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Tag: Race and ethnicity

  • Virginia election winners break race and gender barriers amid national scrutiny on diversity

    RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — As the polls closed on Tuesday across Virginia, it quickly became clear it was a night of firsts: Voters overwhelmingly elected a slate of candidates who broke race and gender barriers in contests considered among the most consequential nationally.

    Republicans in Virginia also fielded a historically diverse statewide ticket that would have set records.

    The results come as President Donald Trump has made his opposition to diversity initiatives a cornerstone of his platform, dismantling federal civil rights programs that sought to rectify a complicated history of racial discrimination. He has justified those moves by saying that race and gender equity programs overcorrect for past wrongs and foment anti-American sentiment — a position shared among many conservatives across the country.

    Still, Virginia’s election results — in tandem with high-profile Democratic victories across the U.S. — call into question whether Trump’s staunch positions on race, gender and gender identity are resonating with voters.

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    Virginia’s first female governor

    Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race Tuesday, giving Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and making history as the first woman ever to lead the Commonwealth. Her victory was decisive, with about 57% of the vote.

    The race was bound to make history regardless of who came out on top: Spanberger was running against Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, marking the first time two women were the front-runners in a general election for governor.

    In her acceptance speech, Spanberger recalled how her husband said to their three daughters, “Your mom is going to be the governor of Virginia.”

    “And I can guarantee you those words have never been spoken in Virginia, ever before,” she said, beaming.

    Spanberger said her victory meant Virginians were choosing “pragmatism over partisanship” and “leadership that will focus on problem solving and not stoking division.”

    First Muslim woman elected statewide

    Democrat Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid in the race for lieutenant governor, becoming the first Indian American woman to win statewide office in Virginia. She is also the first Muslim woman to be elected statewide in the U.S.

    Firsts are not new to Hashmi. She was the first Muslim woman elected to the Virginia Senate five years ago. Hashmi, a former English professor born in India, said at the time that her opposition to Trump’s Muslim ban motivated her to break into politics.

    This time around, her campaign for lieutenant governor focused less on her identity and more on key issues, such as health and education. Still, some said her identity was a prominent factor in the race. Reid recently took to social media to tie Hashmi to Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim elected mayor of New York City, despite marked differences in their platforms, nationalities and ages — a comparison critics said was Islamophobic.

    Like the governor’s race, the battle for lieutenant governor would have been historic either way: Reid was the first openly gay man nominated to statewide office in Virginia, and he faced hurdles on the trail in connection to his sexuality. GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked him to leave the ticket after opposition research linked him to a social media account with sexually explicit photos of men. At the time, Reid said he felt betrayed.

    In her victory speech, Hashmi said her candidacy reflected progress in the state and nation.

    “My own journey — from a young child landing at the airport in Savannah, Georgia, to now being elected as the first Muslim woman to achieve statewide office in Virginia and in the entire country — is only possible because of the depth and breadth of opportunities made available in this country and in this commonwealth.”

    Son of civil rights pioneers to be attorney general

    Democrat Jay Jones defeated Republican incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, becoming the first Black person elected as top prosecutor in the former capital of the Confederacy.

    Jones, a former Virginia delegate, comes from a long line of racial-justice trailblazers — a fact he emphasized throughout his campaign and after his victory.

    “My ancestors were slaves. My grandfather was a civil rights pioneer who braved Jim Crow,” Jones said Tuesday. “My mother, my uncles, my aunts endured segregation, all so that I could stand before you today.”

    That said, Jones’ victory is as much a referendum on dissatisfaction with the government shutdown and Trump’s mass firings, which have hit Virginia especially hard due to its high concentration of federal workers.

    Ever since Democrat Jimmy Carter won the White House in 1976, every time a new president has been elected, Virginia has voted in a governor the following year from the opposite party.

    Jones’ win comes after Miyares, elected in 2021, became the first Latino to hold a Virginia statewide office.

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  • Abraham Lincoln letter seeking job for Black friend and valet now on display at presidential museum

    SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The short, handwritten note is a typical letter of reference for a man seeking a job.

    But the author is the president of the United States.

    It is also 1861, and the job seeker is a Black man.

    Abraham Lincoln penned the entreaty on behalf of his young friend, William Johnson, because ironically, his dark complexion caused freed Black White House staffers with lighter skin to shun him.

    “The difference of color between him and the other servants is the cause of our separation,” Lincoln wrote in the March 16, 1861, letter that private collector Peter Tuite donated in August to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, where it is now on public display. The letter’s recipient, Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, reported he had no position available.

    For a president in the mid-19th century to show such personal concern for a Black man’s welfare is astounding. But consider that Lincoln was fewer than two weeks removed from his inauguration, taking over a country rent by secession, on the brink of a bloody Civil War.

    The brief missive “contains layer upon layer” of revelations about Lincoln’s presidential debut, said Christina Shutt, executive director of the library and museum.

    “We see him trying to help a friend. We see that even the new president cannot casually hand out jobs,” Shutt said. “We see issues of class and color within the White House.”

    Little is known about Johnson before he started work in 1859 as a valet and driver for Lincoln in Springfield. He traveled to Washington with the president-elect.

    Lincoln referred to the then-28-year-old Johnson in letters as a “colored boy.” But the individual favor he bestowed on Johnson was characteristic of the Great Emancipator, said James Conroy, a retired Massachusetts attorney and historian whose books include a survey of Lincoln’s White House. Lincoln treated the White House staff, largely made up of freed African Americans, with respect. In a separate article on the subject, Conroy wrote that Lincoln never demanded service but asked staffers politely “and let them bear no hardship he could lift.”

    “Nobody can question that Lincoln was a very kindly guy, very empathetic, trying to help people when he could,” Conroy told The Associated Press. “And that crossed Black and white and male and female and everything else. He was a genuinely good guy.”

    It wasn’t until November that Lincoln found Johnson a position at the Treasury Department. Lincoln maintained a close working relationship with Johnson, paying him to shave the president daily and often act as chauffeur.

    Johnson accompanied Lincoln to Pennsylvania in November 1863 for the Gettysburg Address. Johnson nursed Lincoln when he showed symptoms of a mild case of smallpox during the trip. Johnson died of smallpox in early 1864. It is possible he contracted it from the president or during one of several outbreaks in Washington at the time.

    While Johnson was sick, Lincoln collected his paycheck and ensured it got to Johnson. Lincoln later paid for Johnson’s coffin and offered to pay off a $150 loan of Johnson’s, but the bank forgave half of it.

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  • Century-old time capsule found at a Utah church evokes memories of a now fleeting Japantown

    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A historian’s hunch about what might lie hidden within the walls of a Japanese church in Salt Lake City led congregants to uncover a century-old snapshot of a once vibrant Japantown now fighting for survival.

    Elders at the 101-year-old Japanese Church of Christ — one of two remaining buildings in the city’s Japantown — drilled through brick, concrete and rebar to extract a metal box from the building’s cornerstone. Its contents tell the stories of early Japanese immigrants to an area now overtaken by urban sprawl.

    A Salt Lake City street sign leads into the city’s Japantown, where the Japanese Church of Christ is one of the few remaining original buildings, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

    Community members got their first look at the artifacts over the weekend, pulling from the box hand-sewn flags, Bibles and local newspapers in both English and Japanese, the church’s articles of incorporation and a sheet of glitter-trimmed paper with the handwritten names of its Sunday school teachers.

    “You see the thoughts, the hopes and the faith of people from a community over 100 years ago. What they hoped for is still continuing to happen in the heart of Salt Lake City,” the Rev. Andrew Fleishman said in an interview with The Associated Press.

    The Japanese-language Bible had been given to founding member Lois Hide Hashimoto by her mother when she left her home country of Japan for the U.S. in the early 1900s. More than a century later, Hashimoto’s grandchildren, Joy Douglass and Ann Pos, held her Bible for the first time.

    A handwritten inscription reads: “To Lois Hide from her mother when she started to America. 20th June, 1906. ‘The Lord is our strength and refuge.’” Also in the box was an English-language Bible placed in the time capsule by their father, a then-13-year-old Eddie Hashimoto.

    Joy Hashimoto Douglass holds a Bible donated in 1924 by her father, Eddie Hashimoto, and included in the contents of the Japanese Church of Christ's 100-year-old time capsule that was recently opened at the University of Utah Marriott Library Preservation Department in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP)

    Joy Hashimoto Douglass holds a Bible donated in 1924 by her father, Eddie Hashimoto, and included in the contents of the Japanese Church of Christ’s 100-year-old time capsule that was recently opened at the University of Utah Marriott Library Preservation Department in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP)

    Members of the Presbyterian church knew their chapel had been dedicated in the fall of 1924 but did not know the exact date, Nov. 2, until they opened the time capsule. It was discovered when Lorraine Crouse, a third-generation member and former historian at the University of Utah, pointed out that time capsules were popular at the time of the church’s construction. A radar scan later confirmed the presence of a trapezoidal box encased in the concrete foundation.

    For Lynne Ward, a church elder, seeing the contents evoked childhood memories of walking the streets of a bustling Japantown full of fish markets, hotels, dry cleaners, restaurants and other Japanese-owned businesses. She recalled visiting a market with her mother where the merchant would give her chewy, citrus candies wrapped in edible rice paper that melted in her mouth.

    Lynne Ward, Japanese Church of Christ elder and time capsule committee member, uses a magnifying loupe to look at glitter detail on the edge of paper included in the Japanese Church of Christ's 100-year-old time capsule at the University of Utah Marriott Library Preservation Department in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP)

    Lynne Ward, Japanese Church of Christ elder and time capsule committee member, uses a magnifying loupe to look at glitter detail on the edge of paper included in the Japanese Church of Christ’s 100-year-old time capsule at the University of Utah Marriott Library Preservation Department in Salt Lake City, Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP)

    Once 90 businesses strong, Salt Lake City’s Japantown formed in the early 1900s when a mining and railroad boom drew thousands of Japanese immigrants to northern Utah. The downtown neighborhood changed dramatically during World War II, when many community leaders were “harassed, detained and sent to internment camps,” according to the Salt Lake City Downtown Alliance.

    Japantown hung on until the city expanded its massive Salt Palace Convention Center in the 1990s, wiping out most remaining businesses and scattering residents into the suburbs.

    Today, all that remains is a couple of street signs, a small Japanese garden and two religious centers — one Presbyterian, one Buddhist — surrounded by sports bars, hotels, the convention center and the home arena for Utah’s professional hockey and basketball teams.

    For many church members, the time capsule recalls the history they’re fighting to keep alive as urban development threatens Japantown with extinction. It also documents the resilience of a minority ethnic and faith community in a state where The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, is the largest religious group.

    Rev. Andrew Fleishman looks at a century-old time capsule at the Japanese Church of Christ in Salt Lake City, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

    Rev. Andrew Fleishman looks at a century-old time capsule at the Japanese Church of Christ in Salt Lake City, Monday, Nov. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

    The single-story church, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, sits in the midst of a planned sports and entertainment district that promises to bring a modern flare to a rapidly growing downtown.

    Developers with the Smith Entertainment Group have vowed to be respectful of the church’s needs as they build up the surrounding area. But church leaders worry the multibillion-dollar project could drive away what’s left of the Japanese community’s local history.

    Ward said she left the recent time capsule unveiling feeling empowered to show people that the Japanese community is not only a valuable piece of the city’s past, but also its present.

    “Our founding members believed that our community would still be around in 100 years to find that time capsule, and we can believe we’ll be around another hundred more,” she told the AP, noting members are already brainstorming what they might leave in a time capsule of their own.

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  • Native American boarding schools in the US, by the numbers

    CARLISLE, Pa. — For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States government and Christian denominations operated boarding schools where generations of Native American children were isolated from their families. Along with academics and hard work, the schools sought to erase elements of tribal identity, from language and clothing to hairstyles and even their names.

    The Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where the remains of 17 students were exhumed and repatriated in recent weeks, served as a model for other schools.

    By the Numbers:

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    An Interior Department review published in 2024 found 417 federally funded boarding schools for Native children in the United States. Many others were run by religious groups and other organizations.

    An “incomplete” number of burial sites, at 65 schools, identified by the Interior Department across the federal boarding school system.

    Number of treaties between the U.S. government and Native American tribes that implicate the federal boarding school program, reflecting its significance to westward expansion.

    Amount the U.S. government authorized to run the schools and pursue related policies, in inflation adjusted dollars, 1871-1969.

    Carlisle Indian Industrial School operated from 1879 to 1918.

    Children and young adults enrolled at Carlisle over four decades, from more than 100 tribes.

    Number of students who signed a petition in 1913 asking for an investigation into conditions at Carlisle.

    Deaths among students enrolled at Carlisle.

    Deaths among students at government run boarding schools in the U.S., according to the Interior Department report. A review by The Washington Post last year documented about 3,100. Researchers say the actual number was much higher.

    Indigenous students repatriated from the Carlisle Barracks cemetery since exhumations began in 2017, leaving 118 graves with Native American or Alaska Native names. About 20 more contain unidentified Indigenous children.

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    Sources: National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition; “Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories and Reclamations”; U.S. Army; “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Volume 2″

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  • Democrats are hopeful again. But unresolved questions remain about party’s path forward

    WASHINGTON — For a day, at least, beleaguered Democrats are hopeful again. But just beneath the party’s relief at securing its first big electoral wins since last November’s drubbing lay unresolved questions about its direction heading into next year’s midterm elections.

    The Election Day romp of Republicans stretched from deep-blue New York and California to swing-states Georgia, Pennsylvania and Virginia. There were signs that key voting groups, including young people, Black voters and Hispanics who shifted toward President Donald Trump’s Republican Party just a year ago, may be shifting back. And Democratic leaders across the political spectrum coalesced behind a simple message focused on Trump’s failure to address rising costs and everyday kitchen table issues.

    The dominant performance sparked a new round of debate among the party’s establishment-minded pragmatists and fiery progressives over which approach led to Tuesday’s victories, and which path to take into the high-stakes 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The lessons Democrats learn from the victories will help determine the party’s leading message and messengers next year — when elections will decide the balance of power in Congress for the second half of Trump’s term — and potentially in the 2028 presidential race, which has already entered its earliest stages.

    “Of course, there’s a division within the Democratic Party. There’s no secret,” Sen. Bernie Sanders told reporters at a Capitol Hill press conference about the election results.

    Sanders and his chief political strategist pointed to the success of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as a model for Democrats across the country. But Rep. Suzan Del Bene, who leads the House Democrats’ midterm campaign strategy, avoided saying Mamdani’s name when asked about his success.

    Del Bene instead cheered the moderate approach adopted by Democrats Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill in successful races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey as a more viable track for candidates outside of a Democratic stronghold like New York City.

    “New York is bright blue … and the path to the majority in the House is going to be through purple districts,” she told The Associated Press. “The people of Arizona, Iowa and Nebraska aren’t focused on the mayor of New York.”

    Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a likely Democratic presidential prospect who campaigned alongside Democrats in several states leading up to Tuesday’s elections, noted the candidates hit on a common issue that resonated with voters, regardless of location.

    “All of these candidates who won in these different states were focused on peoples’ everyday needs,” Shapiro said. “And you saw voters in every one of those states and cities showing up to send a clear message to Donald Trump that they’re rejecting his chaos.”

    Amid Democrats’ celebratory phone calls and news conferences, members of the party’s different wings had some sharp critiques for each other.

    While Shapiro cheered the party’s success during a Wednesday interview, he also acknowledged concerns about Mamdani in New York.

    Shapiro, one of the nation’s most prominent Jewish elected leaders, said he’s not comfortable with some of Mamdani’s comments on Israel. The New York mayor-elect, a Muslim, has described Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks as “genocide” against the Palestinian people and has been slow to condemn rhetoric linked to anti-Semitism.

    “I’ve expressed that to him personally. We’ve had good private communications,” Shapiro said of his concerns. “And I hope, as he did last night in his victory speech, that he’ll be a mayor that protects all New Yorkers and tries to bring people together.”

    Meanwhile, Sanders’ political strategist, Faiz Shakir, warned Democrats against embracing “cookie cutter campaigns that say nothing and do nothing” — a reference to centrist Democrats Spanberger and Sherrill.

    Despite potential cracks in the Democratic coalition, it’s hard to understate the extent of the party’s electoral success.

    In Georgia, two Democrats cruised to wins over Republican incumbents in elections to the state Public Service Commission, delivering the largest statewide margins of victory by Democrats in more than 20 years.

    In Pennsylvania, Democrats swept not only three state Supreme Court races, but every county seat in presidential swing counties like Bucks and Erie Counties, including sheriffs. Bucks County elected its first Democratic district attorney as Democrats there also won key school board races and county judgeships.

    Maine voters defeated a Republican-backed measure that would have mandated showing an ID at the polls. Colorado approved raising taxes on people earning more than $300,000 annually to fund school meal programs and food assistance for low-income state residents. And California voters overwhelmingly backed a charge led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to redraw its congressional map to give Democrats as many as five more House seats in upcoming elections.

    Trump made inroads with Black and Hispanic voters in 2024. But this week, Democrats scored strong performances with non-white voters in New Jersey and Virginia that offered promise.

    About 7 in 10 voters in New Jersey were white, according to the AP Voter Poll. And Sherrill won about half that group. But she made up for her relative weakness with whites with a strong showing among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters.

    The vast majority — about 9 in 10 — of Black voters supported Sherrill, as did about 8 in 10 Asian voters.

    Hispanic voters in New Jersey were more divided, but about two-thirds supported Sherrill; only about 3 in 10 voted for the Republican nominee, Jack Ciattarelli.

    The pattern was similar in Virginia, where Spanberger performed well among Black voters, Hispanic voters and Asian voters, even though she didn’t win a majority of white voters.

    The debate over the party’s future is already starting to play out in key midterm elections where Democrats have just begun intra-party primary contests.

    The choice is stark in Maine’s high-stakes Senate race, where Democrats will pick from a field that features establishment favorite, Gov. Jan Mills, and Sanders-endorsed populist Graham Platner. A similar dynamic could play out in key contests across Massachusetts, New York, Texas and Michigan.

    Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is aligned with the progressive wing of the party, said the people he speaks to are demanding bold action to address their economic concerns.

    “Folks are so frustrated by how hard its become to afford a dignified life here in Michigan and across the country,” he said.

    “I’m sure the corporate donors don’t want us to push too hard,” El-Sayed continued. “My worry is the very same people who told us we were just fine in 2024 will miss the mandate.”

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    Associated Press reporter Mike Catalini in Newark and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed.

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  • Some Head Start preschools shutter as government shutdown continues

    The government shutdown is triggering a wave of closures of Head Start centers, leaving working parents scrambling for child care and shutting some of the nation’s neediest children out of preschool.

    Dozens of centers are missing out on federal grant payments that were due to arrive Nov. 1. Some say they’ll close indefinitely, while others are staying afloat with emergency funding from local governments and school districts. The closures mean Head Start students — who come from low-income households, are homeless or are in foster care — are missing out on preschool, where they are fed two meals a day and receive therapy vital to their development.

    “Children love school, and the fact that they can’t go is breaking their hearts,” said Sarah Sloan, who oversees small-town Head Start centers in Scioto County, Ohio. Staff told families they planned to close Monday. “It’s hampering our families’ ability to put food on the table and to know that their children are safe during the day.”

    A half-dozen Head Start programs never received grants that were anticipated in October, but there are now 140 programs that have not received their annual infusion of federal funding. All told, the programs have capacity to assist 65,000 preschoolers and expectant parents.

    Among the preschools closing as of Monday are 24 Migrant and Seasonal Head Start centers spread across five states. Those centers, created to assist the children of migrant farmworkers, typically operate on 10- to 12-hour days to accommodate the long hours parents work on farms.

    Children attending the centers in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama and Oklahoma recently came home with fliers warning of possible closures, along with other parent notifications. Those centers serving more than 1,100 children will now remain closed until the shutdown ends, said East Coast Migrant Head Start Project CEO Javier Gonzalez. About 900 staff members across the centers also have been furloughed.

    In the absence of other options for child care, some parents’ only option may be to bring their young child to the fields where they work, Gonzalez said.

    Many of the families that qualify for the federal preschool program also depend on food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP or food stamps. That program also was on track to run dry of money due to the shutdown, although a pair of federal judges on Friday ordered the Trump administration to keep the program running with emergency reserve funds.

    That means many Head Start families have been worried about food aid, along with the child care they rely on to make ends meet. A day without child care means a day without work for many parents — and a day without pay.

    In Kansas City, Missouri, Jhanee Hunt teaches toddlers at a Head Start site, the Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center, where her 6-month-old son is cared for in another classroom. The center said it can scrape up enough money to stay open for a few weeks, but the money won’t last much beyond November.

    At dropoff, she said, parents often are wearing uniforms for fast food restaurants like Wendy’s and McDonald’s. Some work as certified nurse assistants in nursing homes. None have much extra money. The most urgent concern right now is food, she said.

    “A lot of the parents, they’re, you know, going around trying to find food pantries,” she said. “A parent actually asked me, do I know a food pantry?”

    More than 90% of the center’s families rely on SNAP food assistance, said Deborah Mann, the center’s executive director. One construction company offered to help fill the grocery carts of some families that use the center. But overall, families are distressed, she said.

    “We’ve had parents crying. We’ve had parents just don’t know what to do,” Mann said.

    Launched six decades ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty, Head Start programs provide a range of services beyond early education, such as medical and dental screenings, school meals and family support to children from low-income households who can’t afford other child care options.

    The initiative is funded almost entirely by the federal government, leaving it with little cushion from funding disruptions.

    Some that have missed out on grant payments have managed to remain open, with philanthropies, school districts and local governments filling in gaps. Others are relying on fast-dwindling reserves and warn they can’t keep their doors open for much longer.

    “If the government doesn’t open back up, we will be providing less services each week,” said Rekah Strong, who heads a social services nonprofit that runs Head Start centers in southern Washington state. She’s already had to close one center and several classrooms and cut back home-based visiting services. “It feels more bleak every day.”

    In Florida, Head Start centers in Tallahassee and surrounding Leon County closed Oct. 27, but then reopened the next day thanks to a grant from Children’s Services Council of Leon County. The local school district and churches have stepped up to provide meals for the children.

    “It takes a village to raise a child, and our village has come together,” said Nina Self, interim CEO of Capital Area Community Action Agency.

    But children in rural Jefferson and Franklin counties, where the agency runs two small Head Start centers, were not as lucky. They’ve been closed since late October.

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

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  • Mexican Americans balance tradition and modernity in Day of the Dead celebrations

    This weekend, Mexican American families across the U.S. will gather to honor their ancestors with altars, marigolds and sugar skulls on Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead. In recent years, the celebration has become more commercialized, leaving many in the community wondering how to preserve the centuries-old tradition while evolving to keep it alive.

    Day of the Dead is traditionally an intimate family affair, observed with home altars — ofrendas — and visits to the cemetery to decorate graves with flowers and sugar skulls. They bring their deceased loved ones’ favorite foods and hire musicians to perform their favorite songs.

    Skeletons are central to the celebrations, symbolizing a return of the bones to the living world. Like seeds planted in soil, the dead disappear temporarily, only to return each year like the annual harvest.

    Families place photographs of their ancestors on their ofrendas, which include paper decorations and candles, and are adorned with offerings of items beloved by their loved ones, such as cigars, a bottle of mezcal, or a plate of mole, tortillas and chocolates.

    Day of the Dead celebrations in the U.S. and Mexico continue to evolve.

    Cesáreo Moreno, the chief curator and visual director of the National Museum of Mexican Art, said the 2017 release of Disney’s animated movie “Coco” transformed celebrations in northern Mexico and made Day of the Dead more popular and commercialized in the U.S. American cities organize festivals, and Mexico City holds an annual Dia de los Muertos parade.

    “Coco” provided a way for people who do not belong to the Mexican American community to learn about the tradition and embrace its beauty, Moreno said. But it also made the celebration more marketable.

    “The Mexican American community in the United States celebrates the Day of the Dead as a cultural expression,” Moreno said. “It is a healthy tradition and it actually has an important role in the grieving process. But with ‘Coco,’ that movie really thrust it into mainstream popular culture.”

    With its increasing popularity, the Day of the Dead is often confused with Halloween, which has transformed how it is celebrated and people’s understanding of it, Moreno said.

    In recent years, some in and outside the Mexican American community have built ofrendas devoid of color, leaning towards a more minimalistic aesthetic.

    The colorful altars have been part of Mexican and Mesoamerican culture since the Spanish arrived and converted Mexico’s Indigenous tribes to Catholicism. Some families now build altars without the flowers and papel picado — multi-colored lacy wall hangings featuring hearts and skulls — of years gone by.

    Moreno said that’s OK, as long as the meaning isn’t lost.

    “If people are looking to do something a little bit different, that is fine,” Moreno said. “But if people stop understanding what is at the heart of this tradition, if people start transforming that, that is what I am against.”

    Ana Cecy Lerma, a Mexican American living in Texas, suspects the minimalist ofrendas satisfy a desire to create Instagram-worthy content.

    “I think you can put what you want in an altar and what connects you to your loved ones,” Lerma said. “But if your reasoning is merely that you like how it looks then I feel that’s losing a bit of the reason as to why we make altars.”

    Sehila Mota Casper, director of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, a nonprofit supporting the preservation of Latinx culture, said American businesses are trying to make money out of Dia de los Muertos as they have Cinco de Mayo, focusing on profit rather than culture. Big chain stores including Target and Wal-Mart now sell create-your-own-ofrenda kits, Mota Casper said.

    “It’s beginning to get culturally appropriated by other individuals outside of our diaspora,” she said.

    Although not Mexican, Beth McRae has lived in Arizona and California and has always been surrounded by Latino culture. She has created an altar for Day of the Dead since 1994.

    She began collecting items related to the celebration in the early 90’s and has amassed a collection of more than 1,000 pieces. And she throws a party to celebrate the day every year.

    “This is the coolest celebration because you’re inviting the loved ones that you’ve lost,” McRae said.

    “I threw my first Day of the Dead party in San Diego with my very meager collection of items,” she continued, “and it became an annual event.”

    McRae said she tries to be respectful by making sure the trinkets she places on her ofrenda are from Mexico, and by focusing on lost loved ones.

    “It’s done with respect and love, but it’s an opportunity to raise awareness to people that are not familiar with the culture or are not from the culture,” McRae said.

    Salvador Ordorica, a first generation Mexican American who lives in Los Angeles, said traditions must be reinvented so the younger generations want to keep them alive.

    “I think it’s okay for traditions to change,” Ordorica said. “It’s a way to really keep that tradition alive as long as the core of the tradition remains in place.”

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    Associated Press reporter Maria Teresa Hernández in Mexico City contributed.

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  • Democratic senators demand answers on ICE’s use of full-body restraints

    WASHINGTON — A “near-total secrecy” surrounding deportation flights and the use of full-body restraints onboard is raising “serious human rights concerns,” a group of 11 Democratic U.S. senators wrote in a letter Thursday to top immigration officials.

    U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called upon U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide a full accounting of its air operations and to stop using the black and yellow restraints known as the WRAP until the agency explains its policies for the device and resolves other questions about its use on immigration detainees.

    “I think it’s very problematic,” Van Hollen told The Associated Press. “They want to keep the public in the dark.”

    The senators’ letter cites an AP investigation this month that revealed several examples of ICE using the device on people — sometimes for hours — on deportation flights dating to 2020. Van Hollen was joined by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Alex Padilla of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, and six others.

    The WRAP is the subject of several federal lawsuits likening incorrect usage of the device to punishment and even torture. Advocates have expressed concern that ICE is not tracking the WRAP’s use as required by federal law when officers use force, making it difficult to discern exactly how many people are being subjected to the restraints.

    “When an organization like DHS doesn’t want transparency, it’s because they don’t want people to know what they’re doing,” Van Hollen said, referring to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency.

    In addition to the letter, U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., told AP in a statement that she is working on a bill to rein in the agency’s use of the WRAP.

    “ICE’s use of full-body restraints to immobilize detained individuals raises serious concerns about the safety, dignity, and human rights of those under their jurisdiction,” Ramirez said.

    DHS has not answered detailed questions from the AP about the use of the WRAP. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin previously said that ICE’s practices “align with those followed by other relevant authorities and is fully in line with established legal standards.”

    The AP found that DHS has paid the manufacturer of the WRAP, Safe Restraints Inc., $268,523 since it started purchasing the devices in late 2015, during the Obama administration. Government purchasing records show the two Trump administrations have been responsible for about 91% of that spending.

    ICE would not provide AP with records documenting its use of the WRAP despite multiple requests, and it’s not clear how frequently it has been used in the current and prior administrations.

    In addition to reporting on ICE’s use of the device, the AP identified a dozen fatal cases in the last decade where local police or jailers around the U.S. used the WRAP and autopsies determined “restraint” played a role in the death.

    “The brutal, inhumane tactics of ICE continue to jeopardize people’s lives across the country,” Ramirez said. “ICE is acting outside of oversight or accountability. That can’t go on.”

    ___

    Mustian reported from Washington and New York and Dearen reported from Los Angeles.

    ___

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.

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  • Archaeological site in Alaska that casts light on early Yup’ik life ravaged by ex-Typhoon Halong

    JUNEAU, Alaska — A fragment of a mask that was preserved for hundreds of years in permafrost sat in the muck of a low tide in the western Alaska community of Quinhagak. Wooden spoons, toys, a fishing lure and other artifacts were strewn, in some cases for miles, along the beach.

    The Yup’ik community near the edge of the Bering Sea was spared the widespread devastation wrought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong on its neighbors further west earlier this month. But it suffered a different kind of blow: The lashing winds and storm surge devoured dozens of feet of shoreline, disrupting a culturally significant archaeological site and washing away possibly thousands of unearthed artifacts.

    About 1,000 pieces, including wooden masks and tools, were recovered in Quinhagak after the storm ravaged parts of southwest Alaska on Oct. 11 and 12. But many more pieces — perhaps up to 100,000 — were left scattered, said Rick Knecht, an archaeologist who has worked on the Nunalleq, or old village, project for 17 years. That’s roughly the number of pieces previously recovered from the archaeological site.

    Meanwhile, freezing temperatures and ice have settled into the region, stalling immediate efforts to find and recover more displaced artifacts on searches done by four-wheeler and foot.

    Knecht called what happened a major loss. The site has yielded the world’s largest collection of pre-contact Yup’ik artifacts. Much of what’s known about Yup’ik life before outsiders arrived stems from the project, said Knecht, an emeritus senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

    “When there are holes or disturbances in the site, it’s like trying to read a book with holes in the pages. You’re going to miss a few things,” he said. “And the bigger those holes are, the weaker the story gets. There’s a few holes in the book right now.”

    While the name of the original village isn’t known, it was attacked by another village and burned around 1650, he said. Knecht has worked with elders and others in Quinhagak to combine their traditional knowledge with the technology and techniques used by the archaeology teams to study the past together.

    Quinhagak has about 800 residents, and subsistence food gathering is critically important to them.

    The storm dispersed artifacts from a site long preserved by permafrost, Knecht said. A longstanding concern has been the threat that climate change — melting permafrost, coastal erosion, the potential for more frequent or stronger storms — has posed to the site, he said.

    It poses risks to the community itself. Erosion threatens major infrastructure in Quinhagak, including a sewage lagoon, homes and fish camps. Thawing permafrost is also unsettling and undermining buildings, according to a 2024 report from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

    The excavation project itself began after artifacts began appearing on the beach around 2007. Part of the site that washed out had been excavated previously.

    “There was a big chunk where we’d only gone about halfway down and left it for later because we prioritized parts of the site that were most at risk from marine erosion,” Knecht said.

    When he left in July, there was a roughly 30-foot buffer to the sea. The storm took out the buffer and another 30 feet of the site, he said. It also left what Knecht described as piano-sized clumps of tundra on the tidal flats.

    Knecht didn’t recognize the site at first after Halong.

    “I just drove right by it because all the landmarks I’m used to on the beach and at the site were gone or changed,” he said.

    Work to preserve the rescued artifacts has included soaking the marine salts from the wood and placing the pieces in special chemicals that will help them hold together when they dry out, he said. If one were to just take one of the wooden artifacts off the beach and let them dry, they’d “crack to pieces, sometimes in a matter of hours.”

    There is a lab at the museum in Quinhagak where the artifacts are kept.

    Archaeologists hope to return to the site next spring for a “rescue excavation” of layers exposed by the storm, he said. In some ways, it feels like when teams saw the site in 2009: “We’ve got this raw site with artifacts popping off in every way,” he said. “So we’re starting from scratch again.”

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  • Former LAPD officer charged with murder in 2015 shooting of unarmed homeless man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Rosa Parks and Helen Keller statues will be unveiled at the Alabama Capitol

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Statues of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller, pivotal figures who fought for justice and inspired change across the world, will be unveiled Friday on the grounds of the Alabama Capitol.

    The monuments honoring the two famed native Alabamians — one who fought against racial segregation and one who fought for the rights of people with disabilities — will be the first statues of women on the lawn of the Alabama Capitol. The additions will reflect a broader history of the state as they are added to the grounds that also include several tributes to the Confederacy, which was formed at the site in 1861.

    While inside the Capitol there is a bust of former Gov. Lurleen Wallace, the state’s first female governor who died in office in 1968, there were no monuments to famous women on the Capitol grounds.

    Rep. Laura Hall, who sponsored the 2019 legislation that authorized the monuments, said it is important that visitors to the Capitol, “see the full picture, the history and the impact that women have played.”

    “Helen Keller and Rosa Parks just seemed to be the image that — whether you were Black or white, Democrat or Republican — you could identify with and realize the impact that they had on history,” Hall said.

    Known as the mother of the modern civil rights movement, Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955 when she refused to leave her bus seat for a white passenger. Her action ignited the yearlong boycott of the segregated city bus system by Black passengers and helped usher in the civil rights movement.

    Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She became deaf and blind after a serious illness shortly before her second birthday. With the help of tutor Anne Sullivan, Keller learned to communicate through sign language and Braille. Keller went on to become a well-known writer and lecturer. She championed the rights of workers, the poor, women, and people with disabilities around the world.

    The statue of Parks sits by the Alabama Capitol steps facing Dexter Avenue, the street where Parks boarded the bus and made history in 1955. The statue honoring the civil rights icon sits across from a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

    The statue of Keller sits facing the Alabama Statehouse.

    The statue presentation on Friday has been more than six years in the making.

    Alabama lawmakers in 2019 approved Hall’s legislation to place the monuments to Parks and Keller on the grounds of the state Capitol. The Alabama Women’s Tribute Statue Commission has been quietly at work, commissioning the statues and finalizing the displays.

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  • Deadly semitrailer crash in California renews federal criticism of immigrant truck drivers

    A 21-year-old semitruck driver accused of being under the influence of drugs and causing a fiery crash that killed three people on a southern California freeway is in the country illegally, U.S. Homeland Security officials said Thursday.

    Jashanpreet Singh was arrested and jailed after Tuesday’s eight-vehicle crash in Ontario, California, that also left four people injured.

    He faces three counts of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and driving under the influence causing injury, the San Bernardino District Attorney’s office said.

    Singh is scheduled for arraignment Friday. The district attorney’s office said he does not yet have a lawyer.

    Singh, of Yuba City, California, is from India and entered the U.S. illegally in 2022 across the southern border, Homeland Security said Thursday in a post on X.

    That revelation prompted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to restate earlier concerns about who should be able to obtain commercial driver’s licenses. Duffy and President Donald Trump have been pressing the issue and criticizing California ever since a deadly Florida crash in August was caused by an immigrant truck driver the federal government says was in the country illegally.

    The Transportation Department significantly restricted when noncitizens can get commercial driver’s licenses last month.

    Duffy said this week’s crash wouldn’t have happened if Newsom had followed these new rules.

    “These people deserve justice. There will be consequences,” he said in a statement.

    Newsom’s office responded that the federal government approved Singh’s federal employment authorization multiple times and this allowed him to obtain a commercial driver’s license in accordance with federal law.

    California’s Highway Patrol said in a release that traffic westbound on Interstate 10, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) west of San Bernardino, had slowed about 1 p.m. Tuesday when a tractor-trailer failed to stop, struck other vehicles and caused a chain-reaction crash.

    Dashcam video from the tractor-trailer obtained by KABC-TV shows the truck slamming into what appears to be a small, white SUV in the freeway’s center lane. It continued forward, plowing into several other vehicles, including another truck. It then crossed over two lanes before crashing into an already-disabled truck on the freeway’s right shoulder.

    Flames can be seen erupting alongside the tractor-trailer as it crosses the two right lanes.

    California Highway Patrol Officer Rodrigo Jimenez says the agency has seen the KABC video and believes it is dashcam video from the truck that caused the crash.

    “This tragedy follows a disturbing pattern of criminal illegal aliens driving commercial vehicles on American roads, directly threatening public safety,” Homeland Security said Thursday in its X post.

    In August, a truck driver made an illegal turn on Florida’s Turnpike, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of West Palm Beach, and was struck by a minivan. Two passengers in the minivan died at the scene, and the driver died at a hospital.

    Homeland Security has said that truck driver, Harjinder Singh, was in the United States illegally. Florida authorities said he entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in 2018.

    Homeland Security said Harjinder Singh obtained a commercial driver’s license in California, which is one of 19 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that issue licenses regardless of immigration status, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

    The Trump administration has pointed to the Florida crash while sparring with California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    In April, Trump issued an executive order saying truckers who don’t read and speak the English language proficiently would be considered unfit for service.

    “A driver who can’t understand English will not drive a commercial vehicle in this country. Period,” Duffy said the following month.

    Under the new Transportation Department rules imposed last month, only noncitizen drivers who have three specific visas are allowed to qualify for commercial licenses. And states will be required to verify their immigration status. Only drivers who hold either an H-2a, H-2B or E-2 visa will qualify. H-2B is for temporary nonagricultural workers, while H-2a is for agricultural workers. E-2 is for people who make substantial investments in a U.S. business

    The licenses will only be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner than that.

    On Thursday, Duffy called the California crash “outrageous” in a social media post.

    “This is exactly why I set new restrictions that prohibit ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS from operating trucks,” he wrote on X. “@CAgovernor must join every other state in the U.S. in enforcing these new actions to prevent any more accidents and deaths.”

    Bhupinder Kaur, director of operations for UNITED SIKHS, said the New York-based humanitarian relief nonprofit, is alarmed by what it sees as growing bias involving immigrant drivers.

    It was not immediately clear Thursday afternoon if Jashanpreet Singh is Sikh.

    “Law enforcement and hasty social media posts constantly rush to name, photograph, and expose immigration status, while similar details about non-immigrant drivers remain withheld,” Kaur told The Associated Press in an email Thursday. “The discretion officials cite as ‘privacy’ elsewhere seems to vanish when the driver is an immigrant.”

    Immigrant truckers make up nearly one in five long-haul drivers, Kaur continued, adding that most are fully licensed and law-abiding.

    “Yet they face unequal scrutiny and coverage,” Kaur said. “Selective transparency distorts public understanding and can even influence legal outcomes.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Luis Andres Henao in Princeton, New Jersey and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed.

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  • Misty Copeland to take ballet stage one last time, before hanging up her pointe shoes

    NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Misty Copeland hangs up her pointe shoes Wednesday, putting a final exclamation point on a trailblazing career in which she became an ambassador for diversity in the very white world of ballet — and a crossover star far beyond.

    Copeland will be feted in grand style as American Ballet Theatre devotes a gala evening to her retirement after 25 years with the company. Copeland joined ABT as a teenager and became, a decade ago, the first Black female principal dancer in its 75-year history.

    In a way, the gala will be both a return and a departure for Copeland. She’ll be dancing with the company for the first time in five years. During that time, Copeland has been raising a young son with her husband.

    She’s also been continuing her career as an author — the second volume of her “Bunheads” series appeared in September — and working to increase diversity in the dance world with her namesake foundation, including “Be Bold,” an afterschool program designed for young children of color.

    But Copeland decided to dust off the pointe shoes so she could have one last spin on the ABT stage — including a duet as Juliet, one of the most passionate roles in ballet. Though she has not closed the door on dancing altogether, it’s clear an era is ending.

    “It’s been 25 years at ABT, and I think it’s time,” Copeland, 43, told The Associated Press in an interview in June, when she announced her retirement. “It’s time for me to move to the next stage.”

    She added: “You know, I’ve become the person that I am today, and have all the opportunities I have today, because of ballet, (and) because of American Ballet Theatre. I feel like this is me saying ‘thank you’ to the company. So it’s a farewell. (But) it won’t be the end of me dancing. … Never say never.”

    The evening at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater will be streamed live to nearby Alice Tully Hall across the plaza, with attendance free to the public — another sign of Copeland’s unique brand of fame in the dance world.

    Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in San Pedro, California, where she lived in near poverty and through periods of homelessness as her single mother struggled to support her and five siblings.

    For a future professional dancer, she came to ballet relatively late — at 13 — but soon excelled and went on to study at the San Francisco Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre on scholarship opportunities. After a stint in the junior company, Copeland joined ABT as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, becoming a soloist six years later.

    In June 2015, Copeland was promoted to principal dancer. Unlike other promotions, which are announced quietly, Copeland’s was announced at a news conference — a testament to her celebrity. Only days before, she’d made a triumphant New York debut in “Swan Lake” in the starring role of Odette/Odile, drawing a diverse and enthusiastic crowd to the Metropolitan Opera House.

    In the AP interview, Copeland acknowledged that it’s striking that when she leaves ABT, there will no longer be a Black female principal dancer at the company (on the male side, acclaimed dancer Calvin Royal III was promoted to principal in 2020).

    “It’s definitely concerning,” Copeland said. “I think I’ve just gotten to a place in my career where there’s only so much I can do on a stage. There’s only so much that visual representation … can do. I feel like it’s the perfect timing for me to be stepping into a new role, and hopefully still shaping and shifting the ballet world and culture.”

    She also noted this is an especially trying moment for anyone working in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion.

    “It’s a difficult time,” she said. “And I think all we can really do is keep our heads down and keep doing the work. There’s no way to stop the people that feel passionate about this work. We will continue doing it.”

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  • Opening statements Wednesday in trial of ex-Illinois officer who killed Sonya Massey

    SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Fifteen months after Sonya Massey, a Black woman who had called 911 for help, was killed in her home, the former police officer who fired the fatal shot is set to go on trial.

    Sean Grayson, 31, a former deputy for the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department in central Illinois, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder.

    The trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday with opening statements. If convicted of murder, Grayson faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison. Prosecutors dismissed single counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct.

    On July 6, 2024, Massey, a 36-year-old single mother of two teenagers who struggled with mental health issues, called emergency responders over a suspected prowler. When Grayson, who is white, and another deputy entered her Springfield home to report finding no one, Grayson noticed a pan of hot water on the stove and ordered it removed.

    According to body-camera video that is certain to play a key role in the trial, Grayson and Massey joked about how the deputy backed away as she moved the pan before Massey said, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson later told sheriff’s investigators he thought Massey’s statement meant she intended to kill him, yelled at her to drop the pot and in the subsequent commotion, fired three shots, striking her just below the eye.

    The incident has prompted continued questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes and generated a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

    A jury of 10 women and five men, including three alternates, will hear testimony that’s predicted to end next week. The questioning of prospective jurors on Monday by Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser and defense attorney Daniel Fultz focused on attitudes toward law enforcement during a volatile time in America.

    Witnesses scheduled to testify for both the state and defense are reported to be experts in police training, generally accepted police practices, use of force, body camera video, use of video in investigations and the review of incidents involving the use of force.

    The national attention the case has garnered prompted Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield to Peoria, 167 miles (269 kilometers) southwest of Chicago.

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  • What to know about the murder trial of a sheriff deputy who killed Sonya Massey

    SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The murder trial of an Illinois sheriff’s deputy charged with killing Sonya Massey, a Black woman shot in her home last year after calling police for help, is set to begin Monday.

    Sean Grayson, 31, responding to a call about a suspected prowler, fired on the 36-year-old Massey in her Springfield home early on July 6, 2024, after confronting her about how she was handling a pan of hot water Grayson had ordered removed from her stove.

    Jurors will report Monday and the trial could continue into next week.

    Massey’s killing raised new questions about U.S. law enforcement shootings of Black people in their homes and it prompted a change in Illinois law requiring fuller transparency on the background of candidates for law enforcement jobs.

    Here’s what to know about the charges.

    In addition to first-degree murder, Grayson is charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.

    Widespread attention on Grayson’s shooting of Massey prompted Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin to move the trial from Springfield, 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Chicago. Jurors will instead come from Peoria and surrounding areas, an hour’s drive north, and will hear the case in their local courthouse.

    Grayson, who is white, faces a sentence of 45 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.

    After Grayson and another deputy checked the area around Massey’s house, body camera video shows Grayson knocked on her door to report they had found nothing suspicious. He entered the house to obtain details for a report, noticed a pan on the stove and ordered its removal. Massey picked it up.

    She laughingly asked Grayson why he was backing away; he said he was trying to avoid the “hot, steaming water.” Massey responded, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Grayson wrote in an incident report, “I interpreted this to mean she was going to kill me.”

    According to body camera video, Grayson pulled his 9 mm pistol and yelled at Massey to drop the pot. She apologized then put the pan down and ducked behind a counter, but in the confusion, as Grayson yelled, it appears she picked it up again. Grayson fired three times, hitting Massey once just below the left eye.

    Massey, a single mother of two teenagers who had a strong religious faith, was beset by mental health problems. When she answered Grayson’s knock minutes before the shooting, she said, “Don’t hurt me,” and then, as she was questioned and Grayson asked her if she was all right, she repeatedly said, “Please God.”

    Earlier that same week, Sonya Massey had admitted herself to a 30-day inpatient mental health program in St. Louis but returned two days later without explanation.

    County records indicate that in the days leading up to the shooting, three 911 calls were made by Massey or on her behalf. In one, her mother, Donna Massey, told authorities her daughter was suffering a “mental breakdown.” Donna Massey also told the dispatcher, “I don’t want you guys to hurt her.”

    Grayson was not aware of the calls or Massey’s background. County officials have since said there’s no practical way to determine and communicate such information for police responding to emergency calls.

    Grayson was arrested 11 days after killing Massey and fired from the sheriff’s department.

    As his background was scrutinized, Massey’s family and others questioned why Grayson, who had been a Sangamon County deputy sheriff for 14 months, had been hired at all.

    In his early 20s, he was ejected from the Army for a drunken-driving arrest in which he had a weapon in his car. He was convicted of a DUI again within the year.

    Before joining the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, Grayson had four policing jobs in six years — the first three of which were part-time.

    There was no indication Grayson had been fired from any job, but evaluations from past employers documented concerns about him. One department reported that while Grayson worked hard and had a good attitude, he struggled with report writing, was “not great with evidence — left items laying around office” and was “a bragger.”

    Jack Campbell, the Sangamon County sheriff, was forced to retire six weeks after the shooting. He insisted though that none of Grayson’s issues disqualified him from working as a deputy.

    State law enforcement authorities had certified Grayson to serve in each of his previous jobs, but Campbell required him to attend the 16-week police academy training course nonetheless.

    In August, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law requiring that prospective police officers permit the release of all personal and employment background records to any law enforcement agency considering hiring them. Legislative sponsors of the measure acknowledged it doesn’t prevent candidates with checkered paths from being hired but provides greater transparency.

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  • ‘Filipino Towns’ around the US preserve history and raise community’s visibility

    It was over four centuries ago to the day Saturday that Filipinos set foot on the North American continent for the first time. Now, Filipino Americans are working to sustain a cultural footprint.

    During celebration of October’s Filipino American History Month, many Filipinos are seeking their cities’ acknowledgment of “Filipino Towns” — a cultural district designation similar to Chinatowns, Japantowns and Koreatowns that highlights the contributions of expat and immigrant populations to a major city’s overall identity.

    That recognition can be through landmarks, event support or even permanent signage. Three years ago, Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown — first designated as a neighborhood in 2002 — constructed a gateway arch, and Little Manila in New York City’s Queens borough debuted an official street sign. Now, Las Vegas has joined the club.

    An official “Filipino Town Cultural District” street sign was unveiled last week to great fanfare — six months after Clark County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution affirming the distinction.

    “That was a great day,” Rozita Lee, the original Filipino Town Las Vegas board president, recalled about the county’s approval. “A great day because we realized that the government actually recognized us Filipinos as a valid, solid entity here in Nevada. We were all so happy.”

    Lee, 90, has lived in Las Vegas for nearly 50 years. She has seen a 1.2-mile (1.6-kilometer) corridor east of the Strip blossom with Filipino small businesses, a radio station and chains like Seafood City supermarket and Jollibee. Last year, the Filipino Town board’s first step was to gather data to bolster their proposal. Filipinos are the largest Asian group in metro Las Vegas with over 200,000.

    They also spread the word among business owners.

    “We visited the people that were in the area because we had to knock on doors and let them know of the possibility of this area being named Filipino Town, and would they support,” Lee said. “Everybody said yes.”

    Now resigned from the board, Lee is currently planning a Filipino American Museum.

    Current board president Bernie Benito is looking forward to making Filipino Town a site that tourists will consider.

    “What we’re going to try to do is just to promote it culturally. We’re going to entice developers, investors to come into the area in order to set up their businesses,” Benito said.

    Filipino scouts on a Spanish galleon — a heavy, square-rigged sailing ship — landed on Oct. 18, 1587, in Morro Bay, California, likely making them the first known Asian people to reach the U.S. It would be nearly 200 years until Filipinos settled here starting in Louisiana and the West Coast.

    Pre-World War II, there were some Filipino enclaves made up mostly of single men. They were not as prevalent as Chinatowns and Japantowns. A lot of them either were demolished or floundered as some men moved away, said Joseph Bernardo, an adjunct professor in Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University.

    U.S. colonial rule over the Philippines from 1898 to 1946 led to Filipinos studying English and assimilating to Western culture.

    “They have a command of English that doesn’t necessarily tie them to an ethnic economy to survive in the United States,” Bernardo said. “They can get jobs as nurses and accountants and lawyers and doctors, et cetera, with greater ease than other Asian immigrants.”

    The U.S. Census estimates 4.5 million Filipino people live in the U.S. and less than half are immigrants. Registered nurse is the most common occupation, according to AAPI Data, a research and policy organization.

    “More Filipino Americans care about cultural pride and want a community space to reflect that,” said Bernardo.

    Today, there are several Filipino Towns, some more active than others. Stockton, California’s once vibrant Little Manila was torn down by a crosstown freeway in the 1970s. But there are historic walking tours hosted by advocacy group Little Manila Rising. In San Francisco, an artist-driven Filipino Cultural Heritage District known as SOMA Pilipinas includes a community center and public art works. Toronto, Canada, also has an active Little Manila.

    Over two dozen residents excitedly posed for pictures in May in front of a brand new Seattle Streetcar outfitted in a “Filipinotown”-branded wrap. For them, it was a concrete symbol of their Filipinotown, which the Seattle City Council formally recognized in 2017. Devin Cabanilla, executive director of Filipinotown Seattle, is also a contract worker for King County Metro Transit. He applied to get the special streetcar.

    “I think having that streetcar has really jump-started us because I mean to some extent the general public doesn’t care. So what if you have some law that says you’re Filipinotown? What are the visible markers of it?” Cabanilla said. “People do want something tangible.”

    Cabanilla’s great aunt and uncle, Dorothy and Fred Cordova, are credited with creating Filipino American History Month in 1992 through their organization, the Filipino American National Historical Society.

    Filipinotown is part of Seattle’s Chinatown-International District. Besides restaurants and shops, Cabanilla hopes visitors stop to appreciate landmarks like the Dr. Jose Rizal Bridge, named after the writer who advocated for Filipino independence. Or Uncle Bob’s Place, an affordable apartment building named for local Filipino American civil rights activist Bob Santos.

    Future goals for Filipinotown include an official sign, events like poetry sessions and a summer block party.

    “Our primary vision is to bring back the solidarity that we had when the International District was in its heyday and it was a multicultural place,” Cabanilla said. “I need white people to understand it is not just Chinese, Japanese, East Asian stuff. It has always included Filipinos supporting and living in the district.”

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  • US rejects bid to buy 167 million tons of coal on public lands for less than a penny per ton

    BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal officials rejected a company’s bid to acquire 167 million tons of coal on public lands in Montana for less than a penny per ton, in what would have been the biggest U.S. government coal sale in more than a decade.

    The failed sale underscores a continued low appetite for coal among utilities that are turning to cheaper natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar to generate electricity. Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change, which scientists say is raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.

    President Donald Trump has made reviving the coal industry a centerpiece of his agenda to increase U.S. energy production. But economists say Trump’s attempts to boost coal are unlikely to reverse its yearslong decline.

    The coal-fired generation unit at Rawhide Energy Station in northern Colorado is seen Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver).

    The Department of Interior said in a Tuesday statement that last week’s $186,000 bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act.

    Agency representatives did not provide further details, and it’s unclear if they will attempt to hold the sale again.

    The leasing act requires bids to be at or above fair market value. At the last successful government lease sale in the region, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy paid $793 million, or $1.10 per ton, for 721 million tons of coal in Wyoming.

    President Joe Biden’s administration sought to end coal sales in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, citing climate change.

    A second proposed lease sale under Trump — 440 million tons of coal near an NTEC mine in central Wyoming — was postponed last week following the low bid received in the Montana sale. Interior Department officials have not said when the Wyoming sale will be rescheduled.

    NTEC is owned by the Navajo Nation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

    A mechanized shovel loads coal into a haul truck at the Spring Creek mine, in this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, near Decker, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

    A mechanized shovel loads coal into a haul truck at the Spring Creek mine, in this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, near Decker, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

    In documents submitted in the run-up to the Montana sale, NTEC indicated the coal had little value because of declining demand for the fuel. The Associated Press emailed a company representative regarding the rejected bid.

    Most power plants using fuel from NTEC’s Spring Creek mine in Montana and Antelope mine in Wyoming are scheduled to stop burning coal in the next decade, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

    Spring Creek also ships coal overseas to customers in Asia. Increasing those shipments could help it offset lessening domestic demand, but a shortage of port capacity has hobbled prior industry aspirations to boost coal exports.

    The coal-fired generation unit at Rawhide Energy Station in northern Colorado is seen Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver)

    The coal-fired generation unit at Rawhide Energy Station in northern Colorado is seen Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mead Gruver)

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  • Storm decimates 2 Alaskan villages and drives more than 1,500 people from their homes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The remnants of another storm, Typhoon Merbok, caused damage across a massive swath of western Alaska three years ago.

    __

    Johnson and Attanasio reported from Seattle.

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  • Black residents worry new congressional district could be lost in Supreme Court case

    BATON ROUGE, La. — BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — For nearly three decades, the small town of Mansfield was represented in Louisiana’s congressional delegation by white Republicans, even though its population is about 80% Black and leans heavily Democratic.

    That changed with the election last year of U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat who was able to win after a newly drawn political map carved out a second Black majority congressional district in the state.

    Mansfield Mayor Thomas Jones Jr. said he and others finally feel as if their communities are being represented in the nation’s capital.

    “We feel connected, like we have somebody that’s helping us,” he said.

    Fields’ seat, and what Jones describes as the benefits of having him in Washington, might disappear depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a case it will hear Wednesday.

    The district Fields represents is the result of a hard-fought battle by civil rights groups representing Black voters in the state. Leaders in predominantly Black communities across the 218-mile-long (350-kilometer-long) district said they feel he finally gives them a voice to represent their needs.

    But opponents say the district was unconstitutionally gerrymandered based on race. If the court eventually rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the decision could have a ripple effect far beyond this one district in Louisiana. It potentially will kick out the last major pillar of the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act and prevent Black voters from challenging political maps that dilute their influence.

    Louisiana’s new 6th Congressional District, which roughly traces the Red River, runs across the state in a narrow, diagonal path. It stretches from the state capital, Baton Rouge, in southern Louisiana to Shreveport, in the state’s northwest corner.

    The district encompasses part or all of 10 parishes. It connects swaths of the state that some argue are vastly different in their priorities, geography, economies — even their gumbo recipes.

    Fields is aware of criticism about the district’s snakelike shape that helped make it majority Black, but he argues that it’s contiguous and said all the state’s congressional districts are geographically large, representing both urban and rural areas. More importantly, he said, the district gives “people of color an opportunity, not a guarantee, to elect a candidate of their choice.”

    “You tell me I have to jump a certain height, I can work on that. You tell me I’ve got to run faster, I can work on that as well,” he said. “But you tell me I got to be white, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

    In 2022, Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature drew congressional boundaries that maintained one Black majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black. A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act, and in a major case the following year the Supreme Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority Black congressional district.

    Rather than being forced to have a judge draw its map, the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature and its Republican governor passed the current map that created a second Black majority district.

    Black residents now account for 54% of registered voters in Fields’ district, up from 24% under the previous boundaries.

    Throughout much of the South, older Black residents still remember Jim Crow-era methods around voting such as literacy tests and poll taxes that were designed to disenfranchise them.

    In Louisiana, civil rights groups argued that the lack of a second majority minority congressional district was a modern-day effort to dilute Black voting strength. For decades, with a brief exception in the 1990s, Louisiana had just one majority Black district.

    “It almost feels like when you only have one Black congressman, that he’s a congressman for everybody that’s African American in the state,” said state Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Black Democrat in East Baton Rouge Parish.

    When the second majority Black district was being created, some leaders said it didn’t necessarily matter whether their area was included in it. That it existed at all was more important.

    “I’m not married, necessarily, to the current makeup of the maps. … I’m not even married to the representative being Congressman Fields,” said Baton Rouge Councilman Cleve Dunn Jr., a Black Democrat. “We just knew with having a second congressional district represent a minority population, then the person who sits in that seat will represent the values of the Congressional Black Caucus. That’s the important thing.”

    Dunn said he had a rapport with the Republican who represented the district before it was redrawn and said he was accessible. But he also saw the world politically in a different way, Dunn said.

    “We feel positive that we have a representative who understands the plight of our people, the need of our people, and is going to fight for things for our people,” he said.

    Community leaders in Fields’ district listed an array of needs: supplying low-income housing, protecting and expanding Medicaid, keeping rural hospitals open, addressing food deserts and providing money for community centers and other infrastructure.

    Some said the benefits have been tangible in the short time Fields has been in office — from helping residents access Social Security benefits to working toward securing federal funding for local projects. Several people mentioned Fields’ visibility in the district.

    “The key thing, quite frankly, that I have done in the past nine months is to connect Congress to the people,” Fields said.

    Jones, the mayor of Mansfield, said during his nearly 20 years working in local government, he can’t recall a time a congressman held a town hall meeting in his community. Fields has held three.

    Among the priorities for the town of 4,000 has been obtaining grant money to fix and replace its ailing sewage system, which backs up in people’s homes and overflows into the streets when it rains.

    Jones said he has been asking for funding for five years. While the town has received limited money that was used to make patchwork repairs, he said with Fields’ help it is in line to be approved for a grant next year that he hopes will solve the system’s problems.

    It was the first time Jones could recall any member of Congress reaching out to say they might be able to make some appropriations and to ask for a list of the town’s priorities.

    “I feel like he’s reaching down to make sure that someone knows our needs and gets us some help,” Jones said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Supreme Court takes up Republican attack on Voting Rights Act in case over Black representation

    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican attack on a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that is designed to protect racial minorities comes to the Supreme Court this week, more than a decade after the justices knocked out another pillar of the 60-year-old law.

    In arguments Wednesday, lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting.

    “Race-based redistricting is fundamentally contrary to our Constitution,” Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill wrote in the state’s Supreme Court filing.

    A mid-decade battle over congressional redistricting already is playing out across the nation, after President Donald Trump began urging Texas and other Republican-controlled states to redraw their lines to make it easier for the GOP to hold its narrow majority in the House of Representatives. A ruling for Louisiana could intensify that effort and spill over to state legislative and local districts.

    The conservative-dominated court, which just two years ago ended affirmative action in college admissions, could be receptive. At the center of the legal fight is Chief Justice John Roberts, who has long had the landmark civil rights law in his sights, from his time as a young lawyer in the Reagan-era Justice Department to his current job.

    “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,” Roberts wrote in a dissenting opinion in 2006 in his first major voting rights case as chief justice.

    In 2013, Roberts wrote for the majority in gutting the landmark law’s requirement that states and local governments with a history of discrimination, mostly in the South, get approval before making any election-related changes.

    “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote.

    Challenges under the provision known as Section 2 of the voting rights law must be able to show current racially polarized voting and an inability of minority populations to elect candidates of their choosing, among other factors.

    “Race is still very much a factor in current voting patterns in the state of Louisiana. It’s true in many places in the country,” said Sarah Brannon, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project.

    The Louisiana case got to this point only after Black voters and civil rights groups sued and won lower court rulings striking down the first congressional map drawn by the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature after the 2020 census. That map created just one Black majority district among six House seats in a state that is one-third Black.

    Louisiana appealed to the Supreme Court but eventually added a second majority Black district after the justices’ 5-4 ruling in 2023 that found a likely violation of the Voting Rights Act in a similar case over Alabama’s congressional map.

    Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined their three more liberal colleagues in the Alabama outcome. Roberts rejected what he described as “Alabama’s attempt to remake our section 2 jurisprudence anew.”

    That might have settled things, but a group of white voters complained that race, not politics, was the predominant factor driving the new Louisiana map. A three-judge court agreed, leading to the current high court case.

    Instead of deciding the case in June, the justices asked the parties to answer a potentially big question: “Whether the state’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.”

    Those amendments, adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, were intended to bring about political equality for Black Americans and gave Congress the authority to take all necessary steps. Nearly a century later, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, called the crown jewel of the civil rights era, to finally put an end to persistent efforts to prevent Black people from voting in the former states of the Confederacy.

    The call for new arguments sometimes presages a major change by the high court. The Citizens United decision in 2010 that led to dramatic increases in independent spending in U.S. elections came after it was argued a second time.

    “It does feel to me a little bit like Citizens United in that, if you recall the way Citizens United unfolded, it was initially a narrow First Amendment challenge,” said Donald Verrilli, who served as the Obama administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer and defended the voting rights law in the 2013 case.

    Among the possible outcomes in the Louisiana case, Verrilli said, is one in which a majority holds that the need for courts to step into redistricting cases, absent intentional discrimination, has essentially expired. Kavanaugh raised the issue briefly two years ago.

    The Supreme Court has separately washed its hands of partisan gerrymandering claims, in a 2019 opinion that also was written by Roberts. Restricting or eliminating most claims of racial discrimination in federal courts would give state legislatures wide latitude to draw districts, subject only to state constitutional limits.

    A shift of just one vote from the Alabama case would flip the outcome.

    With the call for new arguments, Louisiana changed its position and is no longer defending its map.

    The Trump administration joined on Louisiana’s side. The Justice Department had previously defended the voting rights law under administrations of both major political parties.

    For four years in the 1990s, Louisiana had a second Black majority district until courts struck it down because it relied too heavily on race. Fields, then a rising star in the state’s Democratic politics, twice won election. He didn’t run again when a new map was put in place and reverted to just one majority Black district in the state.

    Fields is one of the two Black Democrats who won election to Congress last year in newly drawn districts in Alabama and Louisiana.

    He again represents the challenged district, described in March by Roberts as “a snake that runs from one end of the state to the other,” picking up Black residents along the way.

    If that’s so, civil rights lawyer Stuart Naifeh told Roberts, it’s because of slavery, Jim Crow laws and the persistent lack of economic opportunity for Black Louisianans.

    Fields said the court’s earlier ruling that eliminated federal review of potentially discriminatory voting laws has left few options to protect racial minorities, making the preservation of Section 2 all the more important.

    They would never win election to Congress, he said, “but for the Voting Rights Act and but for creating majority minority districts.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Gary Fields contributed to this report.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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