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  • Economist says NASCAR owes $364.7M to teams in antitrust case

    CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — An economist testified in Michael Jordan’s federal antitrust trial against NASCAR that the racing series owes a combined $364.7 million in damages to the two teams suing it over a revenue-sharing dispute.

    Edward Snyder, a professor of economics who worked in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice and has testified in more than 30 cases, including “Deflategate” involving the NFL’s New England Patriots, testified on Monday. He gave three specific reasons NASCAR is a monopoly participating in anticompetitive business practices.

    Using a complex formula applied to profits, a reduction in market revenue, and lost revenue to 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports from 2021-24, Snyder came up with his amount of damages owed. Snyder applied a 45% of revenue sharing he alleged Formula 1 gives to its teams in his calculations; Snyder found that NASCAR’s revenue-sharing model when its charter system began in 2016 gave only 25% to the teams.

    The suit is about the 2025 charter agreement, which was presented to teams on a Friday in September 2024 with a same-day deadline to sign the 112-page document. The charter offer came after more than two years of bitter negotiations between NASCAR and its teams, who have called the agreement “a take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum that they signed with “a gun to their head.”

    A charter is similar to the franchise model in other sports, but in NASCAR it guarantees 36 teams spots in the 40-car field, as well as specific revenue.

    Jordan and three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin for 23XI, along with Front Row Motorsports and owner Bob Jenkins, were the only two teams out of 15 to refuse the new charter agreement.

    Snyder’s evaluations found NASCAR was in fact violating antitrust laws in that the privately owned racing series controls all bargaining because “teams don’t have anywhere else to sell their services.” Snyder said NASCAR controls “the tracks, the teams and the cars.”

    Snyder repeatedly cited exclusivity agreements NASCAR entered into with racetracks after the charter system began. The agreements prevent tracks that host NASCAR from holding events with rival racing series. Prior to the long-term agreements, NASCAR operated on one-year contracts with its host racetracks.

    The Florida-based France family founded NASCAR in 1948 and, along with Speedway Motorsports, owns almost all the tracks on the top Cup Series schedule. Snyder’s belief is that NASCAR entered into exclusivity agreements with tracks to stave off any threats of a breakaway startup series. In doing so, he said it eliminated teams’ ability to race stock cars anywhere else, forced them to accept revenue-sharing agreements that are below market value, and damaged their overall evaluations.

    Snyder did his calculations for both teams based on each having two charters — each purchased a third charter in late 2024 — and found 23XI is owed $215.8 million while Front Row is owed $148.9 million. Based on his calculations, Snyder determined NASCAR shorted 36 chartered teams $1.06 billion from 2021-24.

    Snyder noted NASCAR had $2.2 billion in assets, an equity value of $5 billion and an investment-grade credit rating — which Snyder believes positions the France family to be able to pivot and adjust to any threats of a rival series the way the PGA did in response to the LIV Golf league. The PGA, Snyder testified, “got creative” in bringing in new revenue to pay to its golfers to prevent their defections.

    Snyder also testified NASCAR had $250 million in annual earnings from 2021-24 and the France family took $400 million in distributions during that period.

    NASCAR contends Snyder’s estimations are wrong, that the 45% F1 model he used is not correct, and its own two experts “take serious issue” with Snyder’s findings. Defense attorney Lawrence Buterman asked Snyder his opinion on NASCAR’s upcoming expert witnesses and Snyder said they were two of the best economists in the world.

    Slow pace of trial

    Snyder testified for almost the entirety of Monday’s session — the sixth day of the trial — and will continue on Tuesday. The snail’s pace has agitated U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell, who heard arguments 30 minutes early Monday morning because he was annoyed that objections had been submitted at 2:55 a.m. and then 6:50 a.m.

    He needed an hour to get through the rulings, and testimony resumed 30 minutes behind schedule. When the day concluded, he asked the nine-person jury if they were willing to serve an hour longer each day the rest of the week in an effort to avoid a third full week of trial. He all said all motions must be filed by 10 p.m. each evening moving forward.

    Bell wants plaintiff attorney Jeffrey Kessler to conclude his case by the end of Tuesday, but Kessler told him he still plans to call NASCAR chairman Jim France, NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps and Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress, who was the subject of derogatory text messages amongst NASCAR leadership and has said he’s considering legal action.

    NASCAR has a list of 16 potential witnesses and Bell said he wanted the first one on the stand before Tuesday’s session concludes.

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    AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

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  • College football rankings start juggling act at 6-7, while top 5 remain the same

    The College Football Playoff rankings placed the spotlight on, where else this year, “6-7″ — flip-flopping Oregon and Ole Miss in those spots while keeping their top five teams the same in Tuesday night’s reveal.

    Oregon’s impressive victory over Southern California in one of last week’s few games between ranked teams accounted for the biggest change, moving the Ducks ahead of Mississippi, which didn’t play.

    The other meaningful shift was Miami’s move to No. 12, in a switch with Utah after the Utes gave up 472 yards rushing in a tight win over Kansas State.

    There are two more rankings to be revealed — next Tuesday, then Dec. 7 when the final top 25 will set the bracket for the 12-team playoff to start Dec. 19,

    Pitt’s return to the rankings — at No. 22 — after falling out for a week impacts the meaning of its key Atlantic Coast Conference game this week against the Hurricanes, who need a win and some help to make the conference title game but still have hopes of grabbing one of the playoff’s seven at-large berths.

    “Miami is a team that it really appears is starting to look like the Miami team that started 5-0,” said Hunter Yurachek, the chair of the selection committee.

    Following the Buckeyes for the fourth time in four rankings were fellow undefeated teams Indiana and Texas A&M. Georgia stayed at No. 4, followed by Texas Tech. After Oregon and Mississippi came Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Alabama and BYU at No. 11 and first team out on this week’s proverbial bubble.

    Ohio State and Indiana will play in what should be a 1 vs. 2 Big Ten title game if both win rivalry showdowns on the road over Thanksgiving weekend. Ohio State’s task is more difficult — against Michigan, which moved up three spots to No. 15. Indiana plays Purdue.

    No. 10 Alabama plays at Auburn with a spot in the Southeastern Conference title game on the line. The Tide’s opponent would be Texas A&M if the Aggies win at No. 16 Texas.

    Notre Dame and Miami were compared this week

    After some confusion last week about the weight given to Miami’s opening-week win over Notre Dame, Yurachek said those teams were, indeed, close enough in the rankings this week to be compared head-to-head. But still, that victory was not enough to push the Hurricanes past Notre Dame.

    “We compare a number of things when looking at teams closely ranked together,” Yurachek said. “We’ve got some teams ranked between Miami and Notre Dame, such as Alabama and BYU, who we’re also comparing Miami to.”

    Could Kiffin’s job status impact Ole Miss?

    Among the factors the committee can consider is the availability of players and coaches, which has potential to bring Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin’s job status into play.

    Word from Oxford is that a decision will come on Kiffin’s potential move to LSU or Florida after this week’s game against Mississippi State. An Ole Miss team without one of the most sought-after coaches in the game wouldn’t seem as good as one with him.

    Still, Yurachek wouldn’t tip his hand on how that evaluation might go.

    “We’ll take care of that when it happens,” Yurachek said. “We don’t look ahead. The loss of player, loss of a key coach, is in the principles of how we rank teams, but we don’t have a data point for how we look at Ole Miss without their coach.”

    Ducks move to ‘where they need to be’

    After Oregon’s 42-27 win over USC, coach Dan Lanning said his team deserves credit for the schedule it plays — which included a tough conference game during a week in which many in the SEC were going against non-ranked, double-digit underdogs.

    The committee agreed.

    “We’ve been waiting for them to have that signature win to really put them where they need to be,” Yurachek said.

    Conference watch

    ACC — No. 18 Virginia and No. 21 SMU are the favorites to reach the title game, which means one of them has an inside edge to be in the playoff. The Hurricanes are likely in an at-large showdown with the likes of BYU, Vanderbilt and maybe Alabama.

    Big 12 — BYU is angling for another crack at Texas Tech in the title game. Hard to see the Cougars getting there, losing to the Red Raiders again and still making the playoff.

    Big Ten — Ohio State, Indiana and Oregon are locks. Michigan’s move up three to No. 15 gives the Wolverines a chance at an at-large bid (or maybe the conference title) with a win this week over the Buckeyes.

    SEC — Texas A&M, Georgia, Mississippi and Oklahoma should all be in. Alabama can’t really afford a third loss, but what if that loss comes in the SEC title game? The Tide makes it by beating Auburn. Vanderbilt would strengthen its case with a win at No. 19 Tennessee this week.

    Group of 5 — No. 24 Tulane of the American is still the only team from a non-power conference in the rankings. One problem. BetMGM Sportsbook has North Texas as the favorite to win the league title. That, in turn, could bring someone like James Madison back into the conversation.

    Projected first-round playoff matchups

    No. 12 Tulane at No. 5 Texas Tech: Could the Red Raiders, a deep-pocketed disruptor in the college football space, also turn into one of the sport’s powerhouses?

    No. 11 Miami at No. 6 Oregon: The Mario Cristobal Bowl — Hurricanes coach left Ducks suddenly in 2021 to return home.

    No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Mississippi: Kiffin, the old offensive coordinator at Alabama, is 0-4 vs. Tide with Ole Miss.

    No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma: Notre Dame’s first televised game was a 27-21 win over OU in 1952.

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    Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

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  • New limits for a rent algorithm that prosecutors say let landlords drive up prices

    Landlords could no longer rely on rent-pricing software to quietly track each other’s moves and push rents higher using confidential data, under a settlement between RealPage Inc. and federal prosecutors to end what critics said was illegal “algorithmic collusion.”

    The deal announced Monday by the Department of Justice follows a yearlong federal antitrust lawsuit, launched during the Biden administration, against the Texas-based software company. RealPage would not have to pay any damages or admit any wrongdoing. The settlement must still be approved by a judge.

    RealPage software provides daily recommendations to help landlords and their employees nationwide price their available apartments. The landlords do not have to follow the suggestions, but critics argue that because the software has access to a vast trove of confidential data, it helps RealPage’s clients charge the highest possible rent.

    “RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price,” said DOJ antitrust chief Gail Slater, who emphasized that the settlement avoided a costly, time-consuming trial.

    Under the terms of the proposed settlement, RealPage can no longer use that real-time data to determine price recommendations. Instead, the only nonpublic data that can be used to train the software’s algorithm must be at least one year old.

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    “What does this mean for you and your family?” Slater said in a video statement. “It means more real competition in local housing markets. It means rents set by the market, not by a secret algorithm.”

    RealPage attorney Stephen Weissman said the company is pleased the DOJ worked with them to settle the matter.

    “There has been a great deal of misinformation about how RealPage’s software works and the value it provides for both housing providers and renters,” Weissman said in a statement. “We believe that RealPage’s historical use of aggregated and anonymized nonpublic data, which include rents that are typically lower than advertised rents, has led to lower rents, less vacancies, and more procompetitive effects.”

    However, the deal was slammed by some observers as a missed opportunity to clamp down on alleged algorithmic price-fixing throughout the economy.

    “This case really was the tip of the spear,” said Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, whose group advocates for government action against business concentration.

    He said the settlement is rife with loopholes and he believes RealPages can keep influencing the rental market even if they can only use public, rather than private, data. He also decried how RealPages does not have to pay any damages, unlike many companies that have paid millions in penalties over their use of the software.

    Over the past few months, more than two dozen property management companies have reached various settlements over their use of RealPage, including Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, which agreed to pay $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit, and $7 million to settle a separate lawsuit filed by nine states.

    The governors of California and New York signed laws last month to crack down on rent-setting software, and a growing list of cities, including Philadelphia and Seattle, have passed ordinances against the practice.

    Ten states — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington — had joined the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. Those states were not part of Monday’s settlement, meaning they can continue to pursue the case in court.

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  • Surveillance video shows Titans cornerback driving car minutes before alleged shooting

    Surveillance video shows Tennessee Titans cornerback L’Jarius Sneed driving a Lamborghini Urus at a suburban Dallas dealership and nearby gas station minutes before two men allege that shots were fired at them from that vehicle last December.

    Sneed, 28, was indicted Tuesday by a Dallas County grand jury on a misdemeanor charge of failing to report felony aggravated assault to law enforcement. The indictment does not include details of the alleged incident on Dec. 6.

    In the video, Sneed can be seen getting out of the Lamborghini, then using crutches to walk past the men and up stairs into the dealership at 3:22 p.m. on that date. Sneed walks out about a minute later in the video, which was shared Thursday with The Associated Press by attorney Levi McCathern, who represents the two men in a civil lawsuit against Sneed over the shooting.

    The Titans cornerback, who was on injured reserve, also can be seen in separate surveillance video at a gas station at the same time as the two men. In the video, Sneed walks in from a gas pump, goes to a register and then walks back to the same car when Christian Nshimiyimana and Avi Ahmed were inside.

    Minutes later, Nshimiyimana and Ahmed say in their lawsuit that they were shot at while sitting in a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon at the dealership. The surveillance video shows a vehicle driving past with four loud pops heard and an arm out the passenger side window at 3:42 p.m. That vehicle then speeds off.

    A probable cause affidavit from the Carrollton Police Department dated Dec. 11 said Ahmed asked employees about two men he had seen earlier and that Sneed was identified as one of those men. The dealership also provided Sneed’s phone number.

    Detectives also confirmed Sneed’s identity from surveillance video from several locations.

    “It was apparent that Sneed was the only person they had seen getting out of and into the driver seat of the Lamborghini. He also was the last person seen getting into the driver seat at the RaceTrac (gas station) approximately eight minutes before the shooting,” according to the affidavit.

    The police affidavit also noted: “Combined with the rapid acceleration away from the scene proved that Sneed knew what he was doing when assisted the shooter in fleeing the scene.”

    Nshimiyimana and Ahmed allege that Sneed and another man, Tekonzae Williams, were inside the Lamborghini when the shots were fired. Williams was indicted Tuesday on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Court records did not list an attorney for Williams.

    McCathern, of McCathern Law, said Thursday his clients were pleased that Sneed and his associate were indicted.

    “Hopefully, this will be the beginning of getting justice for my clients,” McCathern said. “As the video clearly shows, they are very lucky to be alive after Mr. Sneed’s actions.”

    Sneed’s attorney, Michael J. Todd, did not return a message left by the AP on Thursday. Sneed’s agent had no comment Wednesday.

    No people were hit by bullets, though the lawsuit says bullets did hit the Mercedes-Benz as well as a building at the car lot. The lawsuit against Sneed and Williams seeks at least $1 million in damages.

    The Titans said in a statement they were aware of the “legal matter” with Sneed and are in contact with NFL security per league protocol. The statement says the team had no further comment.

    Sneed was placed on injured reserve last month with a quadriceps injury, and he was in the Titans’ locker room Thursday. Players on injured reserve do not talk to reporters.

    This is the second straight season the Titans have put him on injured reserve. He played only five games in 2024 after Tennessee traded with Kansas City for him, giving Sneed a contract that made him the NFL’s fifth-highest-paid cornerback at the time.

    Sneed was drafted from Louisiana Tech in the fourth round in 2020 by Kansas City. He won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Chiefs in 2022 and 2023.

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    Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

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    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

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  • How Gary Sinise is helping the nonprofit CreatiVets build ‘a place to go when the PTSD hits’

    NASHVILLE (AP) — Richard Casper shakes his head as he touches one of the boarded-up windows in the once-abandoned church he plans to transform into a new 24-hour arts center for veterans.

    The U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient said he was an arm’s length away from military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Barracks Washington when he learned the former church his nonprofit CreatiVets just purchased had been vandalized.

    The physical damage to the building and its stained glass windows saddened Casper. But what worried him more was that the church had remained empty since 2017 without damage. That vandalism came just weeks after CreatiVets bought it, suggesting that maybe he and the veterans in his program were not welcome.

    “I almost just left,” Casper said. “It put me in a weird headspace.”

    However, Casper, 40, a CNN Heroes winner and Elevate Prize winner, needed more support for the center — “a place to go when the PTSD hits.” Like so many veterans, he said his PTSD, caused by seeing a close friend die on patrol in Iraq, would generally come in the middle of the night, when the only places open are bars and other spaces that can be ”destructive.”

    He figured a 24-hour center where veterans could engage in music, painting, sculpture, theater and other arts could help. It could “turn all that pain into something beautiful.” The artistic element factored in when Casper, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq, returned home and found it hard to be in public — unless he was listening to live music.

    So he completed his mission that night in Washington, introducing new people to CreatiVets’ work. Then, Casper returned to Nashville to practice what he has preached to hundreds of veterans since his nonprofit opened in 2013. He asked for help.

    And help came.

    Within weeks, CreatiVets’ Art Director Tim Brown was teaching a roomful of volunteers how to create stained glass pieces to replace those that were vandalized. Brown said the volunteers wanted to give back to the organization, “but also because of the impact that these activities have had on them.”

    Gary Sinise believes in art’s impact

    Gary Sinise values that impact. The actor, musician and philanthropist had already signed on to donate $1 million through his foundation to help CreatiVets purchase the building. Sinise’s involvement encouraged two other donors to help finalize the purchase.

    The “CSI: NY” star said he believed in CreatiVets’ work and had already seen a similar program in his hometown of Chicago help veterans process their wartime experiences.

    “In the military, you’re trained to do serious work to protect our country, right?” Sinise said. “If you’re in the infantry, you’re being trained to kill. You’re being trained to contain any emotion and be strong.”

    Those skills are important when fighting the enemy, but they also take a toll, especially when veterans aren’t taught how to discuss their feelings once the war is over.

    “Quite often, our veterans don’t want any help,” Sinise said. “But through art – and with theater as well – acting out what they are going through can be very, very beneficial.”

    David Booth says he is living proof of how CreatiVets can help. And the retired master sergeant, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army as a medic and a counterintelligence agent, wishes he participated in the program sooner.

    “For me, this was more important than the last year and a half of counseling that I’ve gone through,” said Booth. “It has been so therapeutic.”

    After years of being asked, Booth, 53, finally joined CreatiVets’ songwriting program in September. He traveled from his home in The Villages, Florida, to the historic Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to meet with two successful songwriters – Brian White, who co-wrote Jason Aldean’s “Blame It on You,” and Craig Campbell, of “Outskirts of Heaven” fame – to help him write a song about his life.

    Booth told them about his service, including his injury in Iraq in 2006 when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device and detonated it.

    He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the explosion, and it took months of rehab before he could walk again. His entire cervical spine is fused. He still gets epidurals to relieve the nerve pain. And he still suffers from nightmares and PTSD.

    In Iraq, Booth’s unit was once surrounded by kids because American soldiers used to give them Jolly Rancher candies. Snipers shot the children in hopes the soldiers would become easier targets when they tried to help.

    “Things like that stick in my head,” Booth said. “How do you get them out?”

    He also told them about his desire for a positive message and Combat Veterans to Careers, the veteran support nonprofit he founded. Those experiences became the song “What’s Next.”

    Booth hopes “What’s Next” becomes available on music streaming services so others can hear his story. CreatiVets has released compilations of its veterans’ songs since 2020 in cooperation with Big Machine Label Group, Taylor Swift’s first record label. This year’s collection was released Friday.

    “It’s almost like they could feel what I was feeling and put it into the lyrics,” said Booth, after hearing the finished version. “It was pretty surreal and pretty awesome.”

    Why Lt. Dan from ‘Forrest Gump’ launched a nonprofit

    Sinise has seen the unexpected impact of art throughout his career. His Oscar-nominated role as wounded Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor in “Forrest Gump” in 1994 deepened his connection to veterans. His music with the Lt. Dan Band expanded it. In 2011, he launched the Gary Sinise Foundation to broadly serve veterans, first responders and their families.

    “I think citizens have a responsibility to take care of their defenders,” he said. “There are opportunities out there for all of us to do that and one of the ways to do it is through multiple nonprofits that are out there.”

    Sinise immediately connected with CreatiVets’ mission. When the idea came to dedicate the performance space at the new center to his late son Mac, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, Sinise saw it as “a perfect synergy.”

    “Mac was a great artist,” he said. “And he was a humble, kind of quiet, creative force… If Mac would have survived and not gone through what he went through, he’d be one of our young leaders here at the foundation. He would be composing music and he’d be helping veterans.”

    Mac Sinise is still helping veterans, as proceeds of his album “Resurrection & Revival” and its sequel completed after his death, are going to the Gary Sinise Foundation. And Gary Sinise said he discovered more compositions from his son that he plans to record later this year for a third album.

    After the new center was vandalized, Casper said he was heartbroken, but also inspired knowing part of the center was destined to become the Mac Sinise Auditorium. He decided to take pieces of the broken stained glass windows and transform them into new artwork inspired by Mac Sinise’s music.

    “I told you we’re going to go above and beyond to make sure everyone knows Mac lived,” Casper told Sinise as he handed him stained glass panes inspired by Mac Sinise’s songs “Arctic Circles” and “Penguin Dance,” “not that he died, but that he lived.”

    Sinise fought back tears as he said, “My gosh, that’s beautiful.”

    As he examined the pieces more closely, Sinise added, “I’m honored that we’re going to have this place over there and that Mac is going to be supporting Richard and helping veterans.”

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    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • While Trump threatens controllers, US flight cancellations will drag on even after shutdown ends

    Air travelers should expect worsening cancellations and delays this week even if the government shutdown ends, as the Federal Aviation Administration rolls out deeper cuts to flights at 40 major U.S. airports, officials said Monday.

    The fourth day of the flight restrictions saw airlines scrap over 2,300 flights Monday and more than 1,000 flights set for takeoff Tuesday. Unpaid for more than a month, some air traffic controllers have begun calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobs.

    President Donald Trump took to social media on Monday to pressure controllers to “get back to work, NOW!!!” He called for a $10,000 bonus for those who’ve stayed on the job and suggested docking pay for those who haven’t.

    Rep. Rick Larsen, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, ranking member of the Senate’s Aviation Subcommittee, condemned the president’s remarks, saying controllers deserve appreciation and support — not attacks.

    The head of the controllers union says its members are being used as a “political pawn” in the shutdown fight.

    Meanwhile, the Senate passed legislation Monday to reopen the government, though the bill also needs to clear the House and final passage could be days away. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy made clear last week that flight cuts will remain in place until the FAA sees staffing levels stabilize at its air traffic control facilities.

    And because the flight disruptions are widespread and ongoing, many planes aren’t where they’re supposed to be, which could also slow the airlines’ return to normal operations even after the FAA lifts the order, said Mike Taylor, who leads research on airports and airlines at J.D. Power.

    “If you think about it, there’s all these aircraft that didn’t fly where they were supposed to on a normal route,” Taylor said, noting airlines will need to track down all their planes, figure out where each needs to be, and find pilots and cabin crew for those flights.

    Since Friday, airlines have canceled about 8,000 flights under orders to drop 4% of flights at 40 of the nation’s busiest airports. That will rise to 6% on Tuesday and 10% by week’s end, the FAA says.

    One in 10 flights nationwide were scratched Sunday — the fourth worst day for cancellations in almost two years, according aviation analytics firm Cirium.

    Controller shortages also led to five-hour delays Monday evening at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, where wintry weather added to the disruptions earlier in the day, and the FAA warned that staffing at over a dozen towers and control centers could cause delays in cities including Philadelphia, Nashville and Atlanta.

    That leaves travelers growing angry.

    “All of this has real negative consequences for millions of Americans, and it’s 100% unnecessary and avoidable,” said Todd Walker, who missed his mom’s 80th birthday when his flight was canceled over the weekend.

    The FAA also expanded flight restrictions Monday, barring business jets and many private flights from using a dozen airports already under commercial flight limits.

    Airports nationwide have seen intermittent delays since the shutdown began because the FAA slows air traffic when it’s short on controllers to ensure flights remain safe.

    The shutdown has made controllers’ demanding jobs even more stressful, leading to fatigue and increased risks, said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. He said the number who are retiring or quitting is “growing” by the day.

    During the six weekends since the shutdown began, an average of 30 air traffic control facilities had staffing issues. That’s almost four times the number on weekends this year before the shutdown, according to an Associated Press analysis of operations plans sent through the Air Traffic Control System Command Center system.

    Tuesday will be the second missed payday for controllers. It’s unclear how quickly they might be paid once the shutdown ends — it took more than two months to receive full back pay after the 35-day shutdown that ended in 2019, Daniels said.

    The latest shutdown and money worries have become regular “dinnertime conversations” for Amy Lark and her husband, both Washington, D.C., area air traffic controllers.

    “Yesterday, my kids asked me how long we could stay in our house,” Lark said. Still, she said controllers remain “100% committed.”

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    Yamat reported from Las Vegas and Funk from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Ken Sweet, Wyatte Grantham-Philips and Michael R. Sisak in New York; Stephen Groves and Kevin Freking in Washington; and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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  • What to know if your travel plans are impacted by the FAA’s flight cancellations

    If you have upcoming travel plans anytime soon, you might notice fewer options on the airport’s departure board.

    Airlines are scaling back flights at dozens of major U.S. airports to ease the pressure on air traffic controllers, who have been working unpaid and under intense strain during the ongoing government shutdown.

    The Federal Aviation Administration says the decision is necessary to keep travelers safe. Many controllers have been putting in long hours and mandatory overtime while lawmakers are at a standstill over how to reopen the government.

    Major hubs like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are among those affected, and the ripple effects could mean more cancellations, longer delays and fuller flights for travelers across the country. The cutbacks will impact hundreds if not thousands of flights daily.

    Here’s what to know about the FAA’s order — and what you can do if your plans are disrupted:

    Is my airport on the list?

    There’s a good chance it is. The list spans more than two dozen states.

    It includes the country’s busiest airport — Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia — and the main airports in Boston, Denver, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco and Salt Lake City.

    Multiple airports will be impacted in some metropolitan hubs, including New York, Houston, Chicago and Washington.

    How long will this go on?

    It’s hard to say. Even if the shutdown ends soon, the FAA has said it would not lift the flight restrictions until staffing at airport towers and regional air traffic centers makes it safe to do so.

    “It’s going to take time to work through this,” said Michael Johnson, president of Ensemble Travel, an association of travel agencies in the U.S. and Canada.

    That’s why, he said, it’s important to plan ahead — whether you’ve already booked flights or you’re just starting to make holiday travel plans.

    Know before you go

    Airlines say they will let their customers know if their flight is called off.

    Still, it doesn’t hurt to check your airline’s app or a flight-tracking site for updates before you leave for the airport. It’s better to be stuck at home or in a hotel than stranded in a terminal.

    My flight was canceled. Now what?

    “Take a deep breath. Don’t panic,” Johnson said. “There are options available. They may not be ideal, and they may be inconvenient, but you have options.”

    If you’re already at the airport, it’s time to get in line to speak to a customer service representative. While you’re waiting, you can call or go online to connect to the airline’s reservations staff. It can also help to reach out on the social platform X because airlines might respond quickly there.

    Now might also be the time to consider if it makes sense to travel by train, car or bus instead.

    Kyle Potter, executive editor of Thrifty Traveler, said the shutdown is different from when a single airline is having problems and travelers can just pick another carrier.

    “The longer the shutdown drags on, it’s unlikely that there will be one airline running on time if the rest of the them are failing,” Potter said.

    Can I get a refund or compensation?

    The airlines will be required to issue full refunds, according to the FAA. However, they aren’t required to cover extra costs like meals or hotel stays — unless the delay or cancellation was within their control, according to the Department of Transportation.

    You can also check the DOT website to see what your airline promises for refunds or other costs if your flight is disrupted.

    Should I just stay home for the holidays?

    Not necessarily. You might just need a little more planning and flexibility than usual.

    A travel adviser can help take some stress off your plate, and travel insurance may give you an extra safety net.

    Johnson also warned that flights could sell out fast once the shutdown ends.

    “There will be a flurry of booking activity,” he said. “So try to get ahead of it and make sure that you’re protected.”

    Booking an early flight can also help, says Tyler Hosford, security director at risk mitigation company International SOS. If it gets canceled, you still “have the whole day” to sort things out.

    Other tips

    Travel light. Limiting baggage to a carry-on means one less airport line to deal with, and if your plans change unexpectedly, you’ll already have everything with you.

    Give yourself extra time at the airport, especially if you’re an anxious flyer or traveling with young children or anyone who needs extra help getting around.

    And be nice. Airline agents are likely helping other frustrated travelers, too, and yelling won’t make them more willing to help. Remember, the cancellations aren’t their fault.

    “An extra ounce of kindness to yourself and to others at this time of year, with all of the disruptions, will go a long way,” Johnson said.

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  • In their own words: What young people wish they’d known about social media

    It’s dangerous. It’s addictive. Get off your phone.

    Kids constantly hear about the downsides of social media from the adults in their lives, often in the form of dire warnings and commands. But these adults did not grow up with social media themselves.

    They didn’t get a phone handed to them as toddlers, just to keep them quiet in a restaurant. They didn’t join TikTok’s predecessor Musica.ly and do silly dances before they even learned to read. They didn’t have their schools shut down in a global pandemic, their connections to friends and peers relegated to phone and computer screens.

    Kids coming of age with social media are forging ahead in a whole new world. And now that they are getting older, they have some advice for their younger peers.

    Here’s what they wish they knew when they first got online.

    Bao Le, 18, sits for a photo on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

    You don’t have to share everything

    “It’s so easy to look at your friends’ stories and feel this feeling of FOMO, of missing out and comparing yourself, like: ‘Oh, my friend just got a new car.’ It’s like this overwhelming sense of comparison. But the things that people post on social media, it’s just the highlight reel, like the 1% of their life that they want to showcase to other people.”

    BAO LE, 18, a freshman at Vanderbilt University

    This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.

    Doreen Malata, 22, a senior at University of Maryland, poses for a photo on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in College Park, Md. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    Doreen Malata, 22, a senior at University of Maryland, poses for a photo on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in College Park, Md. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    Don’t take it too seriously

    “My main point of advice would be not to take it too seriously. Be yourself. I feel like what I was exposed to as a 12-year-old was much more limited than what is accessible to 12–year-olds nowadays. Younger kids want to be who they idolize. And when the TikTok stars or the social media stars are 20, 18, 16, they’re going to want to be like them. You’re getting younger kids that are now obsessing over products and brands, and it’s just getting really hard to be young. And it shouldn’t be really hard to be young. You should be enjoying childhood. And we shouldn’t be rushing to grow up. It’s OK to be 12. It’s OK to be young. It’s OK to enjoy childhood.”

    DOREEN MALATA, 22, a senior at the University of Maryland

    Sienna Keene, 17, poses for photos in Orinda, Calif., Monday, April 29, 2024. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

    Sienna Keene, 17, poses for photos in Orinda, Calif., Monday, April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

    “It seems like it would be really easy to just put your phone down and stop scrolling. But it is not. If there was advice that I could give to my younger self, it would be to tell my parents to set up time limits for me — even though I would have never said that when I was starting social media. Also, I personally would not let my kid have TikTok. I would try to resist it as long as I could. It’s so addictive.”

    SIENNA KEENE, 17, a high school senior in Orinda, California

    Ava Havidic, 18, poses outside her high school, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Tamarac, Fla. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

    Ava Havidic, 18, poses outside her high school, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Tamarac, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

    Take a social media detox

    “When you first get these apps, it hits you — like, BOOM, there is so much content. Styles, fashion models. It really impacts you heavily when you first get it, this feeling of: ‘How do they do it? How do they look like this? How do they get clothes like that?’ When you’re new to social media, these trends can overtake you. I started to use screentime (monitoring) on my phone and limit the amount of time I am on social media. I’ve been taking phone detoxes. On weekends, I’ll take a social media detox for 10 hours or the majority of the day. I’ll hang out with my family, ride my bike. I only have notifications for my messages and workspaces. I don’t have any notifications on for social media apps.”

    AVA HAVIDIC, 18, a high school senior in Broward County, Florida

    Lea Nepomuceno, 18, a freshman at George Washington University, poses on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in Washington, D.C. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    Lea Nepomuceno, 18, a freshman at George Washington University, poses on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    You are the one in control

    “Often I hear the term “social media user,” but I felt like I was being used by social media. I had this routine of scrolling mindlessly through TikTok, just scrolling and scrolling and comparing myself to other people. It ultimately really affected my body image, my perception of what was considered beautiful or accepted into society. But the only thing I was getting out of social media was feeling fatigued, or I would feel sad.

    You can use social media to amplify your passions, but in order to do that you need to do a lot of work outside of social media, to discover who you are as a person, what matters to you and what contributions you can make to the world.”

    LEA NEPOMUCENO, 18, a freshman at George Washington University

    Mikael Makonnen, 18, a freshman at American University, poses for a photo in Washington, D.C, on Saturday, March 2, 2024, The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    Mikael Makonnen, 18, a freshman at American University, poses for a photo in Washington, D.C, on Saturday, March 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    “I would say just don’t use it. It’s kind of a waste of time. You’re just having conversations about pointless things, random pop culture stuff. It just sucks your time. You’re not really getting anything out of it, just short-term satisfaction. It’s kind of meaningless. I know this is kind of outlandish, but I feel like there should be some sort of age limit because I don’t think children should be on the internet.”

    MIKAEL MAKONNEN, 18, a freshman at American University

    Nour Mahmoud, 21, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University, is shown on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in Richmond, Va. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    Nour Mahmoud, 21, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University, is shown on Saturday, March 2, 2024, in Richmond, Va. (AP Photo/Almaz Abedje)

    “A lot of people make their life artificial so that they’re perceived in a certain way. And I think going into social media, I wish I knew it is a tool to learn from. There’s so much information, and you’re able to learn so much about different things. … I wish people had that outlook rather than the whole idea of other people viewing you and having to be seen a certain way.”

    NOUR MAHMOUD, 21, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University

    Madeleine Maestre, 18, a freshman at Santa Clara University, poses for photos in Santa Clara, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2024. The Associated Press spoke with teenagers and young adults about their experiences on social media and what they wish they had known when they first got online. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

    Madeleine Maestre, 18, a freshman at Santa Clara University, poses for photos in Santa Clara, Calif., Friday, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

    It’s OK to put up boundaries and block someone

    “You can’t scroll on TikTok or look through Instagram without seeing supermodels who have edited their photos and are promoting unrealistic beauty standards. I don’t want to see these girls who pretend to be fitness influencers but are just promoting an eating disorder like “body checking” on my feed. That is one thing I wish I knew when I started: that it is OK to not want to look at that or want to consume it. It’s OK to protect yourself and your own body image. Another thing I wish I knew is that not everyone on social media is your friend. When you are young and impressionable and people are reaching out to you, just know that not everyone is as friendly as you think they are.”

    MADELEINE MAESTRE, 18, a freshman at Santa Clara University

    __

    Interviews by Almaz Abedje, Jocelyn Gecker and Barbara Ortutay

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  • Justin Rose rallies late and beats Spaun in Memphis playoff

    MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Justin Rose made up a three-shot deficit over the last five holes against hard-luck Tommy Fleetwood, and then made two birdies in a playoff against U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun to win the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Sunday.

    Rose delivered another sterling performance, closing with a 3-under 67 for his 24th victory worldwide that puts him back into the top 10 in the world at age 45 and secures his spot in another Ryder Cup.

    He birdied four straight holes, and narrowly missed a 13-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at the TPC Southwind for a win in regulation. Rose wound up making six birdies over the last eight holes he played, the last one a 10-foot putt on the 18th on the third playoff hole.

    “An amazing last 90 minutes,” Rose said. “I played unbelievable golf down the stretch. When I bring my best, I know I’m good enough to play and to compete, and to now win against the best players in the world. Very gratifying day for me.”

    Spaun showed plenty of moxie on his own. He made a 20-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole to pull into a share of the lead and closed with a 65. He also made a 30-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole with Rose in tight.

    “I hung in there the best I could, and he beat me to the hole first. Just wasn’t meant to be,” said Spaun, who locked up a spot in his first Ryder Cup.

    Lost in his remarkable rally was another setback for Fleetwood, who has become a sympathetic figure in golf for close calls and his graciousness in defeat. This looked to be his time to add a PGA Tour title to his wins around the world, especially when his 35-foot birdie on the 12th was the first of three birdies in a four-hole stretch that gave him a two-shot lead with three to play.

    But he hit pitch through the green on the par-5 16th and had to scramble for par. He was between clubs on the 17th, hit a poor shot and a worse par attempt from 7 feet for bogey. Needing birdie on the 18th to have a chance, he drove into a bunker.

    Fleetwood shot 69 and finished one shot out of the playoff along with Scottie Scheffler, who grazed the edge of so many putts on the back nine and had to settle a 67.

    “There’s a lot of positives to take, as much as I won’t feel like that right now. I’m just going to look at what I feel like I could have done and how close it was,” Fleetwood said.

    “All these experiences and these close calls, like I say, there’s no point in allowing them to have a negative effect on what happens next. What would be the point?” he said. “It was a great week. I did a ton of good stuff, and as disappointed as I am, I have to try to find the strength to make it all a positive experience and hopefully next time go again.”

    Scheffler has not finished worse than eighth place in his last 12 tournaments dating to March. He played the final round without his regular caddie, Ted Scott, who had an emergency family situation back home in Louisiana.

    Rose wasn’t the only player leaving the TPC Southwind with a big smile. Bud Cauley was on the bubble for finishing in the top 50 in the FedEx Cup when he holed a bunker shot for birdie on the 17th hole and locked up his spot for the second round of the FedEx Cup playoffs next week outside Baltimore.

    Rickie Fowler, who missed the postseason last year, shot 69 to tie for sixth and advance to the BMW Championship. Others who moved into the top 50 were Kurt Kitayama, Jhonattan Vegas and J.T. Poston.

    The top 50 are assured of being in all the $20 million signature events next year.

    There was plenty of movement around the bubble. Jordan Spieth never got on track this week, finished with a shot in the water on the 18th and shot 68 to tie for 38th to finish 54th. Chris Kirk was inside the top 50 until he hit into the water on the 15th for bogey and failed to birdie the par-5 16th. A closing birdie left him at No. 51.

    For all that was at stake, the best drama was at the top, particularly with Rose. He played in the final group with Fleetwood was three shots behind when Rose hit 6-iron to just inside 15 feet for birdie at the par-3 14th. He followed with two more short birdies, and then poured in a 15-footer on the 17th for his fourth in a row.

    “This is going to be a fun one for us to celebrate,” Rose said.

    ___

    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

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  • Trump makes false claims about federal response as he campaigns in area ravaged by Hurricane Helene

    VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.

    The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with reporters after being told Kemp said he had spoken to Biden.

    “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said Monday.

    The White House previously announced that Biden spoke by phone Sunday night with Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, as well as Scott Matheson, mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Kemp confirmed Monday morning that he spoke to Biden the night before.

    “The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that.”

    In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign in which among the hardest-hit states were North Carolina and Georgia, two battlegrounds. Trump over the last several days has used the damage wrought by Helene to attack Harris, the Democratic nominee, and suggest she and Biden are playing politics with the storm — something he was accused of doing when president.

    Biden is defiant about spending time at his beach house

    While the White House highlighted Biden’s call to Kemp and others, the president faced questions about his decision to spend the weekend at his beach house in Delaware, rather than the White House, to monitor the storm.

    “I was commanding it,” Biden told reporters after delivering remarks at the White House on the federal government’s response. “I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I commanded it. It’s called a telephone.”

    AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports Donald Trump is touring Hurricane Helene’s damage in Georgia, while blasting the Biden administration’s response to the deadly storm.

    Biden received frequent updates on the storm, the White House said, as did Harris aboard Air Force Two as she made a West Coast campaign swing. The vice president cut short her campaign trip Monday to return to Washington for a briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Trump, writing on his social media platform Monday, also claimed without evidence that the federal government and North Carolina’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Asheville, which was devastated by the storm, is solidly Democratic, as is much of Buncombe County, which surrounds it.

    The death toll from Helene has surpassed 100 people, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.

    Biden said he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation, but will limit his footprint so as not to distract from the ongoing recovery efforts.

    During remarks Monday at FEMA headquarters, Harris said she has received regular briefings on the disaster response, including from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, and has spoken with Kemp and Cooper in the last 24 hours.

    What to know about the 2024 election:

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    “I have shared with them that we will do everything in our power to help communities respond and recover,” she said. “And I’ve shared with them that I plan to be on the ground as soon as possible without disrupting any emergency response operations.”

    When asked if her visit was politicizing the storm, she frowned and shook her head but did not reply.

    Trump partnered with a Christian charity to bring supplies

    The Trump campaign partnered with the Christian humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse to bring trucks of fuel, food, water and other critical supplies to Georgia, said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary.

    Leavitt did not immediately respond to questions about how much had been donated and from which entity. Samaritan’s Purse also declined to address the matter in a statement.

    Trump also launched a GoFundMe campaign for supporters to send financial aid to people impacted by the storm. It quickly passed its $1 million goal Monday night.

    “Our hearts are with you and we are going to be with you as long as you need it,” Trump said, flanked by a group of elected officials and Republican supporters.

    “We’re not talking about politics now,” Trump added.

    Trump said he wanted to stop in North Carolina but was holding off because access and communication is limited in hard-hit communities.

    When asked by The Associated Press on Monday if he was concerned that his visit to Georgia was taking away law enforcement resources that could be used for disaster response, Trump said, “No.” He said his campaign instead “brought many wagons of resources.”

    Katie Watson, who owns with her husband the home design store Trump visited, said she was told the former president picked that location because he saw shots of the business destroyed with the rubble and said, “Find that place and find those people.”

    “He didn’t come here for me. He came here to recognize that this town has been destroyed. It’s a big setback,” she said.

    “He recognizes that we are hurting and he wants us to know that,” she added. “It was a lifetime opportunity to meet the president. This is not exactly the way I wanted to do it.”

    Trump campaign officials have long pointed to his visit to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a toxic trail derailment, as a turning point in the early days of the presidential race when he was struggling to establish his footing as a candidate. They believed his warm welcome by residents frustrated by the federal government’s response helped remind voters why they had been drawn to him years earlier.

    Trump fought with Puerto Rico and meteorologists while president

    During Trump’s term as president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes, tornadoes and shootings. But the trips sometimes elicited controversy such as when he tossed paper towels to cheering residents in Puerto Rico in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

    It also took until weeks before the presidential election in 2020 for Trump’s administration to release $13 billion in assistance for the territory. A federal government watchdog found that officials hampered an investigation into delays in aid delivery.

    In another 2019 incident, Trump administration officials admonished some meteorologists for tweeting that Alabama was not threatened by Hurricane Dorian, contradicting the then-president. Trump would famously display a map altered with a black Sharpie pen to indicate Alabama could be in the path of the storm.

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago, and Amy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Chris Megerian and Aamer Madhani in Washington, and Will Weissert in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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  • Close call at Nashville airport came after planes were directed to same runway, probe shows

    Close call at Nashville airport came after planes were directed to same runway, probe shows

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators said Wednesday that air traffic controllers cleared an Alaska Airlines jet to take off from Nashville last month after telling pilots of a Southwest Airlines jet to cross the same runway.

    Pilots of the Alaska plane aborted their Sept. 12 takeoff at Nashville International Airport, applying the brakes so hard that the tires deflated as they are designed to do when they get too hot.

    The National Transportation Safety Board gave a timeline of the incident as part of a brief preliminary report. The agency said it is continuing to investigate the incident. The board usually issues a probable cause for accidents and close calls after lengthy reviews.

    There were 176 passengers and crew members on the Alaska jet and 141 on the Southwest plane. No injuries were reported, according to the NTSB.

    The agency said it listened to conversations between pilots and controllers and retrieved flight data recorders from both planes. Investigators got the cockpit voice recorder from the Alaska Airlines jet, but the recorder on the Southwest plane was overwritten after the plane took off.

    The NTSB said that a controller told the Alaska crew to line up on runway 13 and wait for permission to take off. About a minute later, a controller told the Southwest pilots to cross runway 13 on their way to another runway, and 15 seconds after that, a controller cleared the Alaska plane for takeoff.

    The Alaska plane started down the runway before the pilots cut short their takeoff. Fuse plugs deflated on all four tires on the main landing gear, the NTSB said.

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  • Election officials are fighting a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories

    Election officials are fighting a tsunami of voting conspiracy theories

    ATLANTA (AP) — Voting machines reversing votes. More voters registered than people eligible. Large numbers of noncitizens voting.

    With less than two weeks before Election Day, a resurgence in conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting is forcing state and local election officials to spend their time debunking rumors and explaining how elections are run at the same time they’re overseeing early voting and preparing for Nov. 5.

    “Truth is boring, facts are boring, and outrage is really interesting,” says Utah’s Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who oversees elections in her state. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with truth. But what we try to do is just get as much information out there as possible.”

    This year’s election is the first presidential contest since former President Donald Trump began spreading lies about widespread voter fraud costing him reelection in 2020. The false claims, which he continues to repeat, have undermined public confidence in elections and in the people who oversee them among a broad swath of Republican voters . Investigations have found no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines four years ago, and each of the battlegrounds states where Trump disputed his loss has affirmed Democrat J oe Biden’s win.

    In the past week, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed a voting machine had changed a voter’s ballot in her Georgia district during early voting, and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X, has promoted various conspiracy theories about voting machines and voter fraud both online and at a rally for Trump in Pennsylvania.

    The floodgates are “very much” open, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who now leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group that works with state and local election officials.

    “This is making election officials’ lives much more difficult,” he said.

    Eric Olsen, who oversees elections in Prince William County, Virginia, said combatting misinformation has become an important and challenging part of the job.

    “It’s really difficult from our position, a lot of times, because social media feels like a giant wave coming at you and we’re in a little canoe with a paddle,” he said. “But we have to do that work.”

    On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly attempted to sow doubt about the upcoming election – something he did ahead of his two previous bids for the White House. Even after he won in 2016, he claimed he had lost the popular vote because of a flood of illegal votes and he formed a presidential advisory commission to investigate. The commission disbanded without finding any widespread fraud.

    This year, Trump claims that Democrats will cheat again and uses “Too Big to Rig” as a rallying cry to encourage his supporters to vote. Election experts see it as laying the groundwork to again challenge the election should he lose.

    Spreading bogus accusations about elections has other consequences. It’s already led to a wave of harassment, threats and turnover of election workers as well as the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

    The conspiracy theories that have surfaced in recent weeks are not new. There have long been claims of “vote flipping,” with the most recent ones surfacing in Georgia and Tennessee.

    What to know about the 2024 Election

    A claim in Georgia’s Whitfield County was highlighted by Greene on Alex Jones’ “InfoWars” show. Jones has a history of spreading falsehoods and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion for his false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was a hoax.

    County election officials issued a statement, noting the case involved one voter out of 6,000 ballots that had been cast since early voting began. The ballot was spoiled, and the voter cast a replacement that was counted. Officials said there was no problem with the voting machine.

    Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said every report they’ve seen so far of someone saying their printed ballot didn’t reflect their selections on the touchscreen voting machine has been a result of voter error.

    “There is zero evidence of a machine flipping an individual’s vote,” he said. “Are there elderly people whose hands shake and they probably hit the wrong button slightly and they didn’t review their ballot properly before they printed it? That’s the main situation we have seen. There is literally zero — and I’m saying this to certain congresspeople in this state — zero evidence of machines flipping votes. That claim was a lie in 2020 and it’s a lie now.”

    In Shelby County, Tennessee, county election officials said human error was to blame for reports of votes being changed. Voters had been using their fingers instead of a stylus to mark their selections on voting machines, officials said.

    In Washington state, Republican Jerrod Sessler, who is running for the state’s 4th Congressional District seat, shared a video on social media this week that claimed to show how easily fraudulent ballots can be created. But the video did not make clear that voter information on each ballot is checked against the state’s voter list.

    “A ballot returned using fake voter registration information would not be counted and is illegal in Washington state,” Charlie Boisner, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office, said in an email.

    Musk recently invoked Dominion Voting Systems as part of his remarks at a rally in Pennsylvania, seeming to suggest its equipment was not trustworthy. Dominion has been at the center of conspiracy theories related to the 2020 election and settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year for $787 million over false claims aired repeatedly on the network. The judge in the case said it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations made by Trump allies on the network were true.

    In a statement, Dominion said it was “closely monitoring claims around the Nov. 2024 election” and was “fully prepared to defend our company & our customers against lies and those who spread them.”

    A request for comment from Musk was not immediately returned.

    Musk, who has endorsed Trump, has repeatedly pushed misinformation about voter fraud to his 200 million followers on the X platform, where false information spreads largely unchecked.

    He has often sparred online with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Recently, the two tangled over Musk’s claim that there were more registered voters in Michigan, a presidential battleground state, than people eligible to vote. Benson said Musk was including in his count inactive voters who are scheduled for removal. A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee claiming problems with the state’s voter list.

    During an interview last month, Benson said she was disheartened to see someone in Musk’s position repeating false information.

    “If he was sincerely committed, as he says he is, to ensuring people have access to information, then I would hope that he would amplify the truthful information — the factual, accurate information — about the security of our elections instead of just amplifying conspiracy theories and in a way that directs the ire of many of his followers onto us as individual election administrators,” Benson said. “It’s something that we didn’t have to deal with in 2020 that creates a new battlefront and challenge for us.”

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Memphis man gets life sentence for killing rapper Young Dolph

    Memphis man gets life sentence for killing rapper Young Dolph

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    ____

    Loller contributed from Nashville, Tenn.

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  • Suspicious packages sent to election officials in at least 6 states

    Suspicious packages sent to election officials in at least 6 states

    Suspicious packages were sent to election officials in at least six states on Monday, but there were no reports that any of the packages contained hazardous material.

    Powder-containing packages were sent to secretaries of state and state election offices in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming and Oklahoma, officials in those states confirmed. The FBI and U.S. Postal Service were investigating. It marked the second time in the past year that suspicious packages were mailed to election officials in multiple state offices.

    The latest scare comes as early voting has begun in several states less than two months ahead of the high-stakes elections for president, Senate, Congress and key statehouse offices around the nation, causing disruption in what is already a tense voting season.

    Several of the states reported a white powder substance found in envelopes sent to election officials. In most cases, the material was found to be harmless. Oklahoma officials said the material sent to the election office there contained flour. Wyoming officials have not yet said if the material sent there was hazardous.

    The packages forced an evacuation in Iowa. Hazmat crews in several states quickly determined the material was harmless.

    “We have specific protocols in place for situations such as this,” Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said in a statement after the evacuation of the six-story Lucas State Office Building in Des Moines. “We immediately reported the incident per our protocols.”

    A state office building in Topeka, Kansas, was also evacuated due to suspicious mail sent to both the secretary of state and attorney general, Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson April M. McCollum said in a statement.

    Topeka Fire Department crews found several pieces of mail with an unknown substance on them, though a field test found no hazardous materials, spokesperson Rosie Nichols said. Several employees in both offices had been exposed to it and had their health monitored, she said.

    In Oklahoma, the State Election Board received a suspicious envelope in the mail containing a multi-page document and a white, powdery substance, agency spokesperson Misha Mohr said in an email to The Associated Press. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol, which oversees security for the Capitol, secured the envelope. Testing determined the substance was flour, Mohr said.

    State workers in an office building next to the Wyoming Capitol in Cheyenne were sent home for the day pending testing of a white substance mailed to the secretary of state’s office.

    Suspicious letters were sent to election offices and government buildings in at least six states last November, including the same building in Kansas that received suspicious mail Monday. While some of the letters contained fentanyl, even the suspicious mail that was not toxic delayed the counting of ballots in some local elections.

    One of the targeted offices was in Fulton County, Georgia, the largest voting jurisdiction in one of the nation’s most important swing states. Four county election offices in Washington state had to be evacuated as election workers were processing ballots cast, delaying vote-counting.

    The letters caused election workers around the country to stock up the overdose reversal medication naloxone.

    Election offices across the United States have taken steps to increase the security of their buildings and boost protections for workers amid an onslaught of harassment and threats following the 2020 election and the false claims that it was rigged.

    ___

    Salter reported from O’Fallon, Missouri. Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan. Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee; Summer Ballentine in Columbia, Missouri; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

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  • Appeals court spikes Tennessee’s bid to get family planning dollars despite abortion rule

    Appeals court spikes Tennessee’s bid to get family planning dollars despite abortion rule

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal appeals court has shot down Tennessee’s attempt to collect millions of dollars in family planning funds without complying with federal rules requiring clinics to provide abortion referrals due to its current ban on the procedure.

    Last year, Tennessee’s Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a federal complaint seeking to overturn the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ decision to disqualify the state from receiving money offered through a family planning program known as Title X. A lower court later determined that Tennessee was unlikely to succeed and the state appealed that decision.

    In 2021, the Biden administration announced that clinics that accept Title X funds must offer information about abortion. However, Skrmetti’s argued that HHS did not alert officials how the rule would apply in states with abortion bans now allowed under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    Yet the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals argued in a ruling Monday that Tennessee could not use its abortion ban law to “dictate eligibility requirements” for Title X funding. The 31-page ruling means the federal government will not reinstate Tennessee’s Title X funding while the lawsuit continues through the courts.

    Furthermore, the appeals court said that the state was not obligated to accept the money and noted that the Tennessee Legislature approved of replacing the lost federal dollars with state funding.

    “Tennessee was free to voluntarily relinquish the grants for any reason, especially if it determined that the requirements would violate its state laws,” the ruling stated.

    A spokesperson for Skrmetti’s office said they were “reviewing the opinion and considering next steps.”

    Tennessee has been a recipient of the program since it launched in 1970, recently collecting around $7.1 million annually to help nearly 100 clinics provide birth control and basic health care services mainly to low-income women, many of them from minority communities.

    Under the latest rule, clinics cannot use federal family planning money to pay for abortions, but they must offer information about abortion at the patient’s request.

    Tennessee bans abortion at all stages of pregnancy but includes some narrow exceptions.

    In March of 2023, HHS informed Tennessee health officials that the state was out of Title X compliance because of its policy barring clinics from providing information on pregnancy termination options that weren’t legal in the state — effectively prohibiting any discussions on elective abortions. The state defended its policy and refused to back down, causing the federal government to declare that continuing Tennessee’s Title X money was “not in the best interest of the government.”

    HHS later announced that Tennessee’s Title X funds would largely be directed to Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortions in the United States, which would distribute the money to its clinics located in Tennessee.

    “Millions of people across the country rely on essential care — like birth control, STI screenings and treatment, cancer screenings, and other key sexual and reproductive health care services — funded by Title X,” said Ashley Coffield, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi in a statement. “The state’s decision not to comply with all-options counseling is playing politics with our bodies.”

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  • Sensors can read your sweat and predict overheating. Here’s why privacy advocates care

    Sensors can read your sweat and predict overheating. Here’s why privacy advocates care

    On a hot summer day in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, dozens of men removed pipes, asbestos and hazardous waste while working to decontaminate a nuclear facility and prepare it for demolition.

    Dressed in head-to-toe coveralls and fitted with respirators, the crew members toiling in a building without power had no obvious respite from the heat. Instead, they wore armbands that recorded their heart rates, movements and exertion levels for signs of heat stress.

    Stephanie Miller, a safety and health manager for a U.S. government contractor doing cleanup work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, watched a computer screen nearby. A color-coding system with little bubbles showing each worker’s physiological data alerted her if anyone was in danger of overheating.

    “Heat is one of the greatest risks that we have in this work, even though we deal with high radiation, hazardous chemicals and heavy metals,” Miller said.

    As the world experiences more record high temperatures, employers are exploring wearable technologies to keep workers safe. New devices collect biometric data to estimate core body temperature – an elevated one is a symptom of heat exhaustion – and prompt workers to take cool-down breaks.

    The devices, which were originally developed for athletes, firefighters and military personnel, are getting adopted at a time when the Atlantic Council estimates heat-induced losses in labor productivity could cost the U.S. approximately $100 billion annually.

    This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.

    But there are concerns about how the medical information collected on employees will be safeguarded. Some labor groups worry managers could use it to penalize people for taking needed breaks.

    “Any time you put any device on a worker, they’re very concerned about tracking, privacy, and how are you going to use this against me,” said Travis Parsons, director of occupational safety and health at the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America. “There’s a lot of exciting stuff out there, but there’s no guardrails around it.”

    VULNERABLE TO HEAT

    Wyatt Fischer, a furnace mason employee at Cardinal Glass, sits on an excavator while wearing a SlateSafety armband, Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Menomonie, Wis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

    Image

    FILE – Construction worker Fernando Padilla wipes his face as he works in the heat on June 30, 2023 in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

    At the Tennessee cleanup site, the workers wearing heat stress monitors made by Atlanta company SlateSafety are employed by United Cleanup Oak Ridge. The company is a contractor of the U.S. Department of Energy, which has rules to prevent on-the-job overheating.

    But most U.S. workers lack protections from extreme heat because there are no federal regulations requiring them, and many vulnerable workers don’t speak up or seek medical attention. In July, the Biden administration proposed a rule to protect 36 million workers from heat-related illnesses.

    From 1992 to 2022, 986 workers died from heat exposure in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Experts suspect the number is higher because a coroner might not list heat as the cause of death if a sweltering roofer takes a fatal fall.

    Setting occupational safety standards can be tricky because individuals respond differently to heat. That’s where the makers of wearable devices hope to come in.

    HOW WEARABLE HEAT TECH WORKS

    Employers have observed workers for heat-related distress by checking their temperatures with thermometers, sometimes rectally. More recently, firefighters and military personnel swallowed thermometer capsules.

    “That just was not going to work in our work environment,” Rob Somers, global environment, health and safety director at consumer product company Perrigo, said.

    Instead, more than 100 employees at the company’s infant formula plants were outfitted with SlateSafety armbands. The devices estimate a wearer’s core body temperature, and a reading of 101.3 degrees triggers an alert.

    Another SlateSafety customer is a Cardinal Glass factory in Wisconsin, where four masons maintain a furnace that reaches 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

    “They’re right up against the face of the wall. So it’s them and fire,” Jeff Bechel, the company’s safety manager, said.

    Cardinal Glass paid $5,000 for five armbands, software and air-monitoring hardware. Bechel thinks the investment will pay off; an employee’s two heat-related emergency room visits cost the company $15,000.

    Another wearable, made by Massachusetts company Epicore Biosystems, analyzes sweat to determine when workers are at risk of dehydration and overheating.

    “Until a few years ago, you just sort of wiped (sweat) off with a towel,” CEO Rooz Ghaffari said. “Turns out there’s all this information packed away that we’ve been missing.”

    Research has shown some devices successfully predict core body temperature in controlled environments, but their accuracy remains unproven in dynamic workplaces, according to experts. A 2022 research review said factors such as age, gender and ambient humidity make it challenging to reliably gauge body temperature with the technology.

    The United Cleanup Oak Ridge workers swathed in protective gear can get sweaty even before they begin demolition. Managers see dozens of sensor alerts daily.

    Laborer Xavier Allison, 33, was removing heavy pieces of ductwork during a recent heat wave when his device vibrated. Since he was working with radioactive materials and asbestos, he couldn’t walk outside to rest without going through a decontamination process, so he spent about 15 minutes in a nearby room which was just as hot.

    “You just sit by yourself and do your best to cool off,” Allison said.

    The armband notifies workers when they’ve cooled down enough to resume work.

    “Ever since we implemented it, we have seen a significant decrease in the number of people who need to get medical attention,” Miller said.

    COLLECTING PERSONAL DATA

    United Cleanup Oak Ridge uses the sensor data and an annual medical exam to determine work assignments, Miller said. After noticing patterns, the company sent a few employees to see their personal physicians, who found heart issues the employees hadn’t known about, she said.

    At Perrigo, managers analyze the data to find people with multiple alerts and speak to them to see if there’s “a reason why they’re not able to work in the environment,” Somers said. The information is organized by identification numbers, not names, when it goes into the company’s software system, he said.

    Companies keeping years of medical data raises concerns about privacy and whether bosses may use the information to kick an employee off a health plan or fire them, said Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

    “The device could hurt, frankly, because you could raise your hand and say ‘I need a break,’ and the boss could say, ‘No, your heart rate is not elevated, go back to work,’” Schwartz said.

    To minimize such risks, employers should allow workers to opt in or out of wearing monitoring devices, only process strictly necessary data and delete the information within 24 hours, he said.

    Wearing such devices also may expose workers to unwanted marketing, Ikusei Misaka, a professor at Tokyo’s Musashino University, said.

    A PARTIAL SOLUTION

    The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health advises employers to institute a plan to help workers adjust to hot conditions and to train them to recognize signs of heat-related illness and to administer first aid. Wearable devices can be part of efforts to reduce heat stress, but more work needs to be done to determine their accuracy, said Doug Trout, the agency’s medical officer.

    The technology also needs to be paired with access to breaks, shade and cool water, since many workers, especially in agriculture, fear retaliation for pausing to cool off or hydrate.

    “If they don’t have water to drink, and the time to do it, it doesn’t mean much,” Juanita Constible, senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. “It’s just something extra they have to carry when they’re in the hot fields.”

    ___

    This story corrects the spelling of Natural Resources Defense Council in last paragraph.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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  • Woman charged in brazen plot to extort Elvis Presley’s family and auction off Graceland

    Woman charged in brazen plot to extort Elvis Presley’s family and auction off Graceland

    WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges she orchestrated a brazen scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale, the Justice Department said Friday.

    Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, falsely claimed Presley’s daughter borrowed $3.8 million from a bogus private lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death last year, prosecutors said. She then threatened to sell Graceland to the higher bidder if Presley’s family didn’t pay a $2.85 million settlement, according to authorities.

    Finley posed as three different people allegedly involved with the fake lender, fabricated loan documents, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing the auction of Graceland in May, prosecutors said. A judge stopped the sale after Presley’s granddaughter sued.

    Experts were baffled by the attempt to sell off one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the country using names, emails and documents that were quickly suspected to be phony.

    Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises. The announcement of charges came on the 47th anniversary of Presley’s death at the age of 42.

    “Ms. Findley allegedly took advantage of the very public and tragic occurrences in the Presley family as an opportunity to prey on the name and financial status of the heirs to the Graceland estate, attempting to steal what rightfully belongs to the Presley family for her personal gain,” said Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group.

    AP correspondent Jackie Quinn reports an arrest had been made in an effort to steal away the ownership of Elvis Presley’s Graceland property.

    An attorney for Findley, who used multiple aliases, was not listed in court documents. A voicemail left with a phone number believed to be associated with Findley was not immediately returned, nor was an email sent to an address prosecutors say she had used in the scheme.

    She’s charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. The mail fraud charge carries up to 20 years in prison. She remained in custody after a brief federal court appearance in Missouri, according to court papers.

    In May, a public notice for a foreclosure sale of the 13-acre (5-hectare) estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter and an actor, inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, last year. An attorney for Keough didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.

    Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Private Lending — the bogus lender authorities now say Findley created — said Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the loan, according to the foreclosure sale notice. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023 and that Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany.

    Kimberly Philbrick, the notary whose name is listed on Naussany’s documents, indicated she never met Lisa Marie Presley nor notarized any documents for her, according to the estate’s lawsuit. The judge said the notary’s affidavit brings into question “the authenticity of the signature.”

    The judge in May halted the foreclosure sale of the beloved Memphis tourist attraction, saying Elvis Presley’s estate could be successful in arguing that a company’s attempt to auction Graceland was fraudulent.

    The Tennessee attorney general’s office had been investigating the Graceland controversy, then confirmed in June that it handed the probe over to federal authorities.

    A statement emailed to The Associated Press after the judge stopped the sale said Naussany would not proceed because a key document in the case and the loan were recorded and obtained in a different state, meaning “legal action would have to be filed in multiple states.” The statement, sent from an email address listed in court documents, did not specify the other state.

    After the scheme fell apart, Findley tried to make it look like the person responsible was a Nigerian identity thief, prosecutors said. An email sent May 25 to the AP from the same email as the earlier statement said in Spanish that the foreclosure sale attempt was made by a Nigerian fraud ring that targets old and dead people in the U.S. and uses the Internet to steal money.

    _____

    Mattise reported from Nashville, Tennessee.

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  • Bloomberg gives $600 million to four Black medical schools’ endowments

    Bloomberg gives $600 million to four Black medical schools’ endowments

    NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Bloomberg’s organization Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $600 million to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools to help secure their future economic stability.

    Speaking in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, an organization that advocates for African American physicians, Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, pointed to the closure in the last century of all but four historically Black medical schools, despite the well-documented impact that Black doctors have on improving health outcomes for Black patients.

    “Lack of funding and support driven probably in no small part by prejudice and racism, have forced many to close their doors,” Bloomberg said of those medical schools. “We cannot allow that to happen again, and this gift will help ensure it doesn’t.”

    Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared with white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing the representation among doctors is one solution that could disrupt these long-standing inequities. In 2022, only 6% of U.S. physicians were Black, even though Black Americans represent 13% of the population. Almost half of Black physicians graduate from the four historically Black medical schools, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.

    The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically Black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.

    The donations will more than double the size of three of the medical schools’ endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said. Donations to endowments are invested with the annual returns going into an organization’s budget. Endowments can reduce financial pressure and, depending on restrictions, offer nonprofits more funds for discretionary spending.

    The commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Bloomberg made in July to Johns Hopkins University that will mean most medical students there will no longer pay tuition. The four historically Black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest gifts to their endowments will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative.

    The initiative, named after the community that was destroyed during the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma more than 100 years ago, was initially part of Bloomberg’s campaign as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020. After he withdrew from the race, he asked his philanthropy to pursue efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap and so far, it has committed $896 million, including this latest gift to the medical schools, Ezediaro said.

    In 2020, Bloomberg granted the same medicals schools a total of $100 million that mostly went to reducing the debt load of enrolled students, who schools said were in serious danger of not continuing because of the financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “When we talked about helping to secure and support the next generation of Black doctors, we meant that literally,” Ezediaro said.

    Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that gift relieved $100,000 on average in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift has helped her school significantly increase its fundraising.

    “But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we’ve been very vocal about that. And he heard us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.

    In January, the Lilly Endowment gave $100 million to The United Negro College Fund toward a pooled endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, received a $100 million donation from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, chairman of Greenleaf Trust.

    Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the gift to Spelman was the largest single donation to an HBCU that she was aware of, speaking before Bloomberg Philanthropies announcement Tuesday.

    Smith authored a 2021 report on the financial disparities between HBCUs and other higher education institutions, including the failure of many states to fulfill their promises to fund historically Black land grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic gifts have played an important role in sustaining HBCUs, and pointed to the billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 as setting off a new chain reaction of support from other large donors.

    “Donations that have followed are the type of momentum and support that institutions need in this moment,” Smith said.

    Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she felt “relief,” when she heard about the gifts to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs meant to support inclusion and equity at schools, she anticipates that the four schools will play an even larger role in training and increasing the number of Black physicians.

    “This opportunity and this investment affects not only just those four institutions, but that affects our country. It affects the nation’s health,” she said.

    Dr. William Ross, an orthopedic surgeon from Atlanta and a graduate of Meharry Medical College, has been coming to the National Medical Association conferences since he was a child with his father, who was also a physician. He said he could testify to the high quality of education at the schools, despite the bare minimum of resources and facilities.

    “If we are as individuals to overcome health care disparities, it really does take in collaboration between folks who have funding and those who need funding and a willingness to share that funding,” he said in New York.

    Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who researches racial disparities in treatment, said more investment and investment in earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of Black students who decide to pursue medicine.

    He said he also believes the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to rectify historic discrimination and racial inequities does have an impact on student choices.

    “It’s hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about going into this space to see some of that backlash and pursue it,” he said. “Again, I think we get into this spiral where in five to 10 years we’re going to see a concerning drop in the numbers of diverse people in our field.”

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

    Trump and Vance team up to campaign in Minnesota, a state that hasn’t backed the GOP in 52 years

    ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — As the presidential campaign enters a critical final 100 day stretch, Republican nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, rallied supporters on Saturday in a state that hasn’t backed a GOP candidate for the White House since 1972.

    The rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was designed as a sign of the campaign’s bullishness about its prospects across the Midwest, particularly when President Joe Biden was showing signs of weakness ahead of his decision to exit the campaign. Trump, who won Michigan and Wisconsin in 2016 only to lose them four years later, has increasingly focused on Minnesota as a state where he’d like to put Democrats on defense.

    The rally is something of a gamble, potentially forcing the likely Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats to devote resources in a state they would likely otherwise ignore. But it could also be a risk for Trump if he spends time in places that might prove to be a reach with Harris leading the ticket when he could otherwise focus on maintaining his support in more traditional battlegrounds.

    Trump spoke for more than an hour and a half to cheering crowds holding signs supporting police and calling for the deportation of migrants in the country illegally. He continued a pattern of escalating attacks against Harris on immigration and crime.

    He called her a “crazy liberal” and accused her of wanting to “defund the police,” while he said by contrast, he wants to “overfund the police.”

    “She has no clue, she’s evil,” Trump said, suggesting Harris had failed at her tasks related to the border as vice president. “Kamala Harris’ deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying for her to be president.”

    Trump called out Harris for a 2020 post she made after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police. The post had encouraged people to help protesters by donating to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which had been working on reforming the bail system and posted criminal bail for people as part of a campaign to address inequities in the system.

    Though Harris did not contribute to the fund herself, her tweet was among those from celebrities and high-profile people that helped donations flow into the cash-strapped nonprofit, helping it quickly raise $34 million. In the immediate aftermath of the protests and unrest, the group actually spent little bailing out protesters.

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    Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, called Trump’s attack line “a desperate lie from a desperate campaign” that can’t change the fact that its candidate has been convicted of multiple felonies.

    Trump also knocked Harris as an “absolute radical” on abortion, seemingly sensing an opening to attack her on the issue after she has become the Biden administration’s most vocal proponent of abortion rights. He wrongly suggested Harris wants abortion “right up until birth and after birth.” Infanticide is criminalized in every state, and no state has passed a law that allows killing a baby after birth.

    Yet the former president also recycled much of his past material targeting Biden, showing how his campaign has sought to keep Biden’s pitfalls fresh in voters’ minds even after the president has ended his candidacy and endorsed Harris.

    Trump’s remarks followed a spirited speech from Vance, in which he leaned heavily into issues that animate the GOP base, particularly security at the U.S.-Mexico border and crime. He also took a broadside against the news media, arguing that journalists were comparing the first Black woman and person of south Asian descent to lead a major party ticket to Martin Luther King, Jr.

    In May, Trump headlined a GOP fundraiser in St. Paul, where he boasted he could win the state and made explicit appeals to the iron-mining range in northeast Minnesota, where he hopes a heavy population of blue-collar and union workers will shift to Republicans after years of being solidly Democratic.

    Appealing to that population has also helped Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz land on the list of about a dozen Democrats who are being vetted to potentially be Harris’ running mate.

    Walz posted on the social platform X on Friday poking fun at Trump’s visit to his state.

    “Donald Trump is coming back to the State of Hockey tomorrow for the hat trick,” Walz wrote. “He lost Minnesota in ’16, ’20, and he’ll lose it again in ’24.”

    Saturday’s rally took place at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center, a 5,159-seat hockey arena. After surviving the July 13 assassination attempt on him at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump has only had events at indoor venues. But he said in a post on his social media network Saturday that he will schedule outdoor stops and the “SECRET SERVICE HAS AGREED TO SUBSTANTIALLY STEP UP THEIR OPERATION.”

    Secret Service officials would not say whether the agency had agreed to expand operations at Trump’s campaign events or had any concerns about him potentially resuming outdoor gatherings. “Ensuring the safety and security of our protectees is our highest priority,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Saturday. “In the interest of maintaining operational integrity, we are not able to comment on specifics of our protective means or methods.”

    Earlier Saturday, Trump spoke at a bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, laying out a plan to embrace cryptocurrency if elected and promising to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and a “bitcoin superpower.”

    Trump didn’t always support cryptocurrency but has changed his attitude toward the digital tokens in recent years and in May, his campaign started accepting donations in cryptocurrency.

    Also Saturday, Harris ramped up her campaign for president with her first fundraiser since becoming the Democrats’ likely White House nominee.

    The event in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Saturday was expected to raise more than $1.4 million, her campaign announced, from an audience of hundreds at the Colonial Theatre. That would be $1 million-plus more than the original goal set for the event before Biden dropped out of the race.

    ___

    Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Brian Slodysko in Washington and Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Federal appeals court says there is no fundamental right to change one’s sex on a birth certificate

    Federal appeals court says there is no fundamental right to change one’s sex on a birth certificate

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal appeals court panel ruled 2-1 on Friday that Tennessee does not unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender people by not allowing them to change the sex designation on their birth certificates.

    “There is no fundamental right to a birth certificate recording gender identity instead of biological sex,” 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the majority in the decision upholding a 2023 district court ruling. The plaintiffs could not show that Tennessee’s policy was created out of animus against transgender people as it has been in place for more than half a century and “long predates medical diagnoses of gender dysphoria,” Sutton wrote.

    He noted that “States’ practices are all over the map.” Some allow changes to the birth certificate with medical evidence of surgery. Others require lesser medical evidence. Only 11 states currently allow a change to a birth certificate based solely on a person’s declaration of their gender identity, which is what the plaintiffs are seeking in Tennessee.

    Tennessee birth certificates reflect the sex assigned at birth, and that information is used for statistical and epidemiological activities that inform the provision of health services throughout the country, Sutton wrote. “How, it’s worth asking, could a government keep uniform records of any sort if the disparate views of its citizens about shifting norms in society controlled the government’s choices of language and of what information to collect?”

    The plaintiffs — four transgender women born in Tennessee — argued in court filings that sex is properly determined not by external genitalia but by gender identity, which they define in their brief as “a person’s core internal sense of their own gender.” The lawsuit, first filed in federal court in Nashville in 2019, claims Tennessee’s prohibition serves no legitimate government interest while it subjects transgender people to discrimination, harassment and even violence when they have to produce a birth certificate for identification that clashes with their gender identity.

    In a dissenting opinion, Judge Helene White agreed with the plaintiffs, represented by Lambda Legal.

    “Forcing a transgender individual to use a birth certificate indicating sex assigned at birth causes others to question whether the individual is indeed the person stated on the birth certificate,” she wrote. “This inconsistency also invites harm and discrimination.”

    Lambda Legal did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on Friday.

    Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement that the question of changing the sex designation on a birth certificate should be left to the states.

    “While other states have taken different approaches, for decades Tennessee has consistently recognized that a birth certificate records a biological fact of a child being male or female and has never addressed gender identity,” he said.

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