Many of us have felt it, and now it’s official: “brain rot” is the Oxford dictionaries’ word of the year. Oxford University Press said Monday that the evocative phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” with its frequency of use increasing 230% from the year before. Oxford defines brain rot as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.” The word of the year is intended to be “a word or expression that reflects a defining theme from the past 12 months.” “Brain rot” was chosen by a combination of public vote and language analysis by Oxford lexicographers. It beat five other finalists: demure, slop, dynamic pricing, romantasy and lore. While it may seem a modern phenomenon, the first recorded use of “brain rot” was by Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 ode to the natural world, “Walden.” Oxford Languages President Casper Grathwohl said that in its modern sense, “’brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time.” “It feels like a rightful next chapter in the cultural conversation about humanity and technology. It’s not surprising that so many voters embraced the term, endorsing it as our choice this year,” he said. Last year’s Oxford word of the year was “rizz,” a riff on charisma, used to describe someone’s ability to attract or seduce another person. Collins Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year is “brat” – the album title that became a summer-living ideal. (AP)

President-elect Donald Trump has assembled a team of medical contrarians and health care critics to fulfill an agenda aimed at remaking how the federal government oversees medicines, health programs and nutrition. On Tuesday night, Trump nominated Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health, tapping an opponent of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates to lead the nation’s top medical research agency. He is the latest in a string of Trump nominees who were critics of COVID-19 health measures. Bhattacharya and the other nominees are expected to play pivotal roles in implementing Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s sprawling “Make America Healthy Again,” agenda, which calls for removing thousands of additives from U.S. foods, rooting out conflicts of interest at agencies and incentivizing healthier foods in school lunches and other nutrition programs. Trump nominated Kennedy to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH and other federal health agencies. The new health priorities bear little resemblance to those of Trump’s first term, which focused on cutting regulations for food, drug and agriculture companies. “You’re hearing a very different tune as we head into this new Trump administration,” said Gabby Headrick, a nutrition researcher at George Washington University’s school of public health. “It’s important that we all proceed with caution and remember some of the public health losses we saw the first time.” Trump’s nominees don’t have experience running large bureaucratic agencies, but they know how to talk about health on TV. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid pick Dr. Mehmet Oz hosted a talk show for 13 years and is a well-known wellness and lifestyle influencer. The pick for the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, and for surgeon general, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, had been frequent Fox News contributors. Some of them have ties to Florida like many of Trump’s other Cabinet nominees: Dave Weldon, the pick for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represented the state in Congress for 14 years. Here’s a look at how the nominees may carry out Kennedy’s plans to “reorganize” agencies, which have an overall $1.7 trillion budget, employ 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials: National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, with a $48 billion budget, funds medical research through grants to scientists across the nation and conducts its own research. Bhattacharya, a health economist and physician at Stanford University, was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that lockdowns were causing irreparable harm. The document — which came before the availability of COVID-19 vaccines — promoted “herd immunity,” the idea that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity to COVID-19 through infection. Protection should focus instead on people at higher risk, the document said. “I think the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake,” Bhattacharya said in March 2021 during a panel discussion convened by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Great Barrington Declaration was embraced by some in the first Trump administration, even as it was widely denounced by disease experts. Then- NIH director Dr. Francis Collins called it dangerous and “not mainstream science.” His nomination would need to be approved by the Senate. Kennedy has said he would pause NIH’s drug development and infectious disease research and shift its focus to chronic diseases. He also would like to keep NIH funding from researchers with conflicts of interest. In 2017, he said

President-elect Donald Trump is filling key posts in his second administration, and it’s shaping up much differently than his first. He’s prioritizing loyalists for top jobs. Trump was bruised and hampered by internal squabbles during his initial term in office. Now he appears focused on remaking the federal government in his own image. Some of his choices could face difficult confirmation battles even with Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate. Here’s a look at whom he has selected so far. Cabinet nominees: SECRETARY OF STATE: Marco Rubio Trump named Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to be secretary of state, making the critic-turned-ally his choice for top diplomat. Rubio, 53, is a noted hawk on China, Cuba and Iran, and was a finalist to be Trump’s running mate on the Republican ticket last summer. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “He will be a strong Advocate for our Nation, a true friend to our Allies, and a fearless Warrior who will never back down to our adversaries,” Trump said of Rubio in a statement. The announcement punctuates the hard pivot Rubio has made with Trump, whom the senator once called a “con man” during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Their relationship improved dramatically while Trump was in the White House. And as Trump campaigned for the presidency a third time, Rubio cheered his proposals. For instance, Rubio, who more than a decade ago helped craft immigration legislation that included a path to citizenship for people in the U.S. illegally, now supports Trump’s plan to use the U.S. military for mass deportations. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Matt Gaetz Trump said Wednesday he will nominate Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as his attorney general, naming a loyalist in the role of the nation’s top prosecutor. In selecting Gaetz, 42, Trump passed over some of the more established lawyers whose names had been mentioned as being contenders for the job. “Matt will end Weaponized Government, protect our Borders, dismantle Criminal Organizations and Restore Americans’ badly-shattered Faith and Confidence in the Justice Department,” Trump said in a statement. Gaetz resigned from Congress Wednesday night. The House Ethics Committee has been investigating an allegation that Gaetz paid for sex with a 17-year-old, though that probe effectively ended when he resigned. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Tulsi Gabbard Former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by Trump to be director of national intelligence, another example of Trump prizing loyalty over experience. Gabbard, 43, was a Democratic House member who unsuccessfully sought the party’s 2020 presidential nomination before leaving the party in 2022. She endorsed Trump in August and campaigned often with him this fall, and she’s been accused of echoing Russian propaganda. “I know Tulsi will bring the fearless spirit that has defined her illustrious career to our Intelligence Community,” Trump said in a statement. Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades, deploying to Iraq and Kuwait, would come to the role as an outsider compared to her predecessor. The current director, Avril Haines, was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 following several years in a number of top national security and intelligence positions. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Pete Hegseth Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s

Headlines from the satirical website the Onion on Thursday: “New Dating Site Suggests People You Already Know But Thought You Were Too Good For.” “Trump Boys Have Slap Fight Over Who Gets to Run Foreign Policy Meetings.” “Here’s Why I Decided to Buy Infowars.” Only one has the ring of truth. Sort of. The bylined author of the Infowars article, Bryce P. Tetraeder, doesn’t actually exist. And the Onion doesn’t plan to invest in business school scholarships for promising cult leaders. But the Onion’s purchase of Alex Jones’ conspiracy-theory-saturated media empire at a bankruptcy auction tied to lawsuits by the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims is very real — an effort to fight falsehoods with funny and a who’d-have-thunk-it development in an already somewhat unbelievable year. An element of doubt was added late Thursday when the judge in Jones’ bankruptcy case ordered a hearing for next week on how the auction was conducted. On Thursday, The Onion immediately shut down Infowars and said it plans to relaunch it in January as a parody of conspiracy theorists. “Our goal in a couple of years is for people to think of Infowars as the funniest and dumbest website that exists,” said Ben Collins, the Onion’s CEO. “It was previously the dumbest website that exists.” It’s the end — at least for now — of a long chapter The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, was backed by Sandy Hook families, who were awarded nearly $1.5 billion in lawsuits against Jones for his false claims that the 2012 shootings at a Connecticut elementary school were a hoax. The new Infowars will be a satire of theories Jones advanced, which themselves were so absurd that they could have seemed satirical if they hadn’t caused real-life harm. The development ends one tentacle of a loose network of podcasters, TikTok influencers and others whose content keeps people perpetually provoked and enraged, Collins said. He called Jones one small character in a universe of fear-based media. “They’ve had a free pass to this point and we don’t think that’s fair,” he said. At the very least, he said, the Onion hopes to return some fun to the Internet to offset years of doomscrolling. In Collins, who once covered misinformation for NBC News, the new venture has a leader uniquely suited to what is being attempted, said Dale Beran, who made this year’s Netflix documentary, “The Anti-Social Network,” about the topic. The Onion, founded as a newspaper in 1988, has gone through several ownership changes and was purchased earlier this year by a group that includes Jeff Lawson, co-founder of the software company Twilio. Since then, Beran said, it “feels like there is new life breathed into it.” Done well, a satirical site on conspiracy theories and those who traffic in them could meet a historical moment much like comedian Stephen Colbert did when his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” mocked pompous conservative television talk show hosts a decade and more ago. And what will happen when some of Jones’ casual fans who didn’t follow the news of the bankruptcy auction log on to Infowars in a few months only to find the Onion’s new creation? Probably not much, said Beran, who suggested it’s unlikely there’s much overlap between people attracted by conspiracy theories and those who want to mock them. Conspiracy theories abound

This presidential election, the first since the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, will be a stress test of the new systems and guardrails that Congress put in place to ensure America’s long tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power. As Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris race toward the finish, pro-democracy advocates and elected officials are preparing for a volatile period in the aftermath of Election Day, as legal challenges are filed, bad actors spread misinformation and voters wait for Congress to affirm the results. “One of the unusual characteristics of this election is that so much of the potential danger and so many of the attacks on the election system are focused on the post-election period,” said Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. After the Jan. 6 attack, Congress set out to shore up the process and prevent a repeat of that unprecedented period when Trump, joined by some GOP allies in Congress, refused to concede defeat to President Joe Biden. Trump spent months pushing dozens of failed legal cases before sending his supporters to the U.S. Capitol, where they disrupted the electoral count with a bloody riot. He faces a federal indictment for the scheme, which included slates of fake electors from states falsely claiming he won. While the new Electoral Count Reform Act approved by Congress has clarified the post-election processes — to more speedily resolve legal challenges and reinforce that the vice president has no ability to change the election outcome on Jan. 6 — the new law is by no means ironclad. Much depends on the people involved, from the presidential winners and losers to the elected leaders in Congress and the voters across America putting their trust in the democratic system that has stood for more than 200 years. Voters are worried about post-election strife A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that American voters are approaching the election with deep unease about what could follow. Dick Gephardt, the former House leader, now serves on the executive board of the nonpartisan Keep our Republic, which has been working to provide civic education about the process in the presidential battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. “We are concerned about one thing and one thing only: Can Americans still have valid trust in elections and can we have consistently a peaceful transfer of power in all offices, including the presidency?” Gephardt said in a briefing earlier this month. “January 6th in 2021 was really a wake-up call, I think, for all of us,” he said. It’s not just the onslaught of legal challenges that worries democracy groups, as dozens of cases already have been filed by both Republicans and Democrats even before Election Day. They say the sheer volume of cases has the potential to sow doubt in the election tally and give rise to disinformation, both domestic and foreign, as happened in 2020 when Trump’s legal team unfurled far-flung theories that proved to be wildly inaccurate. As Trump runs to retake the White House, he is already setting the stage for challenges to the election he wants to be “too big to rig.” The Republican National Committee has made legal strategy a cornerstone of its Election Integrity program. Trump is backed by Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has adopted similar language, saying he would accept

RTX Corporation, the defense contractor formerly known as Raytheon, agreed Wednesday to pay more than $950 million to resolve allegations that it defrauded the government and paid bribes to secure business with Qatar. The company entered into deferred prosecution agreements in separate cases in federal court in Brooklyn and Massachusetts, agreed to hire independent monitors to oversee compliance with anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws and must show good conduct for three years. The money the company owes includes penalties in the criminal cases, as well as civil fines, restitution and the return of profits it derived from inflated Defense Department billing and business derived from alleged bribes paid to a high-ranking Qatari military official from 2012 to 2016. The biggest chunk is a $428 million civil settlement for allegedly lying to the government about its labor and material costs to justify costlier no-bid contracts and drive the company’s profits higher, and for double-billing the government on a weapons maintenance contract. The total also includes nearly $400 million in criminal penalties in the Brooklyn case, involving the alleged bribes, and in the Massachusetts case, in which the company was accused of inflating its costs by $111 million for missile systems from 2011 to 2013 and the operation of a radar surveillance system in 2017. RTX also agreed to pay a $52.5 million civil penalty to resolve a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the bribery allegations and must forfeit at least $66 million to satisfy both probes. At a hearing in Brooklyn federal court, RTX lawyers waived their right to an indictment and pleaded not guilty to charges that the company violated the anti-bribery provision of the Foreign Corruption Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act. They did not object to any allegations in court documents filed with the agreement. RTX said in a statement that it is “taking responsibility for the misconduct that occurred” and is “committed to maintaining a world-class compliance program, following global laws, regulations and internal policies, while upholding integrity and serving our customers in an ethical matter.” The various legal resolutions came to light over the span of several hours. First, at the Brooklyn hearing, prosecutors revealed that RTX was to pay a $252 million penalty to resolve criminal charges in the bribery case. Then, court documents hit the docket in Boston showing another criminal penalty of nearly $147 million to resolve the missile and radar case. Finally, hours later, the Justice Department issued a press release putting the total north of $950 million. Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement that the resolution of the cases “should serve as a stark warning to companies that violate the law when selling sensitive military technology overseas.” A message seeking comment was left for the Qatari embassy in Washington. RTX said in a July regulatory filing that it set aside $1.24 billion to resolve pending legal and regulatory matters. Its president and CEO, Christopher Calio, told investors that the investigations largely involved issues that predated the Raytheon-United Technologies merger that formed the current company in 2020. “These matters primarily arose out of legacy Raytheon Company and Rockwell Collins prior to the merger and acquisition of these companies,” Calio said. “We’ve already taken robust corrective actions to address the

Safety investigators are making “urgent” recommendations to Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration after determining pedals that pilots use to steer 737 Max jetliners on runways can become jammed because moisture can leak into a rudder assembly and freeze. The National Transportation Safety Board issued the recommendations Thursday following its investigation of an incident earlier this year involving a United Airlines plane. The FAA said United is the only U.S. airline affected by the recommendations, and it believes the parts susceptible to jamming are no longer in use. Collins Aerospace, a Boeing supplier, determined that a sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled on actuators for rudders that pilots adjust to stay in the center of the runway after landing. Collins told Boeing that the faulty work affected at least 353 actuators that were installed on some Max jets and older 737s, according to the NTSB. The NTSB recommended that Boeing change flight manuals to remove advice that pilots use maximum pedal force to overpower a jammed rudder. The NTSB said that could create sudden rudder movement that might cause the plane to go off the runway. The NTSB recommended that the FAA determine if actuators with incorrectly assembled bearings should be removed until replacements are available. On Feb. 6, the rudder pedals on a United Airlines Boeing Max 8 became stuck as the plane rolled down the runway after landing at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The captain resorted to steering by using the tiller, a handle in the cockpit that turns the wheel under the plane’s nose. The plane veered on to a high-speed turnoff, but no injuries were reported among the 155 passengers and six crew members. (AP)

The Senate will vote for the second time this year on whether to consider legislation that would establish a nationwide right to in vitro fertilization — Democrats’ latest election-year attempt to force Republicans into a defensive stance on women’s health issues. Senators will vote Tuesday on whether to move forward with the legislation, a second try after Republicans already blocked it once earlier this year. The bill has little chance of passing, but Democrats are hoping to use the do-over vote to put pressure on Republican congressional candidates and lay out a contrast between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in the presidential race, especially as Trump has called himself a “ leader on IVF.” The push started earlier this year after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. Several clinics in the state suspended IVF treatments until the GOP-led legislature rushed to enact a law to provide legal protections for the clinics. Democrats quickly capitalized, holding a vote in June on the congressional bill from Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and warning that the U.S. Supreme Court could go after the procedure next after it overturned the right to an abortion in 2022. The legislation would also increase access to the procedure and lower costs. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the floor Tuesday morning that the vote is a “second chance” for Republicans. “Americans are watching, families back home are watching, and couples who want to become parents are watching, too,” Schumer said. All but two Republicans voted to block the Democratic legislation in June, arguing that the federal government shouldn’t tell states what to do and that the bill was an unserious effort. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted with Democrats to move forward on the bill. Meanwhile, Republicans have scrambled to counter Democrats on the issue, with many making clear that they support IVF treatments. Trump last month announced plans, without additional details, to require health insurance companies or the federal government to pay for the fertility treatment. In his debate with Harris earlier this month, Trump said he was a “leader” on the issue and talked about the “very negative” decision by the Alabama court that was later reversed by the legislature. But the issue has threatened to become a vulnerability for Republicans as some state laws passed by their party grant legal personhood not only to fetuses but to any embryos that are destroyed in the IVF process. Ahead of the its convention this summer, the Republican Party adopted a policy platform that supports states establishing fetal personhood through the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law to all American citizens. The platform also encourages supporting IVF but does not explain how the party plans to do so. Democrats say that if Trump wants to improve access to the procedure, then Republicans should vote for their legislation. Duckworth, a military veteran who has used the fertility treatment to have her two children, has led the Senate effort on the legislation. “How dare you,’” she said in comments directed toward her GOP colleagues after the first vote blocking the bill. Republicans have tried to push alternatives on the issue, including legislation that would discourage states

Italo Medelius was leading a volunteer drive to put Cornel West on North Carolina’s presidential ballot last spring when he received an unexpected call from a man named Paul who said he wanted to help. Though Medelius, co-chairman of West’s “Justice for All Party,” welcomed the assistance, the offer would complicate his life, provoking threats and drawing him into a state election board investigation of the motivations, backgrounds and suspect tactics of his new allies. His is not an isolated case. Across the country, a network of Republican political operatives, lawyers and their allies is trying to shape November’s election in ways that favor former President Donald Trump. Their goal is to prop up third-party candidates such as West who offer liberal voters an alternative that could siphon away support from Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee. It is not clear who is paying for the effort, but it could be impactful in states that were decided by miniscule margins in the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden. This is money West’s campaign does not have, and he has encouraged the effort. Last month the academic told The Associated Press that “American politics is highly gangster-like activity” and he “just wanted to get on that ballot.” Trump has offered praise for West, calling him “one of my favorite candidates.” Another is Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Trump favors both for the same reason. “I like her very much. You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.” Democrats are exploring ways to lift Randall Terry, an anti-abortion presidential candidate for the Constitution Party, believing he could draw voters from Trump. But the GOP effort appears to be more far-reaching. After years of Trump accusing Democrats of “rigging” elections, it is his allies who are now mounting a sprawling and at times deceptive campaign to tilt the vote in his favor. “The fact that either of the two major parties would attempt financially and otherwise to support a third-party spoiler candidate as part of its effort to win is an unfortunate byproduct” of current election laws “that facilitate spoilers,” said Edward B. Foley, a law professor who leads Ohio State University’s election law program. “This phenomenon is equally problematic whichever of the two major party engages in it.” One key figure in the push is Paul Hamrick, the man on the other end of the call with Medelius in North Carolina. Hamrick serves as counsel for the Virginia-based nonprofit People Over Party, which has pushed to get West on the ballot in Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as North Carolina, records show. In an interview, Hamrick declined to say who else besides him was orchestrating the effort and he would not divulge who was funding it. He vigorously disputed any suggestion that he was a Republican, but acknowledged that he was not a Democrat, either. His history is complex. Hamrick was chief of staff to former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a one-term Democrat who was booted from office in 2003 and later was convicted and sentenced to prison on federal bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud charges. Hamrick was charged alongside his former boss in two separate cases. One was dismissed and he was acquitted in the other. Though he insists he is not a

A body camera captured every word and bark uttered as police Sgt. Matt Gilmore and his K-9 dog, Gunner, searched for a group of suspects for nearly an hour. Normally, the Oklahoma City police sergeant would grab his laptop and spend another 30 to 45 minutes writing up a report about the search. But this time he had artificial intelligence write the first draft. Pulling from all the sounds and radio chatter picked up by the microphone attached to Gilmore’s body camera, the AI tool churned out a report in eight seconds. “It was a better report than I could have ever written, and it was 100% accurate. It flowed better,” Gilmore said. It even documented a fact he didn’t remember hearing — another officer’s mention of the color of the car the suspects ran from. Oklahoma City’s police department is one of a handful to experiment with AI chatbots to produce the first drafts of incident reports. Police officers who’ve tried it are enthused about the time-saving technology, while some prosecutors, police watchdogs and legal scholars have concerns about how it could alter a fundamental document in the criminal justice system that plays a role in who gets prosecuted or imprisoned. Built with the same technology as ChatGPT and sold by Axon, best known for developing the Taser and as the dominant U.S. supplier of body cameras, it could become what Gilmore describes as another “game changer” for police work. “They become police officers because they want to do police work, and spending half their day doing data entry is just a tedious part of the job that they hate,” said Axon’s founder and CEO Rick Smith, describing the new AI product — called Draft One — as having the “most positive reaction” of any product the company has introduced. “Now, there’s certainly concerns,” Smith added. In particular, he said district attorneys prosecuting a criminal case want to be sure that police officers — not solely an AI chatbot — are responsible for authoring their reports because they may have to testify in court about what they witnessed. “They never want to get an officer on the stand who says, well, ‘The AI wrote that, I didn’t,’” Smith said. AI technology is not new to police agencies, which have adopted algorithmic tools to read license plates, recognize suspects’ faces, detect gunshot sounds and predict where crimes might occur. Many of those applications have come with privacy and civil rights concerns and attempts by legislators to set safeguards. But the introduction of AI-generated police reports is so new that there are few, if any, guardrails guiding their use. Concerns about society’s racial biases and prejudices getting built into AI technology are just part of what Oklahoma City community activist aurelius francisco finds “deeply troubling” about the new tool, which he learned about from The Associated Press. francisco prefers to lowercase his name as a tactic to resist professionalism. “The fact that the technology is being used by the same company that provides Tasers to the department is alarming enough,” said francisco, a co-founder of the Foundation for Liberating Minds in Oklahoma City. He said automating those reports will “ease the police’s ability to harass, surveil and inflict violence on community members. While making the cop’s job easier, it makes Black

Conflicting federal policies may force thousands of residents in flood-prone areas to pay more for flood insurance or be left unaware of danger posed by dams built upstream from their homes and worksites, according to an Associated Press review of federal records and data. The problem stems from a complex set of flood policies and some national security precautions taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. To get the best discount on flood insurance, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s points-based rating system requires communities to chart all the homes, businesses and critical facilities endangered by a potential dam failure and warn people of their risk. But that’s difficult or even impossible in some communities, because other federal agencies restrict the release of such information for hundreds of dams that they own or regulate across the U.S., citing security risks. The quandary has persisted for years, though federal officials have been warned of its implications. Federal “dam information sharing procedures costs communities points, homeowners money, and potentially citizens lives,” a California emergency services official warned in a January 2020 presentation to FEMA’s National Dam Safety Review Board at an invitation-only meeting attended by dozens of federal and state officials. The meeting’s minutes were provided to the AP this summer, nearly two-and-half years after the news organization submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to FEMA. Since that meeting, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun publicly posting maps of areas that could be flooded if one of its hundreds of dams were to fail. But similar information remains restricted by other federal agencies, including by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates about 1,800 power-producing dams, and by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, whose 430 dams in the western U.S. include some of the nation’s largest structures. The Bureau of Reclamation said in response to questions from the AP that it is revising its policies and will start sharing more information about dam-failure inundation zones in 2025, though it said the process could take more than eight years to complete for all its dams. Meanwhile, FEMA is accepting public comment through Sept. 9 on potential revisions to its Community Rating System, which awards discounts on flood insurance in communities that take steps to reduce risks. During a FEMA public hearing Wednesday, the floodplain administrator for Phoenix — the nation’s fifth largest city — raised concerns that the conflicting federal policies regarding dam flood zones were unfair to communities trying to get better insurance discounts for their residents. “I believe this is a punishment to us,” Phoenix floodplain administrator Nazar Nabaty told FEMA officials. One community’s frustrations Another community that has been affected by the information-sharing gap is Sacramento, California, which ranks among the most at-risk regions in the U.S. for catastrophic flooding. California’s capital sits at the confluence of two rivers and about 25 miles (40 kilometers) downstream from Folsom Dam, a large Bureau of Reclamation structure with a capacity that could cover the equivalent of the entire state of Rhode Island with a foot of water. During a review about five years ago, Sacramento County achieved one of the best-ever scores in FEMA’s rating system. But the county did not qualify for the top flood-insurance discount because the Bureau of Reclamation’s restrictions regarding Folsom Dam made it impossible

Ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield. “Too little law and we’re not safe, and our liberties aren’t protected,” Gorsuch told The Associated Press in an interview in his Supreme Court office. “But too much law and you actually impair those same things.” “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” is being published Tuesday by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Gorsuch has received a $500,000 advance for the book, according to his annual financial disclosure reports. In the interview, Gorsuch refused to be drawn into discussions about term limits or an enforceable code of ethics for the justices, both recently proposed by President Joe Biden at a time of diminished public trust in the court. Justice Elena Kagan, speaking a couple of days before Biden, separately said the court’s ethics code, adopted by the justices last November, should have a means of enforcement. But Gorsuch did talk about the importance of judicial independence. “I’m not saying that there aren’t ways to improve what we have. I’m simply saying that we’ve been given something very special. It’s the envy of the world, the United States judiciary,” he said. The 56-year-old justice was the first of three Supreme Court nominees of then-President Donald Trump, and they have combined to entrench a conservative majority that has overturned Roe v. Wade, ended affirmative action in college admissions, expanded gun rights and clipped environmental regulations aimed at climate change, as well as air and water pollution more generally. A month ago, the Supreme Court completed a term in which Gorsuch and the court’s five other conservative justices delivered sharp rebukes to the administrative state in three major cases, including the decision that overturned the 40-year-old Chevron decision that had made it more likely that courts would sustain regulations. The court’s three liberal justices dissented each time. Gorsuch also was in the majority in ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution in a decision that indefinitely delayed the election interference case against Trump. What’s more, the justices made it harder to use a federal obstruction charge against people who were part of the mob that violently attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden in the 2020 election. Gorsuch defended the immunity ruling as necessary to prevent presidents from being hampered while in office by threats of prosecution once they leave. The court had to wrestle with an unprecedented situation, he said. “Here we have, for the first time in our history, one presidential administration bringing criminal charges against a prior president. It’s a grave question, right? Grave implications,” Gorsuch said. But in the book, co-authored by a former law clerk, Janie Nitze, Gorusch largely sets those big issues aside and turns his focus to a fisherman, a magician, Amish farmers, immigrants, a hair braider and others who risked jail time, large fines, deportation and other hardships over unyielding rules. In 18 years as a judge, including the past seven on the Supreme Court, Gorsuch said, “There were just so many cases that came to me in which I saw ordinary Americans, just everyday, regular people

One child was killed and another was injured after a wind gust blew a bounce house into the air at a baseball game in Maryland on Friday night, local officials said. Local emergency personnel received a call in Waldorf, Maryland, at about 9:21 p.m. Friday from the Regency Furniture Stadium reporting that a moon bounce house became airborne because of a wind gust while children were inside. At the time, the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs minor league baseball team was playing a game, and “the moon bounce was carried approximately 15 to 20 feet up in the air, causing children to fall before it landed on the playing field,” according to a news release from the Charles County government posted on its website. Emergency personnel who were already at the stadium for the game, along with trainers from the baseball team and several volunteer first responders, began caring for patients within minutes, the release said. A 5-year-old boy from La Plata, Maryland, was flown to Children’s National Hospital in Washington, where he was later pronounced dead, the release said. A second child also was flown out by Maryland State Police with non-life-threatening injuries. Courtney Knichel, general manager of the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs said in a statement released by Charles County that “our entire organization shares our condolences with the family mourning the loss of a child, and concern for the child who was injured.” Charles County Government Commission President Reuben B. Collins II also expressed his condolences. “We extend our deepest empathy to the children and their families during this difficult time,” he said. “We thank our EMS team and the Maryland State Police for their swift actions to ensure the children received immediate care.” The team canceled Saturday night’s baseball game and is offering counseling and support to families, players and fans who attended the game, the Charles County release said. (AP)

The Senate will pursue a spending increase next year of about 3.4% for defense and 2.7% increase for non-defense programs under an agreement reached by top Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the Senate Appropriations Committee, setting up a certain clash with the House, which is pursuing less spending in both categories. Under an agreement reached last year by President Joe Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, spending was set to increase 1% for defense and non-defense programs in fiscal year 2025, bringing the tallies to about $780.4 billion for non-defense and $895.2 billion for defense. Some senators said the increase would not keep up with inflation and would be tantamount to a cut for many programs. The bipartisan Senate agreement unveiled this week will provide $13.5 billion more in emergency funding for non-defense programs and $21 billion more for defense programs than the Biden-McCarthy agreement provided. Meanwhile, House Republicans are pursuing a more austere course, allowing for a 1% increase for defense, but significant cuts for non-defense, coming to a roughly 6% cut on average, though some programs would be cut much more and some GOP priorities not at all. While some Republican senators were clamoring for more defense spending, Democrats insisted on similar treatment for non-defense programs. “I have made clear that we cannot fail to address the insufficient funding levels facing us and that I absolutely will not leave pressing nondefense needs behind,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Murray has been negotiating with Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee, on discretionary spending for next year. Such spending does not include mandatory spending on major entitlement programs, namely Social Security and Medicare, which represent about two-thirds of annual federal spending and does not require an annual vote by Congress. Collins said the U.S. is facing one of the most perilous security environments in the last 50 years and that threats from Iran, Russia and China “must be met with the resolve to invest in a stronger national defense.” “Under this agreement, additional funding for our military would be accompanied by efforts to halt the flow of fentanyl at our borders, invest in biomedical research, and maintain affordable housing programs,” Collins said. The Republican-led House has been acting more quickly on spending than the Senate. It has passed four of the 12 annual spending bills so far while the Senate has not yet passed any. However, all four House bills have generated veto threats from the White House, drew widespread Democratic opposition and have no chance of passing the Senate in their current form. That means a protracted, monthslong battle that will likely require one or more stopgap spending bills to keep the federal government fully open when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. With the elections and lawmakers spending so much time away from Washington, Congress is not expected to get the final spending bills over the finish line until after the elections. Final passage could also be pushed off to next year if one party manages to win the White House and both chambers of Congress. The agreement that leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee reached on spending comes as the committee was set to take up its first three spending measures on Thursday. (AP)

An independent watchdog within the IRS reported Wednesday that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases with delays that are “unconscionable.” Overall, the 2024 filing season went smoothly, according to the latest National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress, especially after the IRS received a massive funding boost provided by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act that President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022. “Not to be overly dramatic, but during the last four years, I believe we have progressed from a place of despair to a place of hope and optimism for the future of the agency and therefore for taxpayers,” said Erin M. Collins, who leads the organization assigned to protect taxpayers’ rights under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Still, she said, “IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are unconscionable.” The report details the federal tax collector’s performance in modernizing its technologies, the speed with which it answers its phones and the rate it sends out refund checks, among other things. The time it takes to resolve self-reported identity theft cases has worsened since the previous report in January, when it was nearly 19 months. As of April, the IRS took more than 22 months to resolve these cases and had roughly 500,000 unresolved cases in its inventory, according to the report. It said further harm could befall identity theft victims, who are often dealing with other related issues. For instance, tax refunds can be delayed, contributing to financial insecurity. “These delays are particularly challenging for low-income taxpayers who may rely on these refunds to pay their day-to-day living expenses or expenses accrued throughout the year, such as medical bills. In addition, these identity theft victims may struggle to secure certain kinds of loans, such as mortgages,” the report said. In response to the Wednesday report, the IRS said in an emailed statement that “although taxpayers continued to see major improvements from the IRS during the 2024 tax season, the IRS recognizes that the backlog of identity theft cases remains one of the most significant ongoing service gaps.” The agency is working on improvements, according to the statement, including “identifying, training and moving additional resources to work these important cases” and “engaging with stakeholders within and outside the IRS to identify and prevent evolving tax-related identity theft threats.” The IRS originally received an $80 billion infusions under the Inflation Reduction Act, but that money is vulnerable to potential cutbacks. Last year’s debt ceiling and budget cuts deal between Republicans and the White House resulted in $1.4 billion rescinded from the agency and a separate agreement to take $20 billion from the IRS over the next two years and divert those funds to other nondefense programs. Additional money for the IRS has been politically controversial since 2013 when the agency during the Obama administration was found to have scrutinized political groups that applied for tax-exempt status. A report by the Treasury Department’s internal watchdog found that both conservative and liberal groups were chosen for close review. “I believe the IRS has turned the corner, and with the additional multiyear funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, particularly for Taxpayer Services and information technology modernization,” Collins said. “I am bullish that the taxpayer experience will continue to

Improved weather conditions aided firefighters Tuesday as they battled a rural northern California wildfire that destroyed two structures and threatened the community of Palermo, which is near where the state’s deadliest wildfire struck six years ago. The fire spread over about 1 square mile (2.6 square kilometers) in the initial hours Monday evening but was static overnight and containment reached 15%, said Capt. Dan Collins of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. Winds subsided, marine air brought some cooling and “the conditions are favorable for us this morning,” he said. An early start to aircraft operations was requested. The cause of the blaze — dubbed the Apache Fire — was under investigation. Evacuation orders were in effect for several areas but Collins did not know how many people were affected. The destroyed structures included one house and an outbuilding that may have been a shed or garage, he said. One firefighter had a minor injury. Palermo had a population of about 9,400 in the 2020 census. The town is about 65 miles (105 kilometers) north of Sacramento. It is part of Butte County, which is also home to Paradise, where California’s deadliest wildfire killed 85 people and destroyed 11,000 homes in 2018. (AP)

Embracing Donald Trump’s strategy of blaming the U.S. justice system after his historic guilty verdict, Republicans in Congress are fervently enlisting themselves in his campaign of vengeance and political retribution as the GOP runs to reclaim the White House. Almost no Republican official has stood up to suggest Trump should not be the party’s presidential candidate for the November election — in fact, some have sought to hasten his nomination. Few others dared to defend the legitimacy of the New York state court that heard the hush money case or the 12 jurors who unanimously rendered their verdict. And those Republicans who expressed doubts about Trump’s innocence or political viability, including his former hawkish national security adviser John Bolton or top-tier Senate candidate Larry Hogan of Maryland, were instantly bullied by the former president’s enforcers and told to “leave the party.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she’s voting for Trump “whether he is a free man or a prisoner of the Biden regime.” She also posted the upside-down American flag that has come to symbolize the “Stop the Steal” movement Trump started with allies before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. The swift, strident and deepening commitment to Trump despite his felony conviction shows how fully Republican leaders and lawmakers have been infused with his unfounded grievances of a “rigged” system and dangerous conspiracies of “weaponized” government, using them in their own attacks on President Joe Biden and the Democrats. Rather than shunning Trump’s escalating authoritarian language or ensuring they will provide checks and balances for a second Trump term, the Republican senators and representatives are upturning longstanding faith in U.S. governance, and setting the stage for what they plan to do if Trump regains power. On Friday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, demanded the prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo appear for a June hearing on the “weaponization of the federal government” and “the unprecedented political prosecution” of Trump — despite the fact that Biden, as president, has no authority over the state courts in New York. “What we’re gearing up for is if Trump wins, he’s going to use the apparatus of the state to target his political opponents,” said Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale and the author of “How Fascism Works.” Stanley said history is full of examples of people not believing the rhetoric of authoritarians. “Believe what they say,” he said. “He’s literally telling you he’s going to use the apparatus of the state to target his political opponents.” At his Trump Tower on Friday in New York, the former president returned to the kinds of attacks he has repeatedly lodged in campaign speeches, portraying Biden as the one who is “corrupt” and the U.S. as a “fascist” nation. Trump called the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “thugs” and said Biden was a “Manchurian candidate,” a phrase inspired by the 1960s movie portraying a puppet of a U.S. political enemy. A Trump campaign memo contained talking points for Republican lawmakers, suggesting they call the case a “sham,” “hoax,” “witch hunt,” “election interference” and “lawfare” designed by Biden, whom it called “crooked.” Biden faces no such charges, and the House GOP’s efforts to impeach the president over his son

America’s first Black astronaut candidate finally rocketed into space 60 years later, flying with Jeff Bezos’ rocket company on Sunday. Ed Dwight was an Air Force pilot when President John F. Kennedy championed him as a candidate for NASA’s early astronaut corps. But he wasn’t picked for the 1963 class. Dwight, now 90, went through a few minutes of weightlessness with five other passengers aboard the Blue Origin capsule as it skimmed space on a roughly 10-minute flight. He called it “a life changing experience.” “I thought I really didn’t need this in my life,” Dwight said shortly after exiting the capsule. ”But, now, I need it in may life …. I am ecstatic.” The brief flight from West Texas made Dwight the new record-holder for oldest person in space — nearly two months older than “Star Trek” actor William Shatner was when he went up in 2021. It was Blue Origin’s first crew launch in nearly two years. The company was grounded following a 2022 accident in which the booster came crashing down but the capsule full of experiments safely parachuted to the ground. Flights resumed last December, but with no one aboard. This was Blue Origin’s seventh time flying space tourists. Dwight, a sculptor from Denver, was joined by four business entrepreneurs from the U.S. and France and a retired accountant. Their ticket prices were not disclosed; Dwight’s seat was sponsored in part by the nonprofit Space for Humanity. Dwight was among the potential astronauts the Air Force recommended to NASA. But he wasn’t chosen for the 1963 class, which included eventual Gemini and Apollo astronauts, including Apollo 11’s Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. NASA didn’t select Black astronauts until 1978, and Guion Bluford became the first African American in space in 1983. Three years earlier, the Soviets launched the first Black astronaut, Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, a Cuban of African descent. After leaving the military in 1966, Dwight joined IBM and started a construction company, before earning a master’s degree in sculpture in the late 1970s. He’s since dedicated himself to art. His sculptures focus on Black history and include memorials and monuments across the country. Several of his sculptures have flown into space. (AP)

O.J. Simpson, who was infamously acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. Simpson’s attorney confirmed he died Wednesday night in Las Vegas. A message posted Thursday on Simpson’s official X account said he died after battling cancer. “He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” the statement said. Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles. Live TV coverage of his arrest after a famous slow-speed chase marked a stunning fall from grace for the sports hero. The public was mesmerized by his “trial of the century” on live TV. His case sparked debates on race, gender, domestic abuse, justice and police misconduct. A criminal court jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members of Brown and Goldman. A decade later, still shadowed by the California wrongful death judgment, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had guns. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other felonies. Imprisoned at age 61, he served nine years in a remote northern Nevada prison, including a stint as a gym janitor. He was not contrite when he was released on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him insist yet again that he was only trying to retrieve sports memorabilia and family heirlooms stolen from him after his criminal trial in Los Angeles. “I’ve basically spent a conflict-free life, you know,” Simpson, whose parole ended in late 2021, said. Public fascination with Simpson never faded. Many debated if he had been punished in Las Vegas for his acquittal in Los Angeles. “I don’t think most of America believes I did it,” Simpson incredulously told The New York Times in 1995, a week after a jury determined he did not kill Brown and Goldman. “I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.” Twelve years later, following an outpouring of public outrage, Rupert Murdoch cancelled a planned book by the News Corp-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the killings. It was to be titled, “If I Did It.” Goldman’s family, still doggedly pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment, won control of the manuscript. They retitled the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.” “It’s all blood money, and unfortunately I had to join the jackals,” Simpson told The Associated Press at the time. He collected $880,000 in advance money for the book, paid through a third party. “It helped me get out of debt and secure my homestead,” he said. Less than two months after losing the rights to the book, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas. One of the artifacts of his murder trial, the carefully tailored tan suit he wore when he was acquitted, was later donated and placed on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Simpson had been told

President Joe Biden on Saturday signed a $460 billion package of spending bills approved by the Senate in time to avoid a shutdown of many key federal agencies. The legislation’s success gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for the 2024 budget year. The measure contains six annual spending bills and had already passed the House. In signing it into law, Biden thanked leaders and negotiators from both parties in both chambers for their work, which the White House said will mean that agencies “may continue their normal operations.” Meanwhile, lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded by a March 22 deadline. “To folks who worry that divided government means nothing ever gets done, this bipartisan package says otherwise,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said after lawmakers passed the measure Friday night just hours before a deadline. He said the bill’s passage would allow for the hiring of more air traffic controllers and rail safety inspectors, give federal firefighters a raise and boost support for homeless veterans, among other things. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 75-22. Lawmakers sought votes on several amendments and wanted to have their say on the bill and other priorities during debate on the floor. It had been unclear midday if senators would be able to avert a short shutdown, though eventual passage was never really in doubt. “I would urge my colleagues to stop playing with fire here,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the top-ranking Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “It would be irresponsible for us not to clear these bills and do the fundamental job that we have of funding government. What is more important?” The votes came more than five months into the current budget year after congressional leaders relied on a series of stopgap bills to keep federal agencies funded for a few more weeks or months at a time while they struggled to reach agreement on full-year spending. In the end, total discretionary spending set by Congress is expected to come in at about $1.66 trillion for the full budget year ending Sept. 30. Republicans were able to keep non-defense spending relatively flat compared with the previous year. Supporters say that’s progress in an era when annual federal deficits exceeding $1 trillion have become the norm. But many Republican lawmakers were seeking much steeper cuts and more policy victories. The House Freedom Caucus, which contains dozens of the GOP’s most conservative members, urged Republicans to vote against the first spending package and the second one still being negotiated. Democrats staved off most of the policy riders that Republicans sought to include in the package. For example, they beat back an effort to block new rules that expand access to the abortion pill mifepristone. They were also able to fully fund a nutrition program for low-income women, infants and children, providing about $7 billion for what is known as the WIC program. That’s a $1 billion increase from the previous year. Republicans were able to achieve some policy wins, however. One provision will prevent the sale of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. Another policy mandate prohibits the Justice Department from investigating parents who exercise free

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Friday that she raised $12 million in February, a haul that will likely allow her to remain in the Republican primary against former President Donald Trump past next week’s Super Tuesday — even though she can’t point to an upcoming state where she expects to beat him. The former ambassador to the United Nations noted that she outraised Trump in January and insisted that the donations have continued to flow despite her not having a long-term plan to challenge — or even really dent — the former president’s commanding lead in the primary. “When I go into a fundraiser,” she said during a meeting with reporters in Washington, “They don’t ask me, ‘What’s your strategy?’ They don’t ask me, ‘What’s your plan?’ All they say is, ‘Thank you for giving me hope.’” Haley got some good news later in the day, when moderate Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins became the first senators to endorse her, defying most top GOP leaders who have lined up behind Trump. Murkowski has her own personal history with the former president, who in 2021 vowed to personally campaign against her when she was up for reelection the following year — though that threat didn’t stop the senator from winning another term in 2022. Collins said late Friday that Haley’s “experience as a successful Governor and as a strong representative of our country as ambassador to the United Nations makes her extremely well-qualified to serve as our first female president. She has the energy, intellect, and temperament that we need to lead our country in these very tumultuous times.” Murkowski’s home state of Alaska and Collins’ home state of Maine are among the 15 holding GOP primaries Tuesday. Haley’s announced February total has not yet been verified by official campaign finance filings. Still, Haley argues that another strong month with donors shows that Republicans are hungry for a viable alternative to Trump. Haley, who is also a former South Carolina governor, is the last Trump challenger standing from a field that was once crowded with more than a dozen Republican White House candidates. Trump has swept every early GOP contest heading into Saturday’s primary in the nation’s capital — including trouncing Haley in South Carolina. But Haley outraised Trump in January, taking in $11.5 million while her allied super PAC brought in another $12 million. The former president’s campaign raised $8.8 million in January with his primary super PAC taking in another $7.3 million. Asked about Haley announcing her strong February fundraising, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election.” “Republican voters have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over,” Cheung said. As Biden steps up his own fundraising and travel around the country amid his own reelection campaign, the president has also zeroed in on Trump while largely assuming the race with Haley is over — calling his presidential predecessor a threat to the nation’s core values and very democracy. Haley says she’s “not anti-Trump” and doesn’t fault Republicans for voting for him in the primary. After her meeting with reporters, she held a campaign rally in Washington ahead of its GOP primary on Saturday — though there are

An inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve increased in January, the latest sign that the slowdown in U.S. consumer price increases is occurring unevenly from month to month. The government reported Thursday that prices rose 0.3% from December to January, up from 0.1% in the previous month. But in a more encouraging sign, prices were up just 2.4% from a year earlier, down from a 2.6% annual pace in December and the smallest such increase in nearly three years. The year-over-year cooldown in inflation is sure to be welcomed by the White House as President Joe Biden seeks re-election. Still, even though average paychecks have outpaced inflation over the past year, many Americans remain frustrated that overall prices are still well above where they were before inflation erupted three years ago. That sentiment, evident in many public opinion polls, could pose a threat to Biden’s re-election bid. January’s month-to-month price increase will likely underscore the concern expressed recently by Federal Reserve officials about the risk of cutting interest rates too soon this year. Minutes from the Fed’s most recent meeting in January showed that most of the policymakers were wary of reducing rates prematurely, before inflation had sustainably returned to the Fed’s 2% target. Thursday’s figures “very much explain why they were right to be cautious,” Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights, a consulting firm, said of Fed officials. “They continue to want to get more confidence.” Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called “core” prices rose 0.4% from December to January, up from 0.1% in the previous month and the biggest increase in a year. And compared with a year earlier, core prices rose 2.8%, barely down from 2.9% in December. Economists consider core prices a better gauge of the likely path of future inflation. Still, January’s jump follows three months of very low readings in core inflation. And in the second half of last year, core prices rose at just a 1.9% annual rate. Fed officials have welcomed the long-term decline in inflation and have continued to signal that they will likely cut their benchmark interest rate multiple times this year. Most economists expect the first reduction to occur in May or June. One trend that is helping keep a lid on price increases is a growing consumer pushback against still-high prices, particularly for packaged foods, cars and other physical goods. CEOs at a range of companies, from PepsiCo to McDonald’s to General Mills, have said in the past month that their companies are slowing price increases for their products to pre-pandemic levels after steeper price hikes had resulted in lower sales volumes. The consumer pushback has come from people like Shannon LoConte, who said she stopped buying name-brand potato chips once their price approached $7 a bag. She has also cut back on Vanilla Coke because the only way to obtain it at an affordable price was to buy it in bulk. “There is a certain point where I had to say enough is enough,” said LoConte, 30, who lives outside Charleston, South Carolina and works in marketing. “If it’s $7 for this bag of chips and I can go get $7 worth of groceries or go make my own baked potatoes, I’m going to just go do that, instead.” Inflation, as measured by the Fed’s

The city of Pittsburgh did not adequately maintain or repair a bridge and failed to act on inspection reports, leading to the corrosion of the structure’s steel legs and its collapse into a ravine, federal investigators said Wednesday. The city-owned Forbes Avenue bridge fell down on Jan. 28, 2022, plunging a bus and four cars about 100 feet (30 meters) into the Fern Hollow Creek. Another vehicle drove off the east bridge abutment and landed on its roof. There were injuries but no one died. After investigators presented their findings, three members of the National Transportation Safety Board agreed that poor inspections and insufficient oversight were among the probable causes of the collapse. “The Fern Hollow Bridge collapse should never have happened,” NTSB chair Jennifer L. Homendy said, describing the incident as a wake-up call. Homendy cited extensive corrosion to the uncoated weathering steel and “repeated failures to act” on damage to the bridge that was known for years. In some areas, the steel had deteriorated to the point of visible holes in the structure. “The city of Pittsburgh was responsible for inspecting and maintaining the Fern Hollow bridge,” said NTSB senior structural engineer Dan Walsh. “Similar maintenance and repair recommendations were made in the inspection reports for more than 15 years leading up to the collapse. But the city failed to act on them, resulting in progressive corrosion to the point of failure.” The office of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey said the administration does not dispute the NTSB findings and noted the bridge inspections were performed by consultants. The city has created a new Bridge Maintenance Division and increased funding for bridge maintenance and repairs by 300%. Pittsburgh communications director Maria Montaño said in an email that the city has since examined inspection reports for all the bridges it owns “and has been working diligently to address all critical tasks identified in those reports.” She said most “high priority” tasks have been resolved or are in the process, and the city has reviewed all of its bridges’ “fracture critical” components and made sure they are draining properly. Four people were injured, two of them severely, when the bridge collapsed just hours before President Joe Biden arrived in Pittsburgh to promote spending on infrastructure. Attorney Steve Barth, who represents bus driver Daryl Luciani in litigation against the city and engineers involved with the bridge, said the NTSB findings confirmed what his own experts had concluded. Barth said there were “multiple levels of failure, from data collection, recording that data, implementation of any recommendations and then oversight.” There are at least six lawsuits involving the bridge collapse, Barth said. Luciani needed shoulder surgery, had back and neck injuries and is dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, Barth said. The accident required Luciani to be out on worker’s compensation for a lengthy period, his lawyer said. Montaño declined to comment on the pending litigation. The presentations expanded on findings released by the NTSB last May, when investigators said drainage problems led to the deterioration of the structure’s legs and that debris, dirt and leaves had not been cleared. The old bridge was about 50 years old when it collapsed and had been under a 26-ton (24,000 kilograms) posted weight limit, with annual inspections required by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation since 2014. Investigators

After months of negotiations and delays, the Senate on Thursday voted to move forward on legislation that would provide wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel. While far from a final vote, it was a momentary victory for Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, a strong supporter of the aid for Ukraine, in particular, despite a growing number in his party who have opposed it. But the deep Republican divide over the aid, along with contentious debate over a border policy compromise with Democrats that was blocked by GOP senators earlier this week, has recently left a small group of senators in his conference fuming — and some even calling for his removal. “WE NEED NEW LEADERSHIP — NOW,” Utah Sen. Mike Lee posted on X after the text of the border bill was released on Sunday evening. He added in another post, “Senate GOP leadership screwed this up — and screwed us.” While McConnell’s job isn’t immediately in danger, and the vast majority of the conference still supports him, the growing anger from a small section of his caucus has rattled GOP senators and upended their regular private meetings, which have devolved into occasional yelling and frustration. Shortly before the vote Thursday to move forward on Ukraine aid, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said McConnell isn’t listening to his members as a growing number of them have opposed the foreign assistance. “He’s so focused on Zelenskyy,” Hawley vented to reporters afterward, speaking of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “He’s got bigger problems than Zelenskyy.” In an interview Thursday with The Associated Press, McConnell said he’s not going anywhere. “They’ve had their shot,” he said of his critics, referring to the 2022 leadership election, in which Florida Sen. Rick Scott challenged him and received 10 votes out of 49 Republicans. He would not say, though, whether he will run for leader again after the November election. “I haven’t made any announcement on that yet,” McConnell said. McConnell, 81, was first elected party leader in 2007 and is now the longest serving party leader in Congress. He has long enjoyed a fierce loyalty from the majority of his GOP conference, many of whom were elected because of his steady acumen on campaigns and benefitted politically from his focus on confirming conservative judges to the federal bench. But the last several years have tested the party stalwart, as he has struggled with some health issues and as Donald Trump has remained a powerful force in the party and become the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination this year. His relationship with the former president has been strained, and the two haven’t talked since before the violent Jan. 6, 2001 attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters. And the critics’ calls for a leadership change have grown louder, and more open, in recent weeks amid the divisions over whether to support the border compromise with Democrats and whether to support aid for Ukraine’s war against Russia. McConnell says he’s seen it all before — internal angst amid the rise of the right-wing tea party almost 15 years ago, and yearly fights over spending, for example. “We’ve always had a lot of divisions,” he said. “I think the fact that we’re in a presidential election, the fact that the border is a huge issue to both sides elevated this