Now, through the use of an innovative voice-cloning technology, it is becoming possible for people to “hear” Warren read the decision as he did on May 17, 1954, along with oral arguments by lawyers including a future Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.

The “Brown Revisited” recreation should be made available by Friday at brown.oyez.org a website that has been the dream of former Northwestern University professor Jerry Goldman. Goldman has painstakingly put together the site allowing people to hear oral arguments in decades worth of Supreme Court cases, and follow along with written transcriptions. Yet it always frustrated Goldman that the court did not begin recording oral arguments until 1955 — a year after the Brown decision was handed down. Print transcripts just aren't the same.

“I could give you the libretto to ‘Madame Butterfly,’" he said. “But would you rather read it, or would you rather sit and listen to the performance?”

The Brown decision was a landmark in the civil rights movement. The court struck down an 1896 decision that institutionalized racial segregation with “separate but equal” schools for Black and white students, ruling that such accommodations were anything but equal.

While the court began recording arguments in 1955, virtually no one heard them until 1969, when they were made available through the National Archives for scholarly and legal research. Full public access wasn't granted until 1993. The court began posting arguments on its website in the 2000s, but usually at a delay of several days.

It wasn't until 2020 that the court regularly made livestreams of the arguments available. Cameras have never been allowed.

A year ago, Goldman said, he attended a play where artificial intelligence was used to recreate a familiar voice, and he wondered if this technology could be put to use for historic court arguments. A Northwestern alum, James Boggs, CEO of the interactive audio firm Spooler, took interest when contacted.

“It’s good to draw attention to this case,” Goldman said, “because it’s fundamental to our understanding to the Constitution and it changed America.”

The first step was to find recordings of the long-dead principals in the case, preferably made around 1954 to approximate what they sounded like then. That wasn't difficult in the cases of Warren, a former governor of California, and Marshall. It was harder for integration opponent John W. Davis, whose lengthy career included the 1924 Democratic presidential nomination. He died in 1955.

A Davis recording was tracked down through the Library of Congress. Recordings for some other participants could not be located.

Through artificial intelligence, these voice samples were melded with those of actors who read the historical transcripts to make it sound like they were speaking anew.

Actual arguments were sprawling — 18 hours over three days, with 38 participants. Goldman whittled things down to a one hour, 45 minute presentation, including Warren's reading of the decision. Goldman consulted written notes left behind by Warren, enabling the recreation to include the chief justice's emphasis that the decision had been unanimous.

The growing ability of technology to recreate voices is a marvel, yet deeply troubling to many who worry it could put false words into familiar mouths — such deepfakes are a particular concern heading into the presidential election.

Ravit Dotan, CEO of TechBetter and an instructor on the ethics of technology, said she's concerned about the practice of cloning people's voices without their consent, although consent isn't possible from people who are no longer alive. She believes “Brown Revisited” sets a bad precedent.

“In the future, I can envision laws that determine how long a person's likeness rights persist after their death, similar to copyright, which expires 70 years after the creator's death,” Dotan said. “But currently, there is no legal guidance, and I worry about people taking advantage of that, exploiting people's likeness or even disseminating disinformation.”

Instead of a deepfake, the Brown project is a “deep true,” Boggs said.

“We are not creating new content,” he said. “These were things that were actually said and we have the historical documentation to prove it.”

Similar recreations have a natural limit. It was only in the late 1800s that sound recordings of voices have been available. Go back further, and they'd essentially be guesses. Who knows what George Washington actually sounded like?

But for the curious, the “Brown Revisited” project offers a new window into history.

___

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.

The three-term senator has insisted since his fall arrest that he is not guilty of charges that he used his influence to aid three New Jersey businessmen, including by providing favors to the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

Prosecutors say the men showered Menendez and his wife with gifts to ensure Menendez would help them.

Menendez, 70, is on trial in Manhattan federal court with two of the businessmen. A third has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the other defendants. Menendez’s wife is scheduled to be tried in July.

For the senator, the trial represents the second time he has been criminally charged in a federal court in the last decade.

In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey, and prosecutors did not seek to retry him.

Those charges were unrelated to the current prosecution of Menendez, who held the powerful post of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he was forced from the job after the new charges were revealed last fall.

Judge Sidney H. Stein said late Tuesday that he expected to have a jury in place by mid-morning on Wednesday, at the latest. Opening statements would start soon afterward.

Menendez is on trial with Fred Daibes, a New Jersey real estate developer, and businessman Wael Hana. All have have pleaded not guilty.

An indictment alleges that Daibes delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator to help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund by acting in ways favorable to Qatar’s government.

The indictment also said Menendez did things benefitting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.

Menendez has said he will not be seeking reelection on the Democratic ticket this fall, although he has not ruled out running as an independent.

Alicia Bárcena, Mexico’s foreign relations secretary, on Tuesday said via the social media platform X that she was sorry to report that a tragic automotive accident had happened in Florida with Mexican agricultural workers involved. She didn’t say how many of the more than four dozen people on board were from Mexico.

The Mexican consulate in Orlando was working to find out more and provide support, according to a post on X. The Florida Highway Patrol said names of the people who died would be released after relatives were notified.

The Florida Highway Patrol arrested the driver of a pickup truck that crashed into the farmworker bus. Troopers said Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, faces eight counts of driving-under-the-influence-manslaughter for Tuesday morning’s crash. No further details were released, including what substance allegedly left Howard impaired.

It wasn't immediately known if Howard has an attorney to comment on his behalf. Attempts to reach Howard were unsuccessful Tuesday. State records show he has previous arrests for alleged driving with a suspended license, leaving the scene of an accident and marijuana possession.

Troopers say Howard was driving a 2001 Ford Ranger that crossed into the center line on State Road 40, a two-lane road that passes through horse farms. The truck sideswiped the bus, causing it to veer off the road at about 6:40 a.m. It plowed through a fence and into a tree and then rolled. In addition to the eight killed, at least 40 were injured.

The accident happened about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Orlando as the workers were going to Cannon Farms in Dunnellon. The bus ended up on its side, with its windows smashed and its emergency rear door and top hatch open. The truck came to a stop at the side of the road, with its air bag blown and extensive damage to the driver's side.

Andres Sequera, a director of mission and ministry for AdventHealth hospitals, told reporters that the injured workers who could be visited by chaplains “were in good spirits for what they have been through.”

“We were able to provide support, presence, prayer when it was asked of us,” he said.

No one answered the phone at Olvera Trucking on Tuesday afternoon. The company recently advertised for a temporary driver who would bus workers to watermelon fields and then operate harvesting equipment. The pay was $14.77 an hour.

A Labor Department document shows Olvera recently applied for 43 H-2A workers to harvest watermelons at Cannon Farms this month. The company again offered a base rate of $14.77 an hour, with promises of housing and transportation to and from the fields.

The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or agents who meet certain regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals into the country to fill temporary agricultural jobs. Florida farms employ more H-2A workers than any other state, about 50,000 a year, according to the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

“Thank you to all who have reached out and offered condolences, help and prayers” for the families and loved ones involved in the crash, Cannon Farms posted on its Facebook page, adding that the family-owned operation would stay closed through Wednesday.

Cannon Farms grows peanuts and watermelons, which it sends to grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada.

Federal statistics show that vehicle crashes were the leading cause of job-related deaths among farmworkers in 2022, the latest year available. They accounted for 81 of 171 fatalities. It was not immediately not known if the bus had seat belts.

Authorities in several states have been pushing for greater regulations for the safety of farmworkers, who are overwhelmingly migrants.

The Labor Department announced new seat belt requirements for employer vehicles used for farmworkers on temporary visas, among other worker protections that take effect June 28. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association has been opposed, calling the seat belt requirement “impractical.”

State law requires seat belts for farmworker transport using smaller vehicles, weighing less than 10,000 pounds.

A GoFundMe campaign organized by the Farmworker Association of Florida to support accident victims and their families had raised about $20,000 of a $50,000 goal by Tuesday night.

“Farmworkers tend to be forgotten, but it’s important not to forget farmworkers, especially during such difficult times,” the post said.

Two groups that advocate for farmworkers issued statements calling for stricter laws to protect them from harm.

“It is too easy to dismiss this as just another accident,” said Asia Clermont, Florida director for the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Florida must take every possible step to protect its essential workers, who are human beings and the backbone of the state’s economy.”

Ty Joplin of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers said transportation laws for farmworkers are often unenforced.

“While accidents will happen, protecting workers while transporting them with mandatory and enforceable safety provisions, like seat belts and safety inspections, can reduce injuries and deaths,” he said.

___

Spencer reported from Fort Lauderdale.

The student protest group Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine said in a statement that the encampment “outlasted its utility with respect to our demands.” Meanwhile, Harvard University interim President Alan Garber agreed to pursue a meeting between protesters and university officials regarding the students’ questions.

Students at many college campuses this spring set up similar encampments, calling for their schools to cut ties with Israel and businesses that support it.

The latest Israel-Hamas war began when Hamas and other militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking an additional 250 hostage. Palestinian militants still hold about 100 captives, and Israel's military has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Harvard said its president and the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Hopi Hoekstra, will meet with the protesters to discuss the conflict in the Middle East.

The protesters said they worked out an agreement to meet with university officials including the Harvard Management Company, which oversees the world's largest academic endowment, valued at about $50 billion.

The protesters’ statement said the students will set an agenda including discussions on disclosure, divestment and reinvestment, and the creation of a Center for Palestine Studies. The students also said that Harvard has offered to retract the suspensions of more than 20 students and student workers and back down on disciplinary measures faced by 60 more.

“Since its establishment three weeks ago, the encampment has both broadened and deepened Palestine solidarity organizing on campus,” a spokesperson for the protesters said. “It has moved the needle on disclosure and divestment at Harvard."

Harvard alumnus Rotem Spiegler said she's glad to see the protest being dismantled, but thinks it improper to reward students in part for being disruptive.

“It just should have happened a while ago, and they should have suffered consequences to what they’ve been doing here violating everybody’s space and not respecting any of the university rules that were adjusted even while they were going,” Spiegler said.

Faculty members who supported the demonstration in Harvard Yard said the students achieved “an important step towards divestment from Israel and liberation for Palestine.”

“We honor the bravery of our students, who put themselves at risk to amplify the worldwide call for Palestinian liberation that global leaders have been trying to suppress,” Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine said in a statement.

At the University of California, Berkeley, students demanding the school divest from companies doing business in Israel began removing their campus encampment Tuesday afternoon as protest leaders held discussions with university administrators.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ sent the demonstrators a letter Tuesday evening agreeing “to support a comprehensive and rigorous examination of our investments and our socially responsible investment strategy.”

At Harvard, student Chloe Gambol, said the biggest achievement of the Cambridge protest was just shining a spotlight on the situation in Gaza.

“The point of a protest is to draw attention and to make a scene and make a stand and, I think, definitely achieved that based on what we see on all the news. A lot of people are talking about it,” she said.

But Howard Smith, a senior researcher at Harvard, said he was happy to see the encampment go down.

“I think the students were very misguided and, basically, historically incorrect and morally off base,” he said. “But I’m pleased that the situation at Harvard was not as crazy as in some other places.”

Protesters also voluntarily took down their tents Monday night at Williams College in Massachusetts after its board of trustees agreed to meet later this month. Williams President Maud Mandel said dialogue is the answer.

“In a year when personal, political and moral commitments are being tested, I have seen our diverse community members -- including people in the encampment, and people who question or oppose it -- try to engage with each other across differences, looking for ways to exchange views without trading insults,” Mandel said in a statement.

At the University of New Mexico, school president Garnett Stokes warned that the encampment along a busy stretch of the Albuquerque campus needed to be dismantled by Tuesday evening and those who did not comply would be subject to “institutional enforcement.”

The collection of tents and tarps had been in place going on three weeks, inhabited by a mix of activists, some students and homeless people.

Stokes' message to all students and staff acknowledged the demands of the protesters who have been advocating for a ceasefire along with disclosure of the university’s investment portfolios. She said the school was committed to being transparent.

In western New York, the University of Rochester cleared out an encampment ahead of Friday’s commencement ceremony. Most protesters dispersed voluntarily, but two people unaffiliated with the university were arrested for damaging a commencement tent, school spokesperson Sara Miller said.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Biden's request to push the trial in Delaware until September, which the defense said was necessary to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors. The judge said she believes "everyone can get done what needs to get done” by the trial's start date of June 3.

Later Tuesday, a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court said the tax case against him — which is scheduled to go to trial in California on June 20 — can also move forward. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a defense effort to throw out the case.

The two rulings mean Joe Biden's son could be headed to trial next month in two criminal cases on opposite coasts in midst of his father's reelection campaign.

In Delaware, Hunter Biden is accused of lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days. He has pleaded not guilty and acknowledged struggling with an addiction to crack cocaine during that period in 2018, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law.

Special Counsel David Weiss' team plans to show jurors in the gun case portions of his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” in which he detailed his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse following the 2015 death of his older brother, Beau, who succumbed to brain cancer at age 46, according to court papers filed Tuesday. Hunter Biden has said he has been sober since 2019.

During a hearing in Delaware federal court, Hunter Biden lawyer Abbe Lowell told the judge that many experts the defense has approached have been reluctant to testify in the case, citing the media attention. Prosecutor Derek Hines pushed back on the suggestion that the media attention was to blame.

“It’s written in his memoir, he was in active addiction,” Hines said. “ I don’t know what expert they can find who will say he wasn’t. I think that’s the issue they’re having.”

Lowell said he wasn’t trying to find an expert to refute Biden’s addiction struggles but to discuss the ability for someone to recognize in the moment they are an addict. Hunter Biden was not required to attend Tuesday's hearing and he did not do so.

The defense has argued that prosecutors bowed to pressure by Republicans, who claimed the Democratic president’s son was initially given a sweetheart deal, and that he was indicted because of political pressure.

But Noreika, who was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, last month rejected his claim that the prosecution is politically motivated along with other efforts to dismiss the case. A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week said the case could move forward to trial, though Hunter Biden's lawyer said Tuesday that they would continue to press his appeal.

Later Tuesday, his lawyers filed another bid to derail the prosecution, again claiming the special counsel's funding was not appropriately approved by Congress. The judge denied a motion to dismiss on those grounds last month.

In California, he’s charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors have accused him of spending millions of dollars on an “extravagant lifestyle” instead of paying his taxes. The back taxes have since been paid.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers appealed to the 9th Circuit after U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi denied eight motions to dismiss the indictment last month. The three-judge panel of the appeals court which didn't rule on the merits of his claims Tuesday, but said the issues can't be appealed at this time.

He was supposed to plead guilty last year to misdemeanor tax charges and would have avoided prosecution on the gun charges had he stayed out of trouble for two years. It was the culmination of a yearslong investigation by federal prosecutors into the business dealings of the president’s son, and the agreement would have dispensed with criminal proceedings and spared the Bidens weeks of headlines as the 2024 election loomed.

But the deal broke down after the judge who was supposed to sign off on the agreement instead raised a series of questions about it.

He's charged in the Delaware case with two counts of making false statements, first for checking a box falsely saying he was not addicted to drugs and second for giving it to the shop for its federally required records. A third count alleges he possessed the gun for about 11 days despite knowing he was a drug user.

In California, he's charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors over at least $1.4 million in taxes he owed between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors have accused him of spending millions of dollars on an “extravagant lifestyle” instead of paying his taxes. The back taxes have since been paid.

___

Richer reported from Washington.

Judge Sidney H. Stein also made rulings that will define what evidence lawyers can present to the jury. He said he expected to have a jury in place by mid-morning, clearing the way for openings and the presentation of evidence after jury selection stretches into a third day.

Among the evidence he excluded with his rulings was the testimony of a psychiatrist who was expected to say that Menendez habitually stored cash in his home as a “fear of scarcity” response to family stories about how their savings were confiscated in the Communist revolution in Cuba, before he was born, and because of financial problems stemming from the gambling problem of his father, a struggling carpenter.

FBI agents who searched the senator’s New Jersey home in 2022 found a stash of gold bars, worth more than $100,000, and more than $486,000 in cash, some of it stuffed into the pockets of clothing hanging in his closets.

Prosecutors say the gold bars and cash were bribes from three wealthy businessmen in his home state who he performed a variety of favors for in return, including meddling in criminal investigations and taking actions benefitting the governments of Egypt and Qatar.

He is on trial with two of the businessmen. A third has pleaded guilty in a cooperation deal and is expected to testify against the senator. Menendez's wife, also charged in the case, is scheduled for trial in July.

The trial defendants, along with Menendez's wife, have pleaded not guilty to charges that they used Menendez’s power as a senator to their advantage as he was showered with gifts.

Also Tuesday, Stein mentioned the names of prominent U.S. senators including Republican Lindsey Graham and Democrat Cory Booker as he alerted prospective jurors to a list of people who could be named or might testify at the trial.

Stein also read the names of Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, among others. Other names included former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal as well as current and former state lawmakers.

During the jury selection process, Stein has heard a variety of reasons why people say they should be excused from the trial of the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, resident that is projected to stretch to July. Some have cited medical reasons while others say their jobs or travel plans would be too adversely affected.

But several have said they worry that they have heard too much to be fair about the case in which Menendez, 70, was charged with bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice, along with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.

“I’m a news junkie, and I’ve learned about the case already significantly. I knew it was Bob Menendez the second I walked in,” one juror said.

“As did many people,” the judge shot back before asking if the man could still decide the case based on trial testimony. The man said he thought he could.

Jurors were identified only by numbers during the selection process.

After his arrest last fall, Menendez was forced from his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

After three terms in the Senate, he has announced he will not be seeking reelection on the Democratic ticket this fall, although he has not ruled out running as an independent.

Menendez has faced trial before in an unrelated case. In 2017, a federal jury deadlocked on corruption charges brought in New Jersey, and prosecutors did not seek to retry him.

In the new case, an indictment accused the senator of taking actions on behalf of the businessmen that would benefit the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Menendez has insisted he did not do anything unusual in his dealings with foreign officials.

According to an indictment, codefendant Fred Daibes, a real estate developer, delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator to help him secure a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund by acting in ways favorable to Qatar’s government.

The indictment also said Menendez did things benefitting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from codefendant Wael Hana as the businessman secured a lucrative deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.

(NEXSTAR) – Red Lobster locations across the country started closing abruptly Monday, surprising residents and, at least in one case, a city official.

As of Tuesday, 90 locations in 27 states were listed as "closed" on the restaurant's website.

Residents in Florida, New York, Iowa and Illinois, among others, found the stores suddenly shuttered.

“I was just notified by one of our local Red Lobster managers that after 31 years of serving our community, without notice, their parent company laid off the entire crew and closed the restaurant effective immediately,” Danville, Illinois Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. wrote in a Facebook post. “This is despite the fact that they were rated number 15 out of over 600 stores for customer service & satisfaction last year.”

The beleaguered seafood chain will be auctioning off the contents of 48 locations, according to a TAGeX brands, a restaurant supply liquidator. It's not clear if there are any plans to reopen the restaurants not listed.

Nexstar reached out to Red Lobster for more information about the closures but didn't receive a response as of publishing time.

Red Lobster owner Thai Union Group announced in January 2024 that it was looking to sell its stake in the brand, citing the impact of a "combination of [the] COVID-19 pandemic, sustained industry headwinds, higher interest rates and rising material and labor costs" on profits.

Back in April, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that the seafood chain, which has been a staple of the American restaurant scene for decades, considered filing for bankruptcy. Though, Red Lobster has not publicly confirmed this. The report noted that people who were familiar with the matter said Red Lobster was looking for restructuring advice to address leases and labor costs.

The company has faced some financial and internal challenges within the past few years. Between 2021 and 2022, the company welcomed a fresh lineup of executives, including a new CEO, chief marketing officer, chief financial officer, and chief information officer, according to CNN. All of them reportedly left within two years.

Then, there was the endless shrimp fiasco. In June 2023, the company offered its “Ultimate Endless Shrimp” — typically a limited offer — on their regular menu for $20. The attempt to get more people into the store worked, but it came at a cost.

Red Lobster posted an operating loss of more than $11 million in Q3 of that year, according to Restaurant Business. It’s a loss that parent company Thai Union Group said the endless shrimp deal was a “key factor” in creating.

These are the locations that appear closed, according to the Red Lobster website:

Alabama

Auburn

Decatur

Huntsville

Arizona

Oro Valley

California

Redding

Fremont

Montclair

Rohnert Park

Sacramento

San Diego

Torrance

Colorado

Denver

Lakewood

Lone Tree

Wheat Ridge

Florida

Altamonte Springs

Daytona Beach Shores

Gainseville

Hialeah

Jacksonville (Commerce Center Drive)

Jacksonville (Baymeadows Road)

Jacksonville (City Station Drive)

Kissimmee

Largo

Leesburg

Orlando (E. Colonial Dr.)

Orlando (W. Colonial Dr.)

Orlando (Golden Sky Lane)

Sanford

Tampa (East Busch Blvd.)

Tampa (Palm Pointe Dr.)

Georgia

Athens

Roswell

Dublin

Idaho

Lewiston

Illinois

Bloomingdale

Danville

Indiana

Indianapolis

Elkhart

Iowa

Council Bluffs

Waterloo

Kansas

Kansas City

Olathe

Louisiana

Bossier City

Maryland

Gaithersburg

Columbia

Silver Spring

Laurel

Michigan

Fort Gratiot

Mississippi

D'lberville

New Jersey

Ledgewood

Bridgewater

East Brunswick

Lawrenceville

New York

Amherst

Buffalo

Lakewood

Nanuet

Poughkeepsie

Scarsdale

Stony Brook

Williamsville

Kingston

Rochester

North Carolina

Burlington

Cary

Durham

Rocky Mount

North Dakota

Grand Forks

Oklahoma

Lawton

Oklahoma City

Stillwater

Pennsylvania

Erie

South Carolina

Myrtle Beach

Tennessee

Memphis

Texas

Dallas (E. Technology Blvd.)

Dallas (Vantage Point Dr.)

Houston

Lufkin

Pasadena

Tyler

Lake Jackson

Longview

San Antonio

Virginia

Colonial Heights

Williamsburg

Newport News

Washington

Silverdale

Wisconsin

Wawatosa

La Crosse

Created by Bill Darden, the first Red Lobster opened in 1968 in Lakeland, Florida, advertised as fresh seafood for people of all walks of life. As of Monday, the website claims that there are over 700 Red Lobster locations around the world.

Nexstar’s Bill Shannon and Brian Farrell contributed to this story.

The first power outage occurred after a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper while conducting maintenance, causing one of the ship’s diesel engines to stall, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said in their preliminary report. Shortly after leaving Baltimore early on March 26, the ship crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns because another power outage caused it to lose steering and propulsion at the exact worst moment.

The report provides new details about how the ship’s crew addressed the power issues it experienced while still docked in Baltimore. A full investigation could take a year or more, according to the safety board.

Testing of the ship’s fuel did not reveal any concerns related to its quality, according to the report.

The Dali was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, laden with shipping containers and enough supplies for a monthlong voyage.

After the initial blackout caused by the closed exhaust damper, investigators say a backup generator automatically came on. It continued to run for a short period — until insufficient fuel pressure caused it to kick off again, resulting in a second blackout. That’s when crew members made changes to the ship’s electrical configuration, switching from one transformer and breaker system that had been in use for several months to another that was active upon its departure, according to the report.

Investigators stopped short of drawing a direct line between those earlier power issues and the blackout that ultimately caused the bridge collapse.

“The NTSB is still investigating the electrical configuration following the first in-port blackout and potential impacts on the events during the accident voyage,” investigators wrote.

The safety board launched its investigation almost immediately after the collapse, which sent six members of a roadwork crew plunging to their deaths. Investigators boarded the ship to document the scene and collect evidence, including the vessel’s data recorder and information from its engine room, according to board chair Jennifer Homendy. Investigators also interviewed the captain and crew members.

“Our mission is to determine why something happened, how it happened and to prevent it from recurring,” Homendy said at a news conference days after the disaster.

The preliminary report details the chaotic moments prior to the bridge collapse while crew members scrambled to address a series of electrical failures that came in quick succession as disaster loomed.

At 1:25 a.m. on March 26, when the Dali was a little over half a mile away from the bridge, electrical breakers that fed most of the ship’s equipment and lighting unexpectedly tripped, causing a power loss. The main propulsion diesel engine automatically shut down after its cooling pumps lost power, and the ship lost steering.

Crew members were able to momentarily restore electricity by manually closing the tripped breakers, the report says.

Around that time, the ship’s pilots called for tugboats to come help guide the wayward vessel. The tugboats that guided it out of the port had peeled off earlier per normal practice, according to the report. Crew members also started the process of dropping anchor, and the pilots’ dispatcher called the Maryland Transportation Authority Police and relayed that the ship had lost power. The pilots’ dispatcher notified the Coast Guard.

The ship was less than a quarter of a mile from the bridge when it experienced a second power blackout because of more tripped breakers, according to the report. The crew again restored power, but it was too late to avoid striking the bridge.

One of the pilots ordered the rudder turned at the last minute, but since the main engine remained shut down, there was no propulsion to assist with steering, the report says. They also made a mayday call that allowed police to stop traffic to the bridge.

At 1:29 a.m., the 1.6-mile steel span came crashing down into the Patapsco River. The construction workers were sitting in their vehicles during a break when disaster struck.

The last of the victims’ bodies was recovered last week.

One member of the seven-person roadwork crew survived the collapse by somehow freeing himself from his work truck. He was rescued from the water later that morning. A road maintenance inspector also survived by running to safety in the moments before the bridge fell.

On Monday, crews conducted a controlled demolition to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed bridge, which landed draped across the Dali’s bow, pinning the grounded ship amid the wreckage. The ship is expected to be refloated and guided back to the Port of Baltimore in the coming days.

It arrived in the U.S. from Singapore on March 19, a week before the crash, according to the report. It made stops in Newark, New Jersey, and Norfolk, Virginia, before coming to Baltimore. Investigators said they were not aware of any other power outages occurring in those ports.

They said they’re working with Hyundai, the manufacturer of the ship’s electrical system, to “identify the cause(s) of the breakers unexpectedly opening while approaching the Key Bridge and the subsequent blackouts.”

The board’s preliminary report released Tuesday likely includes a fraction of the findings that will be presented in its final report, which is expected to take more than a year.

The FBI has also launched a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the collapse.

It's the first pot of money from a ballot measure designed to help cities, counties, tribes and developers build or renovate treatment centers and clinics, among other things. Voters passed it by a razor-thin margin in March after Newsom threw all of his political weight behind it, touting it as linchpin of the state's efforts to reduce homelessness.

It authorizes the state to borrow nearly $6.4 billion to build 4,350 housing units and require counties to spend two-thirds of the money from a tax on millionaires on housing and programs for homeless people with serious mental illnesses or substance abuse problems. Applications for the money will open in July.

Newsom, standing in front of an ongoing construction project that would create 117 psychiatric beds near Redwood City, said Tuesday he wants local government to build as quickly as they can.

“It’s time to do your job. It’s time to get things done,” Newsom said. “You asked for these reforms, we’ve provided them. Now it’s time to deliver.” -

The Democratic governor, a top surrogate for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign who is also widely believed to harbor presidential aspirations of his own, has made homelessness a political priority and vowed to transform the state's mental health system. Homelessness has become one of the most frustrating issues in California, where Newsom's administration spent billions of dollars to get people off the streets but no dramatic change has been seen in Los Angeles and other large cities.

California accounts for nearly a third of the homeless population in the United States; roughly 171,000 Californians are in need of housing. The state, with a current inventory of 5,500 behavioral health beds, needs some 8,000 more units to treat mental health and addiction issues.

The grant money Newsom announced could fund a wide range of programs including short-term crisis facilities, addiction programs, outpatient services, and locked treatment beds. The state will evaluate the projects based on gaps in local services.

“Voluntary care is always best, but sometimes we need a little bit more,” state Senator Susan Eggman, who authored a bill that became part of the ballot measure, said of funding potentially going to locked treatment beds. “Don’t say no. Let’s say how.”

Social providers and some county officials opposed the proposition, worrying the new funding structure of the tax on millionaires will threaten programs that are not solely focused on housing or drug treatment but keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. Disability rights advocates were also concerned that the new investments will result in more people being locked up against their will.

Administration officials previously said the state will streamline the application process as much as possible, but there won't be a set requirement on when proposed projects need to be completed. Some proposals, such as those that would renovate existing facilities, could open in a few months, officials said. Newsom said the state will approval proposals in the fall so the money could be dispersed to local governments by early next year.

The bond funding will allow counties to move faster in providing needed services, said Mark Callagy, the executive officer in San Mateo County.

“Now we can dream bigger because of this,” he said.

Newsom, who pushed for a new law that make it easier to force people with mental health and addiction issues into treatment last year, also blasted counties for not already implementing the program on Tuesday, though the state gives most counties a December deadline to launch their efforts. Eight counties implemented the initiative last year and have received 450 applications in the last six months, according to the governor's office.

“The state’s vision is realized at the local level,” Newsom said. “We can’t do that job. They need to do their job.”

The state also has plans to make bond funding for housing available by the end of this year. The funding, totaling nearly $2 billion, will help expand existing state's housing initiatives including a $3.5 billion effort to convert rundown motels into homeless housing.

City councilors voted to back the agreement to settle Dalvin Gadson's lawsuit, which still needs to be formally signed, city spokesperson Max D'Onofrio said.

Gadson was stopped on Oct. 9, 2022, after police said they saw him driving slowly in a car without a license plate. His lawsuit alleged three officers beat him “beyond recognition” and left him with significant PTSD-like symptoms.

After an officer told Gadson to get out of the car, police body camera footage showed him open the driver’s side door, turn his body to face toward them and ask to remain seated inside.

Officers told him to get out because he was under investigation for DUI. But he objected. After that, the camera footage captured officers reaching in to get him out and a blurry struggle where it is difficult to see who is doing what.

According to the lawsuit, two officers punched him in the face and one of them put his knee into Gadson’s forehead, causing him to fall back into the car.

The body-camera footage shows an officer repeatedly punching Gadson from the passenger side of the car. Another portion of the video footage shows an officer kick Gadson once he is pulled out of the car and placed on the ground.

Gadson was originally charged with two felony assault charges and two misdemeanors, obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest, but prosecutors soon dismissed the felony charges. The misdemeanors were also later dropped, one of Gadson's lawyers, Harry Daniels, said. In the end, Gadson only had to pay a $15 fine for not displaying a license plate, he said.

"The city should have received a fine. But instead they had to pay $2.1 million for the actions of their officers,” he said.

The Colorado Springs Police Department declined to comment on the settlement.

The department previously conducted a review that found the officers had followed department policy on the use of force. The officers who were sued are still on the job and in good standing with the department, spokesperson Caitlin Ford said.

Michael Cohen 's testimony this week has linked Trump to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign. He's the prosecution’s star witness.

And Trump’s lawyers began their cross-examination of Cohen on Tuesday afternoon.

Cohen placed Trump at the center of the hush money scheme, saying he had promised to reimburse money the lawyer had fronted for the payments and was constantly apprised of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bury stories feared to be harmful to the campaign.

Text messages, audio recordings, notes and more have all been introduced or shown to jurors in recent weeks to illustrate what prosecutors say was a scheme to illegally influence the election that year. And sometimes dramatic testimony from witnesses that included former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, ex-Trump staffers and porn actor Stormy Daniels added to the intrigue.

The trial was in its 17th day.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts.

The case is the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president and the first of four prosecutions of Trump to reach a jury.

Currently:

— Speaker Mike Johnson’s appearance is a remarkable moment

— Michael Cohen: A challenging star witness in Trump’s hush money trial

— What to know about Cohen’s pivotal testimony

— Trump hush money case: A timeline of key events

— Key players: Who’s who at Trump’s hush money criminal trial

Here's the latest:

DEFENSE EXPECTS CROSS-EXAMINATION OF COHEN TO LAST THROUGH THURSDAY, TRANSCRIPT SHOWS

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told Judge Juan M. Merchan that it’s “highly likely” the defense will be able to start calling witnesses on Thursday in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial, according to a transcript of discussions between the judge and lawyers.

But Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said he expects the defense’s cross-examination of Michael Cohen to continue until the end of the day Thursday and that they won’t start calling witnesses until next week — if they do at all. In addition, the prosecution could still call rebuttal witnesses once the defense case is finished.

The trial does not take place on Wednesdays and is also off this Friday so Trump can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

JUDGE CHIDES TRUMP'S LAWYER: ‘DON'T MAKE IT ABOUT YOURSELF’

Judge Juan M. Merchan was unnerved by the blistering start to Michael Cohen’s cross-examination, chiding Trump lawyer Todd Blanche at a sidebar for quizzing the witness about recent social media posts he’d made about the former president’s legal team.

“Why are you making this about yourself?” Merchan asked, according to a transcript, after Blanche confronted Cohen about an April 23 TikTok post in which he referred to the attorney as a “Crying little (expletive).”

“I’m not making it about myself, your honor,” Blanche said at the sidebar, which was held at the judge’s bench out of earshot of jurors and reporters.

“I have a right to show this witness’s bias, and he has expressed bias about the lawyers just because of who he represents,” Blanche continued.

Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger countered that Cohen’s comments about Trump’s lawyers were irrelevant and inadmissible to showing bias — that only remarks about Trump himself could be used for that purpose.

“It doesn’t matter if he has bias towards you; it doesn’t matter,” Merchan told Blanche. “The issue is whether he has bias towards the defendant."

For his part, Cohen had answered Blanche’s question before Hoffinger interrupted with an objection and, moments later, Merchan summoned the lawyers to the bench. Cohen's response: “Sounds like something I would say.”

TRUMP SAYS TRIAL IS ‘GOING VERY WELL’ AS HE LEAVES COURT FOR THE DAY

Former President Donald Trump said he thinks he had a “very, very good day” as he walked out of court Tuesday afternoon after it adjourned for the day in the fourth week of his hush money trial in New York.

“The trial is going very well,” Trump told reporters, flanked by a large group that included his attorneys and aides.

Trump pointed to recent polling as well as his massive rally in New Jersey over the weekend as evidence that the hearing was doing little to blunt his standing in the race.

“Voters are getting it,” he said, adding: “I think we’re exposing this scam for what it is”

Trump once again relied on the words of others to lace into the case, reading off quotes from supporters, including several who joined him at the courthouse Tuesday.

He also continued to complain about the gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others.

“I am not allowed to talk about big portions of my case,” he railed.

DEFENSE QUESTIONS COHEN'S MOTIVATIONS FOR COOPERATING WITH PROSECUTORS

Defense attorney Todd Blanche is attempting to portray Michael Cohen as a Donald Trump-obsessed loyalist who, spurned by his ex-boss, turned on Trump and attempted to parlay his insider knowledge into a reduced prison sentence for his own crimes.

Blanche pressed Cohen about discussions he had with Manhattan district attorney’s prosecutors in August 2019 when they visited him at a federal prison camp in Otisville, New York, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from New York City. Early in the conversation, about three months into his prison stint, Cohen asked the prosecutors how he would benefit from cooperating with them, Blanche told the witness.

He asked Cohen if his lawyer asked a judge to give him a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation with the special counsel’s office investigating Trump and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and Cohen said yes.

Cohen’s application for a reduced sentence was denied, but he was eventually released to home confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cohen conceded that after reconnecting with the Manhattan district attorney’s office in early 2021, he wanted the prosecutors’ office to publicly acknowledge that he was cooperating — again in hopes of getting part of his sentence reduced.

But, as has been his approach throughout the early stages of cross-examination, Cohen wasn’t direct in his response. Asked by Trump lawyer Todd Blanche if that was his desire, Cohen said: “I would say so, yes.”

Cohen explained that he was looking for a reduction of the home confinement portion of his sentence, which ran until November 2021. He said he wanted the reduction not only as a reward for his cooperation, but also because he thought he was entitled to a year off from credits he racked up for working and completing programs in federal prison.

Cohen suggested the federal Bureau of Prisons may have miscalculated his sentence. He remains under court supervision until November.

DEFENSE QUESTIONS COHEN ON PAST PRAISE FOR TRUMP

Todd Blanche, an attorney for Donald Trump in his hush money trial, questioned the former president's ex-fixer Michael Cohen on when the devotion he had to Trump began declining.

Cohen said it was around the time he gave an interview to ABC News anchor George Stephanapolous in July 2018 — about two months before he pleaded guilty to federal charges. In the interview, conducted off-camera, Cohen suggested his loyalty to Trump had waned. He told Stephanapolous: “My wife, my daughter and my son have my first loyalty and always will. I put family and country first.”

Cohen struck a similar sentiment Tuesday, testifying that his family told him to reconsider his loyalty to Trump after the FBI raided his property in April 2018. He says he came away from the conversation thinking “that it was about time to listen to them."

Blanche focused his questions on the lavish praise Cohen had for Trump when he served as his personal fixer.

Blanche asked Cohen if he had admired Trump and saw himself in him, and whether he saw the businessman as an ambitious, hardworking and innovative man. Cohen affirmed.

Blanche then asked Cohen if he had said in his 2020 memoir “Disloyal” that he was “obsessed” with Trump. Cohen said he couldn’t recall having said that.

The defense attorney tried to get Cohen to square his over-the-top praise for his former boss with his stance now. As he continued to press, Cohen appeared at times to get irritated with an edge in his voice, saying several times of his past comments: “That’s how I felt.”

“At the time I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump,” Cohen said at one point.

COHEN GIVING MEASURED ANSWERS UNDER CROSS-EXAMINATION

Under cross-examination, former Donald Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen carefully hedged many of his answers, equivocating in ways that marked a contrast from his more voluble testimony under questioning from a prosecutor.

When Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked Tuesday afternoon whether Cohen had said on his podcast that he wanted to see Trump convicted, Cohen answered, “Yes, probably.”

Blanche asked him why, if he wants Trump convicted, would he answer with the word “probably.” Cohen said it was because he was not exactly sure of the words he used.

On another occasion when Blanche asked if he wants to see Trump convicted, Cohen hedged again: “I would like to see accountability. It’s not for me. It’s for the jury and this court.”

Blanche pressed him: “I’m just asking you, yes or no: Do you want to see President Trump get convicted in this case?”

“Sure,” Cohen replied.

COHEN'S CROSS-EXAMINATION GETS OFF TO A TENSE START

The cross-examination of Michael Cohen got off to a predictably tense start when Todd Blanche, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, noted that though he and Cohen had never met before, that didn’t stop Cohen from going on TikTok last month, after the trial had begun, and referring to him as a “crying little (expletive).”

Cohen responded: “Sounds like something I would say,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.

After a prosecutor’s objection, the judge summoned the attorneys to the bench and the entire question was stricken.

Cohen's cross-examination was proceeding in stop-and-start fashion thanks in part to frequent objections from the prosecution team.

COHEN WILL BE LAST WITNESS CALLED BY THE PROSECUTION

Before court resumed for the day, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told the judge that Donald Trump's former laywer, Michael Cohen, would be the prosecution’s last witness.

Steinglass made the disclosure during a sidebar conversation out of earshot of reporters but recorded in the official transcript.

Trump’s fixer-turned-foe returned to the witness stand Tuesday, testifying in detail about how the former president was linked to all aspects of the hush money scheme prosecutors say was an illegal effort to purchase and then bury stories that threatened his 2016 presidential campaign.

Cohen told jurors he lied to Congress during an investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign to protect Trump. He also described for jurors the April 2018 raid by law enforcement on his apartment, law firm, a hotel room where he stayed and a bank where he stashed valuables.

COHEN'S LIFE AFTER PRISON AND DISBARMENT

Donald Trump's lawyers will get a chance Tuesday to question his former lawyer Michael Cohen on cross-examination in the ex-president's criminal hush money trial following a lunch break.

Before he concluded his initial testimony prior to the break, Cohen shared how he makes money now that he has served prison time and been disbarred.

Cohen said he’s working now predominantly in “media and entertainment” — specifically on two podcasts on which he is frequently critical of Trump.

Cohen tried to downplay his shows’ focus on Trump, testifying that “Mea Culpa” and another one he hosts on the liberal MeidasTouch network talked about the “news of the day.”

“Among other topics, do you frequently discuss Mr. Trump?” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger asked.

“I do,” he said, his eyes shifting around.

Hoffinger also asked Cohen about two books he wrote: “Disloyal,” which he described as a memoir he wrote in prison, and “Revenge,” which he said was about the “weaponization” of the Justice Department against a critic of the president, referring to himself.

Cohen also testified having Stormy Daniels, the woman at the center of the hush money case, on a podcast at one point.

“I thought it would be a good time to speak to her and to ‘Mea Culpa,’ and to apologize,” he testified.

Cohen said it was the first time he spoke with Daniels. He invited her on a podcast a second time later on.

PROSECUTORS WRAP DIRECT EXAMINATION OF COHEN

Prosecutors in Donald Trump's hush money trial wrapped their direct examination of his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen before a lunch break Tuesday.

Cohen testified that he regretted some of the things he did for Trump, and the loyalty he showed the former president for so long. He said he and his family have paid a dire price.

“I regret doing things for him that I should not have," Cohen said. "Lying. Bullying people to effectuate a goal. I don’t regret working for the Trump Organization. As I expressed before, I had some very interesting, great times.

“But to keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, it violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family.”

Minutes earlier, a New York appeals court upheld a gag order barring Trump from making statements against certain people connected to his trial. He did not stop to answer a question about the ruling as he left the courtroom for lunch, offering only a fist pump as he walked away.

COURT UPHOLDS GAG ORDER AGAINST TRUMP

A New York appeals court on Tuesday upheld a gag order that bars Donald Trump from making statements against certain people connected to his criminal hush money trial, including witnesses and the judge's daughter.

The court found that Judge Juan M. Merchan “properly determined” that Trump’s public statements “posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses."

Trump had asked the state’s intermediate appeals court to lift or modify the gag order, which bars him from commenting publicly about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the case, including the judge’s family and prosecutors other than District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

A message seeking comment was left with a lawyer for Trump.

Specifically, according to the ruling, Trump challenged restrictions on his ability to comment about Matthew Colangelo, a former Justice Department official who is a part of the prosecution team, and Merchan’s daughter, the head of a consulting firm that has worked for Trump’s rival Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates.

At an emergency hearing last month, just days before the trial started, Trump’s lawyers argued the gag order is an unconstitutional curb on the presumptive Republican nominee’s free speech rights while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges.

COHEN DESCRIBES DECISION TO TURN AGAINST TRUMP

Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen described at the ex-president's hush money trial Tuesday how his family persuaded him to finally turn against Trump after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room in April 2018.

Amid conversations with lawyers, including one connected to Trump loyalist Rudy Giuliani, Cohen said his wife and two children made him see how sticking by Trump was detrimental.

“My family, my wife, my daughter, my son, all said to me, 'Why are you holding onto this loyalty? What are you doing? We’re supposed to be your first loyalty,” Cohen testified.

Cohen says he came away from the conversation thinking “that it was about time to listen to them” and show loyalty “to my wife, my son, my daughter and my country.”

Cohen pleaded guilty in August 2018 to federal charges involving the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels and other, unrelated crimes and served time in federal prison. Trump bashed him on social media, writing: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

Cohen testified that the tweet helped make him feel abandoned by Trump and his associates.

“It caused a lot of angst, anxiety,” Cohen testified.

COHEN RECOUNTS CODE TO REFER TO TRUMP

Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen recounted at the ex-president's hush money trial Tuesday outreach he received from a New York attorney and code they used to communicate about Trump.

The questioning from prosecutors about Cohen's interaction with Robert Costello appeared designed to show jurors the efforts the Trump orbit took to try to keep Cohen from cooperating in the case and to lay the groundwork for a potential pardon.

Costello identified himself as a close friend and former co-worker of lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a “relationship that could be very beneficial to you,” Cohen recalled.

Cohen described a backchannel for him to communicate with Trump via Costello, who would communicate with Giuliani, who would relay information to Trump. Some emails between Cohen and Costello shown to jurors contained what appeared to be disguised references to Giuliani and Trump, with a wink and a nod to the men as “my friend” and “his client.”

“It’s all back channel, sort of ‘I-Spy’-ish,” Cohen said. “Never mentioning President Trump. Just using code word.”

JURORS SEE TRUMP TWEETS PRAISING COHEN

Shortly before Donald Trump's hush money trial took a break Tuesday, jurors saw tweets from Trump in April 2018 in which he praised his lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen and, prosecutors suggested, pressured him to remain loyal.

“Mr. Trump did not want me to cooperate with government and certainly not to provide information or flip,” Cohen testified.

Trump defended Cohen in the tweets as “a fine person with a wonderful family” and said, “Most people will flip if the government lets them out of trouble, even if it means lying or making up stories. Sorry, I don’t see Michael doing that.”

Cohen testified that he believed the message was meant for him. Cohen summed up the message he felt Trump was sending him in the tweets as: “Don’t flip.”

Trump exited the courtroom without stopping to speak with reporters but flashed a thumbs up as he walked through a courthouse door.

COHEN: ‘IT WAS MR. DONALD J. TRUMP HIMSELF’

Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified Tuesday that a February 2018 statement he released about a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels was purposely misleading.

The statement declared, “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction." Cohen says it was “a true statement but it’s deceptive. It’s misleading.”

Cohen said it was because it was neither the Trump Organization nor the campaign that was a part of the transaction, but the revocable trust.

“It was Mr. Donald J. Trump himself,” Cohen said.

He said he made the misleading statement “in order to protect Mr. Trump, to stay on message.”

COHEN TESTIFIES TO CRAFTING DANIELS' HUSH MONEY DENIAL

After The Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 that Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen had arranged a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels, Cohen testified Tuesday that he felt a second, official statement from Daniels would put an end to the story once and for all.

Cohen testified at Trump's trial that he’d heard Daniels was planning to go on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show and contacted Keith Davidson, the lawyer who represented Daniels in the hush money deal, about issuing a statement.

The day of Daniels’ appearance, she issued a statement again denying a sexual encounter with Trump and reiterating that she had not been paid “hush money” to deny the claim.

Cohen testified that he knew the statement was false because he had helped craft it, and that he knew the payment had been made because he had paid it.

Throughout Cohen’s testimony Tuesday, Trump reclined back in his chair with his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side.

COHEN: WORK PICKED UP AFTER DANIELS WENT PUBLIC

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said on the witness stand Tuesday at the former president’s hush money trial that he did only “minimal” work for Trump in 2017 and didn’t send an invoice because it wasn’t enough to require payment.

The case concerned a lawsuit against Trump, later dropped, from Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump's reality show “The Apprentice,” who alleged she’d been defamed. But he said work for Trump picked up in 2018. That was after porn actor Stormy Daniels went public about her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.

“As as result of the Stormy Daniels matter and her electing to go public, Mr. Trump wanted an action to be filed" for breach of a nondisclosure agreement, Cohen said.

Cohen said he was contacted by Trump and son Eric Trump about how to go forward. Eric Trump was running day-to-day operations at the Trump Organization while his father was in the White House. Again, though, Cohen said he did not bill for the work.

Cohen earlier admitted on the stand that he lied to Congress during an investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger appeared to be trying to take the sting out of an expected cross-examination likely to delve in detail into Cohen’s past lies, but also to paint Cohen to the jury as a loyalist whose crimes were committed on Trump's behalf.

SPEAKER JOHNSON SLAMS TRIAL OUTSIDE COURT

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called former President Donald Trump's hush money trial a “sham” Tuesday as he addressed reporters outside the courthouse while Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen continued testifying for the prosecution.

With Trump barred by gag order from attacking witnesses and the judge’s family, Johnson did the dirty work for him. He slammed Cohen, the prosecution’s star witness, as “a man who is clearly on a mission for personal revenge” and said he “has trouble with the truth.”

Johnson also decried Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and other court officials as partisans.

“I came here again today on my own to support President Trump because I am one of hundreds of millions of people and one citizen who is deeply concerned about this,” he said.

TRUMP SIGNED THE CHECKS, COHEN TESTIFIES

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger talked Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen through the reimbursement process in the former president's hush money trial Tuesday.

Her method was an attempt to show jurors what prosecutors say was a month-by-month deception to mask the true purpose of the payments.

Cohen repeatedly read through the description on each check stub, and Hoffinger repeatedly asked him if the description on the check was false, which he affirmed. She then asked him if he recognized the thick, slashing signature on the check.

“Whose signature is it?” Hoffinger asked repeatedly.

“Donald J. Trump,” Cohen said each time.

As Cohen testified, Trump leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, sitting extremely still.

COHEN SAYS AN INVOICE WAS FALSE

Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified Tuesday in the ex-president's hush money trial that an invoice for “services rendered” was a false record.

Jurors were shown 2017 correspondence between Cohen and Jeffrey McConney, the Trump Organization controller at the time who testified earlier in the trial as a prosecution witness.

In one email, dated Feb. 14, 2017, with the subject line “$$,” Cohen asked McConney to have monthly checks for January and February made payable to him. McConney then asked for invoices so he could have the checks cut.

The invoices said for “services rendered” for January and February, but Cohen said that it was not a truthful statement that there had been “services rendered” for those months or that he had been working on a retainer fee.

“Was this invoice a false record?” asked prosecutor Susan Hoffinger.

“Yes, ma’am,” Cohen responded.

COHEN DESCRIBES OVAL OFFICE DISCUSSION

Returning to the witness stand Tuesday, Michael Cohen testified that he discussed the hush money repayment plan with Donald Trump in the Oval Office when he visited the White House in February 2017.

“I was sitting with President Trump and he asked me if I was OK,” Cohen told jurors. “He asked me if I needed money, and I said, ‘All good,’ because I can get a check.”

Cohen testified that Trump then told him, “OK, make sure you deal with Allen,” a reference to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, and that a check for his January and February payments was forthcoming.

Under Cohen’s reimbursement arrangement, he was paid $35,000 per month for 12 months, for a total of $420,000.

During the same White House visit, Cohen posed for a picture at the lectern in the press briefing room. The photo, extracted by prosecutors from Cohen’s iPhone, was shown in court.

QUESTIONING OF COHEN RESUMES

Michael Cohen went under questioning again as former President Donald Trump's hush money trial resumed Tuesday.

Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger resumed her questioning shortly after Cohen entered court. Trump didn’t appear to react to Cohen’s entrance. Instead, he focused on a piece of paper in his hand, which he raised up and showed to his attorney Todd Blanche with a scowl as Cohen walked by.

Before the jury and Cohen arrived in the courtroom, a sidebar conference was held with the judge at the request of prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. The subject was not clear.

During the sidebar, Trump had an extended conversation with his attorney Emil Bove, occasionally gesturing with his hand or thumb.

Trump, flanked by supporters including the speaker of the House and several potential vice presidential picks, railed against the trial once again before entering the courthouse.

Trump, who is barred by gag order from going after witnesses, jurors and the family members of court officials, quoted a litany of conservative commentators’ criticism of the case.

Among those in the courtroom with Trump were former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, one of Trump's sons, Eric, and daughter-in-law Lara.

TRUMP ENTERS COURT; SPEAKER JOHNSON TO ADDRESS ‘SHAM’

Former President Donald Trump walked into court just before 9 a.m. Tuesday for another day of testimony from his fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, second in the line of succession to the president, traveled with Trump in his motorcade in a politically stunning and significant show of Republican support.

Johnson is using his powerful pulpit to attack the U.S. judicial system, criticizing the courts as biased against the former president. The speaker claims the case is politically motivated by Democrats and insists Trump has done “nothing wrong.”

It’s a remarkable, if not unprecedented, moment in modern American politics to have the powerful House speaker, a constitutional officer, turn his political party against the U.S. system and rule of law by declaring a trial illegitimate.

Johnson's team announced he planned to address media later in the morning “outside of the ongoing sham prosecution of President Trump.”

AN ENTOURAGE OF GOP SUPPORTERS, INCLUDING THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

House Speaker Mike Johnson will be traveling with Donald Trump in his motorcade to court along with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and his former GOP rival Vivek Ramaswamy.

Both Burgum and Donalds are considered potential vice presidential contenders.

On Monday, Trump was joined in court by a number of Republican supporters, including another potential running mate: Ohio Sen. JD Vance.

WITH TRUMP UNDER A GAG ORDER, HIS GOP ALLIES SPEAK UP

With Donald Trump barred from publicly attacking the key witness in his hush money trial, his campaign brought to court a band of Republican elected officials to speak for him.

Trump, who is balancing the demands of a felony trial with his third run for the White House, has been prohibited by a judge’s gag order from criticizing witnesses and already fined for violating the restrictions.

Bringing allies to court allowed Trump’s campaign to press his message without violating the gag order. It also gave those allies a high-profile platform to demonstrate loyalty to their party’s presumptive nominee and perhaps audition for higher office.

COHEN PROVIDES JURORS WITH AN INSIDER'S ACCOUNT

Once Donald Trump’s loyal attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen provided jurors with an insider’s account of payments to silence women’s claims of sexual encounters with Trump, saying the payments were directed by Trump to fend off damage to his 2016 White House bid.

While prosecutors’ most important witness, he’s also their most vulnerable to attack — having served time in federal prison and built his persona in recent years around being a thorn in Trump’s side.

Cohen is expected to be on the witness stand for several days, and face intense grilling by Trump’s attorneys, who have painted him as a liar who’s trying to take down the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

While prosecutors’ most important witness, he’s also their most vulnerable to attack — having served time in federal prison and built his persona in recent years around being a thorn in Trump’s side.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

Lauren Handy, 30, was among several people convicted of federal civil rights offenses for blockading access to the Washington Surgi-Clinic on Oct. 22, 2020. Police found five fetuses at Handy's home in Washington after she was indicted.

A clinic nurse sprained her ankle when one of Handy's co-defendants forced his way into the clinic and pushed her. Another co-defendant accosted a woman who was having labor pains, preventing her from getting off a floor and entering the clinic, prosecutors said.

Inside the clinic's waiting room, Handy directed blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains and block the doors. A co-defendant used social media to livestream the blockade, which lasted several hours before police arrested the participants.

Handy declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced her to four years and nine months in prison.

Handy's supporters applauded as she was led out of the courtroom. “You're a hero, Lauren!” one of them shouted.

The judge told Handy that she was being punished for her actions, not her beliefs.

“The law does not protect violent nor obstructive conduct, nor should it,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of roughly six years for Handy. They described her as an anti-abortion extremist who was a "criminal mastermind" behind the Washington invasion and similar attacks on other clinics.

“Her strongly held anti-abortion beliefs led her to devise a plan to block access to the Surgi-clinic," prosecutors wrote. "The blockade, which was broadcast to Handy’s legion of followers, encouraged others to commit similar crimes, publicized her own offense, and traumatized the victims.”

A jury convicted Handy of two charges: conspiracy against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, more commonly known as the FACE Act.

Defense lawyers asked for a prison sentence of one year for Handy, who has been jailed since her August 2023 conviction. Her attorneys described her as a compassionate activist who “cares deeply for the vulnerable communities she serves.”

“Her goal in life is to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and to empower those who do not feel that they have any power,” the defense attorneys wrote.

Handy's nine co-defendants were Jonathan Darnel, of Virginia; Jay Smith, John Hinshaw and William Goodman, all of New York; Joan Bell, of New Jersey; Paulette Harlow and Jean Marshall, both of Massachusetts; Heather Idoni, of Michigan; and Herb Geraghty, of Pennsylvania.

Goodman and Hinshaw were sentenced on Tuesday to prison terms of 27 months and 21 months, respectively, according to prosecutors.

Smith was sentenced last year to 10 months behind bars. Darnel, Geraghty, Marshall and Bell are scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday. Idoni is scheduled to be sentenced next Tuesday. Harlow’s sentencing is set for May 31.

“These are good people who wouldn't hurt anybody on purpose,” said Martin Cannon, one of Handy's attorneys. “Lauren has done enough time. Send Lauren home. Send them all home.”

Darnel joined Handy in planning and leading the Washington clinic invasion, using social media to recruit participants and discuss their plans, prosecutors said.

Handy used a false name to book a fake appointment at the clinic on the morning of the invasion. When a clinic employee unlocked a door to admit patients, the defendants pushed and shoved their way in while Darnel livestreamed the blockade.

“As the codefendants executed the blockade, Handy used a rope stretched across the entrance threshold to obstruct entry into the clinic’s waiting room,” prosecutors wrote. "After the blockade was successfully executed, Handy briefly left the building to act as the group’s police liaison."

The judge said Handy and her fellow activists didn't show any compassion or empathy to the patients who were prevented from getting care that day.

“No caring or sympathetic gestures at all,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

Handy and some of her co-defendants also blockaded reproductive health clinics in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia, after the Washington invasion, prosecutors said.

Handy's attorneys said she founded and operated a nonprofit organization, Mercy Missions, that “helps families and mothers in crisis pregnancies." She also joined a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising before her March 2022 arrest.

Recently, consumer finance outlet FinanceBuzz analyzed data from the civil aviation database Planespotters.net to determine which airlines currently have the oldest and newest planes. In addition to Planespotters data, we cross-referenced fleet age information from air traffic tracker/database Flightradar24.

Using this data, FinanceBuzz found that United Airlines has the oldest planes on average, with the average age of its fleet being 19.4 years. Though United has many brand new planes, Planespotters data showed 49% of the airline's fleet is 20 years old or older. Meanwhile, Flightradar24 shows that of United's 1,440 aircraft, its oldest planes are four Boeing 767s, which boast 33 years each.

Here's how several other airlines fared, per Planespotters' data:

Interestingly, several "budget" airlines were found to have the newest planes. This includes airlines like Spirit and Frontier, which boast average fleet ages of 6 years and 4.7 years, respectively.

The airline with the lowest average plane age is the Utah-based budget airline Breeze Airways, with an average plane age of 2.1 years. Seeing as how Breeze Airways is a newer operation (began business in May 2021), this isn't all that unusual. Flightradar24 data shows that of Breeze Airways' 39 aircraft, its oldest plane is an 18 year-old Embraer E190 jet, in addition to several of the same type that are 17 years old.

With all this information, you might be wondering how much age of a plane actually matters. And it does — but there are also many other factors that determine an aircraft's longterm viability.

Back in 2020, Flightradar24 published an article titled "Aircraft age explained," which helped illuminate why years might not be the best gauge of determining aircraft wear and tear. Because while a 30 year-old plane might be 30 years old, if it's flown fewer total hours and pressurization cycles than a 5 year-old plane, the 30 year-old veteran might actually be in better shape.

Aviation news outlet Simple Flying explains that a pressurization cycle occurs when an aircraft takes off and its cabin is pressurized to allow everyone on board to be able to breathe normally at a high altitude. But Simple Flying says the process is harsh on a plane's metal frame, causing what's called "metal fatigue."

With this in mind, aircraft manufacturers set a maximum pressurization cycle number, which dictates how many cycles a plane can go through and still be safe and/or repairable. Flightradar24 reports Boeing previously said its 747 aircraft are able to weather 35,000 pressurization cycles.

All in all, most contemporary commercial aircraft are designed to last between 25 and 35 years, according to Simple Flying. That equals about 30,000 pressurization cycles.

Lawson’s longtime church, Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in that Texas city, announced on its website that he had died on Tuesday.

“He has completed his time of service here on earth and is now enjoying eternal rest,” the church said in its announcement.

Lawson founded Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in 1962 and served as its pastor for 42 years before retiring in 2004. He was known as “Houston’s Pastor” and remained active in his church and the community after retirement.

He worked with King during the civil rights movement by setting up the local office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization that was led by King.

During an interview in 2021 with his daughter Melanie Lawson, an anchor with KTRK in Houston, William Lawson recalled how he offered to play host to King at his church when others would not after the FBI wrongly accused King of being a communist.

“I told his staff I don’t have a big church. But he’s perfectly welcomed to come to my church and he came to Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church and he preached there,” Lawson said.

Both men remained close friends until King’s assassination in 1968.

Community leaders in Houston praised Lawson and his legacy on Tuesday.

“He is one of the reasons why our city is so great. He helped us during the period of civil rights and social justice,” Mayor John Whitmire said. “Houston benefited from his leadership, his character.”

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said although Houston mourns his loss, “we celebrate a legacy that will guide us for generations to come.”

Memorial services celebrating Lawson’s life were set to be held at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church on May 23 and May 24.

The woman was killed after Monday night’s storms knocked a tree into a home in West Baton Rouge Parish, officials said.

Kristin Browning, 31, was nine months pregnant, and her unborn child did not survive. Browning’s husband and her 5-year-old daughter were also injured but were expected to survive.

Another death happened near the Louisiana town of Henderson, authorities said on social media. A tornado appeared to have struck the area, but officials gave no details on how the person died. Henderson is about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of New Orleans.

In Mississippi, one person was killed in Wilkinson County during storms that hit the area Sunday and Monday, officials announced Tuesday. Details were not immediately available.

The storms tore through many areas previously hit during one of the most active periods for twisters on record. At least 267 tornadoes were confirmed by the National Weather Service from April 25 through May 10.

Florida and parts of south Georgia were again under the threat of severe weather Tuesday, with tornadoes still possible, according to the national Storm Prediction Center. Another area at risk of storms Tuesday covered parts of Tennessee, north Georgia and north Alabama.

In Oklahoma, authorities said they found a man's body in an area where they were searching for one missing since an EF4 tornado May 6. The Osage County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the man’s body was found in a creek Saturday afternoon. The statement did not identify the man.

Authorities previously said one person was killed in the twister, which the weather service reported had winds as fast as 175 mph (282 kph).

The No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft is coming off a record-setting college career at Iowa.

Game: Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun
Time: 6:30 p.m. CDT, May 14
Watch: ESPN2, ESPN+, Disney+

“This is what you’ve worked for and dreamed of. Now you get to put your jersey on for the first real time and go out there and play,” Clark said. “We get to play on the biggest stage, there’s gonna be a lot of people there, it’s gonna be loud. But you only play your first WNBA game once. I think I just want to enjoy it. It’s gonna be competitive. They’re really good, so you’ve got to prep the right way, too. More than anything, we’re ready for the challenge.”

Even before playing a WNBA game, Clark has left her mark in the pros. The league's draft had record viewership, and her No. 22 Indiana Fever jerseys have been flying off the shelves.

Three WNBA teams have already moved their games to bigger arenas to keep up with the demand for tickets to watch her play. Her debut in Connecticut is sold out — the first sellout for the Sun in a season opener since they played their inaugural game at Mohegan Sun Arena in 2003 after moving from Orlando. There's also a huge media turnout with nearly four times the number of credentials issued for this game than a normal Sun contest.

Clark's home debut will be Thursday when the Fever hosts the New York Liberty.

Clark and her teammates took the court in a morning shootaround at the empty arena. She said afterward that she planned to watch more film during the day in her hotel room.

“I don't feel nervous or really anxious,” she said. “I think I'm just excited more than anything and just embracing it."

Clark said she's not going to get too caught up on her play in her first game.

“If something isn't perfect, my life's not going to end," she said. "If, you know, we lose the game tonight, my life's not going to end. I'm just going to learn from it and come back on Thursday and try to help us win.”

This will be the second sold-out crowd Clark will play in front of in her extremely young WNBA career. Her preseason game in Dallas was sold out, too. More than 13,000 fans also turned up for her only home preseason game.

It’s a new question for many workers amid the rise of ChatGPT and other AI programs that can hold conversations, write stories and even generate songs and images within seconds.

For doctors who review scans to spot cancer and other diseases, however, AI has loomed for about a decade as more algorithms promise to improve accuracy, speed up work and, in some cases, take over entire parts of the job. Predictions have ranged from doomsday scenarios in which AI fully replaces radiologists, to sunny futures in which it frees them to focus on the most rewarding aspects of their work.

That tension reflects how AI is rolling out across health care. Beyond the technology itself, much depends upon the willingness of doctors to put their trust — and their patients’ health — in the hands of increasingly sophisticated algorithms that few understand.

Even within the field, opinions differ on how much radiologists should be embracing the technology.

“Some of the AI techniques are so good, frankly, I think we should be doing them now,” said Dr. Ronald Summers, a radiologist and AI researcher at the National Institutes of Health. “Why are we letting that information just sit on the table?”

Summers’ lab has developed computer-aided imaging programs that detect colon cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes and other conditions. None of those have been widely adopted, which he attributes to the “culture of medicine,” among other factors.

Radiologists have used computers to enhance images and flag suspicious areas since the 1990s. But the latest AI programs can go much further, interpreting the scans, offering a potential diagnosis and even drafting written reports about their findings. The algorithms are often trained on millions of X-rays and other images collected from hospitals.

Across all of medicine, the FDA has OK’d more than 700 AI algorithms to aid physicians. More than 75% of them are in radiology, yet just 2% of radiology practices use such technology, according to one recent estimate.

For all the promises from industry, radiologists see a number of reasons to be skeptical of AI programs: limited testing in real-world settings, lack of transparency about how they work and questions about the demographics of the patients used to train them.

“If we don’t know on what cases the AI was tested, or whether those cases are similar to the kinds of patients we see in our practice, there’s just a question in everyone’s mind as to whether these are going to work for us,” said Dr. Curtis Langlotz, a radiologist who runs an AI research center at Stanford University.

To date, all the programs cleared by the FDA require a human to be in the loop.

In early 2020, the FDA held a two-day workshop to discuss algorithms that could operate without human oversight. Shortly afterwards, radiology professionals warned regulators in a letter that they "strongly believe it is premature for the FDA to consider approval or clearance” of such systems.

But European regulators in 2022 approved the first fully automatic software that reviews and writes reports for chest X-rays that look healthy and normal. The company behind the app, Oxipit, is submitting its U.S. application to the FDA.

The need for such technology in Europe is urgent, with some hospitals facing monthslong backlogs of scans due to a shortage of radiologists.

In the U.S., that kind of automated screening is likely years away. Not because the technology isn’t ready, according to AI executives, but because radiologists aren’t yet comfortable turning over even routine tasks to algorithms.

“We try to tell them they’re overtreating people and they’re wasting a ton of time and resources,” said Chad McClennan, CEO of Koios Medical, which sells an AI tool for ultrasounds of the thyroid, the vast majority of which are not cancerous. “We tell them, ‘Let the machine look at it, you (review and) sign the report and be done with it.’”

Radiologists tend to overestimate their own accuracy, McClennan says. Research by his company found physicians viewing the same breast scans disagreed with each other more than 30% of the time on whether to do a biopsy. The same radiologists even disagreed with their own initial assessments 20% of the time, when viewing the same images a month later.

About 20% of breast cancers are missed during routine mammograms, according to the National Cancer Institute.

And then there's the potential for cost savings. On average, U.S. radiologists earn over $350,000 annually, according to the Department of Labor.

In the near term, experts say AI will work like autopilot systems on planes — performing important navigation functions, but always under the supervision of a human pilot.

That approach offers reassurances to both doctors and patients, says Dr. Laurie Margolies, of Mount Sinai hospital network in New York. The system uses Koios breast imaging AI to get a second opinion on breast ultrasounds.

“I will tell patients, ‘I looked at it, and the computer looked at it, and we both agree,’” Margolies said. “Hearing me say that we both agree, I think that gives the patient an even greater level of confidence.”

The first large, rigorous studies testing AI-assisted radiologists against those working alone give hints at the potential improvements.

Initial results from a Swedish study of 80,000 women showed a single radiologist working with AI detected 20% more cancers than two radiologists working without the technology.

In Europe, mammograms are reviewed by two radiologists to improve accuracy. But Sweden, like other countries, faces a workforce shortage, with only a few dozen breast radiologists in a country of 10 million people.

Using AI instead of a second reviewer decreased the human workload by 44%, according to the study.

Still, the study’s lead author says it's essential that a radiologist make the final diagnosis in all cases.

If an automated algorithm misses a cancer, "that’s going to be very negative for trust in the caregiver,” said Dr. Kristina Lang of Lund University.

The question of who could be held liable in such cases is among the thorny legal issues that have yet to be resolved.

One result is that radiologists are likely to continue double-checking all AI determinations, lest they be held responsible for an error. That’s likely to wipe out many of the predicted benefits, including reduced workload and burnout.

Only an extremely accurate, reliable algorithm would allow radiologists to truly step away from the process, says Dr. Saurabh Jha of the University of Pennsylvania.

Until such systems emerge, Jha likens AI-assisted radiology to someone who offers to help you drive by looking over your shoulder and constantly pointing out everything on the road.

“That’s not helpful,” Jha says. “If you want to help me drive then you take over the driving so that I can sit back and relax.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

And that may be the end of the easy part for the Biden administration's two-month-long, $320 million effort to open a sea route to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, with dangers and uncertainties ahead for aid delivery teams as fighting surges and the plight of starving Palestinians grows more dire.

For President Joe Biden, the Pentagon's new floating pier and causeway are a gamble, an attempted workaround to the challenges of getting aid into Gaza from intensifying war and the restrictions its ally Israel has placed at land crossings since Hamas' deadly attacks on Israel launched the conflict in October.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said Tuesday that humanitarian groups were ready for the first shipments through the U.S. maritime route. “In the coming days, you can expect to see this effort underway. And we are confident that that we will be able to, working with our NGO partners, ensure that aid can be delivered,” he said.

Relief groups are watching to see if Israeli officials will allow a freer flow of food and other supplies through this sea route than they have by land and follow through on pledges to protect aid workers. They say protections for humanitarian workers have not improved and point to aid already piling up at Gaza's border crossings, waiting for decisions by Israeli officials to distribute it.

Because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed, the U.S.-built pier and sea route “is a solution for a problem that doesn't exist,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.

“Like all of the land crossings, it comes down to the consent of the government of Israel” on allowing aid through its screening process and ensuring aid teams are safe to distribute it within Gaza, Paul said.

“If Israel is comfortable with allowing the maritime corridor to function ... then it will work in a limited way,” he said this week, as the U.S. military said it was waiting out bad weather to put the pier and dock in place. “And if they don't, it won't. Which is why it's a very, very expensive alternative.”

Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Tuesday that the country had enabled the entrance of thousands of aid trucks into Gaza and would continue to do so. It repeated accusations that Hamas was disrupting aid distribution by hijacking and attacking convoys. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said this month that there was only one major incident of Hamas commandeering aid trucks.

The Israeli military said in a statement Tuesday that it will keep acting in line with international law to distribute aid to Gaza. It also has previously said there are no limits on aid, it is trying to keep crossings open despite Hamas attacks and has blamed the U.N. for problems with distribution.

With food and aid in short supply in Gaza throughout the war, the head of the U.N. World Food Program and others say that famine has taken hold in northern Gaza and is spreading south.

After an Israeli attack killed seven World Central Kitchen workers on an aid mission on April 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to Biden to allow in more aid and safeguard those workers.

Last month, truckloads of aid entering Gaza increased by 13%, said Anastasia Moran, an associate director for the International Rescue Committee, a global humanitarian group. But the daily average of trucks entering in April still was about half the average of 500 trucks a day that crossed before the war.

Moran also said Israeli officials have denied permission to roughly two-thirds of aid missions that humanitarian groups have asked to run into northern Gaza, where starvation is the worst.

Now, Israel's military operation in the southern city of Rafah to root out Hamas militants has closed one of Gaza's two main border crossings, while a spate of Hamas attacks has crippled operations at the other crossing, cutting fuel and aid deliveries into Gaza.

It's unclear how much the cutoffs and surge in fighting will affect American-led efforts to deliver food, emergency nutrition for children and other aid to be brought in via the sea route. But humanitarian operations are under threat throughout Gaza, aid officials said.

“The whole aid operation runs on fuel,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. “So if fuel is cut off, the aid operation collapses, and it collapses quickly.”

Safety is another essential need for humanitarian workers — and that too is in short supply. Oxfam, Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee and other organizations assert that Israel's government has failed to make the promised changes to protect humanitarian missions within Gaza from Israeli attack.

On Monday, an attack on a U.N. convoy killed an Indian staff member and injured another staffer. The United Nations said Tuesday that the convoy was clearly marked and its planned movements had been announced in advance to Israeli authorities. Israeli officials said they were investigating and denied being told of the convoy's whereabouts.

Around the world, the process of humanitarian workers communicating their planned movements to combatants and getting clearance to move is known as “deconfliction.”

The problem in Gaza, before and after the World Central Kitchen killings, is that Israel has aid teams communicate their plans to the civilian Israeli agency that oversees Palestinian territory, said Paul, the Oxfam official. But unlike the usual operations in other countries, aid teams typically receive no word back from that agency, no assurance that their plans have been passed along to Israeli forces on the ground and no assurances of safety, Paul said.

"There's still not a functioning humanitarian notification system or deconfliction system," said Alexandra Saieh, head of humanitarian policy and advocacy for Save the Children.

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday pointed to eight Israeli strikes on aid group lodgings and convoys whose locations, according to the organizations, had been passed along to Israeli authorities in advance.

The rights group quoted an aid official as saying that without security for these teams, vitally needed goods would pile up undelivered regardless of piers or shipments. Human Rights Watch did not identify the official, citing the person's security.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which is charged with helping organize and oversee the distribution of aid within Gaza that will be brought in through the U.S. sea route, said it would “continue to press Israel to create the conditions to ensure the safety of humanitarian actors and activities, open additional land crossings, remove impediments to the delivery of humanitarian aid and do far more to prevent the killings” of humanitarian workers and civilians.

The U.N. World Food Program and other humanitarian groups will do the actual delivery of aid from the sea route, USAID said. No U.S. troops will set foot in Gaza. The Israeli military is to handle security on shore, which has been a concern for the United Nations.

The WFP has emphasized the need for neutrality when delivering aid. The sea route can supplement land deliveries but “nothing can compete with truck convoys when it comes to volume of aid,” said Abeer Etefa, a spokeswoman for the organization.

Even if deconfliction problems were solved, teams charged with delivering aid from the sea route would find Gaza a deadly place to operate, said Paul, the Oxfam official. The war has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, Palestinian health officials say.

“Even a functioning deconfliction system isn't going to work in a free-fire zone,” Paul said.

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AP reporters Lolita C. Baldor in Washington, Samy Madgy in Cairo and Sam Mednick in Jerusalem contributed.

Tuesday’s release of the #WeCount survey shows about 8,000 women a month in states that severely restrict abortion or place limits on having one through telehealth were getting the pills by mail by the end of 2023, the first time a number has been put on how often the medical system workaround is being used. The research was conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion rights.

An additional 8,000 women in states without bans or major restrictions on telehealth abortion were receiving pills each month through virtual appointments, the study showed.

In all, the survey counted about 90,000 monthly surgical or medication abortions offered by medical providers in 2023, higher than the previous year. Another study recently found that close to two-thirds of the total use pills.

The group found that by December 2023, providers in states with the protections were prescribing pills to about 6,000 women a month in states where abortion was banned at all stages of pregnancy or once cardiac activity can be detected — about six weeks, often before women realize they're pregnant. The prescriptions also were going to about 2,000 women a month in states where the local laws limit abortion pill prescriptions by telemedicine.

“People ... are using the various mechanisms to get pills that are out there,” Drexel University law professor David Cohen said. This "is not surprising based on what we know throughout human history and across the world: People will find a way to terminate pregnancies they don't want.”

Medication abortions typically involve a combination two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. The rise of these pills is one reason total abortion numbers increased even after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in April found that Americans are substantially more likely to say that medication abortion should be legal, rather than illegal, in their state. According to the poll, which didn't look at laws protecting prescribers, more than half of U.S. adults think medication abortion should be legal in their state, a fifth of them say it should be illegal, and about a quarter say they aren’t sure.

After Roe was overturned, abortion bans took effect in most Republican-controlled states. Fourteen states now prohibit it with few exceptions, while three others bar it after about six weeks of pregnancy.

But many Democratic-controlled states went the opposite way. They've adopted laws intended to protect people in their states from investigations involving abortion-related crimes by authorities in other states. By the end of last year, five of those states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington — had such protections in place specifically to cover abortion pill prescriptions by telemedicine.

“If a Colorado provider provides telehealth care to a patient who's in Texas, Colorado will not participate in any Texas criminal action or civil lawsuit,” Cohen said. “Colorado says: ‘The care that was provided in our state was legal. It follows our laws because the provider was in our state.’”

Wendy Stark, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, called the shield law there “a critical win for abortion access in our state.”

James Bopp Jr., general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, said the law where the abortion takes place — not where the prescriber is located — should apply in pill-by-telemedicine abortions. That's the way it is with other laws, he said.

But unlike many other aspects of abortion policy, this issue hasn't been tested in court yet.

Bopp said that the only way to challenge a shield law in court would be for a prosecutor in a state with a ban to charge an out-of-state prescriber with providing an illegal abortion.

“It’ll probably occur, and we’ll get a legal challenge,” Bopp said.

Researchers note that before the shield laws took effect, people were obtaining abortion pills from sources outside the formal medical system, but it’s not clear exactly how many.

Alison Norris, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University and a lead researcher on the #WeCount report, said the group is not breaking down how many pills were shipped to each state with a ban “to maintain the highest level of protection for individuals receiving that care and providers providing that care.”

Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, director of Aid Access, an abortion pill supplier working with U.S. providers, said having more shield laws will make the health care system more resilient.

“They’re extremely important because they make doctors and providers ... feel safe and protected,” said Gomperts, whose organization's numbers were included in the #WeCount report. “I hope what we will see in the end is that all the states that are not banning abortion will adopt shield laws.”

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

The Florida Highway Patrol said the crash happened on West Highway 40 at 6:35 a.m.

Troopers said a 2010 International bus, which carried 53 farm workers, and a Ford Ranger truck sideswiped each other — causing the bus to swerve off the road.

The bus then crashed into a fence and flipped, killing eight people. The FHP said about 40 people were hospitalized while Marion County Fire Rescue said 38 people were hospitalized, eight of them in critical condition.

Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said the workers were migrants who were hired to do agricultural work in Florida. Woods said he believed they were in the country legally.

"They're hard-working individuals," he said. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with them being here."

"Some of those are also in very serious condition, so there's high probability this may be beyond eight fatalities," said Lt. Pat Riordan, public affairs officer for the Florida Highway Patrol. "The driver of the Ford pickup was also transported to the hospital with serious injuries."

Woods said over 30 ambulances were on the scene to help get the victims out of the bus.

A spokesperson for Marion County Public Schools also told Nexstar's WFLA that the district sent a school bus to the scene to help transport patients to get treatment.

AdventHealth Ocala is providing treatment to 12 patients from the crash at the main emergency department, and to four others at AdventHealth Timber Ridge.

Riordan said the crash is being investigated as a traffic homicide, but it could take six months for the FHP to complete the investigation. The bus is also being inspected at this time.

The workers were being transported to Cannon Farms in Dunnellon.

“We will be closed today out of respect to the losses and injuries endured early this morning in the accident that took place to the Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp.,” Cannon Farms announced on its Facebook page. “Please pray with us for the families and the loved ones involved in this tragic accident. We appreciate your understanding at this difficult time.”

Cannon Farms describes itself as a family owned commercial farming operation that has farmed its land for more than 100 years, focusing now on peanuts and watermelons, which it sends to grocery stores across the U.S. and Canada.

No one answered the phone at Olvera Trucking on Tuesday afternoon. The company had recently advertised for a temporary driver to bus workers to watermelon fields. The driver would then operate harvesting equipment. The pay was $14.77 an hour.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Recently, consumer finance outlet FinanceBuzz analyzed data from the civil aviation database Planespotters.net to determine which airlines currently have the oldest and newest planes. In addition to Planespotters data, we cross-referenced fleet age information from air traffic tracker/database Flightradar24.

Using this data, FinanceBuzz found that United Airlines has the oldest planes on average, with the average age of its fleet being 19.4 years. Though United has many brand new planes, Planespotters data showed 49% of the airline's fleet is 20 years old or older. Meanwhile, Flightradar24 shows that of United's 1,440 aircraft, its oldest planes are four Boeing 767s, which boast 33 years each.

Here's how several other airlines fared, per Planespotters' data:

Interestingly, several "budget" airlines were found to have the newest planes. This includes airlines like Spirit and Frontier, which boast average fleet ages of 6 years and 4.7 years, respectively.

The airline with the lowest average plane age is the Utah-based budget airline Breeze Airways, with an average plane age of 2.1 years. Seeing as how Breeze Airways is a newer operation (began business in May 2021), this isn't all that unusual. Flightradar24 data shows that of Breeze Airways' 39 aircraft, its oldest plane is an 18 year-old Embraer E190 jet, in addition to several of the same type that are 17 years old.

With all this information, you might be wondering how much age of a plane actually matters. And it does — but there are also many other factors that determine an aircraft's longterm viability.

Back in 2020, Flightradar24 published an article titled "Aircraft age explained," which helped illuminate why years might not be the best gauge of determining aircraft wear and tear. Because while a 30 year-old plane might be 30 years old, if it's flown fewer total hours and pressurization cycles than a 5 year-old plane, the 30 year-old veteran might actually be in better shape.

Aviation news outlet Simple Flying explains that a pressurization cycle occurs when an aircraft takes off and its cabin is pressurized to allow everyone on board to be able to breathe normally at a high altitude. But Simple Flying says the process is harsh on a plane's metal frame, causing what's called "metal fatigue."

With this in mind, aircraft manufacturers set a maximum pressurization cycle number, which dictates how many cycles a plane can go through and still be safe and/or repairable. Flightradar24 reports Boeing previously said its 747 aircraft are able to weather 35,000 pressurization cycles.

All in all, most contemporary commercial aircraft are designed to last between 25 and 35 years, according to Simple Flying. That equals about 30,000 pressurization cycles.

Jack Teixeira, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, is facing three charges in the military justice system: one alleging he failed to obey a lawful order and two counts of obstructing justice.

Capt. Stephanie Evans said at Tuesday's hearing that a court-martial was appropriate given that obeying orders “is at the absolute core of everything we do in the U.S. military” and that Texeira acted with “malicious intent to cover his tracks.” But one of Teixeira's attorneys, Lt. Col. Bradley Poronsky, argued that further action would amount to prosecuting him twice for the same offense.

Teixeira was arrested just over a year ago in the most consequential national security leak in years. He pleaded guilty on March 4 to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under a deal with prosecutors that calls for him to serve at least 11 years in prison.

Referring to that agreement, Poronosky said the government has now taken its “big feast of evidence” from the criminal courthouse and walked it “down the street here to Hanscom Air Force Base to get their own pound of flesh.”

Dressed in military uniform, Teixeira did not speak at the hearing other than to indicate he understood the proceedings, and family members in attendance declined to comment. In court, he admitted to illegally collecting some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and sharing them with other users on Discord, a social media platform popular with online gamers.

Teixeira, who was part of the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, worked as a cyber transport systems specialist, essentially an information technology specialist responsible for military communications networks.

On Tuesday, military prosecutors sought to include evidence they said showed Teixeira used Discord to ask others to delete his messages as the basis for one of the obstruction of justice charges. But his attorneys objected, saying they wanted the raw data that purportedly connected Teixeira to the messages.

“The government wants you to take a leap of logic and connect the dots when there are no dots,” Poronsky said.

The hearing officer, Lt. Col. Michael Raiming, initially agreed. He said he wouldn’t consider the documents in making his recommendation, but later said he would consider an amended version submitted by prosecutors. Raiming’s recommendations, to be issued at a later date, will be sent to Maj. Gen. Daniel DeVoe, who will decide whether the case should continue.

Until both sides made brief closing statements, the three-hour hearing shed little light on the case as neither Teixeira’s attorneys nor military prosecutors called any witnesses. Instead, they spent the bulk of the three-hour hearing discussing objections raised by Teixeira’s lawyers to some of the documents prosecutors submitted as evidence.

The military charges accuse Teixeira of disobeying orders to stop accessing sensitive documents. The obstruction of justice charges allege that he disposed of an iPad, computer hard drive and iPhone, and instructed others to delete his messages on Discord before his arrest.

“His actions to conceal and destroy messages became egregious,” Evans said.

Authorities in the criminal case said Teixeira first typed out classified documents he accessed and then began sharing photographs of files that bore SECRET and TOP SECRET markings. The leak exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, including information about troop movements in Ukraine and the provision of supplies and equipment to Ukrainian troops. Teixeira also admitted posting information about a U.S. adversary’s plans to harm U.S. forces serving overseas.

The stunning security breach raised alarm over America’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members it found had intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - A ruling Monday by a Superior Court judge in Indiana that "tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches" may end a years-long battle between a restauranteur and a county commission.

Restauranteur Martin Quintana and the Allen County Plan Commission have been battling over what type of establishment was being built and going into a now 11,000-square-foot strip mall.

Previously, the commission denied a Famous Taco from being located in the strip mall partially based on a "written commitment" Quintana accepted with a nearby neighborhood association limiting any restaurant there to one that did not offer alcohol, did not allow outdoor seating and only sold "made-to-order or subway style sandwiches."

The idea behind the agreement, according to court documents, was to keep national fast-food burger and chicken chains out of the strip mall.

"The Court agrees with Quintana that tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches, and the original Written Commitment does not restrict potential restaurants to only American cuisine-style sandwiches," Bobay wrote Monday in the civil case.

"The original Written Commitment would also permit a restaurant that serves made-to-order Greek gyros, Indian naan wraps, or Vietnamese Banh mi if these restaurants complied with the other enumerated conditions," Bobay continued in his written opinion.

It's unclear when the Famous Taco, which already has equipment and signage ready, will open.

When reached Monday, Quintana had not been told about the judge's opinion issued earlier that day.

At first, the property was zoned to be residential and Quintana claimed he wanted to build a garage there. As the space grew to roughly 9,000 to 11,000 square feet -- with work stoppages due to code violations along the way -- questions arose about what exactly Quintana planned for the property.

He went through Fort Wayne City Council to have the property rezoned to limited commercial, came up with a new plan for a restaurant, and then changed that to make the property a strip mall with a restaurant and four other units.

This led to accusations that Quintana had been trying to build a shopping center all along without properly acquiring the required permits, according to court documents in the civil case against the plan commission.

Quintana and the Covington Creek Condominium Association agreed on a “Written Commitment” that allowed for “made-to-order or subway-style sandwiches,” which played a part in the civil case against the plan commission.

When Quintana made plans to open a Famous Taco in the plaza, the neighborhood association claimed the agreement did not support such a restaurant. Quintana and the neighborhood association, however, eventually hammered out an amendment that would allow the Famous Taco to open.

The plan commission, though, did not approve the amendment, which left Famous Taco in limbo.

"The applicant did not present this type of restaurant brand as an exception to the applicant's ban of all restaurants from the shopping center," the commission wrote in one opinion upholding its denial of a Famous Taco at the site.

"The Common Council did not consider this brand of restaurant when rezoning the property," the commission's opinion continued. "In rezoning the property, both the Plan Commission and the Common Council relied on the terms of the written commitment presented by the applicant when the applicant admitted that he built the commercial shopping center in a residential district without proper permits."

In his ruling Monday, Bobay did not fault the plan commission for its denial of the Famous Taco and made sure his decision is appealable.

"The Court concludes that the Respondent Fort Wayne Plan Commission's denial of the Amendment to the Written Commitment was not improper, however, a Famous Taco restaurant is permissible under the terms of the Written Commitment," Bobay wrote.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation and other law enforcement agencies had been searching for the vessel since Saturday, when Ella Adler was killed and the boat operator fled without stopping.

"The boat is in our custody, and the owner is cooperating," FWC officer George Reynaud said in a video on Facebook.

Officials didn't immediately say where the boat was found or how it was located. It also wasn't clear whether the owner of the boat was the person who was operating it when the girl was hit.

Adler was water-skiing near Key Biscayne, just south of Miami, on Saturday afternoon when she fell into the water and was hit by another boat, which immediately sped away, officials said. Witnesses described the hit-and-run craft as a center console boat with a light blue hull, multiple white outboard engines and blue bottom paint.

A funeral service for Adler was held Monday morning at Temple Beth Sholom in Miami Beach. Adler was a freshman at Ransom Everglades School in Coconut Grove and a ballerina with the Miami City Ballet.

A total reward of up to $20,000 was being offered for information that leads to an arrest.

A whistleblower told The Associated Press that the Environmental Protection Agency's ASPECT plane could have provided crucial data about the chemicals spewing into the air around East Palestine as the wreckage burned and forced people from their homes.

The man who wrote the software and helped interpret the data from the advanced radiological and infrared sensors on the plane said it also could have helped officials realize it wasn't necessary to blow open five tank cars and burn the vinyl chloride inside because the plane's sensors could have detected the cars' temperatures more accurately than the responders on the ground who were having trouble safely getting close enough to check.

But the single-engine Cessna cargo plane didn't fly over the train crash until a day after the controversial vent-and-burn action created a huge plume of black smoke over the entire area near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Robert Kroutil said even when the plane did fly, it only gathered incomplete data. Then, when officials later realized some of the shortcomings of the mission, they asked the company Kroutil worked for, Kalman & Company, to draft plans for the flight and backdate them so they would look good if they turned up in a public records request, Kroutil said.

Kroutil said his team labeled the mission inconclusive because only eight minutes of data was recorded in the two flights and the plane's chemical sensors were turned off over the creeks. But he said EPA managers changed their report to declare the vent-and-burn successful because the plane found so few chemicals when it eventually did fly.

“We could tell the data provided from the ASPECT plane’s two East Palestine flights on February 7 was incomplete and irregular. We had no confidence in the data. We could not trust it,” Kroutil said.

The revelations about the use of the ASPECT plane in the aftermath of the worst rail disaster in a decade raise new questions about the effectiveness of the “whole-of-government response” in East Palestine the Biden administration touts.

The Government Accountability Project that represents Kroutil and has been critical of EPA's response in East Palestine sent a sworn affidavit detailing his concerns to the EPA inspector general Tuesday and requested a formal investigation. The group provided a copy of the affidavit and Kroutil agreed to an interview with the AP ahead of time.

In a statement Tuesday, the EPA said it didn't even request the plane until Feb. 5 — two days after the derailment — and it arrived in Pittsburgh late that day from its base in Texas. Due to icing conditions, the flight crew decided it wasn't safe to fly it on the day of the vent-and-burn, but it's unclear why the plane didn't make a pass over the derailment on its way into the area. EPA Response Coordinator Mark Durno has also said he believes the agency had enough sensors on the ground to effectively monitor the air and water as the derailed cars burned.

The agency said its “air monitoring readings were below detection levels for most contaminants, except for particulate matter” in the first two days after the derailment and “air monitoring did not detect chemical contaminants at levels of concern in the hours following the controlled burn.” Officials say data gleaned from more than 115 million readings since then doesn't show any “sustained chemicals of concern” in the air.

But many residents of the town who still complain of respiratory problems and unexplained rashes while worrying about the possibility of developing cancer have doubts about the EPA's assurances that their town and the creeks that run through it are safe. More than 177,000 tons of soil and over 67 million gallons of wastewater have been hauled away as part of the ongoing cleanup that's cost the railroad more than $1 billion.

The head of the NTSB has said her agency's investigation determined the vent-and-burn wasn't necessary because the tank cars were actually starting to cool off, confirming that a dangerous reaction wasn’t happening inside them — something the chemical company had tried to tell officials. But the people who made the decision to blow open those tank cars said they were never told what OxyVinyls' experts determined. Instead, they heard only about the fears the tank cars might explode.

The EPA said the ASPECT plane's flights in East Palestine were consistent with past missions and the plane gathered the requested information, but that doesn't match Kroutil's experience.

“The East Palestine derailment was the oddest response I ever observed with the ASPECT program in over two decades with the program,” said Kroutil, who helped develop the program when he worked for the Defense Department after the 9/11 attacks demonstrated the need for such airborne monitoring over New York.

Kroutil said he retired in frustration in January and wants to share his concerns about the East Palestine mission. He said this incident was handled differently than the 180 other times the plane has been deployed since 2001. Some of those times, the plane was even sent out as a precaution to be nearby political conventions and Super Bowls just in case something happened.

“You want to fly over a train derailment in the first five to 10 hours after the incident and while the fires are still burning. It is really advantageous if you have a plume. That big black plume ... is when you want to get in and collect data," Kroutil said. "The EPA ASPECT airplane should have made passes over the derailment site right away but certainly before the vent-and-burn. I think they chose not to know.”

Kroutil’s former boss, Rick Turville, is the program manager for the ASPECT plane data interpretation at Kalman. He said he trusts Kroutil completely because he is one of the world’s preeminent experts in spectroscopy and he shares Kroutil's frustration about the plane not flying sooner. The experts Kalman employs knew about the disaster in East Palestine but couldn’t act until the EPA deployed the plane.

“These kind of fires or refinery fires, fertilizer plant explosions, they don’t happen often,” Turville said. “But when they do, you got to be there and you got to be there quick. And that’s how you save lives.”

Fortunately, no one died in East Palestine but thousands of lives were upended after the derailment and the worries about future health problems won’t go away.

The EPA manager in charge of the program, Paige Delgado, didn’t immediately respond to an email sent to her Monday with questions about her actions.

Kroutil said he heard Delgado order the plane’s operator during the mission to shut down the chemical sensors when it flew over the creeks in East Palestine even though officials were concerned about chemicals reaching those waterways, potentially fouling drinking water supplies downstream on the Ohio River. Kroutil said his satellite link to the plane’s instruments confirmed those sensors were turned off.

The EPA’s official report on the two East Palestine flights does describe pictures the plane took over Little Beaver Creek after a problem with its aerial camera was fixed, but it doesn’t mention Sulphur Run that flows right next to the derailment site or the bigger Leslie Run creek that flows through town.

A prosecutor in Metz, France, confirmed Tuesday that Ian Thomas Cleary, 31, of Saratoga, California, had been taken into custody last month and will be held pending extradition proceedings.

Cleary had been the subject of an international search since authorities in Pennsylvania issued a 2021 felony warrant in the case weeks after an Associated Press story detailed the reluctance of local prosecutors to pursue campus sex crimes.

The arrest warrant accuses Cleary of stalking an 18-year-old Gettysburg College student at a party, sneaking into her dorm and sexually assaulting her while she texted friends for help. He was a 20-year-old Gettysburg student at the time, but did not return to campus.

According to a French judicial official, Cleary was detained on the street in Metz on April 24 as part of a police check. He told a magistrate that he had “arrived in France two or three years ago” from Albania and had only recently come to Metz, but did not have housing there, the official said. A French lawyer appointed to represent him did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

Cleary, according to his online posts, had previously spent time in France and also has ties to California and Maryland. His father is a tech executive in Silicon Valley, while his mother has lived in Baltimore. Neither he nor his parents have returned repeated phone and email messages left by the AP, including calls to his parents on Tuesday.

The Gettysburg accuser, Shannon Keeler, had a rape exam done the same day she was assaulted in 2013. She gathered witnesses and evidence and spent years urging officials to file charges. She went to authorities again in 2021 after discovering the Facebook messages that seemed to come from Cleary's account.

“So I raped you,” the sender had written in a string of messages.

“I’ll never do it to anyone ever again.”

“I need to hear your voice.”

“I’ll pray for you.”

According to the June 2021 warrant, police verified that the Facebook account used to send the messages belonged to Ian Cleary. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett, who filed it, did not immediately return a call Tuesday.

The AP does not typically name people who say they are sexual assault victims without their permission, which Keeler has granted. Her lawyer, reached Tuesday, had no immediate comment on Cleary’s detention.

After leaving Gettysburg, Cleary earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Santa Clara University, near his family home in California, worked for Tesla, then moved to France for several years, according to his website, which describes his self-published medieval fiction.

Keeler, originally from Moorestown, New Jersey, stayed on to graduate from Gettysburg and help lead the women's lacrosse team to a national title.

By 2023, two years after the warrant was filed, Keeler and her lawyers wondered how he was avoiding capture in the age of digital tracking. The U.S. Marshals Service thought he was likely overseas and on the move, even as he was the subject of an Interpol alert called a red notice.

Across the U.S., very few campus rapes are prosecuted, both because victims fear going to police and prosecutors hesitate to bring cases that can be hard to win, the AP investigation found.

Keeler, when the warrant was issued, said she was grateful, but knew it only happened “because I went public with my story, which no survivor should have to do in order to obtain justice.”

___ Dale reported from Philadelphia.

Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow’s milk have ticked up 21% to as much as 65% compared with the same periods a year ago, according to the market research firm NielsenIQ.

That runs counter to advice from the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which calls raw milk one of the “riskiest” foods people can consume.

“Raw milk can be contaminated with harmful germs that can make you very sick,” the CDC says on its website.

As of Monday, at least 42 herds in nine states are known to have cows infected with the virus known as type A H5N1, federal officials said.

The virus has been found in high levels in the raw milk of infected cows. Viral remnants have been found in samples of milk sold in grocery stores, but the FDA said those products are safe to consume because pasteurization has been confirmed to kill the virus.

It’s not yet known whether live virus can be transmitted to people who consume milk that hasn't been heat-treated.

But CDC officials warned last week that people who drink raw milk could theoretically become infected if the bird flu virus comes in contact with receptors in the nose, mouth and throat or by inhaling virus into the lungs. There's also concern that if more people are exposed to the virus, it could mutate to spread more easily in people.

States have widely varying regulations regarding raw milk, with some allowing retail sales in stores and others allowing sale only at farms. Some states allow so-called cowshares, where people pay for milk from designated animals, and some allow consumption only by farm owners, employees or “non-paying guests.”

The NielsenIQ figures include grocery stores and other retail outlets. They show that raw milk products account for a small fraction of overall dairy sales. About 4,100 units of raw cow's milk and about 43,000 units of raw milk cheese were sold the week of May 5, for instance, according to NielsenIQ. That compares with about 66.5 million units of pasteurized cow's milk and about 62 million units of pasteurized cheese.

Still, testimonies to raw milk are trending on social media sites. And Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, California, says he can’t keep his unpasteurized products in stock.

“People are seeking raw milk like crazy,” he said, noting that no bird flu has been detected in his herds or in California. “Anything that the FDA tells our customers to do, they do the opposite.”

The surge surprises Donald Schaffner, a Rutgers University food science professor who called the trend “absolutely stunning.”

“Food safety experts like me are just simply left shaking their heads,” he said.

From 1998 to 2018, the CDC documented more than 200 illness outbreaks traced to raw milk, which sickened more than 2,600 people and hospitalized more than 225.

Raw milk is far more likely than pasteurized milk to cause illnesses and hospitalizations linked to dangerous bacteria such as campylobacter, listeria, salmonella and E. coli, research shows.

Before milk standards were adopted in 1924, about 25% of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. were related to dairy consumption, said Alex O’Brien, safety and quality coordinator for the Center for Dairy Research. Now, dairy products account for about 1% of such illnesses, he said.

“I liken drinking raw milk to playing Russian roulette,” O’Brien said. The more times people consume it, the greater the chance they’ll get sick, he added.

Despite the risks, about 4.4% of U.S. adults — nearly 11 million people — report that they drink raw milk at least once each year, and about 1% say they consume it each week, according to a 2022 FDA study.

Bonni Gilley, 75, of Fresno, said she has raised generations of her family on raw milk and unpasteurized cream and butter because she believes “it’s so healthy" and lacks additives.

Reports of bird flu in dairy cattle have not made her think twice about drinking raw milk, Gilley said.

“If anything, it is accelerating my thoughts about raw milk,” she said, partly because she doesn’t trust government officials.

Such views are part of a larger problem of government mistrust and a rejection of expertise, said Matthew Motta, who studies health misinformation at Boston University.

“It's not that people are stupid or ignorant or that they don’t know what the science is,” he said. “They’re motivated to reject it on the basis of partisanship, their political ideology, their religion, their cultural values.”

CDC and FDA officials didn’t respond to questions about the rising popularity of raw milk.

Motta suggested that the agencies should push back with social media posts extolling the health effects of pasteurized milk.

“Communicators need to make an effort to understand why people consume raw milk and try to meet them where they are,” he said.

___

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

The rookie mayor’s first year has been full of bumps, testing his progressive credentials and doing little to win over critics. He has navigated an evolving migrant crisis, budget gaps, persistent crime and a troubled transit system, and while there have been some wins for workers and social services, he has struggled to appease a skeptical business community, police and even fellow Democrats.

By his own rating though, he’s successful.

“The work that we’ve done to build a better, stronger, safer Chicago through the lens of the progressive agenda is unmatched,” he told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “This is the work that I promised that I would do, and I’m doing it.”

He’s quick to highlight his accomplishments: Eliminating subminimum wages for tipped workers by 2028, doubling workers’ paid time off to 10 days, scrapping a controversial gunshot detection system, and working to reopen mental health clinics.

And Johnson says a new stadium is part of his progressive vision that could translate into jobs and opportunities, including hosting a Super Bowl.

Many disagree.

“I was surprised that he came out with such strong support because of all the other things that are going on,” said Patricia Tatum, a retired nurse and housing activist who voted for Johnson. “It’s hard to be empathetic with billion-dollar businesses when you see people can’t afford to pay to rent.”

Johnson, a former teacher’s union organizer and county commissioner, courted a diverse and young electorate as he campaigned with top congressional progressives. His administration hires include union activists and community organizers.

“There are at least conversations of co-governance,” said Kofi Ademola, a founder of anti-gun violence youth group GoodKids MadCity, adding that more cross sections of Chicago have input under Johnson's administration. “We have seen some progress, definitely not enough.”

At 48, Johnson is younger than his predecessors, including former prosecutor Lori Lightfoot and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. His speaking style is often informal, and he likes to describe challenges as “jacked up situations.”

But his progressive agenda hasn't been fully embraced.

Voters rejected a so-called mansion tax in March, an estimated $100 million revenue source required to improve homeless services as Johnson promised. Political observers say his inexperience and strong opposition messaging hurt the measure’s chances.

“People weren’t sure what the money was going to be used for and didn’t trust the Johnson administration to handle it well,” said political scientist Dick Simpson, author of “Chicago’s Modern Mayors.”

Chicago resident Daniel Boland is so turned off that he has launched a long shot recall effort. If he gets enough signatures for the November ballot and it passes, voters could try to recall Johnson as early as 2026.

Compared with his predecessors, Johnson has been slow to choose his Cabinet. Chicago went months without a public health commissioner and his pick immediately faced a migrant measles outbreak.

Much of Johnson’s tenure has been overshadowed by the migrants' arrival, which began under Lightfoot. More than 40,000 asylum seekers have been sent to Chicago by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, most coming by bus or plane.

Chicago’s haphazard response was often in the national spotlight, first for using police stations and airports as housing and then for struggling with winter plans. City Council meetings featured explosive public comment. Lawsuits were filed. Johnson squared off with Gov. J.B. Pritzker over funding and shelter sites. Meanwhile, more established immigrants and Black residents say they have been ignored.

The city leaned heavily on volunteers to provide food and medicine, and even though the numbers in shelters are dwindling, migrants' living conditions remain under scrutiny.

“There’s still a lot of difficulty in communicating with the city,” said Dr. Evelyn Figueroa, who runs a food pantry near the city’s largest shelter and has backed student medics.

Johnson's relationship with reporters has been strained. News conferences became combative early on, and he abruptly ended a Sun-Times editorial board meeting in February after learning it would be on the record.

He has also struggled to shape the action at City Hall.

In November, his alderman floor leader stepped down after a heated council meeting. And while the City Council easily approved his first budget, Johnson had to step in twice to cast a tiebreaking vote, including to support a controversial cease-fire resolution, which led to criticism from elected Jewish leaders.

Some say Johnson is simply adapting to the shift from campaigning to governing.

Karen Freeman-Wilson, the former mayor of Gary, Indiana, who now heads the Chicago Urban League, admits she campaigned on promises that she couldn’t keep.

“You don’t know what you can do until you really get into office,” she said. “You have to give those folks who seem to be the most anxious some feedback. For him, that is the business community.”

Johnson has appealed to big business by backing the Bears proposal, rolling out development plans in the LaSalle Street business district and reviving O’Hare International Airport expansion plans.

But business groups, who fought Johnson on paid leave, want more collaboration and say the mayor has to better address perceptions that Chicago remains unsafe when violent crime in the city is down.

“Businesses are still recovering,” said Jack Lavin, president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. “Downtown, there’s record vacancies. We need to be aware of that in how we look at taxes and businesses.”

The coming months will see some of Johnson's biggest challenges.

He will face his former union during teacher contract negotiations. He has told state leaders that Chicago Public Schools is owed $1 billion because of years of underfunding. And potential candidates for Chicago’s first elected school board are gearing up to run in November.

At the same time, Johnson is preparing for Chicago to take center stage when it hosts the Democratic National Convention this summer, when crime historically rises. Protesters have already filed lawsuits over access and police are undergoing safety training.

“There’s just so much beauty in the city of Chicago,” Johnson said. “For me, it’s important that that is on display.”

The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense released its report, The National Blueprint for Biodefense, outlining 36 recommendations and 185 action items to defend against biological threats.

“We've got to be prepared, no matter who's the president, no matter who the administration is, or the Congress,” former congressman Fred Upton said. “We have to be prepared, ready for the next case.”

Dr. Raj Panjabi, also on the commission, explained how the recommendations are especially important with the recent cases of bird flu in Texas.

“It's infecting farm animals which then could mean that it could spill over into humans if we don't take the right precaution,” Panjabi said. “If it were to happen and spread from human to human, that could be the beginning of the next pandemic influenza outbreak. We worry about that in particular.”

The report also addresses a plan to reduce the spread of infectious diseases that linger in the air like COVID-19.

“We are calling for a new research and development plan to keep buildings, our schools or offices or airports, safe by disinfecting the air by cleaning it from the inside out,” Panjabi said. “We already take care of our buildings and try to make them resilient to fires, floods [and] earthquakes. Why couldn't we do that with pandemics? We believe we could.”

Upton plans to be on Capitol Hill to encourage lawmakers to make the report a priority.

“So hopefully we get some hearings scheduled in the near future. But this needs to be a priority because it's going to happen again. We need to be prepared for it and take those preventative steps. This report details quite a few of them,” Upton said.

The feds announced there's a heightened threat environment from foreign terrorist organizations, like ISIS, surrounding upcoming LGBTQ+ pride events.

With Pride Month about three weeks away, there is excitement in New York City.

“It’s incredibly disheartening and troubling,” said openly gay city Councilman Erik Bottcher.

He looks forward to Pride Month every year and takes part in many events.

“We should take the warning from the FBI and DHS seriously and follow the advice that they issued, which is to be vigilant, to keep an eye out that may seem off,” he said.

This June will mark the eighth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, where 49 people lost their lives.

ISIS praised that attack. The FBI said some indicators for police and the public to watch for include: violent threats made online or in person, someone taking photographs of security equipment or personnel, and requesting information on events and crowd sizes without explanation. They may also attempt to bypass security or impersonate law enforcement.

But some say they will not be discouraged from attending pride events.

“Our community will not be intimidated, and I would ask folks to have a really wonderful pride,” Bottcher added.

To report a threat, you can contact the nearest FBI office. Authorities are also advising people attending pride events to be aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious activity.

Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, turned in 245,572 signatures to the Texas Secretary of State’s office on Monday, more than double the number required for access to the Lone Star State presidential ballot, his campaign said.

“It's official. Kennedy-Shanahan on Texas ballot! By collecting nearly a quarter of a million signatures in just two months, the campaign has shown it can overcome the most difficult ballot access requirement in the country,” Kennedy’s campaign press secretary Stephanie Spear wrote Monday on the social platform X.

The Texas Secretary of State's Office confirmed it received the petition but could not confirm the number of listed signatures. 

Texas, which has the second-highest number of electoral college votes with 40 votes, is the 14th state where the independent candidate has claimed ballot access so far. That list also includes California, which has the most electoral college votes in the country with 54 votes.

He is the first independent presidential candidate to gain access to the Texas ballot since Pat Buchanan ran for the Oval Office in 2000, Kennedy’s campaign said.

While Kennedy, who switched from the Democratic party to an independent last fall, is vying for access to all 50 states, political strategists predict he likely only needs a few significant states to create a “spoiler” effect.

Spear told The Hill last week that Kennedy’s campaign is seeking to “pull votes away from disenfranchised votes of both President Biden and President Trump.”

RFK Jr. is currently polling at about 8 percent of the national vote, while Trump has just more than 41 percent and Biden has about 40 percent, according to a polling index by Decision Desk HQ/The Hill.

In addition to Texas and California, the environmental lawyer said he has made the ballots in Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah. Of the 14 states, Decision Desk HQ has confirmed the candidate has access to Michigan, Oklahoma and Utah.

Updated at 3:34 pm.

The solar activity predicted to hit Earth Tuesday night is much weaker than what we saw Friday and Saturday, so the line of visibility isn't expected to reach as far south this time.

The weekend's geomagnetic storm had the highest, "extreme" G5 rating. With G5 storms, the northern lights can be visible as far south as Florida and South Texas. Tuesday's storm is predicted to be a G2, or "moderate" strength.

With G2 storms, the northern lights tend to be visible in several northern states, says the Space Weather Prediction Center. A forecast map for Tuesday shows the line of visibility (in red) extending across the Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest, Great Lakes and far Northeast.

The further north you are, the better chance you'll have of seeing the aurora. You'll also need clear skies and minimal light pollution for the best view.

If you're looking for the northern lights, point your eyes in the direction of the northern horizon. Using your phone camera can also help. Newer phones have lenses that are much more sensitive to light than our eyes, so they can capture the aurora even when it's not visible with the naked eye.

Aurora activity has been more common lately as the sun gets closer to solar maximum.

“During the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle, the Sun shifts from relatively calm to stormy, then back again,” explained Nicola Fox, the director of NASA’s heliophysics division. “At its most active, called solar maximum, the Sun is freckled with sunspots and its magnetic poles reverse.”

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, form near those sunspots. CMEs are essentially explosions of plasma and magnetic material shooting out of the sun. When they hit our magnetic field, currents send particles flowing to poles, and that’s what causes the aurora, or northern lights, to appear in our skies.

Chances of seeing northern lights will remain higher until the sun reaches the peak of the solar cycle.

Addy Bink contributed to this report.

Attorney Clark Brewster said Daniels was “paralyzed” with fear in the lead-up to her testimony over what “some nut might do to her.” 

“She was concerned about the security coming into New York,” Brewster said during his Monday appearance on CNN’s “AC360°.” “She wore a bulletproof vest every day until she got to the courthouse.”  

“I can tell you that before she came on Sunday. I mean, she cried herself to sleep,” he continued. “She was paralyzed with fear, not of taking the stand or telling her story, but what some nut might do to her, and I'm genuinely concerned about it as well.” 

His comments echo the sentiment the actor shared in a documentary earlier this year, when she claimed she took the money out of fear for her life. Brewster's claim also comes after Daniels delivered a somewhat risque testimony last week, detailing the alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the affair.

Trump attorney Susan Necheles later cross-examined Daniels, attempting to portray her as an unreliable witness and going after her for making a profit after alleging the affair with Trump. 

The former president is facing 34 felony charges in the hush money case for falsifying business records related to a payment made to Daniels for her silence about the alleged affair. The $130,000 payment, made by ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen, was delivered in the late stages of the 2016 presidential election.

Cohen took the stand in the ongoing trial Monday and will continue his testimony Tuesday.

The former president has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty in the case.

The auto club anticipates 43.8 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home over the holiday weekend, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. That’s a 4 percent increase from the same period last year and within striking distance of the 2005 record of 44 million Memorial Day weekend travelers.

“We haven’t seen Memorial Day weekend travel numbers like these in almost 20 years,” said Paula Twidale, AAA Travel’s senior vice president. “We’re projecting an additional one million travelers this holiday weekend compared to 2019, which not only means we’re exceeding pre-pandemic levels but also signals a very busy summer travel season ahead.”

Road travelers are expected to hit a record 38.4 million, the highest number since AAA started tracking in 2000. While gas prices are similar to last year at roughly $3.57 per gallon, AAA warned “prices may creep higher,” with fluctuating oil prices being a “wildcard” and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine potentially putting pressure on oil markets.

Another 3.5 million are expected to fly, making it the most crowded Memorial Day weekend in nearly two decades. In 2005, a record 3.6 million travelers flew during Memorial Day weekend as the travel industry rebounded from the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

Demand for other methods of transportation including buses, trains and cruises is also recovering from the toll of the pandemic. An estimated 1.9 million people are expected to take one of these other modes of transportation, up 5.6 percent from a year ago.

“This category took the biggest hit during the pandemic with fewer people taking public transportation or not cruising at all,” Twidale said. “Now – five years later – we’re back to 2019 numbers. Travel demand has been soaring, and long holiday weekends create the perfect windows for getaways.”

A new study conducted by Omega Law Group used FBI crime data to reveal that both Louisiana and Arkansas are among the most dangerous states in the United States. The study revealed that the violent crime rate in Louisiana is 67% higher than the national average.

Metrics for the study included data from homicides, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, arson, burglary, larceny theft, and motor vehicle thefts.

Violent crimes and property crimes were calculated per 100000 people.

The highest violent crime rate in any U.S. state was New Mexico, which also had the second highest homicide rate. Washington state came in at number two on the list of most dangerous states, in large part because they have the worst property crime numbers in the nation.

Louisiana placed fourth on the list, with a violent crime rate that is 67% higher than the national average.

Arkansas was the third highest for violent crimes and the sixth on the list of least safe states to raise a family.

New Hampshire, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, West Virginia, New Jersey, Iowa, Connecticut, and Kentucky are the safest U.S. states to raise a family.

Harrah's Resort SoCal officially welcomed the comedian and actor as the city's newest mayor on Monday. Decked out in his signature purple suit and bow tie, the "Only Murders in the Building" star took the oath of office in front of Funner residents.

During his induction ceremony, Short emphasized his enthusiasm for the opportunity to lead Funner and outlined his vision for the city's future, alongside emcee and friend Jane Lynch.

"I am proud to be mayor, and I will do everything I can to make Funner even more fun," Short told Nexstar's KSWB.

Before you question the position, just know it's only promotional for Harrah's.

Located between San Diego and Los Angeles, Funner is home to a Harrah's resort, a mini waterpark, a brewery and restaurants of all kinds, including California’s first and only Hell’s Kitchen by Gordon Ramsay.

Short, affectionately called "Mayor Marty," promised to continue making Funner a destination "known for its fun-filled experiences, bringing laughter and joy to all who visit."

Mayor Marty's reign begins with several changes to Funner, like food, cocktails, and hotel and spa packages. He also joked that he wants to bring in paint swatches to change the color of the exterior of Harrah's Resort, if they let him of course.

"Martin Short represents the essence of Funner," said Jill Barrett, senior vice president and general manager of Harrah's Resort SoCal. "His renowned humor and dedication to entertainment make him an ideal leader for guiding Funner into a new era."

For more information on Harrah's Resort SoCal and Funner, California, visit harrahssocal.com and harrahssocal.com/visit-funner.

KSWB/KUSI's Heather Lake contributed to this report.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the Nissan sedan was heading south in Mexico at the Pharr International Bridge.

Officers then searched the car and found 14 bundles of cash totaling $247,500 hidden within the vehicle.

Failing to declare more than $10,000 when entering or leaving the U.S. is a federal crime that can result in an arrest and seizure of the money. CBP says individuals may petition to have the money returned, but one must prove that the source and intended use of the currency was legitimate.

"CBP officers conduct outbound enforcement operations to protect against unreported exportations of bulk U.S. currency, which often can be proceeds from alleged illicit activity or currency that funds transnational criminal organizations," said Port Director Carlos Rodriguez of the Hidalgo/Pharr/Anzalduas Port of Entry.

CBP officers seized the currency while special agents with Homeland Security Investigations launched a criminal investigation.

The story was first published on InTouch Weekly's website on April 10 under the headline “Inside Judge Judy's Quest to Save the Menendez Brothers Nearly 35 Years After Their Parents' Murder,” according to the lawsuit, filed in circuit court in Collier County, Florida.

A version of the story later appeared in the National Enquirer, a sister publication to InTouch Weekly also owned by Accelerate360 Media. The 1989 Menendez murders in Beverly Hills, California, was a case of some tabloid renown.

Sheindlin said she's had nothing to say about the case. Her lawsuit speculated that the news outlets used statements in a Fox Nation docuseries made by “Judi Ramos,” a woman identified as an alternate juror in the first Menendez trial, and misattributed them to the television judge.

There was no immediate comment from Accelerate360, whose attempt to sell the National Enquirer last year fell through.

Sheindlin does not ask for a specific amount of damages, but made clear it wouldn't be cheap.

“When you fabricate stories about me in order to make money for yourselves with no regard for the truth or the reputation I've spent a lifetime cultivating, it's going to cost you,” she said in a statement. “When you've done it multiple times, it's unconscionable and will be expensive. It has to be expensive so that you will stop.”

Sheindlin, who hosted the syndicated “Judge Judy” through 2021 and now hosts “Judy Justice,” has had run-ins with the Enquirer in the past.

In 2017, the newspaper retracted and apologized for stories that falsely claimed she suffered from Alzheimer's disease and depression and had cheated on her husband.

The uneventful outcome is exactly what engineers aimed for.

The demonstration featuring a 13-foot-tall (4-meter-tall) floating wind turbine in an indoor pool aimed to ensure it can withstand the strain of powerful water and wind when much larger versions are deployed in the ocean.

It’s the University of Maine’s contribution to a worldwide race to improve floating machines to tap wind that blows across deeper waters offshore, too deep to attach turbines to the seabed with permanent pilings.

In the next decade, UMaine researchers said, they envision turbine platforms floating in the ocean beyond the horizon, stretching more than 700 feet (210 meters) skyward and anchored with mooring lines.

“These structures are massive,” said Anthony Viselli, chief engineer for offshore wind technology at the university’s Advanced Composites Center, after the demonstration wrapped up. “These would be some of the largest moving structures that humankind has endeavored to create. And there would be many of them.”

As the technology advances, dozens of designs are being promoted by experts who see floating wind turbines as a way to address climate change by shifting away from burning fossil fuels.

Floating turbines are the only way some countries and U.S. states can capture offshore wind energy on a large scale. In the U.S. alone, 2.8 terawatts of wind energy potential blows over ocean waters too deep for traditional turbines that affix to the ocean floor, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That’s enough to power 350 million homes — more than double the number of existing homes in the U.S.

The first floating wind farm started operating off Scotland’s coast in 2017. In the United States, the Department of Interior two weeks ago proposed the first floating wind energy auctions for the Gulf of Maine, following lease auctions for the West Coast that began in 2022. The nearly 1 million acres up for auction off the New England coast could generate enough clean wind energy to power more than 5 million local homes, the department said.

UMaine is home to the nation's largest team of engineers dedicated to floating offshore wind. Other big players include Equinor, which has installed a demonstration floating project of the coast of Norway; global company Principle Power, which has installed small-scale projects off Scotland and Portugal; and SBM Offshore, which has a demonstration project off France.

Floating offshore wind is still a nascent industry, however, making it expensive.

The Norwegian company Equinor postponed its Trollvind floating initiative, citing technology availability, rising costs and a strained timetable to deliver on the original concept.

Danish wind energy developer Ørsted decided to focus its efforts on fixed-bottom turbines, foregoing deeper offshore regions including Japan, Norway, Spain, Portugal and the U.S. West Coast. “We care a lot about affordability of renewable power, and floating wind is a lot more expensive than bottom-fixed,” said CEO Mads Nipper.

But others are moving forward.

Gazelle Wind Power is developing a modular platform system to make manufacture and assembly cost-effective and efficient.

“This is a global problem and this is an ideal solution in order to deliver power to shore,” said Gazelle Wind Power CEO Jon Salazar.

UMaine launched its first floating prototype a decade ago and became a surprise global leader after a study showed that the Gulf of Maine had the wind energy potential of 156 nuclear power plants, due to fast, consistent wind.

The state could meet all its home heating needs and power every car — if they were all electric vehicles — by tapping just 3% of that water. That improves the odds of successfully sharing the resource with fishermen, recreational boaters, the military and, of course, marine life. Indeed, the federal government’s lease proposal spares Maine’s key lobstering grounds from development, removing a potential obstacle.

Trailblazers in offshore wind are benefiting from work done by the oil industry, which engineered floating oil and gas rigs, said Habib Dagher, director of the Advanced Composites Center.

The university's wind wave basin, which looks something like a swimming pool with wave and wind generators that can mimic ocean conditions up to a 500-year storm, takes that work to the next level.

On a recent day, the semi-submersible floating turbine was tethered to the bottom of the basin. Its 1:70 scale represented a real turbine standing about 800 feet (240 meters) tall atop a platform in the ocean. The goal is to have industrial scale turbines of 15 to 20 megawatts each, Dagher said.

Size and efficiency are keys to profitability. Larger wind turbines mean fewer are needed, reducing construction, installation and maintenance costs, Viselli said. With greater size and efficiency, developers envision only about 50 turbines needed to produce about the same amount of electricity as a nuclear power plant.

Full-size turbines generate peak power starting at about 20 mph (32 kph). In powerful storms, they shut down automatically to avoid stressing the equipment or breaking. The mooring lines tethered to the ocean floor are made of rope nearly thick as a telephone pole and under heavy tension. That makes them safer for marine mammals.

For all the turbine technology, the platforms developed by UMaine can be built locally with concrete, a simple material that's readily available. The university already has partners around the world interested in licensing its technology. The state of Maine plans to develop a port facility in the Searsport area to build the floating bases and attach turbines before sending them into the Gulf of Maine.

A brand new industry means some experiments in design will succeed and some will fail. And there is work to ensure that wind farms are good neighbors, overcoming objections from others using the ocean.

“We’re going to have some problems and we have to figure out how to roll up our sleeves and solve these problems,” Dagher said. “And I think we have no choice as a society but to do that.”

___

McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

___

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Looking at career earnings at graduation and a decade later, while accounting for factors such as dropout rate, the study found that bachelor’s degrees are much more likely to be financially worth it for students than graduate degrees.

More than three-quarters, 77 percent, of four-year bachelor degrees have a positive return on investment, the study found, compared to just 57 percent of master’s degrees.

The subject of study had a significant influence on financial return, with the best degrees to pursue for undergraduate studies being engineering, computer science, and nursing degrees, while fine arts, education, and biology programs had the lowest median return.

The average return on investment for a bachelor’s degree is about $160,000, the study found, but degrees in especially lucrative fields could top $500,000 or more.

For graduate study, law, medicine and dentistry were the most lucrative, according to the analysis.

“While ROI should not be the only consideration for students approaching the college decision, the ROI estimates presented in this report can help students and their families make better choices regarding higher education,” study author Preston Cooper wrote. 

The study comes as scrutiny increases on the cost of higher education. Undergraduate tuition could reach as high as $95,000 at some universities, while millions of Americans are hampered with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt.

Debt cancellation has been a focus of the Biden administration, treating a symptom of the rising costs while also buoying support before the November election.

TAGeX Brands announced on Monday that it's conducting the online auction through Thursday, May 16, for select Red Lobster restaurants closing in multiple states. Most notably, California and Florida are losing five locations each, while Maryland and Colorado are losing four.

Nexstar's KETK also reported that three Red Lobster restaurants in Texas abruptly shut down this week, listing their hours as "closed." None of those locations could be reached via phone.

As for the auction, several items are up for grabs – from high-performance ovens to upright refrigerators and dining room furniture. TAGeX Brands called it "the largest restaurant equipment auction ever" on its website. It's important to note that the items aren't being sold individually. Each location will have one winning bidder who will take all contents from the restaurant.

"These auctions are WINNER TAKES ALL – meaning, each winner will receive the ENTIRE contents of the Red Lobster location they bid on," TAGeX Brands noted.

Back in April, Bloomberg and CNBC reported that the seafood chain, which has been a staple of the American restaurant scene for decades, considered filing for bankruptcy. Though, Red Lobster has not publicly confirmed this. The report noted that people who were familiar with the matter said Red Lobster was looking for restructuring advice to address leases and labor costs.

The company has faced some financial and internal challenges within the past few years. Between 2021 and 2022, the company welcomed a fresh lineup of executives, including a new CEO, chief marketing officer, chief financial officer, and chief information officer, according to CNN. All of them reportedly left within two years.

Then, there was the endless shrimp fiasco. In June 2023, the company offered its "Ultimate Endless Shrimp" — typically a limited offer — on their regular menu for $20. The attempt to get more people into the store worked, but it came at a cost.

Red Lobster posted an operating loss of more than $11 million in Q3 of that year, according to Restaurant Business. It’s a loss that parent company Thai Union Group said the endless shrimp deal was a “key factor” in creating.

A company spokesperson did not immediately reply to Nexstar's request for comment.

Nexstar's Bill Shannon and Brian Farrell contributed to this story.

The Democratic senator sat with his lawyers and listened as Judge Sidney H. Stein told over 150 prospective jurors throughout the day about the charges against Menendez and two of the businessmen.

The judge told them the “sitting U.S. senator from the state of New Jersey” had been charged in a conspiracy in which he allegedly “agreed to accept bribes and accepted bribes.”

After he warned them that the trial was expected to last up to seven weeks, Stein let would-be jurors, identified only by numbers, raise their hands if they believed they could not serve for that length of time. Then, he took them one at a time into a separate room to ask them why.

Menendez, 70, is on trial with two of the businessmen who allegedly paid him bribes — real estate developer Fred Daibes and Wael Hana. All three have pleaded not guilty. A third businessman has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the other defendants. The senator’s wife is also charged, but her trial is delayed until at least July.

Stein had not finished questioning prospective jurors who said they could not serve when he finished for the day without yet beginning the process of asking general questions of all jurors, such as whether they know any of the parties to the case, including lawyers, the defendants and possible witnesses.

The judge gave no indication whether he thought it was likely that openings would occur Tuesday.

Among dozens of prospective jurors who asked to be removed from the jury pool, there were numerous individuals who had nonrefundable travel plans in coming weeks or disabled family members they cared for or jobs that would leave them virtually irreplaceable.

But there were several who said they worried they could not be fair given everything they'd heard about the case. Many were dismissed by the judge.

“I would side with the prosecutor,” one told the judge flatly.

“All lawyers are liars. And like I said, regardless of what evidence is put in front of me, I’m just not going to have a good thought process about the process,” another said.

One man said he worked as a graphic artist on multiple late night comedy television shows and had “certainly worked on things critical of the senator.”

After the man then expressed concern about the safety of jurors on the trial, Stein said: “I’ve never heard any issue like that here.”

Finally, seemingly exasperated after the man expressed fears of foreign governments, the judge said: “Now I think you’re simply trying to get out of jury duty.”

When Menendez left the courthouse at the end of the day, he gave a friendly wave toward reporters who asked him to speak as he walked quickly to a waiting car, but he left any meaningful comment for another day.

In the morning, Menendez, in a suit with a red tie, was dropped off in front of the courthouse at 8:15 a.m., 40 minutes before former President Donald Trump's motorcade passed by on its way across the street to state court, where he is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn actor before the 2016 election.

The trial, the second in seven years for Menendez, has already sent the senator's political stature tumbling. After charges were announced in September, he was forced out of his powerful post as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The three-term senator has announced he will not be seeking reelection on the Democratic ticket this fall, although he has not ruled out running as an independent.

The previous corruption prosecution of Menendez on unrelated charges ended with a deadlocked jury in 2017.

In the new case, prosecutors say the senator's efforts on behalf of the businessmen led him to take actions benefitting the governments of Egypt and Qatar. Menendez has vigorously denied doing anything unusual in his dealings with foreign officials.

Besides charges including bribery, extortion, fraud and obstruction of justice, Menendez also is charged with acting as a foreign agent of Egypt.

Among evidence his lawyers will have to explain are gold bars worth over $100,000 and more than $486,000 in cash found in a raid two years ago on his New Jersey home, including money stuffed in the pockets of clothing in closets.

The Democrat's wife, Nadine Menendez, was also charged in the case, but her trial has been postponed for health reasons. She is still expected to be a major figure. Prosecutors say Nadine Menendez often served as a conduit between the men paying the bribes and Bob Menendez.

The senator's lawyers in court papers have said they plan to explain that Menendez had no knowledge of some of what occurred because she kept him in the dark.

According to an indictment, Daibes delivered gold bars and cash to Menendez and his wife to get the senator's help with a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, prompting Menendez to act in ways favorable to Qatar's government.

The indictment also said Menendez did things benefitting Egyptian officials in exchange for bribes from Hana as the businessman secured a valuable deal with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met Islamic dietary requirements.

In pleading guilty several weeks ago, businessman Jose Uribe admitted buying Menendez's wife a Mercedes-Benz to get the senator's help to influence criminal investigations involving his business associates.

The explosives flashed orange and let off plumes of black smoke upon detonation. The longest trusses toppled away from the grounded Dali container ship and slid off its bow, sending a wall of water splashing back toward the ship.

It marked a major step in freeing the Dali, which has been stuck among the wreckage since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s support columns shortly after leaving Baltimore on March 26.

The collapse killed six construction workers and halted most maritime traffic through Baltimore’s busy port. The controlled demolition will allow the Dali to be refloated and restore traffic through the port, which will provide relief for thousands of longshoremen, truckers and small business owners who have seen their jobs impacted by the closure.

Officials said the detonation went as planned. They said the next step in the dynamic cleanup process is to assess the few remaining trusses on the Dali’s bow and make sure none of the underwater wreckage is preventing the ship from being refloated and moved.

“It’s a lot like peeling back an onion,” said Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officials expect to refloat the ship within the next few days. Then three or four tugboats will guide it to a nearby terminal at the port. It will likely remain there for a several weeks and undergo temporary repairs before being moved to a shipyard for more substantial repairs.

“This was a very big milestone for our progression forward,” Col. Estee Pinchasin, Baltimore District Commander for the Army Corps of Engineers, said in the immediate aftermath of the demolition. She said crews don’t anticipate having to use any more explosives.

The Dali’s crew remained on board the ship during the detonation, and no injuries or problems were reported, said Capt. David O’Connell, commander of the Port of Baltimore.

The crew members haven’t been allowed to leave the grounded vessel since the disaster. Officials said they’ve been busy maintaining the ship and assisting investigators. Of the crew members, 20 are from India and one is Sri Lankan.

Engineers spent weeks preparing to use explosives to break down the span, which was an estimated 500 feet (152 meters) long and weighs up to 600 tons (544 metric tons). The demolition was postponed Sunday because of thunderstorms.

“This is a best practice,” Gov. Wes Moore said at a news conference Monday, noting that there have been no injuries during the cleanup to date. “Safety in this operation is our top priority.”

Fire teams were stationed in the area during the explosion in case of any problematic flying sparks, officials said.

In a videographic released this week, authorities said engineers were using precision cuts to control how the trusses break down. They said the method allows for “surgical precision” and is one of the safest and most efficient ways to remove steel under a high level of tension. Hydraulic grabbers will now lift the broken sections of steel onto barges.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI are conducting investigations into the bridge collapse. Officials have said the safety board investigation will focus on the ship’s electrical system.

Danish shipping giant Maersk had chartered the Dali for a planned trip from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, but the ship didn’t get far. Its crew sent a mayday call saying they had lost power and had no control of the steering system. Minutes later, the ship rammed into the bridge.

State and federal officials have commended the salvage crews and other members of the cleanup operation who helped recover the remains of the six construction workers. The last body was recovered from the underwater wreckage last week. All of the victims were Latino immigrants who came to the U.S. for job opportunities. They were filling potholes on an overnight shift when the bridge was destroyed.

Officials said the operation remains on track to reopen the port’s 50-foot (15-meter) deep draft channel by the end of May. Until then, crews have established a temporary channel that’s slightly shallower. Officials said 365 commercial vessels have passed through the port in recent weeks. The port normally processes more cars and farm equipment than any other in the country.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Baltimore native whose father and brother served as mayor decades ago, compared the Key Bridge disaster to the overnight bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, which long ago inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the War of 1812. She said both are a testament to Maryland’s resilience.

Pelosi, a Democrat who represents California’s 11th district, attended Monday’s news conference with two of her relatives. She praised the collective response to the tragedy as various government agencies have come together, working quickly without sacrificing safety.

“Proof through the night that our flag was still there,” she said. “That’s Baltimore strong.”

The plea deals for Fotios “Freddy” Geas, Paul J. DeCologero and Sean McKinnon were disclosed nearly six years after the 89-year-old gangster was beaten to death in his cell at a troubled West Virginia prison.

Geas, a onetime Mafia hitman, and DeCologero, a Massachusetts gangster, were accused of repeatedly hitting Bulger in the head while McKinnon served as a lookout.

DeCologero told an inmate witness that Bulger was a “snitch” and that as soon as he came into their unit, they planned to kill him. DeCologero also told an inmate that he and Geas used a belt with a lock attached to it to bludgeon Bulger to death, prosecutors said.

Geas and DeCologero were identified as suspects shortly after Bulger’s death, but they remained uncharged for years as the investigation dragged on.

Prosecutors in West Virginia federal court asked the court to schedule hearings for the men to change their not-guilty pleas and to be sentenced, though they didn't provide further details about the plea agreements, which have not been filed in court.

Belinda Haynie, an attorney for Geas, declined to comment Monday. Attorneys for the other two defendants didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

The Justice Department said last year that it would would not seek the death sentence for Geas and DeCologero, who were charged with murder. All three men were charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, which carries up to a life sentence. McKinnon was also charged with making false statements to a federal agent.

Bulger, who ran the largely Irish mob in Boston in the 1970s and ’80s, served as an FBI informant who ratted on the main rival to his gang. He became one of the nation’s most-wanted fugitives after fleeing Boston in 1994 thanks to a tip from his FBI handler that he was about to be indicted. He was captured at the age of 81 after more than 16 years on the run.

In 2013, he was convicted in a string of 11 killings and dozens of other gangland crimes, many of them committed while he was said to be an FBI informant.

Bulger was killed just hours after he was transferred from a Florida lockup to USP Hazelton in West Virginia and placed in the general population. Bulger’s transfer to Hazelton, where workers had already been sounding the alarm about violence and understaffing, and his placement in the general population instead of more protective housing was widely criticized by experts after his killing.

A Justice Department inspector general investigation found in 2022 that his killing was the result of multiple layers of management failures, widespread incompetence and flawed policies at the Bureau of Prisons. The inspector general found no evidence of “malicious intent” by any bureau employees, but said a series of bureaucratic blunders left Bulger at the mercy of rival gangsters behind bars.

DeCologero, who was in an organized crime gang led by his uncle in Massachusetts, was convicted of buying heroin that was used to try to kill a teenage girl his uncle wanted dead because he feared she would betray the crew to police. The heroin didn’t kill her, so another man broke her neck, dismembered her and buried her remains in the woods, court records say.

Geas was a close associate of the Mafia and acted as an enforcer, but was not an official “made” member because he is Greek, not Italian. He and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss in Springfield, Massachusetts. Another mobster ordered Bruno’s killing because he was upset he had talked to the FBI, prosecutors said.

McKinnon had been on federal supervised release after serving prison time for stealing guns from a firearms dealer when he was arrested on charges in Bulger's killing.

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Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

The 13-week-old pups, a mix between a Bernese mountain dog and a poodle, had just been purchased from a breeder.

A security guard saw the puppies in distress inside a hot car in a parking garage. First responders arrived to find one puppy unresponsive. Despite life-saving measures, the puppy died.

According to the Orange County Animal Services (OCAS), the puppies were left in the car for about 90 minutes.

OCAS said the owner had just recently purchased the puppies from a breeder and stopped to have dinner with family at Disney Springs, and assumed that since they were in a covered parking garage and had the windows cracked, things would "be okay for the dogs."

"Every summer we deal with cases like this, where someone runs into a store, the mall, or similar venue and opts to leave their pet in the car, assuming it’ll be a short trip. It’s heartbreaking and infuriating for our staff and animal-loving community when pet owners make this mistake as preventable tragedy can and does occur," Orange County Animal Services Director Diane Summers said.

The three remaining puppies have recovered and were adopted by the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’s Fire Department staff.

Summers said even in the shade or with the windows cracked, animals should never be left in cars, especially during the summer.

"People have this misconception that shade or cracking the window will alleviate any concerns of overheating. It’s simply not the case. An animal should never be left in a car, especially during the summer months of Florida," she added.

Just two weeks ago, Animal Services dealt with a similar incident at a Goodwill in Orlando when a 7-month-old Shih Tzu was left inside a car.

When Orange County Fire Rescue rescued the puppy, the car's temperature was 140 degrees. Fortunately, the puppy was able to recover at one of OCAS’ local partner veterinary emergency clinics and was released to a rescue group.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office is investigating both incidents. Agricultural Crimes Unit investigators believe they will have probable cause for felony animal cruelty charges against the Bernedoodle's owner.

Sanborn died Sunday in Terrytown, New York, after a years-long battle with prostate cancer. Health issues forced him to cancel several scheduled shows earlier this month.

"Mr. Sanborn had been dealing with prostate cancer since 2018, but had been able to maintain his normal schedule of concerts until just recently," a message posted to his X account read. "Indeed he already had concerts scheduled into 2025."

Sanborn became known as a renowned session saxophonist and released some albums of his own. His credits include the 1972 Stevie Wonder track "Tuesday Heartbreak," David Bowie's 1975 album "Young Americans" and the James Taylor rendition of "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)."

Throughout his career, Sanborn received six Grammy awards, eight gold albums, and one platinum album.

Officers received a call about a suspicious person with a gun at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Abbeville just after 10:30 a.m. Saturday, according to police. Parishioners confronted the subject to prevent him from entering the church service.

Responding officers arrested the teen and took him into custody.

Abbeville police and the Vermilion Parish Sheriff's Office also swept the church for any additional threats and confirmed that no one was injured.

The suspect, identified only as a 16-year-old male, was interviewed by officers with a guardian present after being taken to the Abbeville Police Department. After the interview, the juvenile was taken to a hospital to be evaluated.

The teen was charged with terrorizing and two counts of possession of a firearm by a juvenile.

Footage from the church's livestream shows priests ducking behind the table about a minute into the video. You can also hear the congregation being told, "Just get ahold of your child and go slowly. We did apprehend a young man. He is in custody. He is in police custody."

Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel released a statement about the incident.

“We are thankful to God that a tragedy was avoided at the First Communion Mass for the children of St. Mary Magdalen in Abbeville," Deshotel said. "The quick response of the Abbeville Police Department and alert parishioners is a great example of caring for the most vulnerable in our community. Let us pray for an end to all threats of violence to innocent human life.”

In addition to the statement, the Bishop also sent a message to the parishioners of St. Mary Magdalen Church.

This morning, our First Communion ceremony was interrupted when a suspicious person opened the back door. The individual was immediately confronted by parishioners, escorted outside and the police were called. The individual was quickly apprehended by Abbeville Police Department and is in their custody. Once apprehended, law enforcement entered the church to make sure there was no additional danger. This understandably caused panic. While we realize this was a frightening experience for those in attendance, we are incredibly grateful to both parishioners and police officers for acting quickly to ensure the safety of all. Chief Mike Hardy is handling the investigation with cooperation of the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s office and assistance from the FBI. Out of an abundance of caution, we will have uniformed law enforcement at all upcoming Masses. We invite First Communicants to receive First Holy Communion at whichever Mass they choose to attend this weekend. We are grateful for all the prayers for our St. Mary Magdalen community.

Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel, St. Mary Magdalen

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees approved a change that would divert $2.3 million of diversity spending from state funds to go toward public safety and policing at a special meeting to address the university's budget. The board's vote would only impact UNC-Chapel Hill's diversity funding, which could result in the loss of its diversity office.

UNC will join the ranks of other notable public universities that have stripped diversity spending, such as the University of Florida in Gainesville, which announced in a March memo it was reallocating funds to faculty recruitment. But unlike UF, which implemented its funding rollback after the state Legislature passed a bill banning diversity program spending at state universities, UNC “set the tone” on funding cuts before the North Carolina Legislature stepped in, budget chair Dave Boliek said.

“We’re going ahead and, you know, sort of taking a leadership role in this. That’s the way I view it,” Boliek said on Monday after the vote.

The change would go into effect at the start of the 2024-2025 fiscal year on July 1, Boliek said. Any jobs that could be impacted would occur after that date, although Boliek said he wasn't sure how many positions may be affected.

But the decision about whether the spending cut would remove UNC's Office of Diversity & Inclusion will be up to the university's flexible management plan, which is operated by interim Chancellor Lee Roberts and his team. The diversity office has 12 staff members, including a chief diversity officer, according to its website.

The budget, which includes the $2.3 million amendment, will now be submitted to the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, UNC spokesperson Kevin Best said in an email.

The vote to shift more funding to public safety comes as continued pro-Palestinian protests on UNC's campus have resulted in several arrests in recent weeks. The budget committee vice-chair Marty Kotis said law enforcement has already been forced to react to protests, but they need more funding to keep the university “safe from a larger threat.”

“It's important to consider the needs of all 30,000 students, not just the 100 or so that may want to disrupt the university's operations,” Kotis said. “It takes away resources for others.”

But Boliek, who is also running for state auditor in Tuesday's runoff elections, said the timing of the reallocation was “happenstance" and that internal conversations on diversity spending cuts have persisted for almost a year.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions last year — in which UNC was sued for its admission policies — the board has continually considered how it should handle university diversity programs, he said. Diverting more money toward public safety was also a concern for the board in the aftermath of a fatal August shooting on the UNC campus that left one faculty member dead.

“It makes sense where we can take money that I believe is not being productively used and put it to something that is more productive, and that is providing public safety,” he said.

Before the start of North Carolina's short legislative session, Republican House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters there was interest in pursuing anti-DEI legislation but wanted to let university boards review their diversity policies first.

At least 20 states have seen Republican bill proposals seeking to limit diversity and inclusion programs in several public institutions such as universities.

Now, all eyes are on the UNC Board of Governors, whose 24 members are expected to vote next week on changing its diversity policy after the board's university governance committee voted to reverse and replace the rule last month. The change would alter a 2019 diversity, equity and inclusion regulation that defines the roles of various DEI positions at 17 schools across the state — and it would appear to eliminate those jobs if the policy is removed.

If the alteration is approved, it will take effect immediately.

Solar flares and eruptions will likely increase as we reach “solar maximum,” explained Nicola Fox, the director of NASA’s heliophysics division.

The current solar cycle, No. 25, began in December 2019.

"During the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle, the Sun shifts from relatively calm to stormy, then back again," said Fox. "At its most active, called solar maximum, the Sun is freckled with sunspots and its magnetic poles reverse."

All this activity sparks coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which are essentially explosions of plasma and magnetic material shooting out of the sun. When they hit Earth’s magnetic field, currents send particles flowing to the North and South Poles, and that's what causes the aurora, or northern lights, to appear in our skies. The stronger the geomagnetic storm, the further south the phenomenon is visible.

The peak of this solar cycle is predicted to happen somewhere between November 2024 and March 2026. The best guess we have from NOAA's space weather modeling is July 2025, but it could happen months sooner or later.

As we approach that solar maximum, we can expect more geomagnetic storms to pop up.

The scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) keep a close eye on active regions of the sun to try and predict broadly what might happen over the next several days or weeks, but it's hard to tell exactly when and how CMEs will hit Earth when they're coming from 90 million miles away. Once they reach about 1 million miles from Earth, scientists can take much more accurate measurements and make good predictions – but the lead time is small, about 15 to 45 minutes.

The severe, G5-level storm that hit Earth Friday night and Saturday morning was the strongest to reach us since 2003. Strong geomagnetic storms can cause more than just pretty lights in the sky – they also can create issues for power infrastructure, communications and navigation.

According to the SWPC's scale, a minor G1 storm can bring the aurora to Maine and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula while a moderate G2 storm can bring them into New York and Idaho. When a storm reaches G3 status, aurora can be viewed as far south as Illinois and Oregon. Should it reach G4 strength, those living in Alabama and northern California may have a chance at seeing the northern lights. Solar activity that causes a G5 storm, like the storm we saw Friday, has been known to make aurora appear in Florida and even southern Texas.

The explosives flashed orange and let off plumes of black smoke upon detonation, and the span crumpled into the water in seconds. The longest trusses toppled away from the grounded Dali container ship and slid off its bow, sending a wall of water splashing back toward the ship.

It marked a major step in freeing the ship, which has been stuck amid the wreckage since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s support columns shortly after leaving Baltimore on March 26. The demolished span came crashing down on the ship’s bow and remained resting on its deck for the past six weeks.

The collapse killed six construction workers and halted most maritime traffic through Baltimore’s busy port. The controlled demolition will allow the Dali to be refloated and restore traffic through the port as the cleanup enters its final stages.

Once the ship is removed, maritime traffic can begin returning to normal, which will provide relief for thousands of longshoremen, truckers and small business owners who have seen their jobs impacted by the closure.

Officials previously said the Dali’s 21-member crew would shelter in place aboard the ship while the explosives were detonated.

In a videographic released this week, authorities said engineers were using precision cuts to control how the trusses break down. They said the method allows for “surgical precision” and is one of the safest and most efficient ways to remove steel under a high level of tension.

The next step is for hydraulic grabbers to lift the resulting sections of steel onto barges.

The Dali crew members haven’t been allowed to leave the grounded vessel since the disaster. Officials said they’ve been busy maintaining the ship and assisting investigators. Of the crew members, 20 are from India and one is Sri Lankan.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI are conducting investigations into the bridge collapse.

Danish shipping giant Maersk had chartered the Dali for a planned trip from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, but the ship didn’t get far. Its crew sent a mayday call saying they had lost power and had no control of the steering system. Minutes later, the ship rammed into the bridge.

Officials have said the safety board investigation will focus on the ship’s electrical system.