry is there, the talent is there, the IQ is there and the unselfishness is there. It’s really a brotherhood. We really do it for the person next to us. It’s rare in this league to find a team that has a bunch of unselfish guys that buy in and really do it for the man next to them.”

    The Nuggets are one of 11 active NBA franchises without a title, and three additional teams haven’t won it in their current city. Denver lost the 1976 ABA Finals to the New York Nets in its only other championship series, but this June certainly looks like the Mile High City’s turn to celebrate.

    Coach Michael Malone shared warm hugs after the game with Nuggets owners Stan and Josh Kroenke, who are about to have the third team in their Kroenke Sports & Entertainment portfolio playing for a championship in the past 16 months: The Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in February 2022, and the Colorado Avalanche claimed the Stanley Cup four months later. Arsenal is also finishing second in the Premier League in what could be its best season in nearly two decades.

    “We all know in this business, patience is not a word that comes easily,” Malone said. “For them to have patience after that third-year, 46-win effort that came up just short of the playoffs (in 2017-18), they saw something in Nikola, in Jamal, in myself, and allowed it to come to fruition. That’s a rarity in this business.”

    Jokic averaged a triple-double in the Western Conference finals, putting up 27.8 points, 14.5 rebounds and 11.8 assists in the four-game series, and he did it against Anthony Davis, one of the world’s best defensive players when healthy. Murray had four consecutive 25-point games, highlighted by his vicious 23-point fourth quarter in Game 2.

    While the Nuggets have a stellar roster, they’re built around their star duo that’s just four wins away from history after outdueling James and Davis.

    “Ooh, that’s a bad duo,” Gordon said with a grin. “Those are bad boys right there. I mean, you could stack those two up with anybody. When I say anybody, I mean anybody. You put those two up against anybody, you’re going to have a hell of a fight.”

    ___

    AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • Caustic feedback, serious injuries and the quiet mental health suffering of horse racing jockeys

    Caustic feedback, serious injuries and the quiet mental health suffering of horse racing jockeys

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    BALTIMORE (AP) — Eurico Rosa da Silva was in a dark place.

    On the track, the jockey in his early 30s was winning races and making money. At home, he was fighting suicidal thoughts every day.

    “I got to the point where I have no more choice but to go for help,” he recalled recently. “I went because if I have no choice, I would kill myself.”

    Da Silva got help in 2006 and rode for more than a decade before retiring. He’s one of the lucky ones.

    Earlier this year, horse racing was stunned by the suicides less than six weeks apart of two young jockeys, 23-year-old Avery Whisman and 29-year-old Alex Canchari. A friend of Whisman’s, Triple Crown-winning rider Mike Smith, said he has seen similar tragedies over three decades.

    “I know several riders that I knew very well committed suicide when it was all said and done,” Smith said. “This is not all of a sudden just happening. It’s been going on. You just never heard of it.”

    The dangers of riding thoroughbreds at high speed add up to an average of two jockeys dying from racing each year and 60 being paralyzed, according to one industry veteran, citing data dating to 1940. Combine that with criticism from owners, trainers and bettors and the need to maintain the low weight necessary to establish a career, and jockeys have been quietly suffering for as long as they have been riding horses.

    While jockeys interviewed for this story worry that racing has lagged behind other sports in accepting the importance of their mental health on the job, there is hope that renewed conversation about it prompts real change.

    “This needs to be addressed,” jockey Trevor McCarthy said. “We take a lot of beatings mentally and physically. With the mental and physical state, when you mix both of them together, it can be a recipe for disaster. Look, there’s proof of it, right? We lost two guys.”

    McCarthy last year, like da Silva before him, sought help before it was too late. His father was a jockey, as is his father-in-law and his wife, Katie Davis McCarthy. They are all used to the ups and downs of the job, from the broken pelvis and collarbone from his spill during a race in November to the uncertain hold on a ride.

    A particularly rough summer, including flying up and down the East Coast to ride, took a toll on McCarthy, who at 118 pounds could feel his diet and lack of calories affect his work. He wanted to quit.

    “I was going absolutely nuts, and my body couldn’t handle it,” McCarthy said. “You’re constantly going through mind games. And I think a lot of guys get caught up in that with the weight and the mind game of not doing good or thinking they’re not good enough.”

    His wife made him promise to talk to a sports therapist. McCarthy did so for months, learning how to find a better work-life balance that has helped him win 28 races already this year.

    Now 47, da Silva was named Canada’s best jockey seven times and is the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

    “In 30 years of riding horses, I can say to you that I never heard anybody talk about the emotional pain, never talked about going for help,” said da Silva, who’s now a mental health coach and spoke Tuesday at the first jockey mental health symposium in Lexington, Kentucky. “I approached many jockeys that I feel like they need help, and many times I said, ‘Go for help.’ I motivate them to go for help. They just listen, but they don’t really want to talk about.”

    Dr. Ciara Losty of South East Technological University in Waterford, Ireland, pointed out that jockeys have an “underdeveloped sense of self inside of their sport,” compared to team sport or Olympic athletes who are less likely to burn out because they seek out other activities. She said jockeys can also be less familiar with mental health topics because of low literacy levels and lack the support system of a coach or coaching staff.

    “Maintaining a low weight and obviously disordered eating is a big part of it,” said Losty, who co-authored a 2018 study on jockey mental health. “Being a jockey, you have a risk of serious injuries, and if you’ve had a serious injury the fear of re-injury when you engage or get back up on the horse again may impact your performance or lead you to some kind of distress.”

    Dr. Lewis King, now at Ireland’s Technological University of the Shannon, did his doctoral degree in 2021 on the subject because he wanted to explore what makes jockeys susceptible to mental health problems and what stopped them from seeking help. In talking to 84 jockeys in Ireland, he said, he found 61% met the threshold for adverse alcohol use, 35% for depression and 27% for anxiety.

    King’s research showed that despite nearly 80% of jockeys having at least one common mental health disorder, only a third saw a professional. He said most feared losing their jobs.

    “The main barrier was stigma and the negative perceptions of others,” King said. “But primarily it was related to the negative perceptions of trainers. There was a perception within the jockeys I interviewed that if they spoke about their mental health issues or it somehow got back to their trainer that it may impact whether they get rides. The trainer may perceive them as not in the right headspace, for instance, to ride their horses.”

    Trainers told King and his colleagues they felt similar worries about sharing their own mental health concerns with owners.

    McCarthy, who has been a jockey since 2011, said in recent months he has actually confronted trainers in the U.S., telling them to ease up on berating fellow jockeys after races.

    The entire cycle speaks to horse racing being “an old-school sport,” McCarthy said. Losty pinned the lack of progress in mental health on the masculinized nature of the industry, and da Silva said the topic is still “taboo” in racing.

    “Asking for help in our sport is almost a sign of weakness, sad to say,” said Smith, who rode Justify to the Triple Crown in 2018 and is still riding at 57. “You certainly don’t want to show any signs of that. We’re supposed to be tough and be able to handle it all.”

    The Jockeys’ Guild and Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority recently sent out an anonymous survey — the first of its kind — to gauge the best ways to support riders’ mental health and wellbeing, a hotline is among the ideas being considered.

    The results of that survey, returned by 230 jockeys, included 10% describing their mental health as “poor,” a third saying sadness, depression or anxiety were causing challenges in their daily life over the past month and 93% expressing concern about financial stability and providing for their families.

    Surveyed jockeys also said money, weight concerns and the pressure to win were among the biggest stressors; they cited the fear of losing work and a stigma around seeking support as barriers to seeking help.

    “It’s important for the industry to come together on this issue and other issues to grow our industry and make sure equine and human athletes are taken care of,” said Jockeys’ Guild president and CEO Terry Meyocks, a third-generation horseman whose daughter, Abby, is married to Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Javier Castellano.

    “It’s important that people talk about it,” said Meyocks, who noted an average of two jockeys have died and 60 have been paralyzed annually dating to 1940.

    McCarthy only started talking seriously about it after getting married and daughter Riley was born, knowing he’s at the leading edge of thinking about mental health and how far behind other jockeys are.

    “We’re just behind the 8-ball a little bit with that,” he said. “It’s going to be baby steps, but we have a long way to go.”

    ___

    AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • More women sue Texas, asking court to put emergency block on state’s abortion law

    More women sue Texas, asking court to put emergency block on state’s abortion law

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman had to carry her baby, missing much of her skull, for months knowing she’d bury her daughter soon after she was born. Another started mirroring the life-threatening symptoms that her baby was displaying while in the womb. An OB-GYN found herself secretly traveling out of state to abort her wanted pregnancy, marred by the diagnosis of a fatal fetal anomaly.

    All of the women were told they could not end their pregnancies in Texas, a state that has enacted some of the nation’s most restrictive abortion laws.

    Now, they’re asking a Texas court to put an emergency hold on some abortion restrictions, joining a lawsuit launched earlier this year by five other women who were denied abortions in the state, despite pregnancies they say endangered their health or lives.

    More than a dozen Texas women in total have joined the Center for Reproductive Rights’ lawsuit against the state’s law, which prohibits abortions unless a mother’s life is at risk — an exception that is not clearly defined. Texas doctors who perform abortions risk life in prison and fines of up to $100,000, leaving many women with providers who are unwilling to even discuss terminating a pregnancy.

    “Our hope is that it will allow physicians at least a little more comfort when it comes to patients in obstetrical emergencies who really need an abortion where it’s going to effect their health, fertility or life going forward,” Molly Duane, the lead attorney on the case, told The Associated Press. “Almost all of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit tell similar stories about their doctors saying, if not for this law, I’d give you an abortion right now.”

    The Texas attorney general’s office, which is defending the state in the lawsuit, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Monday.

    The lawsuit serves as a nationwide model for abortion rights advocates to challenge strict new abortion laws states that have rolled out since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Sixteen states, including Texas, do not allow abortions when a fatal fetal anomaly is detected while six do not allow exceptions for the mother’s health, according to an analysis by KFF, a health research organization.

    Duane said the Center for Reproductive Rights is looking at filing similar lawsuits in other states, noting that they’ve heard from women across the country. Roughly 25 Texas women have contacted the organization about their own experiences since the initial lawsuit was filed in March.

    The women who joined the lawsuit describe being elated about finding out they were pregnant before the experience turned catastrophic.

    Jessica Bernardo and her husband spent years trying to conceive, even consulting fertility doctors, before finally become pregnant with a daughter, Emma, last July.

    Almost immediately, Bernardo was coughing so hard and often she would sometimes throw up. Fourteen weeks into the pregnancy, test results revealed her baby likely had Down Syndrome, so she consulted a specialist who gave her devastating news: Emma’s heart was underdeveloped and she had a rare, deadly disorder called fetal anasarca, which causes fluid to build up in the body.

    “He handed me a tissue box,” recalled Bernardo, who lives in Frisco, Texas. “I thought maybe the worst thing he was going to tell us was that she’s going to have Down Syndrome. Instead, he said, ‘I can tell you right away…she wouldn’t make it.’”

    The doctor warned her to watch out for high blood pressure and coughing, symptoms of Mirror syndrome, another rare condition where a mother “mirrors” the same problems the fetus is experiencing.

    With Bernardo’s blood pressure numbers climbing, her OB-GYN conferred with the hospital’s ethics board to see if she could end the pregnancy but was advised Bernardo wasn’t sick enough. Bernardo spent $7,000 traveling to Seattle for an abortion a week later.

    Even if Emma made it through the pregnancy, doctors would have immediately needed to drain excess fluids from her body, only for her to survive a few hours or days, Bernardo said.

    “Reading about everything they would do sounded like complete torture to a newborn that would not survive,” she said. “Had I not received an abortion, my life would have very likely been on the line.”

    Other women facing similar situations have not had the financial resources to travel outside of the state.

    Samantha Casiano, a 29-year-old living in eastern Texas, found out halfway through her pregnancy last year that her daughter, Halo, had a rare diagnosis of anencephaly, where much of the skull and brain is missing. Her doctor told her she would have to continue with the pregnancy because of Texas law, even though her baby would not survive.

    With five children, including a goddaughter, at home she quickly realized she could not afford an out-of-state trip for an abortion. The next next few months of her pregnancy were spent trying to raise money for her daughter’s impending funeral, soliciting donations through online websites and launching fundraisers to sell Mexican soup. Halo was born in April, living for only four hours.

    “I was so full of heartbreak and sadness, all at the same time,” Casiano said.

    Women in the lawsuit say they could not openly discuss abortion or labor induction with their doctors, instead asking their doctors discreetly if they should travel outside of the state.

    Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas, never talked about her own abortion with her doctors after they discovered anencephaly on the baby’s ultrasound during her third pregnancy last year. She worried her out-of-state trip to end the pregnancy could jeopardize her medical license or invite harassment against her and her husband, also an OB-GYN. Dennard was inspired to go public with her case when one of her own patients joined the original lawsuit filed in March after traveling to Colorado to abort a twin fetus diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic disorder.

    “There was an enormous amount of fear that I experienced afterward,” Dennard said. “It’s an additional way of feeling silenced. You feel you have to do it in secret and not tell anyone about it.”

    Dennard is expecting another child later this year.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

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  • Judge dismisses Kari Lake’s final claim in election loss for Arizona governor

    Judge dismisses Kari Lake’s final claim in election loss for Arizona governor

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    PHOENIX (AP) — A judge on Monday dismissed the only remaining legal claim in Republican Kari Lake’s challenge of her loss in last year’s race for Arizona governor, affirming the election of Democrat Katie Hobbs.

    Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Thompson said Lake failed to prove her claim that Maricopa County did not verify signatures on mail ballots as required by law.

    Lake was among the most vocal of last year’s Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. She has built a loyal following among Trump supporters and is openly considering a run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Kyrsten Sinema, an independent and former Democrat. Lake is also often mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick for Trump.

    While most other election deniers around the country conceded after losing their races in November, Lake did not. She has touted her legal battle in fundraising appeals and speeches around the country.

    Lake did not immediately comment on the ruling.

    She filed suit after losing to Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, asking the courts to install her as governor or order a new election. Thompson dismissed the case, but the Arizona Supreme Court revived a claim that challenges how signature verification procedures were used on early ballots in Maricopa County, home to more than 60% of the state’s voters. County officials had defended the signature verification efforts and said they had nothing to hide.

    Lake’s signature verification claim was the subject of a three-day trial. Her lawyers argued that there was evidence that lower-level screeners who found inconsistencies in signatures ran them up the chain of command, where they were neglected by higher level verifiers.

    She did not contest whether voters’ signatures on ballot envelopes matched those in their voting records.

    The former TV anchor faced a high bar in proving not only her allegation over signature verification efforts but also that it affected the outcome of her race.

    Thompson, who was appointed to the bench by former Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, said she did not meet that high bar.

    “The evidence the Court received does not support Plaintiff’s remaining claim,” he wrote.

    Earlier in her lawsuit, Lake had focused on problems with ballot printers at some polling places in Maricopa County. The defective printers produced ballots that were too light to be read by the on-site tabulators at polling places. Lines were backed up in some areas amid the confusion. Lake alleged ballot printer problems were the result of intentional misconduct.

    County officials say everyone had a chance to vote and all ballots were counted because those affected by the printers were taken to more sophisticated counters at election headquarters.

    In mid-February, the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Lake’s assertions, concluding she presented no evidence that voters whose ballots were unreadable by tabulators at polling places were unable to vote.

    The following month, the state Supreme Court declined to hear nearly all of Lake’s appeal, saying there was no evidence to support her claim that more than 35,000 ballots were added to vote totals.

    Earlier this month, the court sanctioned Lake’s lawyers $2,000 for making false statements when saying that more than 35,000 ballots had been improperly added to the total count.

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  • No debt ceiling agreement, but Biden and McCarthy call White House talks productive

    No debt ceiling agreement, but Biden and McCarthy call White House talks productive

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy both said they had a productive debt ceiling discussion late Monday at the White House, but there was no agreement as negotiators strained to raise the nation’s borrowing limit in time to avert a potentially chaotic federal default.

    It’s a crucial moment for the Democratic president and the Republican speaker, just 10 days before a looming deadline to raise the debt limit.

    As soon as June 1, Treasury Secretary Janel Yellen said in a letter to Congress, “it is highly likely” the government will be unable to pay all the nation’s bills. Such an unprecedented default would be financially damaging for many Americans and others around the world relying on U.S. stability, sending shockwaves through the global economy.

    Each side praised the other’s seriousness, but basic differences remained. They are at odds over how to trim annual budget deficits. Republicans are determined to cut spending while Biden’s team offered to hold spending levels flat. Biden wants to increase some taxes on the wealthiest Americans and some big companies, but McCarthy said early on that that is out of the question.

    “The time of spending, just spending more money in America and government is wrong,” McCarthy said after the Oval Office meeting.

    In a brief post-meeting statement, Biden called the session productive but merely added that he, McCarthy and their lead negotiators “will continue to discuss the path forward.” Upbeat, McCarthy said their teams would work “through the night.”

    Biden said all agreed that “default is not really on the table.”

    Though there is no agreement on basic issues, the contours of a deal seem within reach. A budget deal would unlock a separate vote to lift the debt ceiling, now $31 trillion, to allow more borrowing.

    Negotiations are focused on finding compromise over a 2024 budget year cap that would be key to resolving the standoff. Republicans insisted next year’s spending be less than it is now, but the White House instead offered to hold spending flat at current 2023 numbers.

    Republicans initially sought to roll back next year’s spending to 2022 levels, and impose 1% caps on spending growth for 10 years, though a later proposal narrowed that to about six years. The White House wants a two-year budget deal, keeping 2024 spending flat. They proposed a 1% cap on spending growth for 2025, according to a person familiar with the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them.

    A compromise on those topline spending levels would enable McCarthy to deliver for conservatives, while not being so severe that it would chase off the Democratic votes that would be needed in the divided Congress to pass any bill.

    “We’re going to find a baseline that we agree to that will be less than what we spent this year,” McCarthy said back at the Capitol.

    Time is growing short. The House speaker promised lawmakers he will abide by the rule to post any bill for 72 hours before voting, making any action doubtful until the end of the week — just days before the potential deadline. The Senate would also have to pass the package before it could go to Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

    After a weekend of start-stop talks, both Biden and McCarthy have declared a need to close out a compromise deal. U.S. financial markets turned down last week after negotiations paused amid a jittery economy.

    Biden and McCarthy spoke by phone Sunday while the president was returning home on Air Force One after the Group of Seven summit in Japan.

    Biden used his concluding news conference in Hiroshima, Japan, to say he had done his part by agreeing to spending cuts and to warn, “It’s time for Republicans to accept that there is no deal to be made solely, solely, on their partisan terms.”

    “Now it’s time for the other side to move from their extreme position,” he said.

    The call between the two revived talks, and negotiators met for 2 1/2 hours at the Capitol late Sunday evening. Negotiators were back at it again for nearly three hours Monday morning ahead of the session at the White House. The White House team returned late Monday night for nearly two hours at the Capitol, leaving before midnight upbeat but with little comment.

    But McCarthy continued to blame Biden for having refused to engage earlier on the debt ceiling, an issue that is often linked to the federal budget.

    GOP lawmakers have been holding tight to demands for sharper spending cuts with caps on future spending, rejecting the alternatives proposed by the White House that call for reducing deficits in part with new revenue from taxes.

    McCarthy has insisted personally in his conversations with Biden that tax hikes are off the table.

    Republicans also want work requirements on the Medicaid health care program, though the Biden administration has countered that millions of people could lose coverage. The GOP additionally introduced new cuts to food aid by restricting states’ ability to waive work requirements in places with high joblessness. But Democrats have said any changes to work requirements for government aid recipients are nonstarters.

    GOP lawmakers are also seeking cuts in IRS funding and, by sparing defense and veterans accounts from reductions, would shift the bulk of spending reductions to other federal programs.

    The White House has countered by keeping defense and nondefense spending flat next year, which would save $90 billion in the 2024 budget year and $1 trillion over 10 years.

    All sides have been eyeing the potential for the package to include a framework to ease federal regulations and speed energy project developments. They are all but certain to claw back some $30 billion in unspent COVID-19 funds now that the pandemic emergency has officially lifted.

    For months, Biden had refused to engage in talks over the debt limit, contending that Republicans in Congress were trying to use the borrowing limit vote as leverage to extract administration concessions on other policy priorities.

    But with June nearing and Republicans putting their own spending legislation on the table, the White House launched talks on a budget deal that could accompany an increase in the debt limit.

    McCarthy faces a hard-right flank that is likely to reject any deal, which has led some Democrats encouraging Biden to resist any compromise with the Republicans and simply raise the debt ceiling on his own to avoid default.

    The president, though, said he was ruling out the possibility, for now, of invoking the 14th Amendment as a solution, saying it’s an “unresolved” legal question that would become tied up in the courts.

    ___

    Miller reported and Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed from Hiroshima, Japan. Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Farnoush Amiri, Seung Min Kim, Darlene Superville, Fatima Hussein, Colleen Long and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Who is Tim Scott? Here’s what to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate

    Who is Tim Scott? Here’s what to know about the newest 2024 GOP presidential candidate

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    1 of 5

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott launches his presidential bid, offering an optimistic message he hopes can contrast with the two figures who have used political combativeness to dominate the early GOP primary field: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. (May 22)

    1 of 5

    South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott launches his presidential bid, offering an optimistic message he hopes can contrast with the two figures who have used political combativeness to dominate the early GOP primary field: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. (May 22)

    NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — As Sen. Tim Scott enters the 2024 GOP presidential field, he will be eager to introduce himself to voters who might not know much about him.

    Here is what you should know about the South Carolina Republican:

    FOREMOST: FAITH

    Raised by a single mother, Scott, 57, talks often of how Frances Scott worked long hours as a nurse’s assistant to provide for her two sons. It was a meager existence, the senator said, but it was centered around their strong Christian faith.

    At age 18, Scott became what he terms a “born-again believer.”

    His faith is an integral part of his political and personal narrative, as well as his belief in being a positive catalyst for change. He often quotes Scripture at campaign events, weaving his reliance on spiritual guidance into his stump speech and using “Faith in America” to describe his series of appearances before joining the race.

    Last year in a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library, Scott said he saw America “at a crossroads — with the potential for a great resetting, a renewal, even a rebirth.” His autobiography, released last year, is titled “America: A Redemption Story.”

    When his now-rival Nikki Haley appointed him to the U.S. Senate in 2012, Scott became the first Black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. In a 2014 special election to serve out the remainder of his term, Scott became the first Black candidate to win a statewide race in South Carolina since the Reconstruction era.

    Before that, Scott had just been elected to his second term representing South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. He served a single term in the state House, as well as, beginning in 1995, nearly 14 years on the Charleston County Council, while also operating an insurance business. He also briefly ran for lieutenant governor, ultimately abandoning that pursuit to seek the congressional seat vacated by retiring Rep. Henry Brown.

    At that time, South Carolina’s governor and lieutenant governor were elected separately; had Scott stayed in that race and won it, he and Haley would have served together as South Carolina’s top officeholders.

    ‘I DISRUPT THEIR NARRATIVE’

    The Senate’s sole Black Republican, Scott doesn’t shy away from pointing out that his is often the only face of color in many rooms of conservatives.

    “When I fought back against their liberal agenda, they called me a prop. A token. Because I disrupt their narrative,” he said in an April video announcing his presidential exploratory committee, shot on the site of Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, where the Civil War’s first shots were fired.

    In his Reagan Library speech last year, Scott said that belief in conservative values had changed his life, arguing that his ability to succeed in politics had disproven critiques from liberals he said “you can call me a prop, you can call me a token. … Just understand what you call me is no match for the proof of my life.”

    Rejecting the notion that the country is inherently racist, Scott has repudiated the teaching of critical race theory, an academic framework that presents the idea that the nation’s institutions maintain the dominance of white people.

    He has also spoken on the Senate floor about his personal experiences as a Black man in America.

    “I have felt the anger, the frustration, the sadness and the humiliation that comes with feeling like you’re being targeted for nothing more than just being yourself,” Scott said in 2016, recounting how he was pulled over seven times in a year.

    But Scott argues that liberals have tried to weaponize race by portraying nonwhite citizens as politically oppressed.

    “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country,” he said in a nationally televised response to President Joe Biden’s 2021 address to Congress. “It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”

    MONEY TALKS

    Scott is coming into the campaign with more cash on hand than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history. At the end of his 2022 campaign, he had $22 million left over, which he plans to immediately transfer to his presidential coffers.

    There are millions more in other organizations created to support Scott and his efforts. Opportunity Matters Fund, a pro-Scott super political action committee, spent more than $20 million to help Republicans in 2022, reporting $13 million-plus on hand to start 2023. Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has donated at least $30 million to the organization since 2021, according to federal filings.

    Another super PAC, Opportunity Matters Fund Action, had around $3 million at the end of last year.

    HISTORY WITH TRUMP

    Scott has maintained a generally cordial relationship with Trump, despite initially endorsing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the 2016 GOP presidential primary.

    But he also spoke out against Trump after the then-president said there were “very fine people on both sides” of a deadly clash between white supremacists and anti-racist demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Scott said that Trump’s principles had been compromised and that without some introspection, “it will be hard for him to regain … moral authority.”

    Scott also called it “indefensible” after Trump retweeted a post in June 2020 containing a racist slogan associated with white supremacists. Trump later deleted it.

    In his 2022 book, Scott said that Trump “listened intently” to his viewpoints on race-related issues. And on the campaign trail, Scott has railed against political correctness in much the same fashion as Trump.

    “If you wanted a blueprint to ruin America, you’d keep doing exactly what Joe Biden has let the far left do to our country for the past two years,” Scott said this year in Iowa. “Tell every white kid they’re oppressors. Tell Black and brown kids their destiny is grievance, not greatness.”

    ___

    Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

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