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  • Bolivian EV startup hopes tiny car will make it big in lithium-rich country

    Bolivian EV startup hopes tiny car will make it big in lithium-rich country

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    LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — On a recent, cold morning, Dr. Carlos Ortuño hopped into a tiny electric car to go check on a patient in the outskirts of Bolivia’s capital of La Paz, unsure if the vehicle would be able to handle the steep, winding streets of the high-altitude city.

    “I thought that because of the city’s topography it was going to struggle, but it’s a great climber,” said Ortuño about his experience driving a Quantum, the first EV to have ever been made in Bolivia. “The difference from a gasoline-powered vehicle is huge.”

    Ortuño’s home visit aboard a car the size of a golf cart was part of a government-sponsored program that brings doctors to patients living in neighborhoods far from the city center. The “Doctor in your house” program was launched last month by the municipality of La Paz using a fleet of six EV’s manufactured by Quantum Motors, the country’s sole producer of electric cars.

    “It is a pioneering idea. It helps protect the health of those in need, while protecting the environment and supporting local production,” La Paz Mayor Iván Arias said.

    The program could also help boost Quantum Motors, a company launched four years ago by a group of entrepreneurs who believe EVs will transform the auto industry in Bolivia, a lithium-rich country, where cheap, subsidized imported gasoline is still the norm.

    Built like a box, the Quantum moves at no more than 35 mph (56 kph), can be recharged from a household outlet and can travel 50 miles (80 kilometers) before a recharge. Its creators hope the $7,600 car will help revive dreams of a lithium-powered economy and make electric cars something the masses will embrace.

    “E-mobility will prevail worldwide in the next few years, but it will be different in different countries,” says José Carlos Márquez, general manager of Quantum Motors. “Tesla will be a dominant player in the U.S., with its speedy, autonomous cars. But in Latin America, cars will be more compact, because our streets are more similar to those of Bombay and New Delhi than to those of California.”

    But the company’s quest to boost e-mobility in the South American country has been challenging. In the four years since it released its first EVs, Quantum Motors has sold barely 350 cars in Bolivia and an undisclosed number of units in Peru and Paraguay. The company is also set to open a factory in Mexico later this year, although no further details have been provided on the scope of production there.

    Still, Quantum Motors’ bet on battery-powered cars makes sense when it comes to Bolivia’s resources. With an estimated 21 million tons, Bolivia has the world’s largest reserve of lithium, a key component in electric batteries, but it has yet to extract — and industrialize — its vast resources of the metal.

    In the meantime, the large majority of vehicles in circulation are still powered by fossil fuels and the government continues to pour millions of dollars subsidizing imported fuel than then sells at half the price to the domestic market.

    “The Quantum (car) might be cheap, but I don’t think it has the capacity of a gasoline-powered car,” says Marco Antonio Rodriguez, a car mechanic in La Paz, although he acknowledges people might change their mind once the government puts an end to gasoline subsidies.

    Despite the challenges ahead, the makers of the Quantum car are hopeful that programs like “Médico en tu casa,” which is scheduled to double in size and extend to other neighborhoods next year, will help boost production and churn out more EV’s across the region.

    “We are ready to grow,” said Márquez. “Our inventory has been sold out through July.”

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  • Vatican experts uncovering gilded glory of Hercules statue struck by lightning

    Vatican experts uncovering gilded glory of Hercules statue struck by lightning

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    VATICAN CITY (AP) — Scaffolding in a niche of the Vatican Museums’ Round Hall conceal from view the work of restorers who are removing centuries of grime from the largest known bronze statue of the ancient world: the gilded Hercules Mastai Righetti.

    For more than 150 years, the four-meter-tall (13-foot-tall) figure of the half-human Roman god of strength has stood in that niche, barely garnering notice among other antiquities because of the dark coating it had acquired.

    But it was only after removing a layer of wax and other material from a 19th-century restoration that Vatican experts understood the statue’s true splendor as one of the most significant gilded statues of its time. Museum-goers will be able to see its grandeur for themselves once the restoration is finished, which is expected in December.

    “The original gilding is exceptionally well-preserved, especially for the consistency and homogeneity,” Vatican Museum restorer Alice Baltera said.

    The discovery of the colossal bronze statue in 1864 during work on a banker’s villa near Rome’s Campo dei Fiori square made global headlines.

    Visitors drawn to the ancient wonder at the time included Pope Pius IX, who later added the work to the papal collection. The statue depicting Hercules after he finished his labors had the last names of the pope — Mastai — and of the banker, Pietro Righetti, added to its title.

    The statue has been variously dated from the end of the first to the beginning of the third centuries. Even in its day, the towering Hercules was treated with reverence.

    The inscription FCS accompanying the statue on a slab of travertine marble indicates it was struck by lightning, according to Claudia Valeri, curator of the Vatican Museums department of Greek and Roman antiquities. As a result, it was buried in a marble shrine according to Roman rites that saw lightning as an expression of divine forces.

    FCS stands for “fulgur conditum summanium, a Latin phrase meaning “Here is buried a Summanian thunderbolt.” Summanus was the ancient Roman god of nocturnal thunder. The ancient Romans believed that not only was any object stricken imbued with divinity, but also the spot where it was hit and buried.

    “It is said that sometimes being struck by lightning generates love but also eternity,” Vatican Museums archaeologist Giandomenico Spinola said. The Hercules Mastai Righetti “got his eternity … because having been struck by lightning, it was considered a sacred object, which preserved it until about 150 years ago.”

    The burial protected the gilding, but also caused dirt to build up on the statue, which Baltera said is very delicate and painstaking to remove. “The only way is to work precisely with special magnifying glasses, removing all the small encrustations one by one,” she said.

    The work to remove the wax and other materials that were applied during the 19th-century restoration is complete. Going forward, restorers plan to make fresh casts out of resin to replace the plaster patches that covered missing pieces, including on part of the nape of the neck and the pubis.

    The most astonishing finding to emerge during the preliminary phase of the restoration was the skill with which the smelters fused mercury to gold, making the gilded surface more enduring.

    “The history of this work is told by its gilding. … It is one of the most compact and solid gildings found to date,” said Ulderico Santamaria, a University of Tuscia professor who is head of the Vatican Museums’ scientific research laboratory.

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  • Don Denkinger, umpire whose stellar career was overshadowed by blown call, dead at 86

    Don Denkinger, umpire whose stellar career was overshadowed by blown call, dead at 86

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Don Denkinger, a major league umpire for three decades whose blown call in the 1985 World Series overshadowed a career of excellence, died Friday. He was 86.

    Denkinger died at Cedar Valley Hospice in Waterloo, Iowa, Denise Hanson, one of his three daughters, said.

    Denkinger joined the American League staff in 1969. He worked four World Series over three decades in the big leagues but was remembered most for a call he didn’t get right.

    St. Louis had a 3-2 Series lead over Kansas City and was ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 6, three outs from the title, when pinch-hitter Jorge Orta led off with a slow bouncer to the right side. First baseman Jack Clark ranged to field the ball and flipped a sidearm toss to reliever Todd Worrell covering the bag.

    Denkinger signaled safe but replays showed Worrell caught the throw on the base ahead of the runner. After Steve Balboni’s single, a bunt, a passed ball and an intentional walk, pinch-hitter Dane Iorg looped a two-run single into right field for a 2-1 walk-off win that forced Game 7. The Royals won 11-0 the following night for the championship.

    “Nobody wants to have the call that I did in the World Series,” Denkinger told The Associated Press in 2014. “But I did. And now it’s part of history.”

    Major League Baseball did not adopt video review for most calls until 2014.

    “I’m not tired of talking about it. I mean, it happened,” Denkinger said. “I just know that if the same thing happened now, they’d get it right on replay and it’d be over with.”

    The day after the blown call, he relaxed by attending the first half of the NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium, then walked across the parking lot to work the plate for Game 7.

    Denkinger received threatening notes in the offseason, and the FBI investigated. But he persevered and resumed a career of excellence.

    Denkinger kept a framed photo of the infamous play and joined Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals’ manager in the 1980s, as speakers at the Saint Louis University First Pitch baseball dinner in 2015. Denkinger also spoke at the 2005 Whitey Herzog Youth Foundation dinner.

    Ted Barrett, a big league umpire who retired after last season, remembered his first series working with Denkinger, at the Kingdome in Seattle.

    “Richie Amaral got picked off, but he actually made a great slide and got around the tag and made it back safely, but I called him out,” Barrett said Friday, recalling a game on July 25, 1995. “So after the game, we’re looking at the videotape, and I’m like, crud, I missed it, feeling terrible. We’re walking from our dressing room through the Kingdome to the car, and he says, `Hey, kid. What’s going on?′ I say I feel terrible. I missed the call. And he looks at me with a grin, he says `Try (messing) one up in the World Series.′ I was like, whoa, respect this guy.”

    Denkinger umpired in many of his era’s big games. He worked the plate for World Series Game 7 in 1991, when Minnesota’s Jack Morris pitched a 10-inning shutout to beat Atlanta 1-0. He also worked the plate for the 1978 Yankees-Red Sox tiebreaker game at Fenway Park and for Nolan Ryan’s sixth no-hitter in 1990.

    Denkinger is among seven umps to work a pair of perfect games. He was at second base for Len Baker’s gem in 1981 and at first for Kenny Rogers’ perfecto in 1994.

    Denkinger was born in Cedar Falls on Aug. 28, 1936. He wrestled while at Wartburg College, served in the U.S. Army and started umpiring in the Alabama-Florida League in 1960. He moved up to the Northwest League the following two seasons, the Double-A Texas League from 1963-65 and the Triple-A International League from 1966-68.

    He made his American League debut at third base in Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium on April 8, 1969, and was behind the plate for the first time four days later at Sick’s Stadium in Seattle.

    Denkinger worked his first two World Series in 1974 and 1980. His final game was at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium on June 2, 1998, and he retired after the season at age 62 because of an ailing right knee.

    He is survived by his wife, the former Gayle Price, and daughters. A funeral is planned for May 19 at St. John Lutheran Church in Cedar Falls.

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    AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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  • A skin patch to treat peanut allergies? Study in toddlers shows promise

    A skin patch to treat peanut allergies? Study in toddlers shows promise

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — An experimental skin patch is showing promise to treat toddlers who are highly allergic to peanuts — training their bodies to handle an accidental bite.

    Peanut allergy is one of the most common and dangerous food allergies. Parents of allergic tots are constantly on guard against exposures that can turn birthday parties and play dates into emergency room visits.

    There is no cure. The only treatment is for children 4 and older who can consume a special peanut powder to protect against a severe reaction.

    The patch, named Viaskin, aims to deliver that kind of treatment through the skin instead. In a major test with youngsters ages 1 to 3, it helped those who couldn’t tolerate even a small fraction of a peanut to eventually safely eat a few, researchers reported Wednesday.

    If additional testing pans out, “this would fill a huge unmet need,” said Dr. Matthew Greenhawt, an allergist at Children’s Hospital Colorado who helped lead the study.

    About 2% of U.S. children are allergic to peanuts, some so severely than even a tiny amount can cause a life-threatening reaction. Their immune system overreacts to peanut-containing foods, triggering an inflammatory cascade that causes hives, wheezing or worse. Some youngsters outgrow the allergy but most must avoid peanuts for life and carry rescue medicine to stave off a severe reaction if they accidentally ingest some.

    00:00

    LISTEN: Dr. Matthew Greenhawt on the state of peanut allergy treatments.

    In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first treatment to induce tolerance to peanuts -– an “oral immunotherapy” named Palforzia that children ages 4 to 17 consume daily to keep up the protection. Aimmune Therapeutics’ Palforzia also is being tested in toddlers.

    France’s DBV Technologies is pursuing skin-based immunotherapy as an alternative way to desensitize the body to allergens.

    The Viaskin patch is coated with a small amount of peanut protein that is absorbed into the skin. A daily patch is worn between the shoulder blades, where toddlers can’t pull it off.

    In the new study, 362 toddlers with peanut allergy first were tested to see how high a dose of peanut protein they could tolerate. Then they were randomly assigned to use the Viaskin patch or a lookalike dummy patch every day.

    After a year of treatment, they were tested again and about two-thirds of the toddlers who used the real patch could safely ingest more peanuts, the equivalent of three to four, researchers concluded.

    That compares to about a third of youngsters given the dummy patches. Greenhawt said they likely include children who are outgrowing the allergy.

    As for safety, four Viaskin recipients experienced an allergic reaction called anaphylaxis that was deemed related to the patch. Three were treated with epinephrine to calm the reaction, and one dropped out of the study.

    Some youngsters also accidentally ate peanut-containing foods during the study, and researchers said allergic reactions were less frequent among the Viaskin users than those wearing the dummy patches. The most common side effect was skin irritation at the patch site.

    The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

    The results “are very good news for toddlers and their families as the next step toward a future with more treatments for food allergies,” Dr. Alkis Togias of the National Institutes of Health, which wasn’t involved with the study, wrote in an accompanying editorial.

    Togias cautioned that it’s too early to compare oral and skin treatments, but pointed to data suggesting each might have different pros and cons — raising the possibility that oral therapy might be stronger but also cause more side effects.

    DBV Technologies has struggled for several years to bring the peanut patch to market. Last month the company announced the FDA wants some additional safety data for toddlers, and a separate study already is tracking longer treatment. A study of 4- to 7-year-olds also is underway.

    ___

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

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  • BTS book ‘Beyond the Story,’ source of Internet speculation, to be published July 9

    BTS book ‘Beyond the Story,’ source of Internet speculation, to be published July 9

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    NEW YORK (AP) — The guessing game began a few days ago, when an anonymous, untitled book scheduled for July 9 —— “4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023” — had Taylor Swift fans so convinced she had written a memoir that they made it a bestseller.

    By Thursday, the Swift rumors had been refuted and the mystery resolved: Flatiron Books announced the upcoming release of a book by another musical powerhouse, BTS.

    “Beyond the Story: 10-Year Record of BTS” is 544 pages, according to the publisher, written by the journalist Myeongseok Kang and structured like an oral history about the K-Pop boy band. It has been translated into English by Anton Hur, in collaboration with Clare Richards and Slin Jung.

    Details about the book had encouraged fans of Swift and BTS. The author and subject were to be revealed June 13, a favorite number of Swift’s, but also the 10th anniversary of BTS’ first single, “No More Dream.” The page count numbers — 5-4-4 — also add up to 13. The publication date, July 9, is close to the release date of Swift’s album “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version),” but it’s also ARMY day, the 10th anniversary of the founding of BTS’ ARMY fan base.

    Speculation about the book’s subject made it a bestseller on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble’s website.

    Booksellers had been informed of a major release from Flatiron, which billed the work as a “fun, celebratory title” that would skew to “slightly younger” audiences. The book, a Flatiron sales official emailed sellers, would have “global appeal” and “massive publicity.”

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  • Air Force One doubles as a campaign jet for Biden’s reelection run. Who pays what?

    Air Force One doubles as a campaign jet for Biden’s reelection run. Who pays what?

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — When Joe Biden was running for president three years ago, he flew on a white private jet with his campaign logo painted on the side.

    Now he has a larger, more recognizable ride as he seeks a second term. Like his predecessors, he’ll be crisscrossing the country on Air Force One.

    Every president blends their governmental and political duties, but never more than when they’re running for reelection. “Official” events can sound especially political, while “political” events can delve deeply into the policy initiatives of the day. And decisions on how to divvy up the costs of a president’s travels between taxpayers and the campaign is no simple task.

    Biden made one such trip this week, his first since formally announcing his campaign, when he spoke about his economic agenda at an official event north of New York City before heading to Manhattan for a pair of fundraisers.

    “I’m determined to finish the job,” Biden said to about two dozen donors in an Upper East Side townhouse. Then Biden zipped over to a Fifth Avenue apartment, where more wealthy supporters sat on couches and chairs in a grand living room surrounded by artwork.

    “I want to thank everyone here for the help,” he said. “Without you guys, I wouldn’t be standing here.”

    The massive logistical and security apparatus that surrounds a president continues no matter where they are or whether they’re on government or political business. Even mundane trips require an assortment of helicopters, armored cars and other vehicles and staff to ferry the president, aides, security personnel and journalists from place to place.

    By longstanding practice, the vast majority of those costs are borne by taxpayers, a smaller amount picked up by Biden’s campaign or the Democratic National Committee.

    “It’s well established, and there’s a pretty intricate set of formulas,” said Norm Eisen, who served as a White House ethics lawyer under President Barack Obama.

    Yet piecing together how much taxpayers will be on the hook for to fund a president’s campaign travel is far from clear-cut. Many of the true costs pertaining to transporting and securing the president are classified, and even the formulas used to determine how much the president’s campaign has to reimburse the government are difficult to scrutinize.

    Federal regulations guide the calculations, which look at the share of the president’s time spent on the ground devoted to political and official activities. And rules require that government flights like Air Force One are reimbursed at higher rates for a similar flight aboard a charter airfare instead of commercial flights.

    For every trip, it’s up to the White House counsel’s office to determine what percentage is political and the amount of reimbursement, officials involved with the process said. And it’s a time-honored practice by presidents in both parties to tack official events onto political trips to defray the cost to their campaigns.

    But even official events can get plenty political as presidents push their agenda. On Wednesday, Biden used his official event to criticize “MAGA Republicans” for “holding the economy hostage” in the standoff over the debt ceiling, which could lead to the country defaulting for the first time in history.

    When it comes to paying back the government for travel, “it’s always somewhat of an opaque process for how it’s reimbursed,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at the watchdog group Common Cause. “It’s a little bit more of an art than a science.”

    The Democratic National Committee has a special escrow account where it collects travel reimbursements that will eventually be sent to the U.S. Treasury. For example, after Biden went to Florida to attend a fundraiser for Charlie Crist’s ill-fated campaign for governor last year, Crist’s campaign deposited $27,726.95 into the account. Then-Senate candidate Val Demings’ campaign kicked in another $23,610.51 for a joint rally that evening with Crist’s campaign, which came after an official event meant to highlight his efforts to lower drug prices for seniors.

    That combined sum was a small fraction of the cost to send Biden from Washington on Air Force One and by helicopter from near Fort Lauderdale to Miami Gardens.

    The helicopters that operate as Marine One when the president is on board cost between $16,700 and nearly $20,000 per hour to operate, according to Pentagon data for fiscal year 2022. The modified Boeing 747s that serve as the iconic Air Force One cost about $200,000 per hour to fly. That’s not to mention the military cargo aircraft that fly ahead of the president with his armored limousines and other official vehicles.

    All told, more than $2.8 million has been deposited in the escrow account for travel since Biden took office in January 2021, according to Federal Election Committee records. However, because of the slow pace of government processing, only about $133,000 has been relayed to the government.

    The current generation of Air Force One planes date back to President George H.W. Bush’s administration, and two replacements are currently being built. Even if Biden wins a second term, he’s unlikely to have an opportunity to fly on them before leaving office — they’re scheduled to be delivered in 2027 and 2028.

    Administration officials said that the Biden White House and the campaigns his travel benefits comply with all federal rules and precedents.

    But the cost of presidential travel often becomes a target in an election year.

    For example, then-House Speaker John Boehner complained after Obama spoke to college students during official events in battleground states while running for reelection.

    “His campaign ought to be reimbursing the Treasury for the cost of this trip,” Boehner said.

    President Donald Trump adhered to rules on reimbursements for campaign travel during his failed bid for a second term. However, he drew scrutiny for blurring the lines in other ways. For example, he used Air Force One and Marine One as backdrops for political events, and he would direct the plane to be flown over his rallies to energize supporters.

    Trump also accepted the Republican nomination in a speech from the White House, a controversial use of federal property for political purposes.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Seung Min Kim in New York contributed to this report.

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  • Former Trump prosecutor mostly mum before Congress on details of hush-money investigation

    Former Trump prosecutor mostly mum before Congress on details of hush-money investigation

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — An ex-prosecutor who once oversaw Manhattan’s investigation of former President Donald Trump declined to substantively answer questions at a closed-door deposition Friday of the House Judiciary Committee, according to a Republican lawmaker in the meeting. The prosecutor and his boss said he was merely abiding by grand jury rules.

    Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, exited the meeting after roughly one hour and said Mark Pomerantz, the former prosecutor, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment that protects people from providing self-incriminating testimony.

    Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to bury allegations of extramarital affairs that arose during his 2016 White House campaign. GOP lawmakers have decried the investigation as a “political persecution” and launched an oversight probe.

    Pomerantz in a written opening statement called the committee’s inquiry itself “an act of political theater.” He also explained he was invoking the Fifth Amendment because the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had previously warned him before he published a book on the investigation that he could face criminal liability if he revealed grand jury material or violated a provision of the New York City Charter dealing with misuse of confidential information.

    Pomerantz, who left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office after disagreements over the direction of the Trump investigation, was subpoenaed by the Republican-controlled House committee. The panel, chaired by GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, is probing how Bragg handled Trump’s historic indictment.

    “This deposition is for show,” Pomerantz also said in prepared remarks. “I do not believe for a moment that I am here to assist a genuine effort to enact legislation or conduct legislative ‘oversight.’”

    Bragg had sued to halt Jordan’s subpoena of Pomerantz, but last month agreed to Pomerantz’s testimony after a delay and a condition that lawyers from the prosecutor’s office be present. The committee has said it would have allowed the district attorney’s lawyers even without the agreement.

    Pomerantz had argued in court papers that the subpoena left him in an “impossible position” and would potentially require him to violate his ethical obligations.

    Issa, the GOP lawmaker, told reporters, “This is an obstructing witness who has no intention of answering any questions.”

    Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, another member of the committee, also said lawmakers were “not getting many answers.”

    Jordan exited the meeting room after a deposition that lasted well over five hours and told reporters he was “surprised at some of the answers,” but declined to provide further details, citing committee rules.

    Pomerantz’s attorney, Ted Wells, told reporters that his opening statement explaining why he would not be answering questions made it “very clear as to what happened.”

    Pomerantz is allowed to refuse to answer certain questions that touch on legal privilege and ethical obligations, but Jordan could also rule on those assertions on a case-by-case basis. The Republican lawmaker said he would be conferring with the committee’s attorneys and members about taking legal action against Pomerantz, including holding him in contempt of Congress.

    A contempt of Congress charge would require a full committee vote before going to the floor of the Republican-majority House.

    Pomerantz recently wrote a book about his work pursuing Trump and discussed the investigation in interviews on “60 Minutes” and other shows. But Issa said he was not answering questions even on previous statements he had made.

    Issa suggested the fight over testimony will return to the legal system, saying it would be “for the court to decide when we object to his failure to answer any questions.”

    Bragg’s office said in a statement, “Consistent with the agreement we reached with the committee last month, the District Attorney’s Office is participating in today’s deposition and asserting our rights to oppose disclosure of confidential information protected by law.”

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  • Pilots at United picket for higher pay as pressure builds before summer travel season

    Pilots at United picket for higher pay as pressure builds before summer travel season

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    DALLAS (AP) — Just ahead of what could be a record-breaking summer travel season, pilots from one of the nation’s biggest airlines marched in picket lines at major airports on Friday as they push for higher pay.

    The United Airlines pilots have been working without a raise for more than four years while negotiating with airline management over a new contract.

    The pilots are unlikely to strike anytime soon, however. Federal law makes it very difficult for unions to conduct strikes in the airline industry, and the last walkout at a U.S. carrier was more than a decade ago.

    The coast-to-coast protests by United pilots come on the heels of overwhelming strike-authorization votes by pilots at American Airlines and Southwest Airlines. United pilots could be the next to vote, according to union officials.

    Pilots at all three carriers are looking to match or beat the deal that Delta Air Lines reached with its pilots earlier this year, which raised pay rates by 34% over four years.

    Top scale at United for a captain is $369 an hour on two-aisle planes, called “widebodies,” which are generally used on international flights, and $297 an hour on “narrowbodies” such as Boeing 737s. Airline pilots fly an average of 75 hours per month, according to the Labor Department.

    United has proposed to match the Delta increase, but that might not be enough for a deal.

    “We still have a long ways to go to resolve some of the issues at the table,” said Garth Thompson, chair of the United wing of the Air Line Pilots Association.

    Thompson said discussion about wages has been held up while the two sides negotiate over scheduling, including the union’s wish to limit United’s ability to make pilots work on their days off.

    United spokesman Joshua Freed said, “We’re continuing to work with the Air Line Pilots Association on the industry-leading deal we have put on the table for our world-class pilots.”

    Pilots argue that United should reward them for helping the airline survive the coronavirus pandemic.

    “We made quite a few sacrifices during the pandemic, and we feel it is now time for the company to step up to the plate and to give us a contract, acknowledging the sacrifices and the contributions that we have made,” said pilot Arzu Delp, as he picketed at San Francisco International Airport.

    The Delta contract that United pilots are using as their starting point will cost Delta $7.2 billion over four years. All airlines are dealing with rising labor costs, which could show up in the price of a ticket, but fares are also set by supply and demand, notes Blaise Waguespack, who teaches airline management and marketing at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

    Giselle Ascione, a United passenger in San Francisco, said the airlines are making a lot of money, and “the pilots as well as the attendants should be paid. It’s common sense.”

    Even if the airlines and their unions fail to reach agreements quickly, strikes are unlikely in the next few months — when millions of Americans hope to fly over summer vacation. Under U.S. law, airline and railroad workers can’t legally strike, and companies can’t lock them out, until federal mediators determine that further negotiations are pointless.

    The National Mediation Board rarely declares a dead end to bargaining, and even if it does, there is a no-strikes “cooling-off” period during which the White House and Congress can block a walkout. That’s what President Bill Clinton did minutes after pilots began striking against American in 1997. In December, President Joe Biden signed a bill that Congress passed to impose contract terms on freight railroad workers, ending a strike threat.

    The last strike at a U.S. carrier occurred at Spirit Airlines in 2010.

    Thompson, the union leader at United, said his pilots “will continue to work in 2023” despite challenges including an “aggressive” summer flight schedule.

    Over the years, airline workers have conducted job actions that fell short of a strike but disrupted flights anyway. A federal judge fined the American Airlines pilots’ union $45 million for a 1999 sickout that crippled the airline’s operations, although the amount was later reduced. In 2019, a federal judge ordered unions representing American’s aircraft mechanics to stop what the airline termed an illegal work slowdown.

    Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University, said Congress would not permit an airline strike because of the economic harm it would cause, but unhappy pilots could still cause disruptions in other ways.

    “They always have ‘work to rule.’ They could say, ‘We’re not working any overtime,’” Wheaton said. “I don’t anticipate the pilots trying to screw up travel for everybody intentionally, but bargaining is about leverage and power … having the ability to do that can be a negotiating tactic.”

    Airlines are vulnerable to work-to-rule protests because they depend on finding pilots and flight attendants to pick up extra shifts during peak travel periods.

    Regardless of the legal hurdles to a walkout, unions believe that strike votes give them leverage during bargaining, and they have become more common. A shortage of pilots is also putting those unions in particularly strong bargaining position.

    Chicago-based United has roughly 14,000 pilots, and the union expects at least 2,000 will picket Friday at 10 airports from Newark, New Jersey, to Los Angeles. The union is also distributing leaflets that highlight the pilots’ desire for better work-life balance in their scheduling but make no mention of pay.

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    Haven Daley in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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  • Martin Scorsese set to stir Cannes again, 47 years after ‘Taxi Driver’

    Martin Scorsese set to stir Cannes again, 47 years after ‘Taxi Driver’

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    When Martin Scorsese premieres his latest film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20th, it will return Scorsese to a festival where he remains a key part of its fabled history.

    Scorsese premiered his masterpiece of urban alienation, “Taxi Driver,” in Cannes in 1976. Its debut was one of the most fevered in Cannes history, drawing boos and some walkouts for the violence in Scorsese’s tale of the disillusioned New York cab driver Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). The playwright Tennessee Williams, then the jury president, condemned the film.

    “Films should not take a voluptuous pleasure in spilling blood and lingering on terrible cruelties as though one were at a Roman circus,” Williams said.

    Yet “Taxi Driver” nevertheless won Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or. Having heard of Williams’ disapproval, Scorsese and company had already flown home, with dashed hopes of any big award.

    “I got a call from (publicist) Marion Billings around five in the morning saying, ‘You’ve won the Palme d’Or,’” Scorsese later recalled to The Hollywood Reporter. “We thought we might get screenplay or best actor for De Niro, so it was very surprising.”

    “Taxi Driver” wasn’t Scorsese’s first time in Cannes. Two years earlier, he had premiered his breakthrough feature, “Mean Streets,” in Directors Fortnight, a selection of films typically from up-and-coming directors that plays outside Cannes’ main stage, the Palais des Festival.

    “Cannes was the international platform for ‘Mean Streets,’ a film I didn’t think would even get distributed,” Scorsese said in a 2018 Cannes talk commemorating the film’s debut.

    “My visit was almost the best time, in terms of anonymity. And trying very hard to change that!” he said. “I was able to go from table to table on the Croisette and meet actors, directors, and so many others. It was still a period of discovery, not just for new filmmakers but older, neglected filmmakers.”

    Between “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver,” Cannes played a pivotal role in announcing Scorsese’s arrival as a major filmmaking talent. He has ever since maintained a close relationship with the festival, though it’s become rarer for Scorsese to launch a film there.

    “Killers of the Flower Moon,” his much-awaited adaptation of the David Grann bestseller, is his first new film to premiere in the Cannes official selection since “After Hours” in 1986. That film, a darkly comic nocturnal New York escapade, won Scorsese best director.

    His latest, which Apple, in partnership with Paramount Pictures, will open in theaters Oct. 6, isn’t playing in competition in Cannes. Festival Director Thierry Frémaux, in announcing this year’s lineup, said he urged Scorsese to put it into competition for the Palme d’Or but was rebuffed.

    “Killers of the Flower Moon,” with a 206-minute runtime, is about a series of murders of Native Americans in 1920s Oklahoma and the FBI investigation that followed. The cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, Cara Jade Myers, JaNae Collins, Jillian Dion and Tantoo Cardinal.

    In between, Scorsese has often attended Cannes in other capacities. He was president of the jury in 1998 that chose Theo Angelopoulos’ “Eternity and a Day” for the Palme. He also chaired the Cinéfondation jury in 2002.

    And Scorsese has regularly been connected with other films at Cannes, either as an executive producer (for, among others, Joanna Hogg’s two-part “The Souvenir” ) or to unveil newly restored classics by the Film Foundation, the film preservation nonprofit he founded. This year, the Film Foundation, with the Walt Disney Co., will debut a stored “Spellbound,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1945 thriller.

    Before a Cannes screening in 2009 of Film Foundation’s screening of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948 masterpiece “The Red Shoes,” Scorsese said restoration only matters if people see the work.

    “The more audiences see these films, the more they want to see other films like them, and then what happens is the audience changes which means the movies that are being made change,” Scorsese said. “There is an audience for special movies, and good movies, for a different way of looking at the world — and not just blockbusters.”

    ___

    Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

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  • Stragglers pack up as Swiss village is evacuated under rockslide threat

    Stragglers pack up as Swiss village is evacuated under rockslide threat

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    BRIENZ, Switzerland (AP) — Stragglers packed up belongings in cars, trucks and a least one pickup truck before an evacuation order took effect on Friday in a tiny village in eastern Switzerland that is facing an urgent rockslide threat.

    As geologists and other experts in fluorescent vests took measurements on Friday, villagers and vacationers bared their emotion that the centuries-old Alpine village of Brienz — home to under 100 residents — could be soon be subsumed under spilling rock.

    Swiss authorities say about 2 million cubic meters of rock on an Alpine mountainside overhead could soon come crashing down.

    Erosion over generations has left the bald-faced mountainside white, gray and orange with exposed rock and earth, and a few boulders have already made their way onto the edge of the village in the verdant valley. One sat menacingly next to a small wood cabin.

    The rumble of shifting ground, the sporadic crackle of rocks colliding, and the remains of dead trees and dirt sliding down the mountain facade Friday brought an eerie sense of portent to the village and underscored the rising urgency for locals to get out of town by the 6 p.m. deadline set by authorities.

    Earlier this week, authorities upgraded the alert status to “orange,” which meant residents had to evacuate but could also return during the day to pick up belongings, if conditions allowed.

    By Friday evening, authorities had raised the alert to “red” — meaning that no returns would be allowed for the foreseeable future, said Christian Gartmann, a member of the crisis management board in the town of Albula, which counts Brienz in its municipality.

    One woman loaded up a pickup truck with a caged pet turtle, named Max, and other belongings as neighbors packed up cars and trucks, too. Barriers blocked off roads and a sign under a portable traffic light read: “Extreme danger of rockfall when red.”

    A Zurich woman who has for years vacationed in the bucolic village stood back about 30 meters (100 feet) from a barrier on the edge of the village to look up worryingly at the mountainside.

    Centuries-old Brienz straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubunden region, sitting southwest of Davos at an altitude of about 1,150 meters (3,800 feet).

    The mountain and the rocks on it have been moving since the last Ice Age, officials say. But on Tuesday, they said measurements indicated a “strong acceleration over a large area” in recent days, and “up to 2 million cubic meters of rock material will collapse or slide in the coming seven to 24 days.”

    Gartmann said experts estimate a 60% chance the rock will fall in smaller chunks, which may not reach the village or the valley. The landslide could also move slowly. But there’s also a 10% chance that the rock mass may spill down, threatening lives, property and the village itself.

    Glacier melt has affected the precariousness of the rocks over millennia, but melting glaciers due to “man-made” climate change in recent decades wasn’t a factor, he said.

    ___

    Jamey Keaten contributed from Geneva.

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  • Jonas Brothers release new album, plan to prioritize mental health on upcoming tour

    Jonas Brothers release new album, plan to prioritize mental health on upcoming tour

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    After two decades in the spotlight, the Jonas Brothers are still chasing butterflies.

    Joe, Kevin and Nick Jonas are releasing their sixth studio record “The Album” on Friday, before embarking on an U.S. tour in August. Nick says the band of brothers are putting themselves in new positions so they can feel “butterflies and excitement” before stepping onstage.

    One of those butterfly moments will come when the trio kicks off their tour at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 12.

    “It’s our favorite baseball team’s stadium for our entire lives,” Nick says. “We got to go and kind of go to a game and meet some of the players about a month ago. And we were just looking around, thinking the 10-year-old version of us that was sitting up in the highest nosebleed section seat would not believe that we’re going to play this place twice.”

    All three band members now have young families and Joe says this means the brothers are “quicker to return home” after touring. But that doesn’t mean that they are any less excited about hitting the road.

    “We’re treating this like the best tour we’ve ever done. And I think, we intend to make it that experience for fans as well,” Joe says.

    They’re also looking forward to hanging out as brothers too, with Nick saying that touring “doesn’t feel like work.”

    The tour will criss-cross the U.S. from mid-August until October, with the trio being ultra careful to avoid burnout. The band’s physical and mental health is a priority, says Joe, who believes they can look after themselves and have “a blast while doing it.”

    “We’ve been burnt out before and then you’re like, ‘I still got 20 more shows on this tour,’” he says. “So we all have our own perspective ways of going about that, and we just make sure that that’s prioritized and also that we think the three of us are communicating as best as we can.”

    The brothers have set aside a period for family after the release and promo duties for “The Album,” before gearing up to tour in August.

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  • Police: 8 killed in Texas mall shooting, gunman also dead

    Police: 8 killed in Texas mall shooting, gunman also dead

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    ALLEN, Texas (AP) — A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others — three critically — before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.

    Authorities did not immediately provide details about the victims at Allen Premium Outlets, a sprawling outdoor shopping center, but witnesses reported seeing children among them. Some said they also saw what appeared to be a police officer and a mall security guard unconscious on the ground.

    The shooting, the latest eruption of what has been an unprecedented pace of mass killings in the U.S., sent hundreds fleeing in panic. Barely a week before, authorities say, a man fatally shot five people in Cleveland, Texas, after a neighbor asked him to stop firing his weapon while a baby slept.

    A 16-year-old pretzel stand employee, Maxwell Gum, described a virtual stampede of shoppers. He and others sheltered in a storage room.

    “We started running. Kids were getting trampled,” Gum said. “My co-worker picked up a 4-year-old girl and gave her to her parents.”

    Dashcam video that circulated online showed the gunman getting out of a car and shooting at people on the sidewalk. More than three dozen shots could be heard as the vehicle recording the video drove off.

    Allen Fire Chief Jonathan Boyd said seven people including the shooter died at the scene. Nine victims were taken to area hospitals, but two of them died.

    Three of the wounded were in critical condition in the evening, Boyd said, and four were stable.

    An Allen Police officer was in the area on an unrelated call when he heard shots at 3:36 p.m., the police department wrote on Facebook.

    “The officer engaged the suspect and neutralized the threat. He then called for emergency personnel,” it added.

    Mass killings are happening with staggering frequency in the United States this year: an average of about one a week, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University.

    The White House said President Biden had been briefed on the shooting and the administration had offered support to local officials. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signed laws easing firearms restrictions following past mass shootings, called it an “unspeakable tragedy.”

    Fontayne Payton, 35, was at H&M when he heard the sound of gunshots through his headphones.

    “It was so loud, it sounded like it was right outside,” Payton said.

    People in the store scattered before employees ushered the group into the fitting rooms and then a lockable back room, he said. When they were given the all-clear to leave, Payton saw the store had broken windows and a trail of blood to the door. Discarded sandals and bloodied clothes lay nearby.

    Once outside, Payton saw bodies.

    “I pray it wasn’t kids, but it looked like kids,” he said. The bodies were covered in white towels, slumped over bags on the ground.

    “It broke me when I walked out to see that,” he said.

    Further away, he saw the body of a heavyset man wearing all black. He assumed it was the shooter, Payton said, because unlike the other bodies it had not been covered up.

    Tarakram Nunna, 25, and Ramakrishna Mullapudi, 26, said they saw what appeared to be three people motionless on the ground, including one who appeared to be a police officer and one who appeared to be a mall security guard.

    Another shopper, Sharkie Mouli, 24, said he hid in a Banana Republic store during the shooting. As he left, he saw what appeared to be an unconscious police officer lying next to another unconscious person outside the outlet store.

    “I have seen his gun lying right next to him and a guy who is like passing out right next to him,” Mouli said.

    Stan and Mary Ann Greene were browsing in the Columbia sportswear store when the shooting started.

    “We had just gotten in, just a couple minutes earlier, and we just heard a lot of loud popping,” Mary Ann Greene told The Associated Press.

    Employees rolled down the security gate and brought everyone to the rear of the store until police arrived and escorted them out, the Greenes said.

    Eber Romero was at the Under Armour store when a cashier mentioned that there was a shooting.

    As he left the store, Romero said, the mall appeared empty, and all the shops had their security gates down. That is when he started seeing broken glass and people who had been shot on the floor.

    Video shared on social media showed people running through a parking lot amid the sound of gunshots.

    More than 30 police cruisers with lights flashing were blocking an entrance to the mall, with multiple ambulances on the scene.

    A live aerial broadcast from a news station showed armored trucks and other law enforcement vehicles outside the mall.

    Ambulances from several neighboring cities responded.

    The Dallas office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also responded.

    Allen, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of downtown Dallas, has roughly 105,000 residents.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Adam Kealoha Causey in Dallas contributed to this report.

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  • Inside the Met Gala: A furry feline star, a tardy Cinderella

    Inside the Met Gala: A furry feline star, a tardy Cinderella

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    By JOCELYN NOVECK

    May 2, 2023 GMT

    Jared Leto was looking for a place to hang his hat. Er, actually his head.

    Leto was walking around the cocktail reception at the Met Gala, not long after his big entrance on the carpet as Choupette, designer Karl Lagerfeld’s famous cat, in a full-on white fur suit with very real-looking eyes. Once inside cocktails, it was too hot to keep the whole suit on, but he would not abandon the head.

    Some friends wanted to check out the head, carried like a war trophy. Rami Malek, for example, and director Taika Waititi, who tried it on.

    But what would happen at dinner? Leto said he was going to “find a nice quiet seat, so that Chou Chou can take a little rest.”

    And so it went at the Met Gala, where an Oscar-winning actor carrying a huge cat head seeking a nap still had to compete with lots of other things, and people, and clothes, for attention.

    Here are some moments and scenes from inside Monday’s Met Gala:

    A LOT TO RECYCLE

    As guests entered the Metropolitan Museum’s Great Hall, they passed a towering centerpiece — flanked by an orchestra playing tunes — and then climbed the huge staircase up to the receiving line, with hosts Anna Wintour, Michaela Coel, Penéope Cruz, Dua Lipa and Roger Federer awaiting. Last year, the centerpiece and staircase were carpeted with bright pink roses — 275,000 of them. This time it was recycled water bottles. Met officials estimated the number at 100,000, obtained from a recycling plant — and headed back to a recycling plant. It was the inspiration of exhibit designer Tadao Ando.

    REMEMBERING KARL

    Often, celebrity guests skip the exhibit and head straight to cocktails. This year, museum officials really wanted them to see the sumptuous show on Lagerfeld — so they helped things along by routing the crowd from the receiving line to the exhibit, with cocktails and dinner down one floor.

    The exhibit was indeed more crowded than usual during the gala, and one of the first to visit was Baz Luhrmann. The Australian director had worked with Lagerfeld on a Chanel No. 5 commercial starring Nicole Kidman and had fond memories, saying the designer was constantly working, learning, and creating. He also praised his smarts: “Too often we don’t celebrate the intellect.” He was wearing a high-collared, starched white shirt, part of Lagerfeld’s personal uniform, with his Thom Browne ensemble. He recalled visiting Lagerfeld at his home in Biarritz, where, he said. “there was a whole entire room of these shirts.”

    BROADWAY REUNION

    The Met Gala is filled with stars of film, music, sports, fashion and more, but Wintour also has a fondness for Broadway, and often invites actors from shows she loves to the gala. At this gala, a spot on one side of the airy Charles Engelhard Court became the site of a joyous reunion of Broadway actors. Among the group gathering, laughing and hugging were Josh Groban (“Sweeney Todd”), Phillipa Soo (“Camelot”), Ben Platt (“Parade”), and Jonathan Groff (“Merrily We Roll Along”). Soo called the party “wonderful and whimsical. I feel so lucky to be here with these artists and celebrate another artist.”

    For Platt, it was his fifth Met Gala, and he looked like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Anna is a huge champion of the theater!” he said. He added that this was his favorite gala because he was able to enjoy it with his friend and co-star in “Parade,” Micaela Diamond.

    AN EDUCATION IN FASHION

    Platt got a big greeting from Groban, who plays the murderous barber in “Sweeney Todd.” He was at his second Met Gala, and said he appreciated learning about Lagerfeld, the German-born designer who worked in luxury fashion for 65 years until his death in 2019. “It’s impossible when you get to an exhibit like this not to appreciate the impact and the inspiration and influence that he’s had on all forms of fashion,” he said. “This is very educational for me.”

    TENNIS, ANYONE?

    It’s also no secret that Wintour also loves tennis. She’s a fixture at the U.S. Open, and is especially close to Federer, the Swiss superstar who recently retired. A host this year, Federer said he was having a much more relaxed experience at his second Met Gala. “It’s a much more relaxed lifestyle now so you can also get really into it,” he said. “I could really look forward to it, prepare for it.” Federer strolled to dinner from cocktails alongside Serena Williams, who also recently stepped back from tennis, and announced her pregnancy at the gala along with husband Alexis Ohanian. Also at the gala was Mary Jo Fernandez, former women’s star and now commentator, who’d brought her college daughter as her date.

    AND SOME BASKETBALL

    NBA star Russell Westbrook, attending his third gala, said it was still amazing to meet “so many style icons” on fashion’s biggest night. But a key new face from the sport this year was Brittney Griner, who smiled at the cocktail reception when expressing how happy she was to be attending. On the carpet, the WNBA star spoke about helping support families working to free Americans jailed in foreign prisons through the organization Bring Our Families Home.

    LETO, STILL CARRYING THE CAT’S HEAD

    Actor Leto, never letting go of Choupette’s head, explained that his attachment to Lagerfeld (and the cat) was both personal and professional. “It was done with a lot of love,” he said of the costume. “I knew Karl. And one of the first times I met him I said ‘I am going to have to play you in a movie,’ and he said, ‘ONLY you my love, only you.’ And now we’re developing a film. I just feel that if Karl were here, and I saw Karl, in full Choupette glory, he would have the biggest smile on his face.”

    A CHANCE MEETING IN THE RAIN

    Many guests reflected on past associations with Lagerfeld — some of them only one-time encounters. Hugh Jackman explained while sampling the exhibit that he’d met the designer at a dinner and was struck by a man who never stopped, whose ethos was “Keep creating, keep creating, keep creating.” Also describing a one-time meeting was rapper Pusha T, like many decked out in Thom Browne, who said he encountered Lagerfeld in Paris, walking out of his store. “He was walking in, I was walking out. I was like ‘OMG Karl, I gotta take a picture.’ He was nice. He took the picture — and then said ‘Its raining on me, I’ve got to go!’”

    WAITING ON CINDERELLA

    The clock was soon to strike midnight, and Cinderella was yet to arrive at the ball. Well, it felt like midnight. It wasn’t just the crowds outside on Fifth Avenue or the crews on the red carpet that were waiting for Rihanna to show up. Inside the museum, while most guests were well into dinner, a hardy crew of wait staff, photographers, and museum staffers were waiting, too. They listened to screams outside, hoping it signaled Rihanna’s arrival — but in one case, it was a roach that caused the commotion.

    Finally, the singer showed up, past 10 p.m. as some guests were already leaving dinner. She posed inside in her dramatic Valentino ensemble in white, accompanied by partner A$AP Rocky in a kilt-type layer over jeans, then vanished down a hallway. But Cinderella had finally arrived, and everyone else could consider turning into pumpkins.

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  • Known for laughs, DC dinner spotlights risks to journalism

    Known for laughs, DC dinner spotlights risks to journalism

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — known for its fun albeit ferocious jabs at Washington — took a more solemn tone this year as President Joe Biden acknowledged the several American journalists under siege in authoritarian countries around the world.

    “We are here to send a message to the country and, quite frankly, to the world: The free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar, of a free society, not the enemy,” Biden said in his speech.

    The president and first lady Jill Biden, upon arriving at the Washington Hilton on Saturday, met privately with the parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia since March. He was charged with spying, despite strong denials from his employer and the U.S. government. Some guests wore buttons with “Free Evan” printed on them.

    Also among the 2,600 people attending the gala was Debra Tice, the mother of Austin Tice, who has not been heard from since disappearing at a checkpoint in Syria in 2012. U.S. officials say they operate under the assumption that he is alive and are working to try to bring him home.

    “Journalism is not a crime,” Biden said. “Evan and Austin should be released immediately along with every other American detained abroad.” He said: “I promise you, I am working like hell to get them home.”

    The Bidens also made a beeline for Brittney Griner, the WNBA star and Olympic gold medalist who was detained in Russia for nearly 10 months last year before her release in a prisoner swap. Griner attended with her wife, Cherelle, as guests of CBS News.

    “This time last year we were praying for you, Brittney,” Biden said to the basketball star.

    The annual black-tie dinner drew a wide array of celebrities and media moguls to Washington, with parties being held across the capital. Among those in attendance were actor Liev Schreiber, singer John Legend and his wife, Chrissy Teigen, the model and television personality.

    Actor and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger opened the dinner with a pre-taped video about the importance of a free and independent press, calling reporters an “ally of the people.” Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were seated on the stage along with comedian Roy Wood Jr., a correspondent for “The Daily Show,” who was the featured entertainer.

    While Biden spent the majority of his speech focused on the issue of press freedom, he also jabbed at some of his most vocal political critics. The occasion is a familiar and comfortable one for Biden, who attended several of the dinners as vice president to Barack Obama. The Washington event returned last year after being sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Biden was the first president in six years to accept the invitation after Donald Trump shunned the event while in office.

    But this year, he came not only as the commander in chief but as a presidential contender.

    He started his punchlines with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, taking aim at a recent bill Republicans passed that would lift the debt ceiling in exchange for a series of budget cuts, including some of Biden’s key legislative achievements.

    “The last time Republicans voted for something that hapless it took 15 tries,” Biden said, referring to the gruesome fight McCarthy endured to become speaker in January.

    And he didn’t stop there, going after Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch about his age. “And you call me old?” he told the crowd. Murdoch is 92; Biden, 80.

    Biden even made a couple of self-deprecating jokes, mostly surrounding criticism of his age as he mounts a second bid for reelection. “I believe in the First Amendment and not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” he said to a roaring crowd.

    Wood, who took the stage after Biden, also zeroed in on the president’s age.

    “We should be inspired by the events in France. They rioted when the retirement age went up two years to 64,” Wood said. “Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man, begging us for four more years.”

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  • Report: FAA overruled engineers, let Boeing Max keep flying

    Report: FAA overruled engineers, let Boeing Max keep flying

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Some engineers for the Federal Aviation Administration wanted to ground the Boeing 737 Max soon after a second deadly crash, but top officials in the agency overruled them, according to a government watchdog.

    The inspector general of the Transportation Department said in a new report that FAA officials wanted to sort out raw data about the two crashes, and held off grounding the plane despite growing international pressure.

    The inspector general’s office said that it reviewed emails and interviewed FAA officials. The investigation “revealed that individual engineers at the Seattle (office) recommended grounding the airplane while the accident was being investigated based on what they perceived as similarities between the accidents.”

    One engineer made a preliminary estimate that the chance of another Max crash was more than 13 times greater than FAA risk guidelines allow. An FAA official said the analysis “suggested that there was a 25% chance of an accident in 60 days” if no changes were made to the planes.

    “However, this document was not completed and did not go through managerial review due to lack of detailed flight data,” the report said.

    FAA officials at headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the agency’s Seattle office opted not to ground the plane. “Instead, they waited for more detailed data to arrive,” the watchdog said in the report, which was made public Friday.

    The first Max crash occurred in October 2018 in Indonesia and was followed by the second in March 2019 in Ethiopia. In all, 346 people died.

    The FAA was the last major aviation regulator to ground the Max — three days after the second crash.

    The FAA did not let the planes fly again until late 2020, after Boeing altered a flight-control system that autonomously pointed the plane’s nose down before both crashes.

    The inspector general’s office said the FAA’s caution on grounding the Max fit with its tendency of waiting for detailed data – an explanation that agency officials offered at the time.

    Still, the watchdog recommended that FAA document how key and urgent safety decisions are made and make several other changes in how it analyzes crashes.

    The FAA said in a response attached to the inspector general’s report that it is committed to measures that will improve safety and has started to update procedures based on the Max tragedies.

    In a statement to The Associated Press, the FAA said it concurs with the inspector general’s recommendations and had already identified the issues outlined in the report.

    Safety advocates and lawmakers have harshly criticized the FAA for its decision to certify the Max — FAA officials did not fully understand the flight-control system implicated in both crashes. Congress passed legislation to reform the process of reviewing new aircraft.

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  • GM, Samsung plan new EV battery cell factory in US

    GM, Samsung plan new EV battery cell factory in US

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    DETROIT (AP) — General Motors and South Korea’s Samsung SDI plan to invest more than $3 billion in a new electric vehicle battery cell plant in the United States, the companies said Tuesday.

    They did not announce the intended location of the new factory, which is expected to begin operations in 2026, GM and Samsung SDI said in a statement. GM and Samsung SDI plan to jointly operate the factory, which is expected to make nickel-rich prismatic and cylindrical cells. The companies said it was expected to create thousands of jobs.

    The project is GM’s fourth joint venture battery cell factory. It has announced three others with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution. A 900-worker factory near Warren, Ohio, is starting to build cells, while plants in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and Lansing, Michigan, are in the works.

    The announcement coincides with a visit to the United States by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. The two countries are marking the 70th anniversary of their alliance with a summit that was also feature announcements on new nuclear deterence efforts, cyber security and other areas of cooperation.

    Samsung was picked as the partner for the fourth plant after some Chevrolet Bolt batteries made by LG caught fire, forcing GM to recall about 142,000 vehicles due to a battery manufacturing problem. The recall cost GM about $1.9 billion, and the automaker said it was reimbursed for the cost by LG.

    “We will do our best to provide the products featuring the highest level of safety and quality produced with our unrivaled technologies to help GM strengthen its leadership in the EV market,” Samsung SDI President and CEO Yoon-ho Choi said in a statement.

    The new factory will have more than 30 gigawatt hours of capacity and will increase GM’s total U.S. battery cell capacity to about 160 gigawatt hours when it is at full production, the companies said.

    GM has pledged to sell only electric vehicles by 2035. It has said that because of its huge investment in battery plants and a North American EV supply chain, six of its current or upcoming electric vehicles are to be eligible for the full $7,500 U.S. federal EV tax credit. They are the Chevrolet Bolt and Bolt SUV, the Chevrolet Silverado electric pickup, the Cadillac Lyriq SUV and the upcoming Chevy Blazer and Equinox electric SUVs.

    Under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, EVs must be assembled in North America, and a certain percentage of their battery parts and minerals have to come from North America or a U.S. free trade partner to qualify for the full tax credit.

    Workers at the Ohio battery plant have voted to join the United Auto Workers union, which is pushing to organize the other factories and get top wages for the workers. Union officials have said they must organize the battery plants so that workers making engines and transmissions have a place to go when jobs making internal combustion vehicles are phased out.

    Electric vehicles have 30% to 40% fewer moving parts and require about 30% fewer labor hours to build them.

    ___

    In final paragraph, corrects sentence to say that electric vehicles have 30% to 40% fewer moving parts than gasoline vehicles. Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul contributed.

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  • As Israel turns 75, its flag unfurls into deep divisions

    As Israel turns 75, its flag unfurls into deep divisions

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    April 25, 2023 GMT

    TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (AP) — It’s become an unmistakable hallmark of the anti-government protests roiling Israel for the last few months: the country’s blue and white national flag adorned with the Star of David.

    To an outside observer, that may not be surprising, as the demonstrators say their struggle is over the very soul of the nation.

    For most Jewish Israelis, the flag has been a potent symbol of their foundational narrative — of a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust to build a modern-day miracle, with a strong military and at the forefront of technology.

    However, those protesting now say that the flag has increasingly been co-opted by nationalists claiming to have greater legitimacy to decide the country’s character and its future.

    As Israel marks 75 years since its creation, the protesters say they are turning that argument on its head by reclaiming the flag.

    As flags are strewn across the country to mark Independence Day on Wednesday — along avenues and down skyscrapers, on military bases and in West Bank settlement outposts — the fight over the flag on the milestone anniversary has laid bare the country’s divisions everywhere you look.

    With the protests awash in them, the flags have been a dominant image in the Israeli consciousness for months.

    The protests erupted after the country’s most right-wing government in history announced its planned judicial overhaul, which critics say would imperil Israel’s democratic fundamentals. The government claims it is meant to rein in what it portrays as an interventionist legal system. The plan has plunged Israel into one of its worst domestic crises, exposing deeply rooted divisions and sending tens of thousands of people into the streets each week, even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paused the overhaul because of the intense pressure.

    There are other disagreements over the flag. Many of the country’s Palestinian citizens, who make up one-fifth of Israel’s 9.7 million people, do not feel represented by the flag — one of the reasons they have not joined the anti-government protests. For Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, the flag is an emblem of a 56-year-old occupation that includes military control and increased settlement building, further dimming their hopes for an independent state. ___

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  • Vermont capital springs to life through poetry each April

    Vermont capital springs to life through poetry each April

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    MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — As spring starts to blossom in New England, some Vermont communities come to life with the sites and sounds of written verse.

    “These are the honey makers

    The maple sap tappers

    The pollen gatherers

    The elixirs healing the future

    from the spirits of the past,” a woman recited from a poem written by Buffy Aakaash, of Marshfield, Vermont, on Saturday during a poetry parade in Montpelier.

    Each April, the country’s smallest capital city goes all out to celebrate poetry. Storefronts and restaurant windows in Montpelier are graced with poems written by Vermonters of all ages, poets read their works aloud at events — some with musical accompaniments — and poetry workshops meet to discuss the artform. And this year the Montpelier library hosted a first: a poetry parade.

    “We do National Poetry Month better than anybody as far as we can see,” said PoemCity organizer Michelle Singer, the adult programs coordinator for the Kellogg Hubbard Library in the city of about 8,000 residents.

    This year, 350 poems written by residents of 60 Vermont towns are on display in downtown windows, and 30 poetry programs were planned.

    “It’s a walkable anthology that will stay up for the entire month of April and people just experience poetry as they go about their daily tasks in Montpelier,” she said.

    Other cities around the country celebrate National Poetry Month their own way. West Hollywood, California, is holding a poetry “spa day,” and selections of poetry from living poets are displayed on street pole banners along Santa Monica Boulevard. The New York Public Library has free workshops, and the winning poems from a contest in Alexandria, Virginia, are displayed on city buses and trolleys in April and May. In Vermont, two other communities — Randolph and St. Johnsbury — have followed Montpelier’s lead with their own readings and displays of poetry.

    The Academy of American Poets created National Poetry Month in 1996, saying it’s become “the largest literary celebration in the world.”

    “We can confirm that Montpelier’s PoemCity is one of the most extensive city-wide National Poetry Month celebrations,” said academy spokeswoman Michelle Campagna.

    On a drizzling opening day on April 1, Cynthia and Hugo Liepmann strolled around Montpelier reading poems.

    “I think it’s wonderful, but I’m biased because I love poetry,” said Cynthia Liepmann, who writes poetry herself and had a poem up in a storefront. “We were coming home from the farmers’ market so we thought, ‘Well, let’s stop and read some poems before we go home.’”

    They said they like reading works from people they know, pointing out a poem by their state representative to the legislature and remarking on poems written by elementary school students. This year about 100 of the poets are students.

    “It’s a real great demonstration of community literacy. It’s a great role model for little kids,” said poet Rick Agran. “They write their hearts and they publish in a window. We’ll see little groups of after-school girls and boys hit the candy store and then hit the street, and then they bop around and read poems.”

    This past Saturday morning during the so-called “poetry parade,” about a dozen poets walked around the city taking in the poetry as a group experience. At each window, one of them, sometimes the author, read a poem aloud. They clapped after hearing each one, remarking on technique and meaning. The subject matter ranged from love and war to elm trees and the salmon on the poet’s plate.

    “I’ve always done that singularly,” Agran, who led the parade, said of reading the poetry in the windows. “But I always thought it would be cool to try to turn that into a group experience.”

    Also a first for PoemCity, this year the poems have been published in an anthology. Singer said she is happy to see PoemCity back to nearly pre-pandemic levels.

    “There were some years where there was literally a program every single day, which is why I say we kind of do this in this amazing way,” she said. “We have a community that can support nearly a whole program of poetry every single day. That’s a special community. We will have people show up at all of those programs.”

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  • Ferry runs aground near Seattle; no injuries reported

    Ferry runs aground near Seattle; no injuries reported

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    SEATTLE (AP) — A passenger ferry carrying hundreds of people ran aground near Bainbridge Island west of Seattle on Saturday but there were no reports of injuries or contamination, authorities said.

    The Walla Walla ran aground in Rich Passage around 4:30 p.m. as it was traveling from the city of Bremerton to Seattle, according to Washington State Ferries, a division of the state Department of Transportation.

    “Initial indications are the vessel suffered a generator failure,” but investigators were still looking into what happened, the agency said.

    Passenger Haley Socha told The Seattle Times that the ferry’s lights went out about 20 minutes into the voyage and the engines stopped. The lights came back on after a minute and there was an alarm and an announcement saying the vessel had no propulsion and warning people to brace for impact.

    People helped one another as they donned life vests, Socha said.

    “Everybody’s been really nice and good to each other,” Socha told the Times.

    There were 596 passengers and 15 crew members aboard, according to ferries spokesperson Diane Rhodes. A tug boat and the Coast Guard were on the scene.

    “Vessel engineers believe tide will be at the right height to safely tow the boat at midnight. We apologize to passengers. Their safety is our first priority,” Washington State Ferries said via Twitter.

    Passengers were initially kept onboard. One passenger suffered a medical emergency unrelated to the grounding and necessitated an evacuation, the agency said.

    Around 8 p.m., Kitsap Transit began taking others off the boat, ferry officials said. The transit agency deployed two passenger-only vessels, the Commander and the Waterman, with respective capacities of 250 and 150 passengers, requiring multiple trips to the Walla Walla. Around 8:30, Kitsap Transit reported the Commander had delivered the first load of people to the slip at Bremerton.

    “We’re working on a plan for the vehicles onboard so passengers can retrieve them tomorrow,” Washington State Ferries said.

    A photo taken by a Coast Guard officer showed the Walla Walla near the shore as people looked at it from the beach and snapped pictures. A tug was positioned at one end of the ferry with an apparent Coast Guard boat nearby.

    “No pollution or hull damage detected at this time,” the state Department of Ecology reported. “Ecology responders on the way to the scene.”

    The Seattle-Bremerton route was out of service until further notice, the Department of Transportation said on its website.

    The website lists the Walla Walla as a four-engine, jumbo class ferry with a maximum capacity of 2,000 passengers and 188 vehicles. It is 440 feet (134 meters) in length with a draft of 18 feet (5.4 meters).

    The Walla Walla was constructed in 1973 in Seattle and rebuilt in 2003, according to the site.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.

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  • Foo Fighters plan summer album, first since drummer’s death

    Foo Fighters plan summer album, first since drummer’s death

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Foo Fighters have announced a new album is in the works, the first since the death of the band’s drummer, Taylor Hawkins.

    The rockers said in a statement that the upcoming 10-track “But Here We Are” will be “a brutally honest and emotionally raw response to everything Foo Fighters endured over the last year.”

    The lead, driving single is “Rescued,” with the lyrics “I’m just waiting to be rescued/Bring me back to life/Kings and queens and in-betweens/We all deserve the right.”

    The new album will be released June 2 and is produced by Greg Kurstin and Foo Fighters. Other titles include “Hearing Voices,” “Show Me How,” “Nothing At All” and “Rest,” the ending song.

    Hawkins died March 25, 2022, during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50.

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