Deputy acquitted of all charges for failing to act during deadly Parkland school shooting

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida sheriff’s deputy was acquitted Thursday of felony child neglect and other charges for failing to act during the 2018 Parkland school massacre, concluding the first trial in U.S. history of a law enforcement officer for conduct during an on-campus shooting.

Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson wept as the verdicts were read. The jury had deliberated for 19 hours over four days.

After court adjourned, Peterson, his family and friends rushed into a group hug as they whooped, hollered and cried. One of his supporters chased after lead prosecutor Chris Killoran and said something. Killoran turned and snapped at him, “Way to be a good winner,” and slapped him on the shoulder. Members of the prosecution team then nudged Killoran out of the courtroom.

The campus deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Peterson had been charged with failing to confront shooter Nikolas Cruz during his six-minute attack inside the three-story 1200 classroom building on Feb. 14, 2018, that left 17 dead.

He could have received nearly 100 years in prison, although a sentence even approaching that length would have been highly unlikely given the circumstances and his clean record. He also could have lost his $104,000 annual pension.

Prosecutors, during their two-week presentation, called to the witness stand students, teachers and law enforcement officers who testified about the horror they experienced and how they knew where Cruz was. Some said they knew for certain that the shots were coming from the 1200 building. Prosecutors also called a training supervisor who testified Peterson did not follow protocols for confronting an active shooter.

Peterson’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, during his two-day presentation, called several deputies who arrived during the shooting and students and teachers who testified they did not think the shots were coming from the 1200 building. Peterson, who did not testify, has said that because of echoes, he could not pinpoint the shooter’s location.

Eiglarsh also emphasized the failure of the sheriff’s radio system during the attack, which limited what Peterson heard from arriving deputies.

“As parents, we have an expectation that armed school resource officers – who are under contract to be caregivers to our children – will do their jobs when we entrust our children to them and the schools they guard,” Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor and the prosecutor’s office said in a statement after the verdict. “They have a special role and responsibilities that exceed the role and responsibilities of a police officer. To those who have tried to make this political, I say: It is not political to expect someone to do their job.”

Security videos show that 36 seconds after Cruz’s attack began, Peterson exited his office about 100 yards (92 meters) from the 1200 building and jumped into a cart with two unarmed civilian security guards. They arrived at the building a minute later.

Peterson got out of the cart near the east doorway to the first-floor hallway. Cruz was at the hallway’s opposite end, firing his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.

Peterson, who was not wearing a bullet-resistant vest, didn’t open the door. Instead, he took cover 75 feet (23 meters) away in the alcove of a neighboring building, his gun still drawn. He stayed there for 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and other police officers had stormed the building.

Peterson spent nearly three decades working at schools, including nine years at Stoneman Douglas. He retired shortly after the shooting and was then fired retroactively.

Cruz’s jury could not unanimously agree he deserved the death penalty. The 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student was then sentenced to life in prison.

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New York Dems put abortion on the ballot in bid to retake the House

Left-leaning New York groups pledged $20 million Thursday to support a change to the New York State constitution to protect abortion rights that will be on the 2024 ballot — something they believe will boost turnout for Democrats in key swing House districts.

A state Equal Rights Amendment will ask voters next November to codify a number of rights, including abortion and LGBTQ rights, in the state constitution. New York Democrats are hoping to replicate a model they found successful last cycle, when a constitutional abortion amendment was on the same ballot as vulnerable Democrats in Michigan. The amendment passed and those members held their seats.

“We’ve learned a ton from our colleagues around the country, including our colleagues in Michigan,” said Sasha Neha Ahuja, campaign director for New Yorkers for Equal rights. "It was incredibly successful, and similar to New York in that there was support for this ballot measure across party lines. It was really popular for candidates to stand with and encourage people to vote yes on the referendum.”

The coalition released a memo on its investment Thursday, which says it believes that the constitutional amendment will bolster turnout across the state, particularly in six battleground House districts, five of which are held by Republicans. With a razor-thin margin standing in the way of the majority, Democrats think this strategy will help them flip control of the House next year.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, who will both be on the ballot next year, have endorsed the effort, as well as other statewide Democratic officials.

The coalition backing the measure is led by New Yorkers for Equal Rights and also includes Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the NAACP of New York and an SEIU local. The pledged investment will go toward promoting the measure in statewide broadcast and digital ads and dispatching canvassers for a grassroots voter education effort.

The amendment was passed by the Democratic-majority legislature in two consecutive state legislative sessions, which allows it to be voted on statewide. Lawmakers last year chose to put it on the 2014 ballot instead of this November in order to maximize turnout for it.

Exact ballot language text of the amendment will be released next year. It will add to the New York State constitution explicit protections against discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, according to the memo. The amendment needs only a simple majority of support to pass.

Democrats are increasingly turning to ballot measures for these types of protections, which were previously safeguarded by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. After the fall of Dobbs last year, state level actions, including direct-to-voter ballot initiatives, have become the main vehicles for abortion policy and have passed with large majorities.

The amendment “launches with a clear path to achieving a decisive statewide victory and activating a powerful statewide electoral coalition from every corner of the state and across demographics,” the memo about the referendum stated, noting they're targeting districts in Long Island, upstate and the Hudson Valley.

New York isn’t the only state trying to bring the issue directly to voters next cycle.

A separate coalition in Florida is currently collecting signatures for a citizen initiative to be on the ballot in 2024, where Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a ban on abortion procedures after six weeks earlier this year.

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Prosecutors charge three men with insider trading scheme related to Trumps media company

Federal prosecutors in New York charged three investors on Thursday with an insider trading scheme in which they allegedly made more than $22 million in illegal profits by acting on information about a plan to take former president Donald Trump’s media company public.

The three men — Michael Shvartsman, Gerald Shvartsman and Bruce Garelick — were investors in a special purpose acquisition corporation called Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which had plans to take public Trump’s company Trump Media & Technology Group. As investors, they learned of the confidential plans for Trump’s media company and they were prohibited by non-disclosure agreements from disclosing or using the information to buy or sell securities, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday.

The defendants used the information to buy millions of dollars of securities in the corporation “so that they could be in a position to profit after the merger was announced publicly,” according to the indictment. Prosecutors said in court papers that the defendants also disclosed the confidential information about the upcoming merger to their friends and employees, who bought tens of thousands of securities in the corporation.

Prosecutors charged the men with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and nine counts of securities fraud.

The defendants are set to make their initial court appearances in the Southern District of Florida on Thursday afternoon, according to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office.

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AI Could Pay Dividends to Americans. Literally.

For four decades, Alaskans have opened their mailboxes to find checks waiting for them, their cut of the black gold beneath their feet. This is Alaska’s Permanent Fund, funded by the state’s oil revenues and paid to every Alaskan each year. We're now in a different sort of resource rush, with companies peddling bits instead of oil: generative AI.

Everyone is talking about these new AI technologies — like ChatGPT — and AI companies are touting their awesome power. But they aren't talking about how that power comes from all of us. Without all of our writings and photos that AI companies are using to train their models, they would have nothing to sell. Big Tech companies are currently taking the work of the American people, without our knowledge and consent, without licensing it, and are pocketing the proceeds.

You are owed profits for your data that powers today's AI, and we have a way to make that happen. We call it the AI Dividend.

Our proposal is simple, and harkens back to the Alaskan plan. When Big Tech companies produce output from generative AI that was trained on public data, they would pay a tiny licensing fee, by the word or pixel or relevant unit of data. Those fees would go into the AI Dividend fund. Every few months, the Commerce Department would send out the entirety of the fund, split equally, to every resident nationwide. That's it.

There’s no reason to complicate it further. Generative AI needs a wide variety of data, which means all of us are valuable — not just those of us who write professionally, or prolifically, or well. Figuring out who contributed to which words the AIs output would be both challenging and invasive, given that even the companies themselves don't quite know how their models work. Paying the dividend to people in proportion to the words or images they create would just incentivize them to create endless drivel, or worse, use AI to create that drivel. The bottom line for Big Tech is that if their AI model was created using public data, they have to pay into the fund. If you’re an American, you get paid from the fund.

Under this plan, hobbyists and American small businesses would be exempt from fees. Only Big Tech companies — those with substantial revenue — would be required to pay into the fund. And they would pay at the point of generative AI output, such as from ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, or their embedded use in third-party services via Application Programming Interfaces.

Our proposal also includes a compulsory licensing plan. By agreeing to pay into this fund, AI companies will receive a license that allows them to use public data when training their AI. This won’t supersede normal copyright law, of course. If a model starts producing copyright material beyond fair use, that’s a separate issue.

Using today’s numbers, here’s what it would look like. The licensing fee could be small, starting at $0.001 per word generated by AI. A similar type of fee would be applied to other categories of generative AI outputs, such as images. That’s not a lot, but it adds up. Since most of Big Tech has started integrating generative AI into products, these fees would mean an annual dividend payment of a couple hundred dollars per person.

The idea of paying you for your data isn't new, and some companies have tried to do it themselves for users who opted in. And the idea of the public being repaid for use of their resources goes back to well before Alaska's oil fund. But generative AI is different: It uses data from all of us whether we like it or not, it's ubiquitous, and it's potentially immensely valuable. It would cost Big Tech companies a fortune to create a synthetic equivalent to our data from scratch, and synthetic data would almost certainly result in worse output. They can’t create good AI without us.

Our plan would apply to generative AI used in the U.S. It also only issues a dividend to Americans. Other countries can create their own versions, applying a similar fee to AI used within their borders. Just like an American company collects VAT for services sold in Europe, but not here, each country can independently manage their AI policy.

Don’t get us wrong; this isn’t an attempt to strangle this nascent technology. Generative AI has interesting, valuable and possibly transformative uses, and this policy is aligned with that future. Even with the fees of the AI Dividend, generative AI will be cheap and will only get cheaper as technology improves. There are also risks — both every day and esoteric — posed by AI, and the government may need to develop policies to remedy any harms that arise.

Our plan can’t make sure there are no downsides to the development of AI, but it would ensure that all Americans will share in the upsides — particularly since this new technology isn’t possible without our contribution.

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Migration money feud infiltrates European Union summit

Leaders push for renewing relations with Turkey as the divisive migration issue is increasingly dominating Europe’s political agenda.

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Senate Republicans try to stop messy Montana primary

Senate GOP leaders got their dream recruit in Montana. Now they have to work to keep their 2018 loser out.

The race to take on Sen. Jon Tester, one of the most vulnerable Democrats on the ballot next year, kicked off Tuesday with a campaign launch by Tim Sheehy, a Navy SEAL-turned-aerial firefighter.

Within a day he had secured the support of the chair of the Senate GOP campaign arm and endorsements from three other senators — a clear show of force aimed at spooking Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.), a likely primary rival, out of running.

“It’s great to see so many conservative senators rallying around Tim’s candidacy,” Montana Sen. Steve Daines told POLITICO, taking the unusual step of trying to gently but publicly nudge the congressmember out of the way. “I really like Matt Rosendale, which is why I am encouraging him to build seniority for the great state of Montana in the House and help Republicans hold their majority.”

That move by Daines, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, indicates just how eager top Republicans are to ward off Rosendale and a messy primary. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) threw their support behind Sheehy on Tuesday. A day later, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) endorsed him, praising his “courage and integrity” and his “remarkable career.”

A member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, Rosendale has privately told lawmakers he plans to make another run against Tester after failing to beat the incumbent five years ago. His lackluster fundraising and bruising past loss have left party strategists and donors nervous that Rosendale would struggle to win a general election in a state that is crucial to the GOP’s path to the majority.

Rosendale has taken no formal steps toward a campaign. But on Tuesday he appeared undeterred, taking a shot at Sheehy and yoking him to the Senate minority leader.

“Congratulations to Mitch McConnell and the party bosses on getting their chosen candidate,” he tweeted. “Now Washington has two candidates — Tim Sheehy and Jon Tester — who will protect the DC cartel.”

Conservatives in the Senate, including Mike Lee of Utah and Ted Cruz of Texas, have encouraged Rosendale to enter. And the anti-tax Club for Growth, an influential GOP outside group, has signaled it would likely back Rosendale again. The Club’s thinking has not changed since Sheehy’s entrance, according to a person close to the group, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal planning.

Rosendale lost to Tester by more than 3 points in 2018 after struggling to match the senator’s fundraising and brush off questions about his Montana roots. He raised just $6 million that cycle compared with Tester’s $23.3 million.

Some Montana donors allied with Sheehy are urging Rosendale not to challenge him. Their message has often taken the same tone as Daines’: They like Rosendale and hope he will continue his work in the House. They don’t want him to complicate their ability to win a Senate seat.

“I think the path forward to be effective across all elections is with Tim in the Senate seat,” said Eugene Graf IV, an influential donor in Montana who supported Rosendale in 2018 but is backing Sheehy this cycle. He said he thought Sheehy’s candidacy would “cause Matt to pause and think about that future.”

“Unfortunately, there’s some personalities that see a path for them instead of maybe the big picture for the state or for the country,” Graf said.

In response to those urging Rosendale to remain in the House, a Rosendale spokesperson, Aashka Varma, also pointed to a February poll commissioned by the congressmember’s campaign that showed him up 5 points over Tester and a Public Policy Polling survey that showed him with a 54-point lead over Sheehy in the primary.

“This is an attempt by McConnell and the DC cartel to dismiss the voters of Montana,” Varma said in a statement. “Rep. Rosendale has the trust and overwhelming support of Montana voters.”

Still, some supporters of Sheehy, who want to see Rosendale remain in Congress, are wary of donating to the congressmember out of concern that he would spend those funds against other Republicans.

“I personally won’t give Matt money until I know that my money is not going to be used to battle Tim,” said Brian Cebull, a Montana donor and businessman involved in the oil and gas industry.

When asked in a Wednesday morning TV interview, Sheehy also addressed Rosendale’s prospective candidacy.

“Matt’s obviously our House representative, and I hope he continues to do his good work there,” Sheehy said, “I hope it stays that way, but I can’t predict what’s going to happen.”

Sheehy is personally wealthy and is expected to invest heavily in his own campaign. He has seen some donor enthusiasm since his launch Tuesday. He easily outraised Rosendale’s first-quarter haul of $127,000, without self-funding, in less than 24 hours after announcing a run, according to a person close to the Sheehy campaign who was not authorized to disclose fundraising details.

But if Sheehy can outpace Rosendale’s finances, he may not escape carpetbagging attacks from Tester allies. Sheehy moved to Montana after leaving the Navy to start a business. He will also have work to become known among voters in the state. He is a political neophyte, which means he has no record to attack but also no base of support among the electorate.

Rosendale served for years in the Montana Legislature and as the state’s auditor before waging campaigns for the House and the Senate. His multiple statewide runs will likely give him a head start in any primary campaign.

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Lowell P. Weicker Jr. maverick senator during Watergate dies at 92

HARTFORD, Conn. — Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a Republican U.S. senator who tussled with his own party during the Watergate hearings, championed legislation to protect people with disabilities and later was elected Connecticut governor as an independent, died Wednesday. He was 92.

Weicker’s death at a hospital in Middletown, Conn., after a short illness, was confirmed by his family in a statement released by a spokesperson.

With a 6-foot-6-inch frame and a shoot-from-the-hip style, Weicker was a leading figure in Connecticut politics from his first election to the General Assembly in 1962 until he decided against running for a second term as governor in 1994.

He inspired strong feelings among many people he met. In one poll, opinion was split over whether Weicker was “decisive and courageous,” or “inflexible and arrogant.”

“I think he was just incredibly genuine, a little unfiltered,” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who considered Weicker a friend, told the Associated Press in 2021. “And we sort of miss that in this day and age with the teleprompter.”

Elected in 1990 to his single term as governor, Weicker restructured Connecticut’s revenue system, shepherding in a new income tax despite vocal opposition. He also helped craft a compact with the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation which ultimately brought casino gambling to eastern Connecticut.

“He was a leader who constantly challenged the status quo. He didn’t want to win any popularity contests,” said Republican state Sen. Ryan Fazio, who represents Greenwich, the town where Weicker once served as first selectman. Such independent mindedness was praised Wednesday by Republicans like Fazio as well as Democrats, who control state government and the state’s congressional delegation.

“He did immense good for Connecticut and our country, and he did it his way,” said Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Former Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy praised Weicker for being “tough and compassionate at the same time.”

Nationally, Weicker’s political marquee burned brightest during the 1973 hearings of the Senate’s special committee on Watergate. One of three Republicans on the seven-member panel, the freshman senator was not afraid to criticize President Richard Nixon, his own party or the attempted cover-up.

In his 1995 autobiography “Maverick: A Life in Politics,” Weicker said he didn’t volunteer for a spot on the committee to be an “anti-Nixon man,” or a “tough prosecutor,” acknowledging that he supported Nixon politically and how Nixon campaigned for him in 1968 and 1970.

“More and more, events were making it clear that the Nixon White House was a cauldron of corruption,” Weicker wrote. “And even as disclosures kept coming, more and more national leaders were acting as though nothing especially unusual had happened.”

Barry Sussman, a former Washington Post editor who worked with Weicker on his autobiography, credited Weicker with taking the Watergate scandal more seriously than his Senate colleagues and for investigating whether Nixon underreported his income.

“None of the other Republican senators had any interest in doing any probing, period,” Sussman said. “That was basically true of the Democrats, too.”

Weicker was born in Paris in 1931, to Lowell P. Weicker Sr. — whose family founded the pharmaceutical giant E.R. Squibb and Sons — and the former Mary Bickford, a daughter of a prominent British family.

After college, law school and service in the Army, Weicker was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1962 and served three terms. His national political career began in 1968 with election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Two years later, he moved up to the U.S. Senate.

Besides serving on the Watergate committee, Weicker worked for passage of the War Powers Act. The father of a child with developmental disabilities, he sponsored the Protection and Advocacy for the Mentally Ill Act in 1985 and 1988 and introduced legislation that would later become the Americans with Disabilities Act.

But Weicker was at odds with the conservative wing of his party on social issues such as school prayer, busing and abortion.

Irritated Republicans in 1988 backed then-Democrat Joe Lieberman and denied Weicker a fourth term in the Senate. But two years later, he was back in politics with a new affiliation. He won the governor’s office, sworn in as the state’s first — and last — independent governor since the Civil War, heading a new independent political party called A Connecticut Party.

When he took office, Connecticut’s budget deficit was $963 million. During the 1990 campaign, Weicker opposed instituting a personal state income tax, saying it would be like “pouring gasoline on a fire.” But his budget secretary convinced him the tax was the only fiscally responsible choice.

Weicker vetoed three state budgets passed by legislators until he got his way. On Aug. 22, 1991, lawmakers finally passed a budget with a 4.5 percent flat income tax and a reduction in the sales tax from 8 to 6 percent, coupled with spending cuts.

An estimated 40,000 protesters packed the state Capitol grounds in Hartford on Oct. 5, 1991, demanding lawmakers “axe the tax.” Some hanged him in effigy. Meanwhile, others, including furloughed state workers, protested Weicker’s budget cuts. A nun said she would “pray that he burns forever in the fires of hell” for trying to slash state aid to parochial schools.

Weicker’s favorability rating plummeted but the income tax prevailed and the state ended the 1992 fiscal year with a $110 million surplus.

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded Weicker a Profiles in Courage Award in 1992.

He said his decision against seeking a second term was a matter of family and money, not politics. Weicker said he wanted to spend more time with his third wife, Claudia Testa, his seven children and his grandchildren. He said he also wanted to make more money than the governor’s annual salary at the time, $78,000.

Weicker considered running for president as an independent in 1996 and was back in the spotlight in 1999 when former wrestler and Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura encouraged Weicker to run for the Reform Party nomination. Weicker turned him down

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Debris from implosion of Titanic-bound submersible is returned to land

PORTLAND, Maine — Debris from the Titan submersible has been returned to land after a fatal implosion during its voyage to the wreck of the Titanic captured the world’s attention last week.

The return of the debris to port in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is a key piece of the investigation into why the submersible imploded, killing all five people on board. Twisted chunks of the 22-foot submersible were unloaded at a Canadian Coast Guard pier Wednesday.

The Canadian ship Horizon Arctic carried a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, to search the ocean floor near the Titanic wreck for pieces of the submersible. Pelagic Research Services, a company with offices in Massachusetts and New York that owns the ROV, said Wednesday that it has completed offshore operations.

Pelagic Research Services’ team is “still on mission” and cannot comment on the ongoing Titan investigation, which involves several government agencies in the U.S. and Canada, said Jeff Mahoney, a spokesperson for the company.

“They have been working around the clock now for 10 days, through the physical and mental challenges of this operation, and are anxious to finish the mission and return to their loved ones,” Mahoney said.

Debris from the Titan was located about 12,500 feet underwater and roughly 1,600 feet from the Titanic on the ocean floor, the Coast Guard said last week. The Coast Guard is leading the investigation into why the submersible imploded during its June 18 descent. Officials announced on June 22 that the submersible had imploded and all five people on board were dead.

The Coast Guard has convened a Marine Board of Investigation into the implosion. That is the highest level of investigation conducted by the Coast Guard.

One of the experts the Coast Guard consulted with during the search said analyzing the physical material of recovered debris could reveal important clues about what happened to the Titan. And there could be electronic data, said Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“Certainly all the instruments on any deep sea vehicle, they record data. They pass up data. So the question is, is there any data available? And I really don’t know the answer to that question,” he said Monday.

Representatives for Horizon Arctic did not respond to requests for comment.

Coast Guard representatives declined to comment on the investigation or the return of debris to shore Wednesday. No bodies have been recovered, though Coast Guard officials said days earlier that they were taking precautions in case they encountered human remains during the investigation.

OceanGate CEO and pilot Stockton Rush was killed in the implosion along with two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

Representatives for the National Transportation Safety Board and Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which are both involved in the investigation, also declined to comment. The National Transportation Safety Board has said the Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a “major marine casualty” and the Coast Guard will lead the investigation.

“We are not able to provide any additional information at this time as the investigation is ongoing,” said Liam MacDonald, a spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

A spokesperson for the International Maritime Organization, the U.N.’s maritime agency, has said any investigative reports from the disaster would be submitted for review. Member states of the IMO can also propose changes such as stronger regulations of submersibles.

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Americans remain divided on gun control as national worry over violence rises Pew report finds

As gun-related death rates continue to rise each year in the U.S., a new Pew Research study found that while views about gun ownership and gun policy remain starkly divided along party lines, Americans across the political spectrum increasingly see gun violence and violent crime as issues of national concern.

Democrats and Republicans agree on little when it comes to gun ownership and gun policies, according to the report released Wednesday. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed said they believe that gun ownership increases safety; nearly the same percentage of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the opposite. Only one policy proposal, restrictions on gun purchases for people with mental illnesses, received bipartisan support in the Pew study.

Despite these differences, 60 percent of Americans surveyed said they believe gun violence is a ‘very big’ national issue, up seven percentage points from 2018. Americans in both parties are also increasingly concerned about violent crime; 59 percent of Americans see violent crime as a ‘very big’ national issue, up seven percentage points from 2018, according to the report. Over 60 percent of Americans said they believe that gun violence will increase in the next five years; just seven percent believe it will decrease during that time period.

Concerns among Democrats and Republicans about crime have increased similarly. Fifty-two percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans view crime as a ‘very big’ national issue, up eight and 12 percentage points from 2021 respectively.

Meanwhile, concerns about gun violence are up 11 points among both Republicans and Democrats. That said, an over 40-point gap still exists between the two parties’ voters on the issue; 81 percent of Democrats view gun violence as a ‘very big’ issue as opposed to just 38 percent of Republicans.

The data from Pew comes as violent crime remains a critical talking point for Republicans on the campaign trail, and as the number of mass shootings and gun-related homicides and suicides continues to increase in the wake of the pandemic. FBI data from 2021, the most recently available year for crime data, noted that 61 mass shootings occurred that year, and that gun-related homicides and suicides that year were responsible for the deaths of 48,830 Americans.

In response to several high-profile mass shootings, notably the May 2022 shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill negotiated the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which expanded background checks and federal funding for community and mental health initiatives. The bill, which President Joe Biden signed into law in July 2022, was the first major piece of gun control legislation passed in three decades.

However, the White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill have continued to push for further federal gun control measures. In February, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) reintroduced the Background Check Expansion Act. The bill, which faces steep odds in the slimly-Democratic Senate and the Republican-controlled House, would extend federal background checks to cover almost all sales and transfers of firearms between individuals.

Biden has also indicated his desire to take greater action on gun violence, saying in a speech in Connecticut earlier this month that the Safer Communities Act was "an important first step" and that "we are not finished."

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How the Supreme Courts decision on election law could shut the door on future fake electors

The Supreme Court’s rejection of a controversial election theory may also have another huge political consequence for future presidential contests: It obliterated the dubious fake elector scheme that Donald Trump deployed in his failed attempt to seize a second term.

That scheme relied on friendly state legislatures appointing “alternate” slates of pro-Trump presidential electors — even if state laws certified victory for Joe Biden. Backed by fringe theories crafted by attorneys like John Eastman, Trump contended that state legislatures could unilaterally reverse the outcome and override their own laws and constitutions to do so.

Mainstream election lawyers on both sides of the aisle denounced the theory in the months after the 2020 election. But because no court had ever directly ruled on the theory, its proponents were able to describe it as a plausible, if untested, interpretation of constitutional law. Eastman himself, currently facing disbarment in California for his actions to subvert the election, has claimed that he was engaged in “good-faith” advocacy on an unsettled legal question.

But by rejecting the so-called independent state legislature theory in Moore v. Harper on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts effectively extinguished it as a plausible path in 2024 and beyond.

“It keeps the toothpaste in the tube, in the sense that the theories that would give state legislatures unvarnished power has been rejected,” said Ben Ginsberg, a prominent Republican elections attorney who loudly pushed back against Trump’s attempts in 2020 to overturn his loss. “State legislatures thinking that they can just, if they feel like it after an election, replace the popular will with a slate of electors is as gone as ‘there can't be any review of redistricting plans.’”

Tuesday’s opinion primarily revolves around an interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s elections clause, which says that state legislatures can set rules for congressional elections in their states.

Though some on the right have interpreted the clause as giving state legislatures total authority to write and rewrite election procedures, without any input from governors or state courts, the Supreme Court rejected that notion.

That decision cuts the already-wobbly legal legs out from under Trump’s last-ditch efforts to remain in power. When Trump tried to subvert the 2020 election, his allies relied, in part, on a similarly fringe interpretation of the Constitution’s electors clause, which permits state legislatures to determine the method for appointing presidential electors. Eastman and other Trump allies argued that state legislatures could determine unilaterally that Trump was the rightful winner, appointing their own electors to be counted on Jan. 6, 2021.

No state legislatures embraced Eastman’s calls, and the effort collapsed when then-Vice President Mike Pence refused a simultaneous pressure campaign to single-handedly postpone the counting of electoral votes.

Tuesday’s decision contained just glancing discussion of the electors clause in its majority opinion, which was joined by liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. But in soundly rejecting the independent state legislature theory, the implications were clear: “The Elections Clause does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” Roberts wrote.

“Today’s ruling makes clear, for example, that an elected state legislature cannot cut the people of the state out of the loop of picking presidential elections if the state constitution requires that electors to the electoral college be popularly selected,” argued Vikram Amar, a law professor at the University of Illinois, on a call organized by the group Protect Democracy and others who opposed the independent state legislature theory.

The elections clause and electors clause contain very similar language. The elections clause reads that the “times, places and manner” of electing senators and representatives “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” while also granting explicit powers to Congress to do the same. The electors clause similarly says each state shall appoint presidential electors “in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”

“The operative constitutional language in the two clauses is essentially identical,” said Michael Luttig, a former conservative federal appellate judge who advised Pence to reject those alternative slate of electors on Jan. 6.

The clearest link between Tuesday’s decision and the Trump election gambit was in the references to a 140-year-old Supreme Court decision in McPherson v. Blacker — a ruling cited repeatedly by Trump’s allies as they sought to justify their efforts to supplant Biden’s electors with their own.

That 1892 decision paved the way for a Michigan law that permitted the appointment of electors by congressional district, and it emphasized the power of legislatures to dictate the way presidential electors are chosen.

Eastman has repeatedly cited that ruling as evidence that state legislatures could simply ignore state court decisions they disliked regarding the appointment of electors, and he has reupped those arguments as he seeks to hold onto his California law license this month.

Like Eastman, then-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark cited the McPherson decision in a now-infamous letter that he pressed Justice Department leaders to issue on the cusp of Jan. 6, 2021, urging them to call their legislatures into session and consider appointing a new slate of electors. Trump appeared to briefly appoint Clark as acting attorney general amid this battle before rescinding the decision amid a mass resignation threat by top DOJ officials.

Roberts made clear that the McPherson ruling was not a green light for state legislatures to ignore the constraints of state constitutions, laws and courts. In fact, the 19th-Century opinion didn’t address such a conflict.

“Our decision in McPherson … had nothing to do with any conflict between provisions of the Michigan Constitution and action by the State’s legislature — the issue we confront today,” he wrote.

Conversely, the dissent from the Roberts opinion, authored by Justice Clarence — whom Eastman clerked for in 1996 — might provide Eastman a boost in his effort to save his bar license. Eastman has argued that even if his legal theory was wrong, it’s not a punishable offense to give incorrect or unpopular legal advice.

Bar discipline authorities seeking to disbar him, however, say Eastman’s advice was catastrophically wrong and built on assumptions and inferences that no lawyer could make in good faith. They have repeatedly emphasized that Eastman sought to avoid court battles over his theory because they might have resulted in an adverse decision before Jan. 6.

But Thomas’ dissent made clear he endorsed a key aspect of Eastman’s view: that state legislatures are not bound by their own constitutions when it comes to the appointment of electors. Citing McPherson, Thomas rejected Roberts’ interpretation of the case.

“Contrary to the majority’s suggestion of ambiguity … this statement can only have meant that the state legislature’s power to direct the manner of appointing electors may not be limited by the state constitution,” Thomas wrote in a footnote. One other justice — conservative Neil Gorsuch — signed onto that portion of Thomas’ dissent.

Eastman had urged Pence to consider electoral votes purportedly cast by pro-Trump activists in several states that Biden won, even when no state legislatures agreed to endorse a slate of “alternate” electors.

That push has landed Eastman at the center of both bar disciplinary actions as well as ongoing criminal probes in Washington and Georgia.

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Supreme Court ruling supercharges state fights over partisan gerrymandering

The Supreme Court just turbo-charged the nationwide fight over gerrymandering.

It is a rejection of the so-called independent state legislature theory, with the Supreme Court leaving a role for state courts to wade into the increasingly common battles over partisan gerrymandering. State courts have been immensely influential over congressional control over the last half-decade.

The ruling ensures that state Supreme Courts will remain ultimate arbiters of partisan gerrymandering, and that they can rein in legislatures looking to use redistricting to eviscerate a minority party. Previously under the radar judicial contests will continue to see millions of dollars pour in to influence their outcomes.

“There was this real movement into state courts after 2018,” said Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, referring to Democrats’ success in challenging Pennsylvania’s GOP-drawn map before a state court. “If anything, this is just ensuring that those fights can continue, and that a broader landscape of litigation can continue to be pursued.”

Wisconsin Democrats are perhaps the most immediate winners of the decision. Liberals won a majority on their state Supreme Court for the first time in over a decade earlier this year. They are already plotting to use it to unravel what is perhaps the strongest GOP gerrymandering in the country. The independent state legislature theory threatened to upend those plans, so Democrats now have a clearer path to litigate those maps thanks to Tuesday’s ruling.

It also has a major effect on a long-running fight in Ohio, where the state Supreme Court has repeatedly struck down GOP maps there as illegal gerrymanders. Ohio Republicans have asked the nation’s top court to intervene on similar grounds, but the court has not yet acted on their plea. Tuesday’s ruling means the fight will likely remain between the legislature and the state Supreme Court, which became more favorable to Republicans last year.

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing to have court-drawn lines thrown out in New York, where a particularly aggressive Democratic gerrymander could cost Republicans several seats. While that fight in state court is ongoing, there is no immediate ruling that would give Democrats the green light to immediately ignore their state judiciary.

It will, however, have little effect in North Carolina, the state where Moore v. Harper originated. Republicans there, spearheaded by state House Speaker Tim Moore, asked the Supreme Court to restrain their state’s then-Democratic controlled high court from wading into a fight on partisan gerrymandering. But while awaiting a final ruling, Republicans won control of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, which overturned the previous court's ruling. Republican lawmakers are expected to redraw the lines this summer, and are expected to heavily favor their party.

“I don’t have confidence in North Carolina,” said former Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), who was once a state supreme court justice, pointing out that the changed partisan makeup of the state high court affects the ultimate outcome there. “I have no confidence that that court will overturn the maps.”

Republicans agree. “This decision has no practical effect on the already-underway redistricting effort in North Carolina. We look forward to the North Carolina General Assembly drawing fair lines that best represent North Carolina,” Jack Pandol, a spokesperson for the House GOP campaign arm, said in a statement.

The court’s decision on Tuesday also seemingly blessed the authority of independent redistricting commissions, which were the subject of a 5-4 divided Supreme Court ruling less than a decade ago. Both parties have benefitted from independent mapmakers in different states — but a world where California Democrats, for example, could gerrymander unabashedly would have been disastrous for GOP representation on the West Coast.

GOP operatives say the current judicial arms race began in the run-up to the 2018 midterms when Democrats secured a majority on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and then successfully sued to have the Republican-drawn map overturned.

The result: The Pennsylvania congressional delegation went from five Democrats and 13 Republicans to an even 9-9 split. Democrats took back the House majority for the first time in eight years.

The Supreme Court reinforced Democrats’ strategy in 2019 when it ruled that federal courts had no role in policing partisan gerrymandering — but left the door open for states to do so.

For Republicans, that was a wake-up call. They started pouring millions into judicial races in key states like North Carolina. In states where justices are appointed, they leaned on GOP governors to tip the scales.

A handful of states have partisan gerrymandering litigation pending in the state courts. Earlier this year, New Mexico Republicans argued that the state’s congressional maps were gerrymandered to benefit Democrats. A Democratic-controlled legislature crafted a map that helped now-Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) oust then-incumbent Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell from her district. Herrell has already mounted a comeback bid.

But one of the judges said in January the state Supreme Court is going to be “deliberative” and won’t rush to a decision.

State Supreme Court hearings are also upcoming in Utah on July 11 and in Kentucky on Sept. 19. Both of those cases deal with GOP-controlled maps, with Republicans sweeping all four congressional districts in Utah and all but one in Kentucky.

In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s decision, Republicans were quick to point out that the Supreme Court does not give state courts unchecked authority in redistricting and other redistricting litigation.

“The questions presented in this area are complex and context specific,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion. “We hold only that state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.”

That, some court watchers argue, is a clear shot across the bow to state judiciaries to not get carried away.

“This is a first, positive step toward reining in recent overreaches of state courts,” said Adam Kincaid, the president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust.

Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

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Kansas City teen recounts being shot after he rang wrong doorbell

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — There was no way, Ralph Yarl thought, that the white man pointing the gun at him through the glass door would shoot him. But the Black teenager, who had gone to the wrong house in Kansas City looking for his younger brothers, was wrong a second time.

Yarl’s brothers were actually at a home a block away, and he said in an interview with “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts that aired Tuesday that he hadn’t met the family of his brothers’ friends, “so maybe it was their house.”

After ringing the doorbell, he said, he waited a long time on the porch before the door opened.

“I see this old man and I’m saying, ‘Oh, this must be like, their grandpa,’” said Yarl, now 17. “And then he pulls out his gun. And I’m like, ‘Whoa!’ So I like, back up. He points it at me.”

Yarl braced and turned his head.

“And then it happened, and then I’m on the ground. I fall on the glass, the shattered glass,” he told Roberts, and “then before I know it, I’m running away, shouting, ‘Help me! Help me!’”

Yarl was bleeding and said he wondered how it was possible that he had been shot in the head. The man he had never met before said only five words to him, he said: “Don’t come here ever again.”

Andrew Lester, 84, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree assault and armed criminal action in the April 13 shooting.

Lester admitted that he shot Yarl through the door without warning because he was “scared to death” he was about to be robbed by the Black person standing there. He remains free after posting $20,000 — 10% of his $200,000 bond.

The shooting drew international attention amid claims that Lester received preferential treatment from investigators. President Joe Biden and several celebrities issued statements calling for justice. Yarl’s attorney, Lee Merritt, has called for the shooting to be investigated as a hate crime.

Yarl’s mother, Cleo Nagbe, said on “Good Morning America” that she had been worried that her son got a flat tire, but that she then got a call from police telling her about the shooting, and she headed to the hospital. He was partially alert, but it was traumatizing, she said.

Ten weeks later, Yarl is physically recovered but said that he has headaches and trouble sleeping and that sometimes his mind is just foggy.

“You’re looking at a kid that took the SAT when he was in eighth grade — and now his brain is slowed,” Nagbe told Roberts. “So physically he looks fine. But there’s a lot that has been taken from him.”

Yarl said he is seeing a therapist and hopes to continue his recovery by focusing on his passions for chemical engineering and for music.

“I’m just a kid and not larger than life because this happened to me,” Yarl said. “I’m just going to keep doing all the stuff that makes me happy. And just living my life the best I can, and not let this bother me.”

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Ivanka Trump dismissed from New York fraud lawsuit against Trump family business

A New York state appeals court on Tuesday dismissed Ivanka Trump from the New York state attorney general’s civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, the Trump Organization and three of his adult children.

The court ruled that legal claims against Ivanka Trump were too old because she left the family business to advise her father in the White House in early 2017. Attorney General Tish James filed her lawsuit in September 2022, too late to cover any alleged misconduct by Ivanka during her time at the company, according to the five-judge panel of the appeals court.

“The allegations against defendant Ivanka Trump do not support any claims that accrued after February 6, 2016,” the ruling said. “Thus, all claims against her should have been dismissed as untimely.”

The court also left open the possibility for the trial judge to further narrow the case.

James’ lawsuit alleges a yearslong fraud in which Donald Trump, his family business and the other defendants included false and misleading valuations on financial statements as a way to reduce the companies’ tax bills while winning favorable terms from banks and insurance companies.

The case is set to go to trial in October.

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The Pentagon tries to get AI right again

Russia’s use of military drones in Ukraine has grown so aggressive that manufacturers have struggled to keep up. China’s strategy for a “world-class military” features cutting-edge artificial intelligence, according to Xi Jinping’s major party address last year.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, has struggled through a series of programs to boost its high-tech powers in recent years.

Now Congress is trying to put new pressure on the military, through bills and provisions in the coming National Defense Authorization Act, to get smarter and faster about cutting-edge technology.

Defense pundits widely believe the future competitiveness of the U.S. military depends on how quickly it can purchase and field AI and other cutting-edge software to improve intelligence gathering, autonomous weapons, surveillance platforms and robotic vehicles. Without it, rivals could cut into American dominance. And Congress agrees: At a Senate Armed Services hearing in April, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said AI “changes the game” of war altogether.

But the military’s own requirements for purchasing and contracting have trapped it in a slow-moving process geared toward more traditional hardware.

To make sure the Pentagon is keeping pace with its adversaries, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) introduced a bill this month to analyze how the U.S. is faring on key technologies like AI relative to the competition.

The 2024 NDAA, currently being negotiated in Congress, includes several provisions that target AI specifically, including generative AI for information warfare, new autonomous systems and better training for an AI-driven future.

Other members of Congress have started to express their concerns publicly: Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, told Politico that the military has fallen “way behind” on AI and that military chiefs had received “no guidance.”

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in March looking for answers on whether the DOD was adapting to the “changing nature of war.” In response, Milley said the military was in a “transition period” and acknowledged it urgently needed to adapt to the new demands of warfare.

As AI has quickly become more sophisticated, its potential uses in warfare have grown. Today, concrete uses for AI in defense range from piloting unmanned fighter jets to serving up tactical suggestions for military leaders based on real-time data from the battlefield. But it still amounts to just a tiny fraction of defense investment. This year the Pentagon requested $1.8 billion to research, develop, test and evaluate artificial intelligence — a record, but still just a fraction of the nearly $900 billion defense budget. Separately, the Pentagon asked for $1.4 billion for a project to centralize data from all the military’s AI-enabled technologies and sensors into a single network.

For years, the Pentagon has struggled to adapt quickly to not just AI, but any new digital technology. Many of these new platforms and tools, particularly software, are developed by small, fast-moving startup companies that haven’t traditionally done business with the Pentagon. And the technology itself changes faster than the military can adapt its internal systems for buying and testing new products.

A particular challenge is generative AI, the fast-moving new platforms that communicate and reason like humans, and are growing in power almost month-to-month.

To get up to speed on generative AI, the Senate version of the 2024 NDAA would create a prize competition to detect and tag content produced by generative AI, a key DOD concern because of the potential for AI to generate misleading but convincing deep fakes. It also directs the Pentagon to develop AI tools to monitor and assess information campaigns, which could help the military track disinformation networks and better understand how information spreads in a population.

And in a more traditional use of AI for defense, the Senate wants to invest in R&D to counter unmanned aircraft systems.

Another proposed solution to rev up the Pentagon’s AI development pipeline is an entirely new office dedicated to autonomous systems. That’s the idea being pushed by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who co-sponsored a bill to set up a new Joint Autonomy Office that would serve all the military branches. (It would operate within an existing central office of the Pentagon called the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO.)

The JAO would focus on the development, testing and delivery of the military’s biggest autonomy projects. Some are already under development, like a semi-autonomous tank and an unmanned combat aircraft, but are being managed in silos rather than in a coordinated way.

The House version of the 2024 NDAA contains some provisions like an analysis of human-machine interface technologies that would set the stage for Wittman’s proposed office, which would be the first to specifically target autonomous systems, including weaponry. Such systems have become a bigger part of the Pentagon’s future defense strategy, driven in part by the success of experimental killer drones and AI signal-jamming in the Ukraine war.

Divyansh Kaushik, an associate director at the Federation of American Scientists who worked with Wittman on the legislation, said the problem that the bill was trying to address was a lack of “strategic focus” from DOD on how to buy, train, test and field critical emerging technologies that are needed by all the service branches at once.

Pentagon leaders have acknowledged that the procurement rules that worked for acquiring traditional weapons like fighter jets do not translate well to buying new AI-enabled software technologies. “There's some institutional obstacles that are set up in the old way of doing procurements that aren't efficient for software,” said Young Bang, who leads the Army’s tech acquisitions as principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army.

Also in the House version of the NDAA is a mandate introduced by Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Ca.) that asks the Pentagon to develop a process to determine what responsible AI use looks like for the Pentagon’s widespread AI stakeholders — including all the military forces and combatant commands. That process will need to build on the Pentagon’s own responsible AI guidelines, which debuted last June.

These new efforts follow many frustrated attempts to make the Pentagon better at buying and fielding cutting-edge tech.

Project Maven, a DOD effort to bring more commercially developed AI into the U.S. military, launched in 2017 with a strong push by tech executives Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel. Parts of that project are now housed in the National Geospatial Agency.

Before that, the Pentagon had launched, then relaunched, the Defense Innovation Unit, which focuses on accelerating the adoption of commercial technology. That unit was effectively demoted to undersecretary purview by former Defense Secretary Gen. Jim Mattis, and is set to be elevated again to the defense secretary’s direct oversight in the 2024 defense bill.

And in 2019, bolstered by Project Maven, Congress created the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center or JAIC to develop, mature and deploy AI technologies for military use.

The JAIC was meant to speed the Pentagon’s adoption of the new technology. “None of the military services were doing AI at the speed and definitely not at the scale” that DOD leadership was looking for, said retired Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, the center’s inaugural director.

But despite additional authorizations by Congress expanding the scope and budget of JAIC from $89 million to $242 million across the 2019 and 2020 National Defense Authorization Acts, by late 2021, the JAIC was defunct, rolled into another Congress-mandated body: the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO.

Craig Martell, a commercial-sector hire who now heads the CDAO, said the military’s previous AI strategy was good for its time but had been outpaced by the technology itself: “The state of AI in the commercial sector, and the use of AI in military operations has changed significantly since the strategy’s creation.”

The Pentagon has issued new AI guidance since the days of JAIC. Kathleen Hicks, the current U.S. deputy defense secretary, flagged the Pentagon’s 2022 Responsible AI Strategy and Implementation Pathway document as evidence of the Pentagon’s commitment to responsible military use of AI and autonomy.

And Martell said the CDAO was working on an unclassified data, analytics and AI adoption strategy to replace the outdated one from 2018, to be released sometime later in the summer.

Congress is keeping its eye on that process. In the House version of the NDAA, Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Texas) asked the defense secretary to brief the House Committee on Armed Services by next June on the Pentagon’s enterprise efforts to train artificial intelligence with correctly attributed and tagged data.

The House and Senate will now need to reconcile their versions of the NDAA before President Joe Biden signs a final version into law.

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Civil rights notable James Meredith turns 90 urges people to press onward

JACKSON, Miss. — James Meredith knew he was putting his life in danger in the 1960s by pursuing what he believes was his divine mission: conquering white supremacy in the deeply, and often violently, segregated state of Mississippi.

A half-century later, the civil rights leader is still talking about his mission from God. In recent weeks, he made several appearances around his home state, urging people to obey the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule in order to reduce crime. On his 90th birthday on Sunday, Meredith said older generations should lead the way.

“Old folks not only can control it — it’s their job to control it,” Meredith told The Associated Press in an interview Sunday after an event honoring him at the Mississippi Capitol.

Meredith is a civil rights icon who has long resisted that label because he believes it sets issues such as voting rights and equal access to education apart from other human rights.

During the event, Meredith fell while trying to stand and speak. He leaned on an unsecured lectern, and it crashed forward with Meredith on top. People nearby scrambled to return him to a wheelchair.

Meredith suffered no visible injuries. An ambulance crew checked him later, and then Meredith went to his home in Jackson to have a birthday celebration with his family. His wife, Judy Alsobrooks Meredith, said Monday that he was spending time with grandchildren and showing no signs of pain.

In October 1962, federal marshals escorted Meredith as he enrolled as the first Black student at the University of Mississippi, while white people rioted on the Oxford campus. Mississippi’s governor at the time, Ross Barnett, had stirred mobs into a frenzy by declaring that Ole Miss would not be integrated under his watch.

Meredith was a 29-year-old Air Force veteran who had already taken classes at one of Mississippi’s historically Black colleges, Jackson State. NAACP attorneys represented him as he obtained a federal court order to enter the state’s flagship public university. After a largely solitary existence at Ole Miss, Meredith graduated in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

After graduating, Meredith set out to promote Black voter registration and show that a Black man could walk through Mississippi without fear. In June 1966, a white man with a shotgun wounded Meredith on the second day of a march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. With Meredith hospitalized, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael and other civil rights leaders continued the march, often followed by long lines of activists and local people.

Less than three weeks after he was shot, Meredith had recovered enough to join the final stretch of what became known as the March Against Fear. It ended at the state Capitol, where an estimated 15,000 people gathered for Mississippi’s largest civil rights rally.

This year, Meredith had planned to walk 200 miles in Mississippi to spread his anti-crime message — roughly the same distance as the March Against Fear. Instead, he made a series of appearances in recent weeks, often using a rolling walker, a wheelchair or a golf cart.

On Sunday, Meredith rode in a golf cart for the final quarter-mile from Jackson City Hall to the Mississippi Capitol, led by a high school marching band and accompanied by dozens of people on foot. A racially diverse group of about 200 people sought shade under magnolia and oak trees while listening to songs, speeches and a child’s poem praising Meredith.

Flonzie Brown-Wright, a longtime Mississippi civil rights activist who participated in the 1966 March Against Fear, said she believes Meredith is a genius at creating strategies for social change.

“He is a very smart man, endowed with a lot of old-fashioned wisdom. He has been able to use that for the greater good of his people,” Brown-Wright said Sunday. “I love him like a big brother.”

In the decades since Meredith integrated Ole Miss, the university has erected a statue of him on campus and has held several events to honor him and his legacy.

John Meredith said Sunday that his father had a profound effect on higher education, but the March Against Fear had a greater impact on him as a son because it demonstrated the importance of elections.

“The silent gift of voting is the ability to help shape the laws under which you live. It is the beauty and the curse of America,” said John Meredith, the current city council president in Huntsville, Alabama. “Participation in voting yields inclusion, diversity and opportunity. Failure to vote results in the loss of freedom … and government oppression.”

At the Capitol birthday celebration, Iyanu B. Carson, a 5th grade student from Jackson, read her poem titled “90 Years of History,” saying she aspires to be like Meredith.

“You made the choice to use your voice, you were strong and made them believe you belonged,” Iyanu said. “Today we celebrate history, and Mr. Meredith, history is you! We’re proud of your accomplishments and all that you have been through.”

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Hollywood mogul acknowledges gifts to Netanyahu may have been excessive

JERUSALEM — A billionaire Hollywood mogul took the stand for a second day on Monday in Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, acknowledging that the long list of champagne, cigars and jewelry he systematically gave to the Israeli prime minister may have been excessive.

Arnon Milchan, whose production credits include “Pretty Woman,” “12 Years a Slave,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is a key witness in one of three cases brought against Netanyahu. Prosecutors are trying to prove that Netanyahu committed fraud and breach of trust.

Milchan, 78, has been testifying by videoconference from Brighton, England, which is near where he is based.

Prosecutors hope his testimony, which began Sunday and is expected to last some two weeks, will provide details about the abundance of gifts given to Netanyahu and his wife. The gifts, the prosecutors maintain, led to favors from Netanyahu that advanced Milchan’s interests.

Netanyahu’s lawyers have said Milchan’s gifts were friendly gestures.

In his first day of testimony, Milchan described a friendship that included some gifts to the Netanyahus that turned into regular requests and “transformed into a routine.”

He said the routine became so frequent that he and the Netanyahus developed code words for the gifts. Cigars were known as “leaves,” champagne was known as “roses,” and luxury dress shirts were nicknamed “dwarves.”

He said he had instructed his aides to give the Netanyahus “whatever they want” and was assured by the prime minister that there was nothing illegal going on.

On Monday, Milchan said the gifts didn’t affect his friendship with the Netanyahus until a police investigation was opened and at which point, he said he realized the gifts were “excessive.”

Asked whether he had ever refused a request for gifts, Milchan said: “Not that I remember.”

Milchan also again stressed that he considered the Netanyahus friends, but recounted that he told police he felt uncomfortable that his gifts were not reciprocated.

According to the indictment against Netanyahu, Milchan gave Netanyahu and his wife a “supply line” of lavish gifts valued at nearly $200,000.

The indictment accuses Netanyahu of using his influential perch to assist Milchan to secure a U.S. visa extension by drawing on his diplomatic contacts, including former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Prosecutors also accuse Netanyahu of working to push legislation that would have granted Milchan millions in tax breaks.

Milchan testified Monday that he had turned to Netanyahu and others for help about the visa extension. He said Kerry called him one day and met with him at a hotel. Describing Kerry as a good friend, he said he was told Kerry could not help.

The prosecution and defense lawyers have been questioning Milchan in a hotel conference room in Brighton. While no journalists are allowed there, Netanyahu’s wife Sara, on a private visit to Britain, sat in for a second straight day.

Prosecutors have demanded that Sara Netanyahu not make eye contact with Milchan, fearing she could sway the witness.

The testimony is being aired in a Jerusalem courtroom for judges and other lawyers — who can also ask questions of Milchan — and for journalists and other attendees to watch.

Netanyahu, who has attended some of the hearings during his trial, was at the courtroom both on Sunday and Monday. Milchan, who is not charged in the case, greeted him in Hebrew over the two-way video broacdcast, using Netanyahu’s nickname: “Shalom, Bibi!”

Milchan is testifying in one of three cases being brought against Netanyahu. The other two, which include charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, accuse Netanyahu of exchanging regulatory favors with powerful media moguls for more positive coverage.

Netanyahu denies wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a witch hunt orchestrated by a liberal media and a biased justice system.

Netanyahu’s legal woes have dogged him politically, putting his fitness to rule while on trial at the center of a political crisis that sent Israelis to the polls five times in under four years.

They also have fueled accusations by critics that Netanyahu is pushing a contentious government plan to overhaul Israel’s judiciary as a way to escape the charges. Netanyahu denies those accusations.

The trial, which began in 2020 and has still not heard from Netanyahu himself, has featured more than 40 prosecution witnesses, including some of Netanyahu’s closest former confidants who turned against the premier.

Witness accounts have shed light not only on the three cases against Netanyahu but also revealed sensational details about his character and his family’s reputation for living off the largesse of taxpayers and wealthy supporters.

Milchan’s aide, Hadas Klein, testified last year that the Netanyahu family “loves gifts.”

The idea of a plea bargain has repeatedly surfaced, but prosecutors for now appear determined to see the trial through, despite reports last week that the judges warned them that the more serious crime of bribery will be hard to prove.

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Putin tells rebellious Russian fighters to swear allegiance or leave for Belarus

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered mercenary troops who participated in the short-lived weekend rebellion to either swear allegiance to their country or leave for Belarus.

In evening remarks from the Kremlin, his first since a short address to the nation on Saturday, Putin presented part of the short-term resolution for the stunning turn of weekend events that upended the front in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Friday, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group’s mercenary fighters, declared war against Russia’s military leadership and turned his troops toward Moscow. The advance was halted on Saturday after a peace deal brokered by Belarus’ president.

Putin’s remarks attributed the fault of the rebellion to Prigozhin, and he said the mercenaries could sign a contract with the Russian military, return to their families or go to Belarus.

“Wagner Group soldiers are also patriots, loyal to the state, they have proven this in combat,” Putin said, arguing that any rebellion attempt would have been unsuccessful. “They were used blindly, forced to turn on their comrades with whom they fought shoulder to shoulder.”

Putin also paid tribute to Russian air force pilots who he confirmed had been killed in the insurrection. Wagner forces previously claimed to have shot down several aircraft in its bid to secure territory.

In a Telegram message earlier on Monday, Prigozhin insisted that his actions over the weekend were not an effort to oust Putin as Russia’s leader.

“Our decision to turn back was driven by two factors,” Prigozhin said. “One, that we did not want Russian blood to flow. The second factor was that we went to demonstrate our protest, and not to overthrow the government of the country.”

On Friday, Prigozhin, who has tussled with Russian leaders on multiple fronts throughout the country’s invasion of Ukraine, ordered thousands of his mercenary troops to march toward capturing Moscow. They quickly secured several strategic bases south of Moscow, including the city of Rostov-on-Don, but stopped because of the deal that Belarus brokered.

Prigozhin said on Monday the deal would helpthe Wagner Group continue its operations, which reach not only into Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, but also to several African countries. His precise whereabouts remain unknown.

The Biden administration has repeatedly stated that the U.S. had nothing to do with the Russian crisis, labeling it as an internal conflict.

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New York officials remember Richard Ravitch the state's top crisis solver for half a century

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York’s top leaders mourned the passing of longtime problem-solver Richard Ravitch, who died Sunday less than two weeks before his 90^th birthday.

“He was never elected to anything, yet he had arguably the most impactful and consequential role in state and city government over the past 50 years,” Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said in an interview with POLITICO, pointing to Ravitch’s time saving New York City from the financial crisis in the 1970s, running the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and spending 18 months as lieutenant governor.

“It really is quite a remarkable legacy.”

With a background in real estate, Ravitch had been appointed to various federal, state and local government entities since the 1960s.

His first prominent role came when newly-elected Gov. Hugh Carey asked him to head the massive Urban Development Corp. in 1975, soon after major banks told Carey they would no longer lend it money.

Ravitch managed to save the authority and keep it solvent. And within a few months, he played a major role bringing stakeholders together as New York City officials scrambled to save their own government from bankruptcy.

At the end of the decade, Carey appointed Ravitch to save yet another struggling state agency – this time, the MTA.

“He is the father of the modern MTA,” authority CEO Janno Lieber said at an unrelated press conference Monday morning. “When I was a kid and the subway system was as bad as it has ever been, Ravitch stepped up … and convinced us that it was possible to bring New York’s most iconic public facility back to life and make it great.”

(Not everybody was a fan of his tenure there – he proved himself “incompetent and incapable of running government,” Hyatt Grand Central developer Donald Trump once said of Ravitch, who refused to have the MTA pay for a private subway entrance for the hotel.)

Ravitch spent the following decades bouncing around a number of prominent roles. He organized a 1984 Olympics bid by New York City, led Major League Baseball’s labor negotiations in the 1990s and chaired a congressional commission on housing issues in 2000.

He finished third in the 1989 Democratic New York City mayoral primary, the closest he ever came to winning elected office.

He was eventually appointed to a top state post. But this was a job he would later dub “the most useless experience of [his] life.”

After ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation elevated Lt. David Paterson to the governorship, Paterson was left without a lieutenant governor. Leadership fights in the state Senate a year into Paterson’s tenure led to an intractable 31-31 gridlock in the chamber.

Nothing in the state constitution details any process for replacing a lieutenant governor, and the assumption for decades had been the job should remain vacant until the next election.

But in an attempt to find a tie-breaking Senate vote and end the Senate’s gridlock, Paterson decided to see what the courts would say if he went ahead and appointed one.

The courts ultimately concluded he had the authority to pick a replacement lieutenant governor, and Paterson turned to the most unimpeachable figure he could find.

“I thought that he was exactly the right type of person. I didn’t think the Republicans would see this as political chicanery,” Paterson recounted Monday.

He noted that even while the GOP was criticizing him over the process, “They said at the same time that the appointee was to them an outstanding appointment.” Ravitch would go on to “serve well,” Paterson said.

But Ravitch never settled into the role, usually one of the most powerless in state government. In his 2014 memoir, he described the lieutenant governor’s cavernous office space in the Capitol: “The rooms came to seem like a metaphor of the job I held; elaborate and empty.”

Eight months into his tenure, Ravitch’s falling out with Paterson was complete when he released a budget plan that competed with the governor’s at a time the state faced a major financial pinch.

Paterson was already on his way at the door at that point, with Democrats circling around then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as their next gubernatorial nominee, and any chance he would play a major role in shaping the administration ended.

But he never faded from the political scene or shied away from sharing his thoughts on newer issues.

“He became a good friend and advisor of mine,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a press conference on Monday. “We had lunch together not that long ago. He told me all the things I need to do, as he always would.”

DiNapoli said Ravitch “adopted” him as “one of his special projects, to mentor me and share the wisdom of his experience.”

“I was definitely on his speed dial list. And the thing about Dick is he was relentless when he was on an issue or a topic; he would call pretty much anytime day or night if he was hot on something. Either gently suggesting what I should do, or more aggressively demanding what I should do, and would not take no for an answer very easily.”

While governors and politicians were similarly on Ravitch’s call list, DiNapoli said, he always took the time to meet with “an aspiring City Council candidate, or an Assembly candidate … He made you feel that being involved in public service was an honorable calling.”

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Crypto mystery: New tax rules are MIA

The crypto world has been bracing for a tax crackdown from the Treasury Department for more than a year-and-a-half, ever since Congress approved new rules aimed at making it easier for the IRS to determine how much money people make trading virtual currencies.

Since then: silence.

Though the IRS considers crypto a major source of tax avoidance, not even a first draft of the regulations needed to fill in the details of the new transaction-reporting requirements has been released by the administration.

Adding to the mystery is that the rules appear to have been written, having been blessed months ago by the White House budget office — which, until recently, was one of the last bureaucratic steps in the process of issuing regulations.

In the meantime, the start date for the rules has been put off indefinitely.

That has perplexed many, from members of Congress to lawyers like Lisa Zarlenga, a cryptocurrency tax expert at Steptoe.

“This is the single easiest thing they can do to improve compliance, and they’re not doing it,” said Zarlenga, a former Treasury tax official.

“I’ve been scratching my head.”

The IRS’s tortoise-like pace contrasts with the aggressive campaign to clamp down on crypto being waged by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has sued to force industry giants Coinbase and Binance to follow its regulations.

The delay also comes amid a high-profile push by the administration to reduce the estimated $500 billion in taxes that go uncollected every year, a big reason why Democrats pushed through a one-time $80 billion cash infusion for the IRS.

The tax agency had been asking lawmakers for the new crypto rules for years, saying it needed more power to root out tax avoidance by people trading digital assets.

During the debt-limit negotiations, President Joe Biden complained that Republicans wouldn’t agree to a second crackdown dealing with so-called wash sales that would prevent crypto holders from using paper losses to erase their tax bills.

In a statement, Treasury spokesperson Kristin Lynch said: “Treasury is working diligently to finalize these important and complicated regulations.”

She did not respond to questions about the reasons for the delay or when the rules might be released

The still-gestating regulations could be controversial for the agency, reviving a contentious fight like the one seen in Congress when it first approved the rules.

At the time, in 2021, lawmakers were deeply divided, even within each party, over what corners of the digital asset world should be subject to the requirements. Odd bedfellows like Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Cynthia Lummus (R-Wyo.) said the rules went too far.

Lawmakers wanted the $28 billion the crackdown was projected to raise to help defray the cost of an infrastructure spending bill.

Congress left many of the details to be sorted out by Treasury, and those with a stake in the issue are now anxious to see whether the rules apply not only to obvious targets like Coinbase but also things like decentralized exchanges, people who make “cold wallets” and miners.

The IRS already requires people to report crypto transactions on their annual returns. And to underscore that point, the agency began requiring people to say on their filings whether they owned virtual currencies at any point in the year (in 2021, 2.3 million filers answered “yes”).

But the agency does not have an easy way to determine whether what the taxpayer reports on a return is true or complete, having to resort to audits and John Doe summonses to exchanges for the information. It’s such a big problem that experts have trouble even estimating how much in crypto-related taxes go uncollected.

That’s where the rules approved by Congress come in. They require brokers to report to the IRS, as well as their customers, how much they saw in gross proceeds from selling digital assets.

The idea is to not only provide the IRS with independent data about transactions. If people know someone else is reporting to the IRS, they are less likely to omit the information from their returns.

That’s been part of Washington’s tax-collection playbook for more than 30 years, with lawmakers repeatedly expanding such “third-party reporting” to an ever-widening circle of payments. The IRS now collects more than 50 “informational” returns detailing how much people are paid at their jobs and how much they made selling stock and how much interest they paid on their mortgage.

Advocates say expanding those requirements to crypto would not only improve tax collections. It would also make it easier for people holding digital assets to do their taxes, especially if they are frequent traders because they won’t have to track each individual sale.

The rules were supposed to take effect in January, but the administration announced late last year they would be delayed.

The rules were OK’d by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in February, which had been one of the final steps in issuing regulations. The administration recently announced OIRA will no longer review tax regulations.

Even once the rules are released, they’ll only be the initial draft — the administration still must take public comment on them before finalizing the requirements. Some experts predict the agency won’t make them effective in the middle of a tax year because that would cause too many headaches, which means the start date could be a long way off.

Critics complain that amounts to a windfall for the crypto world.

At a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen when the rules might be released.

“The SEC has proved they’re not afraid of the crypto bros, I know you’re not afraid of the crypto bros, I hope the IRS is not afraid of them — when are we going to see these regulations?” asked Sherman, ranking member of the panel’s subcommittee on capital markets.

Said Yellen: “We’ll get back to you on that shortly.”

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