Lee has tried to bring that kind of education into his classroom, with lessons about the need to double-check online sources, to diversify newsfeeds and to bring critical thinking to the web. He's also created an organization for other teachers to share resources.

“This technology is so new that no one taught us how to use it,” Lee said. “People are like, ‘There’s nothing we can do’ and they throw their hands in the air. I disagree with that. I would like to think the republic can survive an algorithm.”

Lee's efforts are part of a growing movement of educators and misinformation researchers working to offset an explosion of online misinformation about everything from presidential politics to pandemics. So far, the U.S. lags many other democracies in waging this battle, and the consequences of inaction are clear.

But for teachers already facing myriad demands in the classroom, incorporating internet literacy can be a challenge — especially given how politicized misinformation about vaccines, public health, voting, climate change and the war in Ukraine has become. The title of a talk for a recent gathering of Lee's group: “How to talk about conspiracy theories without getting fired.”

“It’s not teaching what to think, but how to think,” said Julie Smith, an expert on media literacy who teaches at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. “It's engaging about engaging your brain. It's asking, ‘Who created this? Why? Why am I seeing it now? How does it make me feel and why?’”

New laws and algorithm changes are often offered as the most promising ways of combating online misinformation, even as tech companies study their own solutions.

Teaching internet literacy, however, may be the most effective method. New Jersey, Illinois and Texas are among states that have recently implemented new standards for teaching internet literacy, a broad category that can include lessons about how the internet and social media work, along with a focus on how to spot misinformation by cross-checking multiple sources and staying wary of claims with missing context or highly emotional headlines.

Media literacy lessons are often included in history, government or other social studies classes, and typically offered at the high school level, though experts say it's never too early — or late — to help people become better users of the internet.

Finnish children begin to learn about the internet in preschool, part of a robust anti-misinformation program that aims to make the country's residents more resistant to false online claims. Finland has a long history of combating propaganda and misinformation spread by its neighbor, Russia, and expanded its current efforts after Russia's 2014 invasion of Crimea set off prompted another wave of disinformation.

“Media literacy was one of our priorities before the time of the internet,” Petri Honkonen, Finland's minister of science and culture, said in a recent interview. “The point is critical thinking, and that is a skill that everybody needs more and more. We have to somehow protect people. We also must protect democracy."

Honkonen spoke with The Associated Press earlier this year during a trip to Washington that included meetings to discuss Finland's work to fight online misinformation. One recent report on media literacy efforts in western democracies placed Finland at the top. Canada ranked seventh, while the U.S. came in at No. 18.

In Finland the lessons don't end with primary school. Public service announcements offer tips on avoiding false online claims and checking multiple sources. Additional programs are geared toward older adults, who can be especially vulnerable to misinformation compared to younger users more at home on the internet.

In the U.S., attempts to teach internet literacy have run into political opposition from people who equate it to thought control. Lee, the Seattle teacher, said that concern prevents some teachers from even trying.

Several years ago, the University of Washington launched “MisinfoDay,” which brought high schoolers and their teachers together for a one-day event featuring speakers, exercises and activities focused on media literacy. Seven hundred students from across the state attended one of three MisinfoDays this year.

Jevin West, the University of Washington professor who created the event, said he's heard from educators in other states and as far away as Australia who are interested in creating something similar.

“Maybe eventually, someday, nationally here in the United States, we have a day devoted to the idea of media literacy," West said. “There are all sorts of things we can do in terms of regulations, technology, in terms of research, but nothing is going to be more important than this idea of making us more resilient” to misinformation.

For teachers already struggling with other classroom demands, adding media literacy can seem like just one more obligation. But it's a skill that is just as important as computer engineering or software coding for the future economy, according to Erin McNeill, a Massachusetts mother who started Media Literacy Now, a national nonprofit that advocates for digital literacy education.

“This is an innovation issue,” McNeill said. “Basic communication is part of our information economy, and there will be huge implications for our economy if we don't get this right.”

The driver's education analogy comes up a lot when talking to media literacy experts. Automobiles first went into production in the early 20th century and soon became popular. But it was nearly three decades before the first driver's education courses were offered.

What changed? Governments passed laws regulating vehicle safety and driver behavior. Auto companies added features like collapsible steering columns, seat belts and air bags. And in the mid-1930s, safety advocates began to push for mandated driver's education.

That combination of government, industry and educators is seen as a model by many misinformation and media literacy researchers. Any effective solution to the challenges posed by online misinformation, they say, must by necessity include an educational component.

Media literacy in Canadian schools began decades ago and initially focused on television before being expanded throughout the digital era. Now it's accepted as an essential part of preparing students, according to Matthew Johnson, director of education at MediaSmarts, an organization that leads media literacy programs in Canada.

“We need speed limits, we need well-designed roads and good regulations to ensure cars are safe. But we also teach people how to drive safely," he said. "Whatever regulators do, whatever online platforms do, content always winds up in front of an audience, and they need to have the tools to engage critically with it.”

___

Klepper reported from Washington.

The ambivalence raises questions about whether Trump, though a leading Republican contender in the 2024 presidential race who retains a devoted following, still has the power to mobilize far-right supporters the way he did more than two years ago before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. It also suggests that the hundreds of arrests that followed the Capitol riot, not to mention the convictions and long prison sentences, may have dampened the desire for repeat mass unrest.

Still, law enforcement in New York is continuing to closely monitor online chatter warning of protests and violence if Trump is arrested, with threats varying in specificity and credibility, four officials told The Associated Press. Mainly posted online and in chat groups, the messages have included calls for armed protesters to block law enforcement officers and attempt to stop any potential arrest, the officials said.

The New York Young Republicans Club has announced plans for a protest at an undisclosed location in Manhattan on Monday, and incendiary but isolated posts surfaced on fringe social media platforms from supporters calling for an armed confrontation with law enforcement at Trump's Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

But nearly two days after Trump claimed on his Truth Social platform that he expected to be arrested on Tuesday and exhorted followers to protest, there were few signs his appeal had inspired his supporters to organize and rally around an event like the Jan. 6 gathering. In fact, a prominent organizer of rallies that preceded the Capitol riot posted on Twitter that he intended to remain on the sidelines.

Ali Alexander, who as an organizer of the “Stop the Steal” movement staged rallies to promote Trump’s baseless claims that Democrats stole the 2020 election from him, warned Trump's supporters that they would be "jailed or worse” if they protested in New York City.

“You have no liberty or rights there,” he tweeted.

One of Alexander’s allies in the “Stop the Steal” campaign was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who amplified the election fraud claims on his Infowars show. Alexander posted that he had spoken to Jones and said that neither of them would be protesting this time around.

“We’ve both got enough going on fighting the government,” Alexander wrote. “No billionaire is covering our bills.”

That stands in contrast to the days before the Capitol riot when Trump stoked up supporters when he invited them to Washington for a “big protest” on a Jan. 6, tweeting, “Be there, will be wild!” Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol that day, busting through windows and violently clashing with officers in an ultimately failed effort to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's victory.

Since then, about 1,000 participants in the melee have been arrested, many racking up steep legal bills and expressing regret and contrition in court for their actions. Some have complained of feeling abandoned by Trump. And conspiracy theories that the riot was fueled or even set up by undercover law enforcement informants in the crowd have continued to flourish online, with Trump supporters in the last two days citing that angst as a basis for steering clear of a new large-scale protest.

“How many Feds/Fed assets are in place to turn protest against the political arrest of Pres Trump into violence?” tweeted Rep. Marjorie-Taylor Greene. The Georgia Republican also invoked a conspiracy theory that an FBI informant had instigated the Jan. 6 riot.

“Has Ray Epps booked his flight to NY yet?” she tweeted on Sunday.

Epps, an Arizona man, was filmed encouraging others to enter the Capitol. Conspiracy theorists believe Epps was an FBI informant because he was removed from a Jan. 6 “wanted” list without being charged. In January, the House committee that investigated the Capitol attack said the claims about Epps were “unsupported.”

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab who has tracked the “Stop the Steal” movement online, said anxiety over being entrapped by so-called agent provocateurs feeds a “paranoia that if they go and do violence, they may get caught and there may be consequences.”

“It seems to reduce a lot of people's willingness to make big statements about being wiling to go out” and engage in violence, he said.

A grand jury is investigating hush money payments to women who alleged sexual encounters with Trump. Prosecutors have not said when their work might conclude or when charges could come.

The conflicted feelings over how far to support Trump in his fight against prosecution extends into the political realm as well. His own vice president, Mike Pence, who is expected to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination, castigated Trump in an ABC News interview this weekend as “reckless” for his actions on Jan. 6 and said history would hold him accountable — even as he echoed the former president's rhetoric that an indictment would be a “politically charged prosecution.”

“I have no doubt that President Trump knows how to take care of himself. And he will. But that doesn’t make it right to have a politically charged prosecution of a former president of the United States of America,” Pence said.

The opening day of the House Republican conference in Orlando, Florida, was quickly overshadowed with the news of a potential indictment. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans called the possibility outrageous and criticized District Attorney Alvin Bragg for what they called “reckless crime” in New York City.

McCarthy said he has assembled congressional investigators to probe if Bragg used Justice Department grants to pursue the Trump case. But despite the heated rhetoric toward Bragg, Republican leaders stopped short of Trump’s calls for protesters to “take our nation back.”

“I don’t think people should protest this. I think President Trump, when you talk to him, he doesn’t think that either,” McCarthy said.

_____

Kunzelman reported from Silver Spring, Maryland. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Michael Balsamo in Washington and Farnoush Amiri in Orlando, Florida, contributed to this report.

The 40 branches of Signature Bank will become Flagstar Bank, starting Monday. Flagstar is one of New York Community Bank's subsidiaries. The deal will include the purchase of $38.4 billion in Signature Bank's assets, a little more than a third of Signature's total when the bank failed a week ago.

The FDIC said $60 billion in Signature Bank's loans will remain in receivership and are expected to be sold off in time.

Signature Bank was the second bank to fail in this banking crisis, roughly 48 hours after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Signature, based in New York, was a large commercial lender in the tristate area, but had in recent years gotten into cryptocurrencies as a potential growth business.

After Silicon Valley Bank failed, depositors became nervous about Signature Bank's health due to its high amount of uninsured deposits as well as its exposure to crypto and other tech-focused lending. By the time it was closed by regulators, Signature was the third largest bank failure in U.S. history.

The FDIC says it expects Signature Bank's failure to cost the deposit insurance fund $2.5 billion, but that figure may change as the regulator sells off assets. The deposit insurance fund is paid for by assessments on banks and taxpayers do not bear the direct cost when a bank fails.

Three skiers were caught in Sunday's large avalanche in the Maroon bowl area outside of the Aspen Highlands resort near Aspen, the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said.

Two of the skiers managed to escape. Further details about the victim were not immediately available.

On Saturday, Colorado authorities recovered the body of skier Joel Shute, 36, of Glenwood Springs, after he and two others were caught in a large backcountry avalanche southwest of Marble in western Colorado.

Shute had been missing since Friday evening, when the avalanche swept 2,400 feet (730 meters) down a mountainside as the were backcountry touring.

The avalanche was two to three feet (up to nearly 1 meter) deep where it began and up to 500 feet (150 meters) wide, the Colorado Avalanche Information Center said. Rescue teams found the victim's body buried in avalanche debris, the center said.

A skier and snowboarder who were with Shute survived. The snowboarder hiked out to get help and rescue teams evacuated the injured skier by helicopter. Both were taken to the hospital, the Gunnison County Sheriff’s office said.

Recent storms have raised avalanche risks.

Nineteen people have been killed across the U.S. by avalanches so far this winter, including nine fatalities in Colorado. Avalanches in the winter of 2020-2021 killed 37 people nationwide, which was the most recorded by the avalanche center in records going back to 1950.

Members of Shute’s family said he was aware of avalanche dangers but was devoted to skiing. The victim’s mother, Lisa Gerstner, said he spent lots of time traveling and used his pilot’s license to fly his father and friends for work trips and recreation.

“Skiing was Joel’s life,” brother Aaron Shute told KDVR-TV. “It was his passion and what he wanted to do with his life,

The city said in a news release the curfew would be from 11:59 p.m. Sunday until 6 a.m. Monday, with an additional curfew likely to be put in place Thursday through next Monday, March 27. The curfew mainly affects South Beach, the most popular party location for spring breakers.

The release said the two separate shootings Friday night and early Sunday that left two people dead and “excessively large and unruly crowds” led to the decision. The city commission plans a meeting Monday to discuss potential further restrictions next week.

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said in a video message posted Sunday that the crowds and presence of numerous firearms has “created a peril that cannot go unchecked” despite massive police presence and many city-sponsored activities meant to keep people busy.

“We don't ask for spring break in our city. We don't want spring break in our city. It's too rowdy, it's too much disorder and it's too difficult to police,” Gelber said.

The latest shooting happened about 3:30 a.m. Sunday on Ocean Drive in South Beach, according to Miami Beach police. A male was shot and died later at a hospital, and officers chased down a suspect on foot, police said on Twitter. Their identities were not released, nor were any possible charges.

In the Friday night shooting, one male victim was killed and another seriously injured, sending crowds scrambling in fear from restaurants and clubs into the streets as gunshots rang out. Police detained one person at the scene and found four firearms, but no other details have been made available.

Under the curfew, people must leave businesses before midnight, although hotels can operate later only in service to their guests. The city release said restaurants can stay open only for delivery and the curfew won't apply to residents, people going to and from work, emergency services and hotel guests. Some roads will be closed off and arriving hotel guests may have to show proof of their reservations.

Last year, the city imposed a midnight curfew following two shootings, also on Ocean Drive. The year before that, there were about 1,000 arrests and dozens of guns confiscated during a rowdy spring break that led Miami Beach officials to take steps aimed at calming the situation.

The products are sold under several brand names, including "Simply Nature, Vital Choice, Kirkland Signature and Trader Joe's."

They were sold at Aldi, Costco and Trader Joe's.

The Food and Drug Administration said that five people have become sick with confirmed or probable cases. Two ended up in the hospital.

Gerber announced the recall of some of its "Good Start SoothePro" formula because it may be contaminated with bacteria. The formula was made between January 2-18 and sold at stores across the country.

The company said that no products have shown any signs of bacterial contamination so far, but the products are being recalled out of an abundance of caution.

Even as Trump's lawyer and spokesperson said there had been no communication from prosecutors, Trump declared in a post on his social media platform that he expects to be taken into custody on Tuesday.

His message seemed designed to preempt a formal announcement from prosecutors and to galvanize outrage from his base of supporters in advance of widely anticipated charges. Within hours, his campaign was sending fundraising solicitations to his supporters, while influential Republicans in Congress and even some declared and potential rival candidates issued statements in his defense.

In a later post that went beyond simply exhorting loyalists to protest about his legal peril, the 2024 presidential candidate directed his overarching ire in all capital letters at the Biden administration and raised the prospect of civil unrest: “IT’S TIME!!!” he wrote. “WE JUST CAN’T ALLOW THIS ANYMORE. THEY’RE KILLING OUR NATION AS WE SIT BACK & WATCH. WE MUST SAVE AMERICA!PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!”

It all evoked, in foreboding ways, the rhetoric he used shortly before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. After hearing from the then-president at a Washington rally that morning, his supporters marched to the Capitol and tried to stop the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's White House victory, breaking through doors and windows of the building and leaving officers beaten and bloodied.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg is thought to be eyeing charges in the hush money investigation, and recently offered Trump a chance to testify before the grand jury. Local law enforcement officials are bracing for the public safety ramifications of an unprecedented prosecution of a former American president.

In an internal email following Trump’s statements, Bragg said law enforcement would ensure that the 1,600 people who work in his office would remain safe, and that “any specific or credible threats” would be investigated.

“We do not tolerate attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York,” he wrote, and added: “In the meantime, as with all of our investigations, we will continue to apply the law evenly and fairly, and speak publicly only when appropriate.”

There has been no public announcement of any time frame for the grand jury’s secret work in the case. At least one additional witness is expected to testify, further indicating that no vote to indict has yet been taken, according to a person familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

That did not stop Trump from taking to his social media platform to say “illegal leaks” from Bragg's office indicate that “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK.”

A Trump lawyer, Susan Necheles, said Trump's post was “based on the media reports," and a spokesperson said there had been “no notification” from Bragg's office, though the origin of Trump's Tuesday reference was unclear. The district attorney’s office declined to comment.

Trump's aides and legal team have been preparing for the possibility of an indictment. Should that happen, he would be arrested only if he refused to surrender. Trump’s lawyers have previously said he would follow normal procedure, meaning he would likely agree to surrender at a New York Police Department precinct or directly to Bragg’s office.

It is unclear whether Trump’s supporters would heed his protest call or if he retains the same persuasive power he held as president. Trump’s posts on Truth Social generally receive far less attention than he used to get on Twitter, but he maintains a deeply loyal base. The aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, in which hundreds of Trump loyalists were arrested and prosecuted in federal court, may also have dampened the passion among supporters for confrontation.

The indictment of Trump, 76, would be an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings.

Even as Trump pursues his latest White House campaign — his first rally is set for Waco, Texas, later this month and he shook hands and took selfies with fans during a public appearance Saturday evening at the NCAA Division I wrestling championships in Tulsa, Oklahoma — there is no question an indictment would be a distraction and give fodder to opponents and critics tired of the legal scandals that have long enveloped him.

Besides the hush money inquiry in New York, Trump faces separate criminal investigations in Atlanta and Washington over his efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election.

A Justice Department special counsel has also been presenting evidence before a grand jury investigating Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate. It is not clear when those investigations will end or whether they might result in criminal charges, but they will continue regardless of what happens in New York, underscoring the ongoing gravity – and broad geographic scope – of the legal challenges facing the former president.

Trump's post Saturday echoes one made last summer when he broke the news on Truth Social that the FBI was searching his Florida home as part of an investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents.

News of that search sparked a flood of contributions to Trump’s political operation, and on Saturday, Trump sent out a series of fundraising emails to his supporters, including one that claimed, “I’m not worried in the slightest.”

After his post, Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy decried any plans to prosecute Trump as an “outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA” whom he claimed was pursuing “political vengeance.” Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking House Republican, issued a statement with a similar sentiment.

The grand jury has been hearing from witnesses, including former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who says he orchestrated payments in 2016 to two women to silence them about sexual encounters they said they had with Trump a decade earlier.

Trump denies the encounters occurred, says he did nothing wrong and has cast the investigation as a “witch hunt” by a Democratic prosecutor bent on sabotaging the Republican’s 2024 campaign. Trump also has labeled Bragg, who is Black, a “racist” and has accused the prosecutor of letting crime in the city run amok while he has focused on Trump. New York remains one of the safest cities in the country.

Bragg’s office has apparently been examining whether any state laws were broken in connection with the payments or the way Trump’s company compensated Cohen for his work to keep the women’s allegations quiet.

Porn actor Stormy Daniels and at least two former Trump aides — onetime political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks — are among witnesses who have met with prosecutors in recent weeks.

Cohen has said that at Trump’s direction, he arranged payments totaling $280,000 to Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. According to Cohen, the payouts were to buy their silence about Trump, who was then in the thick of his first presidential campaign.

Cohen and federal prosecutors said Trump's company paid him $420,000 as reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Daniels and to cover bonuses and other supposed expenses. The company classified those payments internally as legal expenses. The $150,000 payment to McDougal was made by the then-publisher of the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer, which kept her story from coming to light.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the Enquirer’s corporate parent in exchange for its cooperation in a campaign finance investigation that led to charges against Cohen in 2018. Prosecutors said the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to impermissible, unrecorded gifts to Trump’s election effort.

Cohen pleaded guilty, served prison time and was disbarred. Federal prosecutors never charged Trump with any crime.

News that law enforcement agencies were preparing for a possible indictment was first reported by NBC News.

___

Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina and Sean Murphy in Tulsa, Oklahoma — contributed to this report.

Instead, the two friends from San Diego spent Friday night along with 40 other hikers camped out on a helipad. But sleep was elusive because tribal members warned that an emergency services helicopter could potentially land anytime during the night.

“Yeah, so we didn’t really sleep,” Castellano said Saturday while driving to a hotel in Sedona. “I just kept one eye open really and one ear open ... You just do not expect any of that to happen. So, I think I’m still in shock that I’m not even there right now.”

Tourists hoping to reach the breathtaking waterfalls on the reservation instead went through harrowing flood evacuations.

The official Havasupai Tribe Tourism Facebook page reported Friday that flooding had washed away a bridge to the campground. An unknown number of campers were evacuated to Supai Village, with some being rescued by helicopter.

The campground is in a lower-lying area than the village of Supai. Some hikers had to camp in the village. Others who weren’t able to get to the village because of high water were forced to camp overnight on a trail.

But floodwaters were starting to recede as of Saturday morning, according to the tribe's Facebook post.

Visitors with the proper permits will be allowed to hike to the village and campground. They will be met with tribal guides, who will help them navigate around creek waters on a back trail to get to the campground.

Tourists will not be permitted to take pictures. The back trail goes past sites considered sacred by the tribe.

Meanwhile, the tribe said in its statement that it has “all hands on deck” to build a temporary bridge to the campground.

Abbie Fink, a spokesperson for the tribe, referred to the tribe's Facebook page when reached for comment Saturday.

Methvin and Castellano decided to leave by helicopter Saturday rather than navigate muddy trails with a guide. Despite losing money on a pre-paid, three-day stay, Methvin says they can still try to salvage their trip. Having only received permits last month, he feels especially sad for hikers they met with reservations from 2020.

“They waited three years to get there,” Methvin said. “At least we have the ability to go do something else versus having that whole weekend ruined. It sucks, but it’s making lemonade for us.”

From Supai to Sedona, several areas of northern Arizona have been slammed this week by storms. The resulting snow combined with snowmelt at higher elevations has wreaked havoc on highways, access roads and even city streets.

The flooding of the Havasupai campground comes as the tribe reopened access last month to its reservation and various majestic blue-green waterfalls — for the first time since March 2020. The tribe opted to close to protect its members from the coronavirus. Officials then decided to extend the closure through last year's tourism season.

At the beginning of this year, President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration initiated by the Havasupai Tribe, freeing up funds for flood damage sustained in October. Flooding at that time had destroyed several bridges and left downed trees on trails necessary for tourists and transportation of goods into Supai Village.

Permits to visit are highly coveted. Pre-pandemic, the tribe received an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 visitors per year to its reservation deep in a gorge west of Grand Canyon National Park. The area is reachable only by foot or helicopter, or by riding a horse or mule. Visitors can either camp or stay in a lodge.

Castellano is already planning to try to get a permit again later this year if there are cancellations. “We just want to see i in all its glory, not muddy falls,” she said.

Dewayne Smith was a 25-year veteran with the Memphis Police Department. Documents show that Smith ignored Nichols when he said he could not breath and failed to call for medical help.

Smith was also not wearing his body camera during the beating. Nichols died a few days later.

Six other Memphis Police officers were fired following the incident. Five are facing criminal charges.

Smith has not been charged in the case

Republican Governor Mark Gordon signed the bill into law Friday night. A separate measure restricting abortion also became law without his signature.

Medication abortion is already outlawed in states that have total bans, since those bans already prohibit all forms of it.

Wyoming's ban on abortion pills would take effect in July, pending any legal action that could potentially delay that.

The family of Irvo Otieno saw the video of his death Thursday. With their blessing, the footage will be released to the public in the next several days, Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Attorneys for the family described the video to reporters as 12 agonizing minutes of deputies pushing down and smothering Otineo, a Black man whose arms and legs were restrained.

“You can see that they’re putting their back into it. Every part of his body is being pushed down with absolute brutality,” family attorney Mark Krudys said.

Prosecutors said Otieno, 28, didn’t appear to be combative and was sitting in a chair when he was pulled down by officers.

The 12-minute video also showed a lack of urgency to help Otieno after the deputies determined “that he was lifeless and not breathing," Krudys said.

Ten people so far have been charged with second-degree murder in Otieno’s death — seven Henrico County Sheriff’s deputies and three people employed by the hospital.

Attorneys for the people arrested have not seen the video yet.

“They show the plaintiffs’ attorneys the video. But we’re representing these people charged with murder that are locked up. It’s really disappointing. It seems like it’s more important to curry public favor, to try the case in the media, instead of letting the criminal justice process work the way it’s supposed to work," defense attorney Peter Baruch told the Richmond newspaper.

Otieno's case marks the latest example of a Black man's in-custody death that has law enforcement under scrutiny. It follows the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year and comes nearly three years after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Otieno, who was a child when his family emigrated from Kenya and grew up in suburban Richmond, had a history of mental health struggles and was experiencing mental distress at the time of his initial encounter with law enforcement earlier this month, his family and their attorneys said.

That set off a chain of events that led to him spending several days in custody before authorities say he died March 6 as he was being admitted to the Central State Hospital south of Richmond.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America's support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

Some of the claims pushed by the pro-Russian accounts were verifiably false, such as the suggestion that the news media had covered up the disaster or that environmental scientists traveling to the site had been killed in a plane crash. But most were more speculative, seemingly designed to stoke fear or distrust. Examples include unverified maps showing widespread pollution, posts predicting an increase in fatal cancers and others about unconfirmed mass animal die-offs.

“Biden offers food, water, medicine, shelter, payouts of pension and social services to Ukraine! Ohio first! Offer and deliver to Ohio!” posted one of the pro-Moscow accounts, which boasts 25,000 followers and features an anonymous location and a profile photo of a dog. Twitter awarded the account a blue check mark in January.

Regularly spewing anti-US propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploitsocial mediaplatforms like Twitter in an effort to steer domestic discourse.

The accounts were identified by Reset, a London-based nonprofit that studies social media's impact on democracy, and shared with The Associated Press. Felix Kartte, a senior advisor at Reset, said the report's findings indicate Twitter is allowing Russia to use its platform like a bullhorn.

"With no one at home in Twitter’s product safety department, Russia will continue to meddle in US elections and in democracies around the world,” Kartte said.

Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

The 38-car derailment near East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to a nationaldebate over rail safety and environmental regulations while raising fears of poisoned drinking water and air.

The disaster was a major topic on social media, with millions of mentions on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based media intelligence firm Zignal Labs, which conducted a study on behalf of the AP.

At first, the derailment received little attention online but mentions grew steadily, peaking two weeks after the incident, Zignal found, a time lag that gave pro-Russia voices time to try to shape the conversation.

The accounts identified by Reset's researchers received an extra boost from Twitter itself, in the form of a blue check mark. Before Musk purchased Twitter last year, it's check marks denoted accounts run by verified users, often public figures, celebrities or journalists. It was seen as a mark of authenticity on a platform known for bots and spam accounts.

Musk ended that system and replaced it with Twitter Blue, which is given to users who pay $8 per month and supply a phone number. Twitter Blue users agree not to engage in deception and are required to post a profile picture and name. But there's no rule that they use their own.

Under the program, Twitter Blue users can write and send longer tweets and videos. Their replies are also given higher priority on other posts.

The AP reached out to several of the accounts listed in Reset’s report. In response, one of the accounts sent a two-word message before blocking the AP reporter on Twitter: “Shut up.”

While researchers spotted clues suggesting some of the accounts are linked to coordinated efforts by Russian disinformation agencies, others were Americans, showing the Kremlin doesn't always have to pay to get its message out.

One account, known as Truth Puke, is connected to a website of the same name geared toward conservatives in the United States. Truth Puke regularly reposts Russian state media; RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is one of its favorite groups to repost, Reset found. One video posted by the account features ex-President Donald Trump's remarks about the train derailment, complete with Russian subtitles.

In a response to questions from the AP, Truth Puke said it aims to provide a “wide spectrum of views” and was surprised to be labeled a spreader of Russian propaganda, despite the account's heavy use of such material. Asked about the video with Russian subtitles, Truth Puke said it used the Russian language version of the Trump video for the sake of expediency.

“We can assure you that it was not done with any Russian propagandist intent in mind, we just like to put out things as quickly as we find them,” the company said.

Other accounts brag of their love for Russia. One account on Thursday reposted a bizarre claim that the U.S. was stealing humanitarian earthquake relief supplies donated to Syria by China. The account has 60,000 followers and is known as Donbass Devushka, after the region of Ukraine.

Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine's defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.

A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.

“ Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere," Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. "Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Prigozhin said at the time.

Two males were shot Friday night, and one person was detained at the scene, the Miami Beach Police Department tweeted. It wasn't clear if the person being held was the shooter. Police also said three guns were recovered.

The shooting happened on South Beach's Ocean Drive, which is closed to vehicle traffic along its busiest stretch as hundreds of people gather to celebrate spring break. One of the victims died at a hospital and the second person was listed in critical condition, police said. Their identities were not immediately released.

Dozens of people scrambled to get away from the gunfire, authorities said. Several blocks in the area were cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.

No other information was immediately available.

The shooting is the second in as many years during spring break on South Beach. Last year, the city imposed a midnight curfew following two shootings also on Ocean Drive.

The year before that, there were about 1,000 arrests and dozens of guns confiscated during a rowdy spring break that led Miami Beach officials to take steps aimed at calming the situation.

Naval Base Coronado spokesperson Kevin Dixon told KNSD-TV that the driver was taken into custody by base guards after the “gate runner” drove without stopping Friday night through the entrance of Naval Air Station North Island, part of Naval Base Coronado.

Several patrol cars surrounded the entrance near 3rd Street and Alameda Boulevard in Coronado around 10:30 p.m., KNSD-TV reported.

Multiple gates at the air station near San Diego were closed while security personnel checked the facility, Dixon said.

A post on the Facebook page of Naval Base Coronado early Saturday said, “The main gate at Naval Air Station North Island is currently closed due to a security incident. Please stay away from the main gate while security conducts its investigation.”

The Coronado Police Department was investigating along with military police, KNSD-TV reported.

Naval Air Station North Island is one of eight U.S. military installations that make up Naval Base Coronado.

In February 2022, a motorist was found with bomb-making materials at the same gate on the base. The materials were not assembled into a device, and the driver was detained for questioning, the base said at the time.

The delay in notifying the public about the November leak raised questions about public safety and transparency, but industry experts said Friday there was never a public health threat. They said Xcel Energy voluntarily notified state agencies and reported the leak of tritium to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon after it was confirmed and that the leak of 400,000 gallons (1.5 million liters) of radioactive water never reached a threshold that would have required public notification.

“This is something that we struggle with because there is such concern with anything that is nuclear,” said Victoria Mitlyng, a spokesperson with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The concern is very, very understandable. That is why I want to make extra clear the fact that the public in Minnesota, the people, the community near the plant, was not and is not in danger.”

State officials said that while they knew of the leak in November, they waited to get more information before making a public announcement.

“We knew there was a presence of tritium in one monitoring well, however Xcel had not yet identified the source of the leak and its location,” Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesperson Michael Rafferty said Thursday. “Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information."

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that occurs naturally in the environment and is a common by-product of nuclear plant operations. It emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said a significant health risk would only occur if people consumed fairly high amounts of tritium. That risk is contained if the plume stays on the company’s site, which Xcel Energy and Minnesota officials said is the case.

If regulatory officials are sure it didn’t move off site, people shouldn’t have to worry about their safety, he said, adding that companies usually take action when onsite monitoring wells detect elevated levels of contaminants like tritium.

Mitlyng said there's no official requirement for nuclear plants to report all tritium leaks to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Instead, Xcel Energy had previously agreed to report certain tritium leaks to the state. When Xcel Energy shares information with the state, it also shares it with the commission.

The commission posted a notification about the leak on its website Nov. 23, noting that the plant reported it to the state a day earlier. The report classified the leak as a nonemergency. The notice said the source of the tritium was being investigated at that time.

Beyond that, there was no widespread notification to the public before Thursday.

Rafferty said disclosure requirements fall to the facility, and state agencies would have notified residents immediately had there been an imminent threat to health and the environment.

Rafferty said the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency decided to share information about its role overseeing the cleanup now “because we have more details about the location and potential movement of the contamination, steps being taken to control the plume and plans for remediation including short-term storage of contaminated water.”

Mitlyng said there is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water. The facility has groundwater monitoring wells in concentric circles, and plant employees can track the progress of contaminants by looking at which wells detect higher amounts. There are Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors on site too, watching over the response.

The company said the leak came from a pipe between two buildings.

Xcel said it has recovered about 25% of the spilled tritium so far, that recovery efforts will continue and that it will install a permanent solution this spring.

Xcel is considering building above-ground storage tanks for the contaminated water it recovers and is considering options for the treatment, reuse or final disposal of the collected tritium and water. State regulators will review the options the company selects, the state Pollution Control Agency said.

The regulatory commission said tritium spills happen from time to time at nuclear plants, but they’ve either been limited to plant properties or involved such low offsite levels that they didn’t impact public health. Xcel Energy reported a small tritium leak at Monticello in 2009.

The Monticello plant is about 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis, upstream from the city on the Mississippi River.

Shelby Burma, who lives minutes from the site of the spill, said the news — coming weeks after a train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border left lingering concerns about contaminated air, soil and groundwater — makes her worry about an increasing amount of chemicals in the environment.

“I think it’s pretty alarming that they did not notify the public right away,” Burma said. “They said it won’t cause any harm, but that’s hard to believe when they waited how long to go public with it.”

___

Phillis reported from New York City, Biraben from Pierre, South Dakota. Associated Press writers Trisha Ahmed and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Margaret Stafford in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.

The order will require M. Evan Corcoran to answer additional questions as prosecutors pursue their investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago as well as potential efforts to obstruct that probe. The order was described Friday by a person familiar with it, who was not authorized to discuss a sealed proceeding and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The precise scope of the order, which is expected to be appealed, was not immediately clear. Neither Corcoran nor his lawyer returned messages seeking comment, and a spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the investigation, also did not respond to an email about the order.

A Trump spokesman said the Trump team would “fight the Department of Justice on this front and all others that jeopardize fundamental American rights and values.”

Corcoran had already appeared weeks ago before the federal grand jury in Washington investigating the Mar-a-Lago matter, but he had invoked attorney-client privilege in declining to answer certain questions. That privilege protects lawyers from being forced to share with prosecutors details of the conversations they have with clients.

Prosecutors can get around that privilege if they can convince a judge that an attorney's services were being used in furtherance of a crime — a principle known as the crime-fraud exception. The Justice Department invoked that exception in this case, arguing to Beryl Howell, the outgoing chief judge of the federal court in Washington, D.C., that more testimony was needed.

Howell issued her order granting at least some additional testimony before the end of her tenure Friday as chief judge. She is being replaced as chief judge by James “Jeb” Boasberg, a fellow Obama appointee who has served on the federal bench since 2011.

Corcoran is regarded as relevant to the investigation in part because last year he drafted a statement to the Justice Department asserting that a “diligent search” for classified documents had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago in response to a subpoena. Months later, though, FBI agents searched the home with a warrant and found roughly 100 additional documents with classified markings.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Trump or anyone in his orbit obstructed its efforts to recover all the classified documents, which included top-secret material, from his home.

As chief judge, Boasberg will have oversight of federal grand juries, including ones handling Trump matters, in the courthouse and will preside over sealed disputes like the Corcoran one.

Separately, former Vice President Mike Pence has said he will challenge a grand jury subpoena that seeks to compel him to testify in the special counsel's Jan 6. investigation. Pence has argued that because he was serving in his role as president of the Senate on Jan. 6, as he presided over a joint session of Congress to certify the election results, he is protected from being forced to address his actions under the Constitution’s “speech-or-debate” clause that shields members of Congress.

It is not clear how that disagreement will be resolved.

____

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

The facility will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center and the more than 500 inmates serving death sentences there will be moved elsewhere in the California penitentiary system. The prison houses more than 2,000 other inmates on lesser sentences.

"We want to be the preeminent restorative justice facility in the world — that’s the goal," Newsom said from an on-site warehouse that will house his envisioned programs. "San Quentin is iconic, San Quentin is known worldwide. If San Quentin can do it, it can be done anywhere else."

Despite Newsom's ambitious tone, he offered few concrete details on what the new system would look like and who it would serve. It remained unclear how far the plan would go to reimagine a prison once home to California's most notorious criminals, like Charles Manson, and the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and 1970s.

But it has also become known for innovative programs where inmates can get a degree, write for an award-winning newspaper, study the arts and get job training in preparation for reentering society.

A group made up of public safety experts, crime victims and formerly incarcerated people will advise the state on the transformation, which Newsom hopes to complete by 2025. He is allocating $20 million to launch the plan.

The move by Newsom, who recently began his second term, follows his 2019 moratorium on executions, which drew criticism from some who argued he was neglecting the will of voters who in 2016 upheld the death penalty at the ballot box.

From 2020 to 2022, more than 100 inmates with death sentences were transferred from San Quentin to other prisons under a pilot program run by the state. The state spends about $326 million operating San Quentin annually, and Newsom’s administration didn’t say if the new approach would save money.

The latest plan is part of a decades-long transformation of the state's sprawling prison system, which went under federal receivership in 2005 after a court determined prison medical care was so lacking it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. A panel of judges later ordered the state to dramatically reduce the prison population because of overcrowding.

About 800 people are released from San Quentin every year, and the goal is to keep them from committing another crime and ending up back in the system, Newsom said.

San Quentin inmate Juan Moreno Haines said the plan will help ensure taxpayer money is being spent to end the ongoing cycle of repeat offenses.

“I’ll ask Californians: What do you want?” he said. “Do you want them to come out of prison better rehabilitated with skills, or do you want them to come out worse than what they were to continually feed this model of criminality?”

Newsom's office cited as a model Norway’s approach to incarceration, which focuses on preparing people to return to society. Officials from the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation toured Norwegian prisons in 2019, where they took note of the positive interactions between inmates and staff. Oregon and North Dakota have also taken inspiration from the Scandinavian country's policies.

In maximum-security Norwegian prisons, cells often look more like dorm rooms with additional furniture such as chairs, desks, even TVs, and prisoners have kitchen access. Norway has a low rate of people who reoffend after leaving prison.

As of 2015, two-thirds of people convicted of felonies in California were rearrested within two years of release, according to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California. Newsom said efforts to reduce that rate will boost public safety.

Success will be determined “on the basis of people’s willingness and commitment to change themselves, to change their attitudes, and become positive contributory citizens when they’re back in community. We need to help support people along that path,” he said.

The Prison Law Office, a public interest law firm that filed the 2001 lawsuit over California's prison medical care, has advocated for such an approach to prisons and led tours of European correctional facilities for U.S. lawmakers. On a 2011 trip to prisons in Germany and the Netherlands, Donald Specter, executive director of the law office, said he was shocked to see that they were “so much more humane” than prisons back home.

“While I was there, I thought, ‘oh my god, we should try to import this philosophy into the United States,’” he said.

Critics of Newsom's announcement said it follows continued prioritization of people who have committed crimes over victims.

“We’re in a climate where it’s all about the offenders and the criminals and not about the innocent victims that have been victimized, traumatized, harmed — family members that are devastated living without their loved ones because they were murdered and taken away too early,” said Patricia Wenskunas, chief executive officer of the Crime Survivors Resource Center.

But Amber-Rose Howard, executive director of Californians United for a Responsible Budget, a group focused on reducing the prison population, isn't convinced a “Norway model” would work in the United States since the two countries have vastly different histories.

“Newsom should stay on track with closing more prisons, with implementing policies that have been passed that would reduce incarceration and that would get people home,” she said.

Speakers who joined Newsom said they hoped to build on a slew of already successful programs in place at San Quentin. The prison houses the first accredited junior college in the country based entirely behind bars, offering classes in literature, astronomy and U.S. government. Prisoners recorded and produced the hugely popular podcast “ Ear Hustle ” while serving time.

Phil Melendez, a former inmate at San Quentin who now works at the advocacy group Smart Justice California, said the rehabilitation programs the state hopes to expand will set formerly incarcerated people up for success when they re-enter society.

“Over the course of (my) time here, I found a new sense of hope,” Melendez said at the prison. “I found healing.”

___

Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna

According to a post on the charity’s Facebook page, the dog, named Bucky, was brought to HART’s Bredel Vet Clinic after he was found in the woods tangled in a tree with a gunshot wound to his face, indicating an “unsuccessful execution,” HART said.

The post said the clinic immediately started tending to Bucky and began the long process of stitching and cleaning Bucky’s injury. “Due to the severity of the injury, this took some time, but despite all he’d been through, Bucky met every moment with a great attitude and a smile on his face,” the post added.

Footage posted to the organization’s Facebook page shows Bucky walking through a room with a wagging tail while a group applauds for the dog.

The organization said Bucky has returned to the Tucker County Animal Shelter and is now ready to be adopted.

Thousands of tourists and locals alike crowded the oak-shaded squares and downtown sidewalks of Savannah on Friday. The city's parade, a 199-year-old tradition, is the South's largest.

Veteran parade watchers arrived before dawn to claim space in the squares for picnic tables and party tents. Bars opened at 7 a.m. to greet customers already thirsty for beer and Bloody Marys.

The annual parade in New York City — which bills itself as the world's largest and oldest — drew throngs to Fifth Avenue to await bagpipes and bands, and give homage to Ireland's patron saint.

“When we march up Fifth Avenue," New York Mayor Eric Adams said during the annual St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast Reception, "it appears as though everything turns to green.”

Irish immigrants have a deep history in helping New York City become what it is today — one of the many groups, the mayor said, “that make up our city and that makes us great.”

Kevin Conway, the parade’s grand marshal, led the way.

“We’re going to march in a celebration of all things Irish, the Irish culture, the Irish people. We’re going to march in tribute to the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement,” he said, referring to the peace accord that helped end sectarian violence over the reunification of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

Bernadette Byrne, who took in the parade while visiting from Ireland, felt right at home.

“The atmosphere is great,” she said. “Everybody’s so friendly.”

In Portland, Oregon, the city's oldest Irish bar was in hot pursuit of a Guinness — not the famed Irish beer but what they hope will be a world record for the biggest Irish coffee ever brewed: 264 gallons of it.

Some cities, including Boston, will hold parades and other festivities this weekend. Other cities including Chicago, which dyes its river green to commemorate a day when everyone pretends to be Irish, already held their parades last weekend.

On Friday, the fountain on the South Lawn of the White House also flowed green as President Joe Biden, who often speaks of his Irish heritage, welcomed Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. The COVID-19 pandemic had delayed the longstanding meetup by two years. Biden said he plans to visit both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland this year, where he will likely commemorate the U.S.-brokered peace agreement.

Also in the nation’s capital, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first Black cardinal from the United States, greeted the faithful with handshakes, hugs, and a few selfies amid the tunes of bagpipes and movements of Irish dancers.

In Savannah, temperatures were springlike, in the mid-70s (24 C). Fittingly, many parade watchers wore shorts with green T-shirts and strands of green plastic beads.

Mike Trout painted his entire face and bald head with green makeup, accented by an orange plastic mustache.

“You got the spirit, brother!” said one passerby, tapping Trout on the shoulder as he and wife, Diana, strolled the streets before the parade. The couple from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, traveled to Savannah just to celebrate St. Patrick’s.

Started in 1824 by Irish immigrants to Georgia’s oldest city, the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Savannah has ballooned into one of the South’s largest street parties after Mardi Gras.

“This is a lot of people,” said Sheila Barry, a Savannah native who staked out spots with a friend along Abercorn Street near the start of the parade route. They packed sandwiches, water and something else to drink that Barry described mischievously as “St. Patrick’s holy water.”

Barry, 55, wore a wide felt sash of emerald green embroidered with the names of her late parents, Irish immigrants who came to Savannah more than five decades ago.

“Everybody, they’re all Irish today,” Barry said. “Everybody’s just here to have a good time.”

Vivian Penn’s 2-year-old granddaughter, Adeline, clapped and waved as Savannah’s parade kicked off with school children in kilts carrying American and Irish flags followed by the droning whine of a bagpipe band. The girl in a white dress with shamrocks and green stripes celebrated her birthday just two days before St. Patrick’s Day.

“She’s always going to be an Irish redhead,” Penn said of her blond grandchild.

Friday marked just the second parade in Savannah since the coronavirus pandemic forced city officials to pause the celebration in 2020 and 2021. Even last year’s comeback parade seemed subdued, with plenty of elbow room along the typically packed parade route, said Penn, who lives nearby in Savannah’s downtown historic district.

“This looks like it’s back to normal,” Penn said. “This morning I was like, ‘Yes, it’s St. Patrick’s Day!’ Seeing all the people out the window with their chairs running down the street was very exciting.”

___

This story corrects the number of years the Savannah parade as been a tradition to 199, instead of 100.

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia, and Calvan from New York. Associated Press writers Colleen Long and Giovanna Dell’Orto in Washington contributed to this report.

Speaking at a news conference shortly after watching the video with a local prosecutor, the family and attorneys condemned the brutal treatment they said Irvo Otieno, 28, was subjected to, first at a local jail and then at the state hospital where authorities say he died March 6 during the admission process.

They called on the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene in the case, saying Otieno's constitutional rights were clearly violated.

“What I saw today was heartbreaking, America. It was disturbing. It was traumatic. My son was tortured," said Otieno's mother, Caroline Ouko.

Otieno's case marks the latest example of a Black man's in-custody death that has law enforcement under scrutiny. It follows the the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, earlier this year and comes nearly three years after the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis.

Ben Crump, who represented Floyd's family and is now working with Otieno's, quickly drew a comparison.

“It is truly shocking that nearly three years after the brutal killing of George Floyd by police, another family is grieving a loved one who allegedly died in nearly the exact same manner — being pinned down by police for 12 agonizing minutes," Crump said in a statement.

Mark Krudys, another attorney for Otieno's family, said at the news conference that the video showed all seven of the deputies now facing charges pushing down on Otieno, who was in handcuffs and leg irons.

“You can see that they’re putting their back into it. Every part of his body is being pushed down with absolute brutality," he said.

Ten people so far have been charged with second-degree murder in Otieno's death. The seven Henrico County Sheriff's deputies were charged Tuesday and additional charges were announced Thursday against three people who were employed by the hospital.

The footage the family watched Thursday has not been publicly released. But Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill also described it in court Wednesday, saying at the first hearing for the deputies that Otieno was smothered to death, local news outlets reported.

Baskervill said Otieno did not appear combative and was sitting in a chair before being pulled to the ground by the officers, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

She announced Thursday in a news release the additional charges against the hospital employees: Darian M. Blackwell, 23, of Petersburg; Wavie L. Jones, 34, of Chesterfield; and Sadarius D. Williams, 27, of North Dinwiddie. They were being held without bond, and it wasn’t immediately clear if they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf. A spokeswoman for the state police said she didn’t know if they had obtained counsel, and none were listed in court records. The news release did not say what role they are alleged to have had in Otieno's death.

Additional charges and arrests are pending, Baskervill said.

Otieno, who was a child when his family emigrated from Kenya and grew up in suburban Richmond, had a history of mental health struggles and was experiencing mental distress at the time of his initial encounter with law enforcement earlier this month, his family and their attorneys said.

That set off a chain of events that led to him spending several days in custody before authorities say he died March 6 as he was being admitted to Central State Hospital south of Richmond.

Krudys said the footage from the hospital also showed a lack of urgency to help Otieno after the deputies determined "that he was lifeless and not breathing.”

Otieno was a deeply loved young man, an aspiring musician who had been a well-known high school athlete, Krudys said.

“There is goodness in his music and that's all I'm left with now — he's gone,” Ouko said at the news conference while clutching a framed photo of her son.

“I cannot be at his wedding. I’ll never see a grandchild ... because someone refused to help him. No one stood up to stop what was going on,” she said.

Otieno was first taken into custody March 3, according to a timeline provided by Henrico County Police, a separate agency from the sheriff's office.

The police department said in a news release that officers encountered Otieno while responding to a report of a possible burglary in suburban Richmond, and that based on his behavior, they put him under an emergency custody order and took him to a local hospital for evaluation.

According to Krudys, Otieno was experiencing a mental health crisis and a neighbor called police over concerns about him gathering lawn lights from a yard. He said Otieno's mother tried to de-escalate the initial response from a crowd of police officers and said the family supported him being taken to a hospital for treatment.

But while he was at the hospital, police said he “became physically assaultive toward officers, who arrested him” and took him to a local jail that is managed by the Henrico Sheriff’s Office, where he was served with several charges.

While Otieno was in jail, he was denied access to needed medications, the family attorneys said. The family also viewed video from that facility on Thursday, which they said showed Otieno was subjected to further brutality by unidentified officers.

Crump said he was pepper sprayed, and Krudys said the video showed officers on March 6 charging into his cell, which was covered in feces, as Otieno was naked and handcuffed. The video shows officers carrying an “almost lifeless” Otieno out by his arms and legs “like an animal” to a vehicle to be transported to the state hospital.

“My son was treated like a dog, worse than a dog," Ouko said.

Shannon Taylor, the commonwealth’s attorney for Henrico County, said in a statement Thursday that she’s conducting a review of what happened in the jail that day, and she pledged to release her findings. The Henrico sheriff declined comment beyond a statement released earlier in the week.

Around 4 p.m. on March 6, employees of the sheriff's office arrived at Central State Hospital to admit Otieno, according to Baskervill. It was not until 7:28 p.m. that evening that state police were called to investigate his death, she said.

In court Wednesday, a defense attorney suggested that two medical injections Otieno received may have played a role in his death, which Baskervill disputed, the Times-Dispatch reported.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has not released its final determination on how Otieno died.

Two of the deputies were released on bond, according to court records and local media. The others remained in custody, with hearings set for next week.

Edward Nickel, an attorney for Deputy Bradley Disse, one of the defendants who was released, said in an email Thursday that Disse has served “honorably” during a 20-year career with the sheriff's department.

“He is looking forward to his opportunity to try this case and for the full truth to be shared in court and ultimately vindicated,” Nickel said in an email.

The Associated Press sent emails and other inquiries and left messages Thursday attempting to reach attorneys listed in court records for the other deputies.

The Henrico Fraternal Order of Police-Lodge 4 stood by the deputies in a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, urging against a rush to judgment and stressing that the charges are yet to go through the rigors of the legal system.

News outlets, including AP, have sought video of the altercation. Officials are withholding it, citing the pending investigation. Crump said Thursday the family believes the public should see the footage.

“How do we build trust unless we have transparency, and then we have accountability?” he said.

___

Associated Press reporter Ben Finley in Norfolk contributed to this report.

They are among an estimated 2 million unplugged U.S. “ orphan wells,” abandoned by the companies that drilled them. There are more than 4,500 such wells in Louisiana, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. The owners can’t be found, have gone out of business or otherwise can’t be made to pay in a state where there are decades-long political debates involving legislation and litigation over the environmental effects of oil and gas drilling.

The Biden administration plans to tackle the problem nationally with $4.7 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in late 2021. Administration officials joined their state counterparts in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge recently to tout the efforts.

“The state and federal government, we are left to clean them up because of the hazard they present,” Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. She was visiting what is known as the B-5 well site with Thomas Harris, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources., and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Jack Montoucet.

The abandoned wells can leak oilfield brine and cancer-causing chemicals that are components of crude oil, such as benzene. They also can emit methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

In the south Louisiana wetlands, where salty water can exacerbate the deterioration, defunct wells threaten the environmental health of an area that is home to an abundance of wildlife: numerous species of migratory fowl; deer, beaver, bears and a variety of other mammals; the once-endangered alligator among many other reptiles. Coastal wetlands also act as nurseries for Gulf of Mexico crabs, shrimp and other fish species.

Williams’ agency last year announced it had received more than $13 million of infrastructure bill money to remediate 175 orphaned wells on six national wildlife refuges in Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Montoucet said the infusion of money to help plug the wells is welcome, but he also pointed to the need for greater oversight by the state.

“With this new injection of money and addressing the issue that we have, I think we’re on the right path,” Montoucet said. “And from now on, when people come for applications to drill, certainly we’re going to have more regulations in place to ensure that these sites are not left like this.”

___

McGill reported from New Orleans.

Kelly's action was expected because of her two previous vetoes. Kansas Republicans made Kelly's vetoes a major issue in multiple television attack ads when she ran for reelection last year, winning narrowly.

The governor said in her veto message that the bill would harm students' mental health and hurt the state's efforts to recruit businesses. Kelly also said lawmakers should leave the issue to the state association set up decades ago to run student activities in middle and high schools.

“Let's be clear what this bill is all about — politics,” Kelly wrote. “It won’t increase any test scores. It won’t help any kids read or write. It won’t help any teachers prepare our kids for the real world.”

Kelly's arguments Friday were similar to those she made in past veto messages and during her reelection campaign. Taryn Jones, lobbyist for the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Kansas, called the bill “really just unnecessary.”

“They’re OK discriminating against a marginalized community,” Jones said after the veto.

Republicans have more than the two-thirds majorities in both chambers needed to override a veto, but in 2021 and 2022, a few GOP moderates voted against overriding Kelly. The House and Senate votes on this year's bill suggest supporters could have just enough votes to prevail.

“Despite her repeated pledges to meet us in the middle, the governor has decided to side yet again with the most radical elements of her party,” Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson, a Wichita-area Republican, said in a statement Friday.

The measure would apply to girls' and women's K-12, club and college sports. If supporters can override Kelly's veto, Kansas would join 18 other states with such a law, including Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas.

The measure is among dozens of Republican proposals pushing back against transgender rights in statehouses across the U.S. Kansas has bills aimed at banning gender-affirming care for minors and preventing transgender men and women from using bathrooms, locker rooms and other facilities associated with their gender identities.

Kelly's veto came a day after Kentucky's Republican-dominated legislature approved a ban on gender-affirming care for minors and Iowa’s GOP-controlled Legislature approved a bill on school bathrooms.

In defending the legislation, Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, recently posted tweets endorsing a theory debunked by multiple studies that a “social contagion” has led to more people identifying as transgender.

He and other Republicans also have argued that banning transgender athletes will preserve fair competition and opportunities for girls and young women.

“This is common sense,” Hawkins said in a statement Friday.

Kansas officials and LGBTQ-rights advocates say only a handful of young transgender people participate in high school activities — and possibly only one transgender Kansas girl is on a sports team. Backers of the bill argue that the state should act before transgender athletes become more prevalent.

During her reelection campaign, Kelly aired a television ad that featured her looking into the camera and saying, “Of course, men should not play girls’ sports. OK, we all agree there.”

LGBTQ-rights advocates understood the ad as saying men aren't playing women’s sports because transgender women are women. But Republicans said she was lying about her record, and they’ve repeatedly mentioned her statement since.

“Now that she no longer has to face the voters, the governor has done another about face,” Hawkins said.

The vote last week in the Senate was 28-11, giving backers one more than the two-thirds needed in the 40-member chamber to override a veto.

However, the House would vote first, and the vote there last month was 82-40. While supporters need 84 of 125 votes to override a veto, two Republicans who backed the bill were absent.

Last year, supporters were short of a two-thirds House majority, but in last year's elections, three Republicans who supported a ban replaced GOP lawmakers who'd voted against overriding Kelly's veto. Also, while no Democrats voted last year to override Kelly, freshman Democratic Rep. Ford Carr, of Wichita, voted for this year's bill.

Republican lawmakers in Kansas also have pursued a bill to revoke the state medical licenses of doctors providing puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapy or surgery for transgender minors. It passed the Senate last month, but the House hasn't had a committee hearing.

Another Senate-passed bill would define male and female in Kansas law based on a person's anatomy at birth and declare that cisgender women and girls have a right to private spaces separate from men, such as bathrooms and locker rooms.

LGBTQ-rights advocates have said the measure not only bars transgender people from facilities associated with their gender identities but also erases them legally, along with gender-nonconforming and nonbinary people.

The bill's language also would prevent transgender people from changing birth certificates and driver's licenses to reflect their gender identities, though Kansas is under a 2019 federal court order to allow birth certificate changes.

The measure is before the House after one of its committees rewrote it this week to prevent it from applying to intersex people. Intersex describes people born with genitalia, chromosomes or reproductive organs not associated with typical definitions for males or females.

“We don't want to marginalize them anymore,” said Republican state Rep. Ron Bryce, a southeast Kansas doctor.

____

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told radio station KTAR News that the Arizona Department of Education found half a dozen complaints to be credible.

“The majority at this point are prank calls,” Horne said. “But we’re not going to be dissuaded by that. We’re just going to ignore them.”

The Arizona Empower Hotline has been in operation since March 7. It was set up specifically for allegations of teachers teaching so-called critical race theory or any lessons that evoke race and ethnicity. State education officials say the hotline so far has received 2,000 emails and 600 calls and voicemails.

There has been a social media campaign to flood the tip line with either prank calls or messages praising teachers.

Many education groups have accused Horne of politicizing their jobs. A group of teachers marched in protest to Horne's office on Wednesday.

The Arizona Education Association recently went on Twitter and called on Horne to eliminate the hotline.

Other conservative-leaning states have established similar methods to root out curriculum that invoke race or ethnicity.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin created a tip line in January 2022. But his office said it was deactivated in September after it “received little to no volume” of pertinent calls, USA Today reported. In 2021, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson established an online portal for concerns about anything being taught in the state's public schools. Many used it to send in criticisms of him.

In Louisiana, Attorney General Jeff Landry spearheaded a Protecting Minors tip line in November for complaints about teachers as well as library staff. Louisiana Illuminator, a nonprofit news organization, determined through a public records request that the majority of complaints have been memes and spam.

“He had found his thing — you know that feeling when you find your thing?” his mother Caroline Ouko told reporters Thursday. “He would go in his room and shut the door. And he had it — he was brilliant and creative and bright.”

But, the mother added, “All I'm left with is his voice.”

Ouko remembered her son's life at an hourlong news conference that focused primarily on his death March 6 at a state mental hospital in Virginia.

Ouko had just viewed video of Otieno's final minutes as he was being admitted to Central State Hospital south of Richmond, during which she and her attorneys say sheriff's deputies smothered him, pressing him down until his body was “clearly lifeless.” His arms and legs were bound, they said, but he posed no threat to the deputies and hospital employees who've since been charged with second-degree murder.

Otieno's biography is now coming to the fore, not for his music, but because of the shockingly inhumane way in which authorities say he was killed. He was yet another Black man to die in police custody in a case that prominent civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, who is also representing Ouko, said harshly echoes the previous deaths of such men as George Floyd. Crump represented Floyd's family and the relatives of other Black men killed under similar circumstances.

Otieno, who was 28, came to the U.S. from Kenya at the age of 4 but he “was as American as apple pie,” his mother said.

As a child in school, he was the type of guy who would invite a student eating lunch alone to join him, and classmates who needed someone to talk to were drawn to him, she said. He was a leader and a listener, someone who took the time to process what was being said and would then “lean back in,” Ouko said.

“He cared that people were treated right,” she said. “That was at the core of his upbringing in our home. He cared that people were treated equally.”

She added that Otieno wasn’t afraid to offer different perspectives in conversations, to go the other way “when everybody else is following.”

Otieno began dealing with some mental health issues during his last year of high school, his mother said. But she said he also went to college in California, and “had long stretches where you wouldn't even know something was wrong."

There were times, though, when he went “into some kind of distress” and needed to see a doctor, she said. Ouko declined to share her son's diagnosis, saying only that he had gone to a mental health facility before and “came back home.”

“That's the question that I'm asking: why he didn't come back home,” she said.

Otieno was taken into custody March 3, according to a timeline provided by Henrico County Police, a separate entity from the Henrico County Sheriff's Office.

The police department said in a news release that officers encountered Otieno while responding to a report of a possible burglary in suburban Richmond, and that based on his behavior, they put him under an emergency custody order and took him to a local hospital for evaluation.

Mark Krudys, one of Ouko's attorneys, said that Otieno was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time. He said a neighbor called police over concerns about him gathering lawn lights from a yard.

Otieno’s mother tried to de-escalate the initial response from police officers, with the moment captured on a neighbor's cellphone, Crump said.

“Caroline is hugging her child, as if she’s trying to protect him from these people who might not see him like she sees him,” he said.

Added Krudys: “She was imploring them (to) treat him appropriately, bring him to a hospital. And he was vacuumed into the criminal justice system, for which there was no care that was provided, that we saw.”

While he was at the hospital, police said he “became physically assaultive toward officers, who arrested him” and took him to a local jail managed by the Henrico Sheriff’s Office, where he was charged with several crimes.

While Otieno was in jail, he was denied access to needed medications, the family attorneys said. Crump said he was pepper-sprayed, and Krudys said the video showed officers on March 6 charging into his jail cell, which was covered in feces and where he lay naked and handcuffed.

The video shows officers carrying an “almost lifeless” Otieno out by his arms and legs “like an animal” to a vehicle to be taken to the state hospital, Crump said.

Leon Ochieng, Otieno's older brother, said at Thursday's news conference that his mother can't sleep or eat.

“Our hearts are broken,” he said. "But our spirts are strong. And my brother's spirit is not done."

A distraught Ouko said that, “When they took my baby away ... they took him away from his brother. They took him away from his nieces. They took him away from his friends. And they took him away from a community that cared (for) and loved him.”

Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty specifically to two counts of aiding and abetting, failing to file tax returns to the state of Minnesota for the 2016 and 2017 tax years.

Chauvin appeared in a Minnesota court via Zoom from a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona, where he is serving his sentences on a state murder conviction for killing Floyd and on a federal count of violating Floyd's civil rights.

He stood in a room and paced around before Friday's hearing began. When Washington County Judge Sheridan Hawley asked why he didn't file his Minnesota tax returns, he told the judge: “The true reason is some financial concerns at the time.”

He also said: “I had to find significant funds from family to pay a previous year’s return and, frankly, I’ve been playing catch up ever since.”

He was sentenced to 13 months in prison on the tax charges, but he has already been incarcerated for longer than that and was given credit for time served.

Floyd died May 25, 2020, after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against the Black man’s neck for more than nine minutes. Floyd, who was handcuffed, repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe. The killing, which was recorded on video by a bystander, sparked worldwide protests as part of a broader reckoning over racial injustice.

Shortly after Floyd’s killing, Chauvin and his then-wife were charged with multiple counts for allegedly underreporting their income to the state of Minnesota and failing to file Minnesota tax returns. The complaints alleged that from 2014 to 2019, the Chauvins underreported their joint income by $464,433.

With unpaid taxes, interest and fees, the Chauvins, who have since divorced, owe $37,868 to the state, according to court documents.

The tax investigation began in June 2020, after the Minnesota Department of Revenue received information about suspicious filings by Derek Chauvin. The agency started an internal cursory review and then opened a formal investigation.

The probe ultimately found the Chauvins did not file state tax returns for 2016, 2017 or 2018, and did not report all of their income for 2014 and 2015. When tax returns for 2016 through 2019 were filed in June 2020, the Chauvins did not report all of their income in those years either, the complaints said.

The complaints said Chauvin was required to pay taxes on income from off-duty security work he did at several jobs between 2014 and 2020. Investigators believe that at one job he earned about $95,920 over those six years that was not reported.

His ex-wife, Kellie May Chauvin, pleaded guilty Feb. 24 to two counts of aiding and abetting their failure to file tax returns for 2016 and 2017. Her plea agreement called for three years of probation and restitution with no more than 45 days of community service. The other charges were dropped. Hawley said she will be sentenced May 12.

Kellie Chauvin filed for divorce shortly after Floyd’s death, and a judge approved the divorce last February under terms that were kept sealed. The judge rejected an initial proposed settlement that would have given Kellie Chauvin most of their property and money, which had fueled speculation that the Chauvins were trying to shield their assets.

Documents in the tax case said the couple owned a second home in Florida, and alleged they also failed to pay proper sales tax on a $100,000 BMW purchased in Minnesota in 2018.

Chauvin was convicted of state murder and manslaughter charges in 2021 and is serving 22 1/2 years in that case. He also pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years. He is serving the sentences concurrently.

Three other officers were convicted of federal charges of violating Floyd’s rights. Two of them have also been convicted of a state count of aiding and abetting manslaughter, while the third is waiting for a judge to decide his fate on the state charges.

___

Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/ Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

The farmworkers said they were marching to highlight the Fair Food Program, which has enlisted companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Taco Bell and Whole Foods to use their clout with growers to ensure better working conditions and wages for farmworkers. They hoped to use the march to pressure other companies, like Publix, Wendy’s and Kroger, to join the program that started in 2011.

The march began Tuesday from the farming community of Pahokee, one of the poorest in Florida, where the median household income is around $30,000. The march's launching point was a camp where farmworkers were coerced into working for barely any pay by a labor contractor who was convicted and sentenced last year to almost 10 years in prison. The contractor confiscated the Mexican farmworkers' passports, demanded exorbitant fees from them and threatened them with deportation or false arrest, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The marchers were on schedule to arrive Saturday in the town of Palm Beach, which has a median household income of almost $169,000 and is lined with the mansions of the rich and famous, including billionaire Nelson Peltz, who is Wendy's chairman, and former President Donald Trump.

According to the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which organized the march, the program has ensured that farmworkers are paid for the hours they work; guaranteed them on-the-job safety measures such as shade, water and access to bathrooms; and has reduced the threats of sexual assault, harassment and forced labor under armed guards in the fields where tomatoes and other crops are harvested. Immokalee is a southwest Florida farming town in the heart of the state's tomato-growing area.

Growers have benefitted since it reduces turnover and improves productivity, according to the coalition.

Wendy's said in a statement that it didn't participate in the Fair Food Program because it sources its tomato supply from indoor hydroponic greenhouse farms, while the program operates for farmworkers predominantly in outdoor fields, so “there is no nexus between the program and our supply chain.” The fast-food chain said it requires third-party reviews to make sure no abuses are involved in the harvesting of the tomatoes it gets from suppliers.

“The idea that joining the Fair Food Program, and purchasing field-grown, commodity tomatoes, is the only way that Wendy’s can demonstrate responsibility in our supply chain is not true,” Wendy's said.

The coalition on Friday in a statement described Wendy's response as a “dodge.”

Officials from Publix and Kroger didn’t respond to emailed inquiries.

The idea to pressure retailers to use their clout with growers to improve pay and conditions for Florida tomato pickers took off in the early 2000s when the Coalition of Immokalee Workers led a four-year, nationwide boycott of Taco Bell. The boycott ended in 2005 when the company agreed to pay a penny more per pound for tomatoes purchased from Florida growers in order to raise farmworkers' wages.

The Fair Food Program followed several years later in an agreement with Florida tomato growers, and it now includes more than a dozen participating corporations. Leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Fair Food Program have been recognized with a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, a Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award and presidential award presented by then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

“So now workers enjoy the right to complain without fear of retaliation. Workers also have water and shade as part of these agreements,” said Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a coalition official, at the start of the march in Pahokee. “The perfect program has proven to be the solution, the antidote to the problem of modern day slavery, the problem of sexual assault, and the problems that have always plagued the agricultural industry.”

___

Daniel Kozin in Pahokee, Florida contributed to this report.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP

The tribe doesn't have enough water and says that the federal government is at fault. Roughly a third of residents on the vast Navajo Nation don’t have running water in their homes.

More than 150 years ago, the U.S. government and the tribe signed treaties that promised the tribe a “permanent home” — a promise the Navajo Nation says includes a sufficient supply of water. The tribe says the government broke its promise to ensure the tribe has enough water and that people are suffering as a result.

The federal government disputes that claim. And states, such as Arizona, California and Nevada, argue that more water for the Navajo Nation would cut into already scarce supplies for cities, agriculture and business growth.

The high court will hold oral arguments Monday in a case with critical implications for how water from the drought-stricken Colorado River is shared and the extent of the U.S. government’s obligations to Native American tribes.

A win for the Navajo Nation won't directly result in more water for the roughly 175,000 people who live on the largest reservation in the U.S. But it's a piece of what has been a multi-faceted approach over decades to obtain a basic need.

Tina Becenti, a mother of five, made two or three short trips a day to her mom's house or a public water spot to haul water back home, filling several five-gallon buckets and liter-sized pickle jars. They filled slowly, sapping hours from her day. Her sons would sometimes help lift the heavy containers into her Nissan SUV that she’d drive carefully back home to avoid spills.

“Every drop really matters,” Becenti said.

That water had to be heated then poured into a tub to bathe her young twin girls. Becenti’s mother had running water, so her three older children would sometimes go there to shower. After a couple of years, Becenti finally got a large tank installed by the nonprofit DigDeep so she could use her sink.

DigDeep, which filed a legal brief in support of the Navajo Nation's case, has worked to help tribal members gain access to water as larger water-rights claims are pressed.

Extending water lines to the sparsely populated sections of the 27,000 square-mile (69,000 square-kilometer) reservation that spans three states is difficult and costly. But tribal officials say additional water supplies would help ease the burden and create equity.

“You drive to Flagstaff, you drive to Albuquerque, you drive to Phoenix, there is water everywhere, everything is green, everything is watered up," said Rex Kontz, deputy general manager of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. “You don’t see that on Navajo.”

The tribe primarily relies on groundwater to serve homes and businesses.

For decades, the Navajo Nation has fought for access to surface water, including the Colorado River and its tributaries, that it can pipe to more remote locations for homes, businesses and government offices.

It's a legal fight that resonates with tribes across the U.S., said Dylan Hedden-Nicely, the director of the Native American Law Program at the University of Idaho and an attorney representing tribal organizations that filed a brief in support of the Navajo Nation.

The Navajo Nation has reached settlements for water from the San Juan River in New Mexico and Utah. Both of those settlements draw from the Colorado River's Upper Basin.

The tribe has yet to reach agreement with Arizona and the federal government for water rights from the Colorado River in the Lower Basin that includes the states of California, Arizona and Nevada. It also has sought water from a tributary, the Little Colorado River, another major legal dispute that's playing out separately.

In the U.S Supreme Court case, the Navajo Nation wants the U.S. Department of the Interior to account for the tribe's needs in Arizona and come up with a plan to meet those needs.

A federal appeals court ruled the Navajo Nation's lawsuit could move forward, overturning a decision from a lower court.

Attorneys for the Navajo Nation base their claims on two treaties the tribe and the U.S. signed in 1849 and 1868. The latter allowed Navajos to return to their ancestral homelands in the Four Corners region after being forcibly marched to a desolate tract in eastern New Mexico.

The Navajo Nation wants the Supreme Court to find that those treaties guaranteed them enough water to sustain their homeland. And the tribe wants a chance to make its case before a lower federal court.

The federal government says it has helped the tribe get water from the Colorado River’s tributaries, but no treaty or law forces officials to address the tribe’s general water needs. The Interior Department declined to comment on the pending case.

“We absolutely think they’re entitled to water, but we don’t think the lower Colorado River is the source,” said Rita Maguire, the attorney representing states in the Lower Basin who oppose the tribe's claims.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Navajo Nation, other tribes might make similar demands, Maguire said.

Arizona, Nevada and California contend the Navajo Nation is making an end run around another Supreme Court case that divvied up water in the Colorado River's Lower Basin.

“The first question in front of the court now is: why is the lower court dealing with the issue at all?” said Grant Christensen, a federal Indian law expert and professor at Stetson University.

Even if the justices side with the Navajo Nation, the tribe wouldn't immediately get water. The case would go back to the U.S. District Court in Arizona, and rights to more water still could be years, if not, decades away. The Navajo Nation also could reach a settlement with Arizona and the federal government for rights to water from the Colorado River and funding to deliver it to tribal communities.

Tribal water rights often are tied to the date a reservation was established, which would give the Navajo Nation one of the highest priority rights to Colorado River water and could force conservation on others, said Hedden-Nicely of the University of Idaho.

Given the likelihood of a long road ahead, Kontz of the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority says many older Navajo won’t live to see running water in their homes.

Becenti, the 42-year-old mother of five, remembers shedding tears of joy when running water finally was installed in her house and her family could use a flushable indoor toilet.

It was a relief to “go to the facility without having to worry about bugs, lizards, snakes,” she said.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

CarFax released a report after its data scientists crunched the numbers, looking beyond thefts that were reported as part of insurance claims.

The team found that many thefts aren't reported because some car owners either don't have insurance at all, or only have comprehensive coverage, which would cover the damage.

Catalytic converters are devices that are part of a vehicle's exhaust system and remove some pollutants.

They contain precious metals, including platinum, palladium, and rhodium, which are in high demand. A catalytic converter can contain fewer than 6 grams of all three combined.

CarFax said thieves can make between $25 and $300 for a catalytic converter.

The report found that thieves target the Ford F-Series lineup tops the list, followed by the Honda Accord, the Toyota Prius, Honda CR-V, Ford Explorer, Ford Ecoline, Chevrolet Equinox, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota Tacoma, and Chevrolet Cruze.

But, CarFax noted that certain types of cars were targeted more frequently in different geographic regions.

In the Midwest, the most targeted vehicles were: the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Equinox, Honda CR-V, Toyota Prius, Ford Ecoline, Ford Explorer, Buick Encore, Chevrolet Cruze, Chevrolet Trax, and Honda Accord.

CarFax also pointed out that these models represent some of the best-selling cars in the U.S.

You can see the full CarFax rankings here.

Cars that have had their catalytic converter removed will have a loud exhaust sound, a darker exhaust, sluggish acceleration, and a check engine light will display.

CarFax also recommended having a muffler shop etch your Vehicle Identification Number on the converter and spray it with highly-visible high heat paint as a deterrent, which can allow law enforcement to track the converter.

The moves in the two GOP-controlled statehouses come against a backdrop of polarization in Congress that makes any national immigration legislation seem unlikely as President Joe Biden tries to drive down migrant arrivals at the border while eyeing his own reelection bid.

Republican proposals in Texas build on Gov. Greg Abbott’s $4 billion project Operation Lone Star, with its construction of more barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border and busing of migrants to Democratic-led cities, including Washington, D.C., and New York. Abbott's aides confirm he's considering running for president.

Operation Lone Star already has added more officers along Texas' border with Mexico to detain migrants who trespass on private property. Now, Texas lawmakers have proposed creating a new border police force that could deputize private citizens, as well as making it a state felony to enter the state without authorization, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

“Texas is taking historic action to secure the border and stop guns, drugs, and cartel gangs from assailing our state,” Abbott said in a tweet this week. “As President Biden abandons his constitutional duty, Texas continues to step up.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, considered Donald Trump's strongest possible GOP competitor so far in next year's presidential primary, has proposed making human smuggling in the state a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Hospitals would be required to collect data on patients' immigration status and people in the U.S. illegally would be denied state government ID cards.

“Texas and Florida are places with politically ambitious governors who are hoping to use immigrants in the furtherance of their agendas,” said attorney Tanya Broder of the National Immigration Law Center, which promotes immigrant rights.

Despite the hardline rhetoric, Broder said advancements in immigrant rights have been quietly made in recent years.

State-level organization has improved immigrants’ access to health care, higher education, professional licenses and driver’s licenses, according to a recent study Broder co-authored.

The study noted Colorado became the first state to enact an alternative to unemployment insurance for excluded workers. Arizona voters last year approved in-state tuition for all students who attended high school in the state, regardless of their immigration status.

Abbott and DeSantis blame Biden for a big increase last year in illegal crossings into the U.S. But a plunge this year in illegal crossing numbers could throw cold water on the GOP's attacks against Biden's handling of border issues. The sharp drop along the Southwest border followed the Biden administration's announcement of stricter immigration measures.

The U.S. Border Patrol said it encountered migrants 128,877 times trying to cross the border in February between the legal ports of entry, the lowest monthly number since February 2021. Agents detained migrants more than 2.5 million times at the southern border in 2022, including more than 250,000 in December, the highest on record.

“Florida will not turn a blind eye to the dangers of Biden’s Border Crisis,” DeSantis said in a tweet last month announcing Florida’s legislation. “We are proposing additional steps to protect Floridians from these reckless federal policies, including mandatory E-Verify and prohibiting local government from issuing ID cards to illegal aliens.”

While Texas and Florida officials ballyhoo their border tightening efforts, no major immigration legislation has emerged this year in Arizona, where some of the nation's toughest laws targeting immigrants have been devised.

Arizona's “show me your papers” law, passed in 2010, required law enforcement officers to determine the immigration status of a person stopped or arrested if the officers suspected the person may be in the U.S. unlawfully, a practice detractors said encouraged racial profiling. Courts eventually struck down several of the law's provisions.

Arizona's Republican lawmakers are up against Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who this year has vetoed a GOP-backed budget and a bill that bans teaching public schoolchildren subject matter its authors describe as “critical race theory.”

New Mexico, which also shares a border with Mexico, has since 2021 steadily removed barriers for migrants without legal status to access public benefits, student financial aid and licensure in credentialed professions.

After taking office in 2019, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham withdrew the majority of National Guard troops her Republican predecessor sent to the border, denouncing a “charade of border fear-mongering.”

New Mexico's Legislature is also controlled by Democrats. Nevertheless, legislators this week rejected a proposal to bar state and local government agencies from contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants as they seek asylum.

In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers last month launched a new attempt to require sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration agents interested in picking up certain jail inmates believed to be in the U.S. unlawfully. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper twice vetoed earlier versions of the measure, but Republican majorities in the General Assembly have since increased.

A similar Idaho effort so far has failed to make it beyond its legislative introduction.

Immigration-related legislation in other states includes:

— A Georgia bill that failed to advance that would give in-state college tuition to immigrant students who arrived in the U.S. as children and who are protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Bills are advancing that would ban companies and some people from certain foreign countries from buying farmland within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of any military base.

— A Colorado bill aimed at allowing immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children and are protected from deportation to own a firearm so they can become law-enforcement officers.

____

Associated Press writers Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas; Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida: Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Jesse Bedayn in Denver; and Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.

The inmates serving death sentences at San Quentin State Prison will be moved elsewhere in the California penitentiary system, Gov. Gavin Newsom's office announced, and it will be renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Most of California's nearly 700 inmates facing such sentences are imprisoned at the facility, though some have already been moved.

“Today, we take the next step in our pursuit of true rehabilitation, justice, and safer communities through this evidenced-backed investment, creating a new model for safety and justice — the California Model — that will lead the nation,” Newsom said in a statement.

The governor planned a visit Friday to San Quentin, which is also the California location where prisoners were once executed, though none have been put to death since 2006. Newsom announced a moratorium on executions in 2019 and dismantled the prison's gas chamber, and in 2022 he announced plans to begin transferring inmates sentenced to death to other prisons.

Full details of the plan were not immediately made public, though officials said the facility would concentrate on “education, rehabilitation and breaking cycles of crime.” Newsom was expected to share more during his visit, the second stop on a four-day policy tour that he's doing in lieu of a traditional State of the State address this year.

Newsom's office cited as a model Norway’s approach to incarceration, which focuses on preparing people to return to society, as inspiration for the program. Oregon and North Dakota have also taken inspiration from the Scandinavian country's policies.

In maximum-security Norwegian prisons, cells often look more like dorm rooms with additional furniture such as chairs, desks, even TVs, and prisoners have kitchen access and activities like basketball. The nation has a low recidivism rate.

At the overhauled San Quentin, vocational training programs would set people up to land good-paying jobs as plumbers, electricians or truck drivers after they're released, Newsom told the Los Angeles Times.

A group made up public safety experts, crime victims and formerly incarcerated people will advise the state on the transformation. Newsom is allocating $20 million to launch the plan.

Republican Assemblymember Tom Lackey expressed criticism of Newsom's criminal justice priorities, saying the governor and state Democratic lawmakers should spend more time focusing their efforts on supporting the victims of crime.

“Communities win when we have rehabilitative efforts, but yet, how about victims?” Lackey said. “Have we rehabilitated them?”

Meanwhile Taina Vargas, executive director of Initiate Justice Action, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles, said she is pleased the state is moving toward rehabilitating incarcerated people but more drastic changes are needed to transform the criminal justice system that imprisons so many people.

“Over the long term, I think we want to prevent people from going to prison in the first place, which means that we want to offer more opportunities for high paying jobs in the community,” she said.

California voters upheld the death penalty in 2016 and voted to speed up executions. Newsom’s decision to halt them in one of his first major acts as governor drew swift pushback from critics including district attorneys who said he was ignoring the voters.

But Californians have also supported easing certain criminal penalties in an attempt to reduce mass incarceration as part of a more recent movement away from tough-on-crime policies that once dominated the state.

San Quentin is California’s oldest correctional institution, housing one maximum-security cell block, a medium-security dorm and a minimum-security firehouse.

Inmates on death row will not have their sentences changed, but they will be transferred to other facilities, according to Newsom’s office. Today there are 668 inmates serving death sentences in California, almost all of them men, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The prison has housed high-profile criminals such as cult leader Charles Manson, convicted murderers and serial killers, and was the site of violent uprisings in the 1960s and 1970s.

But the prison in upscale Marin County north of San Francisco has also been home to some of the most innovative inmate programs in the country, reflecting the politically liberal beliefs of the Bay Area.

Among other such programs, San Quentin houses Mount Tamalpais College, the first accredited junior college in the country based entirely behind bars. The school offers inmates classes in literature, astronomy, U.S. government and others to earn an Associate of Arts degree.

The college’s $5 million annual budget is funded by private donations with volunteer faculty from top nearby universities, including Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley.

___

Sophie Austin is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on Twitter: @sophieadanna

The governor, a Democrat, spoke about concerns in the banking industry after the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history, his support for President Joe Biden, his thoughts on reparations for slavery, expanding the use of electric vehicles and police reform during the interview, among other topics.

Two months into his tenure, Moore, who is Maryland's first Black chief executive and the third Black governor ever elected in the nation, noted the historical nature of his landslide November victory. He said his portrait will look “a little bit different” than the ones of white governors on the walls inside Maryland's Capitol.

“I received more individual votes for governor than anyone else on these walls," Moore, a Democrat, said. "But I also know that Marylanders didn’t vote for me because they wanted me to make history. They voted for me because they believed in our vision.”

His proposal to extend and expand tax credits for low-income residents is moving forward in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. His push for accelerating a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour also is advancing but so far without a provision he proposed to create automatic increases in future years to adjust for inflation.

Here's what the governor had to say some key issues facing the nation and the state he is governing:

BANKING

In the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Moore, who is a former investment banker, said Maryland has not had any significant impacts. He said a big reason for that partially was the swift movements of the federal government to be able to ensure that the depositors were not hurt and were covered.

“You have to make sure that you have supports for your small regional banks,” Moore said. “The second thing, though, is we want to make sure that the depositors are not the ones being hurt by all this.”

PRESIDENT BIDEN

Moore said he's excited about the partnership that the state of Maryland has right now with the White House and Biden.

“I want that partnership to continue,” Moore said. “And I’m not only supporting President Biden’s reelection; I plan on helping however I can.”

REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY

As the city of San Francisco considers how to address the thorny question of how to atone for centuries of slavery and systemic racism, Moore said he understands why people continue to debate the issue “because the consequences that we saw from the transatlantic slave trade still continue to be real in people’s lives now.”

“I also know that we have to move now to be able to address the issues of housing insecurity and food insecurity, the racial wealth gap, the educational disparities — the things that we know right now we can get done," Moore said. "We have an obligation to move with a sense of urgency, so we don’t continue watching how families who have often times historically have been disadvantaged continue to be disadvantaged by policies that we still continue to put in place."

ABORTION

Moore has stood in full support with Democrats in the legislature to enshrine abortion rights in the Maryland Constitution and other measures to protect abortion rights in the state.

“As long as I'm governor, Maryland will be a safe haven for abortion rights,” Moore said.

ELECTRIC CARS

The governor announced this week that Maryland will move forward with requiring all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric by 2035, as California has decided.

“Is it going to be hard? Yes. Is it bold? Yes. Will Maryland get it done? Absolutely, we will,” Moore said. “And it means we are going to focus on things like the electrification of the grid, so we actually have the infrastructure in place to be able to manage it.”

POLICE REFORM

Moore said he supports an expansion of police reform laws approved two years ago in Maryland. Part of those reforms requires the Maryland attorney general to investigate police-involved deaths but leaves local prosecutors with the decision to prosecute. Legislation advancing in Maryland would give the attorney general the authority to independently prosecute officers.

CHILD SEX ABUSE

The governor said he supports legislation advancing in the state Senate to end the statute of limitations on bringing a civil lawsuit against a public or private entity for child sex abuse.

“I support the bill, because I believe that in order for us to actually truly be able to work towards making it right for that individual and for that victim, that we have to make sure that there are laws that are responsive to the fact that that pain still continues to endure,” Moore said.

FBI HEADQUARTERS

Moore, who met with the General Services Administration last week on Maryland’s intense competition with Virginia to be the location for a new FBI headquarters, said he’s confident the administration will listen to concerns raised by him and members of the state’s congressional delegation that the evaluation process has been unfair to Maryland. Maryland officials contend the Virginia location is more costly and will take longer than either of two Maryland sites under consideration.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Moore emphasized that he has already appointed the most diverse Cabinet of secretaries to ever lead state agencies in Maryland.

“I think Maryland is on America’s mind right now, because I think what we’re able to do inside of the state of Maryland and show that democracy can be not just participatory, but inclusive,” Moore said. “And that’s what makes it strong.”

No injuries were reported. It wasn't clear what caused either derailment.

The derailment in Washington occurred on a berm along Padilla Bay, on the Swinomish tribal reservation near Anacortes. Most of 5,000 gallons (nearly 19,000 liters) of spilled diesel fuel leaked on the land side of the berm rather than toward the water, according to the state Ecology Department.

Officials said there were no indications the spill reached the water or affected any wildlife.

Responders placed a boom along the shoreline as a precaution and removed the remaining fuel from two locomotives that derailed. Four tank cars remained upright.

The derailment in western Arizona, near the state’s border with California and Nevada, involved a train carrying corn syrup. A spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, Anita Mortensen, said that she was not aware of any spills or leaks.

BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said an estimated eight cars derailed in Arizona and were blocking the main track. The cause of the derailment was under investigation, and it was not immediately known when the track will reopen.

The derailments came amid heightened attention to rail safety nationwide following a fiery derailment last month in Ohio and a string of derailments since then that have been grabbing headlines, including ones in Michigan, Alabama and other states.

The U.S. averages about three train derailments per day, according to federal data, but relatively few create disasters.

Last month, a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border, igniting a fire and causing hundreds of people to be evacuated.

Officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast intentionally released and burned toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke high into the sky. That left people questioning the potential health impacts even as authorities maintained they were doing their best to protect people.

The weather modification method uses planes and ground-based cannons to shoot silver iodide crystals into clouds, attracting moisture to the particles that falls as additional snow and rain.

The funding comes as key reservoirs on the Colorado River hit record lows and booming Western cities and industries fail to adjust their water use to increasingly shrinking supplies.

"This money from Reclamation is wonderful, we just have to decide how exactly it’s going to benefit us," said Andrew Rickert, who coordinates Colorado's cloud seeding for the Colorado Water Conservation Board.

The federal funding will go toward upgrading manual generators to ones that can be remotely operated, and using planes to seed clouds in key parts of the Upper Colorado River Basin, according to Southern Nevada Water Authority documents for its board meeting.

Securing enough generators could be a challenge, Rickert said. “There's not a lot of makers of cloud seeding generators," he said. “Not only do we have to make sure we can find that, but that they could make as many as we need.”

The Bureau of Reclamation declined to comment about the funding decision.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority said the grant, while administered by Nevada, is not exclusively for the state's benefit. “It will all be used to do cloud seeding in the Upper Basin for the benefit of all the river’s users,” wrote public outreach officer Corey Enus over email.

In the Upper Colorado River Basin, Utah and Colorado have been seeding clouds for decades. Wyoming has nearly a decade of experience, and New Mexico recently began approving permits for warm weather seeding in the eastern part of the state.

Colorado, Utah and Wyoming each spend between about $1 million and $1.5 million a year for cloud seeding. Utah's legislature recently expanded their investment in cloud seeding programs in next year’s state budget, allocating more than $14 million.

Numerous studies indicate cloud seeding can add 5% to 15% more precipitation from storm clouds. Contractors work with states to estimate how much ends up in water supplies.

Since 2007, various groups have contributed to the overall cloud seeding budgets in those states. In 2018, several entities, including the Southern Nevada Water Authority, committed to long-term funding for those efforts, collectively contributing about $1.5 million annually.

The reclamation bureau regularly funded cloud seeding operations toward the end of the 20th century, but has largely backed off in recent years, according to Frank McDonough a scientist at the nonprofit Desert Research Institute.

“The research that’s come out over the last 10 years or so really seems to have convinced them that cloud seeding is a legitimate way to increase snowpack and subsequent water resources,” McDonough said.

The grant from the bureau will be spread out over two years, temporarily doubling financial support for the Upper Basin cloud seeding from outside parties.

The seven Colorado River basin states are still negotiating with the Bureau of Reclamation on how they will conserve 2 million to 4 million acre-feet of water — or up to roughly one-third. The Bureau is expected to release a draft proposal this month and expects to finalize plans by mid-August, when it typically announces the amount of water available from the Colorado River for the following year.

With such an over-allocated river, everyone will have to use less, particularly the agricultural sector, said Kathryn Sorenson of the Kyl Center for Water Policy think tank.

“I think a lot the allure of this type of program is it's easier to talk about how do we get more than to talk about who has to use less,” she said.

___

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

The ban was designed to take effect once the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But a district judge had put it on hold this summer while the Red River Women’s Clinic (RRWC) pursued a lawsuit arguing the state constitution protected a right to an abortion.

“While the regulation of abortion is within the authority of the legislature under the North Dakota Constitution, RRWC has demonstrated likely success on the merits that there is a fundamental right to an abortion in the limited instances of life-saving and health-preserving circumstances, and the statute is not narrowly tailored to satisfy strict scrutiny,” Chief Justice Jon J. Jensen wrote in the ruling.

The law — one of many abortion-restricting measures passed by state legislatures in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on Roe — includes exceptions to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest. Otherwise, a doctor who performs an abortion would face a felony charge, which abortion rights supporters say could stop doctors from performing abortions even if the mother’s health is at risk.

The Red River Women’s Clinic — the state’s only abortion clinic — shut its doors this summer and moved operations a short distance from Fargo to Moorhead, Minnesota, where abortion remains legal. But the clinic’s owner is still pursuing the lawsuit.

“The court made the right decision and sided with the people of North Dakota today,” clinic director Tammi Kromenaker said in a statement. “Those seeking abortion care know what’s best for themselves and their families and should be able to access such essential services if and when they need it. While I’m heartbroken that we have been forced to close our doors here in Fargo, we will continue to serve the region at our new clinic in Moorhead, Minnesota.”

Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley was critical of the ruling. He said in a statement that the state Supreme Court chose “a path of its very own, by holding there is now also an un-defined ‘health’ exception to abortion regulation."

He added, "Our Supreme Court did this without explicit support from our state Constitution, and without support from legislative enactments in our history of abortion regulation. In so doing, North Dakota’s Supreme Court appears to have taken on the role of a legislative body, a role our constitution does not afford them.”

Wrigley noted that state lawmakers are working on legislation “that recrafts North Dakota’s abortion laws, and they will now have the opportunity to enact the will of North Dakotans, aware of the latest North Dakota Supreme Court pronouncement.”

He had argued the ban should be enforced while the lawsuit proceeds, saying Burleigh County District Judge Bruce Romanick erred by granting the injunction. Romanick has said that the Red River Women’s Clinic had a “substantial probability” of succeeding in its lawsuit, but also said there’s no “clear and obvious answer” on whether the state constitution conveys a right to abortion.

Attorneys for the clinic had argued that Romanick’s decision to block the ban was proper.

When Romanick blocked the law from taking effect, he acknowledged that the clinic had moved but noted that doctors and hospitals would still be affected by the statute.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned Roe v. Wade, the ruling that protected the right to abortion for nearly five decades, abortion restrictions have been up to states and the landscape has shifted quickly.

Thirteen states are now enforcing bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy and one more — Georgia — bans it once cardiac activity can be detected, or at about six weeks’ gestation.

Getting abortions has become increasingly difficult for women who live in states with bans, in some cases resulting in increased medical complications and in others forcing residents to travel for hours or even days to reach a facility that can provide abortions legally.

Courts have put on hold enforcement of abortion bans or deep restrictions in Arizona, Indiana, Montana, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. Idaho courts have forced the state to allow abortions during medical emergencies.

___

MacPherson is a former Associated Press writer. Ahmed reported from Minneapolis. Jim Salter in O'Fallon, Missouri, contributed to this report.

Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom told senators last month he had unintentionally exaggerated the state’s cash position by $3.5 billion by overstating the amount the state had sent to colleges and universities for a decade. He has signaled he won't resign.

The error wasn’t in actual cash, but in the way the state reports its balance sheets. It could affect South Carolina’s credit rating and destroyed any confidence that a large number of lawmakers in the Republican-dominated state had in Eckstrom.

A resolution introduced Thursday seeks a two-thirds vote from the House and the Senate to trigger a state constitutional provision that says the governor should remove Eckstrom for “willful neglect of duty.”

The constitution allows Eckstrom a hearing in his own defense, although the exact procedure isn’t clear. Several senators couldn’t remember this process being used since it was added to the constitution more than 50 years ago.

A certified public accountant, Eckstrom, 74, has spent 20 years as comptroller general and before that four years as state treasurer.

“At least for a decade we know that he has signed his name, Richard Eckstrom, CPA, on our state's closing financial document and every year he has been wrong," said Republican Sen. Larry Grooms, who is sponsoring the resolution.

Grooms said the legislature needs to act because Eckstrom isn't doing "the honorable thing" and resigning.

Thirty-eight of 46 senators signed on to sponsor the proposal. Just 30 are needed for the two-thirds threshold to pass. In the House, the resolution needs 83 of 124 votes.

Grooms said he expects once Eckstrom is dealt with the Senate will take up other matters his subcommittee recommended like dismantling his agency and sending its duties to other offices.

The error started as a $12 million coding error in 2007 and was compounded when the state switched accounting systems in 2011, Eckstrom told senators at hearings in the past few weeks.

State cash transferred to colleges and universities was being double counted and auditors said Eckstrom ignored repeated warnings about the problem. They said he waited five years to conduct a full review of accounts that eventually assisted in uncovering the problem about a year ago.

Eckstrom responded to the Senate report with a statement Wednesday saying he isn't quitting. He said his office worked tirelessly to find and then fix the problem which it first started cropping up in 2013. The problem wasn't reported to lawmakers or others in the government until months ago.

Eckstrom said he would support a constitutional amendment making his job appointed by the governor instead of elected, but in the meantime “I will not be distracted by anyone from the work ahead of us, work voters elected me to do during this term.”

Eckstrom has run unopposed by anyone in the past two elections and last had a challenger in the Republican primary in 2010.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said last week that Eckstrom should be held accountable by voters and not impeached.

The resolution requires a lower level of wrongdoing of willful neglect of duty, where impeachment requires “serious crimes or serious misconduct" according to the constitution.

McMaster's office didn't immediately respond to questions about whether Thursday's resolution from lawmakers had changed his thinking.

Exactly what happens next isn't known. The constitution allows Eckstrom a hearing if he wishes.

“We're consulting with Archives and History right now to ensure we do the correct procedures," Grooms said. "He'll have an opportunity to rebut.”

More than 1,200 U.S. women died in 2021 during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, according to a final tally released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2022, there were 733 maternal deaths, according to preliminary agency data, though the final number is likely to be higher.

Officials say the 2022 maternal death rate is on track to get close to pre-pandemic levels. But that's not great: The rate before COVID-19 was the highest it had been in decades.

“From the worst to the near worst? I wouldn’t exactly call that an accomplishment,” said Omari Maynard, a New Yorker whose partner died after childbirth in 2019.

The CDC counts women who die while pregnant, during childbirth and up to 42 days after birth. Excessive bleeding, blood vessel blockages and infections are leading causes.

COVID-19 can be particularly dangerous to pregnant women, and experts believe it was the main reason for the 2021 spike. Burned out physicians may have added to the risk by ignoring pregnant women's worries, some advocates said.

In 2021, there were about 33 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. The last time the government recorded a rate that high was 1964.

What happened “isn’t that hard to explain,” said Eugene Declercq, a long-time maternal mortality researcher at Boston University. “The surge was COVID-related.”

Previous government analyses concluded that one quarter of maternal deaths in 2020 and 2021 were COVID-related — meaning that the entire increase in maternal deaths was due to coronavirus infections or the pandemic's wider impact on health care. Pregnant women infected with the coronavirus were nearly 8 times as likely to die as their uninfected peers, according to a recent study published by BMJ Global Health.

The bodies of pregnant women are already under strain, their heart forced to pump harder. Other health problems can make their condition more fragile. And then on top of that, “COVID is going to make all that much worse,” said Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, chief medical and health officer for the March of Dimes.

It didn’t help that vaccination rates among pregnant women were disappointingly low in 2021 — particularly among Black women. Part of that was related to limited vaccine availability, and that the CDC did not fully recommend shots for pregnant women until August 2021.

“Initially there was a lot of mistrust of the vaccine in Black communities,” said Samantha Griffin, who owns a doula service that mainly serves families of color in the Washington, D.C., area.

But there's to more to it than that, she and others added. The 2021 maternal mortality rate for Black women was nearly three times higher than it was for white women. And the maternal death rate for Hispanic American women that year rose 54% compared with 2020, also surpassing the death rate for white moms.

More than a year into the pandemic, a lot of doctors and nurses were feeling burned out and they were getting less in-person time with patients.

Providers at the time "were needing to make snap decisions and maybe not listening to their patients as much,” Griffin said. “Women were saying that they thought something was wrong and they weren't being heard."

Maynard, who is 41 and lives in Brooklyn, said he and his partner experienced that in 2019.

Shamony Gibson, a healthy 30-year-old, was set to have their second child. The pregnancy was smooth until her contractions stopped progressing and she underwent a cesarean section.

The operation was more involved than expected but their son Khari was born in September. A few days later, Shamony began complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath, Maynard said. Doctors told her she just needed to relax and let her body rest from the pregnancy, he said.

More than a week after giving birth, her health worsened and she begged to go to the hospital. Then her heart stopped, and loved ones called for help. The initial focus for paramedics and firefighters was whether Gibson was taking illicit drugs, Maynard said, adding that she didn't.

She was hospitalized and died the next day of a blood clot in the lungs. Her son was 13 days old.

“She wasn’t being heard at all,” said Maynard, an artist who now does speaking engagements as a maternal health advocate.

___

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.

A gun rights group sued after the law was passed in 2021, arguing that the age limit should be lower. Then late last year, the state's top lawyer moved to negotiate a settlement rather than defend the law, citing last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding gun rights. In January, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti proposed a deal that would allow 18- to 20-year-olds to carry handguns publicly.

A judge put the arrangement on hold for a 30-day period that ends Friday. What will happen then is unclear. Conflicting opinions on the settlement within the state are a reflection of a broader U.S. political divide over who should be allowed to have guns — a debate that rages on against a backdrop of continual headlines about deadly mass shootings.

“It strikes me as a little bit unusual (for Tennessee) to settle at this point, rather than wait for a decision” on the lawsuit, said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law at Duke University’s law school.

In its June 2022 decision, which followed a series of mass shootings, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. As part of that ruling, the justices said lower-court judges reviewing state gun laws should only consider whether those statutes are consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation,” not whether they enhance public safety or serve other public interests. The standard has spurred sometimes-conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it.

Two months after the high court's decision, a federal judge struck down a law in Texas barring adults under 21 from carrying a handgun — and the state’s attorney general dropped an appeal. In contrast, a federal circuit appeals court upheld a law in Florida that bars 18- to 20-year-olds from buying — but not possessing — guns.

Skrmetti’s proposed settlement concludes that Tennessee's current age range violates the U.S. Constitution’s 2nd and 14th Amendments.

“To restore the rights of an entire community of folks in Tennessee is a great win for us,” Bill Sack, director of legal operations for the Firearms Policy Coalition, said when the deal was struck in January. The coalition, which filed the lawsuit in 2021, is a national nonprofit organization that advocates for the right to bear arms in the U.S.

For their part, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are considering lowering the age limit themselves so the attorney general's proposal isn't just mandated on them through the court system. Legislation to do so passed the House, but not the Senate last year.

Lee proposed the 21-and-up permitless carry law. Now, his administration is sending some mixed signals on dropping the age. The governor told reporters last month that he thinks the current law works well.

Two days before that, the lobbyist for his Department of Safety, Elizabeth Stroecker, told a legislative committee that reducing the age limit to 18 “is actually something we would be comfortable with” and something the department is “working on through pending litigation.” During a legislative meeting last year, however, Stroeker expressed concerns that dropping the carry age could spur some states to stop recognizing Tennessee’s carry permits. A spokesperson for the safety department declined to answer if that's still a concern.

Lee also has said he needs to speak with Skrmetti about the proposed court settlement. The governor's office has since declined to say whether he did so.

The previous attorney general, Herbert Slatery, had defended the law limiting permitless carry to 21 and older, but acknowledged in a filing last year that the Supreme Court case could affect the lawsuit.

Tennessee is the only state with an attorney general picked by its Supreme Court, a setup praised by proponents as creating independence from politics. But critics argue that the position has become increasingly politicized.

Democratic Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Nashville attorney, contends that Skrmetti “breached his duty to zealously represent the state.”

“He essentially assumed his new office, and then proceeded to roll over and wave a white flag on a lawsuit that essentially allows a radical gun group to rewrite state law from the judicial branch,” Clemmons said.

Tennessee has made it a point to pass gun-friendly laws. Gun owners seeking permits must go through training and receive a background check —but the permits themselves became optional with the 2021 law. In addition, 18- to 20-year-olds can already own handguns, they just generally can't carry them publicly — with or without a permit. Young adults with military backgrounds may do so, however.

Public housing agencies in Tennessee, meanwhile, cannot write leases that bar tenants from having guns in their homes, under a state appeals panel's decision last year that was also influenced by the Supreme Court decision. Gun rights advocates have also sued to block limitations on when people can carry guns in public parks, recreational centers and similar places.

As Skrmetti's court settlement hangs in the balance, a bill is moving through the legislature that would not only lower the public-carry age limit, but also expand permitless carry to assault rifles and other long guns.

Top law enforcement officials oppose that change, saying it will create public panic, erode progress in police de-escalation training and put officers in dangerous situations.

“If we increase the number and types of firearms that are being carried, and potentially left unsecured, then we’re also opening up that opportunity for those guns to fall into the hands of the criminal element, which is where they have been falling,” said Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director David Rausch.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy has now has documented more than 600 of the apex predators since it began monitoring the population in 2014, staff scientist Megan Winton said Wednesday. Many of the sharks return to the area year after year to feed on the abundant seals that call Cape Cod home.

Scientists during last year’s research trips from mid-June until early November documented the return of 63 sharks that had previously been spotted in the area, the nonprofit announced this month.

Don't worry. Identifying more sharks does not mean there are more of them out there and does not mean a greater risk to the public.

“It’s not necessarily indicative of there being more sharks off of Cape Cod," Winton said. “What we've seen the last couple years in terms of activity and sightings has been par for the course of what we’ve been seeing for the past several years.”

The fear that people have about white sharks because of the 1975 movie “Jaws” — about a massive great white terrorizing a New England resort town — and two shark attacks off Cape Cod in 2018, one of them fatal, is largely misplaced, Winton said.

“It’s important for people to keep in mind that white sharks are not the monsters they are portrayed to be in the media," she said. “They’re not lurking off our beaches. Humans are not on the menu.”

Cape Cod is the only known white shark aggregation site in the northwest Atlantic, and because they tend to stick close to shore as they hunt for seals, the area has become a goldmine of information for researchers, she said.

The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy scientists, in collaboration with other researchers, have been able to find out more about the sharks’ lifecycle, growth rates, the risks they face in the open ocean, and travel patterns as they swim thousands of miles up and down the eastern coast of the U.S. and Canada.

For example, a shark first documented off Cape Cod in 2017 was caught and tagged off Hilton Head, South Carolina, in 2021 and during that time had grown three feet, the conservancy said.

The researchers capture underwater images of the sharks using a camera on a painter’s pole. Sharks that have never been documented before are given a name, often based on unique markings. The images and information are entered on the conservancy’s publicly-available shark database.

Koala, a 9-foot male first spotted last year, has a marking that looks like a koala’s face. Quack, a 9-foot female first documented in 2018, has a marking that resembles a duck. Some are named after local sports stars, including Brady and Big Papi.

The public should use the information from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy to educate themselves about sharks so they can make informed choices while on the water.

“Giving folks open access to their shark catalog is a great educational tool for the public,” said Greg Skomal, the state Division of Marine Fisheries shark expert who works closely with the conservancy.

“People identify with individual animals,” he said. “It's one thing to talk about a species; it’s another to talk about an individual within that species. People can look at this catalog and they can get a sense of how to use our coastal areas.”

Administrators from hospitals and clinics have not publicly detailed plans to adapt to the new rules, adding a layer of uncertainty on top of fear that, if clinics close, patients may not be able to access care at hospitals due to staffing and cost concerns.

The law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox on Wednesday will take effect May 3, at which time clinics will not be able to get new licenses. It institutes a full ban Jan. 1, 2024. Both the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the Utah Hospital Association declined to detail how the increasingly fraught legal landscape for providers in Utah will affect abortion access.

The turmoil mirrors developments in Republican strongholds throughout the United States that have taken shape since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision, transformed the legal landscape and prompted a raft of lawsuits in at least 21 states.

Utah lawmakers have previously said the law would protect “the innocent” and “the unborn," adding that they don’t think the state needs the clinics after the high court overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

Though Planned Parenthood previously warned the law could dramatically hamper its ability to provide abortions, Jason Stevenson, the association's lobbyist, said Wednesday it would now further examine the wording of other provisions of the law that could allow clinics to apply for new licenses to perform hospital-equivalent services.

Based on Planned Parenthood's interpretation, he said in an interview, clinics will no longer be able to provide abortions with their current licenses. They plan to continue, however, to provide the majority of their services such as STI and pregnancy testing and cancer screenings. Stevenson said they were “looking closely” at the licensing options in the law, but would not say whether the clinics would apply at this point.

Jill Vicory, a spokesperson for the Utah Hospital Association, said in an email that it was “too early to comment” on whether hospitals could soon be the only abortion providers in Utah, noting each "will need to make a determination on how they choose to proceed."

If clinics stop providing abortions, experts are concerned hospitals’ comparatively higher cost of care and staffing shortages will make it harder to get legal abortions in Utah, even though the law isn’t explicitly a restriction on those seeking them in the state, where they remain legal up to 18 weeks.

Dr. Carole Joffe, a University of California, San Francisco professor who has written about the societal effects of reproductive health care, said stripping clinics of licenses would upend how abortions have been provided for decades. Historically, patients with low-complication pregnancies have mostly received abortions at outpatient clinics, which on average are able to provide them at a lower cost.

“Everything in a hospital is more expensive than in a clinic. Doing an abortion in a hospital, you need more personnel,” she said, noting hospitals, with teams of anesthesiologists, physicians and surgeons have historically provided them in emergency scenarios.

Another challenge facing already overburdened hospitals is staffing. Especially in states where anti-abortion sentiment runs strong, many physicians or nurses at hospitals may not want to provide them, Joffe said.

“You have to draw from a pool that may or may not be sympathetic to abortion, unlike in a clinic where you don’t go to work at unless you’re committed to abortion being part of health care,” Joffe said.

Abortion advocates say confusion stems from unclear language about the de-licensing process. The law prohibits clinics from obtaining new licenses after May 2 and institutes a full ban on Jan. 1, 2024. However, advocates worry about a separate provision in the 1,446-line bill that specifies under state law that abortions may only be performed in hospitals.

The clinic-focused legislation has also raised questions about which kinds of facilities are best equipped to provide specialty care to patients regardless of their socioeconomic status or location.

If clinics stop providing abortions — as early as May or as late as next year — it could reroute thousands of patients to hospitals and force administrators to devise new policies for elective abortions. To do so would require expanding their services beyond emergency procedures they have previously provided, prompting questions about the shift's impact on capacity, staffing, waitlists and costs. Roughly 2,800 abortions were provided in Utah last year.

The Utah Hospital Association said no hospitals provided elective abortions in the state last year.

The new restrictions are most likely to affect those seeking to terminate pregnancies via medication, which accounts for the majority of abortions in Utah and the United States. Abortion medication is approved up to 10 weeks of pregnancy, mostly prescribed at clinics and since a pandemic-era FDA rule change, increasingly offered via telemedicine.

The new law takes on added significance amid legal limbo surrounding other abortion laws that have been signed in Utah.

Last year's Supreme Court ruling triggered two previously passed pieces of legislation— a 2019 ban on abortion after 18 weeks and a 2020 ban on abortions regardless of trimester, with several exceptions including for instances of risk to maternal health as well as rape or incest reported to the police. The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah sued over the 2020 ban, and in July, a state court delayed implementing it until legal challenges could be resolved. The 18-week ban has since been de facto law.

Abortion-access proponents have decried this year’s clinic ban as a back door that anti-abortion lawmakers are using to limit access while courts deliberate. If abortions were restricted regardless of trimester to the exceptional circumstances, closures would have less wide-ranging implications for patients pursuing elective abortions from zero to 18 weeks of pregnancy.

The law also clarifies the definition of abortion to address legal liability concerns providers voiced about the way exceptions are worded in state law — a provision the governor and Republican lawmakers called a compromise.

Railway spokesperson Lena Kent said there were no injuries in the derailment near Topock and, according to preliminary reports, no hazardous materials involved.

A spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, Anita Mortensen, said that she was not aware of any spills or leaks.

The cause of the derailment of approximately eight cars is under investigation, Kent said in a statement.

The main track is blocked and Kent said it is not known when it will be reopened.

The derailment comes amid heightened attention to rail safety nationwide following a fiery derailment last month in Ohio and a string of derailments since then that have been grabbing headlines, including ones in Michigan, Alabama and other states.

In Arizona, Mortensen had earlier said the train was carrying hazardous materials. The derailment occurred near milepost 9 of Interstate 40, Mortensen said, which is a rural, nonresidential area about 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Lake Havasu City.

The sheriff’s office had notified the National Transportation Safety Board and BNSF, the two entities that she said would be responding to the accident.

The NTSB also did not respond to requests for comment.

Last month, a freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border, igniting a fire and causing hundreds of people to be evacuated.

Officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled blast intentionally released and burned toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars, sending flames and black smoke high into the sky. That left people questioning the potential health impacts even as authorities maintained they were doing their best to protect people.

___

The story has been updated to correct that the derailment involves train carrying corn syrup, not hazardous material, according to the railway.

This raises the distant possibility of using the same technique for people – although experts caution that very few mouse embryos developed into live mouse pups and no one knows whether it would work for humans.

Still, “It’s a very clever strategy," said Diana Laird, a stem cell and reproductive expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the research. "It’s an important step in both stem cell and reproductive biology.”

Scientists described their work in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

First, they took skin cells from the tails of male mice and transformed them into “induced pluripotent stem cells,” which can develop into many different types of cells or tissues. Then, through a process that involved growing them and treating them with a drug, they converted male mouse stem cells into female cells and produced functional egg cells. Finally, they fertilized those eggs and implanted the embryos into female mice. About 1% of the embryos – 7 out of 630 – grew into live mouse pups.

The pups appeared to grow normally and were able to become parents themselves in the usual way, research leader Katsuhiko Hayashi of Kyushu University and Osaka University in Japan told fellow scientists at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing last week.

In a commentary published alongside the Nature study, Laird and her colleague, Jonathan Bayerl, said the work “opens up new avenues in reproductive biology and fertility research" for animals and people. Down the road, for example, it might be possible to reproduce endangered mammals from a single male.

“And it might even provide a template for enabling more people,” such as male same-sex couples, “to have biological children, while circumventing the ethical and legal issues of donor eggs,” they wrote.

But they raised several cautions. The most notable one? The technique is extremely inefficient. They said it's unclear why only a tiny fraction of the embryos placed into surrogate mice survived; the reasons could be technical or biological. They also stressed that it’s still too early to know if the protocol would work in human stem cells at all.

Laird also said scientists need to be mindful of the mutations and errors that may be introduced in a culture dish before using stem cells to make eggs.

The research is the latest to test new ways to create mouse embryos in the lab. Last summer, scientists in California and Israel created “synthetic” mouse embryos from stem cells without a dad’s sperm or a mom’s egg or womb. Those embryos mirrored natural mouse embryos up to 8 ½ days after fertilization, containing the same structures, including one like a beating heart. Scientists said the feat could eventually lay the foundation for creating synthetic human embryos for research in the future.

The announcement, confirmed by the governor's office, will come in Sacramento on the first stop of Newsom's planned four-city tour, during which major policy announcements are expected on housing, health care and public safety. The tour is replacing the governor's traditional State of the State address.

Newsom dedicated his 2020 State of the State speech to homelessness, calling it a “ disgrace ” in a land of so much wealth. California, home to nearly 40 million people, has nearly one-third of the nation's homeless population, and their numbers are growing much faster than in other states, according to an analysis of federal data by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The governor has approved more than $22.3 billion in new housing and homelessness spending since taking office, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, yet the homeless population has continued to grow.

Newsom said the state will pay to build and install the 1,200 small homes, which can be put up quickly and placed on public land to house people living in encampments along roads and rivers. Sacramento will get 350 homes, Los Angeles will get 500, San Jose will get 200 and San Diego will get 150.

"In California we are using every tool in our toolbox — including the largest-ever deployment of small homes in the state — to move people out of encampments and into housing,” Newsom said. “The crisis of homelessness will never be solved without first solving the crisis of housing — the two issues are inextricably linked."

Newsom's office did not say how much the homes will cost or where they will go. It would be up to local governments to decide the latter, which could be tricky since many residents may not want the homes near where they live.

Most of the state funding for homelessness programs has gone to local governments. But a lack of progress has led the governor to clash with local leaders.

Last fall Newsom delayed $1 billion of funding for local government homelessness programs because he didn't like how they planned to spend it. Cumulatively, the local governments' plans aimed to reduce the homeless population by just 2%. Newsom later released the money after a meeting with local leaders.

On Thursday the governor said local leaders have revised their plans with a goal of a 15% reduction. Newsom said he likes that much better and announced he is releasing another $1 billion.

California's homelessness problem is in part a byproduct of its shortage of affordable housing, an issue that advocates say impacts many more people than simply those living on the streets.

Leaders of the state's biggest cities and counties want Sacramento to define more clearly their role in addressing homelessness and how the state will measure the success of local programs that receive state funding.

Currently state homelessness funding has “all sorts of rules that have to be put in and half a dozen different state departments involved in order to find one program,” said Graham Knauss, executive director of the California State Association of Counties. “That needs to change. That is not government at its best.”

The association's solution is to ask the state Legislature to pass laws clearly defining the responsibilities of local and state government, coupled with recurring state funding for local governments every year. Knauss said the association is talking with lawmakers and the governor's office about passing legislation.

“We certainly should not expect that we’re going to get ongoing progress on homelessness while using one-time funding to do it,” he said.

The stakes are high for people like Nathen Avelar, 18, who has struggled with unstable housing most of his life. Avelar grew up with his mother and twin brother in the Central Valley city of Merced, where he said there is plenty of new housing but all out of their reach.

For a few years, they lived in a home that was infested with mold, which aggravated his brother’s asthma and forced them to leave. They moved in with his grandmother; if not for her home, which they often shared with multiple other family members, Avelar said they likely would have been homeless.

“I remember a couple of times we drove around looking for houses, and we always saw these nice houses on the street and I knew we would never be able to afford them,” he said. “That was really disheartening.”

Avelar, who worked part-time for a voter engagement group that supported Newsom during an unsuccessful 2021 recall attempt, said he wants the governor's administration to build more affordable housing.

The idea of Black reparations is not new, but the federal government's promise of granting 40 acres and a mule to newly freed slaves was never realized. It wasn't until George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in police custody in 2020 that reparations movements began spreading in earnest across the country.

The state of California and the cities of Boston and San Francisco are among jurisdictions trying to atone not just for chattel slavery, but for decades of racist policies and laws that systemically denied Black Americans access to property, education and the ability to build generational wealth.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT FOR REPARATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO?

Black migration to San Francisco soared in the 1940s because of shipyard work, but racially restrictive covenants and redlining limited where people could live. When Black residents were able to build a thriving neighborhood in the Fillmore, government redevelopment plans in the 1960s forced out residents, stripped them of their property and decimated Black-owned businesses, advocates say.

Today, fewer than 6% of San Francisco residents are Black yet they make up nearly 40% of the city's homeless population.

Supporters include the San Francisco NAACP, although it said the board should reject the $5 million payments and focus instead on reparations through education, jobs, housing, health care and a cultural center for Black people in San Francisco. The president of the San Francisco branch is the Rev. Amos C. Brown, who sits on both the statewide and San Francisco reparations panels.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT AGAINST REPARATIONS?

Critics say California and San Francisco never endorsed chattel slavery, and there is no one alive today who owned slaves or was enslaved. It is not fair for municipal taxpayers, some of whom are immigrants, to shoulder the cost of structural racism and discriminatory government policies, critics say.

An estimate from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which leans conservative, has said it would cost each non-Black family in San Francisco at least $600,000 in taxes to pay for the costliest of the recommendations: The $5 million per-person payout, guaranteed income of at least $97,000 a year for 250 years, personal debt elimination and converting public housing into condos to sell for $1.

A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found 68% of U.S. respondents opposed reparations compared with 30% in favor. Nearly 80% of Black people surveyed supported reparations. More than 90% of Republicans or those leaning Republican opposed reparations while Democrats and those leaning Democratic were divided.

HOW WILL SAN FRANCISCO PAY FOR THIS?

It's not clear. The advisory committee that made the recommendations says it is not its job to figure out how to finance San Francisco's atonement and repair.

That would be up to local politicians, two of whom expressed interest Tuesday in taking the issue to voters. San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he would back a ballot measure to enshrine reparations in the San Francisco charter as part of the budget. Shamann Walton, the supervisor leading the charge on reparations, supports that idea.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OTHER REPARATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS?

Recommendations in education include establishing an Afrocentric K-12 school in San Francisco; hiring and retaining Black teachers; mandating a core Black history and culture curriculum; and offering cash to at-risk students for hitting educational benchmarks.

Recommendations in health include free mental health, prenatal care and rehab treatment for impoverished Black San Franciscans, victims of violent crimes and formerly incarcerated people.

The advisory committee also recommends prioritizing Black San Franciscans for job opportunities and training, as well as finding ways to incubate Black businesses.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

There is no deadline for supervisors to agree on a path forward. The board next plans to discuss reparations proposals in September, after the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee issues a final report in June.

WHAT ABOUT REPARATIONS FROM THE STATE?

In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force. But nearly two years into its work, it still has yet to make key decisions on who would be eligible for payment and how much. The task force has a July 1 deadline to submit a final report of its reparations recommendations, which would then be drafted into legislation for lawmakers to consider.

The task force has spent multiple meetings discussing time frames and payment calculations for five harms experienced by Black people, including government taking of property, housing discrimination and homelessness and mass incarceration. The task force is also debating state residency requirements.

Previously, the state committee voted to limit financial reparations to people descended from enslaved or freed Black people in the U.S. as of the 19th century.

The announcement, made by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's education commissioner, Mike Morath, amounts to one of the largest school takeovers ever in the U.S. It also deepens a high-stakes rift between Texas' largest city, where Democrats wield control, and state Republican leaders, who have sought increased authority following election fumbles and COVID-19 restrictions.

The takeover is the latest example of Republican and predominately white state officials pushing to take control of actions in heavily minority and Democratic-led cities. They include St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, where the Legislature is pushing to take over the water system and for an expanded role for state police and appointed judges.

In a letter to the Houston Independent School District, Morath said the Texas Education Agency will replace Superintendent Millard House II and the district's elected board of trustees with a new superintendent and an appointed board of managers made of residents from within the district's boundaries.

Morath said the board has failed to improve student outcomes while conducting “chaotic board meetings marred by infighting" and violating open meetings act and procurement laws. He accused the district of failing to provide proper special education services and of violating state and federal laws with its approach to supporting students with disabilities.

He cited the seven-year record of poor academic performance at one of the district's roughly 50 high schools, Wheatley High, as well as the poor performance of several other campuses.

"The governing body of a school system bears ultimate responsibility for the outcomes of all students. While the current Board of Trustees has made progress, systemic problems in Houston ISD continue to impact district students," Morath wrote in his six-page letter.

Most of Houston’s school board members have been replaced since the state began making moves toward a takeover in 2019. House became superintendent in 2021.

He and the current school board will remain until the new board of managers is chosen sometime after June 1. The new board of managers will be appointed for at least two years.

House in a statement pointed to strides made across the district, saying the announcement “does not discount the gains we have made.”

He said his focus now will be on ensuring “a smooth transition without disruption to our core mission of providing an exceptional educational experience for all students.”

The Texas State Teachers Association and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas condemned the takeover. At a news conference in Austin, state Democratic leaders called for the Legislature to increase funding for education and raise teacher pay.

“We acknowledge that there’s been underperformance in the past, mainly due to that severe underfunding in our public schools,” state Rep. Armando Walle, who represents parts of north Houston, said.

An annual Census Bureau survey of public school funding showed Texas spent $10,342 per pupil in the 2020 fiscal year, more than $3,000 less than the national average, according to the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.

The state was able to take over the district under a change in state law that Houston Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. proposed in 2015. In an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle on Monday, Dutton said he has no regrets about what he did.

“We’re hearing voices of opposition, people who say that HISD shouldn’t have to face consequences for allowing a campus to fail for more than five consecutive years. Those critics’ concern is misplaced,” Dutton wrote.

Schools in other big cities, including Philadelphia, New Orleans and Detroit, in recent decades have gone through state takeovers, which are generally viewed as last resorts for underperforming schools and are often met with community backlash. Critics argue that state interventions generally have not led to big improvements.

Texas started moving to take over the district following allegations of misconduct by school trustees, including inappropriate influencing of vendor contracts, and chronically low academic scores at Wheatley High.

The district sued to block a takeover, but new education laws subsequently passed by the GOP-controlled state Legislature and a January ruling from the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way for the state to seize control.

“All of us Texans have an obligation and should come together to reinvent HISD in a way that will ensure that we’re going to be providing the best quality education for those kids,” Abbott said Wednesday.

Schools in Houston are not under mayoral control, unlike in New York and Chicago, but as expectations of a takeover mounted, the city's Democratic leaders unified in opposition.

Race is also an issue because the overwhelming majority of students in Houston schools are Hispanic or Black. Domingo Morel, a professor of political science and public services at New York University, said the political and racial dynamics in the Houston case are similar to instances where states have intervened elsewhere.

“If we just focus on taking over school districts because they underperform, we would have a lot more takeovers,” Morel said. “But that's not what happens."

____

Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Acacia Coronado in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

The strike was set to begin Tuesday. It was announced at a rally by the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 30,000 teachers' aides, bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers and other support staff.

United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing 35,000 teachers, counselors and other staff, expressed solidarity.

“Educators will be joining our union siblings on the picket lines,” a UTLA tweet said.

Teachers waged a six-day strike in 2019 over pay and contract issues but schools remained open.

This time, schools would likely close and there wouldn't be any access to virtual learning, Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho said in an email to parents on Monday.

“We would simply have no way of ensuring a safe and secure environment where teaching can take place,” Carvalho said.

On Wednesday, Carvalho accused the union of refusing to negotiate and said that he was prepared to meet “day and night” to prevent a strike, which he said would harm students already struggling to regain academic ground lost when classrooms were closed and they were forced to learn remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a news conference, he said averting a strike "will avoid keeping kids home, will avoid kids from going hungry in our community without access to the food they get in school.”

“We are calling on them to come to the table for staff and students, right now,” he said in a later statement.

The SEIU says district support staffers earn, on average, about $25,000 per year and many live in poverty because of low pay or limited work hours while struggling with inflation and the high cost of housing in LA County. The union is asking for a 30% raise. Teachers want a 20% pay hike over two years.

The district has made what it called an historic offer to the SEIU of a $15 wage increase, some of it retroactive, and 9% in retention bonuses.

The strike has wide support among union members. Thousands of people, many dressed in red, rallied Wednesday outside City Hall, holding signs, chanting, and garnering support in the hours before the strike date was announced.

The district has more than 500,000 students. It serves Los Angeles and all or part of 25 other cities and unincorporated county areas.

SEIU members have been working without a contract since June 2020 and the contract for teachers expired in June 2022. The unions decided last week to stop accepting extensions to their contracts.

Hobbs has said executions will not be carried out until Arizonans can be confident the state isn’t violating the law. She maintains that while the court authorized Gunches’ execution, its order doesn’t require the state to carry it out.

Over the last several days, lawyers for Karen Price, whose brother Ted Price was the victim in Gunches’ case, and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell have told the state’s highest court that Hobbs doesn’t have the legal authority to disregard the order.

In a statement, Karen Price said the relief her family felt when the court scheduled Gunches’ execution was dashed by Hobbs’ announcement.

“Not only has our family been victimized by inmate Gunches and the emotional aftermath of Ted’s murder, we are now being victimized by the governor’s failure to recognize and uphold our constitutional rights to justice and finality,” Price said.

Nicholas Klingerman, an attorney representing Mitchell, said no constitutional violations have been found with the state’s execution protocols and that carrying out execution warrants isn’t optional for the governor.

“Nothing in the Constitution or laws of Arizona or the warrant gives the governor discretion to ignore the warrant and grant what essentially constitutes a temporary reprieve from the death penalty,” Klingerman wrote.

In a filing Wednesday, lawyers for Hobbs advised the court against taking up Price’s appeal, saying the corrections department lacks staff with expertise to carry out an execution and the state isn’t currently prepared to carry out an execution in a constitutionally sound manner.

They said the state doesn’t have a contract right now for a pharmacist to compound the pentobarbital needed for an execution and that corrections officials are unable to find out the identity of the state’s prior compounding pharmacist, who primarily had contact with an official no longer with the department. They also said a top corrections leadership position that’s critical to planning executions remains unfilled.

Corrections Director Ryan Thornell said in a court filing that he was unable to find enough documentation to understand key elements of the execution process and instead has had to piece it together through conversations with employees on what might have occurred in past executions.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said he believes Hobbs, as the state’s chief executive, has the power to put the brakes on executions if she is concerned whether they are going to be carried out humanely and in a constitutionally sound manner. He said he doesn’t believe the courts can force Hobbs to carry out the execution.

“She has the power to make sure that that’s functioning properly,” said Dieter, whose group doesn’t take a position on the death penalty but is critical on how it’s carried out.

Dale Baich, a former federal public defender who teaches death penalty law at Arizona State University, said Hobbs has “discretion for situations like this, where the governor has expressed legitimate concerns because of the problems with the (lethal injection) drugs, the qualifications of the executioners and staffing at the Department of Corrections necessary to carry out executions.”

Mel McDonald, a former U.S. Attorney for Arizona who handled two death row cases as a prosecutor, predicted the state Supreme Court would take up the appeal filed by Price’s sister, saying the dispute presents the court with novel legal issues.

“It raises a lot of questions,” McDonald said of the dispute. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they accept jurisdiction (of the case). Where it goes from there is anyone’s guess.”

Arizona, which currently has 110 prisoners on death row, carried out three executions last year after a nearly eight-year hiatus brought on by criticism that a 2014 execution was botched and because of difficulties obtaining execution drugs.

Since resuming executions, the state was criticized in May for taking too long to insert an IV for lethal injection into a condemned prisoner’s body in and for denying the Arizona Republic newspaper’s request to witness the last three executions.

Gunches was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to murder in the shooting death of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband, near Mesa, Arizona.

Gunches, who isn’t a lawyer, represented himself in November when he asked the Supreme Court to issue his execution warrant so, he said, that justice could be served and the victims could get closure. In Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s last month in office, his office asked the court for a warrant to execute Gunches.

But Gunches then withdrew his request in early January, and newly elected Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes later asked for the execution warrant submitted during Brnovich’s tenure to be withdrawn.

The state Supreme Court rejected Mayes’ request, saying it must grant an execution warrant if certain appellate proceedings have concluded — and that those requirements were met in Gunches’ case.

In yet another reversal, Gunches said in a filing a week ago that he still wants to be executed and asked to be transferred to Texas, where he wrote “the law is still followed and inmates can still get their sentences carried out.”

Arizona’s highest court has since denied Gunches’ request to transfer to Texas.

Following ceremonial drumming and singing and an acknowledgement of the tribes that once occupied the surrounding landscape, the bison were loaded onto trucks for relocation to tribal lands.

About a half-dozen of the animals from Colorado will form the nucleus of a new herd for the Yuchi people south of Tulsa, Oklahoma, said Richard Grounds with the Yuchi Language Project.

The herd will be expanded over time, to reestablish a spiritual and physical bond broken two centuries ago when bison were nearly wiped out and the Yuchi were forced from their homeland, Grounds said.

He compared the burly animals' return to reviving the Yuchi's language — and said both language and bison were inseparable from the land. Bison were “the original caretakers” of that land, he said.

“We've lost that connection to the buffalo, that physical connection, as part of the colonial assault,” Grounds said. “So we're saying, we Yuchi people are still here and the buffalo are still here and it's important to reconnect and restore those relationships with the land, with the animals and the plants.”

The transfers also included 17 bison to the Northern Arapaho Tribe and 12 to the Eastern Shoshone Tribe — both of Wyoming — and one animal to the Tall Bull Memorial Council, which has members from various tribes, city officials said.

Wednesday’s transfer came two weeks after U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued a bison conservation order meant to further expand the number of large herds on Native American lands. Haaland also announced $25 million to build new herds, transfer more bison from federal to tribal lands and forge new bison management agreements with tribes, officials said.

American bison, also known as buffalo, have bounced back from near-extinction in the 1880s but remain absent from most of the grasslands they once occupied.

Across the U.S., 82 tribes now have more than 20,000 bison, and the number of herds on tribal lands have grown in recent years. The animals have been transferred to reservations from other tribes, from federal, state and local governments and from private ranches.

Tens of millions of bison once roamed North America until they were killed off almost entirely by white settlers, commercial hunters and U.S. troops. Their demise devastated Native American tribes across the continent that relied on bison and their parts for food, clothing and shelter.

The animals transferred to the tribes Wednesday descend from the last remnants of the great herds. They were under care of the Denver Zoo and kept in a city park before being moved to foothills west of Denver in 1914.

Surplus animals from the city's herd were for many years auctioned off, but in recent years city officials began transferring them to tribes instead, said Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation.

Gilmore said the land acknowledgement statement read out loud during Wednesday's ceremony underscored the historical importance of the area to the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and dozens of other tribes that once lived in the area. But he added those were just “words on a piece of paper.”

“What we're doing is putting action to those words for Indigenous people. Buffalo are part of the land, they are part of their family," Gilmore said. "They are taking their family members back to their ancestral home.”

To date, 85 bison from Denver have been transferred to tribes and tribal organizations. City officials said the shipments will continue through 2030.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

A two-pill combination of mifepristone and another drug is the most common form of abortion in the U.S. and the ruling would affect states where abortion is legal as well as those that outlaw it. The case has raised concerns about court transparency and so-called judge shopping.

Here's a look at some of the legal issues surrounding the case:

HOW DID THE ABORTION PILL CHALLENGE START?

Abortion opponents who helped overturn Roe v. Wade filed a lawsuit in November, asking a judge in Texas to reverse the approval of mifepristone.

Research shows that medication-induced abortions are safe and effective, and they were approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than 20 years ago.

But the group, Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in the lawsuit that the FDA process was flawed for mifepristone. It also took aim at more recent changes that have eased access to the drug.

The suit was filed in Amarillo, Texas, which meant that it was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney at a Christian law firm who previously wrote critically about Roe. He was appointed by former President Donald Trump and confirmed over fierce opposition from Democrats.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Medication is the most common form of abortion in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. It’s become more available as the FDA allowed it to be prescribed online and sent through the mail. Demand continued as states began banning abortion after Roe was overturned and more women traveled for access, or sought medication online.

If Kacsmaryk reverses the approval of mifepristone, it could restrict access nationwide. Such a ruling would be an unprecedented challenge to the FDA, which approved mifepristone in combination with a second pill, misoprostol, as a safe and effective method for ending a pregnancy in 2000.

That would be “nothing short of catastrophic," a group of 22 Democratic-led states said in court documents filed in the case. Another group of 22 Republican states filed briefs supporting the reversal. They argue the ability to order pills by mail undermines their laws banning abortion.

WHY IS THIS IN THE HANDS OF ONE TEXAS JUDGE?

Kacsmaryk is a federal judge and one of the major tasks of the U.S. court system has always been deciding whether laws and policy are constitutional. That means any judge weighing a case challenging a federal law or policy could make a decision that has ripple effects across the nation.

Lawyers on either side of a case can appeal a ruling, however, and federal appeals courts can block or overturn a decision. In this case, an appeal would go to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also leans conservative. It upheld Kacsmaryk's decision in another high-profile case requiring the Biden administration to continue the “Remain in Mexico” immigration policy implemented by Trump. The ruling was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

The case has also raised concerns about judge shopping, a term for litigants seeking to file cases in front of judges they consider sympathetic to their cause. It's a tactic that's been utilized by groups across the ideological spectrum, but the volume of cases filed before Kacsmaryk and other Texas judges has raised concerns among experts.

WHAT SET OFF TRANSPARENCY ALARM BELLS?

Kacsmaryk set the first hearing in the closely watched case on a conference call with attorneys. He also asked them to for the “courtesy” of not publicizing the upcoming arguments, according to a court transcript.

He said he planned to delay making the hearing public until the evening before, making it difficult for many to attend because Amarillo is hours away from major cities. Such a delay is highly unusual in the American judicial system, where hearing notices are typically quickly made public and often scheduled weeks or months in advance.

After news reports about the call, the hearing was placed on the public docket a day and a half before it was scheduled.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

A ruling in the case could come any time after the arguments conclude. A decision against the FDA would almost certainly be swiftly appealed by the Justice Department.

A ruling reversing approval 20 years later is all but unprecedented, so it's not clear exactly what would happen next or how quickly access might be curtailed. If mifepristone is sidelined, clinics and doctors that prescribe the combination say they would switch to using only misoprostol, the other drug in the two-drug combination, an approach that is slightly less effective.

Kane County Sheriff's Lt. Allen Alldredge said the first man who was found dead was among a group of three hiking south to Lees Ferry across the Utah-Arizona border. Another man in the group was rescued and taken to the hospital, where he was being treated for hypothermia and bodily injury after days of exposure. Authorities found a second body on Wednesday afternoon across the Arizona border. Although they couldn't immediately confirm it was the man identified as missing earlier in the week, Alldredge said they “were very confident that it was our missing individual” and called off additional search.

Alldredge said authorities received a call Monday from the spouse of a hiker who had not returned home from a hike they began Friday. The hikers were on a multiday trek from Wire Pass to Lees Ferry through Buckskin Gulch's sandstone features that includes multiple narrow slot canyons.

Authorities did not release any of the hikers' names. The first man found dead was from the Tampa, Florida, area, Alldredge said.

The "atmospheric river” storms that swept parts of the western United States last weekend raised the water level in the canyons before additional floodwaters spilled into the slot canyons early this week. Authorities continued to search for the missing hiker as weather forecasts predicted additional rain Wednesday.

Two Utah Department of Public Safety helicopters and another hiker helped locate the second body found on Wednesday. After being called for the initial group of three, the Department of Public Safety helicopters helped extract 11 other people Tuesday who were stuck in frigid floodwaters and had called for help.