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  • Millions of Americans Brace for Potentially Catastrophic Ice Storm. What to Know, by the Numbers

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    ATLANTA (AP) — Millions of Americans from New Mexico to the Carolinas are bracing for a potentially catastrophic ice storm that could crush trees and power lines and knock out power for days, while many northern states all the way to New England could see enough snow to make travel nearly impossible, forecasters say.

    An estimated 100 million people were under some type of winter weather watch, warning or advisory on Wednesday ahead of the storm, the National Weather Service said.

    The storm, expected to begin Friday and continue through the weekend, is also projected to bring heavy snow and all types of wintry precipitation, including freezing rain and sleet. An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

    Here’s a look at the approaching storm and how people are preparing for it, by the numbers:

    The number of snowplows owned by the city of Jackson, Mississippi, where a mix of ice and sleet is possible this weekend. The city uses other heavy machinery like skid steers and small excavators to clear roads, said James Caldwell, deputy director of public works. Jackson also has three trucks that carry salt and sand to spread across roads before freezing weather.

    The amount of ice — half an inch, or 1.27 centimeters — that can lead to a crippling ice storm, toppling trees and power lines to create widespread and long-lasting power outages. The latest forecasts from the National Weather Service warn of the potential for a half-inch of ice or more for many areas, including parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee.

    The number of Nashville snowplows named after country music legend and Tennessee native Dolly Parton (Dolly Plowton). Another snowplow in East Tennessee was named Snowlene after her classic hit song “Jolene” as part of a 2022 naming contest.

    The number of layers needed to keep warm in extreme cold. AP video journalist Mark Vancleave in Minnesota explains the benefits of all three — a base layer, a middle layer and an outer shell — in this video.

    The number of major U.S. hub airports in the path of the southern storm this weekend, when ice, sleet and snow could delay passengers and cargo: Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Still more major airports on the East Coast could see delays later, as the storm barrels east.

    The number of inches of snow that could fall in parts of Oklahoma.

    “You’ve got to be very weather aware, and real smart about what you’re doing,” said Charles Daniel, who drives a semitrailer across western Oklahoma.

    “One mistake can literally kill somebody, so you have to use your head,” he added.

    The number of snow and ice removal trucks operated by Memphis, Tennessee’s Division of Public Works. The city also has six trucks that spread brine, a mixture designed to melt wintry precipitation. Statewide, the Tennessee Department of Transportation has 851 salt trucks and 634 brine trucks, and most of the salt trucks double as plows.

    Parts of at least 19 states in the storm’s path were under winter storm watches by late Wednesday, with more watches and warnings expected as the system approaches. They include Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. An estimated 55 million people are included in these winter storm watches, the weather service said.

    The degree in Fahrenheit when water freezes, equivalent to 0 Celsius. This is a magic number when it comes to winter weather, said Eric Guillot, a scientist at the National Weather Service. If the temperature is slightly above 32, it will be mostly liquid. But the colder it is below the mark, the more efficiently precipitation will freeze.

    The number of snowplow trucks at the ready in Nashville, Tennessee, according to the Nashville Department of Transportation and Multimodal Infrastructure.

    The windchill value — how cold it feels to a person when winds are factored in — that is expected in parts of the Northern Plains, the weather service projects. That equates to minus 45.6 Celsius and is forecast for parts of northern Minnesota and North Dakota.

    “When the weather forecast says, ‘feels like negative 34,’ it’s just a matter of covering skin and being prepared for it,” said Nils Anderson, who owns Duluth Gear Exchange, an outdoor equipment store in Duluth, Minnesota.

    The number of snowplows in the city of Chicago, where annual snowfall averages 37 to 39 inches (0.94 to 0.99 meters). The city also has 40 4×4 vehicles, and about 12 beet juice-dispensing trucks, according to Cole Stallard, Chicago’s commissioner of Streets and Sanitation. The natural sugars of beet juice lower the freezing point of water, allowing salt mixtures to work at much lower temperatures and preventing refreezing, while also helping salt stick to the road longer.

    The number of miles added last year to snowplow routes in Nashville, Tennessee. That was done “to get deeper into our neighborhoods — roads that had never been plowed before,” said Alex Apple, a spokesperson for Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell.

    Texas has this number of pieces of winter weather equipment, including snowplows, motor graders and brine tankers, Texas Department of Transportation spokesperson Adam Hammons said. He said the agency also works with state partners and contractors to get more equipment when needed. In the Dallas area, “right now our main focus is treating our roadways in advance of the storm,” agency spokesperson Tony Hartzel said Wednesday.

    The number of cubic yards of salt on hand at the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The state has 121 salt houses around the Arkansas, plus 600 salt spreaders and 700 snowplows, said Dave Parker, an agency spokesperson.

    Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas; Sophie Bates in Jackson, Mississippi; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Travis Loller and Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; John O’Connor in Springfield, Illinois; and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Forecasters Warn of a ‘Major Winter Storm’ With Ice Threat From Texas to the Carolinas

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    ATLANTA (AP) — With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads with ice and knock down power lines across the South.

    Forecasters on Tuesday expressed fears that an ice storm arriving late this week and into the weekend could weigh down power lines, sending them crashing and causing widespread power outages. Temperatures will be slow to warm in many areas, meaning ice that forms on roads and sidewalks might stick around, forecasters say.

    The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it is headed — remained uncertain on Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be challenging to predict precisely which areas could see rain and which ones could be punished with ice.


    Cold air clashing with rain to fuel a ‘major winter storm’

    An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to dive south from Canada, setting up a clash with the cold temperatures and rain that will be streaming eastward across the southern U.S.

    “This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.

    When the cold air meets the rain, the likely result will be “a major winter storm with very impactful weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and encountering all this particularly cold air that’s spilling in,” Jackson said.


    An atmospheric river could set up across the southern U.S.

    An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

    “Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential across North Georgia and portions of central Georgia,” according to the National Weather Service’s Atlanta office.

    If significant accumulations of ice strike metro Atlanta, it could be a problem through the weekend since low temperatures early Monday are expected to be around 22 degrees (minus 5.6 Celsius) in Atlanta. The city’s high temperature on Monday is forecast to be around 35 degrees (1.7 Celsius).


    Highway and air travel could be tangled by the storm

    Travel is a major concern, as southern states have less equipment to remove snow and ice from roads, and extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could prevent ice from melting for several days. In Michigan, more than 100 vehicles crashed into each other or slid off an interstate southwest of Grand Rapids on Monday.

    The storm is also expected to impact many of the nation’s major hub airports, including those in Dallas; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.


    Polar air from Canada to keep northern states in a deep freeze

    Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern tier of the U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week is “will be the coldest yet,” Jackson said.

    “There’s a large sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the sea in northern Canada that’s connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And this is dominating the weather over all of North America.”


    Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South

    Some of the storm’s earliest impacts could be in Texas on Friday, as the arctic air mass slides south through much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a briefing on the storm.

    “At the same time, we’re expecting rain to move into much of the state,” Shamburger said.

    Low temperatures could fall into the 20s or even the teens in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a wintery mix of weather in the northern part of the state.

    Forecasters cautioned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly over how much ice or snow could fall across north and central Texas.

    “It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.

    Panjwani reported from Washington, D.C.

    Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Descendants Obtain Works of Enslaved Potter in Landmark Restitution Deal

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    BOSTON (AP) — Inside the wide mouth of a stoneware jar, Daisy Whitner’s fingertips found a slight rise in the clay — a mark she hoped was a trace left behind by her ancestor, an enslaved potter who shaped the vessel nearly 175 years ago in South Carolina.

    Standing in the gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston last week, Whitner said she felt a quiet connection to her ancestor, David Drake, in that moment.

    “I was telling the kids, ’Inside this jar, I’m sure I’m feeling his tears, sweat drops off his face, his arms,’” said 86-year-old Whitner, a Washington, D.C., resident and a retired account manager for The Washington Post.

    The jar is one of two returned to Drake’s family as part of a historic agreement this month between Drake’s descendants and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, one of the institutions that holds pieces of his work.

    The vessels are among hundreds of surviving works by “Dave the Potter,” an enslaved man who labored in the alkaline-glazed stoneware potteries of Edgefield, South Carolina, in the decades before and during the Civil War. Dave signed many of his jars — and inscribed some with rhyming couplets — an extraordinary and unparalleled assertion of identity and authorship during a time when literacy for enslaved people was criminalized.

    The agreement represents what experts say is the first major case of art restitution involving works created by an enslaved person in the U.S. — a process traditionally associated with families seeking the return of art looted by the Nazis in World War II.

    It is also rare: because enslaved people were denied legal personhood and documentation, tracing ownership or lineage is often impossible.

    Children’s book author Yaba Baker, Dave’s 54-year-old fourth-generation grandson, called the return “a spiritual restoration.” Baker, whose first two children’s books explore Black history, said the family felt a dual sense of pride and grief. Many Black families, he noted, struggle to trace their ancestry past a few generations; recovering Dave’s work gave them back a piece of themselves.

    After the museum returned the pots to the family, they sold one back so people can continue to learn from Dave’s legacy. The other is on lease to the museum, at least temporarily. The MFA Boston said it wouldn’t disclose how much it paid.

    “We don’t want to hide them away in our house. We want other people to be inspired by it,” Baker said. “We want people to know that this person, Dave the Potter, who was told he was nothing but a tool to be used, realized he had humanity. He deserved his own name on his pots. He deserved to write poetry. He deserved to know who he was.”

    Laboring in the pottery yards in the South Carolina heat, Dave etched his name next to the date — July 12, 1834 — on a clay jar that would be sold by his owner and used to store pork and beef rations for enslaved people like him across the region.

    He also inscribed the jar, which would likely end up on a cotton plantation in South Carolina, with the couplet:

    “Put every bit all between / Surely this jar will hold 14” to mark the jar’s 14-gallon capacity.

    The vessel was the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of stoneware jugs and jars made by Dave alongside other enslaved potters over 50 years before and during the Civil War.

    Much of Dave’s poetry followed Christian themes. As he aged, he wrote more and explored themes related to his enslavement. One of his most resonant poems was etched into a jar he produced in 1857, around the time scholars believe Dave and his family were separated after being sold to different slave owners.

    “I wonder where is all my relation / friendship to all – and every nation”

    Multiple Drake descendants said they felt especially moved by Dave’s question about his relations — and that their restitution felt like Dave’s question was finally answered.

    It’s unclear what became of the jars after Dave died. The MFA purchased them in 1997 from an art dealer. MFA Boston’s Art of the Americas Chair Ethan Lasser said he thinks they survived mostly from pure “benign neglect” in South Carolina because they were large and difficult to transport or break.

    The MFA has at least two Drake pots, a “Poem Jar” and a “Signed Jar,” both from 1857.

    The jar the Drake descendants sold back to the museum is similar to the 1857 pot on which Dave asks about his relations because he uses first-person language that suggests ownership — something that makes it especially powerful, Lasser said.

    “Think of this as an enslaved person, speaking in the first person claiming authorship,” Lasser said.

    In the poem, Dave writes:

    “I made this Jar = cash – / though its called = lucre Trash”.

    On more than one pot, Dave writes “and Mark” next to his own name, suggesting he worked on the piece with another enslaved laborer. Oral histories indicate that Dave was disabled after losing a leg, although it’s unclear how, and may have needed help with his ceramic work later in life.

    His last surviving jar, made as the Civil War raged on in 1862, reads: “I made this Jar, all of cross / If you don’t repent, you will be lost”.

    Researchers believe Drake died sometime in the 1870s after gaining his freedom in the Civil War. He is accounted for in the 1870 census, but not in the 1880 census.

    For the Drake descendants, encountering Dave’s work has been both moving and difficult — a collision of pride in his artistry and grief for the conditions in which he lived.

    Yaba Baker, who has a 17-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son, said the experience gave his family something they had never had before: a traceable link.

    “I was able to turn to my son and say, ‘This is your lineage.’ Dave the Potter was not only a great artist — he resisted oppressive laws, even though he could have been killed for it,” he said. “That’s what you come from. Before, we didn’t have that link.”

    Yaba Baker said he often thinks about the anguish Dave may have felt if, as some historians speculate, the poems on his jars were attempts to signal to family members sold away from him — a common trauma of slavery.

    “I can’t imagine not knowing where my own kids are,” Baker said. “Completing that circle is very moving for me.”

    For his mother, Pauline Baker, discovering Dave’s story filled a void many Black families know intimately.

    “If you’re not African American, you don’t understand the missing links in your history,” she said. “When you do find a connection, it becomes very personal.” She studies his life — the heat, the labor, the loss of a limb — and wonders how he managed such precision and focus. “He did not allow them to enslave his mind,” said Baker, 78, a retired speech pathologist who worked for three decades in Washington, D.C., public schools.

    Since the MFA agreement was announced, the family has heard from museums and private collectors who hold Dave’s work and want to discuss what ethical restitution might look like for them as well.

    Daisy Whitner said she felt her ancestor’s presence each time she slid her hand inside the jar.

    “It broke my heart,” she said. “The outside is beautiful, but when you think about what he went through — sunup to sundown, in that South Carolina heat, on one leg — this poor man in bondage had no say in working so hard for nothing.”

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

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  • South Carolina Man Is Scheduled to Be Executed by Firing Squad

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    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A man in South Carolina is scheduled to be executed Friday by a firing squad, the third person to die by that method in the state this year.

    Three prison employees, all with live ammunition, have volunteered to carry out the execution of Stephen Bryant, 44, who killed three people in five days in a rural area of the state in 2004.

    Bryant has no appeals pending before the 6 p.m. scheduled execution at the death row facility at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia.

    He can ask the governor for clemency and that decision won’t be announced until minutes before the execution is set to start. But no South Carolina governor has offered clemency since the death penalty resumed in the U.S. in 1976.


    Firing squad vs. lethal injection drugs

    The firing squad has a long and violent history around the world. Death by a hail of bullets has been used to punish mutinies and desertion in armies, as frontier justice in America’s Old West and as a tool of terror and political repression in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

    But in recent years, it’s been revived in the U.S. Some lawmakers say it’s the quickest and most humane way to execute a person.

    That’s since a number of botched executions by other methods, including lethal injection drugs. South Carolina and other states have struggled to maintain adequate supplies of lethal injection drugs.

    In part because of this, South Carolina paused executions for 13 years. The state then restarted in September 2024, after which four men have been executed by lethal injection and two by firing squad. The state is among several where the electric chair is still legal.

    The three other recent firing squad executions in the U.S. have been in Utah with none in that state since 2010. The method is also still legal in Idaho and a backup method if others aren’t available in Oklahoma and Mississippi.


    The 2004 killings in rural South Carolina

    Bryant admitted to killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen in October 2004 after stopping by his secluded home in rural Sumter County and saying he had car trouble.

    Tietjen was shot several times. Bryant then answered Tietjen’s phone after it rang several times telling both his wife and daughter that he was the prowler and had killed them, prosecutors said.

    Bryant also killed two men — one before and one after Tietjen. He gave the men rides and when they got out to urinate on the side of the road, he shot them in the back, authorities said.

    During the search, officers stopped nearly everyone driving on dirt roads in the area just east of Columbia, and told people to be leery of anyone they did not know asking for help.

    Bryant’s lawyers said he was troubled in the months before the killing, begging a probation agent and his aunt to get him help because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused as a child by a group of relatives. They said he tried to cope by using meth and smoking joints he sprayed with bug killer.

    Bryant will be the 43rd man killed by court-ordered execution so far this year in the U.S. At least 14 others are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year.

    Bryant will also be the 50th person executed in South Carolina since the state restarted the death penalty 40 years ago.


    What happens during a firing squad execution

    At 6 p.m. Friday, the curtain will open in the death chamber at a Columbia prison with fewer than a dozen witnesses sitting behind bulletproof glass.

    Bryant will be strapped into a chair. A white square with a red bull’s-eye target will be placed over his heart by a doctor. Bryant’s lawyer can read his final statement if he has one. A prison employee will then place a hood over Bryant’s head, walk across the small room and pull open a black shade where the firing squad waits.

    Without an audible or visual warning to witnesses, the shooters will fire high-powered rifles from 15 feet (4.6 meters) away.

    A doctor will then come out within a minute or two, examine him and declare him dead.

    Lawyers for the last man executed by a firing squad said the shooters nearly missed the heart of Mikal Mahdi. They suggested by barely hitting the bottom of the heart that Mahdi was in agonizing pain for three or four times longer than experts say he would have been if his heart had been hit directly.

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  • Lawyers for Stephen Bryant Make Final Appeal Over Brain Damage to Stop South Carolina Execution

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    COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Lawyers for a man on South Carolina‘s death row are trying to stop his execution later this month by arguing the judge who sentenced him to die never got to consider how badly his brain was damaged from his mother’s alcohol and drug use while pregnant.

    Stephen Bryant, 44, is being put to death for killing Willard “TJ” Tietjen in his home in October 2004. Investigators said Bryant burned Tietjen’s eyes with cigarettes after shooting him and painted “catch me if u can” and other taunting messages on the wall with the victim’s blood. Prosecutors said he also shot and killed two men he was giving rides to over five days that terrorized Sumter County in October 2004.

    Attorneys for the state argue that the three killings, along with another shooting and two burglaries mostly along dirt roads in the rural county east of Columbia weren’t impulsive crimes from a damaged brain but were methodical and cunning.

    But Bryant’s lawyers are arguing in a final appeal to the state Supreme Court that while his original defense team said he was unnerved in the months before the killings because he couldn’t stop thinking about being sexually abused by relatives as a child, they didn’t detail how Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder had affected his ability to conform to the law.

    Bryant’s lawyers said he didn’t get a full brain scan before his 2008 trial that could have identified in-utero damage that was never repaired, according to court papers.

    They also submitted a 2024 interview with a clinical psychologist wherein Bryant described abuse he suffered from male relatives, his mother, a preacher’s wife and several strippers in his neighborhood before he became a teenager.

    Prosecutors have pushed back, saying Bryant’s attorneys shouldn’t be allowed to make a different case to keep him from being put to death after the first one failed.

    They argue that the number of crimes, their planning and Bryant’s lingering Tietjen’s home to desecrate his body, as well as taunting Tietjen’s wife and daughter over the phone, were deliberate acts of evil — not impulses from a broken brain.

    “Bryant was methodical, cunning, and took pleasure in deadly rampage including the gratuitous infliction of horror on Mr. Tietjen’s family,” they wrote in court papers.

    They said the only way the legal system could fail is to delay his Nov. 14 execution by firing squad.

    Beyond the appeal, Bryant can also ask the governor to reduce his death sentence to life in prison in a decision that, if made, won’t be announced until minutes before the execution is set to start. No South Carolina governor has ever granted clemency in the modern era of the death penalty.

    Bryant will be the third man executed by firing squad in South Carolina this year.

    Struggles to find drugs to use for lethal injection led to an unintended 13-year pause in executions and state lawmakers to introduce the method that’s often associated with mutinies and desertion in armies, as frontier justice in America’s Old West or as a tool of terror and political repression in the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

    Outside of South Carolina, only three other prisoners in the U.S. have been executed by firing squad since 1977. All were in Utah, most recently Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010.

    Bryant’s execution will be the seventh in South Carolina since executions restarted in September 2024. All the others have chosen execution by lethal injection after the state was able to obtain the drug needed because of a secrecy law. The state also has an electric chair.

    Bryant will have a hood placed on his head before he is shot by three volunteers from 15 feet (4.6 meters) away.

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  • Former South Carolina House Member Indicted on Federal Charges of Defrauding Legal Clients

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    A former South Carolina state lawmaker has been indicted on federal allegations that he schemed to defraud his legal clients.

    According to court papers, a federal grand jury on Wednesday indicted former Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, a Democrat and attorney, on 10 charges including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

    Federal prosecutors said that Pendarvis, between 2022 and 2024, negotiated financial settlements on behalf of his clients, but didn’t tell them that he had received the funds. Instead, according to the government, Pendarvis — who was at the time serving as a lawmaker representing the Charleston area — allegedly pocketed the money himself, either not telling his clients the money had been obtained, or ultimately giving them lesser sums than what he had negotiated.

    In all, according to prosecutors, Pendarvis deposited more half a million dollars into his law firm’s trust fund account, from which he paid nothing to clients.

    A message left Wednesday with Pendarvis was not immediately returned.

    Pendarvis’ law license was suspended last year after a former client accused him of forging his signature to reach a settlement in a lawsuit without his permission. The order issued then by the state Supreme Court didn’t detail why the suspension had been recommended, but the former client — whose initials matched one of the alleged victims detailed in Wednesday’s indictment — accused Pendarvis of sending him text messages asking him not to sue over the alleged forgery.

    “Let’s handle this (expletive). No need to try and hurt me man. I can help you,” Pendarvis wrote Lewis in text messages filed with the state lawsuit, which is still pending.

    First elected in a special election in 2017, he won three full terms before resigning from office about four months after the suspension of his law license.

    According to court records, Pendarvis is slated to appear in federal court on Nov. 18.

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  • Leader of Conservative Anglican Denomination Takes Leave While Facing Misconduct Claims

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    The top leader of the Anglican Church in North America — a conservative denomination that broke away from the more liberal Episcopal Church about 15 years ago — has taken a leave of absence after facing allegations of sexual and other misconduct, which he denies.

    Archbishop Stephen Wood announced the leave Monday while he awaits the outcome of a church disciplinary process triggered by a formal complaint, called a presentment, of alleged misconduct against him.

    The presentment has not yet been made public, but an investigative report by The Washington Post said it alleged Wood tried to kiss a former children’s ministry director at his parish in 2024, shortly before he was elected archbishop. The presentment alleged Wood made other comments and acted in ways that made her uncomfortable since 2021, and made thousands of dollars in payments to her from church funds, the Post said. The presentment also includes allegations that he bullied staffers and plagiarized sermons, the Post reported.

    Wood, 62, a married father of four, has denied the allegations.

    “I believe the charges against me lack merit, and I categorically and emphatically deny the particular accusation of attempted physical contact made against me by a former St. Andrew’s employee,” Wood said in a statement announcing his leave, during which he will still be paid.

    Wood also took leave as bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas and retired as rector of his parish, St. Andrew’s in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina — roles he had been serving in addition to being archbishop.

    The accusations against Wood center on alleged actions while he was bishop but before he also became archbishop, according to the ACNA.

    Under the denomination’s rules, when someone submits a presentment, a board of inquiry is appointed to determine whether to send the matter to an ecclesiastical trial. No decision on that has been announced yet. The process typically takes from a few weeks to about three months, the denomination says.

    The case is the most high-profile yet for the small denomination, which has had ongoing leadership turmoil in recent years.

    Another bishop, Stewart Ruch III of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, has just undergone a church trial on charges that include alleged abuse of ecclesiastical power, according to the ACNA website. A verdict is pending in the case, which stemmed from scrutiny over how the diocese handled the case of a lay teacher convicted of child sexual abuse. The trial itself saw delays and controversies over procedures and the resignations of two church prosecutors.

    A bishop heading the denomination’s military chaplains recently broke with the church after it pursued disciplinary proceedings against him over complaints of alleged “abuse of ecclesiastical power,” the ACNA said.

    Last year, a former bishop overseeing a Canadian missionary district was removed from ministry for alleged abuse of power and inappropriate relationships and interactions, the ACNA announced.

    In 2020, a bishop of Pittsburgh resigned after his diocese’s governing committee faulted his handling of a case in which a clergy member was accused of sexual misconduct. The ACNA also reported in 2020 it had removed yet another bishop from ministry after it said he admitted to long-term use of pornography.

    Wood was installed last year as the third archbishop to lead the ACNA. The denomination was formed in 2009 by conservatives who split from the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Anglican Church of Canada. The long-building schism came in the wake of the Episcopal Church’s election of an openly gay bishop in 2003 and others since then. It is part of a wider, ongoing controversy in the global Anglican Communion, which is rooted in the Church of England.

    The ACNA reports that it has about 130,000 members in about 1,000 congregations.

    Wood recused himself from appointing the board in his own case, delegating it to the dean of the denomination, Bishop Ray Sutton, according to an ACNA statement. Sutton has also been named to assume Wood’s duties as archbishop during his leave.

    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Mississippi Woman Kills Escaped Monkey Fearing for Her Children’s Safety

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    One of the monkeys that escaped last week after a truck overturned on a Mississippi roadway was shot and killed early Sunday by a woman who says she feared for the safety of her children.

    Jessica Bond Ferguson said she was alerted early Sunday by her 16-year-old son who said he thought he had seen a monkey running in the yard outside their home near Heidelberg, Mississippi. She got out bed, grabbed her firearm and her cellphone and stepped outside where she saw the monkey about 60 feet (18 meters) away.

    Bond Ferguson said she and other residents had been warned about diseases that the escaped monkeys carried so she fired her gun.

    “I did what any other mother would do to protect her children,” Bond Ferguson, who has five children ranging in age from 4 to 16, told The Associated Press. “I shot at it and it just stood there, and I shot again, and he backed up and that’s when he fell.”

    The Jasper County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a social media post that a homeowner had found one of the monkeys on their property Sunday morning but said the office didn’t have any details. The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took possession of the monkey, the sheriff’s office said.

    The Rhesus monkeys had been housed at the Tulane University National Biomedical Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, which routinely provides primates to scientific research organizations, according to the university. In a statement last week, Tulane said the monkeys do not belong to the university, and they were not being transported by the university.

    A truck carrying the monkeys overturned Tuesday on Interstate 59 north of Heidelberg. Authorities have said most of the 21 monkeys were killed. The sheriff’s department has said animal experts from Tulane examined the trailer and had determined three monkeys had escaped.

    The Mississippi Highway Patrol has said it was investigating the cause of the crash, which occurred about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the state capital, Jackson.

    Rhesus monkeys typically weigh about 16 pounds (7.2 kilograms) and are among the most medically studied animals on the planet. Video recorded after the crash showed monkeys crawling through tall grass beside the interstate, where wooden crates labeled “live animals” were crumpled and strewn about.

    Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson had said Tulane officials reported the monkeys were not infectious, despite initial reports by the truck’s occupants warning that the monkeys were dangerous and harboring various diseases. Nonetheless, Johnson said the monkeys still needed to be “neutralized” because of their aggressive nature.

    The monkeys had recently received checkups confirming they were pathogen-free, Tulane said in a statement Wednesday.

    About 10 years ago, three Rhesus macaques in the breeding colony of what was then known as the Tulane National Primate Research Center were euthanized after a “biosecurity breach,” federal inspectors wrote in a 2015 report. The breach involved at least one staff member failing to adhere to biosafety and infection control procedures, it said.

    The facility made changes in its procedures and retrained staff after that happened, according to the report from the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

    Rhesus macaques “are known to be aggressive,” according to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. It said the agency’s conservation workers were working with sheriff’s officials in the search for the animals.

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

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  • One of the World’s Rarest Whales That Makes the Atlantic Its Home Grows in Population

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    PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the rarest whales on the planet has continued an encouraging trend of population growth in the wake of new efforts to protect the giants animals, according to scientists who study them.

    The North Atlantic right whale now numbers an estimated 384 animals, up eight whales from the previous year, according to a report by the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium released Tuesday. The whales have shown a trend of slow population growth over the past four years.

    It’s a welcome development in the wake of a troubling decline in the previous decade. The population of the whales, which are vulnerable to collisions with ships and entanglement in fishing gear, fell about 25% from 2010 to 2020.

    The whale’s trend toward recovery is a testament to the importance of conservation measures, said Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life. The center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collaborate to calculate the population estimate.

    New management measures in Canada that attempt to keep the whales safe amid their increased presence in the Gulf of St. Lawrence have been especially important, Hamilton said.

    “We know that a modest increase every year, if we can sustain it, will lead to population growth,” Hamilton said. “It’s just whether or not we can sustain it.”

    Scientists have cautioned in recent years that the whale’s slow recovery is happening at a time when the giant animals still face threats from accidental deaths, and that stronger conservation measures are needed. But there are also reasons to believe the whales are turning a corner in terms of low reproduction numbers, Hamilton said.

    The whales are less likely to reproduce when they have suffered injuries or are underfed, scientists have said. That has emerged as a problem for the whale because they aren’t producing enough babies to sustain their population, they’ve said.

    However, this year four mother whales had calves for the first time, Hamilton said. And some other, established mother whales had shorter intervals between calves, he said.

    In total, 11 calves were born, which is less than researchers had hoped for, but the entry of new females into the reproductive pool is encouraging, Hamilton said.

    And any number of calves is helpful in a year of no mortalities, said Heather Pettis, who leads the right whale research program at Cabot Center and chairs the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium

    “The slight increase in the population estimate, coupled with no detected mortalities and fewer detected injuries than in the last several years, leaves us cautiously optimistic about the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Pettis said. ”What we’ve seen before is this population can turn on a dime.”

    The whales were hunted to the brink of extinction during the era of commercial whaling. They have been federally protected for decades.

    The whales migrate every year from calving grounds off Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. Some scientists have said the warming of the ocean has made that journey more dangerous because the whales have had to stray from established protected areas in search of food.

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  • South Carolina Prosecutor Seeks Death Penalty in Murder Case After Biden Reduced Sentence to Life

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

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

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

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

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


    A deadly bank robbery leads to a death sentence

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

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

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

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

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


    Families and Bondi angry about the commu

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

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

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

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

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


    Council’s lawyers said he was remorseful

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

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

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

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

    Biden did leave three men on federal death row.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Robertson reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

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