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  • GOP Voters in Northern California Brace for Loss of Representation in Fight for US House

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    REDDING, Calif. (AP) — In a stretch of Northern California known for farming, ranching and a rural way of life, residents worry a ballot measure to redraw U.S. House maps is all but certain to dilute what little political power they possess in the heavily Democratic state.

    If Proposition 50 passes, voters in three northern counties that went strongly for President Donald Trump in the last three elections would share a representative with some of the state’s wealthiest and most liberal coastal communities. Rural voters would be outnumbered, making it unlikely for a Republican candidate to prevail.

    “Most of us see it as, you know, just massive gerrymandering, taking what little representation that we had away and now we’ll have absolutely nothing,” Patrick Jones, a former Shasta County supervisor, said in a recent interview in his family’s gun shop.

    Voting concludes Nov. 4 on the measure, which would create partisan U.S. House maps outside of normal once-a-decade redistricting handled by an independent commission. It’s an effort by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom to counter a Trump-backed plan in Texas to gain five more Republican seats. He says it’s necessary to defend democracy, but California Republicans call it a power grab that will disenfranchise voters. Republicans currently hold nine of the state’s 52 congressional seats.

    In Redding, one of the largest cities north of Sacramento, bright yellow signs urging residents to defend fair elections and rural representation dot the highway. A local man recently led a one-person protest in front of City Hall, while more than 150 others showed up at a rally to reject what they see as a scheme by Democrats to take away their voices.

    But they face an uphill battle in the state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2-to-1. Democrats have returned nearly twice as many ballots. Labor unions and other Democratic allies have mobilized hundreds of volunteers to reach voters in solidly blue areas like Los Angeles with millions of voters. Two weeks before Election Day, just about 7,000 ballots had been returned in Shasta County, county clerk Clint Curtis said. He expects lower turnout than normal.

    TV advertising opposing the measure — a key investment in the sprawling state — has largely dried up. Some residents in Redding say they’ve heard little from Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa about a plan to fight the measure, though he’s scheduled an event Wednesday in another city in his district.


    Rural strongholds brace for political change

    Under the new maps, voters in Shasta, Siskiyou and Modoc counties — all conservative strongholds in the rural north — would be in the same congressional district with Marin County, which sits just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

    LaMalfa’s current district includes farms that grow rice, olive and other tree nuts, and ranching is prevalent in the farthest northern reaches. Lassen National Volcanic Park, historic Shasta Dam and snow-capped Mt. Shasta are defining features. Redding has a population under 100,000. Distrust of government and belief in election conspiracies are common. In 2024, 67% of voters in Shasta County supported Trump.

    Marin County, meanwhile, went 80% for Democrat Kamala Harris. The median household income tops $140,000 — roughly double that of Shasta County. It’s part of a district that runs north up the Pacific coastline to Oregon and is known for redwood forests, wine production and cannabis farms. It’s represented by Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman.

    LaMalfa, a rice farmer, opposes the proposition and has spent at least $63,000 from his campaign fund to reach voters through text messages and yard signs. He also gave $50,000 to a statewide “no” campaign. Brenda Haynes, who works in LaMalfa’s district office, said the congressman has joined residents waving flags on highway overpasses. His campaign declined a request for a reporter to shadow him on the trail.

    “I think he’s done phone calls and stuff, but I haven’t really heard from him,” said Toby Ruiz, a retired state worker who’s lived in the area for most of his life.

    LaMalfa’s supporters say they appreciate his conservative stances and push for an important new water storage project.

    “I pretty much love the guy,” said Bob Braz, a Redding area native who owns a bait shop. “I stand for almost all the things that he’s done.”

    Those who don’t know much about LaMalfa’s record said they trust him because of his background.

    “I don’t hear much about him but he’s a farmer,” said Liz Jacobs, who moved from the Bay Area to Redding 20 years ago. She added: “I don’t know about somebody from the Bay Area with their progressive ideas.”

    Newsom and other Democrats say the measure is a tool to fight Trump’s agenda and counter Republican efforts to pickup seats elsewhere. Even if it passes and Democrats win five more seats, it may not help the party retain the House. Republicans in Missouri, North Carolina and Indiana are joining Texas in trying to draw more winnable seats in the 2026 midterms. Lawmakers in Virginia, meanwhile, are back in session to work on a map more friendly to Democrats. All of the efforts are sure to face legal challenges.

    “This is not the fight we want to fight. This was not our battle,” Newsom said in a recent virtual campaign event. “This is in reaction to something unprecedented that happened.”

    But voters in Redding see it as another way to silence their voices.

    They have long felt neglected by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in Sacramento, which they blame for raising the cost of living and infringing on local control. Lawmakers, for example, banned counties from hand-counting ballots in most cases after Shasta County leaders voted to get rid of their vote-counting machines in 2023.

    Some said they worry that national Republicans won’t put up a fight to hold the seats if the measure passes.

    “You would have to spend a huge amount of money to reach your base,” said Jones, the former county supervisor. “And they’re just simply not going to want to waste that amount of money because it would be better spent throughout the country elsewhere.”

    Not all voters are dreading a change.

    Warren Swanson, a Redding resident of more than 40 years, called LaMalfa “Do Nothing Doug.” His wife, Tara Swanson, also voted “yes” on the measure, partly because it promises to give map-drawing power back to the independent commission after the 2030 Census.

    “Do two wrongs make a right? It’s a tough one for those of us who think along those lines,” Tara Swanson said.

    Some liberal voters in Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou County are hoping to oust LaMalfa over his vote for Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill that will overhaul health care and food assistance programs. Mothers, families and older adults in town could go hungry because of changes to food assistance programs, said Colleen Shelly, a Mt. Shasta resident who works with the state food assistance program.

    But the fight is far from over for Republican voters in California, said Walter Stephen Rubke, a 38-year-old who moved to Redding last year. Many young people are supporting conservatives, he said, and he expects continual resistance from GOP voters even if the measure passes.

    “I see a hard path ahead,” he said. “But I feel confident. I feel hopeful.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Democrat Abigail Spanberger Backs Virginia Legislature’s Redistricting Push

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    BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) — Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for Virginia governor, said Monday that she would not oppose a push by the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature to redraw congressional districts ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

    Virginia Democrats earlier in the day began taking steps to change the state’s constitution to allow for a new congressional map, a change that must ultimately be approved by voters before it becomes law. The change is designed to counter President Donald Trump’s push to create more partisan districts in several Republican-run states.

    In an interview on her campaign bus just eight days before Election Day, Spanberger told The Associated Press that she would not stand in the way of the Democratic leaders in the state General Assembly, although it’s unclear whether congressional districts could be changed in time for the 2026 midterm elections.

    “What they are doing at this moment is keeping alive the option of taking action into the future,” said Spanberger, who would become the governor in January if she wins next week. “While I like to plan for everything, on this one, because I’m on the bus tour, because we are eight days away (from Election Day), I’m like, I will let the General Assembly take this step, and then we’ll talk calendar issues later.”

    Her position marks a shift of sorts from this summer when she said she had “no plans to redistrict Virginia.”

    Virginia Republicans, including Spanberger’s Republican opponent, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, blasted the move in a news conference outside the statehouse.

    “This, my friends, is not about party, it’s about principle,” Earle-Sears said, standing in front of a podium marked with the words, “Spanberger’s sideshow session.” “The voters created an independent redistricting commission. Only the voters have the right to decide a future, not gerrymandering Democrats.”

    The Democratic-led legislature’s push to enter Virginia into a redistricting battle comes after California made a similar move earlier this year.

    If Democrats gain just three more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, they would take control of the House and with it, the power to impede Trump’s agenda. But Republicans in other states, at Trump’s urging, are working aggressively to extend their advantage in redistricting moves of their own.

    In Virginia on Monday, the House amended its agenda to allow a redistricting constitutional amendment to be put forward, with details to come later. The state senate is expected to follow suit this week.

    Democratic state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, who has championed Virginia’s current redistricting law, said he still supports the concept of a bipartisan redistricting commission, “but I’m also not going to let Donald Trump go around to states that have the majorities that he likes and try to make it so that he can’t lose.”

    Because Virginia’s redistricting commission was created by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, voters must sign off on any changes to the redistricting process. A proposed constitutional amendment would have to pass the General Assembly in two separate sessions and then be placed on the statewide ballot.

    Democrats are scrambling to hold that first legislative vote this year in order to take a second vote after a new legislative session begins Jan. 14.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump Administration Must Restore Grants for School Counselors, Judge Rules

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    Congress funded the mental health program after the 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The grants were intended to help schools hire more counselors, psychologists and social workers, with a focus on rural and underserved areas of the country. But President Donald Trump’s administration opposed diversity considerations used to award the grants and told recipients they wouldn’t receive funding past December 2025.

    The preliminary ruling by Kymberly K. Evanson, a U.S. District Court judge in Seattle, applies only to some grantees in the sixteen Democratic-led states that challenged the Education Department’s decision. In Madera County, California, for example, the ruling restores roughly $3.8 million. In Marin County, California, it restores $8 million. The ruling will remain in effect while the case proceeds.

    The Education Department under Democratic President Joe Biden first awarded the grants. Biden’s administration prioritized giving the money to applicants who showed how they would increase the number of counselors from diverse backgrounds or from communities directly served by the school district.

    When Trump took office, his administration opposed aspects of the grant programs that touched on race, saying they were harmful to students. In April, his administration said the grants were canceled because they conflicted with the department’s priority of “merit, fairness, and excellence in education” and weren’t in the federal government’s best interest.

    In her ruling, Evanson called that decision arbitrary and capricious and said the states had made a case for real harm from the grant cuts. In Maine, for example, the grants enabled nine rural school districts to hire 10 new school mental health workers and retain four more — jobs the state said would be lost if the funding ended.

    “Congress created these programs to address the states’ need for school-based mental health services in their schools, and has repeatedly reaffirmed the need for those services over the years by reauthorizing and increasing appropriations to these programs,” Evanson wrote.

    “There is no evidence the Department considered any relevant data pertaining to the Grants at issue,” she wrote, and the department did not tell grantees why their work didn’t meet the “best interest” criteria.

    An Education Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump Administation Narrows List of Potential Federal Reserve Chairs to 5

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday confirmed the names of five candidates to replace Jerome Powell as chair of the powerful Federal Reserve next year.

    On an Air Force One flight to Asia with President Donald Trump, Bessent said he would engage in a second round of interviews in the coming weeks and present a “good slate” of candidates to Trump “right after Thanksgiving.” Trump said he expected to decide on Powell’s replacement by the end of this year.

    The five people under consideration are: Federal Reserve governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman; former Fed governor Kevin Warsh; White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett; and Rick Rieder, senior managing director at asset manager BlackRock.

    The names suggest that no matter who is picked, there will likely be big changes coming to the Federal Reserve next year. Bessent, who is leading the search for Powell’s replacement, last month published extensive criticisms of the Fed and some of the policies it has pursued from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 to the pandemic.

    Trump on Monday, meanwhile, repeated his long-standing attacks on Powell, charging that he has been too slow to cut interest rates.

    “We have a person that’s not at all smart right now,” Trump said, referring to Powell. “He should have been much lower, much sooner.” The Fed is expected to lower its key rate Wednesday for the second time this year.

    Trump’s goal of selecting a new chair by the end of this year could reflect some of the tricky elements surrounding Powell’s status. His term as chair ends next May, but he could remain on the Fed’s board as one of seven governors until January 2028, an unusual but not entirely unprecedented step. Such a move would deprive Trump of an opportunity to nominate another governor for several years.

    Still, current governor Stephen Miran was appointed by Trump Sept. 16 to finish an unexpired term that ends next Jan. 31. Trump could nominate his candidate to replace Powell for that seat, and then elevate that person to chair in May after Powell steps down.

    Hassett is currently the chair of the National Economic Council at the White House and was also a top Trump adviser in the president’s first term, and a frequent defender of the administration’s policies on television. His longtime loyalty to the president could give him an edge, some Fed watchers say.

    Warsh is a former economic advisor in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed to the Fed’s governing board in 2006 at age 35, making him the youngest Fed governor in history. He left the board in 2011. Warsh is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

    Waller was appointed to the Fed by Trump in 2020, and quickly established himself as an independent voice. He began pushing for rate cuts in July and dissented at that meeting in favor of a quarter-point cut, when the Fed decided to leave its key rate unchanged. But he voted to reduce rates just a quarter-point in September, along with 10 other Fed officials, while Miran dissented in favor of a half-point.

    Michelle Bowman is the Fed’s vice chair of supervision, making her the nation’s top banking regulator. She was appointed by Trump in 2018, and before that was Kansas’ state bank commissioner. Bowman also dissented in favor a rate cut in July, then voted with her colleagues last month for a quarter-point reduction.

    Rieder has the most financial markets experience of any of the candidates and has worked for Wall Street firms since 1987. Rieder joined BlackRock in 2009. His focus is in fixed income and he oversees the management of roughly $2.4 trillion in assets.

    Bessent has set out a wide-ranging critique of the Fed while interviewing for Powell’s replacement. In particular, he has criticized the central bank for continuing unconventional policies, such as purchasing Treasury bonds in order to lower longer-term interest rates, long after after such steps were justified, in his view, by emergency conditions.

    “It is essential the Fed commit to scaling back its distortionary impact on markets,” Bessent wrote. “It also likely requires an honest, independent, and nonpartisan review of the entire institution and all of its activities.”

    Bessent’s criticisms aren’t entirely new, but they have gained greater traction in the wake of the 2021-22 inflation surge. The Fed is mandated by Congress to seek stable prices as well as maximum employment.

    Bessent’s critiques have also inevitably been tangled up with Trump’s insistent calls for lower interest rates, which have threatened the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics. Trump has also taken the unprecedented step of trying to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee, to open another seat on the board for him to fill.

    Trump’s attacks on the central bank have left some longtime Fed critics skeptical of the Trump administration’s approach.

    Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian and professor of financial regulation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, cautioned against placing “loyalists” on the Fed “who are there to push the president’s narrative.”

    “Those are the ones that we want as his advisers and spokespeople and his lawyers, not his central bankers,” he said.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump Will Meet Japan’s New Prime Minister and Address US Troops in Next Stop on Asia Trip

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    TOKYO (AP) — President Donald Trump begins one of his busiest days of his Asia trip on Tuesday, meeting with the new Japanese prime minister, speaking to U.S. troops aboard an aircraft carrier and mingling with business leaders.

    Takaichi is primed for a charm offensive, including a potential purchase of Ford F-150 trucks. Trump has often complained that Japan doesn’t buy American vehicles, which are often too wide to be practical on narrow Japanese streets.

    Although Trump has focused his foreign policy toward Asia around tariffs and trade, he’s also speaking aboard the USS George Washington, which is docked at an American naval base near Tokyo.

    Trump arrived in Tokyo on Monday, when he met with the emperor in a ceremonial visit. He was previously in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he participated in the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

    The gathering was an opportunity for Trump to celebrate an expanded ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, which skirmished along their disputed border earlier this year. Trump had pressured them to stop fighting by threatening to withhold trade agreements.

    There were also signs that tensions between the U.S. and China were cooling ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, which is expected to take place in South Korea later this week. Top negotiators from each country said a trade deal was coming together, which could prevent a potentially damaging confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.

    Details were scarce, and it was unclear how much any agreement would resolve long-standing issues, or if it would return the relationship to the status quo before recent confrontations. China has restructured the export of rare earth elements that are critical for high-tech manufacturing, and Trump responded by threatening tariffs that even he admits would be unsustainable.

    Trump is scheduled to leave Wednesday for South Korea, which is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

    Megerian reported from Seoul.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Indiana Gov. Mike Braun Calls a Special Session to Redraw the State’s Congressional Boundaries

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    Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Braun called Monday for state lawmakers to return to Indianapolis for a special session to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries, escalating a national fight over midcycle redistricting.

    President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure on Republican governors to draw up new maps in an attempt to give the party an easier path to maintain control of the House in the midterms. While Republicans in Texas and Missouri have moved quickly to enact a new set of districts and California Democrats are seeking to counter with their own redistricting plan, Indiana lawmakers have been far more hesitant to the idea and held weeks of discussion on the topic.

    Braun is calling for the General Assembly to convene Nov. 3.

    It’s unclear whether enough of the GOP majority Senate will back new maps.

    The White House held multiple meetings with Indiana lawmakers who were holding out for months. The legislative leaders kept their cards close as speculation swirled over whether the state known for its more measured approach to Republican politics would answer the redistricting call.

    Vance returned to Indianapolis on Oct. 10 to meet with the governor, as well as the Republican state House and Senate members.

    But a spokesperson for Bray said on Wednesday that the Indiana Senate lacked the votes to pass a new congressional map, casting doubt on the success of the special session.

    Braun is a staunch ally of Trump in a state the president won by 19 percentage points in 2024. But Indiana lawmakers have avoided the national spotlight in recent years — especially after a 2022 special session that yielded a strict abortion ban. Braun had previously said he did not want to call a special session until he was sure lawmakers would be behind a new map.

    While some have voiced support, other state Republican lawmakers have expressed opposition to midcycle redistricting since August, saying it is costly and could backfire politically.

    Indiana’s Republican legislative leaders praised existing boundaries after adopting them four years ago.

    “I believe these maps reflect feedback from the public and will serve Hoosiers well for the next decade,” Bray said at the time.

    Typically, states redraw boundaries of congressional districts every 10 years after the census has concluded. Any new maps made by Indiana lawmakers now will likely be challenged in court by opponents.

    State lawmakers have the sole power to draw maps in Indiana. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers, meaning Democrats could not stop a special session by refusing to attend, like their peers in Texas briefly did.

    Republicans outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7-2, limiting possibilities of squeezing out another seat. But many in the party see it as a chance for the GOP to represent all nine seats.

    The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a longtime Democratic stronghold that encompasses Gary and other cities near Chicago in the state’s northwest corner. The seat held by third-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan has been seen by Republicans as a possible pickup in recent elections.

    Lawmakers in Indiana redrew the borders of the district to be slightly more favorable toward Republicans in the 2022 election, but did not entirely split it up. The new maps were not challenged in court after they were approved in 2021, not even by Democrats and allies who had opposed the changes boosting GOP standing in the suburbs north of Indianapolis.

    Republicans could also zero in on Indiana’s 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis. But that option would be more controversial, potentially slicing up the state’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.

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  • Asian Shares Gain Japan’s Nikkei Tops 50,000 Level, as Trump Seeks Trade Deals

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    BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares rallied and U.S. futures jumped Monday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 topping 50,000 for the first time.

    Work on trade deals that might alleviate friction between the U.S., China and other major trading partners contributed to upbeat sentiment as U.S. President Donald Trump visited Malaysia for a summit of Southeast Asian nations where he reached preliminary trade agreements with Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

    “This isn’t just photo-op diplomacy. Behind the showmanship, Washington and Beijing’s top trade lieutenants have quietly mapped out a framework that might, just might, keep the world’s two largest economies from tearing up the field again,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    Trump was heading next to Japan before ending his Asian tour in South Korea where he is expected to meet with Xi on the sidelines of a Pacific Rim summit, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (known as APEC) forum.

    A report by the APEC secretariat released Monday forecast that annual growth in the region circling the Pacific will slow to 3% this year from 3.6% last year, partly due to trade restrictions and higher tariffs.

    In Japan, opinion polls showed newly installed Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi enjoying high levels of public support for her market-friendly policies. The Nikkei 225 gained 2.1% to 50,329.08, hitting record intraday highs.

    Takaichi is Japan’s first female prime minister. She favors raising defense spending and that has boosted prices of stocks in major defense contractors, such as Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which gained 8.7%. IHI Corp. jumped 2.6% and Hitachi gained 2.7%.

    Trump has long complained American cars were shut out Japanese markets, one of various reasons he cited for imposing tariffs of 25%, then lowered to 15%, on American’s most vital ally in Asia. So Japan’s government has floated the idea of buying a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks to use to inspect roads and infrastructure.

    Shares jumped in South Korea, where the Kospi was up 2% at 4,018.73, also a record. Investors there are hoping for a trade deal with Trump.

    Chinese markets likewise saw solid gains. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1% to 26,427.34, while the Shanghai Composite index added 1% to 3,991.35.

    In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 picked up 0.3% to 9,047.40.

    Taiwan’s Taiex gained 2.1% and the Sensex in India was up 0.5%.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.8% to 6,791.69, topping its prior all-time high set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 1% to 47,207.12, also a record.

    The Nasdaq composite climbed 1.1% to a record of 23,204.87.

    The data on inflation was encouraging because it could mean less pain for lower- and middle-income households struggling with still-high increases in prices. Even more importantly for Wall Street, it could also clear the way for the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates in hopes of giving a boost to the slowing job market.

    The Fed just cut its main interest rate last month for the first time this year, but it’s been hesitant to promise more relief because lower rates can make inflation worse, beyond goosing the economy and prices for investments.

    Most big U.S. companies are reporting stronger profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected, also raising hopes for steady growth.

    In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 15 cents to $61.65 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 12 cents at $65.32 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 153.15 Japanese yen from 152.85 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1622 from $1.1636.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • New York Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Rallies Voters With Support From Bernie Sanders and AOC

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    NEW YORK (AP) — New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani rallied supporters Sunday with heavyweight support from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the race enters its final stretch, telling a raucous crowd that his campaign is a “movement of the masses.”

    Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, took the stage at a small stadium in Queens where he and two of the nation’s leading progressives pitched his candidacy as a force to take on billionaires and “oligarchs” who have thrown money and support behind his opponents.

    “When you insist on building a coalition with room for every New Yorker, that is exactly what you create: a tremendous force,” Mamdani said. “This, my friends, was your movement, and it always will be.”

    As the crowd chanted his name, Mamdani reiterated plans to hire thousands of new teachers, renegotiate city contracts, freeze rent increases for the city’s 1 million rent-regulated apartments, build more affordable housing and provide universal child care.

    With early voting underway ahead of Election Day on Nov. 4, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is in an increasingly caustic race with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent candidate after losing the Democratic primary to Mamdani, and Republican Curtis Sliwa, who campaigned Sunday in Queens.

    Cuomo has sought to cast Mamdani, a 34-year-old state assemblymember, as a naive candidate whose agenda would damage the city. In a radio interview Sunday morning, Cuomo argued that he is the real Democrat in the race while saying Mamdani’s democratic socialism would result in an exodus of residents and businesses.

    “The socialists want to take over the Democratic Party. That’s what Bernie Sanders is all about. That’s what AOC is all about,” Cuomo said, adding, “He wins, book airline tickets for Florida now.”

    Cuomo resigned as governor in 2021 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that he denies. Mamdani has often pressed Cuomo over the allegations, and on Sunday he told the crowd that it is time to leave behind the former governor’s “playbook of the past.” But he urged supporters not to take his lead in the polls for granted and to turn out to vote.

    “We cannot allow complacency to infiltrate this movement,” Mamdani said.

    Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have supported his campaign for months including before the Democratic primary in June. On Sunday they cast Mamdani as an antidote to what they called the creeping authoritarianism of President Donald Trump’s administration.

    Ocasio-Cortez, whose district includes Queens, said a victory for Mamdani will send a message nationally that a progressive message can prevail.

    “It is not a coincidence that the very forces that Zohran is up against in this race mirrors what we are up against nationally … an authoritarian, criminal presidency fueled by corruption and bigotry, and an ascendant right-wing extremist movement,” she said.

    Sanders said a Mayor Mamdani would represent “not the billionaire class” but working families.

    “In the year 2025, when the people on top have never, ever had so much economic and political power, is it possible for ordinary people, for working class people, to come together and defeat those oligarchs?” Sanders said. “You’re damn right we can.”

    Under the slogan “New York Is Not For Sale,” the rally featured rousing speeches from religious and labor leaders along with state elected officials including Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. The event was emceed by Sarah Sherman of “Saturday Night Live.”

    Mamdani recently received an endorsement from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a moderate New York Democrat. Jeffries, in a statement, said he has disagreements with Mamdani but supports him as the nominee, adding that the party should unify against Republicans and Trump.

    Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams abandoned his reelection campaign and endorsed Cuomo.

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  • The East Wing of the White House Is Gone. Here’s a Look at Some of the History Made There

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Betty Ford reportedly said that if the White House West Wing is the “mind” of the nation, then the East Wing — the traditional power center for first ladies — is the “heart.”

    That “heart” beat for more than 100 years as first ladies and their teams worked from their East Wing offices on everything from stopping drug abuse and boosting literacy to beautifying and preserving the White House itself. It’s where they planned White House state dinners and brainstormed the elaborate themes that are a feature of the U.S. holiday season.

    That history came to an end after wrecking crews tore down the wing’s two stories of offices and reception rooms last week. Gone is an in-house movie theater, and a covered walkway to the White House captured in so many photos over the years. An East Wing garden that was dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy was also uprooted, photographs show.

    The former real estate developer has long been fixated on building a big White House ballroom. In 2010, he called a top adviser to Democratic President Barack Obama and offered to build one. Trump made no secret of his distaste for the practice of hosting elegant White House state dinners underneath tents on the South Lawn. The offer was not followed up on.

    Now Trump, in his second term, is moving quickly to see his wish for what he calls a “great legacy project” become reality. He has tried to justify the East Wing tear-down and his ballroom plans by noting that some of his predecessors also added to the White House over the years.

    First ladies and their staffs witnessed history in the East Wing, a “place of purpose and service,” said Anita McBride, who worked there as chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush.

    “Tearing down those walls doesn’t diminish the significance of the work we accomplished there,” McBride told The Associated Press.

    McBride said she supports a ballroom addition because the “large and expensive tent option” that has been used when guest lists stretched longer than could be comfortably accommodated inside the White House “was not sustainable.” Tents damage the lawn and require additional infrastructure to be brought in, such as outdoor bathrooms and trolleys to move people around, especially in bad weather, she said.

    Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, who was policy director for first lady Michelle Obama, said the demolition was a “symbolic blow” to the East Wing’s legacy as a place where women made history.

    “The East Wing was this physical space that had seen the role of the first lady evolve from a social hostess into a powerful advocate on a range of issues,” she said in an interview.

    Here’s a look at some of the history that came out of the East Wing and the first ladies who spent time there:

    She was the first first lady to have her own office in the East Wing. Most first ladies before Carter had worked out of the private living quarters on the second or third floor of the residence. Carter wanted a place where she could separate work and home.

    “I always need a place to go that is private, where I don’t have to dress and don’t have to put on makeup,” she wrote in her memoir. “The offices of the staff of the first lady were always in the East Wing, and it seemed a perfect place for my office too.”

    In her memoir, Carter wrote about her favorite route to her office in winter months. She walked through the basement, past laundry rooms and workshops and the bomb shelter kept for the president and his staff. The thermostats in the residence above had been turned down low because of President Jimmy Carter’s energy conservation program, making the East Wing so cold that she was forced to wear long underwear.

    The subterranean passageway shown to her by a residence staffer provided some relief. “With Jimmy’s energy conservation program, it was the only really warm place in the White House, with large steam pipes running overhead,” the first lady wrote.

    Photos from the East Wing in the early 1980s show the first lady meeting with staff, including her press secretary, Sheila Tate. For a generation of Americans, Nancy Reagan was most closely associated with a single phrase, “Just Say No,” for the anti-drug abuse program she made a hallmark of her White House tenure.

    As Reagan once recalled, the idea for the campaign emerged during a 1982 visit with schoolchildren in Oakland, California. “A little girl raised her hand and said, ‘Mrs. Reagan, what do you do if somebody offers you drugs?’ And I said, ‘Well, you just say no.’ And there it was born.”

    Clinton bucked history by becoming the first first lady to insist that her office be in the West Wing, not the East Wing. In her memoir, Clinton wrote that wanted her staff to be “integrated physically” with the president’s team. The first lady’s office relocated to what is now the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while Clinton was assigned an office on the second floor of the West Wing.

    “This was another unprecedented event in White House history and quickly became fodder for late night comedians and political pundits,” Clinton later wrote.

    Bush wrote in her memoir about what it was like at the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of her staff members, then in their 20s, “kicked off their high heels and fled from the East Wing” after they were told to “run for their lives” when reports suggested the White House was a target.

    “Now they were being asked to come back to work in a building that everyone considered a target and for a presidency and a country that would be at war,” she wrote.

    Obama was the first Black woman to serve as first lady, becoming a global role model and style icon who advocated for improved child nutrition through her “Let’s Move” initiative. She and her staff in the East Wing also worked to support military families and promote higher education for girls in developing countries.

    Photos from the time show Obama typing on a laptop during an online chat about school nutrition and the White House garden she created.

    Trump pushed the boundaries of serving as first lady by not living at the White House during the opening months of Donald Trump’s first term. She stayed in New York with their then-school-age son, Barron, so he wouldn’t have to switch schools midyear. When she eventually moved to the White House, she and her East Wing aides launched an initiative named, “Be Best,” to focus on child well-being, opioid abuse and online safety.

    Biden was the first first lady to continue a career outside the White House. The longtime community college English professor taught twice a week while serving as first lady. But in her East Wing work, she was an advocate for military families; her late father and her late son Beau served in the military. Biden also advocated for research into a cure for cancer and secured millions of dollars in federal funding for research into women’s health.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump’s Redistricting Push Hits Roadblocks in Indiana and Kansas as Republican Lawmakers Resist

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    For most of President Donald Trump’s second term, Republicans have bent to his will. But in two Midwestern states, Trump’s plan to maintain control of the U.S. House in next year’s election by having Republicans redraw congressional districts has hit a roadblock.

    Despite weeks of campaigning by the White House, Republicans in Indiana and Kansas say their party doesn’t have enough votes to pass new, more GOP-friendly maps. It’s made the two states outliers in the rush to redistrict — places where Republican-majority legislatures are unwilling or unable to heed Trump’s call and help preserve the party’s control on Capitol Hill.

    Lawmakers in the two states still may be persuaded, and the White House push, which has included an Oval Office meeting for Indiana lawmakers and two trips to Indianapolis by Vice President JD Vance, is expected to continue. But for now, it’s a rare setback for the president and his efforts to maintain a compliant GOP-held Congress after the 2026 midterms.

    Typically, states redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts every 10 years, based on census data. But because midterm elections typically tend to favor the party not in power, Trump is pressuring Republicans to devise new maps that favor the GOP.

    Democrats only need to gain three seats to flip House control, and the fight has become a bruising back-and-forth.

    With new maps of their own, multiple Democratic states are moving to counter any gains made by Republicans. The latest, Virginia, is expected to take up the issue in a special session starting Monday.

    Indiana, whose House delegation has seven Republicans and two Democrats, was one of the first states on which the Trump administration focused its redistricting efforts this summer.

    But a spokesperson for state Senate Leader Rodric Bray’s office said Thursday that the chamber lacks the votes to redistrict. With only 10 Democrats in the 50-member Senate, that means more than a dozen of the 40 Republicans oppose the idea.

    Bray’s office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

    The holdouts may come from a few schools of thought. New political lines, if poorly executed, could make solidly Republican districts more competitive. Others believe it is simply wrong to stack the deck.

    “We are being asked to create a new culture in which it would be normal for a political party to select new voters, not once a decade — but any time it fears the consequences of an approaching election,” state Sen. Spencer Deery, a Republican, said in a statement in August.

    Deery’s office did not respond to a request for an interview and said the statement stands.

    A common argument in favor of new maps is that Democratic-run states such as Massachusetts have no Republican representatives while Illinois has used redistricting for partisan advantage — a process known as gerrymandering.

    “For decades, Democrat states have gerrymandered in the dark of the night,” Republican state Sen. Chris Garten said on social media. “We can no longer sit idly by as our country is stolen from us.”

    Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith, who would vote to break a tie in the state Senate if needed, recently called on lawmakers to forge ahead with redistricting and criticized then for not being sufficiently conservative.

    “For years, it has been said accurately that the Indiana Senate is where conservative ideas from the House go to die,” Beckwith said in a social media post.

    Indiana is staunchly conservative, but its Republicans tend to foster a deliberate temperance.

    “Hoosiers, it’s very tough to to predict us, other than to say we’re very cautious,” former GOP state lawmaker Mike Murphy said. “We’re not into trends.”

    The squeamishness reflects a certain independent streak held by voters in both states and a willingness by some to push back.

    Writing in The Washington Post last week, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, urged Indiana lawmakers to resist the push to redistrict. “Someone has to lead in climbing out of the mudhole,” he said.

    “Hoosiers, like most Americans, place a high value on fairness and react badly to its naked violation,” he wrote.


    In Kansas, Republicans also struggle to find votes

    In Kansas, Republican legislative leaders are trying to bypass the Democratic governor and force a special session for only the second time in the state’s 164-year history. Gov. Laura Kelly opposes mid-decade redistricting and has suggested it could be unconstitutional.

    The Kansas Constitution allows GOP lawmakers to force a special session with a petition signed by two-thirds of both chambers — also the supermajorities needed to override Kelly’s expected veto of a new map. Republicans hold four more seats than the two-thirds majority in both the state Senate and House. In either, a defection of five Republicans would sink the effort.

    Weeks after state Senate President Ty Masterson announced the push for a special session, GOP leaders were struggling to get the last few signatures needed.

    Among the holdouts is Rep. Mark Schreiber, who represents a district southwest of Topeka,. He told The Associated Press that “did not sign a petition to call a special session, and I have no plans to sign one.” Schreiber said he believes redistricting should be used only to reflect shifts in population after the once-every-10-year census.

    “Redistricting by either party in midcycle should not be done,” he said.

    Republicans would likely target U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, the Democrat representing the mostly Kansas City area 3rd Congressional District, which includes Johnson County, the state’s most populous. The suburban county accounts for more than 85% of the vote and has trended to the left since 2016.

    Kansas has a sizable number of moderate Republicans, and 29% of the state’s 2 million voters are registered as politically unaffiliated. Both groups are prominent in Johnson County.

    Republican legislators previously tried to hurt Davids’ chances of reelection when redrawing the district, but she won in 2022 and 2024 by more than 10 percentage points.

    “They tried it once and couldn’t get it done,” said Jack Shearer, an 82-year-old registered Republican from suburban Kansas City.

    But a mid-decade redistricting has support among some Republicans in the county. State Sen. Doug Shane, whose district includes part of the county, said he believes his constituents would be amenable to splitting it.

    “Splitting counties is not unprecedented and occurs in a number of congressional districts around the country,” he said in an email.

    Volmert reported from Lansing, Mich., and Hanna from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Lenexa, Kan., contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Winning Numbers Drawn in Saturday’s Powerball

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    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The winning numbers in Saturday evening’s drawing of the “Powerball” game were:

    02-12-22-39-67, Powerball: 15, Power Play: 2

    (two, twelve, twenty-two, thirty-nine, sixty-seven, Powerball: fifteen, Power Play: two)

    Estimated jackpot: $344 million

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  • Former LAPD Officer Charged With Murder in 2015 Shooting of Unarmed Homeless Man

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — A grand jury indictment was unsealed Friday charging a former Los Angeles police officer in the May 2015 shooting death of an unarmed homeless man in Venice, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said.

    Clifford Proctor pleaded not guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

    Brendan Glenn, 29, was killed during a struggle with officers outside a bar where he had fought with a bouncer, and his name became a rallying cry against police shootings in Los Angeles. Both Glenn and Proctor are Black.

    The office of current LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement that the indictment comes after the previous district attorney, George Gascón, reexamined four use-of-force cases involving law enforcement officers, including Proctor’s case.

    Hochman, who ousted Gascón in November’s election, will review the case and decide whether to proceed with the prosecution, the statement said.

    Proctor’s lawyer, Anthony “Tony” Garcia, questioned the timing of the charges and noted that prosecutors declined to charge his client in 2018, according to the Times.

    In 2018, LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey declined to press charges, saying there was insufficient evidence to prove Proctor acted unlawfully when he used deadly force.

    Glenn was on his stomach and trying to push himself up when Proctor shot him in the back, according to police. He wasn’t trying to take a gun from Proctor or his partner when he was shot, and Proctor’s partner told investigators that he didn’t know why the officer opened fire, police have said.

    Proctor resigned from the Los Angeles Police Department in 2017. The city paid $4 million to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit that was brought by Glenn’s relatives.

    Proctor, 60, remains in jail. His next court date is Nov. 3.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • June Lockhart, Actor in TV’s ‘Lassie’ and ‘Lost in Space,’ Dies at 100

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    (Reuters) -June Lockhart, who became the archetypal TV mom of the 1950s and 1960s with her roles on the campy sci-fi series “Lost in Space” and alongside a collie and a little boy on the family drama “Lassie,” died this week at age 100, her family announced on Saturday.

    She died of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, California, according to a spokesperson for the family. 

    Lockhart portrayed planet-hopping mom Maureen Robinson on producer Irwin Allen’s “Lost in Space,” which ran from 1965 to 1968 and was later very popular in syndication. From 1958 through 1964 she had played Ruth Martin, the mother of the young main character Timmy, on “Lassie.”

    “Lost in Space,” which aired in the years leading to the first moon landing in 1969, adapted the castaway novel “The Swiss Family Robinson” to a space theme: a family is sent from Earth to colonize a distant planet but a stowaway sends the craft wildly off course.

    Clad in a silvery space suit, Lockhart played the wife of the mission leader, portrayed by Guy Williams, whose three children, played by Billy Mumy, Angela Cartwright and Marta Kristen, join in the journey.

    The series started as a serious foray into science fiction but became sillier in the second and third seasons as it focused on Mumy’s youthful Will Robinson, buffoonish stowaway Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) and the show’s popular robot. At the first hint of trouble, the robot would exclaim, “Danger, Will Robinson!”

    Lockhart fondly remembered the goofy 1968 episode titled “The Great Vegetable Rebellion” featuring a villainous carrot that plotted to turn the family into plants.

    “The ‘Vegetable Rebellion’ is definitely my favorite because we laughed so very hard through all of the shooting,” Lockhart told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2004. “In fact, Guy and I laughed so much and so often that we had to do take after take, which did not sit well with Irwin. So as punishment he wrote us out of the next two episodes. We got paid but we weren’t in them.”

    Lockhart was born in New York on June 25, 1925. Her parents were actors — her father Gene Lockhart is best remembered as the judge in the 1947 holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street” — and she made her film debut at age 12 alongside them in a 1938 version of “A Christmas Carol.”

    As a young actor, she played supporting roles in major films including the 1944 Judy Garland movie “Meet Me in St. Louis,” one of the leading musicals of that decade, and starring roles in B movies like “She-Wolf of London” (1946).

    She won a Tony Award in 1948 for her performance in the Broadway play “For Love or Money” and later was twice nominated for Emmy awards.

    Lockhart replaced Cloris Leachman as the adoptive mother of Timmy, played by Jon Provost, in the fifth season of the long-running series “Lassie.”

    After “Lost in Space,” she played a doctor for the final two seasons of the sitcom “Petticoat Junction” and had a recurring role on the soap opera “General Hospital.” 

    Lockhart also had a small role in the 1998 big-budget film version of “Lost in Space.”

    Lockhart, a space aficionado who attended NASA space shuttle launches, learned that despite all the rubbery monsters and far-fetched plot lines, “Lost in Space” inspired future astronauts.

    “I spend a lot of time at NASA with the astronauts,” she told the New Jersey newspaper the Record in 2002, “and to a man, or woman, they say that watching ‘Lost in Space’ made them know what they wanted to do when they grew up. So when I’m down there, of course, they treat me like a duchess. It’s wonderful.”

    After appearing on a quiz show in the 1950s with members of the White House press corps, she was given an open invitation to attend White House press briefings, and for many years did so.

    During former actor Ronald Reagan’s presidency, she said he confessed to her his regret about a scene he played in a 1942 movie with her father in which Reagan’s character smashed a tomato filled with chocolate sauce into Gene Lockhart’s face.

    “The president told me, ‘I felt bad I had to do that to your father because the idea of chocolate sauce and tomato sauce together is repulsive,’” she told the Chicago Tribune in 1987.

    Lockhart married twice, with both marriages ending in divorce. 

    (Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Sergio Non and Matthew Lewis)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Trump Aims to Start His Asia Trip With Dealmaking in Malaysia

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    KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to burnish his reputation as an international dealmaker on Sunday by solidifying a trade agreement with Malaysia and overseeing the signing of an expanded ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand, two nations that skirmished along their disputed border earlier this year.

    Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One that he was optimistic his meeting with Xi could yield progress on a range of issues, including fentanyl trafficking and soybean trade. “I think we have a really good chance of making a very comprehensive deal,” Trump said. “I want our farmers to be taken care of. And he wants things also.”

    Details about Trump’s agreements have been characteristically scarce, even after Trump departed Washington. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s dealmaking addresses longstanding issues or puts them off for another day.

    The Republican president is scheduled to touch down in Kuala Lumpur around 10 a.m. local time. He will meet with Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim before attending a ceremony featuring Cambodia and Thailand and later joining regional leaders for dinner.

    U.S. presidents don’t always attend this summit, and Trump went only once during his first term. But he told reporters aboard Air Force One that he wanted to come because Anwar helped resolve the fighting between Cambodia and Thailand.

    “I told the leader of Malaysia, who is a very good man, ‘I think I owe you a trip,’” Trump said.

    Dozens of people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced during five days of combat in July. Cambodia and Thailand have competing territorial claims, and violence periodically flares along their border.

    Trump threatened to withhold trade agreements from the two countries unless they stopped fighting, a display of economic leverage that has been credited with spurring negotiations. A shaky truce has persisted since then.

    “The fact that Trump was holding the tariff card was actually very, very significant,” said Ou Virak, president of Phnom Penh’s Future Forum think tank. “That’s probably the main reason, if not the only reason, but definitely the main reason why the two sides agreed immediately to the ceasefire.”

    Now, he said, “there’s a ceremony for Trump to be in front of cameras” so he can be “seen as the champion that brings an end to wars and conflicts,” giving him ”more ammunition for his bid for Nobel Peace Prize.”

    Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told reporters on Saturday that the “joint declaration” to be signed on Sunday will state that Thailand and Cambodia “are committed to renew their relations.”

    He also said there has been an agreement to address Thai concerns about landmines and heavy artillery along the border, as well as other issues.

    “It’s not an end in itself,” Nikorndej said. “Work has just begun.”

    Trump expressed confidence about the prospect of finalizing trade agreements during his trip. Negotiations have been underway with Japan and South Korea, two longstanding allies and trading partners.

    In Southeast Asia, trade talks appear further along with Malaysia, and a deal is expected to be signed while Trump is in Kuala Lumpur.

    “We have deals with a lot of people and they’re very good deals,” Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One.

    One leader who will be absent from the summit is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Although he was close with Trump during his first term, the relationship has been more tense lately. Trump caused irritation by boasting that he settled a recent conflict between India and Pakistan, and he has increased tariffs on India for its purchase of Russian oil.

    Associated Press writer Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • June Lockhart, Beloved Mother Figure From ‘Lassie’ and ‘Lost in Space,’ Dies at 100

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — June Lockhart, who became a mother figure for a generation of television viewers whether at home in “Lassie” or up in the stratosphere in “Lost In Space,” has died. She was 100.

    Lockhart died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, family spokesman Lyle Gregory, a friend of 40 years, said Saturday.

    “She was very happy up until the very end, reading the New York Times and LA Times everyday,” he said. “It was very important to her to stay focused on the news of the day.”

    The daughter of prolific character actor Gene Lockhart, Lockhart was cast frequently in ingenue roles as a young film actor. Television made her a star.

    From 1958 to 1964, she portrayed Ruth Martin, who raised the orphaned Timmy (Jon Provost), in the popular CBS series “Lassie.” From 1965 to 1968, she traveled aboard the spaceship Jupiter II as mother to the Robinson family in the campy CBS adventure “Lost in Space.”

    Her portrayals of warm, compassionate mothers endeared her to young viewers, and decades later baby boomers flocked to nostalgia conventions to meet Lockhart and buy her autographed photos.

    Offscreen, Lockhart insisted, she was nothing like the women she portrayed.

    “I must quote Dan Rather,” she said in a 1994 interview. “I can control my reputation, but not my image, because my image is how you see me.

    “I love rock ‘n’ roll and going to the concerts. I have driven Army tanks and flown in hot air balloons. And I go plane-gliding — the ones with no motors. I do a lot of things that don’t go with my image.”

    Early in her career, Lockhart appeared in numerous films. Among them: “All This and Heaven Too,” “Adam Had Four Sons,” “Sergeant York,” “Miss Annie Rooney,” “Forever and a Day” and “Meet Me in St. Louis.”

    She also made “Son of Lassie,” the 1945 sequel to “Lassie, Come Home,” playing the grown-up version of the role created by Elizabeth Taylor.

    When her movie career as an adult faltered, Lockhart shifted to television, appearing in live drama from New York and game and talk shows. She was the third actress to play the female lead in “Lassie” on TV, following Jan Clayton and Cloris Leachman. (Provost had replaced the show’s original child star, Tommy Rettig, in 1957.)

    Lockhart spoke frankly about her canine co-star. In the first place, she said in 1989, Lassie was a laddie, because male collies “are bigger, the ruff is bigger, they’re more imposing looking.”

    She added: “I worked with four Lassies. There was only one main Lassie at a time. Then there was a dog that did the running, a dog that did the fighting, and a dog that was a stand-in, because only humans can work 14 hours a day without needing a nap.

    “Lassie was not especially friendly with anybody. Lassie was wholly concentrated on the trainers.”

    After six years in the rural setting of “Lassie,” Lockhart moved to outer space, embarking on the role of Maureen Robinson, the wise, reassuring mother of a family that departs on a five-year flight to a faraway planet in “Lost in Space.”

    After their mission is sabotaged by a fellow passenger, the nefarious Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), the party bounces from planet to planet, encountering weird creatures and near-disasters that required viewers to tune in the following week to learn of the escape. Throughout the three-year run, Mrs. Robinson offered consolation and a slice of her “space pie.”

    As with “Lassie,” Lockhart enjoyed working on “Lost in Space”: “It was like going to work at Disneyland every day.”

    In 1968, Lockhart joined the cast of “Petticoat Junction” for the rural comedy’s last two seasons, playing Dr. Janet Craig. The original star, Bea Benaderet, had been diagnosed with cancer and died, also in 1968.


    A little bit of everything

    Lockhart remained active long after “Lost in Space,” appearing often in episodic television as well as in recurring roles in the daytime soap opera “General Hospital” and nighttime soaps, “Knots Landing” and “The Colbys.” Her film credits included “The Remake” and the animated “Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm,” for which she provided the voice for Mindy the Owl.

    She also used her own media pass to attend presidential news conferences, narrated beauty pageants and holiday parades, appeared in B pictures and toured in the plays “Steel Magnolias,” “Bedroom Farce” and “Once More with Feeling.”

    “Her true passion was journalism,” Gregory said. “She loved going to the White House briefing rooms.”

    Lockhart liked to tell the story of how her parents met, saying they were hired separately for a touring production sponsored by inventor Thomas A. Edison and decided on marriage during a stop at Lake Louise, Alberta.

    Their daughter was born June 25, 1925, in New York City. The family moved to Hollywood 10 years later, and Gene Lockhart worked steadily as a character actor, usually in avuncular roles, sometimes as a villain. His wife, Kathleen, often appeared with him.

    Young June made her stage debut at 8, dancing in a children’s ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House. Her first film appearance was a small role in the 1938 “A Christmas Carol,” playing the daughter of Bob Cratchit and his wife, who were played by her parents.

    She was married and divorced twice: to John Maloney, a physician, father of her daughters Anne Kathleen and June Elizabeth; and architect John C. Lindsay.

    Throughout her later career, Lockhart was connected in the public mind with “Lassie.”

    Even though she sometimes mocked the show, she conceded: “How wonderful that in a career there is one role for which you are known. Many actors work all their lives and never have one part that is really theirs.”

    Bob Thomas, a longtime Associated Press journalist who died in 2014, was the principal writer of this obituary.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Shooting at a Party in North Carolina Kills 2 and Critically Injures Several Others

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    MAXTON, N.C. (AP) — A shooting at a large weekend party in southeastern North Carolina killed two people and critically wounded several others, a sheriff said Saturday.

    Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins’ office said in a news release that 13 individuals were shot. He said early Saturday that homicide investigators and others were at the scene of the party in a rural area outside of Maxton, which is about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh near the South Carolina border.

    “There is no current threat to the community as this appears to have been an isolated incident,” the release said.

    More than 150 people fled the location before law enforcement officers arrived, Wilkins’ office said while asking that anyone with information about what happened or who were at the scene to contact sheriff’s investigators.

    More information about the shooting, including names of those who died or were injured, was not immediately released Saturday. No arrests had been announced.

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  • By the Numbers: Why Trick-Or-Treaters May Bag More Gummy Candy Than Chocolate This Halloween

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    Ghouls, goblins … and gummy bears.

    Trick-or-treaters may find more fruity candy than chocolate among their Halloween handouts this year. That should be fine with younger consumers, who have been gravitating for years toward non-chocolate candies like gummies, freeze-dried treats and other sweets that come in a variety of shapes, colors and flavors.

    Last year, 52% of the total volume of Halloween candy sold in the U.S. was made of chocolate, according to Dan Sadler, a principal for client insights at the market research company Circana. But in the 12 weeks ending Oct. 5, chocolate accounted for 44% of the Halloween candy sold in the U.S.

    Prices may be part of it. Global cocoa prices more than quadrupled between January 2023 and January 2025 due to poor harvests in West Africa, where 70% of cocoa is produced. Chocolate candy is lot more expensive as a result.

    Chocolate Halloween candy in the U.S. cost an average of $8.02 per pound in the 12 weeks ahead of Oct. 5, while non-chocolate candy cost an average of $5.77 per pound, Sadler said.

    Here’s a look at Halloween candy by the numbers:

    The amount Americans spent on Halloween candy in 2024, according to the National Confectioners Association. That was 18% of all candy sales last year.

    The number of M&M’s that Mars Inc. makes each day at the facility in Topeka, Kansas, that produces its Halloween candy.

    The price for a metric ton of cocoa in January, which was an all-time high. Cocoa prices have fallen since then, but Sadler said it will take months for consumers to see the impact of those lower prices.

    Miles between Topeka and New York. If you stretched out all the Snickers bars that Mars makes annually in Topeka, you could make that trip seven times.

    Percentage of U.S. consumers who bought candy for trick-or-treaters last year, according to Hershey. Hershey said 45% of consumers reported buying Halloween candy for themselves.

    Market share for Hershey in Halloween candy last year, making it the top performer. Hershey said its Halloween assortment — which includes Reese’s, Kit Kat and Almond Joy — was the top seller last Halloween.

    Date which Mars started rolling Halloween candy out to U.S. stores this year. Mars makes Snickers, M&Ms, Skittles, Starburst and other candies.

    Growth in dollar sales of non-chocolate candy in the U.S. in 2024, according to the National Confectioners Association. Chocolate candy sales, in comparison, grew 0.4%.

    Average number of weeks ahead of Halloween that Americans buy Halloween candy, according to Mars. Generation Z buys it sooner, around 4.5 weeks in advance.

    Amount of time Mars takes to plan for a Halloween season.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Historic Libraries Bring Modern Comfort to Book Lovers and History Buffs in New England

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    BOSTON (AP) — When David Arsenault takes down a worn, leather-bound 19th-century book from the winding shelves of the Boston Athenaeum, he feels a sense of awe — like he’s handling an artifact in a museum.

    Many of the half a million books that line the library’s seemingly endless maze of reading room shelves and stacks were printed before his great-great-grandparents were born. Among fraying copies of Charles Dickens novels, Civil War-era biographies and town genealogies, everything has a history and a heartbeat.

    “It almost feels like you shouldn’t be able to take the books out of the building, it feels so special,” said Arsenault, who visits the institution adjacent to Boston Common a few times a week. “You do feel like, and in a lot of ways, you are, in a museum — but it’s a museum you get to not feel like you’re a visitor in all the time, but really a part of.”

    The more than 200-year-old institution is one of only about 20 member-supported private libraries in the U.S. dating back to the 18th- and 19th-centuries. Called athenaeums, a Greek word meaning “temple of Athena,” the concept predates the traditional public library most Americans recognize today. The institutions were built by merchants, doctors, writers, lawyers and ministers who wanted to not only create institutions for reading — then an expensive and difficult-to-access hobby — but also space to explore culture and debate.

    Many of these athenaeums still play a vibrant role in their communities.

    Patrons gather to play games, join discussions on James Joyce, or even research family history. Others visit to explore some of the nation’s most prized artifacts, such as the largest collection from George Washington ’s personal library at Mount Vernon at the Boston Athenaeum.

    In addition to conservation work, institutions acquire and uplift the work of more modern creatives who may have been overlooked. The Boston Athenaeum recently co-debuted an exhibit by painter Allan Rohan Crite, who died in 2007 and used his canvas to depict the joy of Black life in the city.

    One thing binds all athenaeums together: books and people who love them.

    “The whole institution is built around housing the books,” said Matt Burriesci, executive director of Providence Athenaeum in Rhode Island. “The people who come to this institution really appreciate just holding a book in their hands and reading it the old-fashioned way.”

    Built to mimic an imposing Greek temple, staffers at the Providence Athenaeum often talk about the joy of watching people enter for the first time.

    Visitors must climb a series of cold, granite steps. Only then are they met with a thick wooden door that ushers them into a warm world filled with cozy reading nooks, hidden desks to leave secret messages to fellow patrons, and almost every square inch bursting with books.

    “It’s the actual time capsule of people’s reading habits over 200 years,” Burriesci said, while pointing to a first-edition of Little Women, where the pages and spine proudly showcase years of being well read.

    Many athenaeums are designed to pay tribute to Greek influence and their namesake, the goddess of wisdom. In Boston, a city once dubbed “the Athens of America,” visitors to the athenaeum are greeted by a nearly 7-foot-tall (2.1-meter-tall) bronze statue of Athena Giustiniani.

    The building is as much an art museum as it is a library.

    “So many libraries were built to be functional — this library was built to inspire,” said John Buchtel, the Boston Athenaeum’s curator of rare books and head of special collections.

    The 12-level building includes five gallery floors where ornate busts of writers and historical figures decorate reading rooms with wooden tables overlooked by book-lined pathways reachable by spiral and hidden staircases.

    Natural light shines in from large windows where guests can look down to see one of Boston’s most historic cemeteries where figures like Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock are buried.

    “We’re able to leave many of these things out for people to peruse, and I think people can often get curious about something and just follow their curiosity into things that they didn’t even know that they were going to be fascinated by,” said Boston Athenaeum executive director Leah Rosovsky.

    When athenaeums were founded, they were exclusive spaces that only people with education and money could access.

    Some are now free. Most are open to the public for day passes and tours. Memberships to the Boston Athenaeum can range from $17 to $42 a month per person, depending on whether the patron is under 40 or is sharing the membership with family members.

    Charlie Grantham, a wedding photographer and aspiring novelist, said she first visited during one of the institution’s annual community days, where the public can explore for free. She said she was surprised by how accessible it was and describes the space as “Boston’s best kept secret — an oasis in the middle of the city.”

    “It’s just so peaceful. Even if I’m still working… doing things I’m stressed out about at home, when I’m here, there’s like a stillness about it and things feel more manageable, things feel enjoyable here,” she said.

    Some people visit every day to work remotely, read or socialize, said Salem Athenaeum executive director Jean Marie Procious.

    “We do have a loneliness crisis,” she said. “And we want to encourage people to come and see us as a space to meet up with others and a safe environment that you’re not expected to buy a drink or buy a meal.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • NBA Insider Arrests Highlight Risks of Leagues Embracing Sports Betting

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    By Amy Tennery and Rory Carroll

    NEW YORK (Reuters) -The high-profile arrest of NBA insiders this week has highlighted the potential risks posed by the close relationship the four major North American men’s sports leagues have cultivated with legalized betting in the United States.

    Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and assistant coach Damon Jones were among more than 30 people charged in connection with two separate but related federal gambling investigations.

    Rozier and Jones were alleged to have provided non-public information about upcoming games to allow criminal partners to set up bets on the outcome of games or performances of individual players.

    Billups was charged in a separate case involving alleged rigging of high-stakes poker games. The indictment in the other insider information case describes an unnamed co-conspirator, but makes no mention of him.

    “Chauncey Billups has never and would never gamble on basketball games, provide insider information, or sacrifice the trust of his team and the league,” his attorney said in a statement.

    Rozier’s attorney said that he was previously cleared by the National Basketball Association, and accused prosecutors of reviving a “non-case.” Reuters was unable to reach legal representation for Jones.

    Regardless, the charges will surely bring fresh scrutiny on the relationship between online sports books and professional leagues, worth millions of dollars to both sides.

    For the leagues, their involvement risks undermining the integrity of their sports.

    Leigh Steinberg, a veteran sports agent, said the latest revelations could represent an existential threat to professional sports.

    “Part of the reason that we have the massive television contracts, massive crowds in stadiums, fantasy sports and the rest of it, is the feeling these are true contests without outside influence,” he told Reuters.

    “If, all of a sudden, these incidents keep occurring, it undercuts the public confidence in the validity of athletic contests,” he said.

    FROM RELUCTANCE TO EMBRACE

    The Supreme Court in 2018 paved the way for states to legalize sports betting. The NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League had long opposed legalization, fearing it would compromise the integrity of their games.

    Seven years later, professional sports and online betting platforms are enmeshed in a tight embrace, with ads blanketing television broadcasts and sports books available to fans on their phones and inside arenas and stadiums. With instant accessibility, and big money, the temptation for cheating can explode.

    The “Big Four” all have official betting partners. The NBA linked up with MGM Resorts International less than three months after the Supreme Court ruling in a three-year deal worth $25 million, according to ESPN.

    Three years later, the National Football League signed its first U.S. partnership with Caesars Entertainment, DraftKings and FanDuel in five-year deals that Sportico estimated was worth $1 billion.

    “This was gold rush to a new revenue source,” said Steinberg.

    Since the Supreme Court ruling, the Big Four have all suspended players for running afoul of betting rules.

    The NBA banned Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter for life last year after he was found to have limited his own in-game participation to influence the outcome of bets on his performance.

    Joe Maloney, an American Gaming Association official, said legal online betting platforms do not promote bad behavior among players but rather help leagues and authorities identify it.

    “We now have gambling policies that are enshrined in most instances in agreements between legal sports books and the leagues, but also in agreements with the leagues and their players unions,” he said.

    Each league has its own rules governing player behavior related to gambling, and online platforms allow for sophisticated tracking of possible infractions.

    DraftKings said in a statement on Thursday that online sports betting was the best way to monitor suspicious behavior.

    After the NFL suspended five players in 2023 for violating gambling policy, the players’ association warned agents that the mobile platforms can track their clients’ activity. The league also launched a robust education effort. Since 2023, it has not suspended any players for gambling.

    “Something’s working with the NFL, and the other leagues have to similarly make investments in education,” said Maloney.

    A former U.S. federal prosecutor who brought gambling cases in the past said the arrests this week should prompt pro sports to overhaul compliance from “top to bottom” and reassess deepening ties with wagering platforms.

    “If I was a team or one of the leagues themselves, I would be freaking out,” said the former prosecutor, who requested anonymity because his firm could work on cases related to the arrests.

    The broader risk lies in the structure of today’s wagering markets, particularly in player-specific bets, a type of “prop bet” related to events or statistics within a game, he said. It’s much more difficult to manipulate the outcome of a game.

    “A player can go down with an injury, or take himself out of the game, or miss a shot. It’s not the same as traditional point-shaving,” he said, referring to when a player intentionally misses shots to throw a game or manipulate a point spread.

    NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said on ESPN earlier this week that the league had asked some betting partners to limit these prop bets for more marginal players.

    (Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York and Rory Carrol in San Francisco; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bill Berkrot)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

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  • Winning Numbers Drawn in Friday’s Mega Millions

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    ATLANTA (AP) — The winning numbers in Friday evening’s drawing of the “Mega Millions” game were:

    11-18-31-51-56, Mega Ball: 24

    (eleven, eightteen, thirty-one, fifty-one, fifty-six, Mega Ball: twenty-four

    Estimated jackpot: $680 million

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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