Appeals court upholds Florida high school’s transgender bathroom ban

MIAMI — A federal appeals court has ruled that a Florida school district’s policy of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex is constitutional.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its 7-4 decision on Friday, ruling that the St. Johns County School Board did not discriminate against transgender students based on sex, or violate federal civil rights law by requiring transgender students to use gender-neutral bathrooms or bathrooms matching their biological sex.

The court’s decision was split down party lines, with seven justices appointed by Republican presidents siding with the school district and four justices appointed by Democratic presidents siding with Drew Adams, a former student who sued the district in 2017 because he wasn’t allowed to use the boys restroom.

A three-judge panel from the appeals court previously sided with Adams in 2020, but the full appeals court decided to take up the case. Though his assigned gender was female at birth, Adams began the transition to become male before he enrolled in Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, just southeast of Jacksonville.

Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote in the majority opinion that that the school board policy advances the important governmental objective of protecting students’ privacy in school bathrooms. She said the district’s policy does not violate the law because it’s based on biological sex, not gender identity.

Judge Jill Pryor wrote in a dissenting opinion that the interest of protecting privacy is not absolute and must coexist alongside fundamental principles of equality, specifically where exclusion implies inferiority.

Lambda Legal, a LGBTQ rights group that has been providing aid to Adams, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment from The Associated Press.

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How many calories are in your Champagne? The label may soon tell you.

Producers of most wine, beer and spirits have never been required to fully disclose on the bottle or can what’s in their products. But that may soon change as the federal government finally responded to a 20-year effort by public interest groups to require more detailed labeling.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau — the agency that regulates labeling in much of the alcohol industry — issued a letter in mid-November outlining plans to set rules for mandatory labeling of nutrition, allergen and ingredient information for beer, wine and spirits by the end of 2023.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that first petitioned for the enhanced and mandatory labels in 2003, is lauding the move as an increasingly health-conscious public demands more information on what it consumes. But the plan to establish rules for alcohol labels is already stirring up pressure from the industry, which fears overly prescriptive requirements could be onerous, particularly for smaller breweries, distilleries and winemakers, even though some producers already voluntarily include certain information.

“There's obviously a large consumer interest in this information, and the industry which was, you know, very strongly opposed to this in 2003 has sort of come around a bit,” said Matt Simon, associate director of litigation for CSPI.

The move would apply transparency to a full range of alcoholic beverages, potentially changing how people buy and consume most beer, wine and liquor. It would also have significant consequences for an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars, forcing global companies to invest heavily to comply with the new requirements that go beyond listing alcohol by volume and other limited information.

Alcohol manufacturers managed to escape detailed labeling requirements for years when previous administrations did not act on the initial petition because the issue lacked political salience and divided the industry. Although the government initiated a rulemaking process in 2005, it never finalized rules beyond guidelines for voluntary labeling.

Many expected the administration to act after it released a report in February on competition in the alcohol industry, which indicated that regulatory proposals on allergen, nutrition and ingredient labeling “could serve public health and foster competition by providing information to consumers.”

The report — and President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order on competition — made clear that this administration was prioritizing alcohol, and labeling would be a big part of that. Upping the ante, CSPI and other consumer groups sued the government to act on their petition in October.

“Because of the history in this matter, where sometimes things were proposed and they were never finalized, we do want to use this litigation to try and work with the TTB on getting a commitment to noticing the rulemaking in a time that would be mutually acceptable,” said Lisa Mankofsky, director of litigation for CSPI.

The move toward mandatory labeling also comes as the market for alcohol shifted dramatically during the pandemic. States loosened regulations and normalized to-go cocktails. That shift also corresponded to increased alcohol-related deaths.

The three labeling rules will be subject to public comment and will focus on nutrition and alcohol content; allergens; and ingredients, respectively. The TTB, which regulates labeling for malted beverages like beer as well as alcohol greater than 7 percent by volume, did not respond to a request for comment on future labeling rulemaking.

“We’re not trying to obfuscate but I think we definitely want it to be based on accuracy and that’s something we’d like to see clarification on [when the rules are proposed],” said Michael Kaiser, vice president of Wine America, a trade group.

Winemakers often use additives in the production process, such as egg whites or fish bladders, and health advocates want those ingredients disclosed. But Kaiser explained that those additions are undetectable in the final product and won’t trigger an allergic response.

In spirits, a similar process occurs.

“The distillation process itself transforms the raw materials used to make a spirits product in such a way that many of the ingredients, proteins, peptides or fragments, for example, are not carried over into the distillate,” explained Lisa Hawkins, senior vice president at the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group. “Labeling for ingredients that went through the distillation process and are no longer present in the final product might introduce consumer confusion, rather than mitigate it.”

As consumer habits and tastes changed, some big industry players have seen the writing on the wall.

Six years ago, the Beer Institute, the trade group for the beer industry’s biggest players, adopted a voluntary disclosure policy asking its members to include more information about ingredients and nutrition, either through a label or online. According to a recent survey, “95 percent of the beer volume” sold by large brands including Anheuser-Busch and Molson Coors Beverage Company now includes such information on “products, packaging or websites.”

"The beer industry already offers more information to consumers than any other alcohol category and we are proud to have paved the way for greater nutritional transparency,” said Jeff Guittard, senior manager of communications at the Beer Institute.

After the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health, the Distilled Spirits Council announced that their board members–including brands like Bacardi and Diageo–would voluntarily include nutrition and serving information on a new label.

But advocates say it’s not enough. For one, they say, it’s voluntary.

“They often make the disclosure very small and hard to read, as opposed to what the petition requests, which is, you can think of it, almost as a graphic box. And then they also don't include ingredient information,” said Mankofsky.

For ease and appearance, trade groups representing nearly every alcoholic beverage raised the idea of QR codes on alcohol labels that would link to the required information, rather than a large nutrition facts panel modeled on food nutrition labeling. To industry, the nutrition panel would be more expensive and harder to implement. It also would be especially burdensome for smaller alcohol makers, experts said.

In many ways, the popularity of White Claw and other hard seltzers paved the way. In previous decades, many alcohol makers staunchly opposed similar labeling, even as nutrition and other kinds of consumer transparency initiatives gained a foothold. But roughly 10 years ago, the hard cider market took off. Most hard ciders and hard seltzers are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which already requires nutrition labeling.

Nevertheless, the industry remains reluctant to fully embrace the labeling advocates are calling for, especially for smaller alcohol makers.

Marc Sorini, general counsel of the Brewers Association, which represents independent craft brewers, said that his group is still “exploring exactly where our position will be” given that the rules are not public yet.

“There has to be some flexibility in it for small batch products,” he said. “The TTB tends to be pretty sensitive to this.”

For example, brewers that release a seasonal brew–such as a Christmas Ale or Oktoberfest – may have a slightly different formulation each year but use the same spices. If that brewery had to seek government approval every year–conducting rigorous testing and meeting tight requirements–that “will be a hardship for small brewers and for big brewers that make one-off small batches,” Sorini said.

Even as the industry has come around to disclosing more product information, it wants plenty of time to put them in place.

“We’ve seen in the past where new labeling requirements have been required within a month of their announcement and that’s not feasible,” said Michelle McGrath, executive director of the American Cider Association. “There needs to be a long road for implementation whatever the solution.”

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Benedict XVI, first pope to resign in 600 years, dies at 95

VATICAN CITY — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the shy German theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe but will forever be remembered as the first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95.

Pope Francis will celebrate his funeral Mass in St. Peter’s Square on Thursday, an unprecedented event in which a current pope will celebrate the funeral of a former one.

Benedict stunned the world on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin, that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference.

His dramatic decision paved the way for the conclave that elected Francis as his successor. The two popes then lived side-by-side in the Vatican gardens, an unprecedented arrangement that set the stage for future “popes emeritus” to do the same.

A statement from Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni on Saturday morning said that: “With sorrow I inform you that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI died today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesia Monastery in the Vatican. Further information will be released as soon as possible.”

The Vatican said Benedict’s remains would be on public display in St. Peter’s Basilica starting Monday for the faithful to pay their final respects. Benedict’s request was that his funeral would be celebrated solemnly but with “simplicity,” Bruni told reporters.

He added that Benedict, whose health had deteriorated over Christmas, had received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick on Wednesday, after his daily Mass, in the presence of his his longtime secretary and the consecrated women who tend to his household.

The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had never wanted to be pope, planning at age 78 to spend his final years writing in the “peace and quiet” of his native Bavaria.

Instead, he was forced to follow the footsteps of the beloved St. John Paul II and run the church through the fallout of the clerical sex abuse scandal and then a second scandal that erupted when his own butler stole his personal papers and gave them to a journalist.

Being elected pope, he once said, felt like a “guillotine” had come down on him.

Nevertheless, he set about the job with a single-minded vision to rekindle the faith in a world that, he frequently lamented, seemed to think it could do without God.

IIn vast areas of the world today, there is a strange forgetfulness of God,” he told 1 million young people gathered on a vast field for his first foreign trip as pope, to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005. “It seems as if everything would be just the same even without him.”

With some decisive, often controversial moves, he tried to remind Europe of its Christian heritage. And he set the Catholic Church on a conservative, tradition-minded path that often alienated progressives. He relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass and launched a crackdown on American nuns, insisting that the church stay true to its doctrine and traditions in the face of a changing world. It was a path that in many ways was reversed by his successor, Francis, whose mercy-over-morals priorities alienated the traditionalists who had been so indulged by Benedict.

Benedict’s style couldn’t have been more different from that of John Paul or Francis. No globe-trotting media darling or populist, Benedict was a teacher, theologian and academic to the core: quiet and pensive with a fierce mind. He spoke in paragraphs, not soundbites. He had a weakness for orange Fanta as well as his beloved library; when he was elected pope, he had his entire study moved — as is — from his apartment just outside the Vatican walls into the Apostolic Palace. The books followed him to his retirement home.

“In them are all my advisers,” he said of his books in the 2010 book-length interview “Light of the World.” “I know every nook and cranny, and everything has its history.”

It was Benedict’s devotion to history and tradition that endeared him to members of the traditionalist wing of the Catholic Church. For them, Benedict remained even in retirement a beacon of nostalgia for the orthodoxy and Latin Mass of their youth — and the pope they much preferred over Francis.

In time, this group of arch-conservatives, whose complaints were amplified by sympathetic U.S.-based conservative Catholic media, would become a key source of opposition to Francis who responded to what he said were threats of division by reimposing the restrictions on the old Latin Mass that Benedict had loosened.

Like his predecessor John Paul, Benedict made reaching out to Jews a hallmark of his papacy. His first official act as pope was a letter to Rome’s Jewish community and he became the second pope in history, after John Paul, to enter a synagogue.

In his 2011 book, “Jesus of Nazareth,” Benedict made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Christ, explaining biblically and theologically why there was no basis in Scripture for the argument that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus’ death.

"It’s very clear Benedict is a true friend of the Jewish people,” said Rabbi David Rosen, who heads the interreligious relations office for the American Jewish Committee, at the time of Benedict’s retirement.

Yet Benedict also offended some Jews who were incensed at his constant defense of and promotion toward sainthood of Pope Pius XII, the World War II-era pope accused by some of having failed to sufficiently denounce the Holocaust. And they harshly criticized Benedict when he removed the excommunication of a traditionalist British bishop who had denied the Holocaust.

Benedict’s relations with the Muslim world were also a mixed bag. He riled Muslims with a speech in September 2006 — five years after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States — in which he quoted a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly his command to spread the faith “by the sword.”

A subsequent comment after the massacre of Christians in Egypt led the Al Azhar center in Cairo, the seat of Sunni Muslim learning, to suspend ties with the Vatican, which were only restored under Francis.

The Vatican under Benedict suffered notorious PR gaffes, and sometimes Benedict himself was to blame. He enraged the United Nations and several European governments in 2009 when, en route to Africa, he told reporters that the AIDS problem couldn’t be resolved by distributing condoms.

“On the contrary, it increases the problem,” Benedict said. A year later, he issued a revision saying that if a male prostitute were to use a condom to avoid passing HIV to his partner, he might be taking a first step toward a more responsible sexuality.

But Benedict’s legacy was irreversibly colored by the global eruption in 2010 of the sex abuse scandal, even though as a cardinal he was responsible for turning the Vatican around on the issue.

Documents revealed that the Vatican knew very well of the problem yet turned a blind eye for decades, at times rebuffing bishops who tried to do the right thing.

Benedict had firsthand knowledge of the scope of the problem, since his old office — the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which he had headed since 1982 — was responsible for dealing with abuse cases.

In fact, it was he who, before becoming pope, took the then-revolutionary decision in 2001 to assume responsibility for processing those cases after he realized bishops around the world weren’t punishing abusers but were just moving them from parish to parish where they could rape again.

And once he became pope, Benedict essentially reversed his beloved predecessor, John Paul, by taking action against the 20th century’s most notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. Benedict took over Maciel’s Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order held up as a model of orthodoxy by John Paul, after it was revealed that Maciel sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.

In retirement, Benedict was faulted by an independent report for his handling of four priests while he was bishop of Munich; he denied any personal wrongdoing but apologized for any “grievous faults.”

As soon as the abuse scandal calmed down for Benedict, another one erupted.

In October 2012, Benedict’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, was convicted of aggravated theft after Vatican police found a huge stash of papal documents in his apartment. Gabriele told Vatican investigators he gave the documents to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi because he thought the pope wasn’t being informed of the “evil and corruption” in the Vatican and that exposing it publicly would put the church on the right track.

Once the “Vatileaks” scandal was resolved, including with a papal pardon of Gabriele, Benedict felt free to take the extraordinary decision that he had hinted at previously: He announced that he would resign rather than die in office as all his predecessors had done for almost six centuries.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited” to the demands of being the pope, he told cardinals.

He made his last public appearances in February 2013 and then boarded a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castel Gandolfo, to sit out the conclave in private. Benedict then largely kept to his word that he would live a life of prayer in retirement, emerging only occasionally from his converted monastery for special events and writing occasional book prefaces and messages.

Usually they were innocuous, but one 2020 book — in which Benedict defended the celibate priesthood at a time when Francis was considering an exception — sparked demands for future “popes emeritus” to keep quiet.

Despite his very different style and priorities, Francis frequently said that having Benedict in the Vatican was like having a “wise grandfather” living at home.

Benedict was often misunderstood: Nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” by the unsympathetic media, he was actually a very sweet and fiercely smart academic who devoted his life to serving the church he loved.

“Thank you for having given us the luminous example of the simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord,” Benedict’s longtime deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, told him in one of his final public events as pope.

Benedict inherited the seemingly impossible task of following in the footsteps of John Paul when he was elected the 265th leader of the Church on April 19, 2005. He was the oldest pope elected in 275 years and the first German in nearly 1,000 years.

Born April 16, 1927, in Marktl Am Inn, in Bavaria, Benedict wrote in his memoirs of being enlisted in the Nazi youth movement against his will in 1941, when he was 14 and membership was compulsory. He deserted the German army in April 1945, the waning days of the war.

Benedict was ordained, along with his brother, Georg, in 1951. After spending several years teaching theology in Germany, he was appointed bishop of Munich in 1977 and elevated to cardinal three months later by Pope Paul VI.

His brother Georg was a frequent visitor to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo until he died in 2020. His sister died years previously. His “papal family” consisted of Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, his longtime private secretary who was always by his side, another secretary and consecrated women who tended to the papal apartment.

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Barbara Walters, a superstar and pioneer in TV news, dies

NEW YORK — Barbara Walters, a pioneer as TV news’ first woman superstar, has died, according to ABC News. She was 93.

Her cause of death was not immediately known. Other details, such as where she died, were not immediately released.

Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million annual salary.

During more than three decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with the famous and powerful brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs.

Her drive was legendary as she competed for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more rivals, including female journalists who had followed on the trail that she blazed.

As a highly successful side venture, she created and appeared on a daytime ABC talk show, “The View.” In May 2014, she taped her final appearance on “The View” to mark the end of her career on television, but she hosted occasional specials after that.

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Suspect in deaths of Idaho students arrested in Pennsylvania

Authorities in Pennsylvania arrested a suspect in the killings of four University of Idaho students who were found stabbed to death in their beds more than a month ago, authorities said Friday.

The killings initially mystified law enforcement and shook the small town of Moscow, Idaho, a farming community of about 25,000 people that had not had a murder for five years. Fears of a repeat attack prompted nearly half of the University of Idaho’s over 11,000 students to leave the city and switch to online classes.

Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was arrested early Friday morning by the Pennsylvania State Police at a home in Chestnuthill Township, authorities said. He is being held for extradition to Idaho on a warrant for first degree murder, according to arrest paperwork filed in Monroe County Court. More details are expected at a press conference later today, and an extradition hearing is scheduled for Tuesday.

Kohberger graduated from Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania with an associate of arts degree in psychology in 2018, said college spokesperson Mia Rossi-Marino.

A Ph.D. student by the same name is listed in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Washington State University, which is a short drive across the state line from the University of Idaho. Messages seeking more information were left for officials at WSU. DeSales University in Pennsylvania confirmed that a student by that name received a bachelor’s degree in 2020 and completed graduate studies in June 2022.

The Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin — were stabbed to death at a rental home near campus sometime in the early morning hours of Nov. 13. Investigators were unable to name a suspect or locate a murder weapon for weeks.

But the case broke open after law enforcement asked the public for help finding a white Hyundai Elantra sedan seen near the home around the time of the killings. The Moscow Police Department made the request Dec. 7, and by the next day had to direct tips to a special FBI call center because so many were coming in. By mid-December, investigators were working through nearly 12,000 tips and had identified more than 22,000 vehicles matching that make and model.

Goncalves, 21, of Rathdrum, Idaho; Mogen, 21, of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Kernodle, 20, of Post Falls, Idaho; and Chapin, 20, of Conway, Washington, were members of the university’s Greek system and close friends. Mogen, Goncalves and Kernodle lived in the three-story rental home with two other roommates. Kernodle and Chapin were dating and he was visiting the house that night.

Autopsies showed all four were likely asleep when they were attacked. Some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times. There was no sign of sexual assault, police said.

Police said Thursday the rental home would be cleared of “potential biohazards and other harmful substances” to collect evidence starting Friday morning. It was unclear how long the work would take, but a news release said the house would be returned to the property manager upon completion.

Shanon Gray, an attorney representing Goncalves’s father, Steve Goncalves, said law enforcement officials called the family last night to let them know about the arrest, but gave no additional information about how or why they believe he might be connected to the murders.

“Obviously they’re relieved that someone has been arrested,” Gray said. “You guys know about as much as we do right now.”

Ben Roberts, a graduate student in the criminology and criminal justice department at WSU, described Kohberger as confident and outgoing, but said it seemed like “he was always looking for a way to fit in.”

“It’s pretty out of left field,” he said of the news Friday. “I had honestly just pegged him as being super awkward.”

Roberts started the program in August — along with Kohberger, he said — and had several courses with him. He described Kohberger as wanting to appear academic.

“One thing he would always do, almost without fail, was find the most complicated way to explain something,” he said. “He had to make sure you knew that he knew it.”

The case also enticed online sleuths who speculated about potential suspects and motives. In the early days of the investigation, police released relatively few details publicly. Safety concerns also had the university hiring an additional security firm to escort students across campus and the Idaho State Police sending troopers to help patrol the city’s streets.

Kohberger was arrested in Monroe County, located in eastern Pennsylvania in the Pocono Mountains. The county seat, Stroudsburg, is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) north of Philadelphia.

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Biden pardons 6 convicted of murder, drug, alcohol crimes

President Joe Biden has pardoned six people who have served out sentences after convictions on a murder charge and drug- and alcohol-related crimes, including an 80-year-old woman convicted of killing her abusive husband about a half-century ago and a man who pleaded guilty to using a telephone for a cocaine transaction in the 1970s.

The pardons, announced Friday, mean the criminal record of the crimes is now purged. They come a few months after the Democratic president pardoned thousands of people convicted of “simple possession” of marijuana under federal law. He also pardoned three people earlier this year and has commuted the sentences of 75 others.

Biden’s stance on low-level crimes, particularly low-level drug possession, and how those crimes can impact families and communities for decades to come has evolved over his 50 years in public service. In the 1990s, he supported crime legislation that increased arrest and incarceration rates for drug crimes, particularly for Black and Latino people. Biden has said people are right to question his stance on the bill, but he also has encouraged them to look at what he’s doing now on crime.

The pardons were announced while the president was spending time with his family on St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The White House said those pardoned are people who went on to serve their communities. It said the pardons reflect Biden’s view people deserve a second chance.

Those granted pardons are:

— Beverly Ann Ibn-Tamas, 80, of Columbus, Ohio. At age 33, Ibn-Tamas was convicted of killing her husband. She testified that her husband beat her, verbally abused her and threatened her. She told jurors that she shot him moments after he had assaulted her, while she was pregnant. The judge refused to allow expert testimony on battered woman syndrome, a psychological condition that can develop among victims of domestic violence. Ibn-Tamas got one to five years of incarceration with credit for time served. Her appeal was among the first by someone with battered woman syndrome, and her case has been studied by academics.

— Charles Byrnes-Jackson, 77, of Swansea, South Carolina. Byrnes-Jackson pleaded guilty to possession and sale of spirits without tax stamps when he was 18, and it involved a single illegal whiskey transaction. He tried to enlist in the Marines but was rejected because of the conviction.

— John Dix Nock III, 72, of St. Augustine, Florida. Nock pleaded guilty to using his property as a grow-house for marijuana 27 years ago. He didn’t cultivate the plants, but he got six months of community confinement. He now operates a general contracting business.

— Gary Parks Davis, 66, of Yuma, Arizona. When Davis was 22, he admitted using a telephone for a cocaine transaction. He served a six-month sentence on nights and weekends in a county jail and completed probation in 1981. After the offense, the White House says, Davis earned a college degree and worked steadily, including owning a landscaping business and managing construction projects. He has volunteered at his children’s high school and in his community.

— Edward Lincoln De Coito III, 50, of Dublin, California. De Coito pleaded guilty at age 23 to being involved in a marijuana trafficking conspiracy. He was released from prison in December 2000 after serving nearly two years. Before the offense, De Coito had served honorably in the U.S. Army and the Army Reserves and had received numerous awards.

— Vincente Ray Flores, 37, of Winters, California. As a 19-year-old, Flores consumed ecstasy and alcohol while serving in the Air Force, later pleading guilty at a special court-martial. He was sentenced to four months of confinement, loss of $2,800 in pay and a reduction in rank. Flores participated in a six-month rehab program that gives select enlisted offenders a chance to return to duty after therapy and education. His reduction in rank was amended, and he remains on active duty, earning medals and other awards for his service.

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Ethics questions on fundraiser, expenses and more: Where George Santos' many scandals stand

Every day brings Rep.-elect George Santos closer to his official Congressional swearing in. Every day also seemingly reveals further problems for the scandal-plagued New York Republican.

The unraveling of Santos’ campaign narrative started with a New York Times exposéon Dec. 19 that called into question claims he’d made about attending Baruch College, working at Goldman Sachs and saving thousands of dogs and cats for an animal rescue charity.

Here’s a recap of the additional dizzying developments since Monday, when the New York Republican first addressed fabrications about his resume, dismissing them as mere embellishments.

Selling access to his swearing-in

For between $100 and $500, Santos said donors could get a bus trip to Washington, lunch, a swearing-in ceremony and a campaign-led tour of the “Capitol grounds.” The invitation, first reported by CNN Thursday, launched a fresh round of questions about Santos’ ethics.

Campaign finance experts at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center said it wasn’t immediately clear that the offer was a violation, since the invitation didn’t explicitly say the money paid was for a tour. Additionally, the tour offer was for the “Capitol grounds,” not the Capitol building itself or its office buildings, which could be a reference to the outdoor public space around the Capitol rather than private areas. Santos could run afoul of ethics rules barring the use of official resources for campaigns, however, if he explicitly held tours or meetings with donors in congressional buildings.

Congress’ ethics watchdog recently knocked outgoing Rep. Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii), for example, for campaign social media posts from the Capitol and House office buildings. If Santos is inviting donors to the official swearing-in ceremony, it could violate those same rules. It’s an unusual move either way – lawmakers each receive a few invites to the swearing in ceremony that they typically give to family or close friends.

Key Republican congressman predicts ethics probe

Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee, said on Fox News Thursday night that he's “pretty confident” the House Ethics Committee will investigate Santos. He also called the member-elect's resume fabrications “a disgrace, he’s lied to the voters.”

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who is facing a rebellion among some conservatives that complicates his bid for the House speakership, as well as other conference leaders have remained silent about Santos’ admitted fabrications.

Eye-popping expenditures

Santos is also drawing scrutiny for a series of questionable expenditures made by his campaign. The campaign spent $11,000 to rent a suburban house in Huntington, Long Island, claiming it was lodging for staff, the New York Times reported — but neighbors said Santos himself was seen living there. It’s illegal for a candidate to spend campaign funds on their own personal expenses.

The campaign also spent more than $40,000 on air travel, according to the Times — a figure far beyond what is typically spent during a local congressional campaign. Another $30,000 was spent on hotels across the country and $14,000 on car services. Dozens of expenditures by the campaign were listed in disclosure forms at $199.99, just below the $200 threshold where receipts are required.

Santos attorney Joe Murray told the Times that some campaign money was spent “unwisely” by a firm that has since been fired, but that all the expenditures were legal.

Press secretary resigns

In a sign Santos' standing is growing increasingly shaky, his campaign press secretary resigned Thursday, POLITICO first reported. The press secretary, Gabby Lipsky, had been expected to join the congressman-elect’s staff in D.C. before she stepped down, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Democratic congressman introduces the “SANTOS Act”

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) announced Thursday night he is introducing legislation that would require candidates for federal office to disclose their employment, educational and military history under oath. False statements would be punishable as perjury.

“I find it outrageous that a fraudulent candidate like George Santos can lie to voters about his qualifications, about his employment and educational background,” Torres said in an interview. “It would enable voters to compare what a candidate has said under oath, versus what a candidate has said on the campaign trail.”

He’s dubbing the bill the Stop Another Non-Truthful Office Seeker, or SANTOS Act. It's unclear if the bill would go anywhere with the House GOP days from taking the majority.

Torres said his bill would focus specifically on verifiable educational, employment and military history — steering clear of questions like personal identity, where answers are more subjective. Santos has also been called out for lying about being Jewish. “There’s not a First Amendment right to perjure yourself,” Torres said.

Questions about his mother’s death

Santos is also facing questions about statements he made about the death of his mother, after journalist Yashar Ali unearthed tweets he posted with potentially contradictory accounts of her demise.

In 2021, Santos tweeted, “9/11 claimed my mothers life.” In a separate 2021 post, however, he placed her death in 2016, writing: “December 23rd this year marks 5 years I lost my best friend and mentor. Mom you will live forever in my heart.” An obituary confirms she died in 2016.

Santos’ campaign website says that his mother, who was working in the World Trade Center’s South Tower on Sept. 11, survived the attacks but “passed away a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.”

Many 9/11 survivors developed cancer and other illnesses related to their exposure to toxins from the terrorist attack, but Santos has not clarified whether her illness was linked to the attack and groups that track survivors have no record of her ever filing for a related compensation award or lawsuit, according to Rolling Stone.

Three new probes

Multiple law enforcement agencies are looking into Santos’ actions. Federal prosecutors at the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York are reviewing public campaign filings amid questions about the source of the politician’s wealth, ABC News first reported.

The Nassau County district attorney announced an investigation Wednesday to determine if any of his fabrications amount to a crime.

New York state Attorney General Tish James’ office has also said it is looking into a number of issues related to Santos’ conduct.

A spokesperson for Santos did not return a message seeking comment.

Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.

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