Jurors deliberated for 9.5 hours over two days before convicting Trump of all 34 counts he faced. Trump sat stone-faced as the verdict was being read, while cheering from the street below — where supporters and detractors of the former president were gathered — could be heard in the hallway on the 15th floor of the courthouse.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, set sentencing for July 11, just days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

In New York: Trump holds a rally in the South Bronx as he tries to woo his hometown

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, even as it provides fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless verbal attacks on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.

The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006.

The $130,000 payment was made by Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction. Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services.

Trump has denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued during the trial that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him a target for extortion. They’ve said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and brand as a businessman, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the payments, as driven by personal animus toward Trump as well as fame and money.

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal’s story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider’s view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.

“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

At the trial, He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organization described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal fixer.

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

The trial outcome provides a degree of vindication for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had characterized the case as being about election interference rather than hush money and defended it against criticism from legal experts who called it the weakest of the four prosecutions against Trump.

But it took on added importance not only because it proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only one of the cases to reach a jury before the election.

The other three cases — local and federal charges in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to undo the 2020 election, as well as a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are bogged down by delays or appeals.

BANGKOK (AP) — A Singapore Airlines flight hit severe turbulence over the Indian Ocean and descended 6,000 feet in a span of about three minutes, the carrier said Tuesday, leaving a British man dead and more than two dozen other passengers injured.

The flight was then diverted and landed in stormy weather in Bangkok.

Authorities said the 73-year-old British man may have suffered a heart attack, though that hasn’t been confirmed. His name wasn’t immediately released.

The Boeing 777 flight from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore, with 211 passengers and 18 crew members aboard, landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, the airline said in a Facebook post.

British passenger Andrew Davies told Sky News that “anyone who had a seatbelt on isn’t injured.”

He said that the seatbelt sign was illuminated, but crew members didn’t have time to take their seats.

“Every single cabin crew person I saw was injured in some way or another, maybe with a gash on their head,” Davies said. “One had a bad back, who was in obvious pain.”

Emergency medical crews rushed to help the passengers. Videos posted on the LINE messaging platform by Suvarnabhumi Airport showed several ambulances streaming to the scene.

Kittipong Kittikachorn, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, told a news conference on Tuesday night that the British man appeared to have suffered a heart attack, but medical authorities would need to confirm that.

He said that seven passengers were severely injured, and 23 passengers and nine crew members had what he described as moderate injuries. Sixteen other people with less serious injuries received hospital treatment, while another 14 were treated at the airport, according to Kittipong.

Kittipong said the sudden descent happened as passengers were being served their food. It was Suvarnabhumi Airport’s first time handling a midair turbulence related death, he added.

Thai airport authorities said that the passengers with minor injures, and those who are not injured, are being assisted at a specially assigned location inside the airport terminal.

Thailand’s transport minister, Suriya Jungrungruangkit, said Singapore was dispatching another plane to transport those who could travel to the city-state’s Changi airport.

Mourners begin days of funerals for Iran’s president, others killed in copter crash

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Mourners in black began gathering Tuesday for days of funerals and processions for Iran’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, a government-led series of ceremonies aimed at both honoring the dead and projecting strength in an unsettled Middle East.

For Iran’s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial since millions thronged the streets of Tehran to welcome Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, and also attended his funeral 10 years later. An estimated 1 million turned out in 2020 for processions for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

Whether President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others draw the same crowd remains in question, particularly as Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won his office in the lowest-turnout presidential election in the country’s history and presided over sweeping crackdowns on all dissent. Prosecutors already have warned people over showing any public signs of celebrating his death and a heavy security force presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash.

In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, Revolutionary Guard members carry the flag-draped coffin of President Ebrahim Raisi during a funeral ceremony for him and others who were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday in a mountainous region in the city of Tabriz, Iran, Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Photo: Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

But Raisi, 63, had been discussed as a possible successor for Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His death now throws that selection into question, particularly as there is no heir-apparent cleric for the presidency ahead of planned June 28 elections.

“Raisi’s death comes at a moment when the Islamist regime is consolidated,” wrote Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at the Middle East Institute. “In short, there will be no power vacuum in Tehran; nonetheless, post-Khamenei Iran suddenly looks far less predictable than it did just a few days ago.”

A procession Tuesday morning led by a semitruck carrying the caskets of the dead slowly moved through the narrow streets of downtown Tabriz, the closest major city near the site of the crash Sunday. Thousands in black slowly walked beside the coffins, some throwing flowers up to them as an emcee wept through a loudspeaker for men he described as martyrs. On Wednesday, a funeral presided over by Khamenei will turn into a procession as well.

The caskets later arrived in Tehran to an honor guard at the airport and then went onward to the holy Shiite seminary city of Qom. There, a semitruck surrounded by soldiers in fatigues at one point was swarmed by a crowd of mourners. Some beat their chests and wailed. The truck later picked up speed while others stood alongside the road, watching.

Israeli officials seize AP equipment, take down live Gaza shot, citing new media law

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, accusing the news organization of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

The Qatari satellite channel is among thousands of clients that receive live video feeds from the AP and other news organizations. The AP denounced the move.

“The Associated Press decries in the strongest terms the actions of the Israeli government to shut down our longstanding live feed showing a view into Gaza and seize AP equipment,” said Lauren Easton, vice president of corporate communications at the news organization. “The shutdown was not based on the content of the feed but rather an abusive use by the Israeli government of the country’s new foreign broadcaster law. We urge the Israeli authorities to return our equipment and enable us to reinstate our live feed immediately so we can continue to provide this important visual journalism to thousands of media outlets around the world.”

Officials from the Communications Ministry arrived at the AP location in the southern town of Sderot on Tuesday afternoon and seized the equipment. They handed the AP a piece of paper, signed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, alleging it was violating the country’s foreign broadcaster law.

Shortly before, the equipment was broadcasting a general view of northern Gaza. The AP complies with Israel’s military censorship rules, which prohibit broadcasts of details like troops movements that could endanger soldiers. The live shot has generally shown smoke rising over the territory.

The seizure followed a verbal order Thursday to cease the live transmission — which the news organization refused to do.

“In accordance with the government decision and the instruction of the communications minister, the communications ministry will continue to take whatever enforcement action is required to limit broadcasts that harm the security of the state,” the ministry said in a statement.

Editors’ note: MyNorthwest editors constructed this roundup using material from The Associated Press.

Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc. said its former chairman died at his home on Saturday. He was 90.

“Our dad leaves a powerful legacy as a legendary business leader, a generous community citizen and a loyal friend,” said a statement from his sons, Nordstrom CEO Erik Nordstrom and Pete Nordstrom, the company’s president.

The chain traces its roots back to a Seattle shoe store opened by Swedish immigrant John Nordstrom and a partner in 1901.

Bruce Nordstrom and other members of the third generation took leadership reins in 1968. They brought the company public in 1971 and expanded its footprint across the U.S. while also launching the lower-priced Nordstrom Rack stores.

Bruce Nordstrom retired from his executive role in 1995 as the third generation handed over leadership to the fourth. He retired as chairman of Nordstrom’s board of directors in 2006.

He was one of several Nordstrom family members who in 2017 made a push to take the company private, proposing to buy out the 70% of the department store’s stock they didn’t already own. Those talks failed in 2018 but earlier this year, his sons started another series of buyout negotiations.

In addition to two sons, Nordstrom’s survivors include his wife, Jeannie, his sister and fellow philanthropist Anne Gittinger, and seven grandchildren.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in connection with their actions during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.

Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.

Israel is not a member of the court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its war, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the chief prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders is “a historic disgrace that will be remembered forever.”

He said he would form a special committee to fight back against any such action and would work with world leaders to ensure that any such warrants are not enforced on Israel’s leaders.

Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.

Benny Gantz, a former military chief and member of Israel’s War Cabinet with Netanyahu and Gallant, harshly criticized Khan’s announcement, saying Israel fights with “one of the strictest” moral codes and has a robust judiciary capable of investigating itself.

“The State of Israel is waging one of the just wars fought in modern history following a reprehensible massacre perpetrated by terrorist Hamas on the 7th of October,” he said. “The prosecutor’s position to apply for arrest warrants is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generations.”

WikiLeaks founder Assange wins right to appeal against extradition order to US

LONDON (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal against extradition to the United States on espionage charges, a London court ruled Monday — a decision likely to further drag out an already long legal saga.

High Court judges Victoria Sharp and Jeremy Johnson ruled for Assange after his lawyers argued that the U.S. government provided “blatantly inadequate” assurances that he would have the same free speech protections as an American citizen if extradited from Britain.

Assange, 52, has been indicted on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over his website’s publication of a trove of classified U.S. documents almost 15 years ago.

Hundreds of supporters cheered and applauded outside court as news of the ruling reached them from inside the Royal Courts of Justice.

Assange’s wife, Stella, said the U.S. had tried to put “lipstick on a pig — but the judges did not buy it.” She said the U.S. should “read the situation” and drop the case.

“As a family we are relieved but how long can this go on?” she said. “This case is shameful and it is taking an enormous toll on Julian.”

Julian Assange greets supporters outside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, May 19, 2017. (File photo: Frank Augstein, AP)

The Australian computer expert has spent the last five years in a British high-security prison after taking refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years. Assange was not in court to hear the ruling because of health reasons, his lawyer said.

American prosecutors allege that Assange encouraged and helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks published.

Assange’s lawyers have argued he was a journalist who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sending him to the U.S., they said, would expose him to a politically motivated prosecution and risk a “flagrant denial of justice.”

Inquiry slams UK authorities for failures that killed thousands in infected blood scandal

LONDON (AP) — British authorities and the country’s public health service knowingly exposed tens of thousands of patients to deadly infections through contaminated blood and blood products, and hid the truth about the disaster for decades, an inquiry into the U.K.’s infected blood scandal found Monday.

An estimated 3,000 people in the United Kingdom are believed to have died and many others were left with lifelong illnesses after receiving blood or blood products tainted with HIV or hepatitis in the 1970s to the early 1990s.

The scandal is widely seen as the deadliest disaster in the history of Britain’s state-run National Health Service since its inception in 1948.

Former judge Brian Langstaff, who chaired the inquiry, slammed successive governments and medical professionals for “a catalogue of failures” and refusal to admit responsibility to save face and expense. He found that deliberate attempts were made to conceal the scandal, and there was evidence of government officials destroying documents.

“This disaster was not an accident. The infections happened because those in authority — doctors, the blood services and successive governments — did not put patient safety first,” he said. “The response of those in authority served to compound people’s suffering.”

Campaigners have fought for decades to bring official failings to light and secure government compensation. The inquiry was finally approved in 2017, and over the past four years it reviewed evidence from more than 5,000 witnesses and more than 100,000 documents.

Many of those affected were people with hemophilia, a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot. In the 1970s, patients were given a new treatment that the U.K. imported from the United States. Some of the plasma used to make the blood products was traced to high-risk donors, including prison inmates, who were paid to give blood samples.

Because manufacturers of the treatment mixed plasma from thousands of donations, one infected donor would compromise the whole batch.

The report said around 1,250 people with bleeding disorders, including 380 children, were infected with HIV -tainted blood products. Three-quarters of them have died. Up to 5,000 others who received the blood products developed chronic hepatitis C, a type of liver infection.

Meanwhile an estimated 26,800 others were also infected with hepatitis C after receiving blood transfusions, often given in hospitals after childbirth, surgery or an accident, the report said.

Editors’ note: MyNorthwest editors constructed this roundup using material from The Associated Press.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in the Shiite theocracy, quickly named a little-known vice president as caretaker and insisted the government was in control, but the deaths mark yet another blow to a country beset by pressures both at home and abroad.

Iran has offered no cause for the crash nor suggested sabotage brought down the helicopter, which fell in mountainous terrain in a sudden, intense fog.

In Tehran, Iran’s capital, businesses were open and children attended school Monday. However, there was a noticeable presence of both uniformed and plainclothes security forces downtown.

The crash comes as the Israel-Hamas war roils the region. Iran-backed Hamas led the attack that started the conflict, and Hezbollah, also supported by Tehran, has fired rockets at Israel. Last month, Iran launched its own an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel.

A hard-liner who formerly led the country’s judiciary, Raisi was viewed as a protege of Khamenei. During his tenure, relations have also continued to deteriorate with the West as Iran enriched uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

His government has also faced years of mass protests over the ailing economy and women’s rights — making the moment that much more sensitive.

The crash killed all eight people aboard a Bell helicopter, which Iran purchased in the early 2000s, according to the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Among the dead were Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province, a senior cleric from Tabriz, a Revolutionary Guard official, and three crew members, IRNA said.

Iran has flown Bell helicopters extensively since the shah’s era. But aircraft in Iran face a shortage of parts, in part because of Western sanctions, and often fly without safety checks. Against that backdrop, former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sought to blame the United States for the crash in an interview Monday.

“One of the main culprits of yesterday’s tragedy is the United States, which … embargoed the sale of aircraft and aviation parts to Iran and does not allow the people of Iran to enjoy good aviation facilities,” Zarif said. “These will be recorded in the list of U.S. crimes against the Iranian people.”

State TV gave no immediate cause for the crash that occurred in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. Footage released by IRNA early Monday showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range.

More from the Middle East: Israel, Iran play down apparent Israeli strike. The muted responses could calm tensions — for now

The U.S. has yet to comment publicly on Raisi’s death. Ali Bagheri Kani, a nuclear negotiator for Iran, will serve as the country’s acting foreign minister, state TV said.

Condolences poured in from neighbors and allies after Iran confirmed there were no survivors from the crash. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on the social media platform X that his country “stands with Iran in this time of sorrow.” Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a statement released by the Kremlin, described Raisi “as a true friend of Russia.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, China’s Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar Assad also offered condolences. Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, said he and his government were “deeply shocked.” Raisi, 63, was returning Sunday from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where he inaugurated a dam with Aliyev when the crash happened.

The death also stunned Iranians, and Khamenei declared five days of public mourning. But many have been ground down by the collapse of the country’s rial currency and worries about regional conflicts spinning out of control with Israel or even with Pakistan, which Iran exchanged fire with this year as well.

“He tried to carry out his duties well, but I don’t think he was as successful as he should have been,” said Mahrooz Mohammadi Zadeh, 53, a resident of Tehran. “He did carry out his duties, I’m not saying he didn’t, but he was a bit weak.”

Khamenei stressed the business of Iran’s government would continue no matter what — but Raisi’s death raised the specter of what will happen after the 85-year-old supreme leader either resigns or dies. Final say in all matters of state rest with his office and only two men have held the position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Raisi had been discussed as one possible contender for the role. The only other person so far suggested has been Khamenei’s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, some have raised concerns over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.

For now, Khamenei has named the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, as caretaker, in line with the constitution, which says a new presidential election should be called within 50 days.

Mokhber had already begun receiving calls from officials and foreign governments in Raisi’s absence, state media reported.

An emergency meeting of Iran’s Cabinet was held as state media made the announcement Monday morning. The Cabinet issued a statement afterward pledging it would follow Raisi’s path and that “with the help of God and the people, there will be no problem with management of the country.”

Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. He was sanctioned by the U.S. in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under Raisi, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections. Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine, as well as launched a massive drone-and-missile attack on Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It also has continued arming proxy groups in the Mideast, like Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, mass protests in the country have raged for years. The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over her allegedly loose headscarf, or hijab. The monthslong security crackdown that followed the demonstrations killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.

Raisi is the second Iranian president to die in office. In 1981, a bomb blast killed President Mohammad Ali Rajai in the chaotic days after the country’s Islamic Revolution.

A grand jury indicted Jesse Lee Calhoun, 39, on second-degree murder charges in the deaths of Charity Lynn Perry, 24; Bridget Leanne Webster, 31; and Joanna Speaks, 32, the Multnomah County district attorney announced Friday. Perry and Webster were found in Oregon, while Speaks was found in an abandoned barn in southwestern Washington.

“Today’s indictment of Jesse Calhoun marks a significant step toward justice,” Multnomah County Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell told a news conference at Portland police headquarters. “We recognize that until today, there have been many questions and that their deaths have caused fear and anxiety across our area and for the families that have been waiting for answers.”

The indictment came just weeks before Calhoun was due to be released from state prison, where he was returned last year to finish serving a four-year term for assaulting a police officer, trying to strangle a police dog, burglary and other charges.

Recent Seattle case: $3M bail set for man accused of murdering chef at light rail station

He was initially released in 2021, a year early, because he was among a group of inmates who helped fight devastating wildfires in 2020. Gov. Tina Kotek revoked the commutation, which was issued by her predecessor, Kate Brown, last year when police began investigating him in the deaths.

Court records did not immediately reflect whether Calhoun has an attorney representing him on the murder charges. Authorities have not divulged what evidence they allege linked him to the deaths. The district attorney’s office said Friday that the charging document was still being finalized.

The families of the three have told reporters they struggled with addiction or mental health issues.

The deaths of two other women — Kristin Smith and Ashley Real, both 22 — are still being investigated, the prosecutor’s office said.

The bodies were found over a three-month period starting in February 2023 — in wooded areas, in a culvert and under a bridge — in a roughly 100-mile radius, sparking concern that a serial killer might be targeting young women in the region. Speaks’ body was found in Clark County, Washington, in April 2023, but investigators have said they believe she was killed in the Portland area.

Last June, the Portland Police Bureau said that speculation about a serial killer was not supported by the available facts — but by July, that had changed, and authorities acknowledged the deaths appeared to be linked.

Real’s body was the most recent one found, on May 7, 2023. Her father, Jose Real, told The Associated Press last year that Calhoun had previously choked her in November 2022. A Portland police officer took an initial report from Real and his daughter, and she gave the officer Calhoun’s name, but she was too scared to help investigators track him down, he said.

Perry’s mother, Diana Allen, and Smith’s mother, Melissa Smith, attended the news conference Friday and credited the work of the detectives.

“It’s been very, very frustrating for us families not to have answers,” Allen said. But, she added, the investigators “cared more about justice for Charity than they did for my feelings. I have to have a level of respect for that.”

Smith said she hopes to eventually have her daughter’s case solved as well.

“We just keep going, we keep waiting, we keep praying,” she said. “Stay hopeful.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — A former Boeing manager who raised safety questions about the aircraft maker as a whistleblower was found dead after several days of depositions in South Carolina took his own life, police said Friday after concluding their investigation.

John Barnett, 62, of Louisiana, was found dead March 9, and police had said earlier that his injuries were self-inflicted.

Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee and worked as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists.

Previous coverage: Boeing whistleblower found dead as the airline manufacturer’s issues snowball

Barnett said he saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wiring and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing’s 787 planes.

“Information and records reviewed during the investigation uncovered Mr. Barnett’s longstanding mental health challenges, which had intensified in connection with ongoing legal proceedings related to his whistleblower case,” police said in a statement.

Barnett was in Charleston answering questions for depositions for his whistleblower complaint, and a hearing on the matter was scheduled for June.

John was deeply concerned about the safety of the aircraft and flying public, and had identified some serious defects that he felt were not adequately addressed,” Barnett’s brother, Rodney, said in a family statement shortly after his death. “He said that Boeing had a culture of concealment and was putting profits over safety.”

Boeing said in a statement, “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends.”

The 27-year-old Scheffler, the world’s No. 1-ranked golfer, was attempting to get to Valhalla Golf Club outside Louisville, Kentucky, around 6 a.m. when police say he illegally bypassed the scene of an accident where a pedestrian was killed.

Scheffler was charged with multiple counts, including second-degree assault of a police officer and reckless driving. He was booked and had his mugshot taken before being released. Scheffler has called the chain of events a “big misunderstanding.”

He returned to Valhalla in time for his 10:08 a.m. tee time. Scheffler received a loud ovation from fans when he was introduced, then birdied his first hole of the day, the par-5 10th.

Who is Scottie Scheffler?

Scheffler arrived at Valhalla this week as a heavy favorite following a run of dominance in the sport not seen since Tiger Woods’ prime. He entered play Thursday having won four of the last five tournaments he entered, including the Masters — one of golf’s four major events — last month at Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia.

The soft-spoken Texan is an unlikely star. He fell in love with the game as a child, sometimes hitting balls in the dark in northern New Jersey while his father Scott held a flashlight.

The Schefflers moved to Dallas during Scottie’s childhood, with Scott Scheffler serving as a “stay-at-home dad” while Scheffler’s mother Diane served as the CEO at a law firm.

Scheffler played multiple sports growing up before ultimately settling on golf. He’s hardly the only player in the family. His sister Callie played collegiately at Texas A&M.

He and his wife Meredith were high-school sweethearts and the Schefflers paint a portrait of a very unassuming life despite Scottie’s jet-fueled rise to fame that began in 2022 when he claimed his first Masters. The process has only sped up over the last few months as Scheffler turned his gap over world No. 2 Rory McIlroy into more of a canyon.

Scheffler is an admitted homebody who prefers playing board games and relaxing by watching Instagram videos rather than indulging in the trappings of his success. He’s won over $61 million already in his career, including $18 million this season alone.

The Schefflers welcomed their first child, son Bennett, on May 8, leading Scheffler to reflect recently on how his life has played out.

“I married my high school sweetheart and I always wanted to play professional golf, and now I’m here,” he said. “I was sitting there with a newborn in my arms and the green jacket in the closet. It was a pretty special time.”

Golfer Scottie Scheffler is seen in a mug shot provided by the Louisville Metropolitan Department of Corrections Friday, May 17, 2024. (Photo: Louisville Metropolitan Department of Corrections via AP)

What happened to Scheffler at the PGA Championship?

Scheffler was attempting to get to Valhalla for an early stretch/workout ahead of his second-round tee time, initially scheduled for 8:48 a.m.

A vendor working at the course was struck and killed by a bus just after 5 a.m. while trying to cross a four-lane road. Traffic was backed up in both directions heading into the course while police conducted an investigation.

Scheffler was driving past the scene at around 6 a.m. when a police officer told him to stop. Police say the officer attached himself to the vehicle Scheffler was operating. Scheffler stopped, and the officer ordered Scheffler out of the car before putting him in handcuffs.

Louisville police say the officer was sent to the hospital after being dragged “to the ground” and suffering “pain, swelling, and abrasions to his left wrist” after Scheffler’s vehicle “accelerated forward.”

Scheffler was booked at 7:28 a.m. — about 2 1/2 hours before his updated tee time after the second round was delayed because of the fatality. He donned an orange jumpsuit and had his mugshot taken before being released. Scheffler said in a statement he never intended to break any traffic laws, expressed sympathy for the “tragic accident” and detailed the sequence of events that led to his arrest as a “big misunderstanding.”

The world’s top-ranked golfer then returned to Valhalla just after 9 a.m., emerging from the clubhouse about 20 minutes later to begin preparations for his round. Wearing a white hat and quarter-zip jacket, he received an ovation as he made his way to the driving range, with one fan yelling “Free Scottie.”

There was a sense of normalcy as Scheffler went through his routine. Fellow PGA Tour player Brendon Todd greeted Scheffler by saying “good to see you.” Todd then showed Scheffler something on Todd’s phone, drawing a small chuckle from both.

Scheffler joined playing partners Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman at the 10th tee, with the gallery erupting when Scheffler was introduced. Scheffler’s initial tee shot found the right rough, though he eventually stuffed his approach shot on the par-5 to 3 feet and tapped in for birdie.

By the time Scheffler was at the midpoint of his round, fans were already wearing white “Free Scottie” T-shirts as they stood behind the ropes a few yards away.

The quick agreement on the timetable to meet followed the Democrat’s announcement that he will not participate in fall presidential debates sponsored by the nonpartisan commission that has organized them for more than three decades. Biden’s campaign instead proposed that media outlets directly organize the debates with the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees. Trump, in a post on his Truth Social site, said he was “Ready and Willing to Debate” Biden.

Hours later, Biden said he accepted an invitation from CNN, adding, “Over to you, Donald.” Trump said on Truth Social he’d be there, adding, “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!” And soon after that, they agreed to the second debate on ABC.

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“Trump says he’ll arrange his own transportation,” Biden wrote on X. “I’ll bring my plane, too. I plan on keeping it for another four years.”

The swiftness with which the match-ups came together reflects how each of the two profoundly unpopular candidates thinks he can get the better of his opponent in a head-to-head showdown. The first debate will play out amid a busy and unsettled political calendar, following the expected conclusion of Trump’s hush money trial in New York, foreign trips by Biden to France and Italy, the end of the Supreme Court’s term, and the expected start of two criminal trials for the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

CNN said that its debate would be held in its Atlanta studios and that “no audience will be present.” It said moderators and other details would be announced later. Disagreements about moderators and debate rules were some of the very questions that prompted the formation of the Commission on Presidential Debates in 1987.

The two campaigns and television networks had held weeks of informal talks on ways to circumvent the commission’s grip on presidential debates, owing to years of complaints and perceived slights, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Biden’s campaign had proposed excluding third-party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from the debates outright. Under the debate commission’s rules, Kennedy or other third-party candidates could qualify if they secured ballot access sufficient to claim 270 Electoral Votes and polled at 15% or higher in a selection of national polls.

Kennedy accused Biden and Trump of “colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want.”

“They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win,” Kennedy said. “Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”

CNN held open the door to Kennedy’s participation if he or any other candidate met polling and ballot access requirements similar to the commission’s.

As recently as Wednesday morning, Trump expressed his desire for a large live audience for his debates with Biden.

“I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds – That’s only because he doesn’t get them,” Trump said. “Just tell me when, I’ll be there.”

Trump has been pushing for more debates and earlier debates, arguing voters should be able to see the two men face off well before early voting begins in September. He has repeatedly said he will debate Biden “anytime, anywhere, any place,” even proposing the two men face off outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is currently on criminal trial in a hush money case. He also has been taunting Biden with an empty lectern at some of his rallies.

Trump’s campaign on Wednesday challenged the Biden campaign to agree to at least two other debates between the two candidates, beside the June and September dates. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden’s campaign has long held a grudge against the nonpartisan commission for failing to evenly apply its rules during the 2020 Biden-Trump matchups — most notably when it didn’t enforce its COVID-19 testing rules on Trump and his entourage.

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Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon on Wednesday sent a letter to the Commission on Presidential Debates to say that Biden’s campaign objected to the fall dates selected by the commission, which come after some Americans begin to vote, repeating a complaint also voiced by the Trump campaign. She also voiced frustrations over the rule violations and the commission’s insistence on holding the debates before a live audience.

“The debates should be conducted for the benefit of the American voters, watching on television and at home — not as entertainment for an in-person audience with raucous or disruptive partisans and donors,” she said. ”As was the case with the original televised debates in 1960, a television studio with just the candidates and moderators is a better, more cost-efficient way to proceed: focused solely on the interests of voters.”

There was little love lost for the commission as well from Trump, who objected to technical issues at his first debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was upset after a debate with Biden was canceled in 2020 after the Republican came down with COVID-19. The Republican National Committee had already promised not to work with commission on the 2024 contests.

The Trump campaign issued a statement on May 1 that objected to the scheduled debates by the commission, saying that the schedule “begins AFTER early voting” and that “this is unacceptable” because voters deserve to hear from the candidates before ballots are cast.

The commission said in a Wednesday statement that “the American public deserves substantive debates from the leading candidates for president and vice president,” adding that its mission is “to ensure that such debates reliably take place and reach the widest television, radio and streaming audience.”

The Biden campaign also proposed that the Biden-Trump debates this year be hosted by “any broadcast organization that hosted a Republican Primary debate in 2016 in which Donald Trump participated, and a Democratic primary debate in 2020 in which President Biden participated — so neither campaign can assert that the sponsoring organization is obviously unacceptable: if both candidates have previously debated on their airwaves, then neither could object to such venue.”

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Those criteria would eliminate Fox News, which did not host a Democratic primary debate in 2020, and potentially NBC News, which did not host a GOP one in 2016 — though its corporate affiliates CNBC and Telmundo were co-hosts of one debate each that year.

In teeing up the debates, both Biden and Trump traded barbs on social media — each claiming victory the last time they faced-off in 2020.

“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate,′ Biden said in a post on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.”

Trump, for his part, said Biden was the “WORST debater I have ever faced – He can’t put two sentences together!”

Cohen endured intense questioning by defense attorney Todd Blanche after providing pivotal testimony tying the presumptive Republican presidential nominee directly to the hush money scheme at the heart of the case.

Trump’s former fixer will return to the witness stand Thursday for more cross-examination before prosecutors rest their case alleging a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by silencing women who alleged sexual encounters with him. Trump denies that he had sex with the women and denies wrongdoing in the case.

Here are some key takeaways from Tuesday’s proceedings:

Trump trial: All of Cohen’s lies

Prosecutors confronted Cohen’s history of falsehoods head-on in an attempt to get ahead of an issue Trump lawyers are seizing on to attack the now-disbarred lawyer’s credibility. Prosecutors also sought to paint Cohen as a devoted Trump loyalist, whose crimes were committed on the former president’s behalf.

Under questioning from prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Cohen admitted that he lied to Congress during an investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, admitting that he lied, among other things, about the number of times he spoke with Trump about a real estate project in Moscow.

Hoffinger also asked Cohen about concerns that he may have lied on the witness stand at the former president’s civil fraud trial last year. In that trial, Cohen insisted he didn’t commit tax evasion, and said he had lied to the judge who accepted his guilty plea on the charge in 2018.

Cohen told Hoffinger he did not dispute the facts of his guilty plea, but that he didn’t think he should’ve been charged with a crime “as a first-time offender who always paid his taxes on the due date.”

Cohen also told jurors he lied repeatedly for Trump, including after Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her from going public right before the 2016 election with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump.

Asked by Hoffinger why he would do so, Cohen said: “Out of loyalty and in order to protect him.”

John and Jake: Gonzaga graduate gets inside look at Trump hush money trial

No longer loyal

Cohen described to jurors how his life and relationship with Trump were upended after the FBI raided his office, apartment and hotel room in 2018. That would lead to Cohen pleading guilty to federal charges and implicating Trump in the hush money scheme. Trump was never charged with any crime related to that federal investigation.

Asked by the prosecutor how he felt at the time, Cohen said: “How to describe your life being turned upside-down? Concerned. Despondent. Angry.”

Initially, Cohen said he felt comforted because Trump, who was in the White House at the time, assured him not to worry. Trump’s lawyers were also continuing to pay his legal fees and he remained part of a joint-defense agreement with Trump and his lawyers, he testified.

But his family eventually convinced him to turn on Trump, Cohen said.

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

After Cohen’s guilty plea, Trump bashed him on Twitter, writing: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

Defense attorney Todd Blanche cross examines Michael Cohen in Manhattan criminal court, Tuesday, May 14, 2024, in New York City. Cohen returned to the witness stand Tuesday, testifying in detail how former president was linked to all aspects of a hush money scheme that prosecutors say was aimed at stifling stories that threatened his 2016 campaign. (Image: Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Defense’s turn to grill

Trump’s team opened their cross-examination by pressing Cohen about critical comments and vulgar social media posts he’s made about the former president since the trial began. The defense’s questions Tuesday didn’t address the facts at the heart of the case but were designed to portray Cohen as a Trump-fixated loyalist who, spurned by his ex-boss, is now on a mission to get fame and revenge.

“Is it fair to say you’re motivated by fame?” Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, asked Cohen.

“No sir, I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Cohen replied. Later he added — in response to a question about whether he was motivated by publicity — that he is “motivated by many things.”

Blanche asked Cohen to listen through headphones to an October 2020 podcast episode in which the former lawyer said Trump needs to wear handcuffs and that “people will not be satisfied until this man is sitting inside a cell.”

Cohen told Blanche he didn’t recall saying that, but added: “I wouldn’t put it past me.”

Blanche also pressed Cohen on whether he wants to see Trump convicted in the case. Cohen initially hedged, saying: “I would like to see accountability. It’s not for me. It’s for the jury and this court.”

But asked again, Cohen responded: “Sure.”

Gag order upheld

While jurors were hearing testimony from Cohen, Trump suffered another legal blow when an appeals court upheld a gag order that limits what he can say about the case.

Trump had challenged the gag order, which bars the former president from commenting publicly about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the case, including the judge’s family and prosecutors other than District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

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

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

Trump’s lawyers argued the gag order is an unconstitutional curb on the presumptive Republican nominee’s free speech rights while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges. The judge has fined Trump for repeatedly violating the gag order and has warned the former president that future violations could send him to jail.

Supporters outside the Trump trial

Limited by what he can say publicly about the case, Trump has been joined at the courthouse by a growing entourage of Republican supporters who echo his complaints about the prosecution. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was the latest to do so Tuesday, attacking the legal system as “corrupt” and the case against Trump a “sham.”

It was a striking moment, underscoring Trump’s political power even as he stands trial on criminal charges.

In remarks to reporters outside the courthouse, Johnson slammed Cohen as a man who has “trouble with the truth” and is “clearly on a mission for personal revenge.” Painting Trump as the victim of a politically motivated legal system, Johnson said the case is “not about justice.”

“The people are losing faith right now in this country, they’re losing faith in our system of justice,” Johnson said. “I came here again today on my own to support President Trump because I am one of hundreds of millions of people and one citizen who is deeply concerned about this,” he said.

Biden, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, said that the U.S. was still committed to Israel’s defense and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms but that if Israel goes into Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used.”

Biden acknowledged that “civilians have been killed in Gaza” by the type of heavy bombs that the U.S. has been supplying — his first validation of what administration critics have been loudly protesting, even if he still stopped short of taking responsibility. His threat to hold up artillery shells expanded on earlier revelations that the U.S. was going to pause a shipment of heavy bombs.

The U.S. has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid to Israel. That has only accelerated in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed some 1,200 people in Israel and led to about 250 being taken captive by militants. Biden’s comments and his decision last week to pause the shipment of heavy bombs to Israel are the most striking manifestations of the growing daylight between his administration and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Biden said Wednesday that Israel’s actions around Rafah had “not yet” crossed his red lines, but has repeated that Israel needs to do far more to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza.

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The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to a senior U.S. administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. The focus of U.S. concern was the larger explosives and how they could be used in a dense urban area.

“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,” Biden told CNN. “I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, that deal with that problem.”

“We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” the Democratic president continued. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier Wednesday confirmed the weapons delay, telling the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the U.S. paused “one shipment of high payload munitions.”

“We’re going to continue to do what’s necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself,” Austin said. “But that said, we are currently reviewing some near-term security assistance shipments in the context of unfolding events in Rafah.”

It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war. A decision against Israel would further add to pressure on Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.

Biden signed off on the pause in an order conveyed last week to the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment on the matter. The White House National Security Council sought to keep the decision out of the public eye for several days until it had a better understanding of the scope of Israel’s intensified military operations in Rafah and until Biden could deliver a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House. The official said the decision to pause the shipment was made last week and no final decision had been made yet on whether to proceed with the shipment at a later date.

U.S. officials had declined for days to comment on the halted transfer, word of which came as Biden on Tuesday described U.S. support for Israel as “ironclad, even when we disagree.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 TV news, said the decision to pause the shipment was “a very disappointing decision, even frustrating.” He suggested the move stemmed from political pressure on Biden from Congress, the U.S. campus protests and the upcoming election.

The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works. The Republicans called on Biden in a letter to swiftly end the blockage, saying it “risks emboldening Israel’s enemies,” and to brief lawmakers on the nature of the policy reviews.

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Biden has faced pressure from some on the left — and condemnation from the critics on the right who say Biden has moderated his support for an essential Mideast ally.

“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., his voice rising in anger during an exchange with Austin. “This is obscene. It is absurd. Give Israel what they need to fight the war they can’t afford to lose.”

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a Biden ally, said in a statement the pause on big bombs must be a “first step.”

“Our leverage is clear,” Sanders said. “Over the years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel. We can no longer be complicit in Netanyahu’s horrific war against the Palestinian people.”

Austin, meanwhile, told lawmakers that “it’s about having the right kinds of weapons for the task at hand.”

“A small diameter bomb, which is a precision weapon, that’s very useful in a dense, built-up environment,” he said, “but maybe not so much a 2,000-pound bomb that could create a lot of collateral damage.” He said the U.S. wants to see Israel do “more precise” operations.

Israeli troops on Tuesday seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing in what the White House described as a limited operation that stopped short of the full-on Israeli invasion of the city that Biden has repeatedly warned against, most recently in a Monday call with Netanyahu.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of 100,000 Palestinians from the city. Israeli forces have also carried out what it describes as “targeted strikes” on the eastern part of Rafah and captured the Rafah crossing, a critical conduit for the flow of humanitarian aid along the Gaza-Egypt border.

Privately, concern has mounted inside the White House about what’s unfolding in Rafah, but publicly administration officials have stressed that they did not think the operations had defied Biden’s warnings against a widescale operation in the city.

The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.

Itamar Yaar, former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council and CEO of Commanders for Israel’s Security, a group of former senior Israeli security officials, said the U.S. move is largely symbolic, but a sign of trouble and could become more of a problem if it is sustained.

“It’s not some kind of American embargo on American munitions support, but I think its some kind of diplomatic message to Mr. Netanyahu that he needs to take into consideration American interests more than he has over the last few months,” he said, adding it’s “a kind of a signal, a ‘be careful.’”

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The U.S. dropped the 2,000-pound bomb sparingly in its long war against the Islamic State militant group. Israel, by contrast, has used the bomb frequently in the seven-month Gaza war. Experts say the use of the weapon, in part, has helped drive the enormous Palestinian casualty count that the Hamas-run health ministry puts at more than 34,000 dead, though it doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians.

The U.S.-Israel relationship has been close through both Democratic and Republican administrations. But there have been other moments of deep tension since Israel’s founding in which U.S. leaders have threatened to hold up aid in an attempt to sway Israeli leadership.

President Dwight Eisenhower pressured Israel with the threat of sanctions into withdrawing from the Sinai in 1957 amid the Suez Crisis. Ronald Reagan delayed the delivery of F16 fighter jets to Israel at a time of escalating violence in the Middle East. President George H.W. Bush held up $10 billion in loan guarantees to force the cessation of Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories.

Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Lolita C. Baldor and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Both Southwest and American Airlines reported first-quarter losses Thursday. Demand for travel remains strong, including among business flyers, but airlines are dealing with higher labor costs, and delays in aircraft deliveries are limiting their ability to add more flights.

Southwest said it lost $231 million. CEO Robert Jordan said the airline was reacting quickly “to address our financial underperformance,” including by slowing down hiring and asking employees to take time off.

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The Dallas-based carrier said it expects to end this year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the start of the year.

Southwest will also stop flying to four airports: Cozumel, Mexico; Syracuse, New York; Bellingham, Washington; and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where the airline’s major operation is at smaller Hobby Airport.

The closures will help the airline focus on more profitable locations and deploy a fleet of planes that will be smaller than it had planned. Southwest said it expects to get only 20 new 737 Max 8 jets from Boeing this year, down from the 46 it expected just a few weeks ago. It will offset some of the shortage by retiring fewer planes.

Boeing is struggling with slower production since a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines Max 9 in January, and that is frustrating its airline customers.

Dallas-based Southwest said that its loss, after excluding special items, was 36 cents per share. That was slightly worse than the loss of 34 cents per share that Wall Street expected.

Revenue rose to $6.33 billion, below analysts’ forecast of $6.42 billion.

American said it lost $312 million as labor costs rose 18%, or nearly $600 million. The airline said it expects to return to profitability in the second quarter — a busier time for travel — and post earnings between $1.15 and $1.45 per share. Analysts expect $1.15 per share, according to a FactSet survey.

The first-quarter loss amounted to 34 cents per share excluding special items, which was worse than the loss of 27 cents per share forecast by analysts.

Revenue was $12.57 billion.

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CEO Robert Isom said American is less impacted by Boeing’s problems because the airline had already received hundreds of new planes in recent years. American has ordered Boeing Max 10s, a larger model that has not yet been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, but those planes are not due to start showing up until 2028.

“If they don’t get it together, we have also made sure that we’re protected,” Isom told CNBC. He stopped short of saying American would switch Boeing orders to rival Airbus, saying only, “We’ll take care of it.”

In premarket trading, Southwest shares were down 9% while American shares were up 3%.

“We may have to shut this area down,” New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said at a news conference outside the courthouse, adding that officials would discuss the security plan soon.

Collect Pond Park has been a gathering spot for protesters, journalists and gawkers throughout Trump’s trial, which began with jury selection Monday.

Crowds there have been small and largely orderly, but around 1:30 p.m. Friday a man there took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said.

A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed to the man’s aid. He was hospitalized in critical condition Friday afternoon.

The man, who police said had traveled from Florida to New York in the last few days, hadn’t breached any security checkpoints to get into the park. Through Friday, the streets and sidewalks in the area around the courthouse were generally wide open, though the side street where Trump enters and leaves the building is off limits.

People accessing the floor of the large courthouse where the trial is taking place have to pass through a pair of metal detectors.

Authorities said they were also reviewing the security protocols outside the courthouse.

“We are very concerned. Of course we are going to review our security protocols,” NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey said.

Judge Juan M. Merchan, seemingly unaware of what was unfolding outside the courthouse on Friday afternoon, told newly selected jurors in Trump’s hush money trial that opening statements are set for Monday at 9:30 a.m.

Full jury of 12 people and 6 alternates seated in Trump trial

A full jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated Friday in Trump’s hush money case, setting the stage for opening statements next week in the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president.

Hours after the jury was seated, a lawyer for Trump was in an appeals court seeking to halt the trial, arguing that the judge rushed through jury selection and that the case should be moved out of Manhattan.

The jury, which includes a software engineer, investment banker, English teacher and multiple lawyers, took final shape after lawyers spent days quizzing dozens of potential jurors on whether they can impartially judge the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Earlier coverage: Trump’s hush money trial gets underway; 1st day ends without any jurors selected

The judge said lawyers will present opening statements Monday morning before prosecutors begin laying out their case alleging a scheme to cover up negative stories Trump feared would hurt his 2016 presidential campaign.

The trial unfolding in Manhattan thrusts Trump’s legal problems into the heart of his hotly contested race against President Joe Biden, with Trump’s opponent likely to seize on unflattering and salacious testimony to make the case he’s unfit to return as commander in chief.

Trump, meanwhile, is using the prosecution as a political rallying cry, casting himself as a victim while juggling his dual role as criminal defendant and presidential candidate.

Trump has spent the week sitting quietly in the courtroom as lawyers pressed potential jurors on their views about him in a search for any bias that would preclude them from hearing the case. During breaks in the proceedings, he has railed against the case on social media or to TV cameras in the hallway, calling it a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

“This Trial is a Long, Rigged, Endurance Contest, dealing with Nasty, Crooked People, who want to DESTROY OUR COUNTRY,” he wrote Friday on social media.

Over five days of jury selection, dozens of people were dismissed from the jury pool after saying they didn’t believe they could be fair. Others expressed anxiety about having to decide such a consequential case with outsized media attention, even though the judge has ruled that jurors’ names will be known only to prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.

One woman who had been chosen to serve on the jury was dismissed Thursday after she raised concerns over messages she said she got from friends and family when aspects of her identity became public. On Friday, another woman broke down in tears while being questioned by a prosecutor about her ability to decide the case based only on evidence presented in court.

“I feel so nervous and anxious right now,” the woman said. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t want someone who feels like this to judge my case either. I don’t want to waste the court’s time.”

As more potential jurors were questioned Friday, Trump appeared to lean over at the defense table, scribbling on some papers and exchanging notes with one of his lawyers. He occasionally perked up and gazed at the jury box, including when one would-be juror said he had volunteered in a “get out the vote” effort for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Trump spoke to reporters before Friday’s proceedings got underway, lambasting a gag order that prosecutors have accused him of violating. Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled arguments for next week on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt of court and fine him for social media posts they say defy limits on what he can say about potential witnesses.

“The gag order has to come off. People are allowed to speak about me, and I have a gag order,” Trump said.

Merchan also heard arguments Friday on prosecutors’ request to bring up Trump’s prior legal entanglements if he takes the witness stand in the hush money case. Manhattan prosecutors have said they want to question Trump about his recent civil fraud trial that resulted in a $454 million judgment after a judge found Trump had lied about his wealth for years. He is appealing that verdict.

The trial centers on a $130,000 payment that Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the final days of the 2016 race.

Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.

Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He could get up to four years in prison if convicted, though it’s not clear that the judge would opt to put him behind bars. Trump would almost certainly appeal any conviction.

Trump is involved in four criminal cases, but it’s not clear that any others will reach trial before the November election. Appeals and legal wrangling have caused delays in the other three cases charging Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election results and with illegally hoarding classified documents.

The justices’ order Monday allows the state to put in place a 2023 law that subjects physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18. Under the court’s order, the two transgender teens who sued to challenge the law will still be able to obtain care.

The court’s three liberal justices would have kept the law on hold. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that it would have been better to let the case proceed “unfettered by our intervention.”

More states’ bans on gender-affirming care: Louisiana Senate passes bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender youths

Justice Neil Gorsuch of the conservative majority wrote that it is “a welcome development” that the court is reining in an overly broad lower court order.

A federal judge in Idaho had blocked the law in its entirety after determining that it was necessary to do so to protect the teens, who are identified under pseudonyms in court papers.

Lawyers for the teens wrote in court papers that the teens’ “gender dysphoria has been dramatically alleviated as a result of puberty blockers and estrogen therapy.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the teens and their families, called the Supreme Court’s order “an awful result for transgender youth and their families across the state. Today’s ruling allows the state to shut down the care that thousands of families rely on while sowing further confusion and disruption.”

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a statement that the law “ensures children are not subjected to these life-altering drugs and procedures. Those suffering from gender dysphoria deserve love, support, and medical care rooted in biological reality. Denying the basic truth that boys and girls are biologically different hurts our kids.”

Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

More on Idaho’s decision: Using public funds or facilities for gender-affirming care banned by GOP-led Idaho Legislature

Medical professionals define gender dysphoria as psychological distress experienced by those whose gender expression does not match their gender identity.

The action comes as the justices also may soon consider whether to take up bans in Kentucky and Tennessee that an appeals court allowed to be enforced in the midst of legal fights.

At least 23 states have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. A federal judge struck down Arkansas’ ban as unconstitutional. Montana’s ban is also temporarily on hold.

The states that have enacted laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

The day ended without any jurors being chosen. The selection process was scheduled to resume Tuesday.

The first criminal trial of any former U.S. president began as Trump vies to reclaim the White House, creating a remarkable split-screen spectacle of the presumptive Republican nominee spending his days as a criminal defendant while simultaneously campaigning for office. He’s blended those roles over the last year by presenting himself to supporters, on the campaign trail and on social media, as a target of politically motivated prosecutions designed to derail his candidacy.

“It’s a scam. It’s a political witch hunt. It continues, and it continues forever,” Trump said after exiting the courtroom, where he sat at the defense table with his lawyers.

After a norm-shattering presidency shadowed by years of investigations, the trial amounts to a reckoning for Trump, who faces four indictments charging him with crimes ranging from hoarding classified documents to plotting to overturn an election. Yet the political stakes are less clear because a conviction would not preclude him from becoming president and because the allegations in this case date back years and are seen as less grievous than the conduct behind the three other indictments.

The day began with pretrial arguments — including over a potential fine for Trump — before moving in the afternoon into jury selection, where the parties will decide who might be picked to determine the legal fate of the former, and potentially future, American president.

A jury of his peers: A look at how jury selection will work in Donald Trump’s first criminal trial

After the first members of the jury pool, 96 in all, were summoned into the courtroom, Trump craned his neck to look back at them, whispering to his lawyer as they entered the jury box.

“You are about to participate in a trial by jury. The system of trial by jury is one of the cornerstones of our judicial system,” Judge Juan Merchan told the jurors. “The name of this case is the People of the State of New York vs. Donald Trump.”

Trump’s notoriety would make the process of picking 12 jurors and six alternates a near-herculean task in any year, but it’s likely to be especially challenging now, unfolding in a closely contested presidential election in the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up became a celebrity decades before winning the White House.

Underscoring the difficulty, only about a third of the 96 people in the first panel of potential jurors remained after the judge excused some members. More than half the group was excused after telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial. At least nine more were excused after raising their hands when Merchan asked if they could not serve for any other reason.

A female juror was excused after saying she had strong opinions about Trump. Earlier in the questionnaire, the woman, a Harlem resident, indicated she could be neutral in deciding the case. But when asked whether she had strong opinions about the former president, the woman answered matter-of-factly, “Yes.”

When Merchan asked her to repeat the response, she replied, “Yeah, I said yes.” She was dismissed.

Merchan has written that the key is “whether the prospective juror can assure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law.”

No matter the outcome, Trump is determined to benefit from the proceedings, casting the case, and his indictments elsewhere, as a broad “weaponization of law enforcement” by Democratic prosecutors and officials. He maintains they are orchestrating sham charges in hopes of impeding his presidential run.

He’s lambasted judges and prosecutors for years, a pattern of attacks that continued Monday as he entered court after calling the case an “assault on America.”

“This is political persecution. This is a persecution like never before,” he said.

Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan criminal court with his legal team ahead of the start of jury selection in Manhattan state court in New York City on Monday, April 15, 2024. (Pool photo by Jabin Botsford via AP)

The judge denied a defense request to recuse himself from the case after Trump’s lawyers claimed he had a conflict of interest. He also said prosecutors could not play for the jury the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was captured discussing grabbing women sexually without their permission. However, prosecutors will be allowed to question witnesses about the recording, which became public in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office also asked Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts they said violated the judge’s gag order limiting what he can say publicly about witnesses. Last week, he used his Truth Social platform to call his former lawyer Michael Cohen and the adult film actor Stormy Daniels “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!”

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche maintained Trump was simply responding to the witnesses’ statements.

“It’s not as if President Trump is going out and targeting individuals. He is responding to salacious, repeated vehement attacks by these witnesses,” Blanche said.

Merchan setting a hearing for next week on the request.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the alleged fraud was part of an effort to keep salacious — and, Trump says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.

The charges center on payments Trump’s company made to Cohen to reimburse him for $130,000 he paid to keep Daniels from going public, a month before the election, with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.

Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees in order to cloak their actual purpose. Trump’s lawyers say the disbursements indeed were legal expenses, not a cover-up.

After decades of fielding and initiating lawsuits, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that could result in up to four years in prison if he’s convicted, though a no-jail sentence also would be possible.

Trump’s attorneys lost a bid to get the hush money case dismissed and repeatedly sought to delay it, prompting a flurry of last-minute appeals court hearings last week.

Among other things, Trump’s lawyers maintain that the jury pool in overwhelmingly Democratic Manhattan has been tainted by negative publicity about Trump and that the case should be moved elsewhere.

An appeals judge turned down an emergency request to delay the trial while the change-of-venue request goes to a group of appellate judges, who are set to consider it in the coming weeks.

Manhattan prosecutors have countered that a lot of the publicity stems from Trump’s own comments and that questioning will tease out whether prospective jurors can put aside any preconceptions they may have. There’s no reason, prosecutors said, to think that 12 fair and impartial people can’t be found amid Manhattan’s roughly 1.4 million adult residents.

The prospective jurors will be known only by number, as the judge has ordered that their names be kept secret from everyone except prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams.

They’re being asked 42 questions about their backgrounds, hobbies and news habits, whether they hold strong beliefs about Trump that would prevent them from being impartial and about attendance at Trump or anti-Trump rallies.

Based on the answers, the attorneys can ask a judge to eliminate people “for cause” if they meet certain criteria for being unable to serve or can’t be unbiased. The lawyers also can use “peremptory challenges” to nix 10 potential jurors and two prospective alternates without giving a reason.

Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ he died Wednesday night in Las Vegas. A message posted Thursday on Simpson’s official X account — formerly Twitter — 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.

He had seemed to transcend racial barriers as the star Trojans tailback for college football’s powerful University of Southern California in the late 1960s, as a rental car ad pitchman rushing through airports in the late 1970s, and as the husband of a blonde and blue-eyed high school homecoming queen in the 1980s.

“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.,” he liked to tell friends.

The public was mesmerized by his “trial of the century” on live TV. His case sparked debates on race, gender, domestic abuse, celebrity 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.

Previous coverage: O.J. Simpson a ‘completely free man’; parole ends in Nevada

Public fascination with Simpson never faded. Many debated if he had been punished in Las Vegas for his acquittal in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the subject of both an FX miniseries and five-part ESPN documentary.

“I don’t think most of America believes I did it,” Simpson 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.

Simpson played 11 NFL seasons, nine of them with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as “The Juice” on an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.” He won four NFL rushing titles, rushed for 11,236 yards in his career, scored 76 touchdowns and played in five Pro Bowls. His best season was 1973, when he ran for 2,003 yards — the first running back to break the 2,000-yard rushing mark.

“I was part of the history of the game,” he said years later, recalling that season. “If I did nothing else in my life, I’d made my mark.”

Of course, Simpson went on to other fame.

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 the suit would be in the hotel room in Las Vegas, but it turned out it wasn’t there.

O.J. Simpson’s early life

Orenthal James Simpson was born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, where he grew up in government-subsidized housing projects.

After graduating from high school, he enrolled at City College of San Francisco for a year and a half before transferring to the University of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, moving her to Los Angeles the next day so he could begin preparing for his first season with USC — which, in large part because of Simpson, won that year’s national championship.

Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue on the same day that his first child, Arnelle, was born.

He had two sons, Jason and Aaren, with his first wife; one of those boys, Aaren, drowned as a toddler in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the same year he and Whitley divorced.

Simpson and Brown were married in 1985. They had two children, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992. Two years later, Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered.

“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” he told the AP 25 years after the double slayings. “The subject of the moment is the subject I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to what we call the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.”

___

Biographical material in this story was written by former AP Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch.

Despite a murder conviction against a man whose DNA and footprints were found at the scene, and a 2015 high court verdict definitively clearing Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, doubt about her role persists, particularly in Italy, and among members of Kercher’s family.

A slander case against Knox for wrongly pinning the murder on the owner of a bar where she worked is part of the reason for this.

Here is a glance at the key details in the case:

Who is Amanda Knox?

Knox was born July 9, 1987, in Seattle, Washington, the eldest of three daughters born to Edda Mellas, a mathematics teacher originally from Germany and Curt Knox, a vice president of finance for Macy’s. Knox and her sisters were raised in West Seattle.

Knox was a 20-year-old student who had recently arrived in the university town of Perugia when her British roommate, Kercher, was found dead in her room in the apartment they shared with two others on Nov. 2, 2007.

The murder grabbed worldwide attention as suspicion fell on Knox and Sollecito, with whom she had been involved at the time for just about a week. Knox and Sollecito were convicted in their first trial but were ultimately exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015.

What is the slander case?

Knox was accused of slandering the Congolese bar owner who employed her part-time, based on two statements typed by police that she signed during a long night of questioning just days after the murder. She recanted in a four-page handwritten note the next afternoon, but the memo showed her confusion as she attempted to reconcile the signed statements with her own conflicting recollections.

The slander conviction and three-year sentence remained until the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Knox’s rights had been violated during questioning without a lawyer or qualified translator. Based on that ruling, Italy’s highest court threw out the conviction last November and ruled the two statements typed by police were inadmissible. It ordered a new trial.

How did Knox rebuild her life?

Knox returned to the United States after an appeals court threw out her first conviction in 2011, following four years behind bars. While she hoped to resume her life as a college student, she was dogged by public scrutiny as her legal cases continued in Italy. Now 36 and the mother of two small children, Knox campaigns for criminal justice reform and against forced confessions, drawing on her experience.

She has a podcast and a new limited series in development for Hulu that includes Monica Lewinsky among the executive producers. She also has recorded a series on resilience for a meditation app.

What happened in Wednesday’s hearing?

An appeals court panel of two judges and eight civilian jurors heard arguments from the prosecution and the lawyer for the wrongly accused man — the bar owner — maintaining their position that Knox committed slander.

Her defense attorneys stressed her overturned murder conviction and the interrogation techniques that were strongly censured by Europe’s human rights court. The trial will continue on June 5, when a verdict is expected.

Contributing: Bill Kaczaraba, MyNorthwest

The Boeing 737 landed safely, and the passengers headed to Houston were being put onto another aircraft, Southwest Airlines said in a statement.

More on Boeing: Boeing pays Alaska Airlines $160 million in compensation for blowout of panel during flight

“We apologize for the inconvenience of their delay, but place our highest priority on ultimate safety for our customers and employees. Our maintenance teams are reviewing the aircraft,” the statement read.

It’s the second mishap this week for the airline, with a flight from Texas canceled Thursday after a report of an engine fire. The Lubbock, Texas, fire department confirmed online a fire in one of the two engines that needed extinguishing.

The FAA is investigating both incidents.

More on Boeing: Federal safety officials say Boeing fails to meet quality-control standards in manufacturing

Both planes were Boeing 737-800s, an older model than the 737 Max.

The agency reported a quake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.7, centered near Lebanon, New Jersey, or about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia. The Fire Department of New York said there were no initial reports of damage.

Other news: Boeing pays Alaska Airlines $160 million in compensation for blowout of panel during flight

In midtown Manhattan, the usual cacophony of traffic grew louder as motorists blared their horns on momentarily shuddering streets. Some Brooklyn residents heard a booming sound and their buildings shaking. In an apartment house in Manhattan’s East Village, a resident from more earthquake-prone California calmed nervous neighbors.

People in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Connecticut, and other areas of the East Coast who are unaccustomed to earthquakes also reported feeling the ground shake.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X that the quake was felt throughout the state. “My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” Hochul said.

Get excited, commuters: Light rail expansion to Lynnwood opens in August

The shaking stirred memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake that jolted tens of millions of people from Georgia to Canada. Registering a magnitude of 5.8, it was the strongest quake to hit the East Coast since World War II. The epicenter was in Virginia.

That earthquake left cracks in the Washington Monument, spurred the evacuation of the White House and Capitol and rattled New Yorkers three weeks before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

___

Associated Press journalists around the country contributed to this report.

Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement from the family said Gossett died Friday morning. No cause of death was revealed.

Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.

“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,” his cousin said.

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate’s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson’s associates that night.

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he wrote.

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir, “An Actor and a Gentleman.”

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He had earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.

“I was hooked — and so was my audience,” he wrote in his memoir.

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” along with Sidney Poitier,Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal.

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof before letting him go.

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.

“Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in his memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.”

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.

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“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it was not going to destroy me.”

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist.

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.”

“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,’” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.”

He said his statue was in storage.

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he said in the book. “I need to be free of it.”

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House, “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.”

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.”

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.

Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.

Associated Press journalists Mark Kennedy in New York and Kristin M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed reporting.