BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83.

Knight’s family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night. He was hospitalized with an illness in April and had been in poor health for several years.

“It is with heavy hearts that we share that Coach Bob Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his family,” the statement said. “We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as Coach requested a private family gathering, which is being honored.”

Knight was among the winningest and most controversial coaches in the sport, finishing his career with 902 victories in 42 seasons at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech while mentoring some of America’s best coaches.. He also coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1984.

The Hall of Famer cared little what others thought of him, choosing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to celebrate his 880th win in 2007, then the record for a Division I men’s coach.

He was nicknamed “The General” and his trademark temper also cost him his job at Indiana in 2000. He once hit a police officer in Puerto Rico, threw a chair across the court and was accused of wrapping his hands around a player’s neck.

Critics fumed relentlessly about his conduct, but his defenders were legion. There was this side of Knight as well: He took pride in his players’ high graduation rates, and during a rule-breaking era he never was accused of a major NCAA violation.

At Indiana, he insisted his base salary not exceed that of other professors. At Texas Tech, he sometimes gave back his salary because he didn’t think he earned it.

Knight expected players to exceed expectations on the court and in the classroom. He abided by NCAA rules even when he disagreed with them, never backed down from a dust-up and promised to take his old-school principles to the grave.

While he was beloved by many of his players, his disposition and theatrics sometimes overshadowed his formidable record, tactical genius, innovation and dedication to and the game, leaving behind a singular resume..

“He changed basketball in this state, the way you compete, the way you win,” Steve Alford, the leader of Knight’s last national championship team in 1987, once said. “It started in Indiana, but he really changed college basketball. You look at the motion offense and people everywhere used it.”

Long esteemed for his strategy and often questioned for his methods, Knight reveled in constructing his best teams with overachievers. As a hard-to-please motivator, he clung to iron principles, and at 6-foot-5 was an intimidating presence for anyone who dared cross him.

When Knight retired in 2008, he left with four national championships (one as a player at Ohio State) and as the Division I men’s record-holder in wins. He coached everyone from Mike Krzyzewski to Isiah Thomas to Michael Jordan. His coaching tree included Krzyzewski, who broke Knight’s wins record; Alford; Lawrence Frank, Keith Smart, Randy Wittman and Mike Woodson, Indiana’s current coach, among others.

“We lost one of the greatest coaches in the history of basketball today,” Krzyzewski said. “Clearly, he was one of a kind. He recruited me, coached me, mentored me and had a profound impact on my career and in my life. This is a tremendous loss for our sport and our family is deeply saddened.”

Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His mother, whom Knight credited as his strongest childhood influence, was a schoolteacher and his father worked for the railroad.

Hazel Knight seemed to understand her son’s temperament. Once, when Indiana was set to play Kentucky on television, two of Knight’s high school classmates ran into her at a grocery store and asked if she was excited about the game, according to his biography, “Knight: My Story.”

“I just hope he behaves,” his mother remarked.

He played basketball at Ohio State, where he was a reserve on three Final Four teams (1960-62). He was on the 1960 title team that featured Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, two future Basketball Hall of Famers.

After a year as a high school assistant, Knight joined the staff of Tates Locke at West Point. In 1965, he took over as head coach at age 24. In six seasons, coaching the likes of Krzyzewski and Mike Silliman, his teams won 102 games and it was off to Indiana in 1971.

Knight quickly restored the Hoosiers’ basketball tradition with a revolutionary offense and an almost exclusively man-to-man defense. Most opponents struggled against his early Indiana teams, with the Hoosiers going 125-20 and winning four Big Ten Conference crowns in his first five seasons.

The run concluded with Indiana’s first national championship in 23 years. That 1975-76 team went 32-0, ending a two-year span when the Hoosiers were 63-1 and captured back-to-back Big Ten championships with 18-0 records. It remains the last time a major college men’s team finished with a perfect record. That team was voted the greatest in college basketball history by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2013.

“One of the things that he said to our 1976 team, which I was fortunate enough to be a part of, was that you may never see another team like this again,” Indiana Board of Trustees chair Quinn Buckner said. “Well, I don’t know that we will ever see another coach like him again.”

Knight won his second title in 1981, beating Dean Smith’s North Carolina team after NCAA officials decided to play the game hours after President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded earlier in the day. His third title at Indiana came in 1987 when Smart hit a baseline jumper in the closing seconds to beat Syracuse, one of the most famous shots in tournament history.

Knight spent five decades competing against and usually beating some of the game’s most revered names — Adolph Rupp, Smith and John Wooden in the early years; Krzyzewski, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams in later years.

“He was a guy I idolized when I got here (in 1983) because Bobby Knight was the man,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said. “He treated me great, and he helped me. I wish people knew what a great heart that he had. He was a different dude, but if you needed some help, he would answer the bell.”

The Olympic team Knight coached in Los Angeles in 1984 was the last amateur U.S. team to win gold in men’s basketball. And, to no surprise, it came with controversy. Knight kept Alford on his team while cutting the likes of future Hall of Famers Charles Barkley and John Stockton.

“I am so blessed that he saw something in me as a basketball player,” Woodson said in a statement. “He influenced my life in ways I could never repay. As he did with all of his players, he always challenged me to get the most out of myself as a player and more importantly, as a person. His record as a basketball coach speaks for itself. He will be remembered as one of the greatest ever.”

But winning and winning big was only part of Knight’s legacy.

Other big-time coaches might follow the gentlemanly, buttoned-up approach, but not Knight. He dressed in plaid sport coats and red sweaters, routinely berated referees and openly challenged decisions by NCAA and Big Ten leaders. His list of transgressions ran long:

— Knight was convicted in absentia of assaulting a Puerto Rican police officer during the 1979 Pan American Games.

— He forfeited an exhibition game to the Soviet Union in 1987 when he pulled his team off the court after being called for a third technical foul.

— He told NBC’s Connie Chung in a 1988 interview, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Knight was answering a question about how he handled stress and later tried to explain he was talking about something beyond one’s control, not the act of rape.

— He was accused of head-butting one player and kicking his own son, Pat, during a timeout.

— At a 1980 news conference he fired a blank from a starter’s pistol at a reporter. During the 1992 NCAA Tournament, Knight playfully used a bull whip on star player Calbert Cheaney, who is Black.

His most famous outburst came Feb. 23, 1985, when Purdue’s Steve Reid was about to attempt a free throw. A furious Knight picked up a red plastic chair and heaved it across the court, where it landed behind the basket. Fans started throwing pennies on the court, one hitting the wife of Purdue coach Gene Keady. Reid missed three of his next six ensuing free throws.

“There are times I walk into a meeting or a friend calls to say, ‘I saw you on TV last night,’” Reid said on the 20th anniversary of the incident. “I know what they’re talking about.”

Knight apologized the next day, received a one-game suspension and was put on probation for two years by the Big Ten. Intent on preventing such a thing again, Indiana officials chained together the chairs for both benches.

The iconic black-and-white photo of the incident remains a classic for Hoosiers fans and even became fodder for a television commercial with one of his old coaching rivals, former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps. Knight for years joked he was merely attempting to toss the chair to a woman looking for a seat.

Fifteen years after the chair toss, Knight’s temper led to his downfall in Bloomington. Video surfaced of Knight allegedly putting his hands around the neck of player Neil Reed during a 1997 practice, a charge that prompted Indiana President Myles Brand to put Knight on a zero-tolerance policy following a university investigation.

Then, on Sept. 10, 2000, after winning a school-record 662 games and 11 Big Ten titles in 29 seasons, his time at Indiana came to a shocking end. While passing Knight in an Assembly Hall corridor, Indiana student Kent Harvey said, “Hey, what’s up, Knight?” Knight considered it disrespectful, grabbed Harvey’s arm and lectured him about manners. A few days later, Brand fired Knight.

Students protested by tearing down a goal post at the football stadium, ripping a dolphin statue off a fountain and hanging Brand in effigy outside his home. Knight publicly condemned Brand’s leadership. Brand became NCAA president in 2002 and died in 2009 at 67 while still on the job. Neil Reed died in 2012 after collapsing in his California home. He was 36.

In 2003, Knight lashed out profanely after an ESPN reporter asked about his relationship with Alford, then the Iowa coach. The following year Knight received a reprimand after a verbal dust-up with David Smith, then the Texas Tech chancellor, as the two men stood at a grocery store salad bar.

He still won, too. In his first six years in West Texas, Knight led the Red Raiders to five 20-plus win seasons, a feat never previously achieved at the school. On Jan. 1, 2007, Knight won his 880th career game, breaking Dean Smith’s record with a win over New Mexico. Krzyzewski topped Knight’s mark in 2011, with his mentor broadcasting the game for ESPN.

For nearly two decades, Indiana officials attempted to make peace. Knight refused, even skipping his induction into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.

“I hope someday he will be honored at Indiana. That needs to happen. Somebody needs to make that happen,” Scott May, a starter on Knight’s 1976 championship team and an outspoken critic of Knight’s firing, pleaded as Knight stayed away. “I think they should name Assembly Hall after him.”

The ice finally broke in February 2020, a few months after Knight bought a new house in Bloomington. His first public appearance at Assembly Hall since the firing came at halftime of the Hoosiers’ game against rival Purdue.

Billed as a reunion between the coach and many of his former players, the halftime celebration became a sustained roar for The General. May and Quinn Buckner, who also played on Knight’s first title team, helped the aging coach — no longer steady on his feet — walk onto the court.

“When he moved back here, I knew he was in a good place,” said Wittman, who played on the 1981 national champs. “I knew he was happy here, living, and I told him you belong here.”

Knight didn’t speak to the crowd that day. It spoke to him.

“We love you, Bobby,” one fan shouted during a brief pause from the crowd, a scene that brought the steely Knight to tears.

Away from the court, Knight was an avid golfer who loved to read, especially history, and donated generously to school libraries at Indiana and Texas Tech. He would vacation in far-flung places to hunt and fish with family or friends such as baseball great Ted Williams or manager Tony La Russa.

Knight also made a cameo appearance in the 2003 movie “Anger Management” with Adam Sandler. In 2006, he starred in “Knight School,” an ESPN reality show in which 16 Texas Tech students vied for the chance to walk on to his team the following season.

A month after leaving Tech, Knight, who often lashed out at reporters, joined ESPN as a guest studio analyst during the 2008 NCAA Tournament. The next season, he expanded his role as a color commentator. The network parted with Knight in 2015.

He returned to public view in 2016, campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and kept a mostly low profile until returning to the campus where he became a household name and the state where his presence was so big, his death was announced in retail stores Wednesday night.

“I was standing there, and he was coach Knight,” Wittman said, referring to Knight’s pregame speech in February 2020. “It was like he hadn’t left that locker room. The words he gave to those players before they went out on the floor, it was fabulous.”

Survivors include wife Karen and sons Tim and Pat.

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Former Associated Press writer Betsy Blaney in Lubbock, Texas, contributed to this report.

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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The former Southern California street gang leader charged with killing Tupac Shakur in 1996 in Las Vegas has lost his bid to be represented at his arraignment by the lawyer who spoke publicly about his defense two weeks ago.

Attorney Ross Goodman told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis could not meet terms of an agreement that a judge on Oct. 19 gave them two more weeks to reach. Goodman did not specify a reason for the impasse.

Davis is due for arraignment Thursday, and Clark County District Court Judge Tierra Jones could order a financial accounting of Davis’ assets to determine if he can afford a lawyer or if she should declare him indigent and name an attorney to defend him at public expense.

Scott Coffee, a deputy Clark County public defender, said attorneys there were reviewing Davis’ case to determine whether they can represent Davis or if they have a conflict such as having in the past represented other people involved in the case.

Officials at a county special public defender’s office, an alternate possible roster of court-appointed attorneys, did not respond Wednesday to email inquiries about the Davis case. The judge also could name a defense attorney in private practice to represent Davis, at taxpayer expense.

Edi Faal, Davis’ longtime personal lawyer in Los Angeles, did not respond to telephone and email messages about Goodman’s comments. He told AP after Davis’ first court appearance on Oct. 4 that he was helping Davis find a defense attorney in Nevada, and he confirmed Goodman’s involvement two weeks ago.

Davis, 60, is originally from Compton, California. He was arrested Sept. 29 outside his home in suburban Las Vegas, the same day an indictment was filed accusing him of orchestrating the car-to-car shooting that killed Shakur and wounded rap music mogul Marion “Suge” Knight. Davis is expected to plead not guilty to a murder charge that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Shakur died at age 25. Knight was wounded but survived. Now 58, he’s serving a 28-year prison sentence for the death of a Compton businessman in January 2015. Knight has not responded to AP requests for comment about Davis arrest.

Goodman said Oct. 19 he saw “obvious defenses” in the murder case, including that police and prosecutors do not have the gun or car used in the shooting, and “there’s no witnesses from 27 years ago.”

Grand jurors were told the shooting followed a brawl in a Las Vegas Strip casino involving Shakur and Davis’ nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.

Anderson denied involvement in Shakur’s death and died in a May 1998 shooting in Compton at age 23. The other two men in the car with Davis and Anderson also are now dead.

Davis in recent years has publicly described his role in Shakur’s death, including in interviews and a 2019 tell-all memoir that described his life as a leader of a Crips gang sect in Compton.

Prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo told the grand jury that Davis admitted in his book that he provided the gun, was in the car “and that he was the on-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight.”

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge in Florida indicated Wednesday that she may delay the start of the classified documents trial of Donald Trump, pointing to the other criminal cases the former president is facing as well as the mounds of evidence his attorneys need to review.

Trump’s trial on charges that he hid classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructed government efforts to get them back is currently scheduled for May 20, 2024.

But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon appeared ready to side with Trump’s attorneys in their request to postpone the trial, saying she “has a hard time seeing how realistically this (current schedule) would work” even as prosecutors pushed her to keep the scheduled start date.

The classified documents case filed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team is one of four Trump is facing that could go to trial next year. Another federal case, also brought by Smith and charging him with scheming to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, is scheduled for trial in March in Washington.

A trial in Georgia on state charges that Trump tried to subvert the election could also start next year, though no date has been set, as could a New York trial on charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor in advance of the 2016 election. He is already on trial on a civil case in New York alleging business fraud.

Cannon also pointed to the 1.3 million pages of evidence that prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago case have provided to the defense along with thousands of hours of security video shot at Trump’s resort. She questioned whether Trump’s lawyers will have adequate time to review the evidence in the next six months.

“I am not quite seeing a level of understanding on your part to these realities,” Cannon told prosecutor Jay Bratt, a member of Smith’s team.

Bratt told Cannon that Trump’s attorneys from the beginning have pushed to delay the trial until after the November 2024 election, where he hopes to win back the White House from President Joe Biden.

He said that because of defense motions to delay the Washington trial and dismiss those charges, there is a chance that trial will be postponed.

He told Cannon she “should not let the D.C. trial drive the schedule here.”

He said his team has provided Trump’s lawyers with a directory to the Mar-a-Lago documents to assist their preparation and advised them of the portions of security video they plan to play at trial — footage that prosecutors have said shows boxes being moved in and out of a storage room at the property in an effort to conceal them from investigators.

A Trump valet, Walt Nauta, and a Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, have been charged alongside Trump with conspiring to obstruct the FBI’s investigation. All three defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Trump attorney Todd Blanche told Cannon that she and prosecutors need to be realistic, particularly since the classified documents can only be read in special government rooms that have heightened security.

“It has been extremely difficult to have access,” Blanche said.

Cannon said she will make a decision on the trial date in the coming days.

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Tucker reported from Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. George Santos easily survived a vote Wednesday to expel him from the House as most Republicans and 31 Democrats opted to withhold punishment while both his criminal trial and a House Ethics Committee investigation proceed.

The effort to kick Santos out of the House was led by his fellow New York Republicans, who are anxious to distance themselves from a colleague infamous for fabricating his life story and accused of stealing from donors, lying to Congress and receiving unemployment benefits he did not deserve.

But the resolution failed to gain the required two-thirds vote. Supporters could not even gain a simple majority, with the final vote being 179 for expulsion and 213 against.

To succeed, numerous Republican lawmakers would have had to break ranks with newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson, who has said Santos should get his day in court. Johnson, R-La., also recently told Fox News that if Congress is going to expel members because they are charged with a crime or accused of wrongdoing, “that’s a problem.”

Some Democrats also voiced concerns about getting ahead of the Ethics Committee, which issued a rare memo the day before, citing the depth of its investigation with some 40 witnesses contacted and the issuance of 37 subpoenas. It also said the next steps of the committee’s investigation would be announced by Nov. 17.

“I feel like due process is still alive. I feel like there’s enough colleagues on both sides of the aisle here who understand that,” Santos said after the vote.

Congress has rarely resorted to the most extreme punishment at its disposal. The House has expelled only five members in its history — three during the Civil War and two after their convictions on public corruption charges. It would be groundbreaking for the House to kick out Santos before his case in federal court is resolved.

Some Republicans, however, said they had seen enough of Santos. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said he believes in due process, but also thinks Santos misrepresented himself to New York voters and they never would have elected him if they had “known the true George Santos.”

“We don’t need the Santos charade all the way through the 2024 election cycle. I think the Congress needs to take action now,” Womack said.

The House floor debate over whether to expel Santos was undertaken strictly by members of the New York congressional delegation. On one side, Republican Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Nick LaLota and Mike Lawler laid out their case for expelling Santos.

“Mr. Santos is a stain on this institution and not fit to serve his constituents in the House of Representatives,” D’Esposito said.

On the other side was Santos, who appealed to lawmakers to hold off on expulsion, saying that passing judgment without due process would engender mistrust.

“I’m fighting tooth and nail to clear my name in front of the entire world,” Santos said. “It hasn’t been easy, but I’m fighting by God’s grace.”

The only Democratic lawmaker to speak during the debate was Rep. Dan Goldman. He said Santos should have been expelled in May when Democrats brought an expulsion resolution, and the only reason the New York Republicans were leading the effort now was because Santos “hangs like an albatross around the necks of every single Republican from New York.”

“They don’t care any more about integrity or morality or the reputation of this institution than they did in May when they voted to protect Mr. Santos,” Goldman said. “They just care about their reelection in one year when they know that their support for George Santos is going to be a problem.”

The New York Republicans laid out in their expulsion resolution the array of charges Santos is facing in federal court, saying the charges indicated Santos engaged in serious financial fraud throughout his 2022 campaign for the House. The resolution said he deceived voters regarding his biography and is “not fit to serve his constituents as United States Representative.”

“Mr. Santos has said expelling him before he is formally charged and found guilty would create a new precedent in this body, one that could have negative consequences for generations,” LaLota said. “Respectfully, Mr. Speaker, I disagree. The consequences and precedents of not expelling him for his lies and fraud has the potential to do far more damage to this institution.”

In May, Republicans under then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California sidestepped the Democratic-led effort to expel Santos. While 204 Democrats voted against a motion to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee, House Republicans stood unified behind the effort that delayed action on Santos’ conduct.

Johnson, who took the speaker’s gavel last week, made it clear he would prefer not to oust Santos at this point, despite the many charges against the congressman, as Johnson struggles to control a very slim majority.

“He’s only been charged. He hasn’t been found guilty of anything. We have due process in America,” said GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who opposed the expulsion resolution.

Democrats were also more divided than they were during the previous expulsion effort against Santos.

“Neither the Ethics Committee nor the courts have finished adjudicating this,” tweeted Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., who voted against expulsion. “In this country, one is presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty. No exceptions.”

Rep. Marc Molinaro, a New York Republican who supported the expulsion effort, said the delegation would likely raise it again once the Ethics Committee releases the findings of its investigation.

“I suspect the report is going to come public soon, and it’s going to be clear that he should be removed from Congress,” he said.

Santos faces 23 charges in federal court. His trial has been scheduled for September next year. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

Also on Wednesday evening, the House voted to reject an effort to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Democrats called off an effort to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

DENVER (AP) — The effort to ban former President Donald Trump from the ballot under the Constitution’s “insurrection clause” turned to distant history on Wednesday, when a law professor testified about how the post-Civil War provision was indeed intended to apply to presidential candidates.

Gerard Magliocca, of Indiana University, said there was scant scholarship on Section Three of the 14th Amendment when he began researching it in late 2020. He testified that he uncovered evidence in 150-year-old court rulings, congressional testimony and presidential executive orders that it applied to presidents and to those who simply encouraged an insurrection rather than physically participated in one.

Magliocca didn’t mention Trump by name, but the plaintiffs in the case have argued that Colorado must ban him from the ballot because his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, which was intended to halt Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s win and keep Trump in power, falls under the provision. The section originally was designed to prevent former Confederates from returning to their old federal and state jobs and taking over the government.

“It was not intended as punishment,” Magliocca said of the ban. “A number of senators discussed the fact that this was simply adding another qualification to office.”

Trump’s attorneys on Wednesday moved for an immediate ruling dismissing the case because they said the plaintiffs had not proved that Trump “incited” the Jan. 6 riot, saying all his actions were legal speech. District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace denied the motion, noting that many of the legal questions raised during the hearing have never been addressed by a court before and that she’ll rule on them later.

Trump’s attorneys have condemned the lawsuit as “anti-democratic” and warned that using an obscure provision to disqualify the Republican front-runner would be antithetical to the traditions of the world’s oldest democracy. On Tuesday night, Trump slammed the Colorado proceedings in a video posted to his social media site, Truth Social.

“A fake trial is currently taking place to try and illegally remove my name from the ballot,” Trump said.

In a reference to President Joe Biden, he added: “If crooked Joe and the Democrats get away with removing my name from the ballot, then there will never be a free election in America again. We will have become a dictatorship where your president is chosen for you. You will no longer have a vote, or certainly won’t have a meaningful vote.”

The Colorado lawsuit and a parallel case being heard Thursday by the Minnesota Supreme Court were organized by two separate liberal organizations, and the Trump campaign has alleged they’re plots by Democrats to short-circuit the 2024 election.

It’s likely the U.S. Supreme Court will have the final word on the issue. The nation’s highest court has never ruled on Section Three, which was almost exclusively used during between 1868 and 1872, when Congress granted amnesty to many former Confederates who had previously been barred by it.

That section bars anyone from Congress, the military, and federal and state offices if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution and “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” It does not specifically name the office of president, but instead reads “elector of president and vice president.”

Trump’s attorneys began putting on their case Wednesday afternoon, calling former administration officials Kash Patel and Katrina Pierson to testify that Trump had told them he wanted as many as 10,000 national guard ready to deal with any violence on Jan. 6. The troops were never mobilized and that request is not in the timeline of that day issued by the Department of Defense. The plaintiff’s attorneys noted that Pierson told the congressional Jan. 6 committee that one main concern was the safety of pro-Trump protesters, not the capitol.

On Tuesday, a legal expert testified for the plaintiffs that Trump could have mobilized federal resources to aid the Capitol in the hours after the protest turned violent. That followed nearly two days of testimony about the Jan. 6 riot and Trump’s relationship with right-wing extremists.

But Wednesday got to what makes the challenge against Trump’s ability to run for office novel. The case raises issues that have rarely, if ever, been aired in courtrooms before the Jan. 6 attack: Does Congress need to create a mechanism to implement the ban? Does it apply to the presidency, especially since an earlier draft specified that office, but then it was removed? What constitutes an “insurrection” under its definition?

There’s been an explosion of legal scholarship in recent months trying to figure that out. Going through dictionaries and court rulings from the mid-19th-century, Magliocca contended that the ban was implemented even without any congressional procedure, that senators noted it applied to the president and that the definition of an insurrection was simply a large-scale effort to impede the execution of laws.

Critics have warned that, if the provision is used to bar Trump, that could open the door to other, more conventional politicians getting banned for activities such as supporting protests against police brutality or other forms of civil disobedience.

Trump’s team is scheduled to call their own law professor to argue that the provision doesn’t apply to him.

Legal scholars believe the measure was cited just once in the 20th century, as justification for Congress not seating an anti-war socialist elected after World War I. The group behind the Colorado litigation, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, successfully used it to bar a rural county commissioner in New Mexico from office after he was convicted in federal court of a misdemeanor for entering the Capitol grounds during the attack.

The other liberal group behind the Minnesota challenge cited the Section Three provision in challenging the candidacies of Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina in 2022. The case against Taylor-Greene failed; Cawthorn’s became moot after he lost his primary.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of dual passport holders and dozens of seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday after more than three weeks under siege, while Israeli airstrikes destroyed apartments in a densely populated area for the second straight day.

The group were the first people to leave Gaza — other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces — even as bombings have driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, and food, water and fuel run low. It remained unclear whether more people would be allowed to leave Gaza in coming days.

Al-Jazeera television, one of the few media outlets still reporting from northern Gaza, aired footage of leveled apartments in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, and of several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital. The Hamas-run government said airstrikes killed and wounded many people, but the exact toll was not yet known. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The Al-Jazeera footage showed nearly identical scenes as the day before; dozens of men dug through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.

The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those strikes killed dozens of militants, including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the terrorists’ bloody Oct. 7 rampage that ignited the war, and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.

In a sign of increasing alarm over the war among Arab countries, Jordan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador from Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to remain out of the country. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994, the second Arab country after Egypt to do so.

Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister, Ayman al-Safadi, said the return of the ambassadors is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.” He warned of the potential of the conflict to spread, threatening “the security of the entire region.”

ISRAELI ARMY ADVANCES DEEPER INTO GAZA

Israeli ground forces pushed to the outskirts of Gaza City, days after launching a new phase of the war that Israel’s leaders say will be long and difficult. Internet and phone service was cut for several hours Wednesday, a replay of the temporary communications blackout when Israeli ground troops first advanced in large numbers into Gaza over the weekend.

Over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel are running low. A territory-wide blackout has left hospitals reliant on generators that could soon be forced to shut down.

The strikes in Jabaliya underline the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops advance toward the outskirts of Gaza City and its dense residential neighborhoods. Israeli officials say Hamas’ military infrastructure, including hundreds of kilometers (miles) of underground tunnels, is concentrated in the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war.

BORDER OPENS TO ALLOW SOME PEOPLE OUT

Six buses carrying 335 foreign passport holders left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt as of mid-afternoon Wednesday, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.

The authority said the plan was for more than 400 foreign passport holders to leave for Egypt. Egypt has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees because of fears Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war.

Dozens of people could be seen entering the Rafah crossing — the only one currently operating — and ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians exited on the Egyptian side.

Egypt had earlier said that more than 80 Palestinians — out of many thousands wounded in the war — would also be brought in for treatment. But Dr. Mohamed Zaqout, a Health Ministry official in Gaza, told The Associated Press that 10 of the patients died before they could be evacuated to Egypt. The criteria for medical evacuation were not immediately clear.

LACK OF POWER, COMMUNICATIONS CAUSES HARM

Those who remain behind are contending with multiple crises, made worse Wednesday by the communications blackout. The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel said internet and mobile phone services were gradually being restored in Gaza following a “complete disruption” that lasted several hours.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said such blackouts make it harder for civilians to seek safety. “Even the potentially life-saving act of calling an ambulance becomes impossible,” said Jessica Moussan, an ICRC spokesperson.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, meanwhile, said that the Turkish-Palestinian Hospital, Gaza’s only facility offering specialized treatment for cancer patients, was forced to shut down because of lack of fuel, leaving 70 cancer patients in a critical situation.

DEATH TOLL KEEPS RISING

More than 8,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, and more than 22,000 people have been wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Wednesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.

Fifteen Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.

Israel has been vague about its operations in Gaza, but residents and spokesmen for militant groups say troops appear to be trying to take control of the two main north-south roads.

An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas following Israeli orders to evacuate, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.

Israel has allowed international aid groups to send more than 200 trucks carrying food and medicine to enter from Egypt over the past 10 days, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough.

AFTER WAR IN GAZA, THEN WHAT?

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten it, while also saying it does not plan to reoccupy the territory, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005. But it has said little about who would govern Gaza afterwards.

In congressional testimony on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that “at some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.”

Hamas drove the authority’s forces out of Gaza in a week of heavy fighting in 2007, leaving it with limited control over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian support for the President Mahmoud Abbas has plunged since then, with many Palestinians dismissing the PA as little more than Israel’s police force because it helps suppress Hamas and other militant groups.

In other developments:

— In the West Bank, Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp Wednesday morning, killing three Palestinians, local health officials said. The Israeli military said it carried out a drone strike in the camp, hitting several militants. Since the war began, 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, either by Israeli forces or by Jewish settlers.

— In northern Israel, mortars and anti-tank rockets were fired from Lebanon toward several Israeli communities, causing no injuries and prompting Israeli strikes on the launch sites, the military said. Hezbollah and Palestinian militants in Lebanon have exchanged fire with Israeli forces on a daily basis over the border.

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This story has been updated to clarify that, in addition to four hostages released by Hamas, a fifth was rescued by Israeli forces.

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem, contributed to this report.

Full AP coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers posted 9.6 million job openings in September, up from 9.5 million in August and a sign that the U.S. job market remains strong even as the U.S. Federal Reserve attempts to cool the economy.

Layoffs fell to 1.5 million from 1.7 million in August, more evidence that workers enjoy an unusual degree of job security. The number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence they can find better pay elsewhere — was virtually unchanged.

The September openings are down from a record 12 million in March 2022 but remain high by historical standards. Before 2021 — when the American economy began to surge from the COVID-19 pandemic — monthly job openings had never topped 8 million. Unemployment was 3.8% in September, just a couple of ticks above a half century low.

Openings were up by 141,000 at hotels and restaurants, which have struggled to attract and keep workers since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020.

The Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters would like to see the job market cool. They worry that strong hiring pressures employers into raising wages — and trying to pass the higher costs along with price increases that feed inflation.

The Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times since March 2022 in an effort to contain inflation that hit a four-decade high in 2022. In September, consumer prices were up 3.7% from a year earlier, down from a peak 9.1% in June last year but still above the Fed’s 2% target.

The combination of sturdy hiring, healthy economic growth and decelerating inflation has raised hopes the Fed can pull off a so-called soft landing — raising rates just enough contain price increases without tipping the economy into recession. The central bank is expected to announce later Wednesday that it will leave its benchmark rate unchanged for the second straight meeting as it waits to assess the fallout from its earlier rate hikes.

On Friday, the Labor Department releases its jobs report for October. Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet expect that U.S. employers added a solid 189,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate stayed at 3.8%.

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Josh McDaniels in January 2022, he said he had learned from his first stint as an NFL head coach.

But McDaniels’ record actually was worse the second time around than it was with the Denver Broncos in 2009 and 2010, and late Tuesday night, the Raiders announced that owner Mark Davis fired McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.

McDaniels became the first non-interim coach in the Super Bowl era to be fired by two franchises before the end of his second season.

“After much thought about what the Raiders need to move forward, I have decided to part ways with Josh and Dave,” Davis said in a statement. “I want to thank them both for their hard work and wish them and their families nothing but the best.”

The Raiders announced linebackers coach Antonio Pierce will take over as the interim coach. His first game will be Sunday at home against the Giants. He played for New York from 2005-09.

Las Vegas also announced assistant general manager Champ Kelly will be the interim GM.

The team will conduct searches for replacements for McDaniels and Ziegler after the season.

McDaniels was the Raiders’ play caller, so offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi might take over those duties.

Davis had hoped to bring the New England’s success westward when he hired McDaniels, the longtime Patriots offensive coordinator. Ziegler worked in New England’s front office, and between the former teammates at John Carroll University, they transformed the Raiders into Patriots West by signing several players with ties to that organization.

But despite taking over a team that made the playoffs in 2021 before losing to the Cincinnati Bengals in the wild-card round, the success Davis so badly wanted never made its way to Las Vegas.

The Raiders under McDaniels went 6-11 in 2022 and are 3-5 so far this season for a .360 winning percentage. His record at Denver was 11-17 (.393 percentage).

Even so, Davis has stood by McDaniels, and the timing of this dismissal is surprising. McDaniels met with the media early Tuesday afternoon and was scheduled for another news conference Wednesday morning to discuss facing the Giants.

But McDaniels had some things working against him. The Raiders have failed to score at least 20 points in eight of their past nine games dating to last season, and offense is his specialty. The one game Las Vegas reached that figure came because of a fourth-quarter safety in a 21-17 victory over the Patriots on Oct. 15.

Perhaps just as damaging was the public displeasure some of his players have shown. Star wide receiver Davante Adams, in particular, has been vocal since the offseason about his concerns regarding the direction of the franchise. Running back Josh Jacobs when asked after Monday night’s loss to the Detroit Lions about what might spark the offense, said, “I don’t know, that ain’t my job.”

McDaniels was hired following the 2021 season when Davis opted not to keep interim coach Rich Bisaccia on for the full-time job even after he led the team to a surprising playoff run.

McDaniels and Ziegler were aggressive in their first offseason, trading first and second-round picks for Adams, giving a big free agent contract to defensive end Chandler Jones and extending the contracts of Derek Carr, Maxx Crosby, Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow.

But those moves didn’t lead to positive results on the field as McDaniels never was able to build the high-powered offense Davis expected when he hired him and struggled to win games.

The Raiders lost a record-tying five games after taking double-digit leads, including blowing a 20-0 halftime lead in his home debut against Arizona for the biggest collapse in franchise history. Las Vegas lost to Indianapolis in the Colts’ first game with Jeff Saturday as interim coach after he had never coached above high school level and then lost to Baker Mayfield and the Rams two days after Mayfield joined his new team.

McDaniels benched Carr late last season and eventually cut him in the offseason, giving the Raiders no return for a starting quarterback who ended up getting a $150 million contract from New Orleans.

McDaniels brought in his former pupil in New England, Jimmy Garoppolo, as the new starting quarterback and the offense severely regressed, becoming the first team since 2009 to score less than 20 points on offense in each of the first eight games of the season.

The last two weeks were particularly humbling as Las Vegas lost 30-12 to Chicago and undrafted rookie former Division II quarterback Tyson Bagent and then looked completely inept in a 26-14 loss at Detroit on Monday night.

McDaniels finished his tenure with the third-worst record of any Raiders coach with at least 25 games.

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AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this report.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday that it would rule against a man who wants to trademark the suggestive phrase “Trump too small.”

The dispute is over the government’s decision to deny a trademark to Steve Elster, a California man seeking exclusive use of the phrase on T-shirts and potentially other merchandise. It is the latest case relating to former President Donald Trump to reach the Supreme Court, following arguments Tuesday in social media cases with echoes of Trump.

The justices repeatedly invoked the phrase as they questioned whether the government was justified in denying the trademark. Elster’s lawyers argue that the decision violated his free speech rights, and a federal appeals court agreed.

Chief Justice John Roberts, positing what might happen if Elster were to win, said people then would race to trademark “Trump too this, Trump too that.”

The Justice Department is supporting President Joe Biden’s once and possibly future rival. Government officials said the phrase “Trump too small” could still be used, just not trademarked because Trump had not consented to its use. Indeed, “Trump too small” T-shirts already can be purchased online.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that distinction was important because Elster is free to say and “sell as many shirts as he wants.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of Trump’s three Supreme Court appointees, leaned into the phrase as she wondered how the court would analyze an imaginary law denying a copyright to an author.

“Somebody wants to write a book called ‘Trump too small’ that details Trump’s pettiness over the years and just argues that he’s not a fit public official,” Barrett said.

Twice in the past six years, the justices have struck down provisions of federal law denying trademarks seen as scandalous or immoral in one case and disparaging in another.

The new case deals with another measure calling for a trademark request to be refused if it involves a name, portrait or signature “identifying a particular living individual” unless the person has given “written consent.”

The phrase at the heart of the case is a reference to an exchange Trump had during the 2016 presidential campaign with Florida senator and GOP presidential rival Marco Rubio.

Rubio began the verbal jousting when he told supporters at a rally that Trump was always calling him “little Marco” but that Trump — who says he is 6-feet-3-inches tall — has disproportionately small hands. “Have you seen his hands? … And you know what they say about men with small hands,” Rubio said. “You can’t trust them.”

Trump then brought up the comment at a televised debate on March 3, 2016.

“Look at those hands. Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands — if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee you,” he said.

The high court has considered several Trump-related cases in recent years. The justices have dealt with Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election and with his efforts to shield his tax records from Congress and to keep other tax records from prosecutors in New York, among other things.

The justices also could be asked to decide whether Trump can be disqualified from running for the White House again because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.

A decision in Vidal v. Elster, 22-704, is expected by early summer.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump Jr. testified Wednesday that he never worked on his father’s financial statements, the documents now at the heart of the civil fraud trial that threatens former President Donald Trump’s real estate empire.

The ex-president’s eldest son is an executive vice president of the family’s Trump Organization and has been a trustee of a trust set up to hold its assets when his father was in the White House.

At least one of the annual financial statements bore language saying the trustees “are responsible” for the document. But Donald Trump Jr. said he didn’t recall ever working on any of the financial statements and had “no specific knowledge” of them.

The lawsuit centers on whether the former president and his business misled banks and insurers by inflating his net worth on the financial statements. He and other defendants, including sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny wrongdoing.

Trump Jr. said he signed off on statements as a trustee, but had left the work to outside accountants and the company’s then-finance chief, Allen Weisselberg.

“I had an obligation to listen to the people with intimate knowledge of those things,” he said.

“I wasn’t working on the document, but if they tell me that it’s accurate, based on their accounting assessment of all of the materials,” he said, “these people had an incredible intimate knowledge, and I relied on it.”

The first family member to testify, he is due to return to the stand Thursday. Next up will be his brother and fellow Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump and, on Monday, their father — the family patriarch, company founder, former president and 2024 Republican front-runner.

Daughter Ivanka, a former Trump Organization executive and White House adviser, is scheduled to take the stand Nov. 8. But her lawyers on Wednesday appealed Judge Arthur Engoron ‘s decision to require her testimony.

New York Attorney General Letitia James brought the lawsuit, alleging that Donald Trump, his company and top executives, including Eric and Donald Jr., conspired to exaggerate his wealth by billions of dollars on his financial statements. The documents were given to banks, insurers and others to secure loans and make deals.

The former president has called the case a “sham,” a “scam,” and “a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time.”

James is a Democrat, as is Engoron, who ruled before the trial that Trump’s financial statements were fraudulent. The judge ordered that a court-appointed receiver seize control of some Trump companies, potentially stripping the former president and his family of such marquee properties as Trump Tower, though an appeals court has halted enforcement for now.

“Leave my children alone, Engoron,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site Wednesday, before court convened.

Engoron will decide the current case; state law doesn’t allow for juries in this type of lawsuit, he has said.

The Trumps are being summoned to the stand by James’ office, but defense lawyers will also have a chance to question them and can call them back as part of the defense case later.

During about 85 minutes on the witness stand Wednesday, Trump Jr. seemed collected, quipping “I should have worn makeup” as news photographers took his photo before questioning began.

He made some more lighthearted asides during questioning about his education and career. When asked whether he belonged to an accountants organization, he replied, “Sounds very exciting, but no.”

More seriously, he appeared to be laying groundwork to blame any irregularities in the financial statements on the Trump Organization’s longtime outside accountant, Donald Bender. Trump Jr. testified that the company “relied heavily on” Bender as “a point person for just about anything we did, accountingwise.”

Bender, for his part, testified last month that Trump’s company wasn’t always forthcoming with all the information required for the financial statements.

During a deposition, or sworn pretrial questioning, Eric Trump also said he hadn’t had “any involvement in the statement of financial condition, to the best of my knowledge.”

Eric Trump has attended several days of the trial, but his elder brother hadn’t been to court before Wednesday. Out of court, however, Trump Jr. had repeatedly denounced the case and judge.

“It doesn’t matter what the rules are, it doesn’t matter what the Constitution says, it doesn’t matter what general practices and business would be,” Donald Trump Jr. said Monday on Newsmax. “It doesn’t matter. They have a narrative, they have an end goal, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get there.”

State lawyers have asked other witnesses about the Trump children’s roles leading the Trump Organization and their involvement, over the years, in valuing their father’s properties and preparing his financial statements. Their names have also appeared on various emails and documents entered into evidence.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were also heard from — briefly and virtually — earlier in the trial. Snippets of their depositions were shown during opening statements on Oct. 2.

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NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. infant mortality rate rose 3% last year — the largest increase in two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

White and Native American infants, infant boys and babies born at 37 weeks or earlier had significant death rate increases. The CDC’s report, published Wednesday, also noted larger increases for two of the leading causes of infant deaths — maternal complications and bacterial meningitis.

“It’s definitely concerning, given that it’s going in the opposite direction from what it has been,” said Marie Thoma, a University of Maryland researcher who studies maternal and infant mortality.

Dr. Eric Eichenwald, a Philadelphia-based neonatologist, called the new data “disturbing,” but said experts at this point can only speculate as to why a statistic that generally has been falling for decades rose in 2022.

RSV and flu infections rebounded last fall after two years of pandemic precautions, filling pediatric emergency rooms across the country. “That could potentially account for some of it,” said Eichenwald, who chairs an American Academy of Pediatrics committee that writes guidelines for medical care of newborns.

Infant mortality is the measure of how many babies die before they reach their first birthday. Because the number of babies born in the U.S. varies from year to year, researchers instead calculate rates to better compare infant mortality over time. The U.S. infant mortality rate has been worse than other high-income countries, which experts have attributed to poverty, inadequate prenatal care and other possibilities. But even so, the U.S. rate generally gradually improved because of medical advances and public health efforts.

“Today’s data underscores that our failure to better support moms before, during, and after birth is among the factors contributing to poor infant health outcomes,” Dr. Elizabeth Cherot, chief executive of the March of Dimes, said in a statement.

The national rate rose to 5.6 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2022, up from from 5.44 per 1,000 the year before, the new report said.

The increase may seem small, but it’s the first statistically significant jump in the rate since the increase between 2001 and 2002, said Danielle Ely, the CDC report’s lead author. She also said researchers could not establish whether the 2022 rise was a one-year statistical blip — or the beginning of a more lasting trend.

Overall in the U.S., the death rate fell 5% in 2022 — a general decrease that’s been attributed to the waning impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on people 65 and older. U.S. maternal deaths also fell last year.

More than 30 states saw at least slight rises in infant mortality rates in 2022, but four states had statistically significant increases — Georgia, Iowa, Missouri and Texas.

In numbers, U.S. infant deaths surpassed 20,500 in 2022 — 610 more than the year before nationwide. But Georgia had 116 more infant deaths than the year before, and Texas had 251 more.

“It would appear that some of the states could be having a larger impact on the (national) rate,” Ely said, adding that smaller increases elsewhere also have an effect — and that it’s hard to parse out exactly what places, policies or other factors are behind the national statistic.

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

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration is privately developing a national strategy to combat Islamophobia, according to people briefed on the matter, as it faces skepticism from many Muslim Americans for its staunch support of Israel’s military assault on Hamas in Gaza.

The White House originally was expected to announce its plans to develop the strategy last week when Biden met with Muslim leaders, but that was delayed, three people said. Two said the delay was due partly to concerns from Muslim Americans that the administration lacked credibility on the issue given its robust backing of Israel’s military, whose strikes against Hamas militants have killed thousands of civilians in Gaza. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the White House plans.

The launch of the anti-Islamophobia effort has been anticipated for months after the administration in May released a national strategy to combat antisemitism that made passing reference to countering hatred against Muslims.

The new initiative is expected to take months to formalize, following a similar process to the plan to counter antisemitism that involved various government agencies.

Incidences of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hate have skyrocketed in the United States and abroad since the surprise Oct. 7 attack by Hamas against Israel that killed more than 1,400 people and saw hundreds taken hostage, and Israel’s response in Gaza, where it has pledged to use force to “destroy” Hamas. One of the most prominent attacks in the U.S. was the killing of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume and the wounding of his mother in an attack in Illinois that prosecutors allege was driven by Islamophobia.

“This horrific act of hate has no place in America and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are,” Biden said afterward.

There had been widespread agreement among Muslim Americans on the need for a national strategy to counter Islamophobia, according to a fourth person familiar with the matter, who added that the Israel-Hamas war has made the timing of the White House announcement more complicated. The person, who was also not authorized to speak publicly about the internal deliberations, said the administration wants to keep the two issues separate, while some prominent Muslim American groups see them as interrelated.

Administration officials, during the meeting with a small group of faith leaders last week, indicated things were “in the works” for an anti-Islamophobia strategy, said Rami Nashashibi, the founder of the Inner City Muslim Action Network in Chicago and a participant in that session.

Nashashibi said he believed such an effort would be “dead on arrival” with the Muslim community until the president and administration officials forcefully condemn members of the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who have openly called for the eradication of Palestinians from Gaza and until the administration more aggressively calls out hate crimes targeting Muslims and Arab Americans.

He and other leaders also want Biden to apologize, or at least publicly clarify, his recent comments in which he said he had “no confidence” in the Palestinian death count from Israel’s retaliatory strikes, because the data comes from the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The United Nations and other international institutions and experts, as well as Palestinian authorities in the West Bank — rivals of Hamas — say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions. In previous wars, the ministry’s counts have held up to U.N. scrutiny, independent investigations and even Israel’s tallies.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that the administration is “not taking the Ministry of Health at face value” but he acknowledged there have been “many thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza” in the conflict.

Nashashibi also said the White House strategy could land flat at a moment when many Muslim Americans feel that advocacy stands for Palestinian self-determination is being unfairly lumped in with those espousing antisemitism and backing of extremists.

“That conflating is in great part contributing to an atmosphere where we could see even more deadly results and more targeting,” he said. Nashashibi added, “The White House does not have the credibility to roll out an Islamophobia strategy at this moment without publicly addressing the points we explicitly raised with the president during our meeting.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve kept its key short-term interest rate unchanged Wednesday for a second straight time but left the door open to further rate hikes if inflation pressures should accelerate in the months ahead.

The Fed said in a statement after its latest meeting that it would keep its benchmark rate at about 5.4%, its highest level in 22 years. Since launching the most aggressive series of rate hikes in four decades in March 2022 to fight inflation, the Fed has pulled back and has now raised rates only once since May.

The central bank’s latest statement noted that the economy “expanded at a strong pace” in the July-September quarter and that job gains “remain strong.” And it reiterated that future rate hikes, if the Fed finds them necessary, remain under consideration.

But it also acknowledged that recent tumult in the financial markets has sent interest rates on 10-year Treasury notes to near 16-year highs and contributed to higher loan rates across the economy — a trend that helps serve the Fed’s goal of cooling the economy and inflation pressures.

At a news conference, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed was edging closer to the end of its rate-hiking campaign. He noted that the sharply higher longer-term rates could help lower inflation without necessarily requiring further rate hikes from the Fed. And he highlighted a steady decline in pay increases, which tends to ease inflation because companies may find it less necessary to offset their labor costs by raising prices.

The Fed chair expressed confidence that inflation, despite some signs of persistence in the most recent monthly data, is still heading lower even as the economy is still growing.

“The good news,” Powell said, “is we’re making progress. The progress is going to come in lumps and be bumpy, but we are making progress.”

The Fed chair said the central bank’s policymakers recognize that the effects of their rate hikes have yet to be fully felt in the economy and that they want to take time to assess the impact, another reason why the Fed may not feel compelled to raise rates anytime soon.

“Slowing down” the rate increases, Powell said, “is giving us a better sense of how much more we need to do, if we need to do more.”

Stock prices rose and bond yields fell as the Fed chair spoke to reporters, as investors interpreted his remarks to mean that the Fed may be done hiking rates.

“The (stock) market is convinced that the Fed is done,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “That may in fact be true, but they haven’t said that yet.”

Arone noted that hiring remains robust, that inflation remains persistently above the Fed’s 2% target and that the economy is still expanding at a healthy clip.

In his remarks, Powell cautioned that the central bank isn’t yet confident that its own key rate is high enough to reduce growth over time.

“The Fed,” Arone said, “continues to give themselves plenty of wiggle room in terms of what they’re going to do next.”

Powell himself suggested that Fed officials remain unsure about whether further rate increases might still be needed to defeat inflation. That stance marks a shift from earlier this year, when the policymakers had made clear that they leaned toward pushing rates higher.

“That’s the question we’re asking: Should we hike again?” Powell said.

Long-term Treasury yields have soared since July, the last time the Fed raised rates, swelling the costs of auto loans, credit card borrowing and many forms of business loans. Nationally, the average long-term fixed mortgage rate is nearing 8%, its highest level in 23 years.

Economists at Wall Street banks have estimated that recent losses in the stock market and higher bond yields could have a depressive effect on the economy equal to the impact of three or four quarter-point rate hikes by the Fed.

Those tighter credit conditions, though, have yet to cool the economy or slow hiring as much as the Fed had expected. Growth soared at a 4.9% annual pace in the July-September quarter, powered by robust consumer spending, and hiring in September was strong.

Consumer inflation has dropped from a year-over-year peak of 9.1% in June 2022 to 3.7% last month. But recent data suggests that inflation remains persistently above the Fed’s 2% target.

Market analysts say an array of factors have combined to force up long-term Treasury yields and couple with the Fed’s short-term rate hikes to make borrowing costlier for consumers and businesses. For one thing, the government is expected to sell potentially trillions of dollars more in bonds in the coming years to finance huge budget deficits even as the Fed is shrinking its holdings of bonds. As a result, higher Treasury rates may be needed to attract more buyers.

And with the future path of rates murkier than usual, investors are demanding higher yields in return for the greater risk of holding longer-term bonds.

What’s important for the Fed is that the yield on the 10-year Treasury has continued to zoom higher even without rate hikes by the central bank. That suggests that Treasury yields may stay high even if the Fed keeps its own benchmark rate on hold, helping keep a lid on economic growth and inflation.

Other major central banks have also been dialing back their rates hikes with their inflation measures having appeared to improve. The European Central Bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged last week, and last month inflation in the 20 countries that use the euro fell to 2.9%, its lowest level in more than two years.

The Bank of England also kept its key rate unchanged in September. The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is inching toward higher borrowing costs, as it loosens control on longer-term rates.

Maine State Police documents released Tuesday shed light on why a delusional U.S. Army reservist who killed 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar in Lewiston may have targeted those locations.

Robert Card, 40, was found dead Friday, two days after a rampage that also wounded 13 people and shut down multiple communities during a massive search on land and water.

Three hours after the shooting began, state police interviewed a woman who said Card believed the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley, Schemengees Bar and Grille and several other businesses were “broadcasting online that Robert was a pedophile.”

The woman said Card had been delusional since February after a break-up, had been hospitalized for mental illness and prescribed medication that he stopped taking, according to a police affidavit filed in support of an arrest warrant request.

Police also spoke to Robert’s brother, who said Card had been in relationship with someone he met at a cornhole competition at the bar. Another man said the same thing to a different officer, according to an affidavit filed in a request to access Card’s cell phone records.

That man told police he had been to both the bowling alley and bar with Card, and that Card knew people at both locations. He said Card’s girlfriend had two daughters that he would take out to eat at Schemengees, “and that is where the pedophile thing in Robert’s head came from as Robert was there with (his girfriend’s) two daughters on occasions and felt that people were looking at him.”

The man said Card also mentioned bar manager Joey Walker was one of the people who Card thought had disparaged him. Walker was among those killed.

Card’s son also told police that paranoia about strangers calling him a pedophile had become a recurring theme for his father since last winter.

He also accused fellow members of his Army reserve unit of calling him a pedophile in an incident in July that prompted Army officials to have him undergo a mental health evaluation. He then spent two weeks at a private psychiatric hospital in New York.

MAY:

On May 3, Card’s 18-year-old son and ex-wife told a school resource officer in Topsham, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) southeast of Lewiston, that they were growing concerned about his deteriorating mental health.

A Sagadahoc County sheriff’s deputy met with the son and ex-wife that day and the son said that around last January, his father started claiming that people around him were saying derogatory things about him. He said his father had become angry and paranoid, and described an incident several weeks earlier in which he accused the son of saying things about him behind his back.

Card’s ex-wife told the deputy that Card had recently picked up 10-15 guns from his brother’s home, and she was worried about their son spending time with him.

A sheriff’s deputy spoke to a sergeant from Card’s Army Reserve unit, who assured him that he and others would “figure out options to get Robert help.”

JULY:

Card and other members of the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Unit were in New York for training on July 15 when he accused several of them of calling him a pedophile, shoved one of them and locked himself in his motel room. The next morning, he told another soldier that he wanted people to stop talking about him.

“I told him no one was talking about him and everyone here was his friend. Card told me to leave him alone and tried to slam the door in my face,” the soldier later told Maine authorities, according to documents released by the sheriff’s office.

New York State Police responded and took Card to a hospital at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point for an evaluation.

“During the four hours I was with Card, he never spoke, just stared through me without blinking,” an unidentified soldier in the unit wrote in a letter to the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office.

Card spent 14 days at the Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York, which is a few miles (kilometers) from West Point.

AUGUST:

Card returned home on Aug. 3, according to the Army. At that time, the Army directed that while on duty, he shouldn’t be allowed to have a weapon, handle ammunition or participate in live-fire activity. It also declared him to be non-deployable.

On Aug. 5, Card went to Coastal Defense Firearms in Auburn, next to Lewiston, to pick up a gun suppressor, or silencer, that he had ordered online, according to the shop’s owner, Rick LaChapelle.

LaChapelle said to that point, federal authorities had approved the sale of the device, which is used to quiet gunshots. But he said the shop halted the sale after Card filled out a form and answered “yes” to the question: “Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?”

Card was polite when notified of the denial, mentioned something about the military and said he would “come right back” after consulting his lawyer, LaChapelle said.

SEPTEMBER:

On Sept. 15, a deputy was sent to visit Card’s home in Bowdoin, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Lewiston, for a wellness check. Card’s unit requested it after a soldier said he was afraid Card was “going to snap and commit a mass shooting” because he was hearing voices again, according to documents released by the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office. The deputy went to Card’s trailer but couldn’t find him.

The sheriff’s office then sent out a statewide alert seeking help locating Card. It included a warning that he was known to be “armed and dangerous” and that officers should use extreme caution.

The same deputy and another one returned to Card’s trailer on Sept. 16. Card’s car was there and the deputy said he could hear him moving around the trailer, but no one answered the door, according to the deputy’s report.

The report included a letter written by an unidentified member of Card’s Reserve unit who described the July incidents as well as getting a call the “night before last” from another soldier about Card. The timing isn’t clear, but according to the letter, the soldier said he and Card were returning from a casino when Card punched him and said he planned to shoot up places, including an Army Reserve drill center in Saco, Maine.

“He also said I was the reason he can’t buy guns anymore because of the commitment,” the soldier wrote.

A deputy reached out to the Reserve unit commander, who assured him the Army was trying to get treatment for Card. The commander also said he thought “it best to let Card have time to himself for a bit.”

On Sept. 17, the deputy reached out to Card’s brother, who said he had put Card’s firearms in a gun safe at the family farm and would work with their father to move the guns elsewhere and make sure Card couldn’t get other guns.

Card didn’t report to weekend Army reserve training activities in September or October, telling his unit that he had work conflicts and was unable to attend, the Army said.

OCTOBER 2023:

On Oct. 18, the sheriff’s office canceled its statewide alert seeking help locating Card.

One week later, shortly before 7 p.m. on Oct. 25, authorities began receiving 911 calls about a gunman at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley in Lewiston. Four local police officers who were in plain clothes at a nearby gun range arrived at the shooting scene a minute and a half after the first 911 call, but the gunman had already left. Other Lewiston officers arrived at the scene within four minutes of the first call.

Twelve minutes after the first 911 call and as the first state troopers began arriving at the bowling alley, authorities began getting calls about a gunman at Schemengees Bar and Grille about 4 miles away. Officers arrived at the bar five minutes later, but again, the attacker had already left.

Seven people were killed at the bowling, eight were killed at the bar and three others died at the hospital, authorities said.

Video surveillance footage from the bar showed a white male armed with a rifle getting out of a car and entering the building, according to Maine State Police documents released Tuesday. Another portion showed a man “walk through the bar while seeking out and shooting at patrons.”

Authorities released a photo of Card an hour after the shootings and his family members were the first to identify him. Residents were urged to stay inside with their doors locked while hundreds of officers searched for the gunman.

Later on the night of the attack, Card’s car was found near a boat launch in Lisbon, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from Lewiston. During a massive search over the next two days, authorities focused on property his family owns in Bowdoin.

Card was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot Friday night at a recycling center where he used to work.

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Robert De Niro shouted “Shame on you!” as he testified Tuesday in a New York courtroom, directing the comments toward his former executive assistant and vice president who seeks millions of dollars after accusing her onetime boss of being abusive.

Graham Chase Robinson watched with her lawyers while De Niro’s anger built as attorney Andrew Macurdy pelted him with some tabloid-style accusations his client made about De Niro’s behavior toward Robinson as she served his needs, large and small, from 2008 until several months into 2019.

Robinson, 41, seeks $12 million in damages for emotional distress and reputational harm that she claims has left her jobless and unable to recover from the trauma of working for De Niro. She was making $300,000 annually when she quit, frustrated by her interactions with De Niro’s girlfriend and the effect she believed the girlfriend was having on the actor.

The jury is also considering evidence pertaining to a lawsuit De Niro filed against Robinson in which he claimed that she stole things from him, including 5 million points that could be used for airline flights. De Niro is seeking the return of three years of Robinson’s salary.

Macurdy asked De Niro whether it was true that he sometimes urinated as he spoke with Robinson on the telephone.

“That’s nonsense,” De Niro answered. “You got us all here for this?”

Macurdy told De Niro he called Robinson “b—— to her face.”

“I was never abusive, ever,” the actor snapped back, though he conceded that he might have used the word in conversations with her.

And the claim that he told Robinson he preferred that she scratch his back rather than using a back scratching device drew another angry rebuke from De Niro, who said it might have happened once or twice, but “never was with disrespect or lewdness.”

Finally, he angrily looked toward Robinson and shouted: “Shame on you, Chase Robinson!”

Quickly, he blurted an apology in a quieter voice, as he glanced toward Judge Lewis J. Liman.

The actor admitted that there were no written rules for those who worked for him because, he said, he relied on the “rules of common sense.” He said he promoted Robinson with the title of vice president of his company, Canal Productions, at her request but he added that her duties didn’t change.

At times, De Niro would flatly deny something, only to later admit that there might be truth to it in a manner different than how it was suggested.

Asked if he once yelled at Robinson when she was in Europe and had failed to call and remind him of an important meeting in California, De Niro answered that he hadn’t, only to quickly add: “I raised my voice.”

“I got angry that one time,” he said. “I berated her. I wasn’t abusive. I was upset.”

“You called her a brat,” Macurdy said.

“I could have,” De Niro answered.

Sometimes, De Niro sounded like he wanted to leave the witness stand.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said at one point.

He rejected Macurdy’s suggestion that he sued Robinson before she sued him because he wanted publicity.

“It draws attention to me. It’s the last thing I wanted to do,” De Niro said.

De Niro, 80, has won two Oscars in a six-decade movie career that has featured memorable roles in films including “The Deer Hunter” and “Raging Bull.” Currently, he is in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

NEW YORK (AP) — When Donald Trump tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014, investment bankers doubted the NFL would allow it but encouraged him to stay in the running, according to internal emails aired Tuesday at the former president’s civil fraud trial.

“Trump has little chance of being approved by the NFL,” given that he had owned casinos and had a role in the rival USFL’s 1980s antitrust suit against the NFL, then-Morgan Stanley executive K. Don Cornwell wrote to colleagues in April 2014. “That being said, his strong show of support doesn’t hurt the process.”

“He probably does have the dough” and claimed he’d been courting the NFL, another Morgan Stanley banker, Jeffrey Holzschuh, wrote back, adding: “but never know the real facts with him.”

Three months later, Trump offered $1 billion cash for the Bills, becoming one of three known finalists seeking to buy the team after the death of founder and Hall of Fame owner Ralph Wilson. The owners of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, Terry and Kim Pegula, ultimately bought the Bills for $1.4 billion. A group led by rock star Jon Bon Jovi had also been interested in acquiring the team.

A decade later, Trump’s failed Bills bid is one of the business moves under scrutiny in the trial of a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She accuses the ex-president and current Republican 2024 front-runner of deceiving banks, insurers and others by giving them financial statements that massively inflated the values of his assets.

Trump denies any wrongdoing and says his annual “statements of financial condition” actually lowballed his wealth. He casts the lawsuit as part of an effort by James and other Democrats to choke his campaign.

Trump owned the USFL’s New Jersey Generals and led the upstart league to sue the NFL in the mid-1980s, alleging its established rivals had monopolized professional football. The USFL achieved a Pyrrhic victory, with a jury awarding just $1 in damages — multiplied to $3 via court rules and totaling $3.76 with interest once upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The USFL, which had sought $1.3 billion, folded shortly after.

Trump testified in the antitrust case that then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle floated the idea that Trump could own an NFL franchise and urged him not to sue. Trump said Rozelle also unsuccessfully urged him to abandon plans to switch the USFL’s season from spring to fall. The schedule change, which Trump spearheaded, pitted the USFL against the NFL and was widely blamed for the newer league’s demise.

In offering to buy the Bills, Trump cited his net worth as over $8 billion in an initial offer letter but never provided his financial statements. His then-lawyer Michael Cohen told the bankers that Trump wouldn’t release his financial records until told he was “the final bidder,” according to an email shown in court Tuesday.

Instead, at a presentation to the bankers, Trump handed out copies of one of Forbes magazine’s lists of wealthy celebrities, Cornwell testified. Trump was the star of NBC’s “The Apprentice” at the time.

Throughout the sale process, Cohen insisted Trump was serious about his bid and his commitment to keeping the Bills in Buffalo. Cohen disputed reports that Trump didn’t have the financial resources to pull off the deal, claiming his then-boss was worth billions of dollars and pointing to his many properties as proof.

“There’s nobody more serious than Donald Trump,” Cohen said in an interview with The Associated Press in 2014.

Once the bids were being formally submitted, Cohen conceded to the AP that Trump’s bid was not going to win. Cohen said the businessman wasn’t interested in paying more than market value for the Bills, a team that had an estimated worth of $870 million but was projected to sell for up to $1.2 billion.

In the early going in May 2014, some Morgan Stanley bankers and an NFL official met to talk about dozens of possible Bills buyers, according to an email shown in court Tuesday.

When it came to Trump, the upshot of the conversation was: “question his liquidity and ability to get votes” from other team owners in an approval vote, according to the email. It also said the league would want to examine management contracts for any Trump-branded casinos, to see whether he had any influence, even if not ownership.

Two months later, Trump hadn’t provided his financial documents, and his bid wasn’t the highest. Still, the bankers prepared talking points that told him his bid was below several others, but “you could prevail if during the diligence process you can move up in value.”

Separately, Cornwell wrote to colleagues in August 2014 that they “still want to keep him around” and said that Trump had asked to be “pre-vetted” privately, so the bank would do so.

“Well… he will stay in process,” Holzschuh wrote to Cornwell a week later, adding that Trump “is very sensitive about his rep” and didn’t want to spend money on the process if the price was going to be too high. But, Holzschuh added, “I encouraged him to put his best offer forward and let the process work.”

Cornwell testified that since the sale was an open process, the bankers “had to talk to all interested parties.”

But Trump lawyer Christopher Kise suggested the bank essentially strung the businessman along, saying: “They never considered him a serious bidder. They took him in to use his name to bid up the price.”

Trump told the AP in 2016 that had he been able to buy the Bills, it’s unlikely that he would’ve run for president.

“If I bought that team, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing,” he said.

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Associated Press reporter John Wawrow in Buffalo, New York, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig has died, nearly six weeks after the highly experimental surgery, his Maryland doctors announced Tuesday.

Lawrence Faucette, 58, was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant when he received the genetically modified pig heart on Sept. 20.

According to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the heart had seemed healthy for the first month but began showing signs of rejection in recent days. Faucette died Monday.

In a statement released by the hospital, Faucette’s wife, Ann, said her husband “knew his time with us was short and this was his last chance to do for others. He never imagined he would survive as long as he did.”

The Maryland team last year performed the world’s first transplant of a heart from a genetically altered pig into another dying man. David Bennett survived two months before that heart failed, for reasons that aren’t completely clear although signs of a pig virus later were found inside the organ. Lessons from that first experiment led to changes, including better virus testing, before the second attempt.

“Mr. Faucette’s last wish was for us to make the most of what we have learned from our experience,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who led the transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center, said in a statement.

Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants — called xenotransplants — have failed for decades, as people’s immune systems immediately destroyed the foreign tissue. Now scientists are trying again using pigs genetically modified to make their organs more humanlike.

Faucette, a Navy veteran and father of two from Frederick, Maryland, had been turned down for a traditional heart transplant because of other health problems when he came to the Maryland hospital, out of options and expressing a wish to spend a little more time with his family.

In mid-October, the hospital said Faucette had been able to stand and released video showing him working hard in physical therapy to regain the strength needed to attempt walking.

Cardiac xenotransplant chief Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin said the team will analyze what happened with the heart as they continue studying pig organs.

Many scientists hope xenotransplants one day could compensate for the huge shortage of human organ donations. More than 100,000 people are on the nation’s list for a transplant, most awaiting kidneys, and thousands will die waiting.

A handful of scientific teams have tested pig kidneys and hearts in monkeys and in donated human bodies, hoping to learn enough for the Food and Drug Administration to allow formal xenotransplant studies.

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

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed Jacob Lew as ambassador to Israel, filling the key diplomatic post as the country is fighting a war with Hamas.

Lew, a treasury secretary under President Barack Obama, was confirmed 53-43.

He has promised to stand side by side with Israel’s leaders as they respond to the militant group’s surprise attack on Oct. 7, telling senators in his confirmation hearing in mid-October that “at this moment, there is no greater mission than to be asked to strengthen the ties between the United States and the state of Israel.”

President Joe Biden nominated Lew, who goes by Jack, last month to fill the post left vacant when Tom Nides left as ambassador in July. Democrats say Lew’s wealth of government experience — he also was chief of staff to Obama and White House budget director under Obama and President Bill Clinton — makes him the right person to fill the post at a a critical moment in the two countries’ relationship.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said after Lew’s confirmation that the administration is eager for him “to get on the ground and start leading our efforts to support Israel and their fight against Hamas, but also to help us integrate and continue to lead the effort to get humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.”

Republicans criticized Lew for his role in the Obama White House when it negotiated the Iran nuclear agreement in 2015, among other foreign policy moves. The deal with Iran — the chief sponsor of Hamas — was later scuttled by former President Donald Trump.

“This is the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place,” said Idaho Sen. Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just before the vote. “The last thing we need is somebody who is very contrary to our view about how Iran should be handled.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md., said that Lew has won praise from Israeli leaders and has the gravitas to “stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel” as the United States partners with the country.

“There’s to me no question about his qualifications, no question about his presence being welcomed by our Israeli friends, no question about his knowledge and commitment to these issues,” Cardin said. “We could not have a more qualified individual to represent America as our ambassador to Israel.”

At the hearing, Lew defended his work in the Obama White House and called Iran an “evil, malign government.”

“I want to be clear — Iran is a threat to regional stability and to Israel’s existence,” Lew said.

He also expressed sympathy for the civilians on both sides who have been injured or killed in the fighting. It must end, Lew said, “but it has to end with Israel’s security being guaranteed.”

Lew, who is Jewish, said at the hearing that he cannot remember a time in his life “when Israel’s struggle for security was not at the forefront of my mind.”

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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

FBI Director Christopher Wray warned on Tuesday that Hamas’ rampage inside Israel could inspire violence in the U.S., telling lawmakers that multiple foreign extremist groups have called for attacks against Americans and the West in recent weeks.

“We assess that the actions of Hamas and its allies will serve as an inspiration the likes of which we haven’t seen since ISIS launched its so-called caliphate years ago,” Wray said, using an acronym for the Islamic State group.

In his testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Wray gave his most detailed and ominous assessment of potential threats to the U.S. since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

His reference to the Islamic State, a reminder of when the FBI scrambled to disrupt hastily developed plots of violence by people inspired by the group’s ascendancy, underscores the bureau’s concerns that the current Middle East conflict could create a similarly dangerous dynamic.

Though the FBI isn’t currently tracking an “organized threat” inside the United States, law enforcement is concerned about the potential of attacks by individuals or small groups, as occurred during the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq a decade ago.

The bureau has already seen an increase in attacks on overseas military bases and expects cyberattacks targeting American infrastructure to get worse as the conflict expands, he said.

“It is a time to be concerned. We are in a dangerous period,” Wray said. “We shouldn’t stop going out, but we should be vigilant.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, meanwhile, said his agency has responded to an increase in threats against Jewish, Muslim, and Arab American communities in the U.S. since the Oct. 7 attack.

“Hate directed at Jewish students, communities and institutions add to a preexisting increase in the level of antisemitism in the United States and around the world,” he said.

Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said Jewish leaders in her state of New Hampshire say congregants are scared to go to synagogue, and Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has heard similar fears from people in his state.

“I know our Jewish families all across my state and all across the country are pretty scared to death right now,” Scott said.

Wray cited sobering statistics in his response, saying that Jewish people make up 2.4% of the U.S. population but are the targets of about 60% of religious-based hate crimes. “That should be jarring to everyone,” he said.

The FBI has also opened a hate-crime investigation in the death of a 6-year-old Muslim boy who police say was stabbed to death by his landlord in an attack that also seriously wounded his mother, Wray said. Police and relatives have said the victims were singled out because of their faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The country’s largest Christian university is being fined $37.7 million by the federal government amid accusations that it misled students about the cost of its graduate programs.

Grand Canyon University, which has more than 100,000 students, mostly in online programs, faces the largest fine of its kind ever issued by the U.S. Education Department. The university dismissed the allegations as “lies and deceptive statements.”

“Grand Canyon University categorically denies every accusation in the Department of Education’s statement and will take all measures necessary to defend itself from these false accusations,” the school said in a five-page statement.

An Education Department investigation found that Grand Canyon lied to more than 7,500 current and former students about the cost of its doctoral programs.

As far back as 2017, the university told students its doctoral programs would cost between $40,000 and $49,000. The department found that less than 2% of graduates completed programs within the range, with 78% paying an additional $10,000 to $12,000.

The additional cost often came from “continuation courses” that were needed to finish dissertation requirements, the department said.

“GCU’s lies harmed students, broke their trust and led to unexpectedly high levels of student debt,” said Richard Cordray, chief operating officer for Federal Student Aid, an office in the Education Department. “Today, we are holding GCU accountable for its actions, protecting students and taxpayers, and upholding the integrity of the federal student aid programs.”

The Biden administration is issuing the fine amid a broader push for accountability among U.S. universities. The Education Department recently finalized a new regulation that could cut federal funding to for-profit college programs that leave graduated unable to repay loans, and the agency plans to give students and families more information about outcomes from all colleges.

Grand Canyon has 20 days to appeal the fine. The department is also adding new conditions the school must meet to continue receiving federal money.

The school will be barred from making “substantial misrepresentations” about the cost of doctoral programs, and if it tell students about the cost of doctoral programs, it must use the average cost paid by graduates.

It also has to report any other investigations or lawsuits, and it must also send a notice to current doctoral students telling them how to submit a complaint to the Education Department.

For the past four years, Grand Canyon has disbursed more federal student aid than any other U.S. institution, the department said.

Earlier this month, Grand Canyon issued a statement saying federal agencies were unfairly targeting the school with “frivolous accusations” in retaliation for an ongoing lawsuit the university filed against the Education Department in 2021.

Grand Canyon sued after the agency rejected the school’s request to be classified as a nonprofit college. It became a for-profit college in 2004 after investors saved it from financial collapse. It applied to become a nonprofit again in 2018 but the Trump administration blocked the move, saying the college remained too close to its previous parent company.

It’s considered a nonprofit by its accreditor and the Internal Revenue Service.

Responding to the fine, Grand Canyon said its cost disclosures have been upheld in court during a separate lawsuit, and by the school’s accreditor. It said the fine is part of a “disturbing pattern” by the Education Department, adding that the agency declined a request to address the issue through a federal mediator.

“This speaks volumes about their agenda-driven motivation to bring harm to the university and the coordinated efforts being taken against GCU,” the school said.

The university enrolls roughly 20,000 students at its campus in Phoenix, but most of its overall enrollment comes from students who take online classes from outside Arizona. It enrolled 80,000 students in online programs as of 2021, with a roughly even split between undergrad and graduate programs.

The fine was applauded by groups that advocate for student loan borrowers.

“When colleges lie to students, it costs them time and money they’ll never get back,” said Aaron Ament, president of the group Student Defense. “We’re glad to see the Department of Education take action to prevent graduate schools from misleading students about the costs of their programs, and we hope they will continue to crack down on these types of predatory schemes.”

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court wrestled Tuesday with whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that first arose in a case involving former President Donald Trump.

The justices heard arguments in two cases involving lawsuits filed by people who were blocked after leaving critical comments on social media accounts belonging to school board members in southern California and a city manager in Port Huron, Michigan, northeast of Detroit.

The cases force the court to deal with the competing free speech rights of public officials and their constituents, and all in a rapidly evolving virtual world.

“More and more of our democracy operates on social media,” Justice Elena Kagan said during three hours of arguments.

The cases are part of a term-long focus on the relationship between government and the private digital platforms. Justice Clarence Thomas hinted at coming cases when he described as “the looming elephant in the room” the power of Facebook and other platforms to take down accounts.

Early next year, the court will evaluate Republican-passed laws in Florida and Texas that prohibit large social media companies from taking down posts because of the views they express. The tech companies said the laws violate their First Amendment rights. The laws reflect a view among Republicans that the platforms disproportionately censor conservative viewpoints.

Also on the agenda is a challenge from Missouri and Louisiana to the Biden administration’s efforts to combat controversial social media posts on topics including COVID-19 and election security. The states argue that the administration has been unconstitutionally coercing the platforms into cracking down on conservative positions.

Tuesday’s cases delving into the common use of social media by public officials are less overtly partisan. But they are similar to a case involving Trump and his decision to block critics from his personal account on Twitter, now known as X. The justices dismissed the case after Trump left office.

The @realdonaldtrump account had more than 88 million followers, but Trump argued that it was his personal property.

“But he seems to be doing, you know, a lot of government on his Twitter account,” Kagan said. “I mean, sometimes he was announcing policies. Even when he wasn’t, I mean, I don’t think a citizen would be able to really understand the Trump presidency, if you will, without any access to all the things that the president said on that account.”

Appeals courts in San Francisco and Cincinnati reached conflicting decisions about when personal accounts become official, and it seemed that the justices did not wholly embrace either ruling.

The justices did seem to agree that they should provide a clear legal standard, though where they would come down was unclear.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, husband of a town manager in the Washington suburbs, said it is “definitely true” that local officials need guidance.

The first case involved two elected members of a California school board, the Poway Unified School District Board of Trustees. The members, Michelle O’Connor-Ratcliff and T.J. Zane, used their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts to communicate with the public. Two parents, Christopher and Kimberly Garnier, left critical comments and replies to posts on the board members’ accounts and were blocked. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the board members had violated the parents’ free speech rights by doing so. Zane no longer serves on the school board.

The other case involved James Freed, who was appointed Port Huron ’s city manager in 2014. Freed used the Facebook page he first created while in college to communicate with the public, as well as recount the details of daily life.

In 2020, a resident, Kevin Lindke, used the page to comment several times from three Facebook profiles, including criticism of the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Freed blocked all three accounts and deleted Lindke’s comments. Lindke sued, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Freed, noting that his Facebook page talked about his roles as “father, husband, and city manager.”

The Biden administration is siding with the officials and urging the court to respect the distinction between officials’ private and public lives. In these cases, the government doesn’t control or operate the accounts, the Justice Department said.

Several justices seemed dissatisfied with the administration’s approach. “To make so much turn on who owns the Facebook page seems quite artificial,” Justice Samuel Alito said.

On the other side of the case, the American Civil Liberties Union wrote that the officials in both cases took public, or state action, “when they excluded dissenting constituents from social media profiles that they held out as extension of their public office.”

The justices lobbed one hypothetical question after another at the six lawyers who argued before them Tuesday. Justice Amy Coney Barrett stopped herself midway through one offering, after she said one of her law clerks could start posting “the official business of the Barrett chambers” on social media.

“That wouldn’t be OK,” she said, seeming to speak directly to the law clerks, who often attend Supreme Court arguments.

Decisions in O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, 22-324, and Lindke v. Freed, 22-611, are expected by early summer.

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KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — A flurry of Israeli airstrikes Tuesday on a refugee camp near Gaza City leveled apartment buildings, leaving craters where they once stood, as ground troops battled Hamas across northern Gaza and attacked underground compounds.

The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said at least six airstrikes destroyed a number of apartment blocks in Jabaliya, and it reported a large number of casualties but did not immediately provide details. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The Israeli military said Tuesday it carried out a wide-scale strike in Jabaliya on Hamas infrastructure “that had taken over civilian buildings” and that tunnels under the buildings collapsed. It said the strikes killed a large number of Hamas terrorists, including Ibrahim Biari, who it said oversaw operations in the northern part of the strip.

Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in northern Gaza, the first military deaths reported since the ground offensive into the tiny Mediterranean territory accelerated late last week.

With several hundred thousand Palestinians still in the northern part of Gaza, Israeli troops and tanks reportedly have advanced on several sides of Gaza City, the sprawling urban center.

Casualties are expected to mount on both sides as the battle moves into dense, residential neighborhoods, even as overwhelmed hospitals in the north warn they are nearing collapse with supplies largely cut off and strikes hitting nearby. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls for a cease-fire and again vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel following its bloody Oct. 7 rampage, which ignited the war.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, a densely built-up area of small streets on Gaza City’s outskirts, footage of the scene from Al-Jazeera TV showed at least four large craters where buildings once stood, amid a large swath of rubble surrounded by partially collapsed structures.

Dozens of rescue workers and bystanders dug through the wreckage, searching for survivors beneath the pancaked buildings. Young men carried the limp forms of two children from the upper floors of a damaged apartment block’s crumbling frame while helping down another child and woman. It was unclear whether the children were alive or dead.

Also on Tuesday, the Israeli military said ground troops took control of a Hamas stronghold in west Jabaliya, killing 50 terrorists.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem denied the military’s claim, saying it was trying to justify “its heinous crime” against civilians.

More than 8,500 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted around 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.

A day after Israel’s first successful rescue of a captive held by Hamas, the spokesman of the terrorist group’s armed wing said they plan to release some non-Israeli hostages they are holding in the coming days. Hamas has previously released four hostages, and has said it would let the others go in return for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which has dismissed the offer.

More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians have fled their homes, with hundreds of thousands sheltering in packed U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters or in hospitals alongside thousands of wounded patients.

The war has also threatened to ignite fighting on other fronts. Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have traded fire daily along the border, and Israel and the U.S. have struck targets in Syria linked to Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the region.

The military said it shot down what appeared to be a drone near the southernmost city of Eilat and intercepted a missile over the Red Sea on Tuesday, neither of which entered Israeli airspace.

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen later claimed they fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, saying it was their third such operation and threatening more. Earlier this month, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea intercepted missiles and drones launched toward Israel by the Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen.

In the occupied West Bank, where Israeli-Palestinian violence has also surged, the army demolished the family home of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas official exiled over a decade ago. An official in the village of Aroura said the home had been vacant for 15 years.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military was deploying forces “on a large scale, in the depths of Gaza.”

“Achievements on the battlefield have been very high. Unfortunately, in war there is also a price, and in the last day the price has been high,” he said, referring to the two soldiers’ deaths.

Israeli forces reportedly have advanced north and east of Gaza City. South of the city, Israeli troops were also trying to cut off the territory’s main highway and the parallel road along the Mediterranean coast, according to Dawood Shehab, a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, a smaller militant group allied with Hamas.

The military said it struck some 300 targets over the past day, including compounds inside tunnels, and that troops had engaged in several battles with terrorists armed with antitank missiles and machine guns.

Video footage released by the military showed soldiers and a tank moving down a dirt road between two rows of demolished buildings, some of them three to four stories high. Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the group operates among civilians, putting them in danger.

Hamas released its own video showing what it said was a battle in northern Gaza on Sunday. A fighter wearing a GoPro-style camera emerged from a tunnel with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and ran across sand dunes and shrubs with other militants amid the clatter of gunfire.

It was not possible to independently confirm reports by either side.

Gaza’s humanitarian crisis continued to worsen.

The World Health Organization said two hospitals have been damaged and an ambulance destroyed in Gaza over the last two days. It said all 13 hospitals operating in the north have received Israeli evacuation orders in recent days. Medics have refused such orders, saying it would be a death sentence for patients on life support.

Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, the largest in the territory, is on the verge of running out fuel, the Health Ministry said.

There has been no central electricity in Gaza for weeks, and Israel has barred the entry of fuel needed to power generators for hospitals and homes, saying it wants to prevent it from falling into Hamas’ hands.

It has allowed a limited amount of food, water, medicine and other supplies to enter from Egypt, though far less than what is needed, relief groups say. A convoy of 59 aid trucks entered through the Rafah Crossing with Egypt on Tuesday — the largest yet — bringing the total that have entered since Oct. 22 to 216, according to Wael Abu Omar, Hamas’ spokesperson for the crossing.

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, says 64 of its staff have been killed since the start of the war, including a man killed alongside his wife and eight children in a strike late Monday.

“This is the highest number ever of U.N. aid workers killed in any conflict around the world in such a short time,” spokesperson Juliette Touma told The Associated Press. “UNRWA will never be the same without these colleagues.”

Some 800,000 people have heeded the Israeli military’s orders to flee from the northern part of the strip to the south, according to Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman. Northern Gaza was estimated to have a pre-war population of around 1.1 million.

The window to flee south may be closing, as Israeli forces reached Gaza’s main north-south highway this week. Video circulating Monday showed a tank opening fire on a car that had approached a sand berm but was turning around. Gaza’s Health Ministry said three people were killed.

Zaki Abdel-Hay, a Palestinian living a few minutes’ walk from the road south of Gaza City, said people are afraid to use it. “People are very scared. The Israeli tanks are still close,” he said over the phone, adding that “constant artillery fire” could be heard near the road.

Jeffrey and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip; Samy Magdy in Cairo and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees told a U.N. emergency meeting Monday “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire has become a matter of life and death for millions,” accusing Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians and the forced displacement of civilians.

Philippe Lazzarini warned that a further breakdown of civil order after the agency’s warehouses were broken into by Palestinians searching for food and other aid “will make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the largest U.N. agency in Gaza to continue operating.”

Briefings to the Security Council by Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF and a senior U.N. humanitarian official painted a dire picture of the humanitarian situation in Gaza 23 days after Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, and its ongoing retaliatory military action aimed at “obliterating” the group, which controls Gaza. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

According to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 8,300 people have been killed — 66% of them women and children — and tens of thousands injured, the U.N. humanitarian office said.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell that toll includes over 3,400 children killed and more than 6,300 injured. “This means that more than 420 children are being killed or injured in Gaza each day — a number which should shake each of us to our core,” she said.

Lazzarini said: “This surpasses the number of children killed annually across the world’s conflict zones since 2019.” And he stressed, “This cannot be ‘collateral damage.’”

Many speakers at the council meeting denounced Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attacks on Israel that killed over 1,400 people, and urged the release of some 230 hostages taken to Gaza by the terrorists. But virtually every speaker also stressed that Israel is obligated under international humanitarian law to protect civilians and their essentials for life including hospitals, schools and other infrastructure — and Israel was criticized for cutting off food, water, fuel and medicine to Gaza and cutting communications for several days.

Lazzarini said “the handful of convoys” allowed into Gaza through the Rafah crossing from Egypt in recent days “is nothing compared to the needs of over 2 million people trapped in Gaza.”

“The system in place to allow aid into Gaza is geared to fail,” he said, “unless there is political will to make the flow of supplies meaningful, matching the unprecedented humanitarian needs.”

The commissioner-general of the U.N. agency known as UNRWA said there is no safe place anywhere in Gaza, warning that basic services are crumbling, medicine, food, water and fuel are running out, and the streets “have started overflowing with sewage, which will cause a massive health hazard very soon.”

UNICEF oversees water and sanitation issues for the U.N., and Russell warned that “the lack of clean water and safe sanitation is on the verge of becoming a catastrophe.”

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged the divided Security Council — which has rejected four resolutions that would have responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the ongoing war — to come together, saying “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is growing more dire by the day.”

Stressing that all innocent civilians must be protected, she said the council must call “for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, address the immense humanitarian needs of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, affirm Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism, and remind all actors that international humanitarian law must be respected.” She reiterated President Joe Biden’s calls for humanitarian pauses to get hostages out and allow aid in, and for safe passage for civilians.

“That means Hamas must not use Palestinians as human shields — an act of unthinkable cruelty and a violation of the law of war,” the U.S. ambassador said, “and that means Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians.”

In a sign of increasing U.S. concern at the escalating Palestinian death toll, Thomas-Greenfield told the council Biden reiterated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday “that while Israel has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens from terrorism, it must do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law.”

“The fact that Hamas operates within and under the cover of civilians areas creates an added burden for Israel, but it does not lessen its responsibility to distinguish between terrorists and innocent civilians,” she stressed.

Following the rejection of the four resolutions in the 15-member Security Council — one vetoed by the U.S., one vetoed by Russia and China, and two for failing to get the minimum nine “yes” votes — Arab nations went to the U.N. General Assembly last Friday where there are no vetoes.

The 193-member world body adopted a resolution calling for humanitarian truces leading to a cessation of hostilities by a vote of 120-14 with 45 abstentions. Now, the 10 elected members in the 15-member Security Council are trying again to negotiate a resolution that won’t be rejected. While council resolutions are legally binding, assembly resolutions are not though they are an important barometer of world opinion.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan was sharply critical of the council’s failure to condemn Hamas’ attacks and asked members: “Why are the humanitarian needs of Gazans, the sole issue, the sole issue you are focused on?”

Recalling his grandfather who survived Nazi death camps but whose his wife and seven children perished in the Auschwitz gas chamber, Erdan told the council he will wear a yellow star — just as Hitler made his grandfather and other Jews wear during World War II — “until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.”

The ambassador then put a large six-pointed yellow star of David saying “Never Again” on his suit jacket, as did other Israeli diplomats sitting behind him, and said: “We walk with the yellow star as a symbol of pride, a reminder that we swore to fight back to defend ourselves. Never again is now.”

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, also urged the Security Council to follow the General Assembly, end its paralysis, and demand “an end to this bloodshed, which constitutes an affront to humanity, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and a clear and imminent danger for regional and international peace and security.”

“Save those who still can be saved and bury in a dignified manner those who have perished,” Mansour said.

LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — Children were back in school in Lewiston and on the streets dressed as dinosaurs and princesses for Halloween, after a chaotic week that saw the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history and a massive search for the suspect as people sheltered indoors.

Hundreds of students returned to Lewiston High School, petting therapy dogs and signing a large banner that read “Lewiston Strong.” Days earlier the campus had been transformed into a law enforcement command post, with helicopters utilizing athletic fields and 300 vehicles filling the parking lot.

“Today’s going to be hard,” Superintendent Jake Langlais said. “But I think there’s strength in gathering, in unity, in getting back together.”

Jayden Sands, a 15-year-old sophomore, said one of his football coaches lost four friends. One of his best friends also lost a friend, and his mom’s friend was shot four times but survived.

Sands is glad to be back at school though safety was in the back of his mind.

“A lot of people are shocked and scared,” he said. “I’m just happy to be here. You know, another day to live. Hopefully it gets better.”

On Wednesday night, a U.S. Army reservist and firearms instructor from Bowdoin fatally shot 18 people at a bowling alley and a bar. A massive search followed on land and water for 40-year-old Robert Card. Authorities issued a shelter-in-place order for residents before Card was found dead Friday.

Nearly a week later, parents and children were searching for candy in their favorite costumes, many thronging a long-running event put on by Peter Geiger, whose Lewiston-based business publishes the Farmers’ Almanac. Each year hundreds visit to get king-size candy bars — as long as they know the “secret” password — which this Halloween was “Lewiston Strong.”

And again, the streets were filled with assorted ghosts, monsters, Disney princesses and blow-up dinosaurs, a Halloween almost like any other.

“I hurt as much as anyone else. For all of us there’s a loss,” Geiger said. “But I’m not going to let somebody undo a fun night for kids and families.”

Michelle Russell, assistant principal at McMahon Elementary School, who was with her granddaughter, dressed as a witch, said it was important to go trick-or-treating.

“We’re trying to get back to normal, if we can do that. We’re taking it slow,” she said.

Logan Phelps, of Greene, said Halloween was a distraction from a tough week, including some difficult discussions he and wife Rebecca had with the kids.

Luna, 5, and Juniper, 3, were both dressed as Wonder Woman, and their 20-month-old brother, Allister, as a Triceratops.

“At the end of the day, you’ve got to keep going, and you’ve got to keep living your life,” Phelps said.

Heather Hunter, a city administrator in Lewiston, said she was heartened to see steps toward normalcy but acknowledged the community has a long way to go.

“It’s similar to COVID. We’re adjusting to a new normal,” she said.

Back at Lewiston High School, senior Calista Karas said students have much to process. Sheltering at home was frightening, Karas said. And on the day of the shootings, she couldn’t immediately reach her mother, who was at work.

“I just couldn’t believe something like this would happen here — to us,” Karas said.

When she walked through the school doors Tuesday, she felt her stomach drop somewhat. “It was a weird experience to walk though school and see … life going on,” she said.

Langlais, the superintendent, said staff and students will take it one day at a time, understanding that some will need more support than others.

“Having helicopters with search lights and infrared sensors over your homes and apartments is pretty uncomfortable,” he said. “So we’re recognizing that everybody had some level of impact.”

In Washington, D.C., independent Sen. Angus King and Republican Sen. Susan Collins took to the Senate floor Tuesday night to remember the dead.

“A week ago, there was a tear in the fabric of our community,” King said.

“We’re going to have a lot of time around here to talk about policy and what to do about this problem and what our policies can and should be,” he said. “But tonight, my colleague and I simply want to remember the people that lost their lives.”

Collins, standing next to a placard with photos of the victims, talked about how the 18 died because of “a senseless act.”

“No words can diminish the pain, shock and understandable anger felt by the families who lost loved ones. Nevertheless, it is my hope they will find solace and strength knowing they are in the hearts of so many,” she said.

Each of the victims’ names were read aloud — half by each senator.

DENVER (AP) — Then-President Donald Trump could have mobilized the National Guard and other federal agencies to protect the U.S. Capitol once violence broke out on Jan. 6, 2021, a law professor testified Tuesday as a case to bar the former president from the 2024 ballot moved into a new phase.

William Banks, a Syracuse University law professor and expert in national security law, said that once the attack on the Capitol began, Trump had options he did not use.

“He should respond to his constitutional responsibilities to protect the security of the United States when there’s an assault on our democratic process,” Banks said of Trump.

Banks was testifying as a witness for a group of Colorado voters who want to bar Trump from the ballot for allegedly violating his oath to uphold the Constitution in his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss. They cite a rarely used clause in the 14th Amendment, adopted just after the Civil War, that prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” against the Constitution from holding higher office.

The Colorado case and another before the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday are the two most advanced of dozens of challenges to Trump around the country. On Tuesday, his campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan to stop a related case there. One of the cases is likely to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the insurrection clause.

Trump’s attorneys have said the lawsuits are anti-democratic efforts to deny voters the opportunity to choose who leads the country. They’ve also said they will show in court that Trump took the threat of violence seriously on Jan. 6.

On Tuesday, Geoffrey Blue, one of Trump’s Colorado attorneys, noted that a Department of Defense timeline shows that Trump previously had asked Gen. Mark Milley, then-head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, if the military was prepared for protests that he himself had called against Congress’ Jan 6 certification of President Joe Biden’s win. Milley said yes, according to the timeline.

Trump gave a fiery speech on the Ellipse before the assault, urging his supporters to march to the Capitol to protest the fictitious election fraud he claimed had stopped him from winning a second term. Attacks on the Capitol began earlier and intensified significantly after Trump wrapped up his speech.

Banks acknowledged he did not know what conversations were occurring in the White House that afternoon. Testimony to the House committee that investigated the attack shows that some aides were aghast that Trump wasn’t taking action, but the former president’s lawyers called the committee’s report a partisan document that was distrusted by Republicans.

The committee’s final report details Trump’s inaction as rioters stormed the Capitol, calling it “a dereliction of duty,” and suggested that Congress consider barring him from holding office in the future.

Earlier Tuesday, an expert in right-wing extremism testified about how violent groups interpreted Trump’s calls for a “wild” protest on Jan. 6. And on Monday, the trial’s opening day, police officers who defended the Capitol that day testified about the assault.

The case is expected to get to the constitutional issues that make it significant on Wednesday, when a law professor is scheduled to testify about whether Section Three of the 14th Amendment applies to the president, even though that office is not specifically mentioned in the text.

Trump’s attorneys and some critics of the litigation contend the provision also needs congressional legislation to be used.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s top military and diplomatic leaders urged an increasingly divided Congress on Tuesday to send immediate aid to Israel and Ukraine, arguing at a Senate hearing that broad support for the assistance would signal U.S. strength to adversaries worldwide.

The testimony from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Senate Appropriations Committee came as the administration’s massive $105 billion emergency aid request for conflicts in the two countries encountered roadblocks.

While there is bipartisan support in the Democratic-led Senate for aid to both Ukraine and Israel, the request faces deep problems in the Republican-led House. New Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed focusing on Israel alone, and slashing money for the Internal Revenue Service to pay for it.

As the congressional divisions deepen, Blinken and Austin warned that the consequences of failing to help Ukraine in its war with Russia and Israel as it strikes back against Hamas would be dire. Inaction, they said, would threaten the security of the U.S. and the rest of the world.

“We now stand at a moment where many are again making the bet that the United States is too divided or distracted at home to stay the course,” Blinken said. “That is what is at stake.”

Austin said that if the United States fails to lead, ”the cost and the threats to the United States will only grow. We must not give our friends, our rivals, or our foes any reason to doubt America’s resolve.”

President Joe Biden has requested $14.3 billion for Israel, $61.4 billion to support Ukraine, $9.1 billion for humanitarian efforts in Gaza and elsewhere and $7.4 billion for the Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. is focused on countering China’s influence. Some of the Ukraine funding would go toward replenishing domestic stockpiles of weapons that have already been provided.

The White House has also requested around $14 billion to protect the U.S. border. That money would be used to boost the number of border agents, install new inspection machines to detect fentanyl and to increase staffing for processing asylum cases.

But the House is trying to set aside much of Biden’s request for now to focus on a roughly $14.5 billion package for Israel. That plan faced immediate resistance among Senate Democrats — and put pressure on the Senate Republicans who support the Ukraine aid but are conscious of growing concerns about it within their party.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the House proposal “is clearly designed to divide Congress on a partisan basis, not unite us.” He said he hopes Johnson realizes he made a “grave mistake” and reverses course.

The two Cabinet secretaries argued that the aid should be tied together because the conflicts are interconnected. Blinken said that assisting Ukraine and Israel will strengthen the U.S. position against Iran, which is the biggest financial backer of Hamas.

“Since we cut off Russia’s traditional means of supplying its military, it has turned more and more to Iran for assistance,” Blinken said. “In return, Moscow has supplied Iran with increasingly advanced military technology, which poses a threat to Israel’s security. Allowing Russia to prevail with Iran’s support will embolden both Moscow and Tehran.”

Austin said the money would help Israel and Ukraine defend themselves against aggression — and also replenish U.S. stockpiles.

“In both Israel and Ukraine, democracies are fighting ruthless foes bent on their annihilation,” Austin said. “We will not let Hamas or Putin win. Today’s battles against aggression and terrorism will define global security for years to come.”

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., said at the start of the hearing that she and the panel’s top Republican, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, were drafting “strong bipartisan legislation” that would include aid for both countries.

“Make no mistake, we need to address all of these priorities as part of one package — because the reality is these issues are all connected, and they are all urgent,” Murray said.

Blinken and Austin were repeatedly interrupted by dozens of protesters in the room who called for Israel to end its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and the hearing was suspended as the demonstrators were escorted out. “Cease-fire now!” they yelled. “Save the children of Gaza!”

After the protesters were removed, Blinken said he heard “the passions expressed in this room and outside this room.” He said that the U.S. is committed to protecting civilian life, “but all of us know the imperative of standing up with our allies and partners when their security, when their democracies, are threatened.”

Some Republicans have expressed concerns that the humanitarian aid could end up in the wrong hands. Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty asked Blinken to guarantee that “not one dime” of taxpayer money will go to Hamas and terrorist activities.

Blinken said that the U.S. has an ability to track the aid. “The overwhelming majority of assistance so far is getting to people who need it, and we need more,” he said. “The needs are desperate.”

Despite growing questions about the Ukraine aid within the Republican conference, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has forcefully advocated tying the aid for Ukraine and Israel together. He hosted Oksana Markarova, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, at an event in Kentucky on Monday and told the audience, “this is a moment for swift and decisive action.”

Senate Republicans who support the Ukraine aid are uncertain of the path forward. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said there are a significant number of Republicans “who believe that these are all vital national security interests and priorities of the United States.” At the same time, trying to pass all of them together is complicated, he said.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said she wants to see Ukraine aid passed, and “I don’t care how it happens.” She said she is open to the IRS cuts that Republicans proposed for the Israel funding in the House.

Senate Republicans who have opposed additional Ukraine aid threw support behind the House approach. “We have a Republican majority in the House, we need to follow the speaker,” said Florida Sen. Rick Scott.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he wanted to see the U.S. focus on the Pacific and Asia rather than Ukraine, arguing that China posed a long-term threat. “We can do more in Ukraine or we can do what we need to do in the Pacific,” he said.

Further complicating the package, a group of Senate Republicans have been negotiating border security measures that would go beyond Biden’s request, an attempt to help control the influx of migrants.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Appropriations panel, supports tying the aid to the two countries together. But added border security is needed as well, she said. “This real threat to our homeland must also be addressed,” Collins said.

The House could pass its Israel aid package by the end of the week. In an interview on Fox News on Tuesday, Johnson said he hopes “most if not all” of the Democrats join Republicans in voting for it. He said he would call Schumer to discuss it.

“This is a matter of good versus evil,” Johnson said.

Blinken made a quick trip to Johnson’s office after his Senate testimony — an effort to push a combined aid package to the new speaker, according to State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

The secretary would only say as he left that it “was a very good meeting. I appreciate the opportunity.”

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Stephen Groves, Lisa Mascaro, Tara Copp and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew,” Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer said in a joint statement to People on Monday. “We were more than just cast mates. We are a family.”

From 1994 to 2004, each of the five actors appeared in every episode of all 10 seasons of the NBC sitcom along with Perry, who was found dead at his Los Angeles home on Saturday at age 54.

“There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss,” the statement said. “In time we will say more, as and when we are able. For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”

It was the first public statement on Perry’s death from Aniston, Cox, Kudrow, LeBlanc or Schwimmer.

After an initial investigation, the Los Angeles County coroner has deferred giving a cause of death, which may take weeks to determine.

Others public mourning Perry on Monday included Salma Hayek, his co-star in the 1997 rom-com “Fools Rush In,” which Perry had said was probably his best film.

“It’s taken me a couple of days to process this profound sadness. There is a special bond that happens when you share dreams with someone, and together you work towards them,” Hayek said in an Instagram post. “Throughout the years, he and I found ourselves reminiscing about that meaningful time in our lives with a deep sense of nostalgia and gratitude. My friend, you are gone much too soon, but I will continue to cherish your silliness, your perseverance, and your lovely heart.”

Perry is being mourned by fans worldwide, including some who placed flowers and heartfelt tributes outside the New York building that served as an exterior for the show.

Others who worked with Perry expressed their sorrow on Sunday, included “Friends” co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, who said, echoing the style of the show’s episode titles, that this “truly is The One Where Our Hearts Are Broken.”

Morgan Fairchild, who played mother to Perry’s Chandler Bing on the show, and Maggie Wheeler, who played Chandler’s sometime girlfriend Janice, gave similar sentiments.

The Food and Drug Administration advisory applies to lubricating drops sold by six companies, including CVS Health, Target, Rite Aid and Cardinal Health. Consumers should stop using the products immediately and avoid purchasing any that remain on pharmacy and store shelves, the FDA said in a statement Friday.

The agency asked the companies to recall their products last week, because FDA inspectors found unsanitary conditions and bacteria at the facility producing the drops. The FDA did not disclose the location of the factory or when it was inspected.

No injuries related to the products had been reported at the time of the announcement, but the FDA encouraged doctors and patients to submit cases through the agency’s online reporting system.

Earlier this year, federal officials linked an outbreak of drug-resistant bacteria to eyedrops from two companies, EzriCare and Delsam Pharma. More than 80 people in the U.S. tested positive for eye infections from the rare bacterial strain, according to the most recent update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

After the products were recalled in February, health inspectors visited the manufacturing plant in India that made the eyedrops and uncovered problems with how they were made and tested, including inadequate sterility measures.

American gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton says she is “overwhelmed with all the love and support” she has received and is slowly recovering with family after being hospitalized with a rare form of pneumonia earlier this month.

Retton, 55, posted a statement Monday on Instagram in her first public comment since being in intensive care in a Texas hospital. Her daughter, McKenna Kelley, said then that the first American woman to win the Olympic all-around title in 1984 was “fighting for her life” and unable to breathe on her own.

Retton said she was “beyond blessed for the opportunity to make this statement” and is staying positive through what she knows is a long and slow recovery process. She requested privacy and added that she will share more information about her health when the time is right and hopefully help others facing the same battle.

Retton ended the post saying, “I love you all. – MLR.”

Kelley started a fundraising campaign on Retton’s behalf to cover medical expenses because she does not have health insurance. The campaign has generated more than 8,300 donations totaling nearly $460,000.

Retton was 16 when she became an icon of the U.S. Olympic movement during her gold medal-winning performance at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Retton, who grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia, also won two silver and two bronze medals at those Olympics to help bring gymnastics — a sport long dominated by eastern European powers like Romania and the Soviet Union — into the mainstream in the U.S.

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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports