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  • US Rejects Bid to Lease Coal From Public Lands in Utah as Sales in Western States Fall Flat

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    BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal officials rejected a mining company’s bid for 1.3 million tons of coal beneath a national forest in Utah, marking the third proposed coal sale from public lands in the West to fall through this month.

    The failed sales mark a setback in President Donald Trump’s push to revive a coal mining industry that’s been in decline for almost two decades.

    The Interior Department rejected the sole bid it received for coal on a proposed 120-acre (49-hectare) lease on the Manti-La Sal National Forest near central Utah’s Skyline Mine because it did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act, agency spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said Thursday.

    The leasing act requires companies to pay fair market value for coal mined on public lands. Sharpe declined to say how much was bid. The sale was requested by a subsidiary of Utah mining company Wolverine Fuels LLC, which operates the Skyline Mine and other coal mines in central Utah.

    Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said two weeks ago that the government will open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining. But it’s unclear who would want that fuel as utilities turn to cheaper natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar to generate electricity.

    Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change that’s raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.

    On Oct. 6, a coal sale from public lands in Montana that would have been the largest by the government in more than a decade drew a single bid of $186,000, or about one-tenth of a penny per ton of coal, and was later rejected. That lease held 167 million tons of coal in southeastern Montana near the Navajo Transition Energy Co.’s Spring Creek mine.

    Two days later the Interior Department postponed an even bigger sale — 440 million tons next to the Navajo Nation-owned company’s Antelope Mine in Wyoming.

    Sharpe repeated the Republican Trump administration’s assertion that the policies of former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were to blame for the failed sales, saying the Democrats tried “to dismantle domestic production and shake investor confidence in the industry.”

    Both Democrats attempted to curb sales of coal from public lands, only to have those policies reversed by Trump.

    Three other coal lease sales from public lands under Trump were successful. The largest, in Alabama, involved 54 million tons of coal used in steelmaking that sold last month for $46 million, or about 87 cents per ton. Two recent sales in North Dakota of leases containing a combined 30 million tons of coal brought in $186,000 total, or less than a penny per ton.

    “As demand for reliable, dispatchable power grows, coal remains a critical component of ensuring affordable and dependable energy for the American people,” Sharpe said in a statement.

    But industry analysts and economists say the biggest driver of coal’s retreat has been market forces that make other fuels more economical. Many power plants served by large mines on public lands in the West are nearing retirement.

    Environmentalists have fought for years against the expansion of Utah’s Skyline Mine. Emma Yip with the Center for Biological Diversity described the bid rejection as “yet another face-plant for the Trump administration” as it tries to prop up a dying industry.

    “Coal is among the dirtiest energy sources on Earth and burning it continues to sicken and kill Americans. There’s no defensible reason to keep it on life support when absolutely nobody wants it,” Yip said.

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

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  • Gun Safety Advocates Warn of a Surge in Untraceable 3D-Printed Weapons in the US

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    As police departments around the country report a surge in 3D-printed firearms turning up at crime scenes, gun safety advocates and law enforcement officials are warning that a new generation of untraceable weapons could soon eclipse the “ghost guns” that have already flooded U.S. streets.

    At a summit in New York City on Thursday, the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety will bring together policymakers, academics, 3D-printing industry leaders and law enforcement officials to confront the growing challenge. They fear that as the printers become cheaper and more sophisticated — and blueprints for gun parts spread rapidly online — the U.S. could be on the brink of another wave of unregulated, homemade weapons that evade serial-number tracking and background checks.

    Numbers collected by Everytown from about two dozen police departments show how quickly the problem is growing: A little over 30 3D-printed guns were recovered in 2020. By 2024, that figure had climbed above 300. While still a fraction of the tens of thousands of firearms seized each year by the nation’s nearly 18,000 police departments, the spike mirrors the early trajectory of ghost guns — build-it-yourself weapons assembled from kits that for years eluded federal regulation.

    “We are now starting to see what kind of feels very familiar,” said Nick Suplina, senior vice president of law and policy at Everytown. “It’s now at a small number of recoveries in certain major cities, such that it’s doubling or tripling year over year. We’re seeing this very familiar rate of growth and that’s why we’re getting this group together to discuss how to stop it.”

    The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives imposed new rules in 2022 requiring serial numbers, background checks and age verification for ghost-gun kits, regulations upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Lawsuits and state-level bans eventually pushed Polymer80, once the leading manufacturer of those kits, out of business in 2024.

    But 3D-printed weapons present a thornier problem. They aren’t manufactured or sold through the firearms industry, and neither 3D-printer companies nor the cloud-based platforms that host gun blueprints fall under the ATF’s authority. That leaves much of the prevention work to voluntary action and new legislation.

    In addition to seeking industry self regulations, the summit aims to bring together academics and policymakers to talk about possible legislative ways to address the issue such as creating statutes to criminalize manufacturing ghost guns or selling blueprints.

    In New York, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has pressed printer manufacturers and online platforms to take down gun designs and add safeguards against misuse. His office recently asked YouTube to remove a tutorial on printing a gun that a suspect said he found while watching a Call of Duty demonstration.

    ″So we reached out to YouTube and got their policies updated,” Bragg said. “If we were just prosecuting gun possessions rather than thinking about how to prevent these guns from getting printed and proactively talking to these companies, then we would be sorely behind the curve.”

    A major digital design platform also agreed to implement a detection and removal program earlier this year after Bragg’s office found numerous gun blueprints being shared and available for download on its site.

    Both Everytown and Bragg said companies have been receptive. Some printer makers have introduced firmware that recognizes gun part shapes and blocks the machines from producing them, an approach that advocates compare to safeguards added decades ago to prevent color printers from copying currency.

    John Amin, founder and CEO of Spanish company Print&Go, said he became fascinated with 3D printing when he was an engineering student. He voluntarily implemented a series of checks to prevent illegal weapons from being made including human oversight and automated detections.

    “We must focus on curbing misuse, not demonizing the tool. And we already have powerful ways to do just that,” Amin said.

    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 Wednesday’s Powerball

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

    10-13-28-34-47, Powerball: 15, Power Play: 3

    (ten, thirteen, twenty-eight, thirty-four, forty-seven, Powerball: fifteen, Power Play: three)

    Estimated jackpot: $273 million

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

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  • Senate Democrats, Holding Out for Health Care, Ready to Reject Government Funding Bill for 10th Time

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats are poised for the 10th time Thursday to reject a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.

    The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become as it has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor. House Republicans have left Washington altogether. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.

    “Every day that goes by, there are more and more Americans who are getting smaller and smaller paychecks,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, adding that there have been thousands of flight delays across the country as well.

    Thune, a South Dakota Republican, again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn’t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on health care, they haven’t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government.

    Democrats say they won’t budge until they get a guarantee on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces. They warned that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance — such as small business owners, farmers and contractors — will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.

    “We have to do something, and right now, Republicans are letting these tax credits expire,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

    Still, Thune was also trying a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills — a move that could grease the Senate’s wheels into some action or just deepen the divide between the two parties.


    A deadline for subsidies on health plans

    Democrats have rallied around their priorities on health care as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans is drawing short.

    When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to health care research nonprofit KFF.

    Democrats — and some Republicans — are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don’t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.

    Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.”

    “They are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored health care elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,” she added.

    Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said.

    Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP.

    House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., this week called the COVID-era subsidies a “boondoggle,” adding that “when you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”

    President Donald Trump has said he would “like to see a deal done for great health care,” but has not meaningfully weighed into the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on health care.

    If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to health care, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise.


    Votes on appropriations bills

    Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are setting up a vote Thursday to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and several other areas of government. This would turn the Senate to Thune’s priority of working through spending bills and potentially pave the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would eventually need to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers.

    Thune said it would be a step toward getting “the government funded in the traditional way, which is through the annual appropriations process.”

    It wasn’t clear whether Democrats would give the support needed to advance the bills. They discussed the idea at their luncheon Wednesday and emerged saying they wanted to review the Republican proposal and make sure it included appropriations that are priorities for them.

    While the votes will not bring the Senate any closer to an immediate fix for the government shutdown, it could at least turn their attention to issues where there is some bipartisan agreement.

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

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  • Trump Hosts Glitzy Dinner for Wealthy Donors to New White House Ballroom

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a massive new ballroom.

    All four sides of the ballroom — which Trump said will be large and grand enough to hold even a presidential inauguration — will be made of bulletproof glass, with its color, window shape and molding keeping in character with the White House. Trump indicated that the fundraising and managing costs for the “phenomenal” ballroom were going well, predicting that he would have money left over after the project is done.

    “To me, there’s nothing like the White House,” Trump said, later adding, “It’s just a special place so we have to take care of it.”

    Men in business suits and women in cocktail attire sat at a dozen round tables, decorated with tall, tapered candles and white floral arrangements, and sipped wine and water as they awaited their dinner to be served on gold-trimmed plates. Later, they would dine on an heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef Wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice cream.

    Among the companies that had representatives at the dinner, according to a White House official, were Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton, Coinbase, Comcast, Google, Lockheed Martin, Meta Platforms and T-Mobile. The Adelson Family Foundation, founded by GOP megadonors Miriam Adelson and her late husband Sheldon, also had a presence there.

    Oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, Small Business Administration chief Kelly Loeffler and her husband, Jeff Sprecher, and crypto entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss were all on the guest list. The list of attendees was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

    Also attending the dinner were Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager from his 2024 reelection bid; Reince Priebus, a White House chief of staff during Trump’s first term; and Jason Miller, another longtime political adviser.

    The new ballroom is planned for the area where the East Wing is located and will encompass 90,000 square feet. The White House has previously said it will have a 650-person capacity, but Trump on Wednesday night said it will be able to hold up to 999 people.

    The ballroom project has yet to receive approvals from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, although White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who was also tapped by Trump to lead the planning commission, says approval is not needed. The commission vets construction of federal buildings.

    At the dinner, Trump said there are no zoning requirements for him as the president of the United States and he can do whatever he wants with the construction.

    The president has repeatedly complained that large White House events require construction of a tent on the South Lawn, since the East Room – the current largest space at the White House – can accommodate only about 200 people.

    At the dinner, Trump also formally unveiled another project: an arch that will stand on one end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which crosses the Potomac River and connects Virginia and the District of Columbia. He showed off several miniature models of the proposed arch — which will feature Lady Liberty on top — in three sizes, although Trump acknowledged that the largest was his favorite.

    “It’s going to be really beautiful,” Trump said.

    Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • What to Know About Deporting Family Members of US Troops

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    Trump’s new immigration tactics follow years of the military recruiting from immigrant communities to fill out its ranks and touting the immigration benefits for enlistees’ families.

    Along with possible protection from deportation, enlisting in the military meant often meant deference in your family’s immigration cases and a better shot at a green card.

    Those benefits were used by the armed forces to recruit more people, and, as of last year, an estimated 40,000 people were serving in the military without citizenship.

    Under President Joe Biden, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement considered your and your immediate family’s military service as a “significant mitigating factor” when making immigration decisions, such as removal from the country.

    The idea was to boost recruitment and maintain morale, fearing that it could take a hit if a service member’s family was deported.


    What did the Trump administration change?

    The administration issued a memo in February doing away with the older approach.

    It said that immigration authorities “will no longer exempt” categories of people that had been afforded more grace in the past.

    That included families of service members or veterans, said Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert.


    Do certain crimes void the protections?

    They can, but Stock said there’s no explicit list of convictions that would make someone ineligible for protections and that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can waive factoring in criminal convictions in making an immigration decision.


    Have other military members’ families been detained?


    Will this impact recruitment to the U.S. Armed Forces?

    The military has struggled in the past to meet recruitment numbers.

    That’s partly because there aren’t enough U.S. citizens without immigrant family members to meet the need, said Stock, a retired lieutenant colonel in the military police, U.S. Army Reserve, who taught law at West Point during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

    The immigration benefits for a recruit and their family were key to expanding the military’s ranks, said Stock, and recruitment would suffer without them.

    The Marine Corps told The Associated Press last month that recruiters have been told that they “are not the proper authority” to “imply that Marine Corps can secure immigration relief for applicants or their families.”

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  • UN Warns Colombia Over Mercury Contamination in Atrato River, Calls Crisis a Human Rights Emergency

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    BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The United Nations warned that mercury contamination from illegal gold mining in Colombia’s Atrato River basin has created a “serious and ongoing human rights crisis,” threatening the health and survival of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities who depend on the river for food, water and culture.

    In a letter made public on Tuesday, three U.N. Human Rights Council special rapporteurs raised concerns with the Colombian government about insufficient compliance with a 2016 Constitutional Court ruling that recognized the Atrato River as a legal entity with rights to protection and restoration.

    “Ten years have passed and we have seen that there has been insufficient implementation and compliance with the terms of that decision,” Marcos Orellana, the U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, told The Associated Press. “A big part of the problem stems from the presence of organized crime — smuggling mercury, smuggling gold, and corruption in military and police forces.”

    The Atrato River, one of Colombia’s largest waterways, winds nearly 500 miles from the western Andes to the Caribbean Sea through the lush jungles of Choco, one of the country’s most biodiverse yet impoverished regions. It’s home to predominantly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities that rely on fishing and small-scale farming — livelihoods now imperiled by toxic pollution.

    Illegal gold mining is now among the main drivers of deforestation and pollution across many of Latin America’s Amazon regions. Soaring gold prices and weak traceability systems have fueled demand for illicitly mined gold that often slips into global supply chains. The mercury used to extract the metal has devastated wildlife — including river dolphins and fish — and contaminated the food sources of Indigenous communities in remote areas of the Amazon.


    More than a third of population exposed to mercu

    AP reporting last year showed how local residents — charged with safeguarding the river — act as watchguards of illegal mining and the health of the river, often under threat from armed groups.

    Orellana said the U.N. received evidence showing that more than a third of the population in the Atrato watershed has been exposed to mercury levels exceeding World Health Organization limits. He called the situation “incredibly concerning,” citing the metal’s extreme toxicity and its ability to cause neurological damage, organ failure and developmental disorders in unborn children.

    The 2016 court ruling was hailed globally as a milestone in environmental law, inspiring similar “rights of nature” initiatives elsewhere. But Orellana said political turnover, lack of funding and alleged corruption have undermined enforcement.

    “Complying with a court decision requires institutional commitment over the long term,” he said. “Politics can interfere, and reality kicks in when budgets don’t follow.”

    The letter — cosigned by the special rapporteur on the right to a healthy environment and the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent — was sent to the Colombian government more than 60 days ago, Orellana said, but has not yet received a response. Under standard U.N. procedures, governments are given 60 days to reply to such communications before they are made public.

    “It is my expectation that the government will reply, giving effect to its obligations under international human rights law,” he said.

    Colombia’s presidential office and Environment Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.


    Illegal mining linked to slavery, prostitution and displacement

    In their communication, the U.N. rapporteurs described the mercury contamination as a violation of the rights to health, life and a clean environment. They urged Colombia to take “immediate and effective” steps to curb illegal mining, clean up polluted sites and provide medical care for affected communities.

    Mercury is commonly used in small-scale gold mining to separate gold from sediment, but when released into rivers it poisons fish and builds up in human tissue. Colombia banned mercury use in mining in 2018, yet enforcement remains weak — especially in conflict zones dominated by armed groups and criminal networks.

    Orellana said his office has received evidence of slavery like labor, forced prostitution and displacement linked to illegal mining operations in the Atrato region.

    “These forms of violence and violations of human rights accompany mercury contamination and must be treated as environmental crimes,” he said.

    He urged Colombia to take a leading role in strengthening international mercury controls under the Minamata Convention on Mercury, saying current global regulations have “gaps that need to be closed” to curb cross-border trade.

    Meaningful progress, Orellana added, would mean seeing a decline in the number of hectares being mined — which has increased since the 2016 ruling — and ensuring communities have access not just to testing but to specialized health care and clear guidance on how to reduce exposure.

    “The human rights of victims are at stake,” he said. “International law requires states to respect and guarantee rights — not for one day or for one week, but all the time.”

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

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  • Florida Judge Grants Protective Order Against US Rep. Cory Mills at Request of Ex-Girlfriend

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    LAKE CITY, Florida (AP) — A Florida judge has granted a protective order against Republican U.S. Rep. Cory Mills at the request of a former girlfriend who claimed that he threatened to release nude images of her and physically harm her future boyfriends after she broke up with him.

    Under the order issued Tuesday by Circuit Judge Fred Koberlein in Columbia County, Florida, Mills can have no contact with his ex-girlfriend and may not go within 500 feet of her residence or where she works. Mills also is prohibited from referring to her on social media.

    The order is in effect through the end of the year, and any violation can result in a fine or imprisonment.

    The order was issued following an earlier hearing before the judge in Lake City, about 60 miles east of Jacksonville. After hearing testimony, the judge said he had concluded that the woman was either a victim of dating violence or that she had reason to believe she was in danger of becoming a victim of dating violence.

    Mills has previously called the allegations “false” and said they misrepresented the nature of their interactions. His attorney, John Terhune, didn’t respond to an emailed inquiry on Wednesday, and a spokeswoman also didn’t respond to an email asking for comment about the order. In August, when the allegations first surfaced, Mills said they were being pushed by a former political opponent

    The 26-year-old woman told Columbia County Sheriff’s Office investigators that she had started a romantic relationship with the 45-year-old Mills in 2021, and it ended in February. During their time together, she lived with him at a home in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, while the congressman traveled back and forth from Washington. At the time they met, Mills was still married but had separated from his wife, and he told her that the divorce was finalized in 2024, she said.

    The woman said she moved out of the New Smyrna Beach home earlier this year and moved to Columbia County following news reports about domestic disturbance allegations against Mills from another woman described as his girlfriend in Washington.

    Mills was first elected to Congress in 2022, and his district stretches from the Orlando area to the Daytona Beach area.

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  • Storm Decimates 2 Alaskan Villages and Drives More Than 1,500 People From Their Homes

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    JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — More rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaskan coast where two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong and officials were scrambling to find shelter for more than 1,500 people driven from their homes.

    The weekend storm brought high winds and surf that battered the low-lying Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the southwestern part of the state, nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Anchorage. At least one person was killed and two were missing. The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea.

    Hundreds were staying in school shelters, including one with no working toilets, officials said. The weather system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier.

    Across the region, more than 1,500 people were displaced. Dozens were flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel, a community of 6,000 people, and officials were considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

    The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380. They are off the state’s main road system and reachable this time of year only by water or by air.

    “It’s catastrophic in Kipnuk. Let’s not paint any other picture,” Mark Roberts, incident commander with the state emergency management division, told a news conference Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community, but it is as bad as you can think.”

    Among those awaiting evacuation to Bethel on Tuesday was Brea Paul, of Kipnuk, who said in a text message that she had seen about 20 homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night.

    “Some houses would blink their phone lights at us like they were asking for help but we couldn’t even do anything,” she wrote.

    The following morning, she recorded video of a house submerged nearly to its roofline as it floated past her home.

    Paul and her neighbors had a long meeting in the local school gym on Monday night. They sang songs as they tried to figure out what to do next, she said. Paul wasn’t sure where she would go.

    “It’s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our community members not knowing when we’d get to see each other,” she said.

    About 30 miles (48 kilometers) away in Kwigillingok, one woman was found dead and authorities on Monday night called off the search for two men whose home floated away.

    The school was the only facility in town with full power, but it had no working toilet and 400 people stayed there Monday night. Workers were trying to fix the bathrooms; a situation report from the state emergency operations center on Tuesday noted that portable toilets, or “honey buckets,” were being used.

    A preliminary assessment showed every home in the village was damaged by the storm, with about three dozen having drifted from their foundations, the emergency management office said.

    Power systems flooded in Napakiak, and severe erosion was reported in Toksook Bay. In Nightmute, officials said fuel drums were reported floating in the community, and there was a scent of fuel in the air and a sheen on the water.

    The National Guard was activated to help with the emergency response, and crews were trying to take advantage of any breaks in the weather to fly in food, water, generators and communication equipment.


    Long road to recovery ahead, officials say

    Officials warned of a long road to recovery and a need for continued support for the hardest-hit communities. Most rebuilding supplies would have to be transported in and there is little time left with winter just around the corner.

    “Indigenous communities in Alaska are resilient,” said Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “But, you know, when you have an entire community where effectively every house is damaged and many of them will be uninhabitable with winter knocking at the door now, there’s only so much that any individual or any small community can do.”

    Thoman said the storm was likely fueled by the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, which has been heating up because of human-caused climate change and making storms more intense.

    Johnson and Attanasio reported from Seattle.

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  • Trump Officials Back Firm in Fight Over California Offshore Oil Drilling After Huge Spill

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    When the corroded pipeline burst in 2015, inky crude spread along the Southern California coast, becoming the state’s worst oil spill in decades.

    More than 140,000 gallons (3,300 barrels) of oil gushed out, blackening beaches for 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, polluting a biologically rich habitat for endangered whales and sea turtles, killing scores of pelicans, seals and dolphins, and decimating the fishing industry.

    Plains All American Pipeline in 2022 agreed to a $230 million settlement with fishers and coastal property owners without admitting liability. Federal inspectors found that the Houston-based company failed to quickly detect the rupture and responded too slowly. It faced an uphill battle to build a new pipeline.

    Three decades-old drilling platforms were subsequently shuttered, but another Texas-based fossil fuel company supported by the Trump administration purchased the operation and is intent on pumping oil through the pipeline again.

    Sable Offshore Corp., headquartered in Houston, is facing a slew of legal challenges but is determined to restart production, even if that means confining it to federal waters, where state regulators have virtually no say. California controls the 3 miles (5 kilometers) nearest to shore. The platforms are 5 to 9 miles (8 to 14 kilometers) offshore.

    The Trump administration has hailed Sable’s plans as the kind of project the president wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers. President Donald Trump has directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to undo his predecessor’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts.


    Environmentalist sue to stop the project

    “This project risks another environmental disaster in California at a time when demand for oil is going down and the climate crisis is escalating,” said Alex Katz, executive director of Environmental Defense Center, the Santa Barbara group formed in response to a massive spill in 1969.

    The environmental organization is among several suing Sable.

    “Our concern is that there is no way to make this pipeline safe and that this company has proven that it cannot be trusted to operate safely, responsibly or even legally,” he said.

    Actor and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who lives in the area, has implored officials to stop Sable, saying at a March protest: “I can smell a rat. And this project is a rat.”

    The California Coastal Commission fined Sable a record $18 million for ignoring cease-and-desist orders over repair work it says was done without permits. Sable said it has permits from the previous owner, Exxon Mobil, and sued the commission while work continued on the pipeline. In June, a state judge ordered it to stop while the case proceeds through the court. The commission and Sable are due back in court Wednesday.

    “This fly-by-night oil company has repeatedly abused the public’s trust, racking up millions of dollars in fines and causing environmental damage along the treasured Gaviota Coast,” a state park south of Santa Barbara, said Joshua Smith, the commission’s spokesman.


    Sable keeps moving forward

    So far, Sable is undeterred.

    The California Attorney General’s office sued Sable this month, saying it illegally discharged waste into waterways, and disregarded state law requiring permits before work along the pipeline route that crosses sensitive wildlife habitat.

    “Sable placed profits over environmental protection in its rush to get oil on the market,” the agency said in its lawsuit.

    Last month, the Santa Barbara District Attorney filed felony criminal charges against Sable, also accusing it of polluting waterways and harming wildlife.

    Sable said it has fully cooperated with local and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and called the district attorney’s allegation “inflammatory and extremely misleading.” It said a biologist and state fire marshal officials oversaw the work, and no wildlife was harmed.

    The company is seeking $347 million for the delays, and says if the state blocks it from restarting the onshore pipeline system, it will use a floating facility that would keep its entire operation in federal waters and use tankers to transport the oil to markets outside California. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, the company updated its plan to include the option.


    Fulfilling the president’s energy promise

    The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said in July it was working with Sable to bring a second rig online.

    “President Trump made it clear that American energy should come from American resources,” the agency’s deputy director Kenny Stevens said in a statement then, heralding the “comeback story for Pacific production.”

    The agency said there are an estimated 190 million barrels (6 billion gallons) of recoverable oil reserves in the area, nearly 80% of residual Pacific reserves. It noted advancements in preventing and preparing for oil spills and said the failed pipeline has been rigorously tested.

    “Continuous monitoring and improved technology significantly reduce the risk of a similar incident occurring in the future,” the agency said.


    CEO says project could lower gas prices

    On May 19 — the 10th anniversary of the disaster — CEO Jim Flores announced that Sable “is proud to have safely and responsibly achieved first production at the Santa Ynez Unit” — which includes three rigs in federal waters, offshore and onshore pipelines, and the Las Flores Canyon Processing Facility.

    State officials countered that the company had only conducted testing and not commercial production. Sable’s stock price dropped and some investors sued, alleging they were misled.

    Sable purchased the Santa Ynez Unit from Exxon Mobil in 2024 for nearly $650 million primarily with a loan from Exxon. Exxon sold the shuttered operation after losing a court battle in 2023 to truck the crude through central California while the pipeline system was rebuilt or repaired.

    Flores said well tests at the Platform Harmony rig indicate there is much oil to be extracted and that it will relieve California’s gas prices — among the nation’s highest — by stabilizing supplies.

    “Sable is very concerned about the crumbling energy complex in California,” Flores said in a statement to The Associated Press. “With the exit of two refineries last year and more shuttering soon, California’s economy cannot survive without the strong energy infrastructure it enjoyed for the last 150 years.”

    California has been reducing the state’s production of fossil fuels in favor of clean energy for years. The movement has been spearheaded partly by Santa Barbara County, where elected officials voted in May to begin taking steps to phase out onshore oil and gas operations.

    Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana contributed to this report.

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  • Florida Judge Temporarily Blocks Transfer of Downtown Miami Land for Trump’s Presidential Library

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    A Florida judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the planned transfer of prime downtown Miami land for Donald Trump’s future presidential library.

    The move by Circuit Judge Mavel Ruiz came after a Miami activist alleged that officials at a local college violated Florida‘s open government law when they gifted the sizable plot of real estate to the state, which then voted to transfer it to the foundation for the planned presidential library.

    The nearly 3-acre (1.2-hectare) property is valued at more than $67 million, according to a 2025 assessment by the Miami-Dade County property appraiser. One of the last undeveloped lots on an iconic stretch of palm tree-lined Biscayne Boulevard, one real estate expert wagered that the parcel could sell for hundreds of millions of dollars more.

    Marvin Dunn, an activist and chronicler of local Black history, filed a lawsuit this month in a Miami-Dade County court against the Board of Trustees for Miami Dade College, a state-run school that owned the property. He alleges that the board violated Florida’s Government in the Sunshine law by not providing sufficient notice for its special meeting on Sept. 23, when it voted to give up the land, and he’s seeking to block the land transfer.

    ___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • 31,000 Kaiser Permanente Nurses and Other Health Care Workers Strike for Better Wages and Staffing

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    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers went on strike Tuesday to demand better wages and staffing from the California-based health care giant.

    Organizers say the five-day strike across 500 medical centers and offices in California, Hawaii and Oregon is the largest in the 50-year history of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. The strike could grow to include 46,000 people.

    Those on strike, including pharmacists, midwives and rehab therapists, say wages have not kept pace with inflation and there is not enough staffing to keep up with patient demand.

    They are asking for a 25% wage increase over four years to make up for wages they say are at least 7% behind their peers.

    Kaiser Permanente has countered with a 21.5% increase over four years. The company says that represented employees earn, on average, 16% more than their peers, and it would have to charge customers more to meet strikers’ pay demand.

    The company said health clinics and hospitals will remain open during the strike, with some in-person appointments shifted to virtual appointments, and some elective surgeries and procedures being rescheduled.

    Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.6 million members at 600 medical offices and 40 hospitals in largely western U.S. states. It is based in Oakland, California.

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  • Appeals Court Backs Michigan School in Banning ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Shirts

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    SAND LAKE, Mich. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled in favor of a Michigan school district in a dispute over free speech and “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts, clothing that took a jab at then-President Joe Biden.

    The mother of two boys, who got the shirts as Christmas gifts, said her sons’ First Amendment rights were violated when they were told to take off the shirts at Tri County Middle School in 2022. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed in 2-1 opinion.

    “In the schoolhouse, vulgarity trumps politics. And the protection for political speech doesn’t give a student carte blanche to use vulgarity at school — even when that vulgarity is cloaked in innuendo or euphemism,” said judges John Nalbandian and Karen Nelson Moore.

    In 2021, an obscenity directed at Biden was being chanted at a NASCAR race, though a TV sports reporter said it was “Let’s Go, Brandon.” The line suddenly became popular among Biden’s conservative critics.

    The school said it wasn’t prohibiting political messages, just vulgar ones. There was evidence that some students wore clothing that said, “Make America Great Again,” or had messages supporting President Donald Trump.

    Judge John Bush disagreed with the majority opinion and said the wrong legal standard was applied.

    “The phrase at issue here is a euphemism for political criticism. It contains no sexual content, no graphic imagery, and no actual profanity,” he said. “To the extent that it implies an offensive phrase, it does so obliquely — by design.”

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  • OpenAI Partners With Walmart to Let Users Buy Products in ChatGPT, Furthering Chatbot Shopping Push

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    In an Tuesday announcement, Walmart said the new offering will give customers the option to “simply chat and buy.” That means the retailer’s products would be available through instant checkout in ChatGPT — allowing users to buy anything from meal ingredients or household items, to other goods they might be discussing with the chatbot.

    “For many years now, eCommerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a prepared statement. “That is about to change.”

    Sam Altman, cofounder and CEO of OpenAI, added that the partnership would “make everyday purchases a little simpler.”

    The companies didn’t immediately specify when ChatGPT users would be able to start purchasing Walmart products within the platform. Tuesday’s announcement from Walmart just noted that the offering would be available “soon.”

    But the partnership marks OpenAI’s latest expansion into online commerce. The company has recently launched similar offerings for Shopify and Etsy sellers.

    Teaming up with Walmart — the nation’s largest retailer — marks an even more sizeable leap for OpenAI in this space. And competing with the likes of Amazon and Google for purchase fees from digital shopping could be a new source of money for the company. OpenAI hasn’t made a profit and has relied on investors to back the costs of building and running its powerful AI systems.

    When announcing its Etsy and Shopify partnerships last month, OpenAI said it worked with payments company Stripe on the technical standards to enable purchases through its “Instant Checkout” system.

    Separately, Walmart has worked to boost its own integration of AI across operations and its consumer-facing offerings in recent years. On Tuesday, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company pointed to its AI shopping assistant named Sparky — as well as other uses of AI technology in product catalogues and customer care for both Walmart and Sam’s Club. Members of Sam’s Club, which is owned by Walmart, will also be able to shop through the coming ChatGPT offering.

    Shares of Walmart were up more than 5% by Tuesday afternoon trading.

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  • Some Airports Refuse to Play Noem Video on Shutdown Impact, Saying It’s Political

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    Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (AP) — Some airports around the country are refusing to play a video with a message from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in which she blames Democrats for the federal government shutdown and its impacts on TSA operations because of its political content.

    Airports in Las Vegas, Charlotte, Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle and more say the video goes against their airport policy or regulations which prohibit political messaging in their facilities.

    Various government agencies, in emails to workers and on websites, have adopted language that blames Democrats for the shutdown, with some experts arguing it could be in violation of the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricts certain political activities by federal employees.

    The shutdown has halted routine operations and left airports scrambling with flight disruptions. Democrats say any deal to reopen the government has to address their health care demands, and Republicans say they won’t negotiate until they agree to fund the government. Insurance premiums would double if Congress fails to renew the subsidy payments that expire Dec. 31.

    In the video, Noem says that TSA’s “top priority” is to help make travel pleasant and efficient while keeping passengers safe.

    “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay,” she continues.

    The Transportation Security Administration falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Roughly 61,000 of the agency’s 64,130 employees are required to continue working during the shutdown. The Department said Friday that the video is being rolled out to airports across the country.

    A DHS spokeswoman responded to a request for comment restating some of the message from Noem’s video.

    “It’s unfortunate our workforce has been put in this position due to political gamesmanship. Our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.

    The Harry Reid International Airport, in Las Vegas, said it had to “remain mindful of the Hatch Act’s restrictions.”

    “Per airport regulations, the terminals and surrounding areas are not designated public forums, and the airport’s intent is to avoid the use of the facility for political or religious advocacy,” the statement said.

    Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said the county north of New York City won’t play the video at its local airport. In a statement, he called the video “inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials,” and said its tone is “unnecessarily alarmist” as it relates to operations at Westchester County Airport.

    “At a time when we should be focused on ensuring stability, collaboration and preparedness, this type of messaging only distracts from the real issues, and undermines public trust,” he said. ___

    Associated Press writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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  • Alec and Stephen Baldwin Escape Injury After Their Vehicle Hits a Tree in New York

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    EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — Alec Baldwin and his younger brother Stephen escaped injury when their vehicle struck a tree in New York.

    In a video posted to Instagram late Monday, Alec Baldwin said he was driving his wife’s Range Rover in East Hampton on Monday when he was cut off by a garbage truck “the size of a whale.” The 67-year-old actor and his 59-year-old brother and fellow actor were in the vehicle on their way back from attending the Hamptons International Film Festival, where Alec Baldwin serves as co-chair of the Executive Committee.

    Alec Baldwin said that neither he nor his brother were injured, but the vehicle they were in had extensive damage. The elder Baldwin also thanked East Hampton police for their response to and handling of the crash. No other injuries were reported in the accident.

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  • Rare October Storm Brings Heavy Rain and Possible Mudslides to Southern California

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some homes were ordered evacuated in wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods as Southern California was hit by a rare October storm that was expected to pummel the region with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslides.

    “We’re very concerned about the weather,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a news conference Monday night, explaining that strike teams, rescue teams and helicopters were all ready to respond.

    The evacuations covered about 115 homes mostly in Pacific Palisades and Mandeville Canyon, both struck by a massive inferno in January that killed more than 30 people in all and destroyed over 17,000 homes and buildings in Los Angeles County. Wildfires can leave hillsides without vegetation to hold soil in place, making it easier for the terrain to loosen during storms.

    Bass and other officials warned residents across the region to remain alert and stay indoors. The worst was expected to begin early Tuesday and carry through the afternoon, and more than 16,000 had already lost power as of Monday night, according to PowerOutage.us.

    The storm could result in up to 4 inches (10.2 centimeters) of rain in some areas, according to the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office, which described it as a “rare and very potent storm system.”

    Ariel Cohen, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service in Los Angeles, said the storm could even bring a couple of tornadoes, and one major challenge is its unpredictability.

    “The nature of this system is such that we cannot be certain about exactly when and where these impacts will strike, the exact details until right before they occur at the earliest,” he said.

    Teams from the Los Angeles Fire Department had started patrolling the area Monday night and a section of state Route 27, beginning at the Pacific Coast Highway, was closed in preparation for the storm, the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans, said on social media.

    The weather service also warned of high winds that could knock down trees and power lines.

    To the north, up to 3 feet (1 meter) of mountain snow was predicted for parts of the Sierra Nevadas.

    Heavy rain had already started falling Monday evening across much of Northern California, bringing some urban flooding around the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Gladstones Restaurant, located along the Pacific Coast Highway, said it was closing on Tuesday in anticipation of the heavy rains. The Pacific Palisades establishment is located at an intersection that has experienced heavy debris flow during past rains.

    In February, torrential rains unleashed debris flows and mudslides in several neighborhoods torched by the January fires. In the community of Sierra Madre, near the site of the Eaton Fire, water, debris and boulders rushed down the mountain, trapping cars in the mud and damaging several home garages. A portion of the Pacific Coast Highway by Pacific Palisades was submerged in at least 3 feet of sludge, and a swift debris flow swept a Los Angeles Fire Department vehicle into the ocean.

    Concerns about post-fire debris flows have been especially high since 2018, when the town of Montecito, up the coast from Los Angeles, was ravaged by mudslides after a downpour hit mountain slopes burned bare by a huge blaze. Hundreds of homes were damaged and 23 people died.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., Typhoon Halong brought hurricane-force winds and ravaging storm surges and floodwaters that swept some homes away in Alaska over the weekend. One person was dead and two were missing in western Alaska on Monday, while more than 50 people had been rescued — some plucked from rooftops.

    Officials warned of a long road to recovery and a need for continued support for the hardest-hit communities with winter just around the corner.

    In Tempe, Arizona, a microburst and thunderstorm on Monday dropped about a half-inch of rain within 10 minutes, the National Weather Service said. The storm caused significant damage, including uprooting trees that toppled onto vehicles and buildings, and dropping them on streets and sidewalks. A business complex had its roof torn off, and thousands of homes lost power.

    Golden reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer contributed from Juneau, Alaska.

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  • China Sanctions 5 US Units of South Korean Shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean Over Probe by Washington

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    HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Commerce Ministry said Tuesday it was banning dealings by Chinese companies with five subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean in the latest swipe by Beijing at U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to rebuild the industry in America.

    The ministry also announced that it was also investigating a probe by Washington into China’s growing dominance in world shipbuilding and threatened more retaliatory measures. It said the U.S. probe endangers China’s national security and its shipping industry and cited Hanwha’s involvement in the investigation.

    The U.S. Trade Representative launched the Section 301 trade investigation in April 2024. It determined that China’s strength in the industry was a burden to U.S. businesses.

    “China just weaponized shipbuilding,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “Beijing is signaling it will hit third-country firms that help Washington counter China’s maritime dominance.”

    International shipping and shipbuilding have yet another areas of friction between Washington and Beijing. Each side has imposed new port fees on each others’ vessels that took effect on Tuesday.

    Hanwha Ocean’s shares traded in South Korea fell as much as over 8% on Tuesday.

    The company said Tuesday via email that it was reviewing the situation.

    The sanctioned entities are Hanwha Shipping LLC, Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean USA International LLC, Hanwha Shipping Holdings LLC and HS USA Holdings Corp.

    A truce in the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies appears to have unraveled after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a new 100% tariff on imports from China, expressing frustration over new Chinese export controls on rare earths.

    The escalation of antagonisms raised doubts over whether Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go ahead with a meeting planned for late this month. But Beijing said on Tuesday that China and the U.S. held working-level talks on Monday and have maintained communication.

    South Korea and the U.S. have been building closer ties in shipbuilding in response to China’s dominance as the world’s largest shipbuilder.

    Last year, Hanwha Ocean also secured contracts with the U.S. Navy to perform maintenance, repair and overhaul work for U.S. naval vessels.

    China said its new port fees would apply to ships owned by U.S. companies or other entities or individuals, those operated by U.S. entities including those having a U.S. stake of 25% or more, vessels flying a U.S. flag and vessels built in the United States, mirroring in many aspects the U.S.’s port fees on Chinese ships.

    U.S. businesses represents just 2.9% of world fleet ownership by capacity and 0.1% of global shipbuilding tonnage. Trump has vowed to help rebuild the industry as part of his broader push to expand U.S.-based manufacturing.

    Hanwha Ocean said in May that it was withdrawing from a joint venture in China.

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  • California’s Newsom Signs a Reparations Study Law but Vetoes Other Racial Justice Proposals

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom delivered a mixed bag Monday for proponents of bills aimed at addressing the state’s legacy of racist and discriminatory policies against Black Americans.

    He signed a law authorizing $6 million for California State University to study how to confirm an individual’s status as a descendant of an enslaved person.

    But he vetoed other bills the California Legislative Black Caucus championed as tools to atone for the state’s history.

    One of them would have authorized public and private colleges to give admissions preference to descendants of enslaved people. Another would have required the state to investigate claims from families who say their property was taken by the government unjustly on the basis of race through eminent domain. A third would have set aside 10% of the money from a loan program for first-time homebuyers for descendants of enslaved people.

    Democratic Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, who authored the university admissions preference bill, said Newsom’s veto was “more than disappointing.”

    “While the Trump Administration threatens our institutions of higher learning and attacks the foundations of diversity and inclusivity, now is not the time to shy away from the fight to protect students who have descended from legacies of harm and exclusion,” he said in a statement.

    But Newsom called the bill unnecessary, saying colleges already have the authority to make such admissions decisions.

    A first-in-the-nation state task force studying reparations for African Americans released a report in 2023 recommending how California should offer redress for descendants of Black people who were in the U.S. in the 19th century. The Black caucus introduced a slate of bills over the past two years inspired by the report in an effort to fight decades of discrimination in housing, education, the criminal justice system and other areas. None of the proposals on Newsom’s desk would have directly paid descendants of enslaved people.

    California entered the union as a free state in 1850. In practice, it sanctioned slavery and approved policies and practices that thwarted Black people from owning homes and starting businesses. Black families were terrorized, their communities aggressively policed and their neighborhoods polluted, according to the task force’s report.

    Newsom signed a law last week creating a Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to verify Black Californians’ family lineage and determine their eligibility for possible reparations programs. Lawmakers blocked a similar bill in the Legislature last year.

    Democratic state Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson, who chairs the Black caucus and authored the law, said it will help the state acknowledge its painful past.

    “This bill represents hope, responsibility, and a commitment to make right what was wrong for far too long,” she said.

    But some advocates said the bill will delay true reparations and have urged lawmakers to introduce proposals to directly compensate descendants of enslaved people.

    “Let’s be clear — SB 518 is not real Reparations, nor is it a step closer to real Reparations,” said Chris Lodgson, spokesperson for reparations advocacy group, the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California. “Reparations delayed, Reparations diverted, is Reparations denied.”

    Bryan introduced the university admissions bill more than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. California also has a state law voters approved in 1996 banning the state from giving preferential treatment based on race, sex, ethnicity, color or national origin in public employment, education or contracting.

    Newsom said he didn’t sign the bill aimed at increasing first-time homebuyer assistance for descendants of enslaved people because creating an “ancestry-based set-aside” could pose legal risks.

    Under the eminent domain bill, the state’s Civil Rights Department would have determined whether a family is entitled to have their property returned or be compensated by the state or a local government. Newsom rejected it because, he said, the agency lacks the expertise to implement it successfully.

    He vetoed a similar bill last year since it was tied to another proposal lawmakers blocked that would have created an agency to administer reparations programs.

    The governor signed a law last year to formally apologize for slavery and its lingering effects on Black Californians.

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  • New York Times, AP, Newsmax Among News Outlets Who Say They Won’t Sign New Pentagon Rules

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    News organizations including The New York Times, The Associated Press and the conservative Newsmax television network said Monday they will not sign a Defense Department document about its new press rules, making it likely the Trump administration will evict their reporters from the Pentagon.

    Those outlets say the policy threatens to punish them for routine news gathering protected by the First Amendment. The Washington Post and The Atlantic on Monday also publicly joined the group that says it will not be signing.

    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reacted by posting the Times’ statement on X and adding a hand-waving emoji. His team has said that reporters who don’t acknowledge the policy in writing by Tuesday must turn in badges admitting them to the Pentagon and clear out their workspaces the next day.

    The new rules bar journalist access to large swaths of the Pentagon without an escort and say Hegseth can revoke press access to reporters who ask anyone in the Defense Department for information — classified or otherwise — that he has not approved for release.

    Newsmax, whose on-air journalists are generally supportive of President Donald Trump’s administration, said that “we believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”

    Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the rules establish “common sense media procedures.”

    “The policy does not ask for them to agree, just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is,” Parnell said. “This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online. We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”

    Hegseth also reposted a question from a follower who asked, “Is this because they can’t roam the Pentagon freely? Do they believe they deserve unrestricted access to a highly classified military installation under the First Amendment?”

    Hegseth answered, “yes.” Reporters say neither of those assertions is true.

    Pentagon reporters say signing the statement amounts to admitting that reporting any information that hasn’t been government-approved is harming national security. “That’s simply not true,” said David Schulz, director of Yale University’s Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.

    Journalists have said they’ve long worn badges and don’t access classified areas, nor do they report information that risks putting any Americans in harm’s way.

    “The Pentagon certainly has the right to make its own policies, within the constraints of the law,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement on Monday. “There is no need or justification, however, for it to require reporters to affirm their understanding of vague, likely unconstitutional policies as a precondition to reporting from Pentagon facilities.”

    Noting that taxpayers pay nearly $1 trillion annually to the U.S. military, Times Washington bureau chief Richard Stevenson said “the public has a right to know how the government and military are operating.”

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