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  • Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything

    Voters in North Carolina and Georgia have bigger problems than politics. Helene changed everything

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    VILAS, N.C. (AP) — Brad Farrington pulls over to grab a case of water bottles being passed out in Vilas, a small rural community tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains. He’s on his way to help a friend who lost much of what he owned when Hurricane Helene blew through last weekend.

    His friend, like countless others across western North Carolina, is starting over, which explains why Farrington isn’t thinking too much about politics or the White House race between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris right now.

    “I don’t believe people’s hope is in either people that are being elected,” he said.

    Farrington pauses, then gestures toward a dozen volunteers loading water and other necessities into cars and trucks.

    “I believe we’re finding a lot more hope within folks like this,” he said.

    In the election’s final weeks, people in North Carolina and Georgia, influential swing states, are dealing with more immediate concerns: widespread storm damage. If that weren’t enough, voters in Watauga County, a ticket-splitting Appalachian county that has become more Democratic in recent years, must contend with politicians laying blame while offering support as they campaign in a race that could be decided by any small shift.

    Large uprooted trees litter the sides of roads, sometimes blocking driveways. Some homes in Vilas are inaccessible after bridges collapsed and roads crumbled. More populous areas like Boone, home of Appalachian State University, saw major flooding.

    Residents wonder where are missing friends and relatives, is there enough food and water to last until new supplies arrive and how will they rebuild.

    The focus is on survival, not politics — and may remain that way for weeks.

    Politicians travel to affected battleground states

    Trump and Harris have visited North Carolina and Georgia five times since the storm hit. Trump was in North Carolina on Friday, and Harris was there the next day.

    After Trump went to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, 20-year-old Fermin Herrera said the former president clinched his vote with his display of caring, not out of any frustration with how President Joe Biden and Harris, the vice president, are handling the federal disaster response. Herrera already leaned toward voting for Trump.

    “I feel like everybody’s kind doing what they can,” he said. “All the locals are appreciating the help that’s coming.”

    Trump, who has his own mixed record on natural disaster response, attacked Biden and Harris for what he said was a slow response to Helene’s destruction. Trump accused the Democrats of “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” and said there wasn’t enough Federal Emergency Management Agency money because it was spent on illegal immigrants. There is no evidence to support either claim.

    “I’m not thinking about voters right now,” Trump insisted after a meeting with Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., on Friday. “I’m thinking about lives.”

    Biden pushed back hard, saying he is “committed to being president for all of America” and has not ordered aid to be distributed based on party lines. The White House cited statements from the Republican governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee expressing satisfaction with the federal government’s response.

    FEMA’s head, Deanne Criswell, told ABC’s “This Week” that this “truly dangerous narrative” of falsehoods is “demoralizing” to first responders and creating “fear in our own employees.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Criticism of aid efforts so soon after a natural disaster is “inappropriate,” especially when factoring in the daunting logistical problems in western North Carolina, said Gavin Smith, a North Carolina State University professor who specializes in disaster recovery. He said the perilous terrain from compromised roads and bridges and the widespread lack of power and cellphone service make disaster response in the region particularly challenging.

    Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper has made several stops in western North Carolina, including Watauga County and surrounding areas, and Biden viewed the extensive damage via an aerial tour.

    A focus on recovering and rebuilding

    In Watauga County, Jessica Dixon was scraping muck and broken furniture off the ground with a shovel, then dumping it in the bucket of a humming excavator. The 29-year-old stood in a home she bought two years ago. It’s now gutted after a rush of water forced Dixon, her boyfriend and their two dogs to flee to safety.

    Without flood insurance, Dixon is not sure what will happen over the next month. She said she filled out a FEMA application but hasn’t checked her email since. She had given the presidential election some thought before Helene, but now she’s preoccupied with cleaning her home.

    “It wouldn’t change my views on anything,” said Dixon, who was planning to vote for Harris.

    The presidential election isn’t top of mind for 47-year-old Bobby Cordell, either. He’s trying to get help to neighbors in western Watauga County, which has become inaccessible in some parts.

    His home near Beech Mountain is one of those places, he said, after a bridge washed away. Cordell rescued his aunt from a mudslide, then traveled to Boone and has been staying in Appalachian State’s Holmes Convocation Center, which now serves as a Red Cross emergency shelter.

    He’s trying to send disaster relief back where he lives by contacting officials, including from FEMA. That conversation, he said, “went very well.”

    Accepting help isn’t easy for people in the mountains, he said, because they’re used to taking care of themselves.

    Now, though, the people who are trapped “need everything they can get.”

    Helping neighbors becomes more important in Helene’s aftermath

    Over the past week of volunteering at Skateworld, where Farrington stopped for water, it’s become harder for Nancy Crawford to smile. She’s helped serve more than 1,000 people, she said, but the emotional toll has started to settle in for “a lot of us that normally are tough.”

    That burden added to the weight she was already feeling about the election, which she said was “scary to begin with.” Crawford, a registered Republican, said she plans to vote for Harris. As a Latina of Mexican descent, she thinks Trump’s immigration policies would have harmful effects on her community.

    The storm, she said, likely won’t change her vote but has made one thing evident.

    “It doesn’t matter what party you are, we all need help,” she said.

    Jan Wellborn had a similar thought as she made her way around the Watauga High School gym collecting supplies to bring to coworkers in need. A 69-year-old bus driver for the school district, she said the outpouring of support she’s seen from the community has been a “godsend.”

    She takes solace from the county’s ability to pull together. The election matters, she said, but helping people make their way through a harrowing time matters more.

    “The election, it should be important,” Wellborn said. “But right now we need to focus on getting everybody in the county taken care of.”

    ——

    Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

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  • Andy Kim and Curtis Bashaw clash over abortion and immigration in New Jersey Senate debate

    Andy Kim and Curtis Bashaw clash over abortion and immigration in New Jersey Senate debate

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    NUTLEY, N.J. (AP) — Democratic Rep. Andy Kim and Republican Curtis Bashaw clashed over abortion and immigration Sunday in their first debate for New Jersey’s Senate seat, open this year after Bob Menendez’s conviction on bribery charges and resignation.

    Kim, a three-term representative from the 3rd District, hammered Bashaw for his support of former President Donald Trump and expressed skepticism about Bashaw’s position as an abortion rights supporter. Bashaw, a hotel developer from southern New Jersey and first-time candidate, sought to cast himself as a moderate and Kim as a Washington insider.

    The debate was briefly derailed at the start when Bashaw stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared ahead, nonresponsive. He was helped from the stage and left the room for roughly 10 minutes.

    “I got so worked up about this affordability issue that I realized I hadn’t eaten so much food today,” Bashaw said when he returned. “So I appreciate your indulgence.”

    Among the most pointed exchanges was over abortion. Both candidates support abortion rights, but Bashaw has said he supported the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that ended Roe v. Wade. New Jersey has enshrined abortion protections in state law.

    “I just fundamentally have a problem with using the term ‘pro-choice’ to describe yourself when you have talked about the important of the Dobbs decision being correctly decided,” Kim said.

    He also hammered Bashaw for his support of Trump, who has twice lost New Jersey’s electoral votes.

    “The one endorsement that he has made is for Donald Trump to be president of the United States,” Kim said. “And I guess we get a sense of his judgment from that.”

    Bashaw, who defeated a Trump-endorsed rival in the primary, didn’t defend the former president explicitly.

    “Elections are binary choices, and we all have to make a decision,” he said.

    He touted his own candidacy based on his credentials as a businessperson and resisted being typecast as a traditional Republican, pointing out that he backs abortion rights and is a married gay man.

    “I am pro-choice, congressman. I am for freedom in the home,” Bashaw said. “I don’t think government should tell me who I can marry. I don’t think it should tell a woman what she can do with her reproductive health choices.”

    Bashaw hammered on immigration repeatedly throughout, saying it’s “a crisis in New Jersey” and is costing the state.

    In a reflection of how Democratic-leaning New Jersey has been in Senate races, which Republicans haven’t won in more than five decades, Bashaw addressed his closing statements to women and moms of New Jersey.

    “I am a moderate, common-sense person that will work to be a voice for New Jersey,” he said.

    Kim declared his candidacy a day after Menendez’s indictment last year, saying it was time for the state to turn the page on the longtime legislator. It looked as if the Democratic primary in a must-win state for the party would be contentious when first lady Tammy Murphy entered the race, winning support from influential party leaders.

    But Kim challenged the state’s unique ballot-drawing system widely viewed as favoring the candidates backed by party leaders. A federal judge sided with Kim in his legal challenge, putting the system on hold for this election. Murphy dropped out of the race, saying she wanted to avoid a divisive primary, leaving a clear path to Kim’s nomination.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    Kim first won office to the House in 2018, defeating Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur. He got national attention after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection when he was photographed picking up trash in the building.

    Bashaw won a contested primary in June, defeating a Trump-backed opponent. The hotel developer from Cape May is running for office for the first time.

    Menendez was convicted this summer on federal charges of accepting bribes of gold and cash from three New Jersey businesspeople and acting as an agent for the Egyptian government. He has vowed to appeal the conviction.

    He resigned in August, capping a career in politics that spanned roughly five decades. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy appointed George Helmy as interim senator. Helmy said he’ll resign after the election is certified so Murphy can appoint whoever wins the election to the seat for the remainder of Menendez’s term, which expires in January.

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  • US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’

    US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.

    “It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.

    AP AUDIO: Correspondent Julie Walker reports after the deluge, lies and misinformation are clouding the recovery effort from Hurricane Helene.

    Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.

    Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.

    “FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.

    There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.

    Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.

    “We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous — truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.

    President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”

    Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.

    “We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.

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  • Pennsylvania high court declines to decide mail-in ballot issues before election

    Pennsylvania high court declines to decide mail-in ballot issues before election

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has declined to step in and immediately decide issues related to mail-in ballots in the commonwealth with early voting already under way in the few weeks before the Nov. 5 election.

    The commonwealth’s highest court on Saturday night rejected a request by voting rights and left-leaning groups to stop counties from throwing out mail-in ballots that lack a handwritten date or have an incorrect date on the return envelope, citing earlier rulings pointing to the risk of confusing voters so close to the election.

    “This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,” the unsigned order said.

    Chief Justice Debra Todd dissented, saying voters, election officials and courts needed clarity on the issue before Election Day.

    “We ought to resolve this important constitutional question now, before ballots may be improperly rejected and voters disenfranchised,” Todd wrote.

    Justice P. Kevin Brobson, however, said in a concurring opinion that the groups waited more than a year after an earlier high court ruling to bring their challenge, and it was “an all-too-common practice of litigants who postpone seeking judicial relief on election-related matters until the election is underway that creates uncertainty.”

    Many voters have not understood the legal requirement to sign and date their mail-in ballots, leaving tens of thousands of ballots without accurate dates since Pennsylvania dramatically expanded mail-in voting in a 2019 law.

    The lawsuit’s plaintiffs contend that multiple courts have found that a voter-written date is meaningless in determining whether the ballot arrived on time or whether the voter is eligible, so rejecting a ballot on that basis should be considered a violation of the state constitution. The parties won their case on the same claim in a statewide court earlier this year but it was thrown out by the state Supreme Court on a technicality before justices considered the merits.

    Democrats, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, have sided with the plaintiffs, who include the Black Political Empowerment Project, POWER Interfaith, Make the Road Pennsylvania, OnePA Activists United, New PA Project Education Fund Pittsburgh United, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause Pennsylvania.

    Republicans say requiring the date is an election safeguard and accuse Democrats of trying to change election rules at the 11th hour.

    The high court also rejected a challenge by Republican political organizations to county election officials letting voters remedy disqualifying mail-in ballot mistakes, which the GOP says state law doesn’t allow. The ruling noted that the petitioners came to the high court without first litigating the matter in the lower courts.

    The court did agree on Saturday, however, to hear another GOP challenge to a lower court ruling requiring officials in one county to notify voters when their mail-in ballots are rejected, and allow them to vote provisionally on Election Day.

    The Pennsylvania court, with five justices elected as Democrats and two as Republicans, is playing an increasingly important role in settling disputes in this election, much as it did in 2020’s presidential election.

    Issues involving mail-in voting are hyper-partisan: Roughly three-fourths of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania tend to be cast by Democrats. Republicans and Democrats alike attribute the partisan gap to former President Donald Trump, who has baselessly claimed mail-in voting is rife with fraud.

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  • Climate change destroyed an Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town

    Climate change destroyed an Alaska village. Its residents are starting over in a new town

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    MERTARVIK, Alaska (AP) — Growing up along the banks of the Ninglick River in western Alaska, Ashley Tom would look out of her window after strong storms from the Bering Sea hit her village and notice something unsettling: the riverbank was creeping ever closer.

    It was in that home, in the village of Newtok, where Tom’s great-grandmother had taught her to sew and crochet on the sofa, skills she used at school when students crafted headdresses, mittens and baby booties using seal or otter fur. It’s also where her grandmother taught her the intricate art of grass basket weaving and how to speak the Yupik language.

    An abandoned home is locked up in Newtok, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Permafrost melts on the coast in Newtok, Alaska on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Today, erosion and melting permafrost have just about destroyed Newtok, eating about 70 feet (21.34 meters) of land every year. All that’s left are some dilapidated and largely abandoned gray homes scraped bare of paint by salt darting in on the winds of storms.

    “Living with my great-grandmother was all I could remember from Newtok, and it was one of the first houses to be demolished,” said Tom.

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    Ashley Tom tends to her plants at her home in Mertarvik, Alaska, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    In the next few weeks, the last 71 residents will load their possessions onto boats to move to Mertarvik, rejoining 230 residents who began moving away in 2019. They will become one of the first Alaska Native villages to complete a large-scale relocation because of climate change.

    __

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change.

    ___

    Newtok village leaders began searching for a new townsite more than two decades ago, ultimately swapping land with the federal government for a place 9 miles (14.48 kilometers) away on the stable volcanic underpinnings of Nelson Island in the Bering Strait.

    But the move has been slow, leaving Newtok a split village. Even after most residents shifted to Mertarvik, the grocery store and school remained in Newtok, leaving some teachers and students separated from their families for the school year.

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    Power poles lean in the village of Newtok, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A resident drives along a flooded boardwalk on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, in Newtok, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A young man drives an ATV on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Homes of people who relocated from Newtok, Alaska are visible in Mertarvik, Alaska on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Calvin Tom, the tribal administrator and Ashley’s uncle, called Newtok “not a place to live anymore.” Erosion has tilted power poles precariously, and a single good storm this fall will knock out power for good, he said.

    For now, the rush is on to get 18 temporary homes that arrived in Mertarvik on a barge set up before winter sets in.

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    Calvin Tom, the tribal administrator, stands along the eroded coastline in Newtok, Alaska on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Alaska is warming two to three times faster than the global average. Some villages dotting the usually frigid North Slope, Alaska’s prodigious oil field, had their warmest temperatures on record in August, prompting some of Ashley Tom’s friends living there to don bikinis and head to Arctic Ocean beaches.

    It’s the same story across the Arctic, with permafrost degradation damaging roads, railroad tracks, pipes and buildings for 4 million people across the top of the world, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Arctic Institute. In the Russian Arctic, Indigenous people are being moved to cities instead of having their eroding villages relocated and across Scandinavia, reindeer herders are finding the land constantly shifting and new bodies of water appearing, the institute said.

    About 85% of Alaska’s land area lies atop permafrost, so named because it’s supposed to be permanently frozen ground. It holds a lot of water, and when it thaws or when warmer coastal water hits it, its melting causes further erosion. Another issue with warming: less sea ice to act as natural barriers that protect coastal communities from the dangerous waves of ocean storms.

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    Calvin Tom, left, the tribal administrator, lifts his son Brady Tom into his boat in Mertarvik, Alaska on Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    The Yupik have a word for the catastrophic threats of erosion, flooding and thawing permafrost: “usteq,” which means “surface caves in.” The changes are usually slow — until all of a sudden they aren’t, as when a riverbank sloughs off or a huge hole opens up, said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

    There are 144 Alaska Native communities that face some degree of infrastructure damage from erosion, flooding or permafrost melt, according to a report in January from the the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Six of them — Kivalina, Koyukuk, Newtok, Shaktoolik, Shishmaref and Unalakleet — were deemed imminently threatened in a Government Accountability Office report more than two decades ago.

    Communities have three options based on the severity of their situations: Securing protection to stay where they are; staging a managed retreat, moving back from erosion threats; or a complete relocation.

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    Water and patches of green are visible near Mertarvik, Alaska Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Moving is hard, starting with finding a place to go. Communities typically need to swap with the federal government, which owns about 60% of Alaska’s land. But Congress has to approve swaps, and that’s only after negotiations that can drag on: Newtok, for example, began pursuing the Nelson Island land in 1996 and didn’t wrap up until late 2003.

    “That’s way too long,” said Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer, the director of climate initiatives at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

    “If we look back a decade at what’s happened as far as climate change in Alaska, we’re out of time,” she said. “We need to find a better way to help communities secure land for relocation.”

    Kivalina last year completed a master plan for relocation and is negotiating with an Alaska Native regional corporation for the land, a process that could take 3 to 5 years, Schaeffer said.

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    A girl plays with a dog on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Children play along the tundra on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Another big hurdle is cost. Newtok has spent decades and about $160 million in today’s dollars on its move. Estimates to relocate Kivalina vary from $100 million to $400 million and rising, and there’s currently no federal funding for relocation. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has disaster funding and programs, Schaeffer said, but that comes only after a disaster declaration.

    In 2018, a resource for Alaska communities identified 60 federal funding sources for relocation, but according to the Unmet Needs report, only a few have been successfully used to address environmental threats. But an infusion of funding into these existing programs by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act could provide benefits to threatened Alaska communities, the report said.

    About $4.3 billion in 2020 dollars will be needed to mitigate infrastructure damage over the next 50 years, the health consortium report says. It called for Congress to close an $80 million annual gap by providing a single committed source to assist communities.

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    Bosco and Jennifer Carl say grace with their children before a meal at their home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Marie Carl, 75, sits at the kitchen table at her home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    “Alaska Native economic, social, and cultural ways of being, which have served so well for millennia, are now under extreme threat due to accelerated environmental change,” the report said. “In jeopardy are not just buildings, but the sustainability of entire communities and cultures.”

    After five years of separation and split lives, the residents of Newtok and Mertarvik will be one again. The school in Newtok closed and classes started in August for the first time in a temporary location in Mertarvik. A new school building should be ready in 2026. The Newtok grocery recently moved to Mertarvik, and there’s plans for a second grocery and a church, Calvin Tom said.

    The new village site has huge benefits, including better health, Tom said. For now, most of the people of Mertarvik are still using a “honey bucket” system rather than toilets. But that method of manually dumping plastic buckets of waste should be replaced by piped water and sewer within the next few years. The new homes in Mertarvik are also free of black mold that crept into some Newtok homes on moisture brought by the remnants of Typhoon Merbok two years ago.

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    Girlie Carl, 4, plays with her grandmother Marie Carl, 75, on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    A young girl prepares to participate in an Indigenous drum and dance on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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    Marie Carl, 75, performs during an Indigenous drum and dance in Mertarvik, Alaska on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Tom said there’s talk of someday renaming the relocated town Newtok. Whatever the name, the relocation offers assurance that culture and traditions from the old place will continue. An Indigenous drum and dance group is practicing at the temporary school, and subsistence hunting opportunities — moose, musk ox, black bear, brown bear — abound.

    A pod of belugas that comes by every fall should arrive soon, and that hunt will help residents fill their freezers for the harsh winter ahead.

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    Jennifer sits with her daughter Girlie, 4, at their home on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024, in Mertarvik, Alaska. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

    Ashley Tom is excited by the arrival of the last Newtok residents in Mertarvik. Although their home will be different than what they’ve known for most of their lives, she’s confident they will come to appreciate it as she has.

    “I really love this this new area, and I just feel whole here,” she said.

    ___

    Thiessen reported from Anchorage.

    ___

    This story was first published on Sep. 26, 2024. It was updated on Sep. 28, 2024 to correct the number of villages facing infrastructure damage from erosion, 144 not 114. It also corrects the name of the organization that authored the Unmet Needs report, and where Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer works as the director of climate initiatives. It is the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, not the Alaska Native Travel Health Consortium.

    ___

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

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  • A federal judge in Texas will hear arguments over Boeing’s plea deal in a 737 Max case

    A federal judge in Texas will hear arguments over Boeing’s plea deal in a 737 Max case

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    FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A federal judge on Friday ordered a hearing next month over Boeing’s agreement to plead guilty to conspiracy in connection with the 737 Max jetliner, two of which crashed, killing 346 people.

    Families of some of the passengers killed in the crashes object to the agreement. They want to put Boeing on trial, where it could face tougher punishment.

    U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor set a hearing for Oct. 11 in Fort Worth, Texas.

    Boeing is accused of misleading regulators who approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots before they could fly the Max. Boeing wanted to prevent regulators from requiring training in flight simulators, which would have raised the cost for airlines to operate the plane.

    The Justice Department argued in court filings that conspiracy to defraud the government is the most serious charge it can prove. Prosecutors said they lack evidence to show that Boeing’s actions caused the crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.

    Relatives of victims and their lawyers have called the settlement a sweetheart deal that fails to consider the loss of so many lives. Some of the lawyers have argued that the Justice Department treated Boeing gently because the company is a big government contractor.

    The agreement calls for Boeing to pay a fine of at least $243.6 million, invest $455 million in compliance and safety programs, and be placed on probation for three years.

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  • Jimmy Carter at 100: A century of changes for a president, the US and the world since 1924

    Jimmy Carter at 100: A century of changes for a president, the US and the world since 1924

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    Already the longest-lived of the 45 men to serve as U.S. president, Jimmy Carter is about to reach the century mark.

    The 39th president, who remains under home hospice care, will turn 100 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, celebrating in the same south Georgia town where he was born in 1924.

    Here are some notable markers for Carter, the nation and the world over his long life.

    Booms most everywhere — but not Plains

    FILE – The Ku Klux Klan marches down Pennsylvania Ave. past the Treasury Building in Washington D.C. in 1925. (AP Photo, File)

    Carter has seen the U.S. population nearly triple. The U.S. has about 330 million residents; there were about 114 million in 1924 and 220 million when Carter was inaugurated in 1977. The global population has more than quadrupled, from 1.9 billion to more than 8.1 billion. It already had more than doubled to 4.36 billion by the time he became president.

    That boom has not reached Plains, where Carter has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. His wife Rosalynn, who died in 2023 at age 96, also was born in Plains.

    Their town comprised fewer than 500 people in the 1920s and has about 700 today; much of the local economy revolves around its most famous residents.

    When James Earl Carter Jr. was born, life expectancy for American males was 58. It’s now 75.

    TV, radio and presidential maps

    NBC first debuted a red-and-blue electoral map in the 1976 election between then-President Gerald Ford, a Republican, and Carter, the Democratic challenger. But NBC’s John Chancellor made Carter’s states red and Ford’s blue. Some other early versions of color electoral maps used yellow and blue because red was associated with Soviet and Chinese communism.

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    FILE – Former Presidents George Bush, left, and Jimmy Carter, right, stand with President Clinton during a kick-off rally for the President’s volunteer summit at Marcus Foster Stadium in Philadelphia, PA., April 27, 1997. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson, File)

    It wasn’t until the 1990s that networks settled on blue for Democratic-won states and red for GOP-won states. “Red state” and “blue state” did not become a permanent part of the American political lexicon until after the disputed 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

    Carter was 14 when Franklin D. Roosevelt made the first presidential television appearance. Warren Harding became the first radio president two years before Carter’s birth.

    Attention shoppers

    There was no Amazon Prime in 1924, but you could order a build-it-yourself house from a catalog. Sears Roebuck Gladstone’s three-bedroom model went for $2,025, which was slightly less than the average worker’s annual income.

    Image

    FILE – College student Chuck McManis watches President Jimmy Carter’s nationally televised energy speech from a service station in Los Angeles, as a gas station attendant fills up a customer’s car, July 15, 1979. (AP Photo/Mao, File)

    Walmart didn’t exist, but local general stores served the same purpose. Ballpark prices: loaf of bread, 9 cents; gallon of milk, 54 cents; gallon of gas, 11 cents.

    Inflation helped drive Carter from office, as it has dogged President Joe Biden. The average gallon in 1980, Carter’s last full year in office, was about $3.25 when adjusted for inflation. That’s just 3 cents more than AAA’s current national average.

    From suffragettes to Kamala Harris

    The 19th Amendment that extended voting rights to women — almost exclusively white women at the time — was ratified in 1920, four years before Carter’s birth. The Voting Rights Act that widened the franchise to Black Americans passed in 1965 as Carter was preparing his first bid for Georgia governor.

    Now, Carter is poised to cast a mail ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris. She would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office. Grandson Jason Carter said the former president is holding on in part because he is excited about the chance to see Harris make history.

    Image

    FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter, right, and Atlanta Braves team owner Ted Turner, left, watch early play during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta, Oct. 14, 1998. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)

    Immigration, isolationism and ‘America First’

    For all the shifts in U.S. politics, some things stay the same. Or at least come back around.

    Carter was born in an era of isolationism, protectionism and white Christian nationalism — all elements of the right in the ongoing Donald Trump era. In 2024, Trump is promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, while tightening legal immigration. He has said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

    Five months before Carter was born, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The law created the U.S. Border Patrol and sharply curtailed immigration, limiting admission mostly to migrants from western Europe. Asians were banned entirely. Congress described its purpose plainly: “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” The Ku Klux Klan followed in 1925 and 1926 with marches on Washington promoting white supremacy.

    Trump also has called for sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, part of his “America First” agenda. In 1922, Congress enacted tariffs intended to help U.S. manufacturers. After stock market losses in 1929, lawmakers added the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, ostensibly to help American farmers. The Great Depression followed anyway. In the 1930s, as Carter became politically aware, the political right that countered FDR was driven in part by a movement that opposed international engagement. Those conservatives’ slogan: “America First.”

    Image

    FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter pulls notes out of his pocket before delivering remarks during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Aug. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

    America’s and Carter’s pastime

    Carter is the Atlanta Braves’ most famous fan. Jason Carter says the former president still enjoys watching his favorite baseball team.

    In the 1990s, when the Braves were annual features in the October playoffs, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were often spotted in the owner’s box with media mogul Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, then Turner’s wife. The Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee between Carter’s failed run for governor in 1966 and his victory four years later. Then-Gov. Carter was sitting in the first row of Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium on April 9, 1974, when Henry Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s career record.

    When Carter was born, the Braves were still in Boston, their original city. Ruth had just completed his fifth season for the New York Yankees. He had hit 284 home runs to that point (still 430 short of his career total) and the original Yankee Stadium — “The House that Ruth Built” — had been open less than 18 months.

    Booze, Billy and Billy Beer

    Prohibition had been in effect for four years when Carter was born and wouldn’t be lifted until he was 9. The Carters were never prodigious drinkers. They served only wine at state dinners and other White House functions, though it’s a common misconception that they did so because of their Baptist mores. It was more because Carter has always been frugal: He didn’t want taxpayers or the residence account (his and Rosalynn’s personal money) to cover more expensive hard liquor.

    Carter’s younger brother Billy, who owned a Plains gas station and died in 1988, had different tastes. He marketed his own brand, Billy Beer, once Carter became president. News sources reported that Billy Carter snagged a $50,000 annual licensing fee from one brewer. That’s about $215,000 today. The president’s annual salary at the time was $200,000 — it’s now $400,000.

    The debt: More Carter frugality

    The Times Square debt clock didn’t debut until Carter was in his early 60s and out of the White House. But for anyone counting the $35 trillion debt, Carter doesn’t merit much mention. The man who would wash Ziploc bags to reuse them added less than $300 billion to the national debt, which stood below $1 trillion when he left office.

    Other presidents

    Carter has lived through 40% of U.S. history since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and more than a third of all U.S. administrations since George Washington took office in 1789 — nine before Carter was president, his own and seven since.

    When Carter took office, just two presidents, John Adams and Herbert Hoover, had lived to be 90. Since then, Ford, Ronald Reagan, Carter and George H.W. Bush all reached at least 93.

    ——-

    This story was first published on Sep. 28, 2024. It was updated on Oct. 1, 2024 to correct that only one other former president, John Adams, lived to be at least 90. Herbert Hoover died at 90 in 1964.

    ___

    Follow Barrow at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP

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  • Boar’s Head faces legal scrutiny over deadly deli meat listeria outbreak, USDA says

    Boar’s Head faces legal scrutiny over deadly deli meat listeria outbreak, USDA says

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    Boar’s Head, the deli meat company at the center of a deadly listeria food poisoning outbreak, is being scrutinized by law enforcement officials, the U.S. Agriculture Department disclosed in response to government records requests.

    Officials with USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service refused to share documents regarding the agency’s inspections and enforcement at the Boar’s Head plant in Jarratt, Virginia, plus inspection reports from eight other company factories across the U.S.

    The records — which FSIS acknowledged include dozens of pages of documentation — were withheld because they were compiled “for a law enforcement purpose, which includes both civil and criminal statutes,” according to a letter sent Friday in response to Freedom of Information Act requests submitted by The Associated Press. Releasing the records could “interfere with” and “hinder” the government’s investigation, the letter said.

    The AP asked for records regarding the listeria outbreak that, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has killed 10 people and sickened at least 50 in 19 states since May. Listeria bacteria were initially detected in samples of Boar’s Head liverwurst and later traced to illnesses in people.

    Image

    Previously released records revealed problems including mold, insects, dripping water and meat and fat residue on walls, floors and equipment dating back at least two years. Boar’s Head earlier recalled more than 7 million pounds of deli meat distributed to stores across the country. This month, the Sarasota, Florida-based company said it has closed the Virginia plant and permanently stopped making liverwurst.

    Boar’s Head is facing several lawsuits filed by victims and their families.

    FSIS officials did not respond to AP’s emails seeking additional comment about the records. Justice Department officials declined to comment on potential legal actions against Boar’s Head.

    This week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Rosa DeLauro called on the Agriculture and Justice departments to “work closely” to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Boar’s Head in connection with the crisis. In response, USDA’s own internal investigators are reviewing the agency’s work and will decide by the end of the year whether to open an inquiry, according to Blumenthal’s office.

    Past food poisoning outbreaks have resulted in criminal and civil penalties.

    In 2020, Chipotle agreed to pay a record $25 million to resolve criminal charges over tainted food that sickened more than 1,100 people in outbreaks between 2015 and 2018. In 2015, former Peanut Corporation of America executive Stewart Parnell was sentenced to 28 years in prison after an outbreak of salmonella in his company’s peanut butter killed nine people and sickened more than 700.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • CBS News says it will be up to Vance and Walz to fact-check each other in veep debate

    CBS News says it will be up to Vance and Walz to fact-check each other in veep debate

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    NEW YORK (AP) — CBS News, hosting vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz for the general election campaign’s third debate next week, says it will be up to the politicians — not the moderators — to check the facts of their opponents.

    The 90-minute debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan studio that once hosted the children’s program “Captain Kangaroo,” will be moderated by the outgoing “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.

    Tim Walz and JD Vance meet for their first vice presidential debate:

    During ABC’s debate between presidential contenders Kamala Harris and Donald Trump earlier this month, network moderators on four occasions pointed out inaccurate statements by Trump, and none by Harris. That infuriated the former president and his supporters, who complained it was unfair.

    Last spring, CNN moderators did not question any facts presented by Trump and President Joe Biden in the debate where Biden’s poor performance eventually led to him dropping out of the race.

    On Friday, CBS said the onus will be on Vance and Walz to point out misstatements by the other, and that “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. The network said its own misinformation unit, CBS News Confirmed, will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on its live blog and on social media, and on the air during post-debate analysis.

    With its plans, CBS News is clearly indicating it wants to take a step back from the heat generated by calling attention to misleading statements by candidates. Some argue that offstage fact-checking is too little, too late and not seen by many people who watch the event.

    It’s not the first time

    Angie Drobnic Holan, director of the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute, said she has seen examples of moderators who have successfully encouraged candidates to keep their opponents honest.

    “I’ll be interested in seeing how this works in practice,” she said. “Having said that, you’re basically off-loading one of your journalistic responsibilities onto the candidates themselves, so I don’t think that it’s ideal. It takes journalistic courage to be willing to fact-check the candidates, because the candidates are absolutely going to complain about it. I don’t think the moderators’ first goal is to avoid controversy.”

    During the ABC debate, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis corrected Trump statements on abortion, the 2020 election, crime statistics and reports that immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.

    Unlike the two presidential debates, the two sides agreed that the vice presidential candidates’ microphones will not be turned off while their opponent is speaking, increasing the chance for genuine back-and-forth exchanges and the risk that the two men will talk over each other. CBS says it reserves the right to shut off a “hot mic” when necessary. Each candidate will have two minutes for a closing statement, with Vance winning a virtual coin toss and choosing to get the last word.

    The stakes are high for CBS News

    It’s a big moment for CBS News, long mired in third place in the evening news ratings. O’Donnell just announced she was stepping down from the role. Brennan is considered a rising star.

    Like with the presidential debates, CBS is making its feed available for other networks to televise, and many are expected to take advantage of the opportunity.

    There will be no audience when Vance and Walz meet at a West Side studio that, in its past, has hosted editions of “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “Inside the NFL,” “Geraldo” and “Captain Kangaroo.”

    It’s not known whether there will be other opportunities to see Trump and Harris together on the same stage before the Nov. 5 election. Harris has accepted an invitation from CNN for another debate on Oct. 23, but Trump has rejected it. In a poll taken by Quinnipiac University and released earlier this week, likely voters said by roughly a two-to-one margin that they’d like them face off again.

    CBS’ “60 Minutes” is looking to land both Harris and Trump for back-to-back interviews that will air on Oct. 7, but neither candidate has committed to it yet.

    ___

    David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

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  • Kentucky sign language interpreter honored in program to give special weather radios to the deaf

    Kentucky sign language interpreter honored in program to give special weather radios to the deaf

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    Putting grant money into action is routine for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, but an effort to provide weather alerts to people who are deaf or hard of hearing is tugging at his heart.

    The grant-backed campaign to distribute 700 specially adapted weather alert radios to the deaf and hard of hearing is named in honor of his friend Virginia Moore, who died last year. She was the governor’s sidekick as the sign language interpreter for his briefings during the height of COVID-19. The updates became a staple for Kentuckians, and Moore gained celebrity status. She even got her own bobblehead of her likeness.

    Beshear tapped the bobblehead displayed on his podium as he announced the “Moore Safe Nights” program, which will distribute the radios at no cost to eligible Kentuckians who apply. It is an effort to ensure all Kentuckians have equal access to information that can keep them safe, he said Thursday.

    “I think Virginia would have loved this program,” Beshear said, his voice shaking with emotion. “Virginia has a legacy for service that is living on with new programs.”

    The weather radios were purchased with funding from an emergency preparedness grant and other funds, Beshear said. The state will seek additional funds with a goal of eventually providing the radios to every Kentuckian who needs one, he said.

    The radios are equipped with pillow-shaker and strobe-light attachments to alert people who are deaf and hard of hearing of severe weather warnings issued by the National Weather Service. The radios also have text displays that light up, so they know the type of weather warning issued.

    “As Kentuckians know all too well, severe weather can strike at any hour,” Beshear said. “And the most dangerous time is when people are sleeping.”

    No matter how vigilant deaf and hard-of-hearing people are in monitoring weather alerts, their vulnerability increases once they fall asleep because they are unable to hear alarms and sirens, said Anita Dowd, executive director of the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

    “This equipment will allow users to rest easier knowing that they now have access to this important and often life-saving information,” Dowd said.

    Kentucky has more than 700,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing residents, the governor said.

    Moore, who died at age 61, was known as a tireless champion for the deaf and hard of hearing and served as executive director of the state commission that advocates for them.

    On Thursday, Beshear spoke about their bond. At the end of each long day of work during the height of the pandemic, he said, he would see her on his way home to his family at the governor’s mansion.

    “She’d look at me and say, ‘I hope you’re OK and take care of yourself,’ ” he recalled. “That’s pretty special. That’s who she was, looking out for everybody else, including me.”

    ___

    Eligible Kentuckians can go to https://www.kcdhh.ky.gov/msn/ or call 800-372-2907 or 502-416-0607 to apply for a radio, Radios will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

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  • Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

    Abortion-rights groups are courting Latino voters in Arizona and Florida

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    PHOENIX (AP) — When Lesley Chavez found out she was pregnant at age 16, she saw her daughter as a blessing from God and never considered an abortion, a view reinforced by her devout Christian mother. If she could have voted at the time, Chavez would have opposed expanding abortion access.

    But 10 years later — as she and other Arizona residents braced for a possible ban on nearly all abortions — Chavez drove over 300 miles (480 kilometers) to California to help a friend get one. That experience with someone she knew who was struggling financially and couldn’t support another child was the final push that changed Chavez’s stance on the issue.

    “I just kind of felt like, dang, if I didn’t have nobody, I would want someone like me to be there. I would want someone that’s not going to judge me and actually help,” she said.

    Now, she helps deliver that message to other Latinos in Arizona, one of nine states that is considering constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights.

    As abortion-rights groups court Latino voters through door-knocking and Spanish-language ads, they say the fast-growing group could determine the outcome of abortion ballot measures across the U.S., particularly in states such as Arizona and Florida with large Latino populations.

    Like other Americans, Latinos have an array of personal feelings and connections to the issue that can be impacted by religion, culture, country of origin and other things, organizers say. But their views are often misunderstood and oversimplified by people who assume they are all Catholic and, therefore, anti-abortion, said Natasha Sutherland, communications director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which is behind an abortion measure in that state.

    A recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about two-thirds of Hispanic Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. About 4 in 10 U.S. Hispanics identify as Catholic, about one-third as Protestant or “other Christian,” and about one-quarter as religiously unaffiliated.

    Efforts to reach Latino voters often hinge on one-on-one conversations — “old-school, boots on the ground organizing,” said Alex Berrios, co-founder of the grassroots Florida group Mi Vecino, or “my neighbor.”

    Overall, about 14.7% of eligible voters, or 36.2 million people, are Latino, according to the Pew Research Center.

    In Florida, 18% of registered voters are Hispanic, or 2.4 million people, according to an October 2023 analysis by the nonpartisan Latino advocacy organization NALEO Educational Fund. More than 855,000 Latinos are expected to cast ballots in Arizona for the November election, making up about 1 in 4 Arizona voters, according to NALEO.

    As a lead canvasser for the grassroots Arizona group Poder in Action, Chavez has knocked on the doors of ambivalent Latino voters, persuading them to support a measure that would guarantee access to abortion until fetal viability, a term used by health care providers to describe whether a pregnancy is expected to continue developing normally or whether a fetus might survive outside the uterus. It’s generally considered to be around 23 or 24 weeks.

    Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, moved the measure to the top of its canvassing script because voters kept bringing up the issue. LUCHA campaigns to low-income Latino, Black and Indigenous voters.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    “People initiated the conversation like, ‘Oh yeah I just heard on the news what happened with the 1800 abortion ban,’” Abril Gallardo, chief of staff for LUCHA, said, referring to the 1864 abortion ban that the Arizona Supreme Court signaled in April the state could enforce but that lawmakers later repealed.

    Another group, Mi Familia Vota, has put $200,000 toward its efforts to mobilize Latino voters to support the measure.

    The official campaign against the proposal— It Goes Too Far — has enlisted Hispanic volunteers in its effort to sway voters.

    Abortion is one of the most important issues in the upcoming election to about 4 in 10 Hispanic voters, below the economy, crime, and health care, and about on par with immigration, according to the AP-NORC poll.

    In Florida, abortion is illegal after the first six weeks of pregnancy. The November ballot measure would legalize abortion until fetal viability.

    “The Latino community is a huge part of any campaign in Florida,” Sutherland said. “We can’t win this without Latinos, so Latino outreach is essential.”

    Sutherland said her group uses bilingual phone banking and canvassing efforts, hosted a bilingual campaign launch rally, hired a Latino outreach manager and holds weekly Spanish-language meetings to discuss strategy.

    The opposing campaign has ads in Spanish and has a Spanish version of its website called “Vota No En La 4.”

    Berrios’ group, Mi Vecino, has focused on Florida’s 9th Congressional District, which includes Osceola County and Orlando and was the first majority Hispanic district to meet the signature requirement for putting abortion rights on the ballot. Berrios tells supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that they can vote for him and for abortion rights.

    “We saw a need for a culturally competent nonpartisan effort to engage and educate Hispanic voters on reproductive freedom,” Berrios said.

    For Latino men especially, it has been helpful to include messaging about limiting government decisions in family and health care decisions, several Florida organizers said.

    “You need to have conversations that are tailored to the person in front of you. For folks in Florida, for example, who escaped communism in their own countries, they’re really moved by things having to do with freedom and the power to determine the conditions of their own lives. We try to be as nuanced as possible,” said Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice.

    Rocio Garcia, an assistant professor of sociology at Arizona State University, said that over time, Latinas, including those who are Catholic, have swung toward supporting abortion access, even if they would not get an abortion themselves.

    Alyssa Sanchez, a 23-year-old Mexican American who is Catholic, plans to vote for Arizona’s measure. Her family members have been supportive of the issue as long as she could remember.

    “You do still have to take Bibles, sayings, everything about the Catholic religion to your own interpretation,” said Sanchez, a lifelong Arizona resident. “And then battling that thought it just comes down to, I believe in people’s choice to their own bodies stronger than I believe in anything else.”

    Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, vice president for health justice at the National Partnership for Women & Families, said abortion-rights supporters cannot afford to assume Latino voters do not support abortion rights, especially in majority-Republican Florida, which requires 60% voter support to pass a constitutional amendment.

    “If you’re going to approach any voter with false assumptions, you’re not going to be able to connect,” she said.

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago.

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  • New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleads not guilty to taking bribes and illegal campaign contributions

    New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleads not guilty to taking bribes and illegal campaign contributions

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    NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams pleaded not guilty Friday to federal bribery charges, firmly rejecting allegations that he accepted overseas travel, campaign cash and other perks from foreign interests seeking to harness his influence.

    Adams, a former police captain, entered the plea in a packed courtroom that’s just a short walk from City Hall, which has been roiled in recent weeks by a cascade of investigations, searches and subpoenas. The first-term Democrat maintains he did nothing wrong and has vowed to stay in office, rebuffing growing calls for him to quit.

    “I am not guilty, your honor,” Adams said, looking solemnly at the judge.

    His appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker came a day after prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of taking $100,000 in flights and stays in opulent hotel suites from people tied to Turkey, and fueling his run for mayor with illegal donations that helped him qualify for more than $10 million in public campaign funds.

    Adams was released on the condition that he not contact any witnesses or people described in the indictment. The mayor is allowed to speak with relatives and staff, but not about anything pertaining to the allegations.

    Adams left the courtroom without commenting. He smiled at a court officer but ignored the rows of reporters he passed on his way out. Afterward, he stood silently outside the courthouse while his lawyer, Alex Spiro, railed against the charges to a crowd of cameras while onlookers shouted “Free Eric!” and “Lock him up!”

    “This isn’t even a real case. This is the airline upgrade corruption case,” Spiro said. He told the judge would file a motion next week asking for the case to be dismissed.

    Yet even as the mayor appeared in court, the investigation into his administration continued.

    One of Adams’ closest City Hall advisers, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, was met at the airport Friday by investigators from the U.S. attorney’s office and Manhattan district attorney’s office after she got off flight from Japan. The federal investigators served her with a subpoena. The local prosecutors took her phones and searched her house, according to her lawyer, Arthur Aidala. A TV news crew got footage of investigators carrying out boxes marked “documents” and “electronics.”

    “She will cooperate fully with any and all investigations and Ms. Lewis is not the target of any case of which we are aware,” Aidala said.

    Adams, 64, is due back in court Wednesday for a conference before U.S. District Judge Dale E. Ho, who will preside over the case going forward.

    In his 18-minute appearance Friday, Adams sat stoically with his hands folded in his lap as the magistrate judge read the charges aloud, her sturdy delivery underscoring the gravity of the case. He was at the courthouse for just under four hours.

    The criminal case and tumult in Adams’ administration, including the sudden resignation of his police commissioner and retirement of his schools chancellor, have created a political crisis for the mayor.

    Adams has so far weathered calls to resign, including from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, potential Democratic challengers in next June’s mayoral primary, and some Republicans. Top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries have not called on Adams to quit, saying the legal process should be allowed to play out.

    Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who has the power to remove Adams from office, appeared to issue a warning to a mayor she has often portrayed as a close ally, saying in a statement that she was reviewing her “options and obligations” and expects “the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders.”

    Adams, who soared to office as a law-and-order champion of the middle class, is charged with five counts: wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy and two counts of receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national. If convicted of the most serious charge, wire fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison, federal prosecutors said.

    Among other things, Adams is accused of allowing a senior Turkish diplomat and others to shower him with luxury accommodations to places like France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey, including valuable business-class upgrades, high-end meals and even a trip to a Turkish bath. Most of the trips took place while Adams was Brooklyn borough president, before he ran for mayor.

    Adams is also accused of conspiring to take campaign contributions from foreign sources banned from giving to U.S. campaigns and disguising the payments by routing them through straw donors.

    In return, Adams allegedly did favors for his patrons, including helping ensure that Turkey’s newly built diplomatic tower in Manhattan wouldn’t be subject to a fire inspection that it was certain to fail.

    Spiro, whose roster of past and present clients includes Elon Musk, Alec Baldwin and Jay-Z, said it was neither unusual nor improper for an elected official to accept some travel perks. The mayor has denied ever knowingly accepting an illegal campaign contribution and said any help he gave people navigating city bureaucracy was just part of his job.

    Adams’ indictment is unlikely to be the last word on federal investigations involving city government.

    U.S. Attorney Damian Williams told reporters Thursday: “This investigation continues. We continue to dig, and we will hold more people accountable, and I encourage anyone with information to come forward and to do so before it is too late.”

    Federal prosecutors are believed to be leading multiple, separate inquiries involving Adams and his senior aides and relatives of those aides. In early September, federal investigators seized devices from the police commissioner, schools chancellor, two deputy mayors and other trusted Adams confidants.

    None of those other officials have been publicly accused of wrongdoing or charged with a crime.

    The Lower Manhattan courthouse is less than two blocks from the one where former President Donald Trump was tried and convicted of falsifying business records. Adams’ arraignment was in the same courthouse where a jury found Trump civilly liable for sexually assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and in the very same courtroom where hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arraigned last week on sex trafficking charges.

    ___

    Associated Press reporter Anthony Izaguirre in Albany contributed.

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  • A look inside the indictment accusing New York City’s mayor of taking bribes

    A look inside the indictment accusing New York City’s mayor of taking bribes

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    NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams has never been shy about his globetrotting ways. But he’s not always said how he bankrolled years’ worth of overseas adventures.

    Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Thursday saying the Democrat took trips to France, China, Sri Lanka, India, Hungary, Ghana and Turkey that were partly or fully paid for by people looking to buy his influence in city government.

    The gifts, prosecutors said, included free hotel rooms, seat upgrades worth thousands of dollars, expensive meals, entertainment — even a trip to a Turkish bath. All told, the perks were worth more than $100,000, prosecutors said.

    The indictment also accuses Adams of conspiring to collect illegal donations to his campaigns, partly by funneling them through straw donors who hadn’t actually contributed the money.

    Adams says he didn’t do anything wrong and has no plans to resign. His lawyer, Alex Spiro, criticized the charges as a jumble of innuendo meant to mislead the public and tarnish the mayor.

    Here are highlights from the 57-page indictment:

    Key allegations against Adams

    Adams is accused of exploiting a yearslong relationship with people tied to Turkey, who funded his travel and fueled his run for mayor with donations that helped him qualify for more than $10 million in public campaign funds. People who are not U.S. citizens are banned by law from donating to U.S. political candidates.

    Prosecutors say Adams returned the favor in September 2021 by ensuring that Turkey’s newly built diplomatic tower in Manhattan wouldn’t be subject to a fire inspection, which it was certain to fail.

    At one point, a Turkish official praised Adams as a “true friend of Turkey,” according to the indictment. Adams allegedly responded: ”Yes even more a true friend of yours. You are my brother. I am hear (sic) to help.”

    The indictment said Adams also agreed not to release a statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day that would reflect poorly on Turkey.

    Adams is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, bribery and receiving campaign contributions from a foreign national.

    Who is named in the indictment?

    Adams is the only person charged and the only person identified by name — but there are lots of other characters who factor prominently in the indictment.

    There’s the “Turkish Official,” a senior official in the Turkish diplomatic establishment said to have arranged Adams’ travel perks and facilitated straw donations to his campaign; “The Promoter,” a Turkish entrepreneur who prosecutors say organized events to introduce Adams to Turkish businesspeople; and the “Airline Manager,” a New York City-based general manager for Turkish Airlines who booked Adams’ free and heavily discounted flights and business class upgrades.

    There were also “Businessman-1,” the owner of a Turkish University who prosecutors say was considering a business venture in Brooklyn; the “Businesswoman,” who gave Adams free or steeply discounted stays in opulent suites at the St. Regis Istanbul, a luxury hotel she owned; plus “Businessman-2,” “Businessman-3,” “Businessman-4,” and “Businessman-5,” all of whom were accused of being involved in straw donations.

    ‘The Promoter’

    Prosecutors said the person they identified as “The Promoter” concocted a plan — personally approved by Adams — to funnel up to $100,000 in banned campaign contributions to him through U.S. employees of a Turkish university, the indictment alleges.

    At one point, an Adams staffer tried to discourage the idea, saying Adams likely wouldn’t be interested in “such games” because it “might cause a big stink later on,” according to the indictment. But prosecutors said Adams liked the idea and directed his staffer to pursue it.

    “The Promoter” purportedly told associates that Adams was worth supporting because he could become president someday.

    ‘This is how things work in this country’

    At one point, the indictment says, a construction company owner tried to recruit others in industry and the Turkish community to back Adams with campaign contributions and gifts, writing, in part, this “may feel like swimming against the current but unfortunately this is how things work in this country.”

    What does Adams’ lawyer say?

    Spiro told reports the conduct described in the indictment wasn’t illegal or didn’t involve the mayor.

    The Turkish consulate was asking for “a courtesy,” not payback, when it wanted Adams’ help in skipping a fire inspection, Spiro said, adding: “New Yorkers do this all the time.” Adams said he’d see what he could do and, a few days later, ignored a follow up phone call from the consulate, Spiro asserted.

    “There is no corruption. This is not a real case,” Spiro said.

    Spiro said Adams sent emails telling his staff never to accept foreign donations.

    As for the free flights and upgrades, Spiro said there’s nothing illegal or unusual about that.

    “When you actually look at this — if you just take a second to step back and look at this — look at the flights they talk about, the travel, the expenses,” Spiro said. “The flight they talk about, that free flight was in 2017 — seven years ago, five years before he’s the mayor. There’s nothing illegal or improper about that.”

    Adams’ flight upgrades put him in otherwise open seats, the defense attorney said, contending that such arrangements are a common practice in the airline industry.

    “That’s what airlines do,” Spiro said. “They do it every day. They do it for VIPs. They do it for congresspeople. They’re empty seats that cost the airlines nothing.”

    Alleged cover up

    The indictment claims that Adams and co-conspirators took steps to cover their tracks, including making a false paper trail to make it appear as if he had fully paid for flights that were free or deeply discounted.

    The indictment also accused the mayor and others of making it difficult for investigators.

    FBI agents seized electronic devices from Adams last November as he left an event. According to the indictment, the mayor produced two phones but not the personal phone. Adams later turned over that phone in response to a subpoena, but it was locked and required a password.

    Adams claimed to have forgotten it, the indictment said.

    According to the indictment, an Adams staffer who met with FBI agents excused herself at one point, went to a bathroom and deleted the encrypted messaging app she had used to communicate with the mayor, the Turkish official, the Turkish airline contact and others.

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  • A Massachusetts woman accused of running a high-end brothel network pleads guilty

    A Massachusetts woman accused of running a high-end brothel network pleads guilty

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    BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts woman accused of operating a high-end brothel network with wealthy and prominent clients in that state and the Washington, D.C., suburbs pleaded guilty in federal court Friday.

    Han Lee and two others were indicted earlier this year on one count of conspiracy to persuade, entice, and coerce one or more individuals to travel in interstate or foreign commerce to engage in prostitution and one count of money laundering, according to prosecutors.

    James Lee of Torrance, California, and Junmyung Lee of Dedham, Massachusetts, also were indicted.

    Han Lee initially had entered a not guilty plea before changing her plea. She remained in custody and faces up to 25 years in prison for the two felonies.

    Han Lee, 42, entered court dressed in an orange shirt and orange pants, her black hair tied in the back. She also relied on the help of a Korean translator. Lee said she was not a U.S. citizen and had gone as far as high school in her education.

    She was told that by pleading guilty she could be deported from the country.

    Scott Lauer, a lawyer for Han Lee, said she would remain in custody after the hearing but declined to comment further. A lawyer for James Lee declined to comment. A lawyer representing Junmyung Lee said his next court appearance has been rescheduled.

    Authorities said the commercial sex ring in Massachusetts and northern Virginia catered to politicians, company executives, military officers, lawyers, professors and other well-connected clients.

    Prosecutors have not publicly named any of the buyers and they have not been charged. Acting Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Josh Levy has said prosecutors are committed to holding accountable both those who ran the scheme and those who fueled the demand.

    Some of the buyers have appealed to the highest court in Massachusetts in a bid to have their names remain private.

    At one point through a translator, Han Lee said that she didn’t control the women, but agreed that she had persuaded them to engage in interstate travel to take part in prostitution.

    The women who worked in the brothels were not identified or criminally charged and were considered victims, prosecutors said.

    Prosecutors said their evidence included witness testimony from women who worked at the brothels, sex buyers who made appointments or received services, physical surveillance and electronic evidence.

    Han Lee maintained the operation from 2020 to November 2023. The money made at the brothels was sometimes kept in the freezer to be picked up, prosecutors said. They said she also helped train Junmyung Lee to help vet sex buyers.

    The brothel operation used websites that falsely claimed to advertise nude models for professional photography, prosecutors allege. The operators rented high-end apartments to use as brothels in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Tysons and Fairfax, Virginia, prosecutors said. Brothels were maintained at four locations in Massachusetts and two in Virginia.

    Han Lee recruited women and maintained the websites and brothels, according to authorities, who said she paid Junmyung Lee, who was one of her employees, between $6,000 and $8,000 in cash per month in exchange for his work booking appointments for the buyers and bringing women to the brothels.

    The operators raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars through the network, where men paid from approximately $350 to upwards of $600 per hour depending on the services, according to prosecutors.

    Officials say Han Lee concealed more than $1 million in proceeds from the ring by converting the cash into money orders, among other things, to make it look legitimate.

    According to court documents, the defendants established house rules for the women during their stays in a given city to protect and maintain the secrecy of the business and ensure the women did not draw attention to the prostitution work inside apartment buildings.

    Authorities seized cash, ledgers detailing the activities of the brothels and phones believed to be used to communicate with the sex customers from their apartments, according to court papers.

    Each website described a verification process that interested sex buyers undertook to be eligible for appointment bookings, including requiring clients to complete a form providing their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, employers and references if they had one, authorities said.

    The defendants also kept local brothel phone numbers to communicate with customers; sent them a “menu” of available options at the brothel, including the women and sexual services available and the hourly rate; and texted customers directions to the brothel’s location, investigators said.

    She is next due in court for sentencing on Dec. 20.

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  • California to apologize for state’s legacy of racism against Black Americans under new law

    California to apologize for state’s legacy of racism against Black Americans under new law

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will formally apologize for slavery and its lingering effects on Black Americans in the state under a new law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Thursday.

    The legislation was part of a package of reparations bills introduced this year that seek to offer repair for decades of policies that drove racial disparities for African Americans. Newsom also approved laws to improve protections against hair discrimination for athletes and increase oversight over the banning of books in state prisons.

    “The State of California accepts responsibility for the role we played in promoting, facilitating, and permitting the institution of slavery, as well as its enduring legacy of persistent racial disparities,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “Building on decades of work, California is now taking another important step forward in recognizing the grave injustices of the past –- and making amends for the harms caused.”

    Newsom signed the bills after vetoing a proposal Wednesday that would have helped Black families reclaim or be compensated for property that was unjustly seized by the government through eminent domain. The bill by itself would not have been able to take full effect because lawmakers blocked another bill to create a reparations agency that would have reviewed claims.

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

    Efforts to study reparations at the federal level have stalled in Congress for decades. Illinois and New York state passed laws in recent years creating reparations commissions. Local officials in Boston and New York City have voted to create task forces studying reparations. Evanston, Illinois, launched a program to provide housing assistance to Black residents to help atone for past discrimination.

    California has moved further along on the issue than any other state. But state lawmakers did not introduce legislation this year to give widespread direct payments to African Americans, which frustrated some reparations advocates.

    Newsom approved a $297.9 billion budget in June that included up to $12 million for reparations legislation that became law.

    He already signed laws included in the reparations package aimed at improving outcomes for students of color in K-12 career education programs. Another proposal the Black caucus backed this year that would ban forced labor as a punishment for crime in the state constitution will be on the ballot in November.

    State Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat representing Culver City, called legislation he authored to increase oversight over books banned in state prisons “a first step” to fix a “shadowy” process in which the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation decides which books to ban.

    The corrections department maintains a list of disapproved publications it bans after determining the content could pose a security threat, includes obscene material or otherwise violates department rules.

    The new law authorizes the Office of the Inspector General, which oversees the state prison system, to review works on the list and evaluate the department’s reasoning for banning them. It requires the agency to notify the office of any changes made to the list, and it makes the office post the list on its website.

    “We need transparency in this process,” Bryan said. “We need to know what books are banned, and we need a mechanism for removing books off of that list.”

    ___

    Sophie Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

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  • Nevada high court orders dismissal of Chasing Horse sex abuse case but says charges can be refiled

    Nevada high court orders dismissal of Chasing Horse sex abuse case but says charges can be refiled

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    LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered the dismissal of a sprawling sex abuse indictment against Nathan Chasing Horse, while leaving open the possibility of charges being refiled in a case that sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in the U.S. and Canada.

    Proceedings in the 18-count criminal case have been at a standstill for more than a year while the former “Dances with Wolves” actor challenged it. The full seven-member court’s decision, issued Thursday, reverses earlier rulings upholding the charges by a three-member panel of the high court and a state judge.

    Kristy Holston, the chief deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, had argued that a definition of grooming presented to the grand jury without expert testimony tainted the state’s case. Holston said prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with evidence that could have cast a doubt on the allegations against Chasing Horse, including what she described as inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.

    The high court agreed.

    “The combination of these two clear errors undermines our confidence in the grand jury proceedings and created intolerable damage to the independent function of the grand jury process,” the court said in its scathing order.

    The ruling directs the judge overseeing the case in Clark County District Court to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, meaning charges against Chasing Horse can be refiled. But the order for dismissal won’t take effect immediately, as prosecutors also have the option to ask the high court to reconsider within 25 days.

    “The allegations against Chasing Horse are indisputably serious, and we express no opinion about Chasing Horse’s guilt or innocence,” the order says.

    Holston declined to comment. District Attorney Steve Wolfson, in a statement Thursday, described the court’s decision as “only a minor setback.”

    “My office is committed to resurrecting the charges in this case,” Wolfson said, “and we will not rest until we obtain justice on behalf of the victims in this matter.”

    Chasing Horse is charged with sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping and child abuse. He has pleaded not guilty.

    The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with five wives. He is unlikely to be released from custody, even after the high court’s decision, because he faces charges in at least four other jurisdictions, including U.S. District Court in Nevada and on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.

    Chasing Horse is best known for portraying Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves.” But in the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities said, he built a reputation as a self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and traveled around North America to perform healing ceremonies.

    He is accused of using that position to gain access to vulnerable girls and women starting in the early 2000s, leading a cult and taking underage wives. Authorities have said one of the wives was offered to Chasing Horse as a “gift” when she was 15, while another “became a wife” after turning 16.

    Chasing Horse also is accused of recording sexual assaults and arranging sex with the victims for other men who allegedly paid him.

    His legal issues have been unfolding at the same time lawmakers and prosecutors around the U.S. are funneling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders. Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

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  • Memphis man gets life sentence for killing rapper Young Dolph

    Memphis man gets life sentence for killing rapper Young Dolph

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    MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Justin Johnson was found guilty of murder in the death of rapper Young Dolph on Thursday after the jury heard testimony from a co-defendant that the killing was part of a feud between rival record labels.

    Jurors deliberated for just under four hours before finding Johnson guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and being a felon in possession of a gun. Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Mitchell sentenced Johnson to life in prison.

    Cornelius Smith testified that rapper Yo Gotti’s brother, Anthony “Big Jook” Mims, had put out a $100,000 hit on Young Dolph and had also put bounties on all the artists at Young Dolph’s record label, Paper Route Empire. Smith said he and co-defendant Johnson set out on the morning of Nov. 17, 2021, “looking for somebody” and “didn’t know who we were going to catch.”

    They knew that Young Dolph and some of his artists were participating in a Thanksgiving turkey giveaway, so they were heading in that direction when they saw Young Dolph’s car. They followed him to a Memphis cookie shop and opened fire in broad daylight, Smith said. Young Dolph was hit 22 times and died at the scene.

    Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagerman, in opening statements, told jurors that Young Dolph, whose real name was Adolph Thornton Jr., was determined to make it on his own as an artist, and also with his own label.

    “Trying to make it on your own can create enemies,” Hagerman said.

    He noted that Cocaine Muzik Group (now known as Collective Music Group), a rival record label founded by Yo Gotti, wanted Young Dolph to work for them, but he turned them down. Young Dolph later wrote diss tracks directed at the label, its artists, and its “number two person,” Big Jook. Big Jook was shot and killed outside a restaurant earlier this year.

    In addition to Smith’s testimony, prosecutors presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence, including from surveillance cameras and Johnson’s own cell phone.

    Johnson had pleaded not guilty, and defense attorney Luke Evans said in closing arguments that the videos only prove that someone wearing similar clothing to Johnson shot Young Dolph. Evans told the jury Smith would say anything to try to save himself.

    “Cornelius Smith is lying from start to finish,” Evans said.

    Smith is also charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder and has pleaded not guilty.

    Evans also noted that Smith’s fingerprints were found in the getaway car but Johnson’s were not. And he said there was “no proof that Justin Johnson got a penny,” while Smith testified he received $800 before he was arrested and his defense attorney later received another $50,000.

    Hagerman countered that the video and cell phone evidence corroborated Smith’s story. They included calls between Smith and Johnson shortly before the killing and a call between Johnson and Big Jook immediately after.

    Also testifying was Jermarcus Johnson, who pleaded guilty in June 2023 to three counts of serving as an accessory after the killing by helping Smith and Justin Johnson, his half-brother. Jermarcus Johnson has acknowledged helping the two communicate by cellphone while they were on the run from authorities. He has not been sentenced.

    Hernandez Govan, whom Smith identified as a go-between with Big Jook, has pleaded not guilty to organizing the killing.

    Young Dolph began his career by releasing numerous mixtapes, starting with 2008′s “Paper Route Campaign.” His multiple studio albums include his 2016 debut “King of Memphis.” He also collaborated on other mixtapes and albums with fellow rappers Key Glock, Megan Thee Stallion, T.I., Gucci Mane, 2 Chainz and others.

    Young Dolph had three albums reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200, with 2020′s “Rich Slave” peaking at No. 4.

    ____

    Loller contributed from Nashville, Tenn.

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  • Missy Mazzoli’s ‘The Listeners’ portraying life in a cult gets U.S. premiere at Opera Philadelphia

    Missy Mazzoli’s ‘The Listeners’ portraying life in a cult gets U.S. premiere at Opera Philadelphia

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    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Missy Mazzoli received an Opera Philadelphia composing commission around the time Donald Trump first was running for president, inspiring her to settle on a sect with faithful followers as a starting point with her librettist, Royce Vavrek.

    “The role of a charismatic leader in our society, the need to feel like you’re part of a tribe, part of community,” she said. “And just the idea of turning an opera chorus into a cult seemed really juicy.”

    Mazzoli and Vavrek created “The Listeners,” a two-hour expose of psychological manipulation given its U.S. premiere on Wednesday night at the Academy of Music, two years after its first performances at the Norwegian National Opera. Their work portrays a school teacher who hears an unknown low-pitched hum, is alienated from her husband and daughter and finds a group of similar people that become enthralled with a leader named Paul Devon (baritone Paul Cook).

    “It just opened my eyes to how people are so interested in joining cults and feeling that sense of relationship with other people and connection and how sad, how lonely people are out there,” said soprano Nicole Heaston, who sings the starring role of Claire Devon. “They need that one person to say, ‘I’m going to make this OK for you.‘”

    Bringing in new opera audiences

    In the opening of general director Anthony Roth Costanzo’s first season as Opera Philadelphia’s “pick your price” initiative that lowered tickets to $11, the company said the crowd of 1,862 included 58% new attendees.

    A production filled with profane language and sexual situations sparked noticeable audience engagement that included laughter, guffaws for projected online commentary and applause for arias and duets. The reaction in Norway was more subdued.

    “In Oslo it was this really kind of fascinating anthropological visit of America,” director Lileana Blain-Cruz said. “We were working with a lot of Norwegians. It was: What is America? What is Americana? What is the Southwest to people who’ve never been there, who’ve only kind of experienced America for television? How do you display the kind of angst and loneliness that is particularly American? And it’s funny that being in Philadelphia, there’s an immediate recognition that was like: All right. We get this. This is us.”

    How ‘The Listeners’ was created

    Mazzoli, who turns 44 next month, was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdale, received degrees from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts and the Yale School of Music, and was Opera Philadelphia’s composer in residence from 2012-15.

    She met Vavrek at Carnegie Hall in 2009 when they were at a workshop of David T. Little’s “Dog Days,” for which Vavrek wrote the libretto. Mazzoli gave him a flier for a workshop of her “Song from the Uproar: The Lives and Deaths of Isabelle Eberhardt” He wound up collaborating on the 2012 work they also teamed on “Breaking the Waves” (2016) and “Proving Up” (2018).

    Vavrek, a 41-year-old from Alberta who like Mazzoli lives in Brooklyn, invited Canadian author Jordan Tannahill to watch the 2015 Oscars at his apartment and later asked Tannahill to sketch out some ideas for a cult opera. Vavrek and Mazzoli picked two of the five, and Tannahill followed up with a four-to-seven page treatment that led to Vavrek’s libretto. Tannahill also wrote a novel version of “The Listeners” that was published in 2021 and is the basis for a BBC television series to be televised this fall, starring Rebecca Hall.

    Mazzoli was inspired for a character based on Ma Anand Sheela, an assistant to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh featured in the Netflix 2018 documentary “Wild Wild Country.” She also watched “Holy Hell” about the Buddhafield cult, “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief” and “Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult.”

    There are surround speakers to create the hum and a large cast of 22 singers plus the chorus. During rehearsals in Oslo two years ago, Mazzoli and Vavrek added two video confessional moments for Claire and Angela Devon, scenes given a larger-than-life impact by projections.

    “Through the research I myself became more much more sympathetic to people who were just looking for a community,” Mazzoli said. “Cults are made up of people whose parents kicked them out because they’re gay or who are super shy and never found a community of people, friends in college. It could be anything — or who feel trapped in a marriage or feel trapped in a dead end job.”

    “What was striking was that all of these cults followed the same pattern,” she added. “There’s a sort of predictable series of events involving manipulation, lying and then someone sort of taking up the card from the bottom of the house of cards and the whole thing falls very quickly.”

    Next steps for ‘The Listeners’

    “The Listeners” also will be repeated in Philadelphia on Friday and Sunday, and there will be additional performances at the Aalto Music Theatre in Essen, Germany (Jan. 25 to March 22) and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (March 30 to April 11).

    Mazzoli and Vavrek also are working on “Lincoln in the Bardo,” based on George Saunders’ novel, which premieres at the Los Angeles Opera in February 2026 and goes to New York’s Metropolitan Opera that October. “The Galloping Cure,” about the opioid crisis, debuts in Scotland in August 2026.

    “It’s a very internalized space when you’re being creative,” Vavrek said. “There’s something really beautiful about the actual sharing of something that you’ve been imagining for so long.”

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  • Parents will have to set aside some earnings for child influencers under new California laws

    Parents will have to set aside some earnings for child influencers under new California laws

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Parents in California who profit from social media posts featuring their children will be required to set aside some earnings for their minor influencers under a pair of measures signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    California led the nation nearly 80 years ago in setting ground rules to protect child performers from financial abuse, but those regulations needed updating, Newsom said. The existing law covers children working in movies and TV but doesn’t extend to minors making their names on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

    Family-style vlogs, where influencers share details of their daily lives with countless strangers on the internet, have become a popular and lucrative way to earn money for many.

    Besides coordinated dances and funny toddler comments, family vlogs nowadays may share intimate details of their children’s lives — grades, potty training, illnesses, misbehaviors, first periods — for strangers to view. Brand deals featuring the internet’s darlings can reap tens of thousands of dollars per video, but there have been minimal regulations for the “sharenthood” industry, which experts say can cause serious harm to children.

    “A lot has changed since Hollywood’s early days, but here in California, our laser focus on protecting kids from exploitation remains the same,” he said in a statement. “In old Hollywood, child actors were exploited. In 2024, it’s now child influencers. Today, that modern exploitation ends through two new laws to protect young influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media platforms.”

    The California laws protecting child social media influencers follow the first-in-the-nation legislation in Illinois that took effect this July. The California measures apply to all children under 18, while the Illinois law covers those under 16.

    The California measures, which received overwhelming bipartisan support, require parents and guardians who monetize their children’s online presence to establish a trust for the starlets. Parents will have to keep records of how many minutes the children appear in their online content and how much money they earn from those posts, among other things.

    The laws entitle child influencers to a percentage of earnings based on how often they appear on video blogs or online content that generates at least 10 cents per view. The children could sue their parents for failing to do so.

    Children employed as content creators on platforms such as YouTube will also have at least 15% of their earnings deposited in a trust for when they turn 18. An existing state law has provided such protection to child actors since 1939 after a silent film-era child actor Jackie Coogan sued his parents for squandering his earnings.

    The new laws will take effect next year.

    The laws have the support from The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or, SAG-AFTRA, and singer Demi Lovato, a former child star who has spoken publicly about child performers abuse.

    “In order to build a better future for the next generation of child stars, we need to put protections in place for minors working in the digital space,” Lovato said in a statement. “I’m grateful to Governor Newsom for taking action with this update to the Coogan Law that will ensure children featured on social media are granted agency when they come of age and are properly compensated for the use of their name and likeness.”

    The new laws protecting child influencers are part of ongoing efforts by Newsom to address the mental health impacts of social media on children. Newsom earlier this month also signed a bill to curb student phone access at schools and ban social media platforms from knowingly providing addictive feeds to children without parental consent.

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  • Tearful Caroline Ellison gets 2 years in prison over her role in FTX fraud

    Tearful Caroline Ellison gets 2 years in prison over her role in FTX fraud

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Ellison, a former top executive in Sam Bankman-Fried ’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday after she apologized to everyone hurt by a fraud that stole billions of dollars from investors, lenders and customers.

    Ellison, 29, could have faced a much tougher sentence, but both the judge and prosecutors said she deserved credit for talking extensively with federal investigators, pleading guilty and ultimately testifying against Bankman-Fried for three days at his trial last November.

    U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said Ellison’s cooperation was “very, very substantial” and “remarkable.”

    But he said a prison sentence was necessary because she had participated in what might be the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country and probably anywhere else” or at least close to it.

    Ellison was ordered to report to prison Nov. 7.

    FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, known for its Superbowl TV ad and its extensive lobbying campaign in Washington, before it collapsed in 2022.

    U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and other top executives of looting customer accounts on the exchange to make risky investments, make millions of dollars of illegal political donations, bribe Chinese officials and buy luxury real estate in the Caribbean.

    Ellison was chief executive at Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund controlled by Bankman-Fried.

    “I’m deeply ashamed with what I’ve done,” she said at the sentencing hearing, fighting through tears to say she was “so so sorry” to everyone she had harmed directly or indirectly.

    She did not speak as she left Manhattan federal court, surrounded by lawyers.

    In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon called for leniency, saying Ellison’s testimony was “devastating and powerful proof” against Bankman-Fried, 32, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

    Attorney Anjan Sahni asked the judge to spare his client from prison, citing “unusual circumstances,” including her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried and the damage caused when her “whole professional and personal life came to revolve” around him.

    Judge Kaplan agreed that Ellison’s willingness to work with prosecutors was extraordinary.

    “I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he said.

    But he said that in such a serious case, he could not let cooperation be a get-out-of-jail-free card, even when it was clear that Bankman-Fried had become “your kryptonite.”

    Bankman-Fried also testified at the trial, portraying himself to the jury as inexperienced and bumbling but not a criminal. He acknowledged making mistakes, but said he didn’t defraud anyone and wasn’t aware that Alameda Research had amassed billions of dollars in debt.

    Sassoon, the prosecutor, described that testimony in court Tuesday as “evasive, even contemptuous.”

    As the business began to falter, Ellison divulged the massive fraud to employees who worked for her even before FTX filed for bankruptcy, trial evidence showed.

    Ultimately, she also spoke extensively with criminal and civil U.S. investigators.

    Sassoon said prosecutors were impressed that Ellison did not “jump into the lifeboat” to escape her crimes but instead spent nearly two years fully cooperating.

    Since testifying at Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison has engaged in extensive charity work, written a novel and worked with her parents on a math enrichment textbook for advanced high school students, according to her lawyers.

    They said she also now has a healthy romantic relationship and has reconnected with high school friends she had lost touch with while she worked for and sometimes dated Bankman-Fried from 2017 until late 2022.

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