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  • Morgan Wallen Denied Throwing Chair off Bar Roof to Police in 2024, Footage Shows

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    Roughly two weeks after his April 2024 arrest, Wallen commented on social media: “I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility” and said he “made amends” with Nashville law enforcement and others. Then in December, he pleaded guilty to two counts.

    The Metro Nashville Police Department released the footage of Wallen’s arrest, captured by several officers’ body and cruiser cameras, in response to a public records request from the AP. A previously released arrest affidavit did not get into the details of what Wallen told officers.


    A broken chair by Chief’s

    A police car camera shows two officers, who were standing outside, react to something apparently falling from above on a late Sunday night. And one officer’s body camera video begins with a shot of a broken chair in the road near his parked police cruiser, close to Chief’s on Broadway, in the city’s entertainment district.

    Then, as Wallen and his bodyguard team come down to the main entrance on Broadway, one of the men with Wallen is shouting, “He didn’t see anything. You don’t have witnesses, you are accusing!”

    “He didn’t throw nothing, he didn’t throw nothing,” the bodyguard continues, and accuses two bar workers of “being aggressive.”

    When an officer asks Wallen what happened, the musician replies, “I don’t know.”

    He later tells another officer, “We’ve not tried to cause no problems, man. I don’t know what they are — I don’t know why.”

    That officer said police were figuring out what happened after a chair came flying off the roof and landed by his patrol car. Wallen replied, “As you should.”

    At one point, Wallen is on his cellphone, then points it at the officer and says, “Eric Church is on the phone.” Church, another country star, co-owns Chief’s. During the call, Wallen had used an expletive to describe the officers he said were “trying to take me to jail outside of your (expletive) bar.”

    Church, who can’t be heard on the police recording, recommended to the officer that Wallen wait in a private space instead of standing on the public sidewalk, said a representative for Church.

    The officer responds: “It’s not really something we can do. Law enforcement have to enforce the laws. Figure out what happened. We’ve got a supervisor coming to the scene. Gotta treat it like we would with anybody else.”

    Representatives for Wallen did not respond to requests for comment.

    Back in the bar, police were in an office watching security footage from the roof, body camera footage shows. The security video was not clear from the officers’ body cameras and a police spokesperson said there was no security camera footage from the bar in the case files.

    The officers return outside and a sergeant, who says he watched security video of Wallen throwing a chair off the roof, handcuffs him.

    Another officer talks to two witnesses. One, referring to the chair, says she saw Wallen “lift it up and throw it off” and laugh.

    Throughout the hour-and-a-half ordeal, Wallen makes apologetic comments to officers without explicitly admitting to anything, including: “I truly didn’t mean no harm,” “Sorry to cause problems, I didn’t mean to,” and “God damn it, I am sorry man.”

    “He didn’t admit to it, but we got him on camera doing it,” one sergeant says after Wallen was cuffed, also noting police had witness statements.

    Some fans took notice as Wallen stood surrounded by police in Nashville’s busy tourist hub. One yells, “We love you Morgan!” Once Wallen is in the back of the police car, he says to the officer, “Get us out of here,” noting that people were videotaping him.

    Born and raised in Sneedville, Tennessee, the two-time Grammy nominee is one of the biggest names in contemporary popular music, loved for his earworm hooks and distinctive combination of bro country, dirt-rock and certain hallmarks of hip-hop. 2023’s “One Thing at a Time” broke Garth Brooks’ record for longest running No. 1 country album, and this year’s “I’m The Problem” spent 12 weeks at No. 1.

    Wallen’s career has been marked by several other controversies, including a 2020 arrest on public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges after being kicked out of Kid Rock’s bar in downtown Nashville. In 2021, after a video surfaced of him using a racial slur, he was disqualified or limited from several award shows and received no Grammy nominations for his massively popular “Dangerous: The Double Album.”


    A Thomas Rhett sing-along

    Wallen was talkative in the cruiser, the footage shows, saying, “I ain’t done nothing wrong,” and pressing the officer for his favorite country musicians.

    “I can tell you my top three right now,” the officer replies. “You’re honestly one of them.” One of Wallen’s songs with Thomas Rhett comes on from the officer’s playlist.

    “This is me and Thomas Rhett! Turn it up. That’s me and TR! That’s me right there,” Wallen says, before singing a couple of the words from the song.

    “TR is one of the best dudes in the world. He would definitely not be getting arrested,” Wallen adds.

    Wallen pleaded guilty in December 2024 to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to spend seven days in a DUI education center and be under supervised probation for two years.

    When the judge asked how he would plead, he said, “Conditionally guilty.” His attorney has said the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement after he completes probation.

    Wallen’s own Nashville honky tonk, not far from Chief’s, opened less than two months after his arrest.

    Associated Press Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this story from New York.

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

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  • Texas’ Redrawn US House Map That Boosts GOP Begins a Key Court Test

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    A panel of federal judges will begin Wednesday to consider whether Texas can use a redrawn congressional map that boosts Republicans and has launched a widening redistricting battle ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

    The case in an El Paso courtroom is the first test of Texas’ new map, which was quickly redrawn this summer to give Republicans five more seats at the urging of President Donald Trump in an effort to preserve the slim Republican U.S. House majority.

    Civil rights groups and dozens of Black and Hispanic voters joined the lawsuit, saying the new map intentionally reduces minority voters’ influence. Their lawsuit argues that the new district lines represent racial gerrymandering prohibited by the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.

    Texas Republican lawmakers and state leaders deny these claims, saying the map is a legal partisan gerrymander.

    The hearing is expected to last more than a week. It is unclear how quickly the judges will issue a ruling.

    The new map eliminated five of the state’s nine “coalition” districts, where no minority group has a majority but together they outnumber non-Hispanic white voters.

    “Race and party have folded onto each other,” said Keith Gaddie, a Texas Christian University political science professor who has testified as an expert witness in redistricting cases over the past 25 years. “What could be seen as being racial gerrymandering could just be partisan gerrymandering.”

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit partisan gerrymandering.


    Texas says critics cloak partisan fears in rhetoric about race

    The new Texas map is designed to give Republicans 30 of the state’s 38 House seats, up from 25 now.

    The state’s attorneys argue that Texas officials’ persistent statements about their partisan motives show they weren’t engaged in illegal racial gerrymandering but were in a “political arms-race,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said in a recent court filing.

    The move in Texas has subsequently led some other states — Republican-led as well as those led by Democrats — to respond with some redistricting plans of their own in a scramble to try to dominate the midterm elections.

    In court filings, Paxton’s office argued that Republicans are offsetting past Democratic gerrymanders, and the Texas map’s critics “seek to use race as a foil to kneecap Texas’s efforts to even the playing field.”

    “Whenever they do not get what they want, they cry racism,” its filing said.


    Making a case involves detailed election analysis

    The case will be heard by a panel of three judges, one each appointed by Trump, and Presidents Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan.

    Attorneys for groups and voters challenging the map aim to show that a trial is likely to prove the new lines deny minority voters opportunities to elect candidates of their choosing.

    “States have to follow rules when they redistrict,” said Nina Perales, an attorney representing some the voters and groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens. “They provide essentially the buffer guards to protect the democratic process.”

    The judges are likely to hear a detailed analysis of voting patterns.

    “The minority community has to be what’s called politically cohesive, which tends to mean that members of that community overwhelmingly tend to prefer the same candidates in elections,” said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University.


    Critics see new, ‘sham’ minority districts

    The new map decreased the total number of congressional districts in which minorities comprise a majority of voting-age citizens from 16 to 14.

    Republicans argue the map is better for minority voters. While five “coalition” districts are eliminated, there’s a new, eighth Hispanic-majority district, and two new Black-majority districts.

    Critics consider each of those new districts a “sham,” arguing that the majority is so slim that white voters, who tend to turn out in larger percentages, will control election results.

    “There is growing animus against African-American and other communities who have historically been disenfranchised,” said Derrick Johnson, the NAACP’s national president. “This is consistent with the current climate and culture germinating from the White House.”

    Critics also argued that the 2021 map itself didn’t have enough minority districts. For example, Perales said, Houston has enough Hispanic voters for two such districts, and the new map has one.

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

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  • Asian Shares Are Mixed as Markets Shrug off a Likely US Government Shutdown

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    Shares were mixed in Asia on Wednesday, with Chinese markets closed for a weeklong holiday, as a U.S. government shutdown loomed.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 index shed 1.2% to 44,411.26 after the Bank of Japan reported a slight improvement in business sentiment among major manufacturers.

    The BOJ’s quarterly tankan adds to the likelihood the central bank will raise its key interest rate soon, to counter inflation that has topped its target range of about 2% for some time.

    Political uncertainty is also looming over Japan’s markets, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party due to chose a new leader and prime minister later this week to replace embattled Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

    Although markets and offices in mainland China are closed Oct. 1-8 for the National Day holiday, China’s central bank said it plans a 1.1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) reverse repo operation on Oct. 9, to increase the amount of cash in circulation and stimulate consumer spending and business investment.

    Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.8% to 3,450.62, while Taiwan’s Taiex added 1.3% on heavy buying of semiconductor-related shares.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.4% to 8,812.90.

    Markets appeared to be taking a potential shutdown of the U.S. government in stride ahead of a midnight U.S. Eastern time deadline. Past U.S. government shutdowns have had a limited impact on the economy and stock market, and many investors expect something similar this time around.

    Many economists and professional investors expect something similar this time around.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 6,688.46 to close out its fifth straight winning month after setting a record last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, to set its own all-time high at 46,397.89.

    The Nasdaq composite ticked 0.3% higher to 22,660.01.

    A second report suggested the job market may be remaining in its “low-hire, low-fire” state. U.S. employers were advertising roughly the same number of job openings at the end of August as the month before. The hope on Wall Street had been for a number that’s neither too high nor too low, one balanced enough to keep the Fed on track to continue cutting interest rates.

    When Wall Street will get the next data reports on the job market is uncertain, since a government shutdown would cause delays for several important reports, including Friday’s on how many jobs U.S. employers created and destroyed in September.

    The Department of Labor has said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will completely cease operations if there’s a lapse. The agency already was strained by Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer as BLS commissioner on Aug. 1 after the July jobs report showed a rapid slowdown in hiring, with job gains in May and June revised much lower than initially estimated.

    Late Tuesday, the White House was withdrawing the nomination of E.J. Antoni to lead the bureau, according to an AP source who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a White House action that hadn’t been publicly announced.

    Oil-related companies weighed on the market as the price of crude fell again as traders see too much oil washing around the world. Baker Hughes sank 3.6%, and Schlumberger fell 2.1%.

    Early Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil was up 11 cents at $62.48 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 12 cents to $66.15 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 147.98 Japanese yen from 147.94 yen. The euro inched up to $1.1738 from $1.1734.

    AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.

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

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  • Planned Parenthood Closes Louisiana Clinics After 40 Years Due to Financial and Political Pressure

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    BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Planned Parenthood on Tuesday shuttered its two clinics in Louisiana over what the organization said were mounting financial and political challenges that made operating in the state no longer possible after more than 40 years.

    The closures make Louisiana the most populous of just four states with no Planned Parenthood locations.

    The exit underlines the pressures on Planned Parenthood as it warns of wider closures nationwide in the face of Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill. The organization is also halting advocacy work in Louisiana, where the state’s Republican leaders have cheered on the closures.

    The closures were “not the result of a lack of need” but rather the outcome of “relentless political assaults that have made it impossible for us to continue operating sustainably in Louisiana,” said Melaney Linton, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.

    Supporters have said the closures will have a detrimental impact on Louisiana, where Planned Parenthood has never been licensed to perform abortions in the state but did provide other medical care services to nearly 11,000 patients last year at its Baton Rouge and New Orleans clinics.

    Advocates and medical professionals fear that the organization’s departure will further exacerbate reproductive health care in a state that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows already has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. In addition, a March report by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office noted the state’s significant OB-GYN shortage and health care deserts.


    Planned Parenthood warns of more closures

    Earlier this year, five clinics in California and eight in Iowa and Minnesota shut their doors. In the past week, the Wisconsin affiliate announced that it would stop providing abortion and the Arizona affiliate said it would halt Medicaid-funded services.

    Louisiana joins Wyoming, North Dakota and Mississippi as states where the organization is absent.

    “This is a win for babies, a win for mothers, and a win for LIFE!” Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry posted on social media Tuesday.


    High numbers of Medicaid patients

    Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services, including cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat.

    In Louisiana, a state with one of the nation’s highest poverty rates, 60% of patients at Planned Parenthood clinics used Medicaid. Last year, the clinics in Louisiana provided nearly 30,000 tests for sexually transmitted infections, 14,400 visits for birth control, 1,800 cancer screenings and 655 ultrasounds.

    Nearly a decade ago, Jordyn Martin said she turned to Planned Parenthood when she couldn’t afford medical services anywhere else. While at the clinic, a doctor offered Martin a free HIV test. A week later, she was diagnosed with the virus.

    “Planned Parenthood saved my life,” said Martin, who went on to volunteer for the organization.


    Connecting patients with new providers

    Outside of the New Orleans Planned Parenthood clinic Tuesday, several people gathered and brought thank-you notes to the organization that has spent four decades in Louisiana. Inside the building, up until close, staff worked to connect patients with alternative health care providers.

    Starting Wednesday, calls to Planned Parenthood numbers in Louisiana will be transferred to the nearest location in Texas or Arkansas.

    Michelle Erenberg, the head of a New Orleans-based abortion rights group named LIFT, said people have been contacting her for help to find new clinics. She said it was important to connect people with providers but worries about the strain it will put on clinics that are already short-staffed.

    “Whether patients are going to be able to get appointments quickly, or access all of the services that Planned Parenthood provided, is unknown at this point,” she said.

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

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  • New Orleans Police Official Says Crime Is Down After Governor Requests National Guard Troops

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A top New Orleans police official on Tuesday welcomed the possibility of a National Guard deployment in his city but pushed back on suggestions of rising crime rates and said he was unclear on how the military might be used.

    Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is asking for up to 1,000 National Guard troops to help fight crime in his state, a request that comes weeks after President Donald Trump raised the potential of sending troops to New Orleans.

    In a letter sent Monday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Landry cited “elevated violent crime rates” in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans and shortages in local law enforcement. But Hans Ganthier, the assistant superintendent of New Orleans’ police department, disputed that the numbers were up.

    “Our crime rate is going down,” Ganthier told reporters.

    New Orleans is on pace to have its lowest number of killings in more than five decades, according to preliminary data from the city’s police department. There have been 84 homicides in 2025 as of Sept. 27, including 14 revelers who were killed on New Year’s Day during a truck attack on Bourbon Street. There were 124 homicides last year and 193 in 2023, according to city figures. Armed robberies, aggravated assaults, carjackings, shootings and property crimes have also declined.

    His recent plans to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois and Oregon follow a crime crackdown by military personnel in the District of Columbia, immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and the deployment of troops to Memphis. The president says the expansion into American cities is necessary, blasting Democrats for crime and lax immigration policies. He has referred to Portland, Oregon, as “war-ravaged” and threatened apocalyptic force in Chicago.

    “We collaborate well with anyone, whether it is the state police, federal government, federal agents, different parishes, and the National Guard shouldn’t be any different,” Ganthier said. “If they can help us, be a multiplier for our forces, I welcome them.”


    Louisianans react to possible troop deployment

    Landry’s request proposes a deployment of troops to “urban centers” around the state under a mission that would “provide logistical and communication support, and secure critical infrastructure.” He said operations would follow established rules for use of force and prioritize community outreach to ensure transparency and trust.

    New Orleans City Council President J.P. Morrell said during a Tuesday meeting that he had been hearing from street performers and others who were concerned that National Guard troops would disrupt the city’s traditions, such as brass band parades through the streets known as “second-lines.”

    “The last thing they want is the National Guard stumbling across a second-line and trying to do crowd control on their own,” Morrell said.

    Louisiana’s Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy said that while National Guard deployments to Louisiana cities is “not a permanent solution,” he does believe it will help deter crime.

    “Increased law enforcement decreases crime, no matter the color of the uniform,” Cassidy told reporters Tuesday.


    Deployment prospect in Chicago adds to tension

    The federal immigration processing center in Broadview, a community of about 8,000 people just west of downtown Chicago, has been at the front lines of the immigration operation. It’s where hundreds of arrested immigrants are being processed for deportation or detention in neighboring states.

    Armed immigration agents have used chemical agents and increasingly aggressive tactics against protesters that local police say are unnecessary, dangerous to residents and raise serious concerns.

    “We are experiencing an immediate public safety crisis,” Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills told reporters Tuesday.

    In Oregon, Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a motion in federal court Monday seeking to temporarily block the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard.

    The motion is part of a lawsuit Rayfield filed Sunday, after state leaders received a Defense Department memo that said 200 members of the state’s National Guard will be placed under federal control for 60 days to “protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur.”

    Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek are among local leaders who object to the deployment.

    U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday on X that the Memphis Safe Task Force, a collection of about a dozen federal law enforcement agencies ordered by President Donald Trump to fight crime in Memphis, Tennessee, is underway with 219 officers being deputized. Bondi said nine arrests were made on Monday.

    Murphy reported from Oklahoma City. Associated Press reporters Sara Cline and Stephen Smith in New Orleans; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, 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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  • South Carolina Prosecutor Seeks Death Penalty in Murder Case After Biden Reduced Sentence to Life

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    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A local prosecutor in South Carolina said Tuesday he will seek the death penalty against a man whose federal death sentence for killing two bank employees in a robbery was commuted to life in prison by President Joe Biden at the end of his term.

    Brandon Council, 40, did not appear in state court in Horry County as prosecutors formally let the court know that if he is convicted of murder they will ask a jury to sentence him to death.

    State murder, armed robbery and other state charges against Council were dropped in 2019 after a federal jury found him guilty of similar charges and sentenced him to death.

    But in December, Biden reduced the death sentences of 37 federal inmates, including Council, to life in prison, saying he felt the federal use of the death penalty had to stop and he did not want the next administration to resume executions he had halted.

    That led Solicitor Jimmy Richardson to obtain new indictments against Council in Horry County in August which open the door to a state death penalty trial.


    A deadly bank robbery leads to a death sentence

    Council walked into the CresCom Bank in Conway in August 2017, waiting for a minute before shooting Donna Major as the stunned teller held papers in front of her face trying to protect herself. He then followed manager Katie Skeen into her office and shot her in the forehead as she hid under her desk, authorities said.

    Council left the bank with $15,000. He was arrested in North Carolina several days later after buying a Mercedes with the stolen money, according to his confession read in court.

    Families and law enforcement angry at Biden’s decision urged local officials to review cases. In Louisiana, prosecutors in Catahoula Parish were able to get a first-degree murder charge refiled against Thomas Steven Sanders in the 2010 death of a 12-year-old girl. That would allow the state to seek the death penalty against him.

    Richardson said prosecutors had dropped the state charges in case anything ever happened to change the outcome of the federal case, including commuting his sentence.

    “If there was a bump, we could always come in and try our case. And that’s why we dismissed them. So our powder could be dry,” Richardson told reporters after the hearing.


    Families and Bondi angry about the commu

    The other inmates who had their sentences reduced are being moved to Supermax prisons “where they will spend the rest of their lives in conditions that match their egregious crimes,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media last week.

    Bondi called the commutations a betrayal of the families of victims and a stain on the justice system, comments that Richardson echoed when Biden’s decision was announced.

    The bank teller’s daughter, Heather Turner, said the victims of the crimes weren’t considered.

    “The pain and trauma we have endured over the last 7 years has been indescribable,” Turner wrote on Facebook, describing weeks spent in court in search of justice as “now just a waste of time.”

    “Our judicial system is broken. Our government is a joke,” she said. “Joe Biden’s decision is a clear gross abuse of power. He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”


    Council’s lawyers said he was remorseful

    Attorneys for Council argued at his federal trial his life should be spared because of a troubled childhood, especially after the grandmother who raised him died. They said he showed remorse and cooperated with investigators.

    After his arrest, Council asked investigators if the women at the bank were still alive and cried when he found out they were dead, investigators said.

    “I’m a doofus. I’m an idiot,” Council told police. “I don’t deserve to live.”

    Horry County had a second inmate have a federal death sentence commuted. Chadrick Fulks was convicted of kidnapping a woman from the parking lot of a Conway Walmart and killing her during a series of crimes across several states. His state charges were dismissed and court records indicate they have not been reinstated.

    Biden did leave three men on federal death row.

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

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  • Nebraska Joins Trump Program to Use Public Money for Private School Tuition

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    OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — After years of failed attempts, Republicans in Nebraska have enacted a measure that uses taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuition, despite voters repealing a newly-passed state law that would fund private school tuition with state dollars.

    Republican Gov. Jim Pillen signed an executive order opting the state into a federal school choice tax credit program included in President Donald Trump’s tax and budget bill passed in July.

    “I am not opting this in, I am cannonballing it into the state of Nebraska,” Pillen said as he announced the move Monday at Catholic school in Lincoln. He was joined by Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Flood and Adrian Smith, both of Nebraska, who supported the federal budget bill and private school scholarship plan.

    The measure is remarkably similar to one the state Legislature passed in 2023 to allow corporations and individuals to divert millions of dollars they owe in state income taxes to nonprofit organizations, which would in turn award that money as private school tuition scholarships. Lawmakers axed the measure the following year after opponents gathered far more signatures than was needed to ask voters to repeal it. The Legislature then passed a new law funding private school scholarships directly from state coffers.

    The new federal law that Pillen opted into allows individual taxpayers to direct up to $1,700 in federal income taxes owed to scholarship-granting groups to be used for eligible K-12 private school expenses. But unlike Nebraska’s 2023 proposal, the federal measure allows even high-income households to receive public money for private school costs. Eligibility extends to families earning up to 300% of the area median gross income, according to the Nebraska State Education Association — the state’s largest teachers union.

    “Families making more than $200,000 a year are eligible to receive a voucher funded through these tax credits,” NSEA President Tim Royers said.

    The private school-funding move in Nebraska highlights the growing tension around the country between the will of voters and their elected representatives. Earlier this year, Nebraska lawmakers were accused of subverting the will of the people by limiting voter-approved paid sick leave. In Missouri, lawmakers have taken steps to repeal voter-approved initiatives on abortion rights and paid sick leave and imposed more requirements on ballot initiative campaigns.

    When presented directly to voters, school choice expansion efforts have largely faltered. Nebraska voters in November repealed the school choice law passed earlier that year. A proposed constitutional amendment in Colorado that would have established schoolchildren’s “right to school choice” also was defeated. Kentucky voters rejected a measure to enable public funding for private school attendance.

    “Today’s decision by Gov. Pillen undermines the clear will of Nebraska voters, who just rejected state-level vouchers at the ballot box,” Royers said.

    Pillen countered that opponents are wrong when they say the publicly-funded private school scholarship scheme will take money away from public schools, saying the federal school choice measure comes “at no cost to the state.”

    “We have to have great public schools, and we have to have great St. Teresa’s,” Pillen said Monday. “And because of this legislation, both can win.”

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  • Georgia’s Highest Court Sides With Slave Descendants Fighting to Protect Threatened Island Community

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia‘s highest court on Tuesday sided with Black landowners in a fight over zoning changes that weakened long-standing protections for one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves.

    The state Supreme Court unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that had stopped a referendum to consider repealing a revised zoning ordinance passed by McIntosh County officials two years ago. Residents of Sapelo Island opposed the zoning amendments that doubled the size of homes allowed in a tiny enclave called Hogg Hummock.

    Homeowners feared the change would result in one of the nation’s most historically and culturally unique Black communities facing unaffordable tax increases. Residents and their supporters last year submitted a petition with more than 2,300 signatures from registered voters seeking a referendum in the coastal county, which lies 60 miles (96 kilometers) south of Savannah.

    McIntosh County commissioners sued to stop the referendum and a lower court ruled that one would be illegal. The decision halted a vote on the zoning change with less than a week to go before Election Day. Hundreds of people had already cast early ballots in the referendum.

    The high court on Tuesday found that the lower court was wrong to conclude that the zoning ordinance was not subject to referendum procedures provided for in the Georgia Constitution’s Home Rule Provision.

    Supreme Court Justice John Ellington wrote in the opinion that “nothing in the text of the Zoning Provision in any way restricts a county electorate’s authority to seek repeal of a zoning ordinance.”

    McIntosh County attorney Ken Jarrard said in an email that the county commissioners are “obviously disappointed” by the order but respect the high court’s ruling.

    Jarrard had asserted during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in April that zoning powers are different from others entrusted to county governments by the state Constitution and, therefore, can’t be challenged by referendum.

    Philip Thompson, an attorney representing the Hogg Hummock residents, had argued that they have a constitutional right to a referendum on the zoning changes so that they can defend a place that’s “a cultural and historical treasure.”

    Roughly 30 to 50 Black residents live in Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, a community of dirt roads and modest homes founded by their enslaved ancestors who worked the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.

    It’s among a dwindling number of small communities started by emancipated island slaves — known collectively as Gullah, or Geechee, in Georgia — scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida. Scholars say the island’s separation from the mainland caused the communities to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.

    In 1996, Hogg Hummock earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of treasured U.S. historic sites. Residents depend on the local government in McIntosh County, where 65% of the 11,100 residents are white, to maintain protections that preserve the community.

    The state Supreme Court was not weighing whether Hogg Hummock deserves special protections. Instead, the justices had to consider technical questions about whether local zoning laws can be challenged by referendum and whether McIntosh County commissioners had a right to sue to stop the vote last October.

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  • Groups Press for Release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Report on Trump’s Classified Documents Case

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A First Amendment group and watchdog organization pressed a federal appeals court on Tuesday to compel the release of a Justice Department special counsel’s report on the criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

    Even though the charges against the Republican president were dismissed last year, the volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report related to the classified documents case has remained under wraps because of an order from U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon. The case accused Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them, but Cannon ruled that Smith’s appointment was illegal and threw out the charges.

    The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and American Oversight are now pressing for the report’s release in separate filings Tuesday with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The groups argue there is no legitimate reason to keep secret the report stemming from what was widely regarded as the most perilous of all the prosecutions Trump confronted before his White House return.

    “Transparency isn’t optional in a democracy. The public has a right to know what Special Counsel Smith found, and the Justice Department cannot continue to withhold a report that should have been released nearly a year ago under federal law,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight. “By keeping this order in place, Judge Cannon is undermining both accountability and the rule of law.”

    The Knight Institute filed a motion in February urging Cannon to allow for the report’s release, but the judge has yet to rule. It’s asking the appeals court to force Cannon to issue a ruling, calling the delay “manifestly unreasonable.”

    “This report is of singular importance to the public because it addresses allegations of grave criminal conduct by the nation’s highest-ranking official,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of Knight Institute, said in a statement. “There is no legitimate reason for the report’s continued suppression, and it should be posted on the court’s public docket without further delay.”

    The classified documents case had been seen as the most legally clear-cut of the four Trump had faced, given the breadth of evidence that prosecutors say they had accumulated, including the testimony of close aides and former lawyers, and because the conduct at issue occurred after Trump left the White House in 2021 and lost the powers of the presidency.

    Trump had denied any wrongdoing and criticized all the cases against him as a politically motivated attempt to thwart his bid to return to the White House.

    The first volume of Smith’s report — focused on Trump’s 2020 election interference case — was publicly released in January. In that portion of the report, Smith defended his decision to bring criminal charges over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and said he believed it would have resulted in a conviction had voters not returned Trump to the White House.

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

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  • The Latest: Hegseth Declares an End to ‘Politically Correct’ Leadership in the US Military

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    Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of U.S. military officials to an in-person meeting Tuesday to announce directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness as well as an end to “woke” culture in the military.

    “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” Hegseth said.

    He said he’s loosening disciplinary rules and weakening hazing protections.

    Hegseth and President Donald Trump abruptly called military leaders from around the world to convene at a base in Virginia without publicly revealing the reason until Tuesday morning. While meetings between top military brass and civilian leaders are nothing new, experts say the scale of the gathering, the haste with which it was called and the mystery surrounding it are particularly unusual.


    The department will overhaul its inspector general process

    Hegseth said the Pentagon’s watchdog has been “weaponized” and therefore will be retooled with new policies.

    There will be more anonymous or frivolous complaints, Hegseth said, nicknaming his new directive the “no more walking on eggshells policy.”

    The announcement comes amid an ongoing investigation by the inspector general’s office into Hegseth’s team and its use of the Signal encrypted messaging app. Earlier this year, a report in The Atlantic showed Hegseth shared sensitive military information in a chat that included senior national security officials and a journalist.


    Hegseth talks about new tests, weight requirements

    Hegseth said the Pentagon will add a combat field test for certain units that resemble the Army’s expert physical fitness assessment or the Marine Corps combat fitness test. Hegseth said every member of the joint force will be required to meet height and weight requirements.

    “Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” he said.

    Hegseth maintained, as he has done in the past, that he would not allow facial hair.

    “No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression,” Hegseth said. “We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans.”


    Hegseth sticks to his usual talking points

    Hegseth’s address has largely focused on his own long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military that has been hamstrung by so-called “woke” policies.

    “The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things,” Hegseth argued, before adding that his speech “is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden.”

    Hegseth used the platform to slam topics like physical fitness and grooming standards, environmental policies and transgender troops while talking up well-worn ideas like “the warrior ethos” and “peace through strength.”


    Defense Department to review its definition of ‘toxic leadership’

    Hegseth said concerns over “toxic leadership” have been misrepresented in the military, demanding a new review.

    “We’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called ‘toxic leadership,’ bullying and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second-guessing,” he said.

    Hegseth defended his own leadership and demand for high standards as “not toxic.” He said that while “nasty” bullying and hazing still won’t be allowed, the terms were weaponized in previous administrations.


    Hegseth: ‘We became the woke department, but not anymore’

    The defense secretary is announcing a variety of directives that he argues will help clear out what he calls “woke garbage” in the nation’s military.

    Hegseth said there will be a new requirement for every combat arms to use the highest male standard only. He also announced a new combat field test.

    “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men,” he said. “This job is life and death. Standards must be met.”


    Family says a Mexican man shot at a Dallas ICE facility has died

    A second detainee shot in an attack on a Dallas immigration field office last week has died, his family said Tuesday.

    In a statement shared by the League of United Latin American Citizens, the family confirmed that Miguel Ángel García-Hernández, 32, succumbed to his injuries after being removed from life support.

    The Mexican man was one of three detainees shot in the Sept. 24 attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas. That attack left one man dead and two other detainees critically wounded. Officials previously identified the man who was killed in the attack as Norlan Guzman-Fuentes.


    Hegseth says the department’s mission is ‘warfighting’

    The defense secretary is using phrases he often does, referring to warfighting and a “warrior ethos” during the beginning of his remarks.

    Saying the era of the Department of Defense is over, he said “preparing to win” is the goal as the Trump administration wants to rebrand to the Department of War.

    “Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision and ferocity of the War Department,” he said.


    Meeting of military leaders kicks off

    Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, kicked off a gathering of military leaders standing before a giant American flag by saying that “we are living in dynamic and potentially dangerous times.”

    “Even as we strive for and seek peace, we must be prepared for war,” Caine said.


    FBI boss Kash Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws

    On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

    The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

    Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

    It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.


    120 Iranians detained in the US for entering the country illegally will be returned to Iran, state TV says

    Iran said Tuesday that 120 Iranians detained in the United States for illegally entering the country will be returned to Iran in the coming days.

    As many as 400 Iranians would be returning to Iran as part of the deal with the U.S., Iranian state television said, citing Hossein Noushabadi, director-general for parliamentary affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He said the majority of those people had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

    The U.S. has not acknowledged striking a deportation deal with Iran.

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  • 120 Iranians Detained in US for Entering Country Illegally to Be Returned to Iran, State TV Says

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    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran said Tuesday that 120 Iranians detained in the United States for illegally entering in the country will be returned to Iran in the coming days.

    As many as 400 Iranians would be returning to Iran as part of the deal with the U.S., Iranian state television said, citing Hossein Noushabadi, director-general for parliamentary affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry. He said the majority of those people had crossed into the U.S. from Mexico illegally, while some faced other immigration issues.

    The U.S. has not acknowledged striking a deportation deal with Iran.

    The New York Times first reported the deportations.

    Noushabadi said the first planeload of Iranians would arrive in one or two days after stopping over in Qatar on the way. Authorities in Qatar have not acknowledged that

    In the lead up to and after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, a large number of Iranians fled to the United States. In the decades since, the U.S. had been sensitive in allowing those fleeing from Iran over religious, sexual or political persecution to seek residency. Iran has criticized Washington for hosting dissidents and others in the past.

    It’s unclear exactly what has changed now in American policy. However, U.S. President Donald Trump since reentering the White House has cracked down on those living in the U.S. illegally.

    Noushabadi said that American authorities unilaterally made the decision without consultations with Iran.

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  • US Government on Brink of First Shutdown in Almost Seven Years Amid Partisan Standoff in Congress

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — A partisan standoff over heath care and spending is threatening to trigger the first U.S. government shutdown in almost seven years, with Democrats and Republicans in Congress unable to find agreement even as thousands of federal workers stand to be furloughed or permanently laid off.

    The government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday if the Senate does not pass a House measure that would extend federal funding for seven weeks while lawmakers finish their work on annual spending bills. Senate Democrats say they won’t vote for it unless Republicans include an extension of expiring health care benefits, among other demands, while President Donald Trump and Republicans are refusing to negotiate at all, arguing that it is a stripped down, “clean” bill that should be noncontroversial.

    It was unclear, so far, if either side would blink before the deadline.

    “It’s now in the president’s hands,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Monday after a meeting with Trump at the White House that yielded little apparent progress. “He can avoid the shutdown if he gets the Republican leaders to go along with what we want.”

    Vice President JD Vance, who was also in the meeting, said afterward, “I think we’re headed into a shutdown, because the Democrats won’t do the right thing.”

    While partisan stalemates over government spending are a frequent occurrence in Washington, the current impasse comes as Democrats see a rare opportunity to use their leverage to achieve policy goals and as their base voters are spoiling for a fight with Trump. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate will likely need at least eight votes from Democrats to end a filibuster and pass the bill with 60 votes, since Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is expected to vote against it.


    No agreement at the White House

    Trump had shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday with Schumer, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

    As he headed into the meeting, Trump made it clear he had no intention to negotiate on Democrats’ current terms.

    “Their ideas are not very good ones,” Trump said.

    It was Trump’s first meeting with all four leaders in Congress since retaking the White House for his second term, and he did more listening than talking, Jeffries told House Democrats at the Capitol afterward, according to a lawmaker who attended the private caucus meeting and requested anonymity to discuss it.

    Schumer said after the closed-door meeting that they had “had candid, frank discussions” with Trump about health care. Vance also said Trump found several points of agreement on policy ideas.

    Schumer said Trump “was not aware” of the potential for health insurance costs to skyrocket once the subsidies end Dec. 31.

    But Trump did not appear to be ready for serious negotiations. Hours later, Trump posted a fake video of Schumer and Jeffries taken from footage of their real press conference outside of the White House after the meeting. In the altered video, a voiceover that sounds like Schumer’s voice makes fun of Democrats and Jeffries stands beside him with a cartoon sombrero and mustache. Mexican music plays in the background.

    Jeffries posted in response that “Bigotry will get you nowhere.”

    He added, “We are NOT backing down.”


    Expiring health care subsidies

    Democrats are pushing for an extension to Affordable Care Act tax credits that have boosted health insurance subsidies for millions of people since the COVID-19 pandemic. The credits, which are designed to expand coverage for low- and middle-income people, are set to expire at the end of the year.

    “We are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans,” Jeffries said.

    Thune has pressed Democrats to vote for the funding bill and take up the debate on tax credits later. Some Republicans are open to extending the tax credits, but they want to place new limits on them.

    “We’re willing to sit down and work with them on some of the issues they want to talk about,” Thune told reporters at the White House, adding, “But as of right now, this is a hijacking of the American people, and it’s the American people who are going to pay the price.”


    A crucial, and unusual, vote for Democrats

    Democrats are in an uncomfortable position for a party that has long denounced shutdowns as pointless and destructive, and it’s unclear how or when it would end. But party activists and voters have argued that Democrats need to do something to stand up to Trump.

    Some groups called for Schumer’s resignation in March after he and nine other Democrats voted to break a filibuster and allow a Republican-led funding bill to advance to a final vote.

    Schumer said he voted to keep the government open because a shutdown would have made things worse as Trump’s administration was slashing government jobs. He says things have changed since then, including the passage of the massive GOP tax cut bill this summer that reduced Medicaid.

    Some of the Democrats who voted with Schumer in March to keep the government open were still holding out hope for a compromise. Michigan Sen. Gary Peters said Monday that there is still time before the early Wednesday deadline.

    “A lot can happen in this place in a short period of time,” Peters said.


    Shutdown preparations begin

    Federal agencies were sending out contingency plans if funding lapses, including details on what offices would stay open and which employees would be furloughed. In its instructions to agencies, the White House has suggested that a shutdown could lead to broad layoffs across the government.

    Russ Vought, Trump’s budget director, told reporters at the White House that a shutdown would be managed “appropriately, but it is something that can all be avoided” if Senate Democrats accepted the House-passed bill.

    Before joining the administration, Vought had advised hardline conservatives in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to negotiate for policy concessions. But on Monday, he berated Democrats for engaging in a similar ploy.

    “This is hostage taking. It is not something that we are going to accept,” he said.

    Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Man Who Attacked Michigan Church Became ‘Unhinged’ When Talking About Mormon Faith

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    DETROIT (AP) — The man who shot up a Michigan church and set a fire that killed four people was a former U.S. Marine who expressed animosity about the Mormon faith to a city council candidate knocking on doors just days before the attack.

    Thomas Sanford, who was known as Jake, drove a pickup truck with a deer skull and antlers strapped to the front and two large American flags flapping in the wind in the bed, according to friends and social media posts.

    Sanford, 40, smashed that truck into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc Township. He was killed by police officers who rushed to the scene Sunday, 60 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. The building was destroyed.

    Kris Johns, a council candidate in Burton, said he met Sanford while introducing himself to voters last week. He told MLive.com that Sanford was pleasant but became “unhinged” when he suddenly began talking about the Mormon church, as it is widely known.

    It’s not known what ties, if any, Sanford had to the church. But Johns said Sanford indicated that some members wanted him to get rid of his tattoos. He also talked about “sealing,” the Mormon temple ceremony of joining a man, a woman and their children together for eternity.

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, speaking on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends,” said the FBI was learning that Sanford “hated people of the Mormon faith.”

    Genesee County prosecutor David Leyton said his office wrote warrants to search Sanford’s vehicles, home and electronic devices to try to discover his motives.

    “All this takes time,” he told The Associated Press.

    Coincidentally, Sanford and his family lived next to a church, Eastgate Baptist, in Burton. Pastor Jerome Taylor said he mostly talked to Sanford about fallen trees on church property that his neighbor wanted to cut and sell as firewood.

    “He had free rein,” said Taylor, who described Sanford as a “general blue-collar person in our neighborhood.”

    “The knowledge that there was a threat, a danger, across our property line so heinous — it’s a little bit mind-warping,” he said, adding that Sanford never attended Eastgate Baptist.

    A family friend, Kara Pattison, said she saw Sanford on Friday, two days before the shooting. She and her daughter were walking in the street at the Goodrich High School homecoming parade and became startled when the driver of a pickup truck hit the gas pedal hard.

    When the window was rolled down, it was Sanford “laughing,” Pattison said.

    “How do you mourn the death of someone who did something so terrible?” Pattison told WDIV-TV, referring to the church attack.

    After high school, Sanford served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008, including seven months in Iraq, focusing on vehicle operations and maintenance, records show. He was discharged at the rank of sergeant.

    Under Michigan law, police, family or health professionals can ask a judge to take guns away from someone for reasons that include mental health. There were no petitions filed against Sanford, court administrator Barbara Menear said.

    In 2015, Sanford’s baby son received groundbreaking treatment at a Fort Worth, Texas, hospital for a condition called “hyperinsulinism,” or abnormally high levels of insulin. The boy’s stay at Cook Children’s Health Care System lasted for weeks and was promoted by the hospital in a news release.

    Sanford told the hospital that a doctor’s willingness to help his son was a “sign from heaven.”

    “We put our faith to the wind and it took us to Texas,” he said.

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  • US House Members Hear Pleas for Tougher Justice Policies After Stabbing Death of Refugee

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    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — U.S. House members visited North Carolina’s largest city on Monday to hear from family members of violent-crime victims who pleaded for tougher criminal justice policies in the wake of last month’s stabbing death of a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte commuter train.

    A judiciary subcommittee meeting convened in Charlotte to listen to many speakers who described local court systems in North Carolina and South Carolina that they say have failed to protect the public and keep defendants in jail while awaiting trials.

    The meeting was prompted by the Aug. 22 stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail car and the resulting apprehension of a suspect who had been previously arrested more than a dozen times.

    “The same system that failed Mary failed Iryna. Our hearts are broken for her family and her friends and we grieve with them,” Mia Alderman, the grandmother of 2020 murder victim Mary Santina Collins in Charlotte, told panelists. Alderman said defendants in her granddaughter’s case still haven’t been tried: “We need accountability. We need reform. We need to ensure that those accused of heinous crimes are swiftly prosecuted.”

    A magistrate had allowed the commuter train defendant, Decarlos Brown Jr., to be released on a misdemeanor charge in January on a written promise to appear, without any bond. Now Brown is charged with both first-degree murder in state court and a federal count in connection with Zarutska’s death. Both crimes can be punishable by the death penalty.

    Public outrage intensified with the release of security video showing the attack, leading to accusations from Republicans all the way to President Donald Trump that policies by Democratic leaders in Charlotte and statewide are more focused on helping criminals than victims. Democratic committee members argued that Republicans are the ones who have reduced crime-control funds or failed to provide funding for more district attorneys and mental health services.

    “The hearing for me is not really about public safety,” Democratic Rep. Alma Adams, who represents most of Charlotte. “It’s about my colleagues trying to paint Democrats as soft on crime — and we’re not — and engaging in political theater, probably to score some headlines.”

    Dena King, a former U.S. attorney for western North Carolina during Joe Biden’s administration, testified that Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, needs dozens of additional prosecutors to cover a county of 1.2 million people. And a crime statistician said that rates of murder and violent crime are falling nationwide and in Charlotte after increases early in the 2020s.

    Republicans, in turn, blasted Democratic members, saying additional funding wouldn’t have prevented the deaths of Zarutska or the other homicide victims highlighted Monday. And they attempted to question the crime figures as misleading.

    “This is not time for politics. This is not time for any race. It’s not time of any party. It’s about a time of justice,” said GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, representing in part Charlotte’s suburbs. He spoke while holding a poster of a screenshot of the video showing Zarutska and her attacker. Adams protested Norman’s use of the placard.

    In response to Zarutska’s death, the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature last week approved a criminal justice package that would bar cashless bail in many circumstances, limit the discretion magistrates and judges have in making pretrial release decisions and seek to ensure more defendants undergo mental health evaluations. The bill now sits on Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk for his consideration.

    Committee Republicans also cited the need for more restrictive bail policies for magistrates and aggressive prosecutors not willing to drop charges for violent crimes.

    Another speaker, Steve Federico, from suburban Charlotte, demanded justice for his 22-year-old daughter, Logan, who was shot to death in May at a home in Columbia, South Carolina, while visiting friends. The suspect charged in her killing had faced nearly 40 charges within the last decade, WIS-TV reported.

    “I’’m not going to be quiet until somebody helps. Logan deserves to be heard,” Steve Federico told the representatives. “Everyone on this panel deserves to be heard. And we will — trust me.”

    Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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  • What We Know About the Deadly Shooting at a Michigan Mormon Church

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    At least 100 federal investigators are responding to an attack in a Michigan community where a former Marine crashed a pickup into a Mormon church during a Sunday service, shot into the building and set it ablaze.

    The police chief said officers were on the scene within 30 seconds after a 911 call and eventually fatally shot the man in an exchange of gunfire. By then, at least four people were killed and eight injured.

    Hundreds of worshippers were inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township at about 10:25 a.m. Sunday, when a man got out of a pickup with two U.S. flags raised in the bed and began shooting, according to law enforcement.

    The attacker also started a fire, apparently by using gasoline. Two officers chased the attacker and exchanged gunfire after he left the church, killing him about eight minutes later, according to authorities.

    Fire and smoke poured from the church for hours, and photos showed charred rubble from the building.

    At least four people were killed, and authorities said they were searching the debris for more victims. At least eight were wounded.


    What is known about the attacker?

    Officials said the attacker was Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, from a nearby small town.

    He served in the Marines from 2004 to 2008, including seven months in Iraq, focusing on vehicle operations and maintenance, and was discharged at the rank of sergeant, according to records released by the Marine Corps.

    A motive for the attack is still not clear.

    The total number of victims also is not clear.

    Investigators were searching Sanford’s residence but authorities did not say what they found or provide any additional details about him, including whether he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church.

    The FBI is leading the investigation and considered it an “act of targeted violence,” according to Ruben Coleman, special agent in charge for the bureau.

    Local authorities said the FBI was sending 100 agents to Grand Blanc Township, a community of roughly 40,000 people.

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  • Home Bakers Donate Fresh Bread to Food Banks Thanks to This Seattle Nonprofit

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    On a recent Saturday near Seattle, Cheryl Ewaldsen pulled three golden loaves of wheat bread out of her kitchen oven.

    The fragrant, oat-topped bread was destined not for her table, but for a local food bank, to be distributed to families increasingly struggling with hunger and the high cost of groceries.

    “I just get really excited about it knowing that it’s going to someone and they’re going to make, like, 10 sandwiches,” said Ewaldsen, 75, a retired university human resources director.

    Ewaldsen is a volunteer with Community Loaves, a Seattle-area nonprofit that started pairing home bakers with food pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic — and hasn’t stopped.

    Since 2020, the organization headed by Katherine Kehrli, the former dean of a culinary school, has donated more than 200,000 loaves of fresh bread and some 220,000 energy cookies to food banks. They come from a network of nearly 900 bakers in four states — Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho — and represent one of the largest such efforts in the country.

    “Most of our food banks do not get any kind of whole-grain sandwich bread donation,” she said. “When we ask what we could do better, they just say, ‘Bring us more.’”


    Anti-hunger experts expect to see more need

    Ewaldsen’s bread goes to the nearby Edmonds Food Bank, where the client list has swelled from 350 households to nearly 1,000 in the past three years, according to program manager Lester Almanza.

    Nationwide, more than 50 million people a year receive charitable food assistance, according to Feeding America, a hunger relief organization.

    Gauging the impact, however, could soon be more difficult after the U.S. Agriculture Department recently said it would halt an annual report on hunger in America, saying it was redundant, costly and politicized “subjective liberal fodder.” After 30 years, the 2024 report, to be released on Oct. 22, will be the last, the agency said.

    “Ending data collection will not end hunger, it will only make it a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to address,” Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy group, said in a statement.

    Almanza said federal funding for his food bank has dropped at least 10% this year, meaning that every donation helps.

    “It’s something that a lot of people rely on,” he said.


    Food bank breads are often highly processed

    That includes people like Chris Redfearn, 42, and his wife, Melanie Rodriguez-Redfearn, 43, who turned to a food bank in Everett, Washington, last spring after moving to the area to find work. They had to stretch their savings until she began a new position this month teaching history at a local college. Chris Redfearn, who has worked for decades in business, is still looking.

    “The food pantry assists with anywhere from $40 to $80 worth of savings weekly,” he said. “We’ve been able to keep ourselves afloat.”

    Finding homemade bread from Community Loaves at a food pantry was a surprise, the couple said. Often, surplus bread sent by grocery stores includes highly processed white breads or sweets donated near their expiration or sell-by dates.

    The breads come in three varieties — honey oat, whole wheat and sunflower rye — all made with whole grains and minimally processed ingredients.

    “They make it really wholesome and fibrous,” Chris Redfearn said. “It mimics most of the health-conscious breads that are out there.”


    Many food banks don’t accept donated baked goods

    The notion of donating home-baked bread came to Kehrli, 61, during the pandemic, when she was displaced from her job at the busy Seattle Culinary Academy.

    “I love to bake and just an idea sparked: Would it be possible for us to help from our home and get important valuable nutrition to our food banks?” she recalled.

    Many food pantries don’t accept or distribute donations of homemade baked goods. Feeding America warns individual bakers against the practice, saying “since food banks can’t confirm how your baked goods were made or their ingredients, they can’t be donated.”

    But health department rules vary by state, Kehrli learned. In Washington and the other three states where Community Loaves now operates, bread is one of the few foods allowed to be donated from a home kitchen through a program like theirs.

    “We wouldn’t be able to donate custard pies. We wouldn’t be able to donate lasagna,” Kehrli said. “But bread is deemed safe. Anything that is fully baked and does not require refrigeration.”

    Still, Community Loaves bakers must follow approved recipes for the bread and two types of energy cookies. They obtain flour from common sources, and bake and deliver on a shared schedule twice a month.

    The bakers buy their own supplies, donating the cost of the ingredients as well as their time. Most make a few loaves per baking session before delivering them to local “hubs,” where other volunteers collect the bread and transport it to the food banks.

    Bakers range from former professionals to beginners. A robust website with recipes and how-to videos backstops every step, Kehrli said.

    Baking the bread is satisfying on several levels, said Ewaldsen, who has donated nearly 800 loaves in less than two years. Part of it is addressing the physical need for food, but part is also addressing the spiritual hunger for connection with neighbors.

    “It’s the opportunity for me to bake something and to share something with others in the community, where they don’t necessarily need to know who I am, but they know that there’s a community that loves and cares for them,” she said.

    While such sentiments are sincere and admirable, anti-hunger experts stress that individual donations can’t take the place of adequately funded government services for struggling Americans.

    “It’s beautiful that our communities act this way,” said Gina Plata-Nino of the Food Research & Action Center. “But it is a loaf of bread. That is going to feed one person — and there are millions in line.”

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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

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  • Trump’s Team Keeps Posting AI Portraits of Him. We Keep Clicking

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Here he is, depicted at six months in office, chiseled and brawny, as mighty as the very nation. Here he is as a Star Wars Jedi wielding a patriot-red lightsaber, rescuing our galaxy from the forces of evil. Here he is taking over Gaza, transforming the strip into a luxury resort complete with a golden effigy of himself.

    You can be anything, perhaps you were told growing up. Doctor. Astronaut. Maybe, one day, the president. But even the chief executive of the United States, the free world’s leader, frames himself as something more epic — as someone not entirely himself.

    On the social media accounts of Donald Trump and his second-term administration, a new official image of the president is emerging bit by bit: one generated artificially.

    A sign of the times, certainly — when the appeal of reimagining yourself with artificial intelligence has trickled up from us everyday citizens. Bored with your selfies? Join a viral trend: There’s an image generator or a chatbot that can turn you into a Renaissance-style painting, a Studio Ghibli character or an action figure with box art and accessories.

    The AI images of Trump posted by him and his team opt for the alternative — not deceptive but self-evident in their fictitiousness. Pope Francis dies, and Trump jokes to reporters that he’d like to be pope. A week later, he is, but in an AI-generated image that he posts, reposted by the White House. Trump likens himself to a king in a Truth Social post in February, and AI makes him one in an X post by the White House less than an hour later.

    The artifice arrives in Trump’s usual style — brassy, unabashed, attention-grabbing — and squares with his social media team’s heavy meme posting, which it has promised to continue. The administration’s official social media accounts have grown by more than 16 million new followers across platforms since Inauguration Day, a White House official told NBC News.

    The White House recognizes the appeal. In July, it posted to its X account: “Nowhere in the Constitution does it say we can’t post banger memes.” Attached to the post, a photo of a sign on the White House lawn parodying the naysayers: “oMg, diD tHe wHiTE hOuSE reALLy PosT tHis?”

    Behind the commander in chief’s desire to craft an AI self — not itself uncommon — an infantry of official communications channels stands at his ready. And we, the people, can’t help but tune in.


    Feelings don’t care about your facts

    Like so much on the internet these days, Trump’s AI portraits are primed for people to react, says Evan Cornog, a political historian and author of “The Power and the Story: How the Crafted Presidential Narrative Has Determined Political Success from George Washington to George W. Bush.”

    “By the time you’ve seen it, you’ve understood it. And that’s, of course, the efficacy,” Cornog said. “It requires no effort, either for the person generating it, but particularly for the person consuming it.”

    The expressive power of political imagery, regardless of the truth of its message, has long been understood by politicians and their detractors.

    President William Henry Harrison’s log cabin and hard cider campaign symbols, representing him as a “man of the people,” helped him win the election of 1840. Thirty years later, political cartoonist Thomas Nast would turn public opinion against William Marcy “Boss” Tweed with his scathing portrayals of the politician, whom he depicted satirically overweight from greed. “Let’s stop those damned pictures!” Tweed once said, or so the story goes.

    The decades since witnessed the birth of photo, film, TV, the internet, computer printers, image-editing software and digital screens that shrank until they could fit in our pockets, making it increasingly easy to create and disseminate — and manipulate — imagery.

    By contrast, today’s generative AI technology offers greater realism, functionality and accessibility to content creation than ever before, says AI expert Henry Ajder. Not to mention, of course, a capacity for endless automated possibility.

    Past presidents “had to actually have fought in a war to run as a war hero,” Cornog says. Now, they can just generate an image of themselves as one. On a horse — or no, a battlefield. With an American flag waving behind him and an eagle soaring.

    The AI images of Trump shared by him and his administration chase a similarly heroic vision of the president. Potency — his and the country’s — is a consistent theme, Cornog added.

    Indeed, generative AI allows for an exposure of perhaps uncomfortably intimate inner worlds as people use such technology to illustrate and communicate their “fantasy lives” or cartoonish versions of themselves, says Mitchell Stephens, author of “The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word.”

    But it can just as easily fulfill an inverse desire: to depict or reinforce a subjective concept of reality.

    “Quite a lot of people are sharing AI-generated content, which is clearly fake but is almost seen as a revelatory kind of representation of someone,” Ajder said. This content feeds a mentality that mutters, “We all know they’re really like this.”

    “And so, even if people know it’s fake,” Ajder said, “they still see it as kind of reflecting and satisfying a kind of truth — their truth about what the world is like.”


    Commenters take up the mantle

    The lack of subtlety in Trump’s AI images of himself helps explain their consistent virality.

    Commenters can be found lamenting the demise of presidential decorum (“I never thought I’d see the day when the White House is just a joke. This is so embarrassing.”) or relishing those very reactions (“Watching the left explode over this has been a treat.”).

    Other responses, even from the president’s base, remain unconvinced (as one X user griped under the White House post of Trump as pope: “I voted for you, but this is weird and creepy. More mass deportations and less of whatever this is.”).

    But that is tradition for Trump, who finds no trouble cashing the currency of our attention economy: Whether you cracked a smile or clutched your pearls, he still made you look.

    “In his first administration, he used Twitter in a way no president had,” said Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project, an organization that facilitates the transition between presidents. “What they do in this administration is taking it further, as you’ve had an increase in what can be done online.” Or, as one Reddit user referred to the president: “Troll in Chief.”

    Does Trump really think he should be pope? Does the White House really think him a king? Accuracy isn’t the point, not for a man who frequently arbitrates what counts as truth. Trump’s use of AI sticks to a familiar recipe for bait: crude comedy sprinkled with wishful thinking.

    “It’s fine,” Trump said in May, when asked whether the AI-generated post of him as pope diminished the substance of the official White House account.

    “Have to have a little fun, don’t you?”

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

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  • Georgia’s 2026 Candidates Still Can’t Escape Fallout From Trump’s False 2020 Election Claims

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Fallout from the 2020 presidential election feels like it may never end in Georgia.

    Maybe more any other state, the decisions made after Democrat Joe Biden’s narrow win — and Donald Trump’s false claims of victory — still define politics in the Peach State.

    In Georgia, 2020 may guide the Republican choice for governor in 2026, influence the Democratic primary for governor, and resonate in the U.S. Senate race.

    Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state who rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s Georgia victory is running for governor in 2026. Former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, who also opposed Trump’s push, is seeking the governorship as a “proud Democrat.” The current lieutenant governor, Republican Burt Jones, wears his support of Trump’s 2020 cause as a badge of honor.

    And Georgia’s incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is seeking reelection, might not have won in January 2021 but for 2020’s chaotic fallout.

    “It’s all tied up in the staying power of one Donald Trump,” said Jay Morgan, former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party, explaining why ripples from 2020 still matter.

    Some Republicans fear showcasing those differences could repulse some voters. Buzz Brockaway, a former Republican state legislator, said there’s a chance “relitigating the 2020 election” will dominate some Georgia races. “If you’re a Republican, that’s bad news, because no one cares beyond a few activists,” he said.

    In a September Gallup poll, about one-quarter of U.S. adults named economic issues as the most important problem facing the country, while about 4% pointed to issues related to elections and democracy.


    A dispute that never dies

    Disputes over 2020 animate politics far beyond Georgia. In Michigan, state House Republicans in June proposed impeaching Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a 2026 candidate for governor, in part over claims she improperly backed Biden’s 2020 victory. In Arizona, a Republican legislator who questioned election administration in the state’s most populous county was elected in 2024 to oversee voting there. In Pennsylvania, lawsuits continue over a 2020 voting-by-mail law, and it could become a 2026 campaign theme because the GOP-endorsed challenger to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — state Treasurer Stacy Garrity — supports Trump’s call to eliminate mail voting.

    Supporting Trump’s false claim of a 2020 victory remains a Republican purity test. GOP primary foes are attacking both Louisiana U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s reelection bid and Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s run for governor, arguing they didn’t back Trump to the hilt after the president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    But in Georgia, 2020 is a factor in every marquee race.

    Jones was already endorsed for governor by Trump before an August kickoff rally. There, allies proclaimed Jones the true GOP choice because Jones aided Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s win in Georgia. Jones was one of 16 Republicans who declared themselves as electors even though Biden had won, and Jones backed a call for a special session to declare Trump the winner. Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr, Jones’ top rivals for the Republican nomination, spurned Trump’s efforts.

    “In reality, these politicians are MAGA today because it benefits them, but they weren’t willing to be MAGA when it might cost them,” state Sen. Greg Dolezal told the pro-Jones crowd. ”In 2020, when President Trump needed allies, these politicians were silent.

    Last week, Jones’ campaign released an ad calling Carr and Raffensperger “Georgia’s team Never Trump,” saying only Jones “always supported” Trump.


    Some Republicans try to sidestep

    Other Republicans are finessing the divide, siding with Trump on current issues while sidestepping past differences. Raffensperger didn’t mention Trump once in his 2-minute announcement video for governor, instead focusing on his defense of Georgia’s voting system against Biden and two-time Georgia Democratic governor nominee Stacey Abrams. Raffensperger only indirectly alluded to the 2020 firestorm, saying “I’m prepared to make the tough decisions; I follow the law and the Constitution, and I’ll always do the right thing for Georgia, no matter what.”

    Like Raffensperger, Carr is voicing agreement with Trump’s policies, while emphasizing his own record fighting crime and recruiting jobs.

    Meanwhile, Duncan quit the Republican Party after years of criticizing Trump and is trying to forge a new identity as a Democrat. At a Black-owned Atlanta coffee shop this month, he campaigned under a mural of prominent Democrats, including Ossoff and one of Duncan’s Democratic opponents for governor, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. Duncan sought to retool some of his old themes for his new party, including the importance of small businesses and technology, while trumpeting his record as a proven Trump opponent.

    “With regards to Donald Trump, whoever wins that Republican primary is going to have to take the keys out of their pocket for the state and hand them over to Donald Trump,” Duncan told The Associated Press.

    Republican Gov. Brian Kemp came under Trump’s fire after refusing his election-related demands in 2020 although he now maintains a a public peace with the president. But Kemp is trying to make former football coach Derek Dooley the Republican Senate nominee to challenge Ossoff with a variation of a strategy that Raffensperger and Carr are using. Dooley is asserting agreement with Trump, but promising to “put hardworking Georgians first.” His top opponents for the Republican nomination, U.S. Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, leave not an inch of daylight between them and Trump.

    Democrats hope GOP divisions will drive independents to them in 2026. Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey said swing voters are turned off by kowtowing to Trump.

    “There is a toeing of the line, bending of the knee.” Bailey said. “Whether something is true or right depends on who said it, namely whether Trump said it.”

    But Morgan said there’s still a fervor for Trump propelling conservative voters.

    “2020 galvanized the base that allowed Donald Trump to be the nominee of the Republican Party once again,” Morgan said. “And that base is absolutely essential for anybody seeking a Republican nomination. And then beyond that, that base has to turn out for that candidate to win.”

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

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  • Trump Deploys National Guard to Portland, Oregon, While Federal Agents Patrol Chicago, in Photos

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    Memphis is also preparing for the arrival of additional federal authorities, including immigration and drug enforcement agents, expected to arrive this week.

    This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

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  • Albertsons Recalls Several Deli Items Due to Potential Listeria Contamination

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Albertsons Companies has recalled several of its store-made deli products because they may contain listeria bacteria, in a move that arrives shortly after federal health officials warned consumers to not eat certain pasta meals sold at Walmart and Trader Joe’s over similar contamination concerns.

    The Boise, Idaho-based supermarket giant on Saturday said it was pulling five deli items because they contain a recalled bowtie pasta ingredient made by Nate’s Fine Foods. Albertsons is urging consumers to not eat these products — which were supplied by refrigerated goods distributor Fresh Creative Foods — and is instructing those impacted to throw them away or initiate a return at their local store for a full refund.

    The products under recall include certain ready-to-eat basil pesto pasta salad offerings, as well as pasta dishes with chicken, spinach and other ingredients. Consumers can determine if an item they bought is impacted by looking at the list of product names, sell thru dates and other identifying information on Albertsons’ website.

    The recalled items were sold in various Albertsons-owned stores — including Albertsons Market, Safeway and Von’s — across more than a dozen states.

    “Listeria monocytogenes can survive in refrigerated temperatures and can easily spread to other foods and surfaces,” Albertsons warned in its release. The company also noted that the FDA instructs consumers to be extra vigilant when cleaning any surfaces or containers that may have come into contact with products recalled for possible listeria contamination.

    The Associated Press reached out to Nate’s Fine Foods in California and Fresh Creative Foods, a division of Oregon-based Reser’s Fine Foods, for further statements on Sunday.

    Albertsons on Saturday said that there had been no reports of injuries or illnesses related to its recalled products. But the company’s recall comes amid wider warnings from U.S. health officials about potential listeria contamination in ready-made meals sold by other retailers, some of which have previously been linked to a deadly outbreak.

    Last week, the U.S. Agriculture Department issued a public health alert warning consumers to not eat Trader Joe’s “Cajun Style Blackened Chicken Breast Fettuccine Alfredo” with best-by dates of Sept. 20, Sept. 24 and Sept. 27 — as well as “Marketside Linguine with Beef Meatballs & Marinara Sauce” sold at Walmart with best-by dates of Sept. 22 through Oct. 1, due to potential listeria contamination.

    No recall has been issued for either of those products, but Trader Joe’s in a company advisory urged consumers to discard or return its impacted chicken alfredo — and Walmart officials also said they put a stop on sales.

    Similar to the bowtie pasta recalled at Albertsons, the pasta in these goods came from Nate’s Fine Foods.

    Listeria infections can cause serious illness, particularly in older adults, people with weakened immune systems and those who are pregnant or their newborns. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

    Roughly 1,600 people in the U.S. get sick each year from listeria infections and about 260 die, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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

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