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  • Delaware judge sets parameters for trial in Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against Newsmax

    Delaware judge sets parameters for trial in Smartmatic defamation lawsuit against Newsmax

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    The judge presiding over a defamation lawsuit pitting an electronic voting machine manufacturer targeted by allies of former President Donald Trump against a conservative news outlet that aired accusations of vote manipulation in the 2020 election set several parameters for an impending trial Monday.

    Superior Court Judge Eric Davis also told attorneys for Florida-based Smartmatic and cable network Newsmax to narrow their list of potential witnesses ahead of a trial that is set to begin Sept. 26 with jury selection and could last up to four weeks.

    Smartmatic claims that Newsmax program hosts and guests made false and defamatory statements in November and December 2020 implying that Smartmatic participated in rigging the results and that its software was used to switch votes.

    Newsmax, also based in Florida, argues that it was simply reporting on serious and newsworthy allegations being made by Trump and his supporters, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and conservative attorney Sidney Powell.

    During a daylong pretrial conference on Monday, Davis considered several motions by each side asking him to limit or prohibit evidence the opposing side sought to present.

    The judge, for example, narrowly granted Smartmatic’s motion to limit evidence by Newsmax regarding a federal criminal investigation that led to indictments last month against three current and former Smartmatic executives. The charges involve an alleged scheme to pay more than $1 million in bribes to put Smartmatic voting machines in the Philippines. Newsmax argued that the investigation and indictment should be presented to jurors as alternative reasons for any purported reputational harm or economic loss that Smartmatic blames on Newsmax.

    “What government procurement official is going to continue to do business with a company that is under indictment?” asked Newsmax attorney Howard Cooper. Cooper also suggested that Smartmatic’s purported damages were calculated by a small cadre of executives who “pulled numbers from thin air.” Smartmatic initially pegged its damages at $1.7 billion, a number that has since been adjusted to about $370 million, according to statements during Monday’s conference.

    The judge denied Smartmatic’s motion to prohibit Newsmax from mentioning evidence regarding Smartmatic witnesses who have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Davis said that issue will have to be decided on a “question-to-question” basis at trial.

    Davis sided with Smartmatic in ruling that Newsmax could not defend itself by pointing to statements about the 2020 election being published by other media outlets at the time. The judge also said non-expert witness testimony about the scope of the First Amendment would be prohibited.

    In a ruling for Newsmax, Davis said he would not allow Smartmatic to bolster its presentation to the jury by suggesting that policy changes made at Newsmax in January 2021 after being notified about the allegedly defamatory statements are evidence of previous wrongdoing. Similarly, evidence regarding attorney disciplinary investigations of Trump allies Powell and Giuliani also may be inadmissible, the judge said.

    “I don’t think I’ve see the evidence that Newsmax caused Jan. 6,” Davis added, referring to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters in 2021. “It’s only inflammatory.”

    As far as Smartmatic trying to prove that Newsmax violated journalism standards or guidelines, Davis said any such testimony would have to come from expert witnesses, unless Smartmatic can show that individual Newsmax officials were presented with guidelines relevant to their specific jobs and chose to ignore them.

    The judge also indicated that he will closely scrutinize the alleged defamatory statements published by Newsmax to determine whether some are clearly opinions or speculation, versus factual assertions.

    “If it’s just opinion, I may take it away from the jury,” he said. “I have some concerns that they’re not all going to make it through.”

    The Delaware lawsuit, which takes issue with Newsmax reports over a five-week period in late 2020, is one of several stemming from reports by conservative news outlets following the election. Smartmatic also is suing Fox News for defamation in New York and recently settled a lawsuit in the District of Columbia against the One America News Network, another conservative outlet.

    Dominion Voting Systems similarly filed several defamation lawsuits against those who spread conspiracy theories blaming its election equipment for Trump’s loss. Last year, in a case presided over by Davis, Fox News settled with Dominion for $787 million.

    On Monday, Davis granted a motion by Newsmax to exclude any reference to the Dominion-Fox settlement, noting that the motion was not contested by Smartmatic.

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  • Jane’s Addiction cancels its tour after onstage concert fracas

    Jane’s Addiction cancels its tour after onstage concert fracas

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    BOSTON (AP) — The alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction has scuttled its latest tour following an onstage scuffle between lead singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro. Farrell later apologized for “inexcusable behavior.”

    “The band have made the difficult decision to take some time away as a group. As such, they will be cancelling the remainder of the tour,” the band said in a brief statement Monday.

    Videos captured Farrell lunging at Navarro at a Friday concert in Boston, bumping Navarro with his shoulder before taking a swing at the guitarist with his right arm. Navarro is seen holding his right arm out to keep Farrell away before Farrell is dragged away by others on stage. The show ended shortly after and the band apologized.

    The band is known for edgy, punk-inspired hits “Jane Says,” “Been Caught Stealing” and “Just Because” in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the alternative rock and grunge music movements were growing. It has three top five hits on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.

    Farrell, in a statement given to Variety and The New York Times, said, “This weekend has been incredibly difficult and after having the time and space to reflect, it is only right that I apologize to my bandmates, especially Dave Navarro, fans, family and friends for my actions during Friday’s show. Unfortunately, my breaking point resulted in inexcusable behavior, and I take full accountability for how I chose to handle the situation.”

    Perry’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, wrote on Instagram the day after the scuffle that her husband’s “”frustration had been mounting, night after night, he felt that the stage volume had been extremely loud and his voice was being drowned out by the band.”

    She said her husband had been suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat and “by the end of the song, he wasn’t singing, he was screaming just to be heard.” She said her husband later broke down “and cried and cried.”

    The band’s “Imminent Redemption” tour — with opening act English rock band Love and Rockets — started in early August and was to end on Oct. 16 at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles.

    The North American shows marked the first time since 2010 that the original Jane’s Addiction lineup — Farrell, Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery — played an extended run of shows together.

    Navarro, Perkins and Avery said in a statement posted Monday on Navarro’s Instagram of Farrell: “We hope that he will find the help he needs.”

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  • Coney Island’s iconic Cyclone roller coaster reopens 2 weeks after mid-ride malfunction

    Coney Island’s iconic Cyclone roller coaster reopens 2 weeks after mid-ride malfunction

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The famed Cyclone roller coaster in New York City’s Coney Island has reopened two weeks after a mechanical problem forced a mid-ride stop and people had to be helped off the attraction.

    The 97-year-old wooden roller coaster at Luna Park returned to service Saturday after city inspectors gave a thumbs up following repairs.

    The Cyclone was shut down indefinitely on Aug. 22 due to a damaged chain sprocket in the motor room. The operator stopped the ride and several people were removed without injury, the city’s Department of Buildings said. The department cited Luna Park for violations related to the damaged equipment and failing to immediately notify the city.

    City inspectors said the ride passed inspection Saturday morning after test runs over several days.

    “This American icon has captivated guests for nearly a century, and our dedicated team and attraction engineers continue to ensure that this legendary 97-year-old landmark continues to operate safely and smoothly,” Alessandro Zamperla, president and CEO of the amusement park’s owner, Central Amusement International, said in a statement.

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  • Philadelphia airport celebrates its brigade of stress-busting therapy dogs

    Philadelphia airport celebrates its brigade of stress-busting therapy dogs

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    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A pack of four-legged therapists got a break of their own on Monday when they were honored at the airport where they dutifully work to ease stress and calm travelers.

    The event at Philadelphia International Airport marked five years since the 23 members of the Wagging Tails Brigade began greeting people and serving as therapy dogs.

    Several of them were presented with birthday presents and a customized cake while passersby were invited to eat cupcakes and sign an oversized birthday card.

    Members of the brigade and their volunteer human handlers are at the airport for at least two hours a week, impressing people with their tricks and doing what they can to raise the spirits of road-weary passengers. Dogs wear vests asking people to “pet me.”

    AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports on a celebration of stress relieving dogs.

    Alan Gurvitz, a volunteer with Hope, a Labrador retriever, said their goal is to make travel a bit more pleasant.

    “I like to refer to the airport as the land of cancellations and delays. So people tend to be very stressed out here,” Gurvitz said.

    Jamie and Victoria Hill, on their way to their honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, turned to pet Bella while trying to stay positive after their flight was delayed.

    “It’s reminded us of our dog back at home,” Jamie Hill said. “We miss him.”

    Back in June, Nancy Mittleman recalled, she was at the airport with her German shepherd Tarik while bad weather snarled air traffic. The two of them spent several hours entertaining stranded children and their parents.

    “Soon enough, I had an entire crowd around me,” Mittleman said. “There must have been 10 kids sitting around him and they were talking to each other. And the beauty of it was before that, there were a lot of stressed out parents and a lot of unhappy children.”

    Volunteers try to coordinate to have at least one brigade member at the airport to greet travelers, especially on days with significant delays or disruptions.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the spelling of a volunteer’s first name to Alan Gurvitz, not Allan.

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  • FACT FOCUS: False claims follow Minnesota governor’s selection as Harris’ running mate

    FACT FOCUS: False claims follow Minnesota governor’s selection as Harris’ running mate

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    Vice President Kamala Harris’ announcement on Tuesday that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will be her running mate in the 2024 presidential election increased the spread of false claims about the Midwestern Democrat, some of which appeared on social media even before Harris made her pick public.

    Here’s a look at the facts.

    ___

    CLAIM: Walz said on CNN that he wants to invest in a “ladder factory” to help people scale the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and illegally enter the U.S.

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Posts are misrepresenting a comment Walz made on an episode of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” last week. In the full segment, the Democrat criticizes former President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on the southern border by joking about the hypothetical investment. He then gives multiple other examples of how to address illegal crossings into the U.S. through Mexico.

    Amid Harris’ Tuesday announcement, social media users used a clip from the segment to make it seem as though the Minnesota governor was advocating for illegal immigration.

    “He talks about this wall, I always say, ‘let me know how high it is, if it’s 25 feet then I’ll invest in a 30-foot-ladder factory,’” Walz says, referencing Trump. “That’s not how you stop this.”

    One X post that shared the clip reads: “FLASHBACK: Kamala’s VP pick, Tim Walz, says he should invest in a ‘ladder factory’ to help illegal aliens climb the border wall.”

    But Walz was not offering to help people enter the U.S. without authorization. He was actually discussing how to prevent this from happening.

    In the full segment, after making the investment quip, Walz gives alternative ideas for how to handle illegal crossings on the southern border. Arrests for such crossings reached a record high in December, but dropped to a new low for the Biden administration at the end of July following a temporary ban on asylum.

    “You stop this using electronics, you stop it using more border control agents and you stop it by having a legal system that allows for that tradition of allowing folks to come here just like my relatives did,” Walz says near the end of the segment. “To come here, be able to work and establish the American dream.”

    He also spoke in support of a bipartisan border security package intended to cut back on illegal crossings that the Senate voted down in February.

    — Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin contributed this report.

    ___

    CLAIM: Walz changed the Minnesota flag so that it resembles the Somali flag.

    THE FACTS: Minnesota did unfurl a new state flag and accompanying seal in May, but the changes were made to replace an old design that Native Americans said reminded them of painful memories of conquest and displacement. The State Emblems Redesign Commission was established during the 2023 legislative session to oversee the development of a new design.

    Changes were made to eliminate an old state seal that featured the image of a Native American riding off into the sunset while a white settler plowed his field with a rifle at the ready. The seal was a key feature of the old flag.

    The commission included public officials, design experts and members of tribal and other communities of color. Its purpose statement dictated that the designs “must accurately and respectfully reflect Minnesota’s shared history, resources, and diverse cultural communities. Symbols, emblems, or likenesses that represent only a single community or person, regardless of whether real or stylized, may not be included in a design.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    The public submitted more than 2,600 proposals and the commission picked one from Andrew Prekker, 25, of Luverne, as the basis for the flag.

    Prekker said Walz had nothing to do with the creation of the flag, and Somalia had nothing to do with the flag design. Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the U.S. and is home to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Oman, who was born in Somalia and is a member of an informal group of progressive Democratic House members known as The Squad.

    “The inspiration behind my flag were three main concepts inspired by Minnesota’s history and culture: The North Star, the Minnesota shape, and three stripes representing different facets of Minnesotan identity,” he wrote in an email.

    Prekker’s original design had the white star on the blue background with white, green and light blue stripes stretching over the rest of the flag. The flag was compared online with flags from states in Somalia that have green, white and blue stripes and a star. The stripes were dropped by the commission in the final design.

    The final version of the flag features a dark blue shape resembling Minnesota with a white, eight-pointed star on it. The right side is light blue and is meant to symbolize the state’s abundant waters that led to it being known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

    The Somali flag has a five-point star on a light blue background. “There is no connection to Somalia or any other country, and in complete honesty I didn’t even know Somalia existed before the whole flag debacle. Any similarities people want to see are a coincidence. It is a Minnesotan flag, and that is what I designed it for,” Prekker said.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

    FACT FOCUS: A look at claims made by Trump at news conference

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    In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.

    Here’s a look at some of those claims.

    CROWD SIZES

    FILE – Crowds are shown in front of the Washington Monument during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)

    CLAIM: “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken — I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.

    But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.

    Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.

    Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at the Ellipse, a grassy area just south of the White House.

    ___

    JAN. 6

    CLAIM: “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6.”

    THE FACTS: That’s false. Five people died in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress’ effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

    Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. Four additional officers who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.

    Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.

    ___

    DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.”

    THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. That process is determined by the Democratic National Committee.

    Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for “present,” the only other option on the ballot.

    The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party’s deadline following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on July 21.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    ___

    THE ECONOMY

    CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: “You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they’ve gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.”

    THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president’s control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn’t get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine’s wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.

    Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level earlier this year.

    Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn’t cause inflation all by itself. And Trump supported $2,000 stimulus checks in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.

    Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden’s, such as France, Germany and the U.K., though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia’s invasion.

    ___

    IMMIGRATION

    Image

    Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

    CLAIM: “Twenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration — 20 million people — and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows.”

    THE FACTS: Trump’s 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn’t provide sources.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.

    In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.

    U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.

    All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.

    There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as “got-aways” in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn’t publish that number.

    ___

    CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she’s not the border czar anymore.”

    THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address “root causes” of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.

    ___

    NEW YORK CASES

    CLAIM: “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.”

    THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases brought against him in New York — one civil and the other criminal.

    Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.

    The civil case was initiated by a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.

    Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, brought the criminal case. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.

    ___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    __

    An earlier version of this story mixed up “latter” and “former” in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.

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  • A tech company hired a top NYC official’s brother. A private meeting and $1.4M in contracts followed

    A tech company hired a top NYC official’s brother. A private meeting and $1.4M in contracts followed

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Ahead of the 2022 school year, the education technology company 21stCentEd was seeking to expand its presence in New York City’s public schools. So they turned to a man, Terence Banks, whose new consulting firm promised to connect clients with top government stakeholders.

    Banks wasn’t a registered lobbyist. His day job, at the time, was as a supervisor in the city’s subway system. But he had at least one platinum connection: His older brother, David Banks, is New York City’s schools chancellor, overseeing the nation’s largest school system.

    Within a month of the hire, 21stCentEd had secured a private meeting with the schools chancellor. In the two years since that October 2022 meeting, more than $1.4 million in Education Department funds have flowed to the company, nearly tripling its previous total, records show.

    The siblings — along with a third brother, Philip Banks, who serves as New York City’s deputy mayor of public safety — are now enmeshed in a sprawling federal probe that has touched several high-ranking members of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration.

    Federal investigators seized phones last week from all three brothers and at least three other top city officials, including Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who resigned Thursday. Tom Donlon, a retired FBI official, was sworn in Friday as the interim police commissioner.

    The exact nature of the investigation — or investigations — has not been disclosed. Among other things, federal authorities are investigating the former police commissioner’s twin brother, James Caban, a former police sergeant who runs a nightclub security business.

    On Wednesday, a city operations coordinator was fired after a bar owner in Brooklyn told NBC New York that he had been pressured by the aide into hiring the police commissioner’s brother to make noise complaints against his business go away.

    Federal investigators are also scrutinizing whether Terence Banks’ consulting firm, the Pearl Alliance, broke the law by leveraging his family connections to help private companies secure city contracts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose information about the investigations.

    All three Banks brothers have denied wrongdoing. David and Terence Banks have said they don’t believe they are the target of the investigation. But government watchdogs say the family’s overlapping work in the private and public sector may have run afoul of conflict of interest guardrails as well as city and state laws on procurement lobbying.

    “It has the appearance of Terence Banks using his family connections to help his client and enrich himself,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a good-government group.

    Timothy Sini, an attorney for Terence Banks, did not respond to specific questions about the consulting firm. But he wrote in an email, “We have been assured by the Government that Mr. Banks is not a target of this investigation.”

    Speaking at a news conference Friday, David Banks said FBI agents had not returned his phone, and he declined to answer questions about his relationship to his brother’s consulting firm. “We are cooperating with a federal investigation,” he said.

    City ethics rules ban relatives from lobbying each other. At minimum, David Banks would be required to secure a waiver from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board before meeting with a company represented by his brother, according to John Kaehny, the executive director of the good-government group Reinvent Albany.

    “It’s surprisingly arrogant or obtuse that David Banks, one of the city’s top government officials, would ignore this basic, commonsense, conflict of interest rule,” Kaehny said in an email.

    Neither the Department of Education nor the Conflicts of Interest Board would say whether a waiver was requested.

    A spokesperson for the Department of Education, Nathaniel Styer, said all spending linked to 21stCentEd had come from individual schools and districts, which can make purchases of less than $25,000 without the agency’s approval.

    The Utah-based company trains teachers and provides curriculums focused on artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation.

    Dylan Howard, a spokesperson for the company, said Terence Banks was hired “to help 21stCentEd present our STEM solutions and services to decision makers within New York City public schools.” He said they learned of his consulting firm through a 21stCentEd employee who has since left the company.

    The spokesperson could not say how the meeting with the school’s chancellor came about or whether Terence Banks attended. He added that Terence Banks had provided “no value” to the company and that his contract was terminated last December.

    21stCentEd was one of several companies with city contracts that hired Terence Banks’ consulting firm, according to a website for the Pearl Alliance that was taken down after news of the federal investigations emerged last week.

    Another listed client, SaferWatch, sells panic buttons to schools and police departments. Since August of 2023, it has been awarded more than $67,000 in city contracts, according to city records.

    The third Banks brother, Philip Banks, maintains wide influence over the NYPD as deputy mayor for public safety. A spokesperson for SaferWatch, Hank Sheinkopf, declined to comment. The NYPD did not respond to email inquiries.

    In total, the Pearl Alliance listed nine clients with millions of dollars in city contracts, including a software business, a grocery delivery start-up, and a company that specializes in concrete. At least seven of the companies have past or current contracts with the city.

    It wasn’t clear whether the federal inquiry into the consulting firm run by Terence Banks was part of the investigation into the police commissioner’s brother.

    Ray Martin, the city official who was said to have pressured a bar owner to hire James Caban, was “terminated for cause” Thursday after the mayor’s office learned of the allegations, according to Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications.

    The bar owner, Shamel Kelly, told WNBC-TV that Martin gave him what felt like an ultimatum last year to either pay James Caban or risk having his business shut down. Kelly said James Caban demanded an upfront fee of $2,500. He said he had been interviewed Thursday by federal investigators and the city’s Department of Investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office and the Department of Investigation declined comment.

    Attempts to reach Martin were not immediately successful. A cellphone number listed in his name was no longer working.

    A lawyer for James Caban said he “unequivocally denies any wrongdoing” and has cooperated fully with law enforcement. Once the investigation is complete, lawyer Sean Hecker said, “it will be clear that these claims are unfounded and lack merit.”

    Both David and Philip Banks remain in their government positions. An attorney for Philip Banks, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment.

    At a press briefing Tuesday, Adams noted his relationship with the Banks family dates back decades, to when he served in the police department under the brothers’ father. He said he never met with Terence Banks about city business.

    “I’ve known the Banks families for years,” Adams said. “And my knowing someone, I hold them to the same standard that I hold myself to.”

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  • Man convicted of trying to arrange the murder of a federal prosecutor

    Man convicted of trying to arrange the murder of a federal prosecutor

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    BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A jury has convicted a man of trying to arrange the murder of a federal prosecutor in Alabama.

    Jurors on Thursday convicted Michael Roman Black, 32, of making a threat to murder a federal official, solicitation to commit murder and making false statements to a federal agent.

    Federal prosecutors wrote in a news release that Black, while incarcerated in Hoover, told another inmate about his plan to have one of the federal prosecutors working on his case murdered by two associates “on the outside.” Federal prosecutors said he shared details of who he planned to contact and that he would have them shoot the prosecutor in her car.

    Black faces up to 20 years in prison on the solicitation charge, 10 years in prison for the charge of making a threat and five years for the charge of making a false statement. He will be sentenced in December.

    A defense lawyer listed for Black did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

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  • Hispanic Heritage Month puts diversity and culture at the forefront

    Hispanic Heritage Month puts diversity and culture at the forefront

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    Huge celebrations across the U.S. are expected to celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month, an annual tradition that showcases the awe-inspiring diversity and culture of Hispanic people.

    Celebrated each year from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, the month is a chance for many in the U.S. to learn about and celebrate the contributions of Hispanics, the country’s fastest-growing racial or ethnic minority, according to the census. The group includes people whose ancestors come from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

    There are more than 65 million people identified as ethnically Hispanic in the U.S., according to the latest census estimates.

    Heritage week embraces the sprawling histories of Latinos

    Before there was National Hispanic Heritage Month, there was Hispanic Heritage Week, which was created through legislation sponsored by Mexican American U.S. Rep. Edward R. Roybal of Los Angeles and signed into law in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

    The weeklong commemoration was expanded to a month two decades later, with legislation signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

    “It was clustered around big celebrations for the community,” Alberto Lammers, director of communications at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute said. “It became a chance for people to know Hispanic cultures, for Latinos to get to know a community better and for the American public to understand a little better the long history of Latinos in the U.S.”

    The month is a way for Hispanics to showcase their diversity and culture with the support of the government, said Rachel Gonzalez-Martin, an associate professor of Mexican American and Latino Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

    Sept. 15 was chosen as the starting point to coincide with the anniversary of “El Grito de Dolores,” or the “Cry of Dolores,” which was issued in 1810 from a town in central Mexico that launched that country’s war for independence from Spain.

    The Central American nations of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica celebrate their independence on Sept. 15, and Mexico marks its national day on Sept. 16, the day after the cry for independence.

    Also during National Hispanic Heritage Month, the South American nation of Chile observes its independence day on Sept. 18. Indigenous Peoples’ Day, previously known as Columbus Day, is observed in the U.S. on the second Monday of October.

    Over the past decade, the month has grown due to the larger Latino consumer base in the U.S., Gonzalez-Martin said. Gonzalez-Martin said visible support from the federal government, including celebrations at the White House, has also made it easier for Hispanics to celebrate.

    “Hispanic Heritage Month was a way in which to be Hispanic and Latino but with official blessing,” Gonzalez-Martin said. “It was a recognition of belonging and that became really powerful.”

    The four-week period is about honoring the way Hispanic populations have shaped the U.S. in the past and present, Lammers said.

    “It gives us a chance to acknowledge how Latinos have been part of this nation for so many centuries,” Lammers said. “I think that’s what is great about this. It has allowed us to really dig deeper and a chance to tell our stories.”

    Not everyone who is Hispanic uses that label

    Hispanic was a term coined by the federal government for people descended from Spanish-speaking cultures. But for some, the label has a connotation of political conservatism and emphasizes a connection to Spain. It sometimes gets mistakenly interchanged with “Latino” or “Latinx.”

    For some, Latino reflects their ties to Latin America. So some celebrations are referred to as Latinx or Latin Heritage Month.

    Latin Americans are not a monolith. There are several identifiers for Latin Americans, depending largely on personal preference. Mexican Americans who grew up during the 1960s Civil Rights era may identify as Chicano. Others may go by their family’s nation of origin such as Colombian American or Salvadoran American.

    Each culture has unique differences when it comes to music, food, art and other cultural touchstones.

    Celebrations are planned throughout the month

    From California to Florida, there will be no shortage of festivities. The celebrations tout traditional Latin foods and entertainment including, mariachi bands, folklórico and salsa lessons. The intent is to showcase the culture of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and other Latin countries.

    Events highlighting Hispanic culture include a quinceañera fashion show in Dallas on Sept. 14, the New York Latino Film Festival, which runs from Sept. 17-22, and the Viva Tampa Bay Hispanic Heritage Festival on Sept. 28-29.

    The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., is offering a slate of activities elevating Hispanic heritage, including a celebration of the life of Celia Cruz and exhibits of art made in Mexico.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Terry Tang contributed to this report.

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  • Profiles in clean energy: She founded a business to keep EV charging stations up and running

    Profiles in clean energy: She founded a business to keep EV charging stations up and running

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kameale Terry saw it coming before almost anyone else did. She realized the expanding network of electric vehicle charging stations across the U.S. would need a workforce to maintain it.

    The realization came as she found herself back in South Central Los Angeles — where she grew up — taking care of her mom, who was on her third recurrence of cancer. It was 2016 and she had left a job in banking to come home. Now she needed some work flexibility to address her mom’s needs.

    Terry ended up taking a job with EV Connect, a company that made software for electric vehicle charging stations, in a position called “driver support.” When EV drivers found something wasn’t working at a station, they called in and she would talk them through the issue or send out a technician. It made her realize the need.

    “When I saw that the charging experience wasn’t a great experience, I wanted to figure out how could I be helpful in ensuring that it is a great experience,” Terry said.

    Kameale Terry, the co-founder and CEO of ChargerHelp!, stands for a photo in Los Angeles, Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

    So, in 2020 she co-founded the company ChargerHelp! with the aim of training a nationwide workforce of technicians to repair charging stations and reduce the amount of time they are down.

    ______

    EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an occasional series of personal stories from the energy transition — the change away from a fossil-fuel based world that largely causes climate change.

    ______

    Image

    The calls Terry fielded from frustrated drivers weren’t the only thing that prompted the decision to found ChargerHelp! She now understood the big picture when it came to charging infrastructure, and she rose through several roles to become a director at EV Connect, heading up programs in Australia and Canada, as well as the U.S.

    During the early pandemic lockdowns, it struck her that there were hardly any cars on the roads and suddenly see the Hollywood sign from her home. Usually it was hidden by thick smog. “It really just hit me … if folks drove electric or chose more sustainable transportation, this could be an everyday thing,” she said.

    Image

    ChargerHelp! technician Pat Gomez checks for power before resetting an electric vehicle charger at La Kretz Innovation Campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

    Terry also had firsthand experience with air pollution, having grown up in South Central Los Angeles.

    “I am in a community that’s near like three freeways,” she said. It wasn’t until the work at EV Connect that she made the link between that and air pollution and health effects. “That’s really where I started to dive in, to understand how the air, you know, in the community was really like killing folks.”

    The cancer ended up taking her mom, and Terry believes pollution played a role. A growing number of studies indicate that air pollution can be related to breast cancer.

    These experiences, plus the desire to provide job opportunities for communities like hers, forged her entrepreneurial idea.

    Now 35, Terry is an expert in the new field of EV charger maintenance. She’s found that her best technicians often come from careers in oil and gas, or in sales. One of her most highly-requested techs is a former furniture salesperson.

    “It is the coolest thing seeing a group of folks that may not have fully known about this space prior to, but are so bought in to the idea of pushing forward massive EV adoption. That to me brings me so much joy,” Terry said.

    The case for creating the company has only strengthened since it was launched.

    One study found that nearly a quarter of the fast-charge EV stations in the San Francisco were broken. Data analytics company J.D. Power found that 21% of EV drivers in the U.S. have rolled up to a public charger that wasn’t working. Not all studies have found the issue to be that grave. Last fall, the federal government found far fewer chargers down, about 4.1%

    This is how ChargerHelp! works: When an EV charging port has a mechanical or electronics problem, the manager of the gas station or business where it’s located submits a request via the company app, and a technician remotely provides quick assistance for things that can be fixed on the spot. For problems that require help in person, the company sends out a technician.

    Image

    ChargerHelp! Field Service Manager Clyde Ellis poses for a picture at a charging station at La Kretz Innovation Campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

    Clyde Ellis is a field service manager with the company in Los Angeles. He’s seen all sorts of damage to EV chargers —- a site where a car plowed into one, copper cables cut out by thieves and infestations of squirrels, frogs, ants, and other insects.

    “There was once a honeycomb with honey dripping out of the side of the station,” he recalled.

    Ellis came to the electric vehicle business from the oil and gas industry, where his work ranged from permitting to putting out fires sparked by welders working on pipelines. It was a stable job but eventually he chose to leave.

    “I realized that I was in an industry that wasn’t beneficial to our environment,” Ellis said, remembering the air pollution generated at his former plant. “I had to take a step back and really look at what was going on around me … and I just thought, how could I make a change? How could I be a part of something bigger?”

    Now he is.

    “That is the pride and joy of my day every day and definitely at the end of the week,” he said.

    Image

    ChargerHelp! Field Service Manager Clyde Ellis, right, talks to James Thomas, a customer charing at a charging station at the La Kretz Innovation Campus in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

    Scientists say cars and other machines and activities that pollute, like power plants, must ramp down their exhaust sharply to preserve a livable climate. Yet instead of declining, global emissions continue to rise. Electric vehicles have no exhaust or tailpipe.

    The Biden-Harris administration has a goal for 50% of all new cars and trucks in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. Some states like Washington aim to transition even faster, requiring all new vehicles be electric or non-polluting by 2030.

    Terry said that in order for that to happen, people need to be able to trust EV charging infrastructure. The current mistrust, due to broken chargers, is a problem that can be solved, she said.

    ChargerHelp! currently operates in 17 states.

    __

    O’Malley reported from Philadelphia, Fauria and Garcia from Los Angeles.

    __

    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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  • Change-of-plea hearings set in fraud case for owners of funeral home where 190 bodies found

    Change-of-plea hearings set in fraud case for owners of funeral home where 190 bodies found

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    DENVER (AP) — A federal judge has canceled an October trial date and set a change-of-plea hearing in a fraud case involving the owners of a Colorado funeral home where authorities discovered 190 decaying bodies.

    Jon and Carie Hallford were indicted in April on fraud charges, accused of misspending nearly $900,000 in pandemic relief funds on vacations, jewelry and other personal expenses. They own the Return to Nature Funeral Home based in Colorado Springs and in Penrose, where the bodies were found.

    The indictment alleges that the Hallfords gave families dry concrete instead of cremated ashes and buried the wrong body on two occasions. The couple also allegedly collected more than $130,000 from families for cremations and burial services they never provided.

    The 15 charges brought by the federal grand jury are separate from the more than 200 criminal counts pending against the Hallfords in state court for corpse abuse, money laundering, theft and forgery.

    Carie Hallford filed a statement with the court Thursday saying “a disposition has been reached in the instant case” and asking for a change-of-plea hearing. Jon Hallford’s request said he wanted a hearing “for the court to consider the proposed plea agreement.”

    The judge granted their request to vacate the Oct. 15 trial date and all related dates and deadlines. The change-of-plea hearings were set for Oct. 24.

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  • A ‘Trump Train’ convoy surrounded a Biden-Harris bus. Was it political violence?

    A ‘Trump Train’ convoy surrounded a Biden-Harris bus. Was it political violence?

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    AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury will soon decide whether a convoy of supporters of then-President Donald Trump violently intimidated former Democratic lawmaker Wendy Davis and two others on a Biden-Harris campaign bus when a so-called “Trump Train” boxed them in for more than an hour on a Texas highway days before the 2020 election.

    The trial, which began on Sept. 9, resumes Monday and is expected to last another week.

    Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that six of the Trump Train drivers violated state and federal law. Lawyers for the defendants said they did not conspire against the Democrats on the bus and that their actions are protected speech.

    Here’s what else to know:

    What happened on Oct. 30, 2020?

    Dozens of cars and trucks organized by a local Trump Train group swarmed the bus on its way from San Antonio to Austin. It was the last day of early voting in Texas for the 2020 general election, and the bus was scheduled to make a stop in San Marcos for an event at Texas State University.

    Video recorded by Davis shows pickup trucks with large Trump flags aggressively slowing down and boxing in the bus as it tried to move away from the Trump Train. One defendant hit a campaign volunteer’s car while the trucks occupied all lanes of traffic, slowing the bus and everyone around it to a 15 mph crawl.

    Those on the bus — including Davis, a campaign staffer and the driver — repeatedly called 911 asking for help and a police escort through San Marcos, but when no law enforcement arrived, the campaign canceled the event and pushed forward to Austin.

    San Marcos settled a separate lawsuit filed by the same three Democrats against the police, agreeing to pay $175,000 and mandate political violence training for law enforcement.

    Davis testified that she felt she was being “taken hostage” and has sought treatment for anxiety.

    In the days leading up to the event, Democrats were also intimidated, harassed and received death threats, the lawsuit said.

    “I feel like they were enjoying making us afraid,” Davis testified. “It’s traumatic for all of us to revisit that day.”

    What’s the plaintiffs’ argument?

    In opening statements, an attorney for the plaintiffs said convoy organizers targeted the bus in a calculated attack to intimidate the Democrats in violation of the “Ku Klux Klan Act,” an 1871 federal law that bans political violence and intimidation.

    “We’re here because of actions that put people’s lives in danger,” said Samuel Hall, an attorney with the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. The plaintiffs, he said, were “literally driven out of town by a swarm of trucks.”

    The six Trump Train drivers succeeded in making the campaign cancel its remaining events in Texas in a war they believed was “between good and evil,” Hall said.

    Two nonprofit advocacy groups, Texas Civil Rights Project and Protect Democracy, also are representing the three plaintiffs.

    What’s the defense’s argument?

    Attorneys for the defendants, who are accused of driving and organizing the convoy, said they did not conspire to swarm the Democrats on the bus, which could have exited the highway at any point.

    “This was a political rally. This was not some conspiracy to intimidate people,” said attorney Jason Greaves, who is representing two of the drivers.

    The defense also argued that their clients’ actions were protected speech and that the trial is a concerted effort to “drain conservatives of their money,” according to Francisco Canseco, a lawyer for three of the defendants.

    “It was a rah-rah group that sought to support and advocate for a candidate of their choice in a very loud way,” Canseco said during opening statements.

    The defense lost a bid last month to have the case ruled in their favor without a trial. The judge wrote that “assaulting, intimidating, or imminently threatening others with force is not protected expression.”

    ___

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

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  • Ahmaud Arbery’s family is still waiting for ex-prosecutor’s misconduct trial after 3 years

    Ahmaud Arbery’s family is still waiting for ex-prosecutor’s misconduct trial after 3 years

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    SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Three years after a former Georgia district attorney was indicted on charges alleging she interfered with police investigating the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the case’s slow progression through the court system has sputtered to a halt, one the presiding judge insists is temporary.

    Jackie Johnson was the state’s top prosecutor for coastal Glynn County in February 2020, when Arbery was chased by three white men in pickup trucks who had spotted him running in their neighborhood. The 25-year-old Black man died in the street after one of his pursuers shot him with a shotgun.

    Johnson transferred the case to an outside prosecutor because the man who initiated the deadly chase, Greg McMichael, was her former employee. But Georgia’s attorney general says she illegally used her office to try to protect the retired investigator and his son, Travis McMichael, who fired the fatal shots.

    Both McMichaels already have been convicted and sentenced to prison in back-to-back trials for murder and federal hate crimes. So has a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, whose cellphone video of the shooting triggered a national outcry over Arbery’s death. A court heard their first appeals six months ago.

    The criminal misconduct case against Johnson has moved at a comparative crawl since a grand jury indicted her on Sept. 2, 2021, on a felony count of violating her oath of office and a misdemeanor count of hindering a police officer.

    While the men responsible for Arbery’s death are serving life sentences, the slain man’s family has insisted that justice won’t be complete until Johnson stands trial.

    “It’s very, very important,” said Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother. “Jackie Johnson was really part of the problem early on.”

    Johnson has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. After losing reelection in 2020, she told The Associated Press that she immediately recused herself in the handling of Arbery’s killing because of Greg McMichael’s involvement.

    Dozens of Black Lives Matter and Black Panther protesters gather outside the Glynn County Courthouse where the trial of Travis McMichael, his father, Gregory McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan is held, Nov. 22, 2021, in Brunswick, Ga. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton, File)

    Johnson’s case has stalled as one of her attorneys, Brian Steel, has spent most of the past two years in an Atlanta courtroom defending Grammy-winning rapper Young Thug against racketeering and gang charges. Jury selection in the case took 10 months, prosecutors began presenting evidence last November and they are still calling witnesses.

    Senior Judge John R. Turner, who was assigned to Johnson’s case, insists there is nothing he can do but wait.

    “If anyone’s concerned that the case is being shuffled under the rug, I can guarantee you it’s not,” Turner told the AP in a phone interview. “It’s moving at a snail’s pace, but it will move forward eventually.”

    After Arbery was killed, Greg McMichael told police that he and his son had armed themselves and chased the Black man, suspecting he was a fleeing criminal. Bryan, who didn’t know any of the men, made a similar assumption after seeing them pass his home and joined in his own truck.

    The indictment against Johnson alleges she told police they shouldn’t arrest Travis McMichael. It also accuses her of “showing favor and affection” to Greg McMichael by calling on George Barnhill, a district attorney in a neighboring judicial circuit, to advise police about how to handle the shooting.

    Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Barnhill four days later to take over as outside prosecutor. Carr has said he picked Barnhill without knowing he already had advised police that he saw no grounds for arrests in Arbery’s death.

    Barnhill stepped aside after a few weeks, but not before he sent a letter to police captain arguing the McMichaels acted legally and Arbery was killed in self-defense.

    After Johnson was charged, she reported to jail for booking and was released without having to post bond. Her attorneys waived a formal reading of the charges before a judge and she has yet to appear in court. The judge denied legal motions by Johnson’s lawyers to dismiss the case last November. Court records show no further developments over the past 10 months.

    “Securing an indictment is just one step in our ongoing pursuit of justice for Ahmaud Arbery and his family,” Carr said in a statement. “We have never stopped fighting for them, and we look forward to the opportunity to present our case in court.”

    Johnson’s attorneys, Steel and John Ossick, did not respond to emails and a phone message seeking comment. They have argued in court filings there is “not a scintilla of evidence” that she hindered police.

    Prosecutors responded with a court filing that listed 16 calls between phones belonging to Johnson and Greg McMichael in the weeks following the shooting.

    Two legal experts who aren’t involved in the case said there is no deadline for Johnson to stand trial. She hasn’t been jailed, so there is little pressure to expedite her case.

    Steel’s prolonged absence because of the Atlanta gang trial likely isn’t the only factor slowing the case, Atlanta defense attorney Don Samuel said.

    Courts remain saddled with a backlog of cases since the COVID-19 lockdowns, he said. And the attorney general’s office has a limited staff of criminal prosecutors with their own busy caseloads.

    Samuel also questioned whether prosecutors have a strong case against Johnson. Even if she opposed charging the McMichaels in Arbery’s death, he said, prosecutors haven’t accused her of taking bribes or similar blatant corruption.

    District attorneys “have a huge amount of discretion to make decisions about what cases to pursue,” Samuel said. “The notion that we’re going to start prosecuting DAs for prosecuting or not prosecuting strikes me as really being on the edge of propriety.”

    Danny Porter, the former district attorney for Gwinnett County in metro Atlanta, said prosecutors like Johnson have a legitimate role in advising police on whether or not to arrest suspects before an investigation is complete.

    As for Johnson’s recommendation in 2020 that the attorney general replace her with another prosecutor who concluded Arbery’s killing was justified, Porter said: “I don’t think that’s a violation of the law, though it might have made them mad.”

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  • Venture capitalists are divided on Harris or Trump

    Venture capitalists are divided on Harris or Trump

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Being a venture capitalist carries a lot of prestige in Silicon Valley. Those who choose which startups to fund see themselves as fostering the next big waves of technology.

    So when some of the industry’s biggest names endorsed former President Donald Trump and the onetime VC he picked for a running mate, JD Vance, people took notice.

    Then hundreds of other VCs — some high profile, others lesser-known — threw their weight behind Vice President Kamala Harris, drawing battle lines over which presidential candidate will be better for tech innovation and the conditions startups need to thrive. For years, many of Silicon Valley’s political discussions took place behind closed doors. Now, those casual debates have gone public — on podcasts, social media and online manifestos.

    Venture capitalist and Harris backer Stephen DeBerry says some of his best friends support Trump. Though centered in a part of Northern California known for liberal politics, the investors who help finance the tech industry have long been a more politically divided bunch.

    “We ski together. Our families are together. We’re super tight,” said DeBerry, who runs the Bronze Venture Fund. “This is not about not being able to talk to each other. I love these guys — they’re almost all guys. They’re dear friends. We just have a difference of perspective on policy issues.”

    It remains to be seen if the more than 700 venture capitalists who’ve voiced support for a movement called “VCs for Kamala” will match the pledges of Trump’s well-heeled supporters such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. But the effort marks “the first time I’ve seen a galvanized group of folks from our industry coming together and coalescing around our shared values,” DeBerry said.

    “There are a lot of practical reasons for VCs to support Trump,” including policies that could drive corporate profits and stock market values and favor wealthy benefactors, said David Cowan, an investor at Bessemer Venture Partners. But Cowan said he is supporting Harris as a VC with a “long-term investment horizon” because a “Trump world reeling from rampant income inequality, raging wars and global warming is not an attractive environment” for funding healthy businesses.

    Several prominent VCs have voiced their support for Trump on Musk’s social platform X. Public records show some of them have donated to a new, pro-Trump super PAC called America PAC, whose donors include powerful tech industry conservatives with ties to SpaceX and Paypal and who run in Musk’s social circle. Also driving support is Trump’s embrace of cryptocurrency and promise to end an enforcement crackdown on the industry.

    Although some Biden policies have alienated parts of the investment sector concerned about tax policy, antitrust scrutiny or overregulation, Harris’ bid for the presidency has reenergized interest from VCs who until recently sat on the sidelines. Some of that excitement is due to existing relationships with Silicon Valley that are borne out of Harris’ career in the San Francisco area and her time as California’s attorney general.

    “We buy risk, right? And we’re trying to buy the right type of risk,” Leslie Feinzaig, founder of “VCs for Kamala” said in an interview. “It’s really hard for these companies that are trying to build products and scale to do so in an unpredictable institutional environment.”

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    The schism in tech has left some firms split in their allegiances. Although venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, founders of the firm that is their namesake, endorsed Trump, one of their firm’s general partners, John O’Farrell, pledged his support for Harris. O’Farrell declined further comment.

    Doug Leone, the former managing partner of Sequoia Capital, endorsed Trump in June, expressing concern on X “about the general direction of our country, the state of our broken immigration system, the ballooning deficit, and the foreign policy missteps, among other issues.” But Leone’s longtime business partner at Sequoia, Michael Moritz, wrote in the Financial Times that tech leaders supporting Trump “are making a big mistake.”

    Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia, posted on X that he donated $300,000 to Trump’s campaign after supporting Hilary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Federal Election Commission records show that Maguire donated $500,000 to America PAC in June; Leone donated $1 million.

    “The area where I disagree with Republicans the most is on women’s rights. And I’m sure I’ll disagree with some of Trump’s policies in the future,” Maguire wrote. “But in general I think he was surprisingly prescient.”

    Feinzaig, managing director at venture firm Graham & Walker, said that she launched “VCs for Kamala” because she felt frustrated that “the loudest voices” were starting to “sound like they were speaking for the entire industry.”

    Much of the VC discourse about elections is in response to a July podcast and manifesto in which Andreessen and Horowitz backed Trump and outlined their vision of a “Little Tech Agenda” that they said contrasted with the policies sought by Big Tech.

    They accused the U.S. government of increasing hostility toward startups and the VCs who fund them, citing Biden’s proposed higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations and regulations they said could hobble emerging industries involving blockchain and artificial intelligence.

    Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio who spent time in San Francisco working at Thiel’s investment firm, voiced a similar perspective about “little tech” more than a month before he was chosen as Trump’s running mate.

    “The donors who were really involved in Silicon Valley in a pro-Trump way, they’re not big tech, right? They’re little tech. They’re starting innovative companies. They don’t want the government to destroy their ability to innovate,” Vance said in an interview on Fox News in June.

    Days earlier, Vance had joined Trump at a San Francisco fundraiser at the home of venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks, a longtime conservative. Vance said Trump spoke to about 100 attendees that included “some of the leading innovators in AI.”

    DeBerry said he doesn’t disagree with everything Andreesen Horowitz founders espouse, particularly their wariness about powerful companies controlling the agencies that regulate them. But he objects to their “little tech” framing, especially coming from a multibillion-dollar investment firm that he says is hardly the voice of the little guy. For DeBerry, whose firm focuses on social impact, the choice is not between big and little tech but “chaos and stability,” with Harris representing stability.

    Complicating the allegiances is that a tough approach to breaking up the monopoly power of big corporations no longer falls along partisan lines. Vance has spoken favorably of Lina Khan, who Biden picked to lead the Federal Trade Commission and has taken on several tech giants. Meanwhile, some of the most influential VCs backing Harris — such as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman; and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, an early investor in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI — have sharply criticized Khan’s approach.

    U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat whose California district encompasses part of Silicon Valley, said Trump supporters are a vocal minority reflecting a “third or less” of the region’s tech community. But while the White House has appealed to tech entrepreneurs with its investments in clean energy, electric vehicles and semiconductors, Khanna said Democrats must do a better job of showing that they understand the appeal of digital assets.

    “I do think that the perceived lack of embrace of Bitcoin and the blockchain has hurt the Democratic Party among the young generation and among young entrepreneurs,” Khanna said.

    Naseem Sayani, a general partner at Emmeline Ventures, said Andreessen and Horowitz’s support of Trump became a lightning rod for those in tech who do not back the Republican nominee. Sayani signed onto “VCs for Kamala,” she said, because she wanted the types of businesses that she helps fund to know that the investor community is not monolithic.

    “We’re not single-profile founders anymore,” she said. “There’s women, there’s people of color, there’s all the intersections. How can they feel comfortable building businesses when the environment they’re in doesn’t actually support their existence in some ways?”

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  • Federal judge temporarily blocks Biden administration rule to limit flaring of gas at oil wells

    Federal judge temporarily blocks Biden administration rule to limit flaring of gas at oil wells

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    BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge in North Dakota has temporarily blocked a new Biden administration rule aimed at reducing the venting and flaring of natural gas at oil wells.

    “At this preliminary stage, the plaintiffs have shown they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim the 2024 Rule is arbitrary and capricious,” U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor ruled Friday, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

    North Dakota, along with Montana, Texas, Wyoming and Utah, challenged the rule in federal court earlier this year, arguing that it would hinder oil and gas production and that the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is overstepping its regulatory authority on non-federal minerals and air pollution.

    The bureau says the rule is intended to reduce the waste of gas and that royalty owners would see over $50 million in additional payments if it was enforced.

    But Traynor wrote that the rules “add nothing more than a layer of federal regulation on top of existing federal regulation.”

    When pumping for oil, natural gas often comes up as a byproduct. Gas isn’t as profitable as oil, so it is vented or flared unless the right equipment is in place to capture.

    Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a climate “super pollutant” that is many times more potent in the short term than carbon dioxide.

    Well operators have reduced flaring rates in North Dakota significantly over the past few years, but they still hover around 5%, the Tribune reported. Reductions require infrastructure to capture, transport and use that gas.

    North Dakota politicians praised the ruling.

    “The Biden-Harris administration continuously attempts to overregulate and ultimately debilitate North Dakota’s energy production capabilities,” state Attorney General Drew Wrigley said in a statement.

    The Bureau of Land Management declined comment.

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  • Report shows system deficiencies a year before firefighting foam spill at former Navy base

    Report shows system deficiencies a year before firefighting foam spill at former Navy base

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    BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) — A fire suppression system at a Brunswick Executive Airport hangar showed deficiencies about a year before it discharged gallons of firefighting foam containing harmful chemicals in Maine’s biggest accidental spill of the fire suppressant on record, according to a recently released report.

    It’s not known, however, if those deficiencies, which included some non-functioning sensors, led to what happened on Aug. 19 i n Hangar 4. The system released 1,450 gallons (5,490 liters) of firefighting foam concentrate mixed with 50,000 gallons (190,000 liters) of water at the former Navy base.

    An investigation is underway into why the fire suppression system discharged. The foam, which contains chemicals known as PFAS, was removed and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention had advised the public not to consume or to limit consumption of freshwater fish from four nearby bodies of water.

    The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, which is overseeing redevelopment of the property, recently released a fire suppression inspection and testing report from July 2023. The authority was actively trying to get a technician out to address any deficiencies following the report, Kristine Logan, the group’s executive director, told The Associated Press in an email on Friday. She said “no one was able to be scheduled.”

    Logan also said the group also was working on finding alternatives to having an active foam system in the hangar.

    “We were not ignoring the issue,” she said.

    Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are found in everything from food packaging to clothing and are associated with health problems including several types of cancer. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency, for the first time, proposed limits on the chemicals in drinking water.

    Brunswick Naval Air Station officially closed in 2011, and automated fire suppression is mandated in large hangars. The hangars once housed P-3 Orion subhunters and other aircraft.

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  • ‘Shogun’ breaks Emmys record with 18 wins as ‘Hacks’ upsets ‘The Bear’

    ‘Shogun’ breaks Emmys record with 18 wins as ‘Hacks’ upsets ‘The Bear’

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Shogun” had historic wins in an epic 18-Emmy first season, “Hacks” scored an upset for best comedy on what was still a four-trophy night for “The Bear,” and “Baby Reindeer” had a holiday at an Emmy Awards that had some surprising swerves.

    “Shogun,” the FX series about power struggles in feudal Japan, won best drama series, Hiroyuki Sanada won best actor in a drama, and Anna Sawai won best actress. Sanada was the first Japanese actor to win an Emmy. Sawai became the second just moments later.

    ”‘Shogun’ taught me when we work together, we can make miracles,” Sanada said in his acceptance speech from the stage of the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

    Along with 14 Emmys it claimed at the precursor Creative Arts Emmys, it had an unmatched performance with 18 overall for one season.

    Justin Marks, center, and Hiroyuki Sanada, center right, and the team from “Shogun” accepts the award for outstanding drama series during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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    Anna Sawai accepts the award for outstanding lead actress in a drama series for “Shogun” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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    The team of “Hacks” pick up their official Emmy statuette for outstanding comedy series at the 76th Emmy Awards Trophy Table on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Content Services)

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    Jen Statsky, center from left, Paul W. Downs, and Lucia Aniello, and the team from “Hacks” accept the award for outstanding comedy series during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

    “Hacks” was the surprise winner of its first best comedy series award, topping “The Bear,” which most had expected to take it after big wins earlier in the evening.

    Jean Smart won her third best actress in a comedy award for the third season of Max’s “Hacks,” in which her stand-up comic character Deborah Vance tries to make it in late-night TV. Smart has six Emmys overall.

    Despite losing out on the night’s biggest comedy prize after winning it for its first season at January’s strike-delayed ceremony, FX’s “The Bear” star Jeremy Allen White won best actor in a comedy for the second straight year, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach repeated as best supporting actor.

    And Liza Colón-Zayas was the surprise best supporting actor winner over competition that included Meryl Streep, becoming the first Latina to win in the category.

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    “To all the Latinas who are looking at me,” she said, her eyes welling with tears. “keep believing, and vote.”

    Netflix’s darkly quirky “Baby Reindeer” won best limited series. Creator and star Richard Gadd won for his lead acting and his writing and Jessica Gunning, who plays his tormentor, won best supporting actress.

    Accepting the series award, Gadd urged the makers of television to take chances.

    “The only constant across any success in television is good storytelling,” he said. “Good storytelling that speaks to our times. So take risks, push boundaries. Explore the uncomfortable. Dare to fail in order to achieve.”

    “Baby Reindeer” is based on a one man-stage show in which Gadd describes being sexually abused along with other emotional struggles.

    Accepting that award, he said, “no matter how bad it gets, it always gets better.”

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    Richard Gadd poses in the press room with the award for outstanding writing for a limited or anthology series or movie for “Baby Reindeer” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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    Jodie Foster accepts the award for outstanding lead actress in a limited or Anthology series or movie for “True Detective: Night Country” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

    The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly as Gadd has.

    Jodie Foster won her first Emmy to go with her two Oscars when she took best actress in a limited series for “True Detective: Night Country.”

    Foster played a salty police chief investigating a mass killing in the round-the-clock dark of an Alaskan winter on the HBO show. While her castmate Kali Reis missed out on becoming the first Indigenous actor to win an Emmy in the supporting category, Foster praised her, and the show’s collaboration with Indigenous contributors.

    “The Inupiaq and Inuit people of northern Alaska who told us their stories, and they allowed us to listen,” Foster said. “That was just a blessing. It was love, love, love, and when you feel that, something amazing happens.”

    Greg Berlanti, a producer and writer on shows including “Dawson’s Creek” and “Everwood,” received the Television Academy’s Governors Award for his career-long contributions to improving LGBTQ visibility on television. He talked about a childhood when there was little such visibility.

    “There wasn’t a lot of gay characters on television back then, and I was a closeted gay kid,” Berlanti said. “It’s hard to describe how lonely that was at the time,”

    The long decline of traditional broadcast TV at the Emmys continued, with zero wins between the four broadcast networks.

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    Hosts Eugene Levy, left, and Dan Levy speak during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

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    Hosts Eugene Levy, left, and Dan Levy speak during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

    In the monologue that opened the ABC telecast, Dan Levy, who hosted with his father and “Schitt’s Creek” co-star Eugene Levy, called the Emmys “broadcast TV’s biggest night for honoring movie stars on streaming services.”

    Though other than Foster, movie stars didn’t fare too well. Her fellow Oscar winners Streep and Robert Downey Jr. had been among the favorites, but came up empty.

    “Robert Downey Jr. I have a poster of you in my house!” said Lamorne Morris, who beat Downey for best supporting actor in a limited series, said from the stage as he accepted his first Emmy.

    The evening managed to meet many expectations but included several swerves like the win for “Hacks.”

    “We were really shocked,” “Hacks co-creator Jen Statsky, who also won for writing, said after the show. ”We were truly, really surprised.”

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    Ebon Moss-Bachrach accepts the award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for “The Bear” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)


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    Steve Martin, from left, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez present the award for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)


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    Liza Colon-Zayas accepts the award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series for “The Bear” during the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)


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    James Johnson, from left, Princess Daazhraii Johnson, and Cathy Tagnak Rexford arrive at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)


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    Skye P. Marshall, left, and Kathy Bates arrive at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)



    And “Shogun” got off to a quiet start, missing on early awards and not getting its first trophy until past the halfway point.

    Still, it shattered the record for Emmys for one season previously held by the 2008 limited series “John Adams” in 2008. And its acting wins would have been hard to imagine before the series became an acclaimed phenomenon.

    Sanada is a 63-year-old longtime screen star whose name is little known outside Japan, even if his face is through Hollywood films like “The Last Samurai” and “John Wick Chapter 4.” Sawai, 32, who was born in New Zealand and moved to Japan as a child, is significantly less known in the U.S. She wept when she accepted best actress.

    “When you saw me cry on stage, it was probably the 12th time I cried today,” Sawai said backstage. “It was just mixed emotions, wanting everyone to win all that. I may cry again now.”

    “The Bear” would finish second with 11 overall Emmys, including guest acting wins at the Creative Arts ceremony for Jamie Lee Curtis and Jon Bernthal.

    The Levys in their opening monologue mocked the show being in the comedy category.

    “In honor of ‘The Bear’ we will be making no jokes,” Eugene Levy said, to laughs.

    Elizabeth Debicki took best supporting actress in a drama for playing Princess Diana at the end of her life in the sixth and final season of “The Crown.”

    “Playing this part, based on this unparalleled, incredible human being, has been my great privilege,” Debicki said in her acceptance. “It’s been a gift.”

    Several awards were presented by themed teams from TV history, including sitcom dads George Lopez, Damon Wayans and Jesse Tyler Ferguson and TV moms Meredith Baxter, Connie Britton, and Susan Kelechi Watson.

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    For more on this year’s Emmy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/emmy-awards

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  • Stellantis recalls 1.5M Ram trucks to fix software bug that can disable stability control

    Stellantis recalls 1.5M Ram trucks to fix software bug that can disable stability control

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    DETROIT (AP) — Stellantis is recalling nearly 1.5 million Ram pickup trucks worldwide to fix a software problem that can disable the electronic stability control system.

    The recall covers certain trucks from the 2019 and 2021 through 2024 model years, mostly in North America.

    Stellantis said in a statement Saturday that the trucks may have anti-lock brake software that could inadvertently shut down the stability control, which manages the throttle and brakes to avoid skidding.

    If that happens, the company said the brakes would still work. Stellantis said it’s not aware of any crashes or injuries from the problem.

    U.S. safety standards require electronic stability control to work during nearly all phases of driving, the company says.

    Dealers will update software to fix the problem at no cost to owners, who will be notified by letters starting Oct. 3.

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  • Coal miner killed on the job in West Virginia. The death marks fourth in the state this year

    Coal miner killed on the job in West Virginia. The death marks fourth in the state this year

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    CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A coal miner was killed on the job in West Virginia on Friday night, Gov. Jim Justice said.

    The Republican governor said Gary Chapman, 33, of South Williamson, Kentucky, died after being injured at the Mountaineer II Mine near Sharples, West Virginia.

    Justice expressed his condolences in a statement, saying Chapman and his family were in his prayers.

    “When we lose a miner, it’s not just a loss for the community, but a loss for the entire State of West Virginia,” Justice said in a statement. “Mr. Chapman’s loss is a powerful reminder that we should always have a deep gratitude for every one of our coal miners. They are the ones who keep our nation running.”

    At least eight U.S. coal miners have died on the job in 2024, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Four of them died in West Virginia.

    The incident is under investigation by the West Virginia Office of Miners’ Health, Safety, and Training and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

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  • Mega Millions jackpot soars to an estimated $800 million

    Mega Millions jackpot soars to an estimated $800 million

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    BOSTON (AP) — The Mega Millions jackpot has risen to an estimated $800 million with a cash option of $401.8 million for Tuesday’s drawing after no one matched all the winning numbers for Friday night’s drawing.

    The jackpot was last won in Illinois on June 4 with a ticket valued at $552 million.

    Only two Mega Millions jackpots have been won so far this year. Before the Illinois winning ticket, a $1.1 billion winning ticket was purchased in New Jersey in March. That prize is still unclaimed. Winners in New Jersey have one year to claim their winnings.

    Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are conducted at 11 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays in Atlanta, Georgia. Tickets are $2 each. Half of the proceeds from the sale of each Mega Millions ticket remains in the state where the ticket was sold.

    The odds of winning the jackpot are one in more than 302 million. The overall odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24.

    The top Mega Millions jackpot ticket — $1.6 billion — was sold in Florida in August of last year.

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