Tag: United States government

How the Fed fights zombie firms

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Some firms sustain their businesses by taking on more debt that they can repay. Economists call them zombie companies. When compared to their peers, zombies are smaller in size and deliver lower returns to investors. These companies distort markets, keeping resources from their fundamentally sound competitors. Banks and governments keep zombie firms alive with bailout loans. As the Federal Reserve resets the economy with higher interest rates, many zombie firms are filing for bankruptcy.

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Tue, Oct 31 20236:00 AM EDT

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October 31, 2023
East Coast mayors call for more office-to-apartment conversions

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Mayors in cities across the U.S. want to loosen rules that can slow the pace of office-to-residential conversions. In some instances, cities have offered generous tax abatements to developers who build new housing.

“We have a great opportunity to change the uses in the downtown,” said Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser at a December 2022 news conference in support of her housing budget proposals.

“It’s absolutely a budget gimmick” said Erica Williams, executive director at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, referring to Bowser’s 2023 proposal to increase the downtown developer tax break. “We fully support the idea that some of these buildings could be turned into residential properties or into mixed-use properties, but that we don’t necessarily need to subsidize that.”

In New York City, a task force of planners assembled by Mayor Eric Adams is studying the effects of zoning changes, and possible abatements for developers who include affordable units in conversions.

Cities like Philadelphia have previously embraced these policies to revitalize their downtowns. In Philadelphia, homeowners and investors received more than $1 billion in tax breaks for their renovation projects.

A small collective of developers have taken on this challenging slice of the real estate business. Since 2000, 498 buildings have been converted in the U.S., creating 49,390 new housing units through the final quarter of 2022, according to real estate services firm CBRE.

Prominent investors Societe Generale and KKR have worked with developers like Philadelphia-based Post Brothers to finance institutional-scale office conversions in expensive central business districts.

“Capital has gotten much more limited,” said Michael Pestronk, CEO of Post Brothers. “We’re able to get financing today. … It is a lot more expensive than it was a year ago.”

Many experts believe local governments will alter zoning laws and building codes to make these conversions easier over the years.

“Our rules are in the way, and we need to fix that,” said Dan Garodnick, director of New York City’s Department of City Planning.

Watch the video above to learn how cities are getting developers to convert more offices into apartments.

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July 15, 2023
California utility pays $22 million to settle federal claims over 2016 wildfire

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California Edison and two other companies have paid $22 million to settle U.S. government claims that they caused a 2016 wildfire that burned thousands of acres of national forest, it was announced Friday.

The money covers damage from the Rey Fire as well as the costs of fighting the blaze, which was sparked by a fallen Edison power line, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

“This settlement will compensate the public for the expense of fighting the Rey Fire and restoring these federal lands that are enjoyed by all Americans,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph T. McNally said in a statement.

New York’s Lincoln Center is accustomed to hosting grand events, but Saturday’s was far from routine. There were bouquets everywhere.

Uzbekistan is holding a snap presidential election, a vote that follows a constitutional referendum that extended the incumbent’s term from five to seven years.

Fire crews continue to battle a blaze in a cargo ship docked at the East Coast’s biggest port, days after the blaze claimed the lives of two New Jersey firefighters and injured five others.

Hundreds of divers and snorkelers listened to an underwater concert that advocated coral reef protection in the Florida Keys.

The companies agreed to pay without admitting wrongdoing or fault, according to the DOJ.

The Aug. 18, 2016, fire north of Santa Barbara burned more than 50 square miles (129 square kilometers) of land, much of it in Los Padres National Forest.

The government said the fire began when a tree fell onto Edison power lines and communications lines owned by Frontier Communications. The government sued the two companies along with Utility Tree Service, a tree-trimming company that contracted with Edison, alleging that they knew of the danger and failed to maintain equipment or to take action to prevent it.

The parties later agreed to dismiss the suit and entered into a settlement, which was approved by the DOJ in May, with all of the money being received by this week, according to the department.

California utilities have been blamed for starting some of the state’s largest and deadliest wildfires in recent years through neglect of power lines and other equipment. That has prompted huge fines and settlement payments and even criminal charges.

In May, a judge dismissed all charges against Pacific Gas & Electric in connection to a 2020 fatal wildfire sparked by its equipment that destroyed hundreds of homes and killed four people, including an 8-year-old.

The utility also reached a $50 million settlement agreement with the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office.

Last year, former PG&E executives and directors agreed to pay $117 million to settle a lawsuit over devastating 2017 and 2018 wildfires sparked by the utility’s equipment.

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July 8, 2023
Judge’s order limits government contact with social media operators, raises disinformation questions

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An order by a federal judge in Louisiana has ignited a high-stakes legal battle over how the government is allowed to interact with social media platforms, raising broad questions about whether — and how — officials can fight what they deem misinformation on health or other matters.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a conservative nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, chose Independence Day to issue an injunction blocking multiple government agencies and administration officials. In his words, they are forbidden to meet with or contact social media companies for the purpose of “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The order also prohibits the agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies “in any manner” to try to suppress posts, raising questions about what officials could even say in public forums.

Vermont State Police say a burglary suspect who led police on a high-speed chase and crashed his truck into two police cruisers, killing a 19-year-old officer and injuring two others, will be arraigned Monday on charges related to the crash.

The leader of the conservative bloc in the European Parliament says his party will not cooperate with the far-right Alternative for Germany but is willing to work with Italy’s far-right premier to curb migration.

Sixteen-year-old Mirra Andreeva earned the final spot in the fourth round of Wimbledon in her first appearance at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.

The Defense Department says a U.S. drone strike has killed an Islamic State group leader in Syria. The military says the strike on Friday came hours after the same MQ-9 Reaper drones were harassed by Russian military jets over the western part of Syria.

Doughty’s order blocks the administration from taking such actions pending further arguments in his court in a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana.

The Justice Department file a notice of appeal and said it would also seek to try to stay the court’s order.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We certainly disagree with this decision.” She declined to comment further.

An administration official said there was some concern about the impact the decision would have on efforts to counter domestic extremism — deemed by the intelligence community to be a top threat to the nation — but that it would depend on how long the injunction remains in place and what steps platforms take on their own. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The lawsuit alleges that government officials used the possibility of favorable or unfavorable regulatory action to coerce social media platforms to squelch what the administration considered misinformation on a variety of topics, including COVID-19 vaccines, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and election integrity.

The injunction — and Doughty’s accompanying reasons saying the administration “seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’” — were hailed by conservatives as a victory for free speech and a blow to censorship.

Legal experts, however, expressed surprise at the breadth of the order, and questioned whether it puts too many limits on a presidential administration.

“When we were in the midst of the pandemic, but even now, the government has significantly important public health expertise,” James Speta, a law professor and expert on internet regulation at Northwestern University, said Wednesday. “The scope of the injunction limits the ability of the government to share public health expertise.”

The implications go beyond public health.

Disinformation researchers and social media watchdogs said the ruling could make social media companies less accountable to label and remove election falsehoods.

“As the U.S. gears up for the biggest election year the internet age has seen, we should be finding methods to better coordinate between governments and social media companies to increase the integrity of election news and information,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel of the digital rights advocacy group Free Press.

Social media companies routinely take down posts that violate their own standards, but they are rarely compelled to do so by the U.S. government.

Meta restricted access to 27 items that it thought violated laws in the U.S. during the first six months of 2020, most of them involving price-gouging allegations, according to its transparency report. But it reported no U.S.-specific content restrictions during 2021 or the first six months of 2022, the most recent data available.

By contrast, Meta restricted access to more than 17,000 social media posts in Mexico during the same period, most pertaining to unlawful advertising on risky cosmetic or dietary products, and more than 19,000 posts and comments in South Korea reported as violating national election rules.

Administration attorneys, in past court filings, have called the lawsuit an attempt to gag the free speech rights of administration officials themselves.

Justin Levitt, a law professor and constitutional law expert who is a former policy adviser to the Biden administration, said the order is unclear as to whether an official could even speak publicly to criticize misinformation on a social media platform.

Elizabeth Murrill, an assistant Louisiana attorney general, said Wednesday that the order doesn’t infringe on such public criticism, as long as the official doesn’t threaten government action against the platform.

Jennifer Grygiel, a communications professor and social media expert at Syracuse University, said Americans should resist the urge to dismiss the case as politically motivated and remain vigilant about the risks of federal encroachment on social media platforms.

“I’m more concerned that we’re lacking critique in the government’s intervention in these spaces,” Grygiel said. “We need, as a public, to be very critical of any attempts by a government, a federal actor, to censor speech through a corporate entity.”

Doughty has previously ruled against the Biden administration in other high-profile cases involving oil drilling and vaccination mandates.

In 2021 he issued a nationwide block of a Biden administration requirement that health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals trimmed the area covered by the order to 14 states that were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press Writer Zeke Miller in Washington also contributed to this report.

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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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July 7, 2023
In a polarized US, how to define a patriot increasingly depends on who’s being asked

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Millions of Americans will attend parades, fireworks and other Independence Day events on Tuesday, celebrating the courage of the nation’s 18th century patriots who fought for independence from Great Britain and what they considered an unjust government. Those events also will honor the military and those who sacrificed in other conflicts that helped preserve the nation’s freedom over its 247-year history.

That is only one version of a “patriot.” Today, the word and its variants have morphed beyond the original meaning. It has become infused in political rhetoric and school curriculums, with varying definitions, while being appropriated by white nationalist groups. Trying to define what a patriot is depends on who is being asked.

THE ORIGINAL PATRIOTS

While the word’s origins come from ancient Greece, its basic meaning in American history is someone who loves his or her country.

The original patriots come from the American Revolution, most often associated with figures such as Sam Adams and Benjamin Franklin. But enslaved people who advocated for abolition and members of native communities trying to recover or retain their sovereignty also saw themselves as patriots, said Nathaniel Sheidley, president and CEO of Revolutionary Spaces in Boston. The group runs the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, which played central roles in the revolution.

“They took part in the American Revolution. There were working people advocating for their voices to be heard in the political process,” Sheidley said.

The hallmark of patriotism then, he said, was “a sense of self-sacrifice, of caring more about one’s neighbors and fellow community members than one’s self.”

PATRIOTISM HAS HAD MORE THAN ONE MEANING

In some ways, the view of patriotism has always been on parallel tracks with civic and ethnic nationalism, historians say.

“Patriotism really depends on which American is describing himself as patriotic and what version or vision of the country they hold dear,” said Matthew Delmont, a historian at Dartmouth.

Opposition to government and dissent have been common features of how patriotism has been defined, he said. He cited the example of Black military members who fought in World War II and advocated for civil rights when they returned. They also saw themselves as patriots.

“Part of patriotism for them meant not just winning the war, but then coming home and trying to change America, trying to continue to fight for civil rights and to have actual freedom and democracy here in the United States,” Delmont said.

For many white Americans who see themselves as patriotic, “They’re thinking of other white Americans as the true definition of Americans,” Delmont said.

HOW THE DEFINITION HAS EVOLVED

Far-right and extremist groups have branded themselves with American motifs and the term “patriot” since at least the early 20th century, when the second Ku Klux Klan became known for the slogan “100% Americanism,” said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

By the 1990s, so many antigovernment and militia groups were using the term to describe themselves that watchdog groups referred to it as the “ Patriot movement.”

That extremist wave, which included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, faded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But many such groups resurfaced when Barack Obama became president, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which closely tracked the movement.

Since then, many right-wing groups have called themselves “patriots” as they’ve fought election processes, LGBTQ+ rights, vaccines, immigration, diversity programs in schools and more. Former President Donald Trump frequently refers to his supporters as “patriots.”

HOW WHITE NATIONALIST GROUPS USE IT

The term works as a branding tool because many Americans have a positive association with “patriot,” which hearkens back to the Revolutionary War soldiers who beat the odds to found the country, said Kurt Braddock, an American University professor and researcher at the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab.

One example is the white supremacist militia group Patriot Front, which researchers say uses patriotism as a sort of camouflage to hide racist and bigoted values. Some white nationalist groups may genuinely view themselves as pushing back against tyranny — even if in reality they are “very selective” about what parts of the Constitution they want to defend, Braddock said.

Gaines Foster, a historian at Louisiana State University, said patriotism at one point was seen as a civic nationalism that held the belief “that you’re an American because you believe in democracy, you believe in equality, you believe in opportunity. In other words, you believe certain things about the way the government works, and that’s a very inclusive vision.”

He said the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was the most dramatic example of how the view of patriotism has shifted in recent years, saying “people began to lean less toward a commitment to democracy and more to the notion in the Declaration of Independence that there is a ‘right of revolt,’ and that becomes patriotism.”

HOW PATRIOTISM GETS LINKED TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Bob Evnen has been active in Nebraska Republican politics for nearly 50 years and was instrumental a decade ago in enacting a requirement for the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited in schools. The measure doesn’t force students to participate, but does require schools to set aside time each class day for the pledge to be recited.

He pushed for the pledge policy to be included in the state’s social studies curriculum standards, despite criticism from some lawmakers and civil rights organizations who labeled it “forced patriotism.”

The intent, he said, is “to teach our children to become young patriots who have an intellectual understanding of the genius of this country and who feel an emotional connection to it.”

“Somewhere along the line, we lost that — to our detriment, I believe,” Evnen said.

Now Evnen is Nebraska’s secretary of state overseeing elections and he is sometimes the target of election conspiracy theorists — usually fellow Republicans. They have made unfounded accusations of election rigging across the country and often question his patriotism for disagreeing.

Evnen finds those accusations maddening. To him, patriotism is unifying around “the idea of liberty and freedom and of self-governance.” He said today’s national debate on what constitutes patriotism flies in the face of reason.

“They’re now just personal attacks in an effort to shut down debate,” he said. “Anyone who strays from orthodoxy is labeled unpatriotic.”

PATRIOTISM IS A HOT BUTTON IN SCHOOLS

In Idaho, Gov. Brad Little and Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield, both Republicans, announced in June that the state had purchased a new “patriotic” supplemental history curriculum that would be made available, free, to all public schools.

“It’s more important than ever that Idaho children learn the facts about American history from a patriotic standpoint,” Little wrote on Facebook. He said the lessons would help to “truly transform our students here in Idaho.”

Little’s office referred questions about the supplement to the state’s education department.

“The Story of America” curriculum was developed by conservative author and former Reagan-era education secretary Bill Bennett. In a 2021 press release, Bennett said the curriculum was needed because “an anti-American ideology that radically misrepresents U.S. history has infiltrated our education system and misled our kids.”

It’s difficult to compare the supplemental curriculum against the lessons that Idaho schools currently use because each district selects its own texts and lesson plans.

The new curriculum emphasizes that talking about American history and teaching the subject should be done with the intent to “cultivate a respect and love of your country,” Critchfield said.

“It’s not to change history, but to honor the history we had,” she said.

Democratic state Rep. Chris Mathias, a member of the House education committee, hasn’t seen the supplemental curriculum yet, but said history lessons should teach the good and the bad, and discuss — without shaming — the uncomfortable aspects of history.

Saying one curriculum is “patriotic” suggests that others currently in use are not, he said.

“I would really like to know if that’s true,” said Mathias, who previously served in the U.S. Coast Guard. “As a military veteran, I think a lot of people disagree on what it means to be devoted to America. I think a lot of people think that blind devotion is the same thing as patriotism. I don’t.”

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Fields reported from Washington, Beck from Omaha, Nebraska, and Boone from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writers Steve LeBlanc in Boston, and Linley Sanders and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

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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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July 4, 2023
The American flag wasn’t always revered as it is today. At the beginning, it was an afterthought

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the bedroom of the Betsy Ross House, a reconstruction of where the upholsterer worked on her most famous commission, a long flag with a circle of 13 stars hangs over a Chippendale side chair and extends across the floor. Over the weeks in 1776 needed to complete the project, Ross would have likely knelt on the flag, stood on it and treated it more like an everyday banner — not with the kind of reverence we’d expect today.

“She would not have worried about it touching the floor or violating any codes,” says Lisa Moulder, director of the Ross House. “The flag did not have any kind of special symbolism.”

Flags proliferate every July 4. But unlike the right to assemble or trial by jury, their role was not prescribed by the founders. They would have been rare during early Independence Day celebrations. Only in the mid-19th century does the U.S. flag become a permanent fixture at the White House, scholars believe; only in the mid-20th century was a federal code established for how it should be handled and displayed; only in the 1960s did Congress pass a law making it illegal to “knowingly” cast “contempt” on the flag.

The man accused in the fatal shooting spree in Philadelphia that left five people dead and four others wounded left a will at his house, and according to roommates had acted agitated and wore a tactical vest around his house in the days before the shooting, prosecutors said Wednesday.

A 40-year-old killed one man in a house before fatally shooting four others on the streets of a Philadelphia neighborhood, then surrendering along with a rifle, a pistol, extra magazines, a police scanner and a bulletproof vest, police said.

The “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty is looking to expand its efforts to elect school board candidates in 2024 and beyond, as well as get involved in other education races.

Through history, the Fourth of July has been a day for some presidents to declare their independence from the public.

The flag’s evolution into sacred national symbol, and the ongoing debates around it that inspire so much passion and anger, reflect the current events of a given moment and the country’s transformation from a loose confederation of states into a global superpower.

‘AN AFTERTHOUGHT’

“The flag was really an afterthought,” says Scot Guenter, author of “The American Flag, 1777-1924” and a professor emeritus of American Studies at San Jose State University. In the beginning, Guenter says, the Continental Congress was more concerned about developing a “Great Seal” because it was needed for papers it would issue.

Congress passed its first flag act on June 14, 1777: “Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.” But the flag is otherwise peripheral to the country’s beginnings.

A spokesman for Independence Hall in Philadelphia says no records exist of a U.S. flag being present for the signing of the Constitution in 1787, or any indications that a national flag would have flown during the following decade at what is now called Congress Hall — a decade when Philadelphia was the country’s capital. Researchers at George Washington’s home have no evidence that the flag was displayed there in his lifetime. (Volunteers there now regularly raise and lower U.S. flags, which are sold at the gift shop as having “flown over Mount Vernon”).

According to the White House Historical Association, no precise date exists for when the flag first had a permanent home at the presidential residence. Researchers at the historical association say the best guess is June 29, 1861, early in the Civil War, when President Lincoln dedicated a flagpole on the South Grounds.

The Civil War, followed by the country’s centennial in 1876, helped mythologize the flag. Americans were in the mood for a good story, and William J. Canby, grandson of Betsy Ross, had one. In a speech given to the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Canby drew upon family memories in narrating the quiet, heroic tale of Betsy Ross, who had died little known beyond her immediate community.

“As an example of industry, energy and perseverance, and of humble reliance upon providence, though all the trials, which were not few, of her eventful life, the name of Elizabeth Claypoole (her married name at the time of her death) is worthy of being placed on record for the benefit of those who should be similarly circumstanced,” Canby stated.

LEGEND OUTWEIGHS FACT

The Ross House bills itself as “the birthplace of the American Flag,” but its origins are uncertain. We have no definitive account. Many credit Francis Hopkinson, a congressman from New Jersey, but others, including Ross, may have added details — and, unlike the Declaration of Independence, we have no original artifact. Whether Ross or another produced the first one, its ultimate destination is unknown.

“We think it would have ended up on a ship mast, to signify that it was an American ship,” Moulder says.

Ross’ place in history also remains in question, even among government institutions. An essay entitled “The Legend of Betsy Ross,” on the website for the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, says her tale is “shrouded in as much legend as fact,” with no substantial evidence of her involvement. Says the museum: “While it makes for a nice story, sadly, it is most likely false.”

Ross, who died in 1836, left behind no diary or contemporary accounts of her whereabouts, officials at the Ross House acknowledge. But she was very much a real person who produced various flags before and after the alleged time she was approached by a commission that included George Washington and asked to sew a flag to represent the new country. Officials at the Ross house have no direct proof of Washington contacting Ross in 1776, but they note that a ledger unearthed in 2015 revealed Washington had engaged in business two years earlier with Ross and her husband and fellow upholster, John Ross.

“We know that Washington wanted the Rosses to make bedrooms curtains for his home in Mount Vernon,” Moulder says. “And curtains are the kind of job that Betsy would have taken on.”

As the country grew more nationalized and nationalistic, Ross was added to the early pantheon and the flag’s presence expanded like so much territory across the continent — into state ceremonies and buildings, sporting events, schools and private homes.

THE FLAG TAKES CENTER STAGE

In the midst of fierce labor battles and rising fears of immigration, the minister Francis Bellamy composed the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. It was tied to the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ landing but also, as historian Richard White has written, addressed “a time of intense social conflict in an increasingly diverse nation” and was intended ”as a hopeful affirmation of America’s future.”

Throughout the 20th century, regulations were proposed and enacted. The first national flag code was drafted in 1923 and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II, with recommendations on everything from how to salute the flag to how to carry it. In the mid-1950s, President Dwight Eisenhower endorsed legislation adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, a Cold War action with origins 20 years earlier.

“In the 1930s, you had conservatives arguing that the New Deal represented slavery and that the counterpoint was freedom under God,” says Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University whose books include “One Nation Under God,” published in 2015. “So there was a corporate-fueled drive against the regulatory state and it takes on religious tones. In the 1950s, that gets appropriated by the anti-communists.”

Burning American flags dates back at least to the Civil War. But only in July 1968, in response to Vietnam War protesters, did Congress pass legislation making it illegal (the Supreme Court overturned the ban in 1989) and adding other restrictions against “publicly mutilating” the flag. Three months later, the radical activist Abbie Hoffman was arrested for wearing a Stars and Stripes shirt, charges later dropped on appeal.

“He showed up in the shirt for a meeting of the House Committee on Un-American Activities,” says Mark Kurlansky, author of “1968: The Year That Rocked the World,” a social history. “He just thought it would be funny.”

Last month, the Biden administration hosted a Pride Day gathering on the White House South Lawn and hung a Pride Progress flag between U.S. flags on the Truman balcony. Rep. Mike Collins, a Georgia Republican, denounced the prominence of an “alphabet cult battle flag.” Other Republicans alleged that Biden officials had broken federal regulations, which call for the American flag to be “at the center and at the highest point” when grouped with other flags. Defenders of Biden noted that a U.S. flag was flying above from atop the White House.

“The flag is so important because it helps define what we believe in. You have Democrats and Republicans trying to attach meaning to it,” Guenter says. “The flag can intersect with issues of gender and race and sexuality. There’s so much there to think about, and it reveals so much about who we are.”

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July 4, 2023
Drag queens are out, proud and loud in a string of coal towns, from a bingo hall to blue-collar bars

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SHAMOKIN, Pa. (AP) — Deep in Pennsylvania coal country, the Daniels drag family is up to some sort of exuberance almost every weekend.

They’re hosting sold-out bingo fundraisers at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Co.’s social hall, packed with people of all ages howling with laughter and singing along. Or they’re lighting up local blue-collar bars and restaurants with Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunches for bridal parties, members of the military, families and friends.

Or they’re reading in gardens to children dressed in their Sunday best — Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” is a favorite book for performers and kids alike.

In a string of towns running along a coal seam, the sparkle of small-town drag queens and kings colors a way of life rooted in soot, family and a conservative understanding of the world.

Here two very old traditions mingle — and mostly happily, it seems, in contrast to the fierce political winds ripping at drag performances and the broader rights of LGBTQ+ people in red states from Utah and Texas to Tennessee and Florida.

One tradition is the view of family as mom, dad and kids, plain and simple.

The other, back to before Shakespearian times, is drag, a loud, proud and seismically flamboyant artistic expression of gender fluidity. Not plain, not simple, but also bedrock, rising above ground only in culturally adventurous cities.

Yet the Daniels drag family is firmly woven in the fabric of the larger community in this area, where voters went solidly for Donald Trump, a Republican, in the last election. Their trouble is more apt to come from politicians who are increasingly passing laws restricting what they can do.

Alexus Daniels, the matriarch, was the child of a coal miner and a textile worker who was “born with a female spirit.” She works at the local hospital as an MRI aide tech.

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, wearing a Diana Ross T-shirt, removes makeup for the ride home after performing at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. Alexus removed makeup to pump gas without drawing unwelcome attention. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels reads “My Little Golden Book About Dolly Parton” to children at “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., in the garden at the Pink Moon Collective, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels reads “Coat of Many Colors” by Dolly Parton to children, their families, and friends at “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., in the garden at the Pink Moon Collective, Saturday, May 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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The audience sings along and holds up cash tips for drag queen Alexus Daniels at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, dressed as Tina Turner, is reflected in a makeup mirror as she counts tips in the dressing area during the “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels, dressed as Dolly Parton, poses for selfie photos with audience members as she performs at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Drag queen Alexus Daniels is reflected in a mirror applying makeup, or “painting” at home in Coal Township, Pa., Saturday, May 6, 2023. Alexus is preparing for her first “Drag Storytime!” in Mt. Carmel, Pa., at the Pink Moon Collective to read “My Little Golden Book About Dolly Parton” and “Coat of Many Colors” to children, family, and friends. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jacob Kelley, who performs as drag queen Trixy Valentine, is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a master’s in human sexuality.

Harpy Daniels, Trixy’s twin, is a U.S. Navy sailor who’s had three deployments on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Soon that seaman, Petty Officer 1st Class Joshua Kelley, who just reenlisted, moves from a base in Norfolk, Virginia, to one in Spain, with plans to pack a wig “and maybe one or two cute outfits but nothing over the top” for Harpy-style shore leave.

Apart from the twins, the drag performers in this circle are family by choice, not genes. Theirs is an oasis of belonging.

“I never had a person like me growing up,” Trixy said, “and now I get to be that for everyone else.

“There was a curse being a queer person in a rural town — the curse is that we’ll move … because there’s no one like us here, there’s no one that can understand us.

“And drag now can be a place or a thing to show people like you that you don’t have to go to the cities. It’s here in your backyard.”

The Associated Press followed the Daniels family for more than a year. Among them:

Drag queen Alexus Daniels lip-syncs to “Heart of Glass” by Blondie as she sits on the lap of a smiling and consenting audience member and others take photos during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Daniels, the drag family matriarch, was the child of a coal miner and textile worker who was “born with a female spirit.” She works at the local hospital as an MRI aide tech. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Alexus Daniels, drag queen

Daniels’ first memory is of her great-grandmother’s jewelry box. With Cyndi Lauper and the Pointer Sisters blasting, she would wrap herself in knitted blankets to lip-sync and dance for her family. “I had no idea that it was drag or gay,” she says. “I was just having a day!”

Alexus hit high school and upped her Halloween game. She soon entered her first drag performance in the small Pennsylvania coal town of Weishample.

“I still was not out at this point,” Alexus says. “I wasn’t even sure if I was gay. I knew I was attracted to boys and loved all things feminine! I kept this side of me to myself and my best friends growing up, who really didn’t see anything strange about it.”

Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, performs to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by the Charlie Daniels Band during the “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. Kelley is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a masters in human sexuality. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, drag queen

In their teens, Joshua was the first to turn to drag. Jacob started about six months later, in a white Marilyn Monroe dress at an amateur pageant in 2014.

Trixy’s drag style is eclectic, but whether silly or fierce, there’s glitter: “I just want to shine when the light hits me.”

“I came out as non-binary a few years ago because I started learning, like, what do I love so much about drag?” Kelley says. “It’s that femininity, that so-simple touch.”

“I’m not a man,” Kelley says. “I never will see myself as a man. And I don’t see myself as a woman, either. But I see myself as beyond that.”

In March, the Daniels drag family hosted bingo at the Nescopeck fire hall, packed with more than 300 people in a fund-raiser for a nearby theater.

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine’s eye makeup of fake lashes, rhinestones and glitter is reflected in a bathroom mirror at the Washington Marriott Georgetown, in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Trixy, aka Jacob Kelley, and twin Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, are performing at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar across town. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, in a red wig and finished makeup at the Washington Marriott Georgetown, in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. Trixy and twin Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, are performing at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar across town. Kelley is an LGBTQ+ activist and educator with a masters in human sexuality. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, dresses in a side storage room during the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, pauses before entering to perform her drag story mix at a “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, cries in the arms of DJ Corrine after performing their drag story mix at a “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023. Trixy’s emotional performance received a standing ovation. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, brings wigs and a suitcase full of outfits to the car after performing at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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A small group of protesters could be watched on social media from the bingo hall, holding signs and praying the rosary across from the theater. Trixy addressed the bingo crowd.

“There’s hundreds of us in this room and only nine of them on that street,” Trixy said. “So all I have to say is I don’t care what you believe in. But do not force it down my throat and tell me I shouldn’t be here because you think I’m wrong.

“The Lord gave birth to me, too.”

Trixy was in a long blue wig and Morgan Wells catsuit with an overskirt, a raised fist in the colors of the Pride flag on the chest.

“Alright, let’s call some numbers!” Trixy said. “Let’s play some bingo!” The crowd cheered.

Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, U.S. Navy petty officer first class, drag queen

A waitress pauses with plates of food as drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, poses for a photograph taken by Ryan Geiger, right, before the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. A petty officer first class, Kelley was named a “digital ambassador” by the U.S. Navy to do outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Until 2011, the armed forces applied the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which accepted LGBTQ+ people only if they stayed mum about their sexual orientation.

But after Kelley enlisted in 2016, he encountered the opposite — call it “ask and tell.” A commander asked what pronoun they prefer. Joshua, relieved by the acceptance implied by the question, told him any pronoun will do.

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka U.S. Navy Yeoman 1st Class Joshua Kelley, wraps their head and short Navy haircut in duct tape to use as an anchor for bobby pins to secure a wig to perform at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniel, aka Joshua Kelley, performs at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, mingles between songs at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, collects tips from a cheering audience during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Performances by the drag family are popular in bars, restaurants, bingo halls and garden parties in this slice of coal country even as politicians act to restrict them. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag brunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag brunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Drag queen Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, applies hairspray before leaving the dressing area to perform at the Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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Now, the sailor is a social media sensation who was named a “digital ambassador” by the Navy, doing outreach to the LGBTQ+ community and others who have been marginalized: “I’m very proud to wear this uniform.”

Cash tips are stuffed into the bustier of drag queen Kitty DeVil’s, aka Emily Poliniak, as she performs at “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Kitty DeVil, aka Emily Poliniak, drag queen

Kitty, a trans woman, describes her drag style as “punk and a lot of storytelling.” Her inspiration: Adore Delano, a 2014 finalist on “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”

“She was what I wanted to be — this badass punker chick looking gorgeous without sacrificing her style,” Kitty says.

Kitty says her performances are high-energy fun but also “a lighthouse.”

“Because even in our LGBTQ community, there are outcasts and people who don’t feel like they’re like anybody else,” Kitty says. “So I wanted to make a beacon for all those people who feel weird and feel different and can’t really find their place in society.”

Drag king Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, performs during the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, drag king

More than a decade after she was transfixed by seeing her first drag show, Xander was invited by Trixy to join the drag family.

Xander has an energetic, family-friendly side as well as a sexy, sultry side. Confusing people about gender is intentional, a barrier-breaker.

“I try to create a consistent theme of masculinity in my performances,” Xander says. “Although I paint my face, wear wigs and adorn myself with rhinestones, I usually perform to songs sung by men and tailor my costumes more toward suits and ties.

“My personal goal as a king is to have the audience question my off-stage gender identity.”

Why? It’s to convey the message, Xander says, that “it’s OK to not immediately know how a person identifies or who they are attracted to, and still be kind to them.

“It’s OK to accept someone as different, even if you don’t fully understand it.”

Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Lynn Berry contributed to this report from Washington.

Drag queen Tequila Daniels, aka Tony Nahodil, poses for a photograph before the “Daniels Family Values” drag show at the Heritage Restaurant in Shamokin, Pa., Saturday, April 16, 2022. Tequila talks about her drag daughters, “I was lucky to befriend and become the drag mother of the most talented and humble girls I know, Harpy Daniels and Trixy Valentine. It took me a while to find someone who showed they had the drive, the talent, and still able to be humble. My goal is for everyone in the Daniels family to never forget our roots.” (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Baby Angel, performs a “death drop” during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Baby Angel, performs a “death drop” during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Javon Love, right, performs with Baby Angel, doing the splits, during “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Sweet Pickles performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Carlos Ova-Dupree performs during the “Mimosas & Heels Drag Brunch” at the Public House, Sunday, March 5, 2023, in Norfolk, Va. The drag bunch was hosted by Harpy Daniels and Javon Love. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) –
Carolyn Kaster/AP

Ticket holders line up before the doors open for the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

From left, Tequila Daniels, aka Tony Nahodil; Alexus Daniels; Kitty DeVil, aka Emily Poliniak, and Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, talk to the audience during “Spring Fever Drag Brunch,” Sunday, March 26, 2023, at the Kulpmont Winery in Kulpmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Ryan Geiger holds a rainbow “Love is Love” fan as drag queens Harpy Daniels, aka Joshua Kelley, left, and twin Trixy Valentine, aka Jacob Kelley, right, prepare to perform at Rainbow Special Interest Group of NAFSA: Association of International Educators reception at Pitchers and a League of Her Own bar in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Drag king Xander Valentine, aka Gwen Bobbie, performs “The Greatest Show” from the movie “The Greatest Showman” for the sold-out “Drag Bingo” fundraiser at the Nescopeck Township Volunteer Fire Company Social Hall, in Nescopeck, Pa., Saturday, March 18, 2023, to raise money for a new roof for the Berwick Theater and Center for Community Arts, in Berwick, Pa. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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July 4, 2023
FBI and Homeland Security ignored ‘massive amount’ of intelligence before Jan. 6, Senate report says

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security downplayed or ignored “a massive amount of intelligence information” ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S Capitol, according to the chairman of a Senate panel that on Tuesday is releasing a new report on the intelligence failures ahead of the insurrection.

The report details how the agencies failed to recognize and warn of the potential for violence as some of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters openly planned the siege in messages and forums online.

Among the multitude of intelligence that was overlooked was a December 2020 tip to the FBI that members of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys planned to be in Washington, D.C., for the certification of Joe Biden’s victory and their “plan is to literally kill people,” the report said. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said the agencies were also aware of many social media posts that foreshadowed violence, some calling on Trump’s supporters to “come armed” and storm the Capitol, kill lawmakers or “burn the place to the ground.”

The special counsel who investigated the FBI’s probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign found himself at the center of a heated political fight as he appeared before a congressional committee.

An American missionary who spent six years in captivity in Africa says he was beaten, locked in chains and pressured repeatedly to convert to Islam.

The Biden administration is releasing what it says are newly declassified examples of how U.S. surveillance programs are used.

As Donald Trump readies for a momentous court appearance Tuesday on charges related to the hoarding of top-secret documents, Republican allies are amplifying, without evidence, claims that he’s the target of a political prosecution.

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Homeland panel, said the breakdown was “largely a failure of imagination to see threats that the Capitol could be breached as credible,” echoing the findings of the Sept. 11 commission about intelligence failures ahead of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The report by the panel’s majority staff says the intelligence community has not entirely recalibrated to focus on the threats of domestic, rather than international, terrorism. And government intelligence leaders failed to sound the alarm “in part because they could not conceive that the U.S. Capitol Building would be overrun by rioters.”

Still, Peters said, the reasons for dismissing what he called a “massive” amount of intelligence “defies an easy explanation.”

While several other reports have examined the intelligence failures around Jan. 6 — including a bipartisan 2021 Senate report, the House Jan. 6 committee last year and several separate internal assessments by the Capitol Police and other government agencies — the latest investigation is the first congressional report to focus solely on the actions of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

In the wake of the attack, Peters said the committee interviewed officials at both agencies and found what was “pretty constant finger pointing” at each other.

“Everybody should be accountable because everybody failed,” Peters said.

Using emails and interviews collected by the Senate committee and others, including from the House Jan. 6 panel, the report lays out in detail the intelligence the agencies received in the weeks ahead of the attack.

There was not a failure to obtain evidence, the report says, but the agencies “failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners.”

As Trump, a Republican, falsely claimed he had won the 2020 election and tried to overturn his election defeat, telling his supporters to “ fight like hell ” in a speech in front of the White House that day, thousands of them marched to the Capitol. More than 2,000 rioters overran law enforcement, assaulted police officers, and caused more than $2.7 billion in damage to the Capitol, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report earlier this year.

Breaking through windows and doors, the rioters sent lawmakers running for their lives and temporarily interrupted the certification of the election victory by Biden, a Democrat.

Even as the attack was happening, the new report found, the FBI and Homeland Security downplayed the threat. As the Capitol Police struggled to clear the building, Homeland Security “was still struggling to assess the credibility of threats against the Capitol and to report out its intelligence.”

And at a 10 a.m. briefing as protesters gathered at Trump’s speech and near the Capitol were “wearing ballistic helmets, body armor, carrying radio equipment and military grade backpacks,” the FBI briefed that there were “no credible threats at this time.”

The lack of sufficient warnings meant that law enforcement were not adequately prepared and there was not a hardened perimeter established around the Capitol, as there is during events like the annual State of the Union address.

The report contains dozens of tips about violence on Jan. 6 that the agencies received and dismissed either due to lack of coordination, bureaucratic delays or trepidation on the part of those who were collecting it. The FBI, for example, was unexpectedly hindered in its attempt to find social media posts planning for Jan. 6 protests when the contract for its third-party social media monitoring tool expired. At Homeland Security, analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence after criticism in 2020 for collecting intelligence on American citizens during racial justice demonstrations.

One tip received by the FBI ahead of the Jan. 6 attack was from a former Justice Department official who sent screenshots of online posts from members of the Oath Keepers extremist group: “There is only one way in. It is not signs. It’s not rallies. It’s f—— bullets!”

The social media company Parler, a favored platform for Trump’s supporters, directly sent the FBI several posts it found alarming, adding that there was “more where this came from” and that they were concerned about what would happen on Jan. 6.

”(T)his is not a rally and it’s no longer a protest,” read one of the Parler posts sent to the FBI, according to the report. “This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. (…) don’t be surprised if we take the #capital (sic) building.”

But even as it received the warnings, the Senate panel found, the agency said over and over again that there were no credible threats.

“Our nation is still reckoning with the fallout from January 6th, but what is clear is the need for a reevaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes,” the new report says.

In a statement, Homeland Security spokesperson Angelo Fernandez said that the department has made many of those changes two and a half years later. The department “has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

The FBI said in a separate response that since the attack it has increased focus on “swift information sharing” and centralized the flow of information to ensure more timely notification to other entities. “The FBI is determined to aggressively fight the danger posed by all domestic violent extremists, regardless of their motivations,” the statement said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has defended the FBI’s handling of intelligence in the run-up to Jan. 6, including a report from its Norfolk field office on Jan. 5 that cited online posts foreshadowing the possibility of a “war” in Washington the following day. The Senate report noted that the memo “did not note the multitude of other warnings” the agency had received.

The faultfinding with the FBI and Homeland Security Department echoes the blistering criticism directed at U.S. Capitol Police in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Homeland and Rules committees two years ago. That report found that the police intelligence unit knew about social media posts calling for violence, as well, but did not inform top leadership what they had found.

Peters says he asked for the probe of the intelligence agencies after other reports, such as the House panel’s investigation last year, focused on other aspects of the attack. The Jan. 6 panel was more focused on Trump’s actions, and concluded in its report that the former president criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.

“It’s important for us to realize these failures to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Peters said.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

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June 27, 2023
Suspected admin of dark web drug site Monopoly Market extradited to US from Austria

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BERLIN (AP) — Austrian authorities said Monday they have extradited the suspected administrator of a vast dark web marketplace for drugs and other illicit goods to the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice has accused Milomir Desnica of running the Monopoly Market site and facilitating $18 million in illegal drug transactions using cryptocurrencies.

Authorities in the U.S. and Europe last month announced the arrest of nearly 300 people on both sides of the Atlantic and the seizure of more than $53 million in a bust of the site, which was the largest operation of its kind. The dark web is a part of the internet that is hosted within an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized anonymity-providing tools.

Austria’s main center-left opposition party has reversed the result of its weekend leadership election, announcing that a computer error originally led to the wrong candidate being declared the winner.

An Austrian federal court says the state can’t be held liable for a COVID-19 infection from an outbreak at an Alpine ski resort as the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe The Supreme Court of Justice on Thursday announced its verdict in a long-running legal battle involving a German resident who travele

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer conducted her second international trade mission of the year this week, spending two days in Austria and Latvia meeting with both business and government leaders.

Jessica Pegula sent the U.S. into the Billie Jean King Cup finals with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Julia Grabher of Austria.

Desnica, a citizen of Croatia and Serbia, was arrested in Vienna last November and handed over to U.S. authorities Friday, Austria’s Federal Criminal Police said.

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June 26, 2023
High-speed internet is a necessity, President Biden says, pledging all US will have access by 2030

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday said that high-speed internet is no longer a luxury but an “absolute necessity,” as he pledged that every household in the nation would have access by 2030 using cables made in the U.S.

“These investments will help all Americans,” he said. “We’re not going to leave anyone behind.”

Biden announced that more than $40 billion would be distributed across the country to deliver high-speed internet in places where there’s either no service, or service is too slow.

The United States has flown nuclear-capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula in its latest show of force against North Korea.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says a request for his country to temporarily host a U.S. immigrant visa processing center for thousands of Afghans faces security and other concerns but is still being considered by his administration.

The United States is about to start the countdown to its 250th anniversary. The buildup begins this July 4 at a Major League Baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs at American Family Field in Milwaukee, where the organization created by Congress to oversee the party will ki

The Pell Grant program is about to expand exponentially next month, giving about 30,000 more students behind bars some $130 million in financial aid per year.

“But it’s not enough to have access — you need affordability and access,” the president said, adding that his administration is working with service providers to bring down costs on what is now a household utility — like water or gas — but often remains priced at a premium.

With Monday’s announcement, the administration is launching the second phase of its “Investing in America” tour. The three-week blitz of speeches and events is designed to promote Biden’s previous legislative wins on infrastructure, the economy and climate change going into a reelection year. The president and his advisers believe voters don’t know enough about his policies heading into his 2024 reelection campaign and that more voters would back him once they learn more.

Biden’s challenge is that investments in computer chips and major infrastructure projects such as rail tunnels can take a decade to come to fruition. That leaves much of the messaging focused on grants that will be spent over time, rather than completed projects.

The internet access funding amounts depended primarily on the number of unserved locations in each jurisdiction or those locations that lack access to internet download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second download and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. Download speeds involve retrieving information from the internet, including streaming movies and TV. Upload speeds determine how fast information travels from a computer to the internet, like sending emails or publishing photos online.

The funding includes more than $1 billion each for 19 states, with remaining states falling below that threshold. Allotments range from $100.7 million for Washington, D.C., to $3.3 billion for Texas.

Biden said more than 35,000 projects are already funded or underway to lay cable that provides internet access. Some of those are from $25 billion in initial funding as part of the “American Rescue Plan.”

“High-speed internet isn’t a luxury anymore,” he said. “It’s become an absolute necessity.”

More than 7% of the country falls in the underserved category, according to the Federal Communications Commission ‘s analysis.

Sen. Joe Manchin, who Biden called out as a “friend” during today’s announcement, celebrated the $1.2 billion West Virginia will receive to expand service in the rural, mountainous state of around 1.8 million.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo joined Manchin at a press conference after Biden’s announcement and said West Virginia’s allotment would be enough money to “finally connect every resident.”

“When I say everyone, I mean everyone,” she said. Raimondo said the reason that hasn’t happened in the past is because it’s expensive to lay fiber in a rural or mountainous area.

“And so the internet providers haven’t done it — it doesn’t make economic sense for them,” she said. “What we’re saying to them now is, ‘With this money, $1.2 billion to connect about 300,000 folks in West Virginia, it is plenty of money to get to everyone.’”

Congress approved the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, along with several other internet expansion initiatives, through the infrastructure bill Biden signed in 2021.

Earlier this month, the Commerce Department announced winners of middle mile grants, which will fund projects that build the midsection of the infrastructure necessary to extend internet access to every part of the country.

States have until the end of the year to submit proposals outlining how they plan to use that money, which won’t begin to be distributed until those plans are approved. Once the Commerce Department signs off on those initial plans, states can award grants to telecommunications companies, electric cooperatives and other providers to expand internet infrastructure.

Under the rules of the program, states must prioritize connecting predominantly unserved areas before bolstering service in underserved areas—which are those without access to internet speeds of 100 Mbps/20 Mbps—and in schools, libraries or other community institutions.

Hinging such a large investment on FCC data has been somewhat controversial. Members of Congress pressed FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel about inaccuracies they said would negatively impact rural states’ allotments in particular, and state broadband officials were concerned about the short timeline to correct discrepancies in the first version of the map.

The second version of the map, which was released at the end of May and used for allotments, reflects the net addition of 1 million locations, updated data from internet service providers and the results of more than 3 million public challenges, Rosenworcel, who in the past has been a critic of how the FCC’s maps were developed, said in a May statement.

___

AP reporter Leah Willingham contributed from Charleston, West Virginia.

Harjai, who reported from Los Angeles, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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June 26, 2023
Leaked documents a ‘very serious’ risk to security: Pentagon

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The online leaks of scores of highly classified documents about the Ukraine war present a “very serious” risk to national security, and senior leaders are quickly taking steps to mitigate the damage, a top Pentagon spokesman said Monday. And as the public airing of the data sends shockwaves across the U.S. government, the White House said there are concerns there could be additional leaks.

Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, told reporters that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin first became aware on Thursday that a number of classified briefing slides detailing the U.S. military efforts in the Ukraine war and intelligence involving other nations were leaked.

In the days since, Austin has reached out to allies, held daily meetings to assess the damage and set up a group not only to assess the scope of the information lost but review who has access to those briefings. The department is looking closely at “how this type of information is distributed and to whom,” Meagher said.

A defense official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters said the Pentagon has now taken steps to reduce the number of people who have access to those briefings. The official said the Pentagon regularly reviews access lists to weigh who has a need to know and have access to classified material.

At the White House, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby was asked if the U.S. was bracing for more online releases.

“The truth and the honest answer to your question is: We don’t know,” he said. “And is that a matter of concern to us? You’re darn right it is.”

Kirby said at this point, “we don’t know who’s behind this, we don’t know what the motive is.”

And he said as U.S. authorities go through the documents that were posted online, they are still trying to determine their validity, but have found that at least some of the papers “have been doctored.”

He and others would not go into detail, but at least one of the documents shows estimates of Russian troops deaths in the Ukraine war that are significantly lower than numbers publicly stated by U.S. officials. Under a section titled “Total Assessed Losses,” one document lists 16,000-17,500 Russian casualties and up to 71,000 Ukrainian casualties. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said publicly last November that Russia has lost “well over” 100,000 soldiers, and Ukraine had lost about that many also. And those estimates have continued to climb in recent months, although officials have stopped providing more exact numbers.

At the State Department, spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters Monday that U.S. officials “are engaging with allies and partners at high levels over this, including to reassure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and the fidelity of securing our partnerships.”

The U.S. officials declined to provide any specifics, including about the expanse of the release, how it happened and to which country leaders the U.S. has spoken. Patel added that there is “no question” the documents’ release present a risk to national security.

Investigators who specialize in tracking social media, including at the journalism organization Bellingcat, say the documents may have been circulating for months in private internet chats on the Discord discussion platform. Asked if the Pentagon has contacted Discord, Meagher referred questions to the Justice Department, which has opened a criminal investigation into the leaks.

The slides, which eventually were distributed on more mainstream sites such as Twitter, detail U.S. training and equipment schedules to support Ukraine, assessments of losses, what the U.S. is monitoring on key allies and strategic partners, and what moves Russia may be taking to undermine those relationships.

While the Pentagon has been careful not to authenticate the information contained in any specific document, overall “they present a very serious risk to national security and have the potential to spread disinformation,” said Meagher. “We’re being very careful and watching where this is being posted and amplified.”

The documents are labeled secret and top secret and in some cases resemble routine updates that the U.S. military’s Joint Staff would produce daily but not distribute publicly.

_____ Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant, Matthew Lee and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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April 11, 2023
Biden ends COVID national emergency after Congress acts

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. national emergency to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ended Monday as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan congressional resolution to bring it to a close after three years — weeks before it was set to expire alongside a separate public health emergency.

The national emergency allowed the government to take sweeping steps to respond to the virus and support the country’s economic, health and welfare systems. Some of the emergency measures have already been successfully wound-down, while others are still being phased out. The public health emergency — it underpins tough immigration restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border — is set to expire on May 11.

The White House issued a one-line statement Monday saying Biden had signed the measure behind closed doors, after having publicly opposed the resolution though not to the point of issuing a veto. More than 197 Democrats in the House voted against it when the GOP-controlled chamber passed it in February. Last month, as the measure passed the Senate by a 68-23 vote, Biden let lawmakers know he would sign it.

The administration said once it became clear that Congress was moving to speed up the end of the national emergency it worked to expedite agency preparations for a return to normal procedures. Among the changes: The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s COVID-19 mortgage forbearance program is set to end at the end of May, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now returning to a requirement for in-home visits to determine eligibility for caregiver assistance.

Legislators last year did extend for another two years telehealth flexibilities that were introduced as COVID-19 hit, leading health care systems around the country to regularly deliver care by smartphone or computer.

More than 1.13 million people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 over the last three years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 1,773 people in the week ending April 5.

Then-President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31, 2020, and Trump declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency that March. The emergencies have been repeatedly extended by Biden since he took office in January 2021, and he broadened the use of emergency powers after entering the White House.

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April 11, 2023
Maine Mom: School wrong to help, hide gender transition

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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A Maine woman is suing a school district whose counselor encouraged her teen’s social gender transition, providing a chest binder and using a new name and pronouns, without consulting parents.

It’s the latest lawsuit to pit a parent’s right to supervise their children’s health and education against a minor’s right to privacy when confiding in a mental health professional. A similar lawsuit filed in California was working its way through the courts earlier this year. In Massachusetts, parents are suing a middle school for not telling them their two pre-teens were using different names and pronouns.

The federal lawsuit in Maine argues the mother of the 13-year-old student has a “right to control and direct the care, custody, education, upbringing and healthcare decisions of her children,” and that Great Salt Bay Community School violated her constitutional right by keeping gender-affirming treatments from parents.

Civil rights advocates have argued in other cases that schools must protect student privacy including their gender identity and sexuality under federal law, and that counselors need to be able to keep conversations with students confidential if they want to maintain trust.

Administrators at the Maine school add that confidentiality requirements have prevented them from responding to “a grossly inaccurate and one-sided story” that began circulating on social media. The superintendent didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday.

Amber Lavigne, of Newcastle, Maine, filed the lawsuit after being unsatisfied with the school’s response after she became concerned by the discovery of the chest binder in her child’s belongings in December. The compression clothing allows people to better conceal their breasts under clothing.

Lavigne’s child told her that a school counselor provided the chest binder at the school and provided instruction on how to use it, according to the lawsuit. The mother also says the school was also calling her child by a different name and pronouns.

The Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based conservative and libertarian think tank, is lead counsel on the lawsuit filed Tuesday. It argues the Maine mother’s rights trump state statute allowing school counselors to keep information private.

Along with legislation banning surgical and pharmacological gender-affirming care, Republicans have also pushed so-called parental rights legislation demanding transparency from schools. A 2022 Arizona law expands the rights of parents to know anything their children tell a teacher or school counselor.

“I deserve to know what’s happening to my child. The secrecy needs to stop,” said Lavigne, who is now homeschooling her teenager, in a statement released by the institute.

___

Follow David Sharp on Twitter @David_Sharp_AP

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April 9, 2023
Biden says tech companies must ensure AI products are safe

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday it remains to be seen if artificial intelligence is dangerous, but that he believes technology companies must ensure their products are safe before releasing them to the public.

Biden met with his council of advisers on science and technology about the risks and opportunities that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence pose for individual users and national security.

“AI can help deal with some very difficult challenges like disease and climate change, but it also has to address the potential risks to our society, to our economy, to our national security,” Biden told the group, which includes academics as well as executives from Microsoft and Google.

Artificial intelligence burst to the forefront in the national and global conversation in recent months after the release of the popular ChatGPT AI chatbot, which helped spark a race among tech giants to unveil similar tools, while raising ethical and societal concerns about technology that can generate convincing prose or imagery that looks like it’s the work of humans.

While tech companies should always be responsible for the safety of their products, Biden’s reminder reflects something new — the emergence of easy-to-use AI tools that can generate manipulative content and realistic-looking synthetic media known as deepfakes, said Rebecca Finlay, CEO of the industry-backed Partnership on AI.

The White House said the Democratic president was using the AI meeting to “discuss the importance of protecting rights and safety to ensure responsible innovation and appropriate safeguards” and to reiterate his call for Congress to pass legislation to protect children and curtail data collection by technology companies.

Italy last week temporarily blocked ChatGPT over data privacy concerns, and European Union lawmakers have been negotiating the passage of new rules to limit high-risk AI products across the 27-nation bloc.

By contrast, “the U.S. has had more a laissez-faire approach to the commercial development of AI,” said Russell Wald, managing director of policy and society at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Biden’s Tuesday remarks won’t likely change that, but Biden “is setting the stage for a national dialogue on the topic by elevating attention to AI, which is desperately needed,” Wald said.

The Biden administration last year unveiled a set of far-reaching goals aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of AI systems, including guidelines for how to protect people’s personal data and limit surveillance.

The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably did not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead was intended as a call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world.

Biden’s council, known as PCAST, is composed of science, engineering, technology and medical experts and is co-chaired by the Cabinet-ranked director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar.

Asked if AI is dangerous, Biden said Tuesday, “It remains to be seen. Could be.”

—————

This story has been corrected to report the last name of the CEO of the nonprofit Partnership on AI. It’s Rebecca Finlay, not Finley.

—————

AP writers Chris Megerian and Matt O’Brien contributed to this report.

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April 5, 2023
US chip controls threaten China’s technology ambitions

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BEIJING (AP) — Furious at U.S. efforts that cut off access to technology to make advanced computer chips, China’s leaders appear to be struggling to figure out how to retaliate without hurting their own ambitions in telecoms, artificial intelligence and other industries.

President Xi Jinping’s government sees the chips that are used in everything from phones to kitchen appliances to fighter jets as crucial assets in its strategic rivalry with Washington and efforts to gain wealth and global influence. Chips are the center of a “technology war,” a Chinese scientist wrote in an official journal in February.

China has its own chip foundries, but they supply only low-end processors used in autos and appliances. The U.S. government, starting under then-President Donald Trump, is cutting off access to a growing array of tools to make chips for computer servers, AI and other advanced applications. Japan and the Netherlands have joined in limiting access to technology they say might be used to make weapons.

Xi, in unusually pointed language, accused Washington in March of trying to block China’s development with a campaign of “containment and suppression.” He called on the public to “dare to fight.”

Despite that, Beijing has been slow to retaliate against U.S. companies, possibly to avoid disrupting Chinese industries that assemble most of the world’s smartphones, tablet computers and other consumer electronics. They import more than $300 billion worth of foreign chips every year.

The ruling Communist Party is throwing billions of dollars at trying to accelerate chip development and reduce the need for foreign technology.

China’s loudest complaint: It is blocked from buying a machine available only from a Dutch company, ASML, that uses ultraviolet light to etch circuits into silicon chips on a scale measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. Without that, Chinese efforts to make transistors faster and more efficient by packing them more closely together on fingernail-size slivers of silicon are stalled.

Making processor chips requires some 1,500 steps and technologies owned by U.S., European, Japanese and other suppliers.

“China won’t swallow everything. If damage occurs, we must take action to protect ourselves,” the Chinese ambassador to the Netherlands, Tan Jian, told the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad.

“I’m not going to speculate on what that might be,” Tan said. “It won’t just be harsh words.”

The conflict has prompted warnings the world might decouple, or split into separate spheres with incompatible technology standards that mean computers, smartphones and other products from one region wouldn’t work in others. That would raise costs and might slow innovation.

“The bifurcation in technological and economic systems is deepening,” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore said at an economic forum in China last month. “This will impose a huge economic cost.”

U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest level in decades due to disputes over security, Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong and Muslim ethnic minorities, territorial disputes and China’s multibillion-dollar trade surpluses.

Chinese industries will “hit a wall” in 2025 or 2026 if they can’t get next generation chips or the tools to make their own, said Handel Jones, a tech industry consultant.

China “will start falling behind significantly,” said Jones, CEO of International Business Strategies.

Beijing might have leverage, though, as the biggest source of batteries for electric vehicles, Jones said.

Chinese battery giant CATL supplies U.S. and Europe automakers. Ford Motor Co. plans to use CATL technology in a $3.5 billion battery factory in Michigan.

“China will strike back,” Jones said. “What the public might see is China not giving the U.S. batteries for EVs.”

On Friday, Japan increased pressure on Beijing by joining Washington in imposing controls on exports of chipmaking equipment. The announcement didn’t mention China, but the trade minister said Tokyo doesn’t want its technology used for military purposes.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, Mao Ning, warned Japan that “weaponizing sci-tech and trade issues” would “hurt others as well as oneself.”

Hours later, the Chinese government announced an investigation of the biggest U.S. memory chip maker, Micron Technology Inc., a key supplier to Chinese factories. The Cyberspace Administration of China said it would look for national security threats in Micron’s technology and manufacturing but gave no details.

The Chinese military also needs semiconductors for its development of stealth fighter jets, cruise missiles and other weapons.

Chinese alarm grew after President Joe Biden in October expanded controls imposed by Trump on chip manufacturing technology. Biden also barred Americans from helping Chinese manufacturers with some processes.

To nurture Chinese suppliers, Xi’s government is stepping up support that industry experts say already amounts to as much as $30 billion a year in research grants and other subsidies.

China’s biggest maker of memory chips, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp., or YMTC, received a 49 billion yuan ($7 billion) infusion this year from two official funds, according to Tianyancha, a financial information provider.

One was the government’s main investment vehicle, the China National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, known as the Big Fund. It was founded in 2014 with 139 billion yuan ($21 billion) and has invested in hundreds of companies.

The Big Fund launched a second entity, known as the Big Fund II, in 2019 with 200 billion yuan ($30 billion).

In January, chip manufacturer Hua Hong Semiconductor said Big Fund II would contribute 1.2 billion yuan ($175 million) for a planned 6.7 billion yuan ($975 million) wafer fabrication facility in eastern China’s Wuxi.

In March, the Cabinet promised tax breaks and other support for the industry. It gave no price tag. The government also has set up “integrated circuit talent training bases” at 23 universities and six at other schools.

“Semiconductors are the ‘main battlefield’ of the current China-U.S. technology war,” Junwei Luo, a scientist at the official Institute of Semiconductors, wrote in the February issue of the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Luo called for “self-reliance and self-improvement in semiconductors.”

The scale of spending required is huge. The global industry leader, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., or TSMC, is in the third year of a three-year, $100 billion plan to expand research and production.

Developers including Huawei Technologies Ltd. and VeriSilicon Holdings Co. can design logic chips for smartphones as powerful as those from Intel Corp., Apple Inc., South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. or Britain’s Arm Ltd., according to industry researchers. But they cannot be manufactured without the precision technology of TSMC and other foreign foundries.

Trump in 2019 crippled Huawei’s smartphone brand by blocking it from buying U.S. chips or other technology. American officials say Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, might facilitate Chinese spying, an accusation the company denies. In 2020, the White House tightened controls, blocking TSMC and others from using U.S. technology to produce chips for Huawei.

Washington threw up new hurdles for Chinese chip designers in August by imposing restrictions on software known as EDA, or electronic design automation, along with European, Asian and other governments to limit the spread of “dual use” technologies that might be used to make weapons.

In December, Biden added YMTC, the memory chip maker, and some other Chinese companies to a blacklist that limits access to chips made anywhere using U.S. tools or processes.

China’s foundries can etch circuits as small as 28 nanometers apart. By contrast, TSMC and other global competitors can etch circuits just three nanometers apart, ten times the Chinese industry’s precision. They are moving toward two nanometers.

To make the latest chips, “you need EUV (extreme ultraviolet lithography) tools, a very complicated process recipe and not just a couple of billion dollars but tens and tens of billions of dollars,” said Peter Hanbury, who follows the industry for Bain & Co.

“They’re not going to be able to produce competitive server, PC and smartphone chips,” Hanbury said. “You have to go to TSMC to do that.”

China’s ruling party is trying to develop its own tool vendors, but researchers say it is far behind a global network spread across dozens of countries.

Huawei said in a video on its website in December it was working on EUV technology. But creating a machine comparable to ASML’s might cost $5 billion and require a decade of research, according to industry experts. Huawei didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The day when China can supply its own EUV machine is “very far away,” said Hanbury.

___

AP researcher Yu Bing in Beijing and AP Writer Mike Corder in Amsterdam contributed.

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April 5, 2023
Australia bans TikTok from federal government devices

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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia has become the last of the “Five Eyes” security partners to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from its federal government’s devices.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said in a statement Tuesday that based on intelligence and security agencies’ advice, that ban would come into effect “as soon as practicable.”

The so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing partners — the United States, Canada, Britain and New Zealand — have taken similar steps.

TikTok objected to the decision.

“We are extremely disappointed by this decision, which, in our view, is driven by politics, not by fact,” the company’s general manager for Australia, Lee Hunter, said in a statement. “Again, we stress that there is no evidence to suggest that TikTok is in any way a security risk to Australians and should not be treated differently to other social media platforms.”

He urged the Australian government to treat all businesses fairly, “regardless of country of origin.”

Western governments are worried that TikTok poses risks to cybersecurity and data privacy, and that the app could be used to promote pro-Beijing narratives and misinformation.

TikTok is owned by the Chinese technology company Bytedance and has long maintained that it does not share data with the Chinese government. It is carrying out a project to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers, which it says will put the information out of China’s reach.

The company has disputed accusations it collects more user data than other social media companies, and insists that it is run independently by its own management.

The European Parliament, European Commission and the EU Council, the 27-member bloc’s three main institutions, have also imposed bans on TikTok on staff devices. Under the European Parliament’s ban, which took effect last month, lawmakers and staff were also advised to remove the TikTok app from their personal devices.

India imposed a nationwide ban on TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps, including the messaging app WeChat, in 2020 over privacy and security concerns. The ban came shortly after a clash between Indian and Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian soldiers and injured dozens.

In early March, the U.S. gave government agencies 30 days to delete TikTok from federal devices and systems. The ban applies only to government devices, though some U.S. lawmakers are advocating an outright ban.

China has lashed out at the U.S. for banning TikTok, saying it is an abuse of state power and is suppressing companies from other countries.

More than half of the 50 U.S. states also have banned the app from official devices, as have Congress and the U.S. armed forces.

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April 5, 2023
After Nashville, Congress confronts limits of new gun law

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nine months ago, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping bipartisan gun law, the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.

“Lives will be saved,” he said at the White House.

The law has already prevented some potentially dangerous people from owning guns. Yet since that signing last summer, the tally of mass shootings in the United States has only grown. Five dead at a nightclub in Colorado. Eleven killed at a dance hall in California. And just this past week, three 9-year-olds and three adults were shot and killed at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee.

A day after that school shooting, Biden’s tone was markedly less optimistic than it was the signing ceremony.

“What in God’s name are we doing?” he asked in a speech Tuesday, calling for a ban on so-called assault weapons like those that were used to kill at The Covenant School in Nashville. “There’s a moral price to pay for inaction.”

Biden and others had hailed last year’s bipartisan gun bill — approved in the weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas — as a new way forward.

Several months in, the law has had some success: Stepped-up FBI background checks have blocked gun sales for 119 buyers under the age of 21, prosecutions have increased for unlicensed gun sellers and new gun trafficking penalties have been charged in at least 30 cases around the country. Millions of new dollars have flowed into mental health services for children and schools.

But the persistence of mass shootings in the United States highlights the limits of congressional action. Because the law was a political compromise, it did not address many Democratic priorities for gun control, including universal background checks or the ban on “assault weapons” for which Biden repeatedly has called.

Now, in the wake of the Nashville shooting, Congress appears to have returned to a familiar impasse. One of the top Republican negotiators on the gun law, Texas Sen. John Cornyn, has said new compromise is unlikely. In the House, the new GOP majority favors fewer restrictions on guns, not more.

Asked Thursday about a way ahead, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said legislation alone cannot solve the gun violence problem. He said Americans need to think deeply about mental illness and other factors that drive people to act.

In contrast, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Congress should “act with the fierce urgency of now.”

“Our classrooms have become killing fields,” he said. “Is that acceptable in America?”

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the lead negotiator on the 2022 bill, says he thinks it represented a paradigm shift in how Congress considers gun legislation. But, he said, “I don’t think that will happen all at once.”

“This is sickening, but the opportunities for legislative change normally come after really terrible mass shootings,” said Murphy, who has been the lead Senate advocate for gun control since the 2012 mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. “I hate that, I wish that wasn’t how it works.”

Tensions were running high on both sides of the Capitol this past week.

On Wednesday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., stood outside the House chamber and yelled that Republicans are “cowards” for not doing more on gun control, eventually arguing with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who advocated for allowing teachers to carry guns.

“More guns lead to more deaths!” Bowman screamed at Massie. “Children are dying!”

In the Senate, Republican Ted Cruz of Texas tried on Thursday to force a vote on legislation that would boost police presence at schools. He all but blamed Democrats, who had blocked the same legislation last year, for the Nashville shooting and called the 2022 law “meaningless.” Murphy angrily objected to Cruz’s bill, arguing that Cruz wasn’t serious about compromise and that his move was a stunt for the cameras.

Despite the frustrations, lawmakers who negotiated the compromise last year say they see slivers of hope.

Murphy said the implementation of the new law, and some of its early successes, will ultimately persuade Republicans to get on board with more legislation.

“What happened last year was seismic for Republicans,” Murphy said.

In terms of the bill’s success, “People don’t get excited about the mass shootings that didn’t happen,” Murphy said, and that can be a challenge as they talk about it and contemplate what more could be done. But the dynamics can change quickly, he said.

While Republicans in the past might have tried to shy away from gun measures even if they supported them, Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., have been promoting the new law and have discussed it frequently. Late last year, they joined Murphy, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and FBI Director Christopher Wray on a visit to an FBI facility in West Virginia for a briefing on how the background checks were working.

“I am proud to see this commonsense legislation already making a difference,” Tillis said in a statement afterward.

According to recent data obtained by The Associated Press, those who were flagged in the stepped-up background checks and prevented from buying a gun included an 18-year-old in Nebraska who had made terroristic threats and was prone to violent outbursts, a 20-year-old drug dealer in Arizona and an 18-year-old in Arizona who had been previously charged with unlawful possession of weapons and was found carrying fentanyl. All were attempting to purchase long guns.

Tillis said he is aware of a separate case in his home state where a person under 21 who had been charged with assault and battery and assaulting a police officer was flagged and prevented from buying a gun.

“It’s just one of those bills that’s going to age well,” Tillis said, noting that the number of denials of gun sales is a very small fraction of total sales.

Cornyn said that so far, the bill “seems to be working.” But he said he doesn’t expect Congress to go any further any time soon. He said would strongly oppose an “assault weapons” ban, as Biden is proposing.

When Biden and other lawmakers talk about “assault weapons,” they are using an inexact term to describe a group of high-powered guns or semi-automatic long rifles, such as an an AR-15, that can fire 30 rounds fast without reloading.

Most Republicans are steadfastly opposed to such a ban, arguing that it would be too complicated, especially as sales and varieties of the firearms have proliferated. There are many more types of these high-powered guns today than in 1994, when the ban was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Law- abiding citizens own those guns, Cornyn said, and “no law-abiding citizen is a threat to public safety.”

Despite the current standstill, John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, says last year’s bill was proof that they can break gridlock.

“It was never the finish line,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

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April 2, 2023
Among 160 years of presidential scandals, Trump stands alone

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Though far from the only U.S. president dogged by legal and ethical scandals, Donald Trump now occupies a unique place in history as the first indicted on criminal charges.

Two others, like Trump, found themselves impeached by Congress — Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with a White House intern, and Andrew Johnson for pushing the limits of his executive authority in a bitter power struggle following the Civil War.

Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace over his role in the infamous Watergate break-in. And Ronald Reagan and Ulysses S. Grant both became forever tied to scandals in which close aides got prosecuted, though neither president was ever charged.

Here’s a look at how Trump’s predecessors fared:

BILL CLINTON

Clinton spent more than half his presidency under scrutiny in investigations that ranged from failed real estate deals to the Democratic president’s affair with a White House intern.

Investigators took a lengthy look into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s investments in the troubled Whitewater real estate venture. Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, appointed to oversee the investigation in 1994, turned up no evidence of wrongdoing by the Clintons. But two of their close associates, Jim and Susan McDougal, ended up convicted of Whitewater-related charges. So did Jim Guy Tucker, Clinton’s successor as governor of Arkansas.

Starr’s 1998 report packed with lurid details of Clinton’s affair with intern Monica Lewinsky proved far more damaging. While being questioned in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones, Clinton had denied having “sexual relations” with Lewinsky.

Starr concluded that Clinton had lied under oath and obstructed justice. That led to the House voting to impeach Clinton on Dec. 19, 1998. He was acquitted by the Senate, allowing him to remain in office until his term ended in January 2001.

RONALD REAGAN

Reagan never faced impeachment or court charges for the biggest scandal of his presidency. But the arms-for-hostages scheme that became known as the Iran-Contra affair dogged him long after he left the White House.

In 1986, during Reagan’s second term, the public learned that his administration had authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid in freeing American hostages held in Lebanon. As much as $30 million from the arms sales was diverted, in violation of U.S. law, to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.

Reagan’s national security adviser, John Poindexter, resigned and an aide, Lt. Col. Oliver North, was fired. Both were also convicted of crimes stemming from efforts to deceive and obstruct Congress. Their convictions were later overturned. President George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s successor, pardoned six others involved.

Reagan insisted money from the arms sales was funneled to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels without his knowledge.

RICHARD NIXON

Nixon resigned from office in August 1974 rather than face impeachment for his administration’s cover-up of its involvement in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.

The bungled burglary at the Watergate office building resulted in the indictment of seven men, including two former White House aides. Five of the Watergate defendants pleaded guilty; two were convicted in criminal trials.

Intrigue over the 1972 Watergate break-in didn’t stop Nixon from cruising to reelection a few months later. He endured the storm until the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 approved three articles of impeachment accusing him of obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress.

Before the full House could vote, a bombshell tape recording was released in which Nixon could be heard approving a plan to pressure the FBI to drop its Watergate investigation. Nixon resigned after losing support from key congressional Republicans.

His vice president, Gerald Ford, became president and pardoned Nixon a month later.

ULYSSES S. GRANT

While never personally charged with crimes or formally accused of wrongdoing, Grant as president torpedoed a corruption case prosecuted by his own administration. The man on trial was Grant’s personal secretary in the White House.

In 1875, an investigation launched by Treasury Secretary Benjamin H. Bristow resulted in hundreds of arrests in a scheme known as the Whiskey Ring, in which distillers, revenue agents and fellow conspirators diverted millions of dollars in liquor taxes to themselves.

The Civil War general-turned-president found himself at odds with the crackdown when Gen. Orville E. Babcock ended up charged as a conspirator. Not only was Babcock the president’s personal secretary, but he and Grant had also been friends since the war.

Prosecutors said they had uncovered telegrams Babcock sent to ringleaders to assist their scheme. Regardless, Grant insisted on testifying in his aide’s defense.

To avoid the spectacle of the president appearing at Babcock’s trial, attorneys questioned Grant under oath at the White House on Feb. 12, 1876. A transcript of his testimony was later read in court in St. Louis. The jury acquitted Babcock, a decision largely credited to Grant’s unwavering defense.

ANDREW JOHNSON

The first American president to have his legacy tarnished by impeachment, Andrew Johnson’s woes arose from his intense feuding with Congress over Reconstruction following the Civil War.

The Tennessee Democrat had been elected vice president in 1864 as part of a unity ticket with Abraham Lincoln, and Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s 1865 assassination. From the White House, Johnson called for pardoning Confederate leaders and opposed extending voting rights to freed Blacks, infuriating congressional Republicans.

It was Johnson’s firing of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a Lincoln appointee who favored tougher policies toward the defeated South, that prompted the House to pass articles of impeachment that accused the president of ousting and replacing Stanton illegally.

Johnson’s impeachment trial began in the Senate on March 5, 1868. It ended more than two months later, with senators just one vote short of removing Johnson from office. He served the remainder of his final year, but fellow Democrats denied him their nomination to run again.

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March 31, 2023
Judge orders US to resume oil lease sales in North Dakota

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BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government to resume regular oil and gas lease sales on federal lands in North Dakota, even as a legal battle continues over the Biden administration’s suspension of the leasing program two years ago in an effort to combat climate change.

Hailing the ruling as a victory, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said canceled lease sales have cost North Dakota over $100 million in revenue each year and deprived the nation of “much-needed access to oil and gas during these difficult times of high inflation and threats to our energy security,” the Bismarck Tribune reported.

But the judge also denied the state’s request to force the Bureau of Land Management, a federal agency, to hold sales that were canceled in 2021 and 2022.

“North Dakota has a substantial likelihood of prevailing on the merits and has met the other factors favoring a preliminary injunction,” U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor wrote in his 82-page order filed Monday. “Given this preliminary stage of litigation and the incomplete administrative record, however, not all of North Dakota’s requested relief is appropriate.”

Last year’s federal climate law included a political compromise among Democrats that was meant to ensure oil and gas lease sales by linking them to the renewable energy development that Biden has promoted. Citing that law, federal officials have proposed a June lease sale totaling 21,000 acres (8,498 hectares) in North Dakota and Montana.

But how often future lease sales will be held remains a point of contention.

U.S. Department of Justice Senior Attorney Michael Sawyer said in court documents that North Dakota’s push to resume quarterly lease sales before the lawsuit was decided would be a “rush to judgment” and would subject the Bureau of Land Management to increased litigation risk from environmental conservation groups.

Department spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment on the ruling.

North Dakota’s Republican Gov. Doug Burgum said in a statement that he applauds the judge’s decision to require the bureau to resume “their lawfully required quarterly oil and gas lease sales.”

The state is one of the nation’s largest oil producers, behind Texas and New Mexico.

Burgum has bashed the White House for trying to shift the country away from fossil fuels, and praised the oil and gas industry for being a “powerhouse” and “game-changer” for the state’s economy.

Coal, oil and gas are by far the largest contributors to global climate change, according to the United Nations, and have resulted in more extreme wildfires, storms, hurricanes, droughts and floods in recent years, signaling what the UN calls a “code red for humanity” that could cause trillions of dollars in damage.

In September, the Biden administration reached a legal settlement that requires the government to reexamine potential climate damages from oil and gas leases put up for sale under the Trump administration on government land in North Dakota and Montana.

Similar deals have been reached for lease sales covering thousands of square miles in public lands under the Trump and Obama administrations in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

About a quarter of U.S. fossil fuels come from federal lands and waters, making them important for industry and a target for climate activists who want to shut down leasing.

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March 30, 2023
US: Credit Suisse violates deal on rich clients’ tax evasion

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GENEVA (AP) — Credit Suisse violated a plea agreement with U.S. authorities by failing to report secret offshore accounts that wealthy Americans used to avoid paying taxes, U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday, releasing a two-year investigation that detailed the role employees at the embattled Swiss bank had in aiding tax evasion by clients.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee pointed to an ongoing, possibly criminal conspiracy tied to nearly $100 million in accounts belonging to a family of American taxpayers that the bank did not disclose. It also said Credit Suisse helped a U.S. businessman hide more than $220 million in offshore accounts from the IRS.

Credit Suisse revealed that it had found 23 accounts each worth more than $20 million that were not declared to tax authorities, many of them unveiled just days before the report was released, according to the committee. It said its findings show that more than $700 million was concealed in violation of the bank’s 9-year-old plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department.

“Credit Suisse got a discount on the penalty it faced in 2014 for enabling tax evasion because bank executives swore up and down they’d get out of the business of defrauding the United States,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, the Democratic chairman of the committee.

“This investigation shows Credit Suisse did not make good on that promise, and the bank’s pending acquisition does not wipe the slate clean,” he said.

The Swiss government pressed for a $3.25 billion takeover of long-troubled Credit Suisse by rival bank UBS this month amid turmoil in the global financial system. The collapse of two U.S. banks ignited wider fears that sent shares of Switzerland’s second-largest bank tumbling as customers withdrew their money.

The Senate findings pose new problems for UBS as it tries to absorb Credit Suisse and create a single Swiss megabank, coming the same day that UBS named a new CEO to help push through the takeover. It’s also Credit Suisse’s latest run-in with U.S. authorities, following settlements worth hundreds of millions of dollars over mortgage-backed securities that were behind the 2008 financial crisis.

Credit Suisse, whose yearslong troubles range from hedge fund losses to fines for failing to prevent money laundering by a Bulgarian cocaine ring, said it “does not tolerate tax evasion” and insisted that the Senate report described “legacy issues” — some dating to a decade ago — that have been addressed since.

“We have implemented extensive enhancements since then to root out individuals who seek to conceal assets from tax authorities,” the Zurich-based bank said.

“Our clear policy is to close undeclared accounts when identified and to discipline any employee who fails to comply with bank policy or falls short of Credit Suisse’s standards of conduct,” it said.

UBS said it has assessed outstanding lawsuits and investigations as part of the Credit Suisse acquisition and expects the deal to be beneficial for shareholders. It’s working to close the sale and get approval from regulators in the coming weeks or months.

The Senate report noted Credit Suisse’s cooperation with the investigation, including having appointed new leadership.

The Swiss lender paid a discounted fine of $1.3 billion to the U.S. Justice Department after pleading guilty in 2014 to conspiracy to aid and assist U.S. taxpayers in filing false income tax returns and other documents with the IRS.

The bank acknowledged “knowingly and willfully” helping thousands of Americans open accounts that weren’t declared to tax authorities and concealing offshore assets. It avoided criminal charges in exchange for agreeing to report undeclared accounts and provide other information to U.S. officials.

The Senate committee said secret offshore accounts belonging to a family of dual U.S.-Latin American citizens and worth nearly $100 million were closed in 2013 but the money was transferred to other banks without telling U.S. authorities.

With that maneuver, “Credit Suisse enabled what appears to be potentially criminal tax evasion by a client to go undetected for almost a decade,” the report says.

The committee said former senior bankers helped manage that family’s accounts. In addition, Credit Suisse employees helped a U.S. businessman hide $220 million from U.S. authorities despite long knowing he was an American, according to the report, which said whistleblowers flagged the scheme after the plea deal.

Credit Suisse workers were incentivized to help accounts hide U.S. ties because their bonuses depend on the amount of money being managed, the report said. To that end, employees who had clients with assets above $20 million or $30 million may have given those accounts special consideration because it would mean they got larger bonuses, the committee said.

Investigators say bankers figured out how to code accounts for Americans who possess dual citizenship. Those bankers would use the non-U.S. passport of wealthy individuals to evade internal systems designed to look for identifying marks in U.S. passports.

Lawmakers on the committee became aware of 13 out of 23 potentially undeclared accounts worth over $20 million just days before releasing their report. That raises concerns Credit Suisse is still disclosing hundreds of millions of dollars in large, undeclared accounts belonging to ultra-wealthy Americans years after signing the plea deal and facing additional scrutiny, the committee said.

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Bonnell reported from London. AP reporters Michelle Chapman and Charles Sheehan in New York contributed.

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March 30, 2023