MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Thursday after most U.S. stocks slipped, as doubts rose on Wall Street about whether the Federal Reserve will deliver economy-juicing cuts to interest rates by September.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9% to 41,020.91 after the Bank of Japan kept interest rates steady at 0.5% and raised inflation projections. The move follows Tokyo’s trade deal with Washington.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1% to 24,920.67, while the Shanghai Composite Index slid 0.7% to 3,588.73.

In Seoul, the Kospi edged down 0.3% to 3,244.40 after South Korea reached a 15% tariff deal with the U.S., with no levies on American goods like cars, trucks and farm products. The deal also includes South Korea’s purchase of $100 billion U.S. energy imports and $350 billion worth of investments in the U.S.

Australia’s S&P ASX 200 shed 0.1% to 8,743.80. India’s BSE Sensex added 0.2% to 81,481.86. Taiwan’s TAIEX rose 0.4% to 23,551.92.

Rabo Bank, citing the U.S. trade deals with other countries, including Bangladesh, said in a commentary that “it appears to be only a matter of time before India agrees to terms to ensure that it retains favorable access to the US market and all of those other markets that (U.S. President Donald) Trump has demonstrated he has the power to direct through economic coercion.”

Rabo added that the terms of a U.S.-India trade deal would almost certainly include Indian purchases of U.S. arms and energy products and preferential access to U.S. agricultural goods.

“A potential loser in all of this is Australia. With the US sending more wheat to Indonesia and Bangladesh and more LNG to Japan and South Korea, Australian exports stand to be displaced from their traditional markets,” it added.

Trump on Wednesday announced a 25% tariff on imports coming from India, along with an additional tax because of India’s purchases of Russian oil, beginning on Aug. 1. That’s when stiff tariffs Trump has proposed for many other countries are also scheduled to kick in, unless they reach trade deals that lower the rates. But the U.S. president said the two countries were still in negotiations.

On Wall Street on Wednesday the S&P 500 edged down by 0.1%, coming off its first loss after setting all-time highs for six successive days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 171 points, or 0.4%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.1%.

Stocks felt pressure from rising Treasury yields in the bond market after the Federal Reserve voted to hold its main interest rate steady. The move may upset Trump, who has been lobbying for lower interest rates, but it was widely expected on Wall Street.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell may have surprised investors by pushing back on expectations that the Fed could cut rates at its next meeting in September. Besides Trump, two members of the Fed’s committee have also been calling for lower rates to ease the pressure on the economy, and they dissented in Wednesday’s vote.

But Powell would not commit to a September cut in rates, pointing to how inflation remains above the Fed’s 2% target, while the job market still looks to be “in balance.”

A cut in rates would give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also risk fueling inflation when Trump’s tariffs may be set to raise prices for U.S. consumers. The Fed’s job is to keep both the job market and inflation in a good place.

In other dealings on Thursday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 4 cents to $69.96 per barrel while Brent crude, the international standard, shed 13 cents to $72.34 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar fell to 148.87 Japanese yen from 149.44. The euro rose to $1.1422 from $1.1412.

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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

HONOLULU (AP) — David Sun-Miyashiro was at home on the 31st floor of a Honolulu apartment building, high above danger, when his phone alerted him to a possible tsunami from a massive earthquake far across the Pacific Ocean.

With plenty of time to spare before any surging waters might possibly reach Hawaii, he did something he probably wouldn’t have done in a more urgent scenario: He got in his car to go pick up his father, who would be needing a ride to the airport later.

He didn’t get far. Traffic in his neighborhood, Kakaako, was gridlocked. Sun-Miyashiro spent an hour going a few blocks, decided to turn around and finally abandoned his car, walking home with his preschool-age son.

The tsunami from the 8.8 magnitude quake that struck off a Russian peninsula ended up causing little damage across the ocean. But Hawaii officials say the earthquake’s timing — during the afternoon rush hour — and the several hours of warning afforded by its distance helped make for severe traffic congestion in some areas, complicating evacuation efforts that otherwise went smoothly.

“It was definitely a bit of a wake-up call to me that in these very kind of dense areas with a lot of population, it works OK as long as everybody doesn’t need to go into the car all at once,” Sun-Miyashiro said. “If that happens, you’re pretty much paralyzed in place.”

‘Over-evacuation’ was an issue, officials say

Hotels sent nonessential employees home early, putting additional drivers on the roads. A few tourists left for higher ground, rather than shelter on upper floors of hotels as called for in evacuation plans. Some residents headed to stores for supplies, and many headed home after work to gather items or meet up with family members before evacuating.

Additionally, some residents may have been confused about whether they really needed to evacuate, said Molly Pierce, spokesperson for the Oahu Department of Emergency Management.

There are standard tsunami evacuation zones, as well as zones for “extreme” tsunamis. Tuesday’s was a standard evacuation; some residents who live in “extreme” tsunami zones may have fled as well, even though they were already in safe areas, she said.

No need to hit Costco

Ed Sniffen, director of the state Department of Transportation, said Wednesday he doesn’t regret giving the public as much advance warning as possible. But next time, he would like to provide more education about how people should manage that time.

“That additional time, everybody tried to fill it. As soon as many heard about the event coming through, they tried to leave as soon as possible,” he said. “In other areas, people who were in safe zones, left those safe zones to go fill gas, went to go buy stuff from Costco or Safeway.”

It would have been more efficient for people to stay put if they were in a safe location, leaving the roads to those who needed to leave inundation zones, “and then make their way home in 20 minutes versus 2 1/2 hours.”

The state should also do a better job informing tourists that another option is simply to walk inland to higher ground, he said.

State Rep. Adrian Tam, who chairs the House Tourism Committee, said he was concerned about the gridlock in Waikiki, a legendary beachfront neighborhood that’s highly popular with tourists and which has only four roads in and out. He called it “a warning sign for the state and the city to look at ways to make things a little bit more organized.”

“I’m grateful that it wasn’t as serious as it could have been,” Tam said. “It does raise serious questions about how are we going to address massive gridlock.”

Hawaii usually has plenty of warning before tsunamis strike

Hawaii does not sit on a tectonic fault line, but in the middle of the Pacific Plate. The major earthquakes that strike the state typically involve the weight of the still-growing volcanic islands bending and stressing the Earth’s crust and upper mantle. Rarely are those strong enough to cause a large tsunami, though a magnitude 7.2 quake in 1975 generated a tsunami that killed two campers on the Big Island.

The tsunamis that reach Hawaii usually arise from far-off earthquakes around the Ring of Fire — including in Japan, Alaska and Chile — and provide hours of lead time for evacuations.

On Tuesday, officials also took heed from the devastating wildfire in Lahaina, ensuring that a military road from Oahu’s Waianae Coast to the center of the island was open. A private road on Maui — commonly known as “Oprah’s Road” because Oprah Winfrey has an easement to use it — was also open for any evacuees who needed it.

‘I didn’t hear a car horn honk’

Jake Bacon, a freelance photographer from Arizona, was vacationing with his family at Bellows Air Force Station, a military recreation area on Oahu, when a security officer knocked on the door of their oceanfront cabin with instructions to evacuate to a military hospital partway across the island. It took him about 90 minutes to reach the hospital in traffic, and the family eventually wound up spending the night in a Safeway parking lot, where they had access to food and a restroom.

Still, he was struck by how orderly the evacuation was, especially compared to wildfire evacuations he’s witnessed.

“I didn’t hear a car horn honk,” Bacon said.

“Maybe a wave coming that’s not gonna be here for two hours is different than seeing the mountain on fire and knowing that it’s coming and worrying that you’re gonna lose everything you own,” he added. “But everybody just sat patiently and moved through traffic. Everybody acted in a way that just seemed, you know, how you would want it to be.”

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Johnson reported from Seattle.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In a period when retail beef prices are at an all-time high and consumers are still willing to pay, South Dakota rancher Calli Williams would love to cash in. But it’s not so simple.

Williams and her husband, Tate, raise about 70 cow-calf pairs near Letcher in southeastern South Dakota, roughly 18 miles (29 kilometers) north of Mitchell. They own about 80 acres (32 hectares) and rent additional pasture.

Between the drought that hit cattle country hard over the last few years, still being maxed out on the grass available to feed their animals, and with land prices rising, she said, they simply can’t yet make the financial investments that they’d need to raise production.

“It is a goal of ours to expand,” she said. “I’m just not sure if that will be in the 10-year plan or even longer.”

Biology is a barrier to expansion

Farmers and ranchers across the U.S. would love to take greater advantage of the high prices, but with the U.S. herd at record lows, they can’t meet the demand quickly. It’s basic biology.

“It takes three years to get more cows — between making a decision, having that gestation period, having the calf born, raising the calf until it, too, can have a calf,” said Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist for the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute in Minneapolis.

Drought has eased but the impacts persist

The Williamses’ county was hard hit by drought over the previous few seasons. Because of the lack of their grass and uneconomically high hay prices, they had to sell all their young females last year that could have produced more calves for them this year, she said.

Their area has caught some rain lately, though. It has improved to just “abnormally dry” in recent reports. But Williams said they’re simply playing catch-up.

Swanson said some of the main cattle areas in North America — from Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada down to Texas in the U.S. — are just naturally prone to drought. It’s often boom or bust.

Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said a lot of cattle country has had good rain this summer, but it’s a cyclical business.

“Sometimes we have good times, and sometimes we don’t,” Woodall said. “And we are just coming off what was a pretty significant negative hit to the cattle industry in ’19, ’20 and ’21, with the height of the pandemic. So we have a lot of producers who are still trying to pay off bills from those times.”

Fear of future drought is also a factor

And Woodall said his members are still leery. They’re asking how long the better weather will last.

“We’re getting some good moisture now. But will it be that way in the fall? Will it be that way next year?” he said. “Because the last thing you want to do is pay to rebuild your herd and then just have to liquidate them again in six months to a year.”

Although it’s difficult to attribute any single weather event, such as a drought, directly to climate change, scientists say that rising temperatures stoked by climate change are increasing the odds of both severe droughts and heavier precipitation, which wreak havoc on people and the environment.

When extreme weather collides with tight margins, farmers and ranchers feel the squeeze.

The economics: Prices have soared to record highs

Retail beef prices have hit record highs with no relief for consumers in sight. Ground beef rose to an average of $6.12 per pound in June, up nearly 12% from 2024. The average price of all steaks rose 8% to $11.49 per pound.

And the average prices that producers receive for cattle and calves have increased from $1.51 per pound in May 2020 to $4.05 in May of this year.

But herds have still shrunk

The total U.S. cattle herd is the since the government began keeping those figures in 1973, and probably since the 1950s. There were few signs in the U.S. Department of Agriculture that producers have begun rebuilding herds.

As of July 1, the U.S. had 94.2 million cattle and calves, down from the last midyear peak in 2019 of nearly 103 million. Critical for the future supply, 2025 calf production is projected at 33.1 million head, down 1% from last year.

Derrell Peel, a livestock marketing specialist at Oklahoma State University, said if producers were planning to grow their herds, the USDA reports would have shown them keeping heifers — female cows that haven’t given birth yet.

Yet consumer demand remains high

While retail prices are high, consumers so far have been willing to pay them.

Glynn Tonsor, who leads the at Kansas State University, said taste is the most important consideration when shoppers choose proteins — and beef remains the favorite.

The found that consumers were willing to fork out $17.62 a pound for rib-eye steaks and $8.82 for a pound of ground beef. That’s more than the $7.13 they’d pay for pork chops, $6.19 for bacon, or $8.55 for chicken breasts.

A major reason, Woodall offered, is that the beef industry has focused on the eating experience.

“The kind of beef that we are producing today is some of the highest quality, best tasting beef that we’ve ever produced in history here in the United States,” he said. “So, things such as USDA prime graded steaks that at one point in time you could only get in a restaurant, you can now get that in a grocery store.”

For consumers who balk at costs, the marketing specialist Peel said, pork and poultry are “abundant and quite favorably priced.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

The Williamses, who are both 34, built their TW Angus business from scratch. Tate Williams started buying cattle when he was in high school, and they bought their land in 2015. They sell bulls in the spring and keep heifers when they can. They also raise steers in their own feedlot and sell the meat directly to consumers.

“We would really like to expand our operation,” Calli Williams said. “We have a goal of being able to pass this on to the next generation,” Williams said, meaning their sons Jack, 7, and Tommy, nearly 4.

But recalling a friend’s words, she said ranchers are a resilient bunch.

“We’re optimistic that if Mother Nature — she wreaked havoc on us, whether that was a drought or a flood — that next year she’ll be kinder to us, “ she said. ”Or, if the markets weren’t on our side, we’re optimistic that the markets will be on our side next time.”

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas lawmakers will take their search for answers following the deadly July 4 floods to the heart of the devastation in Kerr County, where local officials were expected to face questions over their response to the disaster that swept away homes and campers along the Guadalupe River.

The hearing Thursday is the first time a panel of lawmakers is visiting the hard-hit Texas Hill Country since the floods, which killed at least 136 people. Most were in Kerr County, including 27 young campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp.

Among those invited to testify were local leaders who have defended their preparations and response to the fast-rising waters. Residents will also be given the chance to address lawmakers.

The hearing comes as authorities have begun publicly releasing records and audio — including 911 calls — that have provided new glimpses into the escalating danger and chaos in the early hours of the July Fourth holiday. They include panicked and confused messages from residents caught in trees as well as families fleeing with children from homes with water creeping up to the knees.

“People are dying,” one woman tells a 911 operator in call logs released by nearby Kendall County. She says she had a young relative at a church camp in Kerr County who was stranded along with his classmates because of the high waters.

“I don’t want them to get stuck in a low-water crossing. And what are they going to do? They have like 30 kids,” the woman says.

Kerr County officials have denied several Texas Public of Information requests filed by The Associated Press for 911 calls and body-camera footage related to the floods.

Lawmakers have had to address flood relief amid a busy 30-day legislative special session that has included a highly-partisan sprint by Republicans to redraw the state’s maps to pick up five more seats in the U.S. House.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott added flood relief and disaster preparedness to the agenda items shortly after calling a special session in June. He also included redrawing the state’s maps after receiving pressure from President Donald Trump, who has said he wants Texas Republicans to squeeze five additional seats.

House Democrats have launched a series of protests that have involved fleeing the state to meet with Democratic governors to try and stop Republican redistricting. As the minority party in both chambers, the caucus has few options and lawmakers face up to $500 a day for walking out after they broke a quorum in 2021. Party leaders have said they will not engage in other legislative business until the legislature addresses flood relief.

Lawmakers have filed bills to provide funding for early warning systems, improve emergency communications and strengthen flood infrastructure in flood-prone areas.

Residents along the Guadalupe River have said they were caught off guard and had no warning when rainfall struck. Kerr County does not have a warning system along the river after several missed opportunities by state and local agencies to finance one.

Abbott and Texas Republicans have signaled no appetite for assigning blame for the disaster or second-guessing decisions by local officials, who have described the scale of the disaster as one that no one could have saw coming.

At the first hearing by Texas lawmakers this month, Texas’ chief emergency management official called for better accreditation for county response officials. Democrats, meanwhile, have questioned if officials had done enough to provide sufficient infrastructure for flood-prone areas in rural counties.

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Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate rejected an effort Wednesday from Sen. Bernie Sanders to block the sale of U.S. bombs and firearms to Israel, though the vote showed a growing number of Democrats opposed to the arms sales amid widespread hunger and suffering in Gaza.

Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has repeatedly tried to block the sale of offensive weapons to Israel over the last year. The resolutions before the Senate on Tuesday would have stopped the sale of $675 million in bombs as well as shipments of 20,000 automatic assault rifles to Israel.

They again failed to gain passage, but 27 Democrats — more than half the caucus — voted for the resolution that applied to assault rifles, and 24 voted for the resolution that applied to bomb sales. It was more than any of Sanders’ previous efforts, which at a high mark in November last year gained 18 votes from Democrats. The vote tally showed how the images of starvation emerging from Gaza are creating a growing schism in what has traditionally been overwhelming support for Israel from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

“U.S. taxpayers have spent many, many billions of dollars in support of the racist, extremist Netanyahu government,” Sanders said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Enough is enough. Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and deadly civilian massacres.”

As the war approaches its second year, the leading international authority on food crises said this week that a “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.” International pressure, including from President Donald Trump, has led Israel to announce measures, including daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in parts of Gaza and airdrops. But the U.N. and Palestinians on the ground say little has changed, and desperate crowds continue to overwhelm delivery trucks.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, argued that Hamas was to blame both for the conflict and the current situation in Gaza. All Republican senators voted against Sanders’ resolutions.

“They use the people of Gaza as human shields, and they steal the food that the people of Gaza need,” Risch said. “It is in the interest of America and the world to see this terrorist group destroyed.”

Known as joint resolutions of disapproval, the measures would have had to pass both houses of Congress and withstand any presidential veto to become binding. Congress has never succeeded in blocking arms sales with the joint resolutions.

Democratic senators spent an hour on Wednesday evening with a series of floor speeches calling attention to the children who have starved to death in Gaza. They are also calling on the Trump Administration to recalibrate its approach to the conflict, including a large-scale expansion of aid into Gaza channeled through organizations experienced working in the area.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat who voted against similar resolutions from Sanders in the past, said she would vote for the legislation this time.

“As a longtime friend and supporter of Israel, I am voting yes to send a message: the Netanyahu government cannot continue with this strategy,” she said in a statement.

Another Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, said it was still “painful” to support the resolution.

“For many of us who have devoted our congressional careers to supporting Israel, standing by them through difficult times, it is impossible to really explain or defend what is going on today,” Durbin said. “Gaza is starving and dying because of the policies of Bibi Netanyahu.”

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ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Ethics Commission says a political action committee linked to what federal investigators have called a Ponzi scheme illegally sought to influence elections.

The complaint, filed Wednesday, says the spending came from the now-dissolved Georgia Republican Assembly PAC between 2021 and 2024.

The committee was headed by Edwin Brant Frost V, the son of a man named in a as heading a scheme that took at least $140 million from hundreds of investors. A company named First Liberty Building & Loan promised investors big returns from making high-interest loans to businesses with short-term cash needs, but the SEC complaint says Edwin Brant Frost IV skimmed $17 million for himself, his relatives and their affiliated companies.

More than $1 million of that went to political spending that entrenched the Frost family’s influence in Republican politics in Georgia, Alabama, Maine and other states, investigators said. But while much is disclosed in campaign contributions, Wednesday’s filing raises questions about whether the Frosts were spending on politics in undisclosed ways.

The complaint says the PAC could legally give to candidates, but it never registered as an independent committee to directly advocate for and against candidates while spending more than $220,000 to do so.

“The ethics complaint filed today represent our initial charges against the Georgia Republican Assembly-PAC,” Ethics Commission Executive Director David Emadi said in a statement. “Our investigation remains ongoing and additional charges may be coming at a future date, but we intend to aggressively pursue all violations of Georgia law committed by the GRA which illegally influenced elections in 2022 and 2024.”

State Rep. Dale Washburn said undisclosed spending is pernicious. The Macon Republican was attacked in a 2022 mailing cited in the complaint,

“The whole dark money thing, where you can attack a candidate with a name that really doesn’t represent who is behind the attack, I think that is a problem and it should be addressed,” Washburn said.

No criminal charges have been announced in the alleged financial fraud. Brant Frost V wasn’t named in the civil lawsuit filed by the SEC. However, the SEC in a sought information about activities of Brant Frost V as a First Liberty employee. The younger Frost made appearances on conservative talk shows promoting First Liberty, and some investors said they dealt with Brant Frost V when putting money into First Liberty.

The younger Frost also garnered attention when he incorporated a new lending firm — Heartland Capital LLC. Brant Frost V filed the incorporation papers on June 26, the day before First Liberty announced it had gone bust.

Brant Frost V didn’t immediately respond to an email and a text message Wednesday. A lawyer for Brant Frost IV didn’t respond to an email.

Conflict with another political group

The PAC shared a name with the Georgia Republican Assembly, a group that seeks to push the Republican Party further to the right. The assembly often endorsed and the PAC often contributed to insurgent Republicans who opposed established GOP leaders. But assembly President Nathaniel Darnell said that while the GRA authorized and promoted the PAC, it was a “totally separate entity.”

“The entire time the PAC was in operation, the Frosts controlled it with zero oversight from the GRA organization,” said Darnell, who said he personally lost an unspecified amount of money invested in First Liberty.

The Frosts had a falling-out with the GRA following this year’s state Republican convention. They and other supporters of Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon publicly resigned after the GRA expelled Katie Frost, the sister of Brant Frost V. Katie Frost led a nominating committee that recommended delegates vote against a number of GRA-endorsed party officer candidates.

Campaign disclosures show the Frosts and associated companies donated a majority of the PAC’s money. One focus was supporting Republican challengers who opposed late state House Speaker David Ralston, whom the GRA viewed as a corrupt moderate. But the complaint shows the PAC also didn’t disclose spending in school board races in Coweta County, where the Frosts live, and in a county commissioner race in neighboring Meriwether County.

Washburn said he believed he was targeted over his support for Ralston and for a bill that would have allowed some immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Georgia universities and colleges.

“I was kind of taken aback by those mailers when they happened and was honestly angered by them because I thought they were very deceitful and misrepresented some things,” he said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump lashed out at Sen. Josh Hawley on Wednesday after the Republican’s proposal to ban stock trading by members of Congress — and the president and vice president — won bipartisan approval to advance in a committee vote.

It’s the second time in as many days that Trump laid into senators in his own party as the president tries, sometimes without success, to publicly pressure them to fall in line. A day earlier Trump tore into veteran GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa over an obscure Senate procedure regarding nominations.

Trump called Hawley a “second rate Senator.”

GOP senators had been working with the White House on the stock trade bill, and proposed a carve-out to shield the president from the ban, but it failed. But Trump complained that Hawley joined with Democrats to block another amendment that would have investigated the stock trades of Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker emerita.

“Why would one ‘Republican,’ Senator Josh Hawley from the Great State of Missouri, join with all of the Democrats, to block a Review,” Trump said.

Hawley did not immediately respond to Trump’s post.

But Hawley’s legislation with the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, sailed out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on a bipartisan vote over the objections of the other Republicans, who have majority control.

“We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted to do for decades,” Hawley told the panel. “And that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that frankly only members of Congress have on the buying and selling of stock.”

Stock trading by members of Congress has long been an issue that the parties have tried to tackle, especially as some elected officials have become wealthy while in elected office. During the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular, it was disclosed that lawmakers were trading as information about the health crisis as it became known. Insider trading laws don’t always apply to the types of information lawmakers receive.

In a joint statement, Hawley and Peters said the legislation, called the Honest Act, builds on an earlier bill and would ban members of Congress, the president, vice president and their spouses from holding, buying or selling stock.

If the bill were to become law, it would immediately prohibit elected officials, including the president, from buying stocks and would ban them from selling stocks for 90 days after enactment. It also requires the elected officials to divest from all covered investments, starting at the beginning of their next term in office.

“We are one step closer to getting this bill passed into law and finally barring bad actors from taking advantage of their positions for their own financial gain,” Peters said in a statement.

But during the committee hearing, tensions flared as Republicans sought other approaches.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida proposed one amendment that would exempt the president, the vice president, their spouses and dependent children, from the legislation, and another that would have required a report on Pelosi’s trades. Both were defeated, with Hawley joining the Democrats.

One Republican, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said the overall bill is “legislative demagoguery.”

“We do have insider trading laws. We have financial disclosure. Trust me, we have financial disclosure,” Johnson said. “So I don’t see the necessity of this.”

Trump’s post criticizing Hawley comes after a similar blowback directed Tuesday night at Grassley.

In that post, Trump pressured Grassley to do away with the Senate’s longtime “blue slip” custom that often forces bipartisan support on presidential nominations of federal judges. The practice requires both senators in a state to agree to push a nominee forward for a vote. Trump told Grassley to do away with the practice.

“Senator Grassley must step up,” Trump said, while claiming that he helped the senator, who was first elected in 1980, to win reelection.

Grassley earlier Wednesday said he was “offended” by what the president said.

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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by actor Alec Baldwin for malicious prosecution and civil rights violations in the 2021 fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust.”

The judge in a ruling made public Wednesday dismissed the case without prejudice for lack of any significant action with the claim, which was filed in state district court earlier this year. Baldwin’s attorneys will have 30 days to file a motion seeking reinstatement.

Luke Nikas, Baldwin’s lead attorney, told The Associated Press in an email that the dismissal amounted to a nonevent since his team has been waiting to prosecute the case.

“We have been in good-faith settlement discussions with the parties to the lawsuit and will be refiling promptly if those discussions are not promptly and favorably resolved,” he said.

Defendants include special prosecutor Kari Morrissey and Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies, along with three investigators from the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office and the county board of commissioners.

A charge of involuntary manslaughter against Baldwin was dismissed at trial last year on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense. The trial was upended by revelations that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff’s office months earlier by a man who said it could be related to the killing of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

The allegations in Baldwin’s tort claim include defamation, with his attorneys saying that prosecutors and investigators targeted the actor and coproducer for professional or political gain.

Hutchins died shortly after being wounded during a rehearsal for the movie “Rust” in October 2021 at a film-set ranch on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Baldwin was pointing a pistol at Hutchins when it discharged, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.

The actor recently spoke to The Associated Press at San Diego’s Comic-Con International, saying he couldn’t believe what happened that day in court as the trial came to an abrupt end and that his life over the last year has been far better than the few years that preceded it.

Still, Baldwin and other producers of “Rust” are being sued in New Mexico state court by the parents and younger sister of Hutchins. Court records show a deposition for Baldwin in that case was put off in May and has yet to be rescheduled.

OLD ORCHARD BEACH, Maine (AP) — The police officer arrested by immigration authorities in a Maine town was a trusted member of the force who is missed by his colleagues, officials said Wednesday, expressing frustration with the lack of information about the case from the federal government.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Old Orchard Beach Police Department reserve Officer Jon Luke Evans, of Jamaica, on July 25. The agency, which has been ramping up arrests across the country to fulfill President Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations, said Evans overstayed his visa and unlawfully attempted to purchase a firearm.

Police Chief Elise Chard said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has verified that Evans was federally approved to work in the country in May and that the town and police department haven’t received any information about Evans’ case, his current whereabouts or whether he is represented by an attorney.

ICE officials did not respond to email and phone request for comment Wednesday.

Evans had the respect of his peers and quickly became a valued officer, and his arrest has been dispiriting for a department that relies on seasonal help during the busy summer months, Chard said. She said Evans has a wife who continues to live locally.

“I’m hoping that this can be resolved and there will be a finding of no wrongdoing on anybody’s part and he can go on with his life the way he intended,” Chard said.

Chard said the department was notified by federal officials that Evans was legally permitted to work in the country and his authorization document would not expire until 2030. She said the town submitted information via the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify Program prior to Evans’ employment. E-Verify is an online system launched in the late 1990s that allows employers to check if potential employees can work legally in the U.S. Some large private employers use it, but most do not.

Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin WMTW-TV that use of E-Verify “does not absolve employers of their legal duty” to verify legal employment status.

“The Old Orchard Beach Police Department’s reckless reliance on E-Verify to justify arming an illegal alien, Jon Luke Evans, violates federal law, and does not absolve them of their failure to conduct basic background checks to verify legal status,” McLaughlin told the station.

Town manager Diana Asanza said the Department of Homeland Security “has thrown its own electronic verification system into question” by accusing the town of hiring an unauthorized worker.

“If we should not trust the word of the federal computer system that verifies documents and employment eligibility, what good is that system?” Asanza said.

ICE said in a Monday statement that Evans admitted to its officers that he attempted to purchase a firearm for his employment as a police officer with the town. That triggered an alert to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which coordinated with ICE to make the arrest, the agency said in a statement.

Evans initially entered the country legally and was scheduled to depart the U.S. in October 2023 but never boarded his departing flight, the statement says. He then overstayed his visa, it says.

Chard has said the police department is conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arrest.

Maine Assistant House Majority Leader Rep. Lori K. Gramlich, an Old Orchard Beach Democrat, said she is calling for federal review of the E-Verify and DHS authorization process that allowed Evans to begin work in May. She said in a statement that she also wants “clearer protocols to ensure that local law enforcement is formally notified in advance of any actions involving its personnel.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, on Wednesday evening as Republicans looked past his connections to right-wing extremists and support for conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Kent won confirmation on a 53-44 party-line vote. He had already been working for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. As the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, he will oversee an agency tasked with analyzing and detecting terrorist threats.

In the role, he plans to devote agency resources to targeting Latin American gangs and other criminal groups tied to migration. He is the latest Trump loyalist to win Senate confirmation to the upper echelons of U.S. national security leadership at a time when Trump is stretching his presidential wartime powers to accomplish his goals.

“President Trump is committed to identifying these cartels and these violent gang members and making sure that we locate them and that we get them out of our country,” Kent said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee in April.

Kent enters the top role at the counterterrorism center after two unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in Washington state, as well as a military career that saw him deployed 11 times as a Green Beret, followed by work at the CIA. His first wife, a Navy cryptologist, was killed by a suicide bomber in 2019 while fighting the Islamic State group in Syria.

Yet Democrats strongly opposed his confirmation, pointing to his past ties to far-right figures and conspiracy theories. During his 2022 congressional campaign, Kent paid Graham Jorgensen, a member of the far-right military group the Proud Boys, for consulting work. He also worked closely with Joey Gibson, the founder of the Christian nationalist group Patriot Prayer, and attracted support from a variety of far-right figures.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Kent also refused to distance himself from a conspiracy theory that federal agents had somehow instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, as well as false claims that Trump won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden.

Democrats grilled him on his participation in a group chat on Signal that was used by Trump’s national security team to .

They also raised grave concerns over a recent incident where Kent, as Gabbard’s chief of staff, told an intelligence analyst to revise an assessment of the relationship between the Venezuelan government and a transnational gang. The revisions supported Trump’s assertions that members of the gang could be removed under the Alien Enemies Act — a wartime provision.

Democrats said it showed Kent cannot be trusted to handle some of the nation’s most important and sensitive intelligence.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said any counterterrorism director “must be trusted to tell the truth and to uphold the core principles of the intelligence community: Objectivity, nonpartisanship and fidelity to fact.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Kent has shown time and again that he cannot meet the standard,” Warner added.

Still, Republicans have praised his counterterrorism qualifications, pointing to his military and intelligence experience.

Sen. Tom Cotton, the GOP chair of the intelligence committee, said in a floor speech that Kent “has dedicated his career to fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Businesses around the country are reevaluating security after a brazen shooting at a New York City office building raised questions about what it takes to keep workplaces safe.

The attack on a seemingly secure building — in a gilded part of Manhattan where the rich live in sprawling apartments and tourists window-shop designer stores — has rattled workers and prompted managers to examine whether they are adequately protected.

“What should we be doing different?” clients are asking, said Brian Higgins, founder of Group 77, a Mahwah, New Jersey, security company that is among those getting peppered with an influx of calls. “How can we prevent something like this?”

The gut reaction of some companies, Higgins said, is to buy the latest technology and blanket their workplace in cameras. But, he cautioned, that’s only only effective if paired with consistency and long-term monitoring.

“If you’re going to add a security measure … you have to make sure you maintain it,” said Higgins, a former police chief who teaches security at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Four people were killed in the shooting Monday before the gunman died by suicide. Images of the shooter, toting a long rifle on a street in the biggest U.S. city, then terrorizing an office building, have companies desperate to do something to keep the scene from repeating.

“People are frightened, people are asking questions,” said Dave Komendat, the Seattle-based chief security officer at Corporate Security Advisors, where calls are also spiking.

With the U.S. locked in a pattern of gun violence virtually unparalleled in the world, security firms are used to the rhythms of the business. While attacks at a corporate office are less commonplace, a major shooting or an attack on an executive focuses attention back on security for a time, before receding.

“Give it a couple weeks, a month or so, it’ll go back,” Higgins said of the increased call volume. “When security issues don’t happen for a while and companies start reexamining their budget, security is one of those things that companies cut.”

Gene Petrino, CEO of Survival Response in Coral Springs, Florida, has also seen an uptick in calls from potential new customers, but expects it to be fleeting.

“When things are calm it’s seen as an expense they don’t need right away,” he said, “and then when a tragedy happens it’s a priority again.”

Petrino said companies can make changes that aren’t intrusive like using cameras with artificial intelligence capabilities to identify weapons. Sometimes, it may just be a matter of improving lighting in a hallway or putting up convex mirrors to see around a corner.

“Everything doesn’t have to be bulletproof and locked with security cameras everywhere,” he said. “You don’t have to be Fort Knox. You can have very basic things.”

Michael Evanoff, chief security officer of Verkada, a building security company based in San Mateo, California, said technology like AI-enabled cameras to help identify threats have become even more important amid a shortage of guards.

“It’s harder than many realize to find and retain trained personnel,” Evanoff said. “That makes it even more essential that guards are equipped with technology that can extend their reach.”

Security at 345 Park Avenue, the site of the shooting, included an off-duty New York Police Department officer working as a guard. He was among those killed.

Rudin, the leasing company that manages the building, did not respond to a query about when the building will reopen or whether new security measures will be implemented. No matter what, though, every workplace has vulnerabilities.

“The security team has to be perfect to 100% of the time,” said Komendat, a former chief security officer for Boeing. “Someone like this just needs to be lucky once.”

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at supporting men and boys and improving their mental health outcomes, in an effort to lower suicide rates among young men and help them feel less isolated.

The order directs the state Health and Human Services Agency to recommend ways to address suicide rates among young men and help them seek services to improve their mental health and well-being. It also requires the state to connect them with education and career opportunities.

“Too many young men and boys are suffering in silence — disconnected from community, opportunity, and even their own families,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement. “This action is about turning that around. It’s about showing every young man that he matters and there’s a path for him of purpose, dignity, work, and real connection.”

The issue has come increasingly into focus for Democrats since last year’s election, when the party lost young men to President Donald Trump, who framed much of his campaign as a pitch to men who felt scorned by the country’s economy, culture and political system. More than half men under 30 supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, while Democrat Joe Biden had won a similar share of that group four years earlier.

Newsom, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, has talked about the need to support men and boys on his podcast. The majority of his guests, which have included MAGA figures, Democratic politicians and book authors, have been men.

He released an episode Wednesday with Richard Reeves, the founder and president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, a group that researches issues affecting the well-being of men, to discuss what can be done to better meet their needs. Newsom said at the beginning of the episode that it’s an important issue to address beyond just discussing it as a political hurdle for Democrats.

“If you tune into the podcast, you may have noticed a theme — a theme that continues to emerge around men and boys,” Newsom said. “What is going on with our men and boys? Increasingly isolated, increasingly feeling disengaged, disconnected, depressed.”

Newsom’s order requires the state to try to get more men and boys to serve their communities through volunteer programs and support pathways to help more male students become teachers and school counselors. State agencies must also recommend ways to get more young men to participate in state career education and training programs, as well as an initiative to help improve student outcomes. Officials must provide an update within two months.

Men make up half the population but account for 80% of suicides in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. suicide mortality rate — defined as deaths per 100,000 people — for men and boys in 2023 was 22.7, about four times higher than that of women and girls, according to the CDC.

California had one of the lowest suicide rates in the country in 2023, per the CDC. The suicide mortality rate was about 10.2, compared with a rate of 14.1 in the U.S. overall.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X:

A dozen Democratic members of Congress who have been blocked from making oversight visits at immigration detention centers filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the Trump administration that seeks to ensure they are granted entry into the facilities, even without prior notice.

The lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia’s federal court, said the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are obstructing Congressional oversight of the centers at a time when there’s been an reports of raids across the country and people taken into custody at immigration courts.

By law, members of Congress are allowed to visit ICE facilities and don’t have to give any notice, but increasingly, the members have been stopped at the door. ICE officials have said a new rule requires a seven-day waiting period and they prohibit entry to the ICE field offices. The lawsuit asks the court for full and immediate access to all ICE facilities.

ICE Director Todd Lyons told a congressional committee in May that he recognized the right of members of Congress to visit detention facilities, even unannounced. But DHS Secretary Kristi Noem told a different committee that members of Congress should have requested a tour of an immigration detention facility in New Jersey where a skirmish broke out in May.

As President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda plays out, detention facilities have become overcrowded and there have been reports of mistreatment, food shortages, a lack of medical care and unsanitary conditions, the lawsuit said. Congress has a duty to make sure the administration is complying with the law while operating the facilities, the lawsuit said.

The recently passed budget bill allocates $45 billion for ICE detention — more than 13 times ICE’s current annual detention budget, the lawsuit said. Members of Congress must ensure those funds are spent efficiently and legally, the suit said.

But recent attempts by House members to visit facilities were blocked, the lawsuit said.

“These members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told the AP in an email.

Requests for visits to detention centers should be made “with sufficient time to prevent interference with the President’s Article II authority to oversee executive department functions—a week is sufficient to ensure no intrusion on the President’s constitutional authority,” she said.

Also, ICE has seen a surge in assaults, disruptions and obstructions to law enforcement so any requests for tours of ICE processing centers and field offices must be approved by Secretary Noem, McLaughlin said.

The Congressmembers said the law doesn’t require prior approval, and said they’ve been blocked outright from the field offices, according to the lawsuit.

When Rep. Veronica Escobar tried to visit the El Paso center on July 9, ICE told her that they could not accommodate her attendance and said it is “now requiring requests to be made seven calendar days in advance,” the lawsuit said. When the Democrat arrived at the center, she was denied entry.

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colorado, met a similar fate when he tried to visit the ICE Aurora Facility on July 20.

While ICE is demanding a week’s notice for detention center visits, it said it’s prohibiting members of Congress from inspecting ICE field offices, where some detainees are being held.

When Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-New York, tried to tour the ICE New York Field Office in June, he was told his oversight authority doesn’t apply there, because it’s not a “detention facility.” When Goldman went to the office, the deputy director barred his entry, but confirmed that people were being held overnight, sometimes for several days, but the facility did not have beds or showers.

Reps. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado; Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi; and Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, made a similar attempt to enter the ICE Washington Field Office in Chantilly, Virginia, on July 21 after learning that people were being detained there, according to the lawsuit. But they also were turned away without being able to view the conditions at the site.

The other House members who are fighting for ICE access include: California Democratic Representatives Norma Torres, Raul Ruiz, Jimmy Gomez, Jose Luis Correa and Robert Garcia. Also suing is Adriano Espaillat, D-New York.

“No child should be sleeping on concrete, and no sick person should be denied care, yet that’s exactly what we keep hearing is happening inside Trump’s detention centers,” Gomez said in a statement. “This lawsuit is our message: We as Members of Congress will do our job, and we will not let these agencies operate in the shadows.”

MODESTO, Calif. (AP) — Energy drinks that mistakenly contain vodka are being recalled in half a dozen states.

High Noon is recalling two production lots of High Noon Beach Variety packs because some packs include cans containing vodka that were mislabeled as Celsius Astro Vibe Energy Drink, according to a Wednesday.

The cans contain vodka seltzer and were mislabeled as “sparkling blue razz”-flavored Celsius Astro Vibe energy drinks, the notice said.

Consumption of the liquid in the cans will result in “unintentional alcohol ingestion,” the company said.

The packs were distributed to retailers in Florida, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The recall was initiated after the company discovered that a shared packaging supplier mistakenly shipped empty Celsius energy drink cans to High Noon.

No illnesses or adverse events have been reported related to the labeling error, according to the company.

Consumers who purchased the beverages with the impacted codes found in the recall notice should dispose of it, the notice said.

Consumers are also encouraged to make sure any Sparkling Blue Razz Celsius Astro Vibe energy drinks do not contain the specific lot codes in the notice before drinking them.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Brown University on Wednesday said it reached a deal with the Trump administration to regain access to federal research funding and end investigations into alleged discrimination.

The Ivy League school agreed to pay $50 million in workforce development grants in Rhode Island over 10 years as part of the agreement.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s for working with philanthropies, a of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Authorities have released a photo and a composite sketch of a person they are trying to question as they investigate the fatal attack of a married couple in front of their children at Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas.

The search for the man who killed the hikers at a state park in northwest Arkansas entered its fifth day, while many details about the attack remain unclear.

Here are some things to know:

Couple found dead on a walking trail

Clinton David Brink, 43, and Cristen Amanda Brink, 41, were found dead Saturday on a walking trail at Devil’s Den. Their daughters, who are 7 and 9, were not hurt and are being cared for by family members, authorities have said.

Police have released a composite sketch and photo of a person of interest they are searching for in the attack. Along with the drawing, state police released a statement saying the suspect “likely sustained an injury while attacking the couple.” It did not go into further detail.

The State Police has said it has received numerous calls. But the agency has released few details, including how the couple was killed and whether it believes the killer is still in the area. The FBI has said its Little Rock field office is assisting in the investigation.

Police released composite sketch of person of interest

Police have not identified the killer or given a possible motive for the attack. But they have provided a description, the composite sketch and the photo of a person of interest.

The photo was provided by a witness who was at Devil’s Den State Park Saturday, police said. The photo was taken from behind and does not show the person of interest’s face.

Officials described him as a white male wearing a long-sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled up, dark pants, a dark ball cap and sunglasses. He was carrying a black backpack and wore fingerless gloves. He was seen driving toward a park exit in a black, four-door sedan with a license plate partly covered by tape.

The car, possibly a Mazda, may have been traveling on nearby State Highway 170 or State Highway 220.

Victims had moved from South Dakota

Clinton and Cristen Brink had just moved from South Dakota to the small city of Prairie Grove in northwest Arkansas. Their water had been connected less than two weeks ago, Mayor David Faulk said.

Clinton Brink had been scheduled to start a job as a milk delivery driver Monday in the nearby Fayetteville area, according to Hiland Dairy, his employer. Cristen Brink had been licensed as a nurse in Montana and South Dakota before moving to Arkansas.

The Brink family said the couple died “heroes protecting their little girls.”

Park known for hiking trails

Devil’s Den is a 2,500-acre state park near West Fork, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, the state capital.

Devil’s Den is known for its hiking trails and rock formations, and it is a short drive from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters. It was selected as a state park site in the 1930s.

The park’s trails, which lead to the surrounding Ozark National Forest, remained closed Wednesday.

Authorities have asked the public to report tips and urged trail-goers who were at Devil’s Den on Saturday to look through their photos and videos for possible images of the suspect.

Police have also asked local residents to review any security or game camera footage for unusual activity or images matching the vehicle.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A longtime close aide to President Joe Biden on Wednesday denounced Republican investigations into the former president as “baseless” in testimony to lawmakers and defended Biden as capable of carrying out his presidential duties “at all times.”

Steve Ricchetti, a senior advisor to Biden during his presidency, wrote in his opening statement to the House Oversight Committee that he was willing to answer lawmakers’ questions about Biden’s mental state while in office despite Republicans’ effort to “intimidate officials who served in the previous administration.”

“I believe it is important to forcefully rebut this false narrative about the Biden presidency and our role in it,” Ricchetti said.

“There was no nefarious conspiracy of any kind among the president’s senior staff, and there was certainly no conspiracy to hide the president’s mental condition from the American people,” wrote Ricchetti, who has served as an aide to Biden since 2012. He said Biden was “fully capable” of carrying out his duties throughout his term.

Ricchetti’s testimony comes after weeks of appearances from former Biden aides as House Republicans seek to build their investigation, which is central to their oversight agenda as they seek to turn the spotlight back to the last administration.

Some former staffers, including Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, and Anthony Bernal, a top aide to former first lady Jill Biden, invoked their Fifth Amendment rights and declined to answer questions from the committee. Others, including former White House chief of staff Ron Klain and Neera Tanden, former director of the Domestic Policy Council, have answered the committee’s questions at length.

The committee will hear from seven more senior Biden staffers in the coming weeks.

The Trump White House has launched its own inquiry into Biden. In June, Trump issued an executive order that argued there were “clear indications” that Biden “lacked the capacity to exercise his presidential authority” and ordered an investigation into “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the president.”

Ricchetti argued the Republican-led inquiries were “an obvious attempt to deflect from the chaos of this administration’s first six months.” He contrasted it with what he said were Biden’s accomplishments on issues like infrastructure, inflation, climate policy and the coronavirus response.

“I firmly believe that at all times during my four years in the White House, President Biden was fulfilling his constitutional duties. Did he stumble? Occasionally. Make mistakes? Get up on the wrong side of the bed? He did — we all did. But I always believed — every day — that he had the capability, character, and judgment to be President of the United States,” Ricchetti said.

At the heart of the Republican probe is a legal dispute over the Biden White House’s use of the autopen, a device used in all presidential administrations to issue the president’s signature for laws and executive orders. Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration allege, without evidence, that Biden was not in a cogent state of mind for much of his presidency and that many policies enacted during his time in office may consequently be illegal.

Biden has called Trump and House Republicans “liars” for the claim and said he “made every single one” of the decisions in office that involved an autopen. Biden’s aides are now echoing that sentiment directly to the committee.

Republicans are still eager to highlight Biden’s various gaffes as a political cudgel against Democrats.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have largely dismissed House Republicans’ probe as a distraction from the Trump administration’s agenda. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat who sits on the House Oversight Committee, said Republicans in the probe “look like losers” after she exited the deposition for Anthony Bernal, the former chief of staff to Jill Biden.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A Tennessee hospital says it never agreed to a request by state officials who face a court order to turn off a death row inmate’s heart-regulating implant before his execution next week.

After a Nashville judge ordered the deactivation of Byron Black’s device, a Tennessee Department of Correction official said in a court declaration that Nashville General Hospital told her they could disable it the day before his Aug. 5 execution at 10 a.m., but wouldn’t come to the prison on execution day, as the judge had ordered. The judge ultimately allowed some leniency, saying Black could be moved to the hospital the morning of the execution.

But on Wednesday, Nashville General Hospital spokesperson Cathy Poole said the medical center did not agree to participate at all, saying the hospital “has no role in State executions.” The statement adds a significant complication to the court case, which relied on the state’s comment about Nashville General’s expected involvement. The order is under appeal, as the days dwindle before the execution.

Black’s attorneys say his heart device would continuously shock him in an attempt to restore his heart’s normal rhythm due to the lethal injection of pentobarbital, but the state disputes that and argues that even if shocks were triggered, that Black wouldn’t feel them.

first reported on the statement from the hospital, which said, “Earlier reports of Nashville General Hospital’s involvement are inaccurate.”

“The correctional healthcare provider contracted by the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC), did not contact appropriate Nashville General Hospital leadership with its request to deactivate the implanted defibrillator,” Poole said. “Any assertion the hospital would participate in the procedure was premature.

“Our contract with the correctional healthcare provider is to support the ongoing medical care of its patients,” Poole continued. “This request is well outside of that agreement and would also require cooperation with several other entities, all of which have indicated they are unwilling to participate.”

A spokesperson for the state Department of Correction referred a request for comment to the attorney general’s office, which did not immediately respond.

Kelley Henry, an attorney for Black, said, “TDOC has mishandled this situation from the beginning. My hope is that the Governor will issue a reprieve to avoid a gruesome spectacle.”

Black’s final appeals for a reprieve are pending in state and federal courts, and through a clemency request with GOP Gov. Bill Lee. They also include an intellectual disability claim.

The state has since sought to overturn the order to deactivate Black’s implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, including when and where to do it. The state Supreme Court is considering the request.

The state has said the lower-court judge lacked authority to order the device disabled.

The state also says the order to transport Black to the hospital the morning of the execution presents a “very real risk of danger to TDOC personnel, hospital patients/staff, the public, and even Black,” mentioning protesters. It’s about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution to Nashville General Hospital.

Henry, Black’s attorney, said the state presented “zero evidence of security risk,” including from the frail, 69-year-old Black or the pacifists who protest executions by prayer.

Henry also said state officials had not really tried to find a doctor willing to come to the prison.

Black was convicted in the 1988 shooting deaths of his girlfriend Angela Clay, 29, and her two daughters, Latoya, 9, and Lakeisha, 6. Prosecutors said he was in a jealous rage when he shot the three at their home. At the time, Black was on work-release while serving time for shooting and wounding Clay’s estranged husband.

Black’s motion related to his heart device came within a general challenge he and other death row inmates filed against the state’s new execution protocol. The trial isn’t until 2026.

The heart device issue also has been a reminder that most medical professionals consider participation in executions a violation of medical ethics.

Dan Mann, a talent booking agent and death penalty opponent who has visited Tennessee’s death row for years, wrote a letter to Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell and metro councilmembers calling for a resolution against the city’s hospital participating in pre-execution procedure. The hospital is governed by a metro Nashville authority, with board members picked by the mayor.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — President Donald Trump has downplayed the influence of Laura Loomer, a right-wing provocateur known for her incendiary social media presence, in his administration’s decision-making.

But the list of administration officials who have drawn Loomer’s ire and swiftly thereafter gotten the axe from Trump has been growing.

Among the latest is Dr. Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration’s polarizing vaccine chief, who announced this week he was leaving the agency after a brief tenure that drew the ire of biotech executives, patient groups and conservative allies of Trump. Prasad had recently become a target of right-wing activists, including Loomer, who flagged Prasad’s past statements criticizing Trump and praising liberal independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.

On Wednesday, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll directed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to remove Jen Easterly, a newly announced hire who led the nation’s cybersecurity agency under President Joe Biden, shortly after Loomer criticized her.

Loomer, who has publicly encouraged Trump to purge aides who she believes are insufficiently loyal to the “Make America Great Again” agenda, has taken credit for some of the ousters, tearing into some of Trump’s allies and advisers and calling out what she calls a “vetting crisis” within the White House. Trump, meanwhile, has long praised Loomer while distancing himself at times from her most controversial comments and downplaying her direct impact on his choices.

Here’s a rundown on connections between Loomer’s criticism and Trump administration departures:

Vocal opposition to Health and Human Services appointees

Two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that Prasad was ousted following several recent controversies. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters.

Last week, Loomer posted on X of Prasad, “How did this Trump-hating Bernie Bro get into the Trump admin???”

Prasad did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning. He joined the FDA in May after years as an academic researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, where he frequently criticized the FDA’s approach to drug approvals and COVID-19 vaccines.

Loomer was also vocal in opposition to Trump’s first choice for surgeon general, whose selection was ultimately withdrawn.

Trump pulled the nomination of former Fox News medical contributor Janette Nesheiwat just before Senate confirmation hearings in May. Loomer had posted on X that “we can’t have a pro-COVID vaccine nepo appointee who is currently embroiled in a medical malpractice case and who didn’t go to medical school in the US” as the surgeon general.

Criticism for ‘Biden holdovers’

Driscoll’s directive that West Point remove Easterly, shared facing harsh criticism from Republicans who argued that her work to counter misinformation about elections and the COVID-19 pandemic amounted to censorship.

On Tuesday, Loomer posted on X about Easterly’s new role at West Point, saying “Biden holdovers” at the Defense Department were “undermining” Trump’s administration.

Prompting departures at the National Security Council

On April 3, Loomer presented “research findings” to Trump, Vice President JD Vance, chief of staff Susie Wiles and others including then-national security adviser Mike Waltz, during an Oval Office meeting, according to people speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

A day later, Trump said he had fired “some” White House National Security Council officials, downplaying Loomer’s influence on the moves. The departures included the director of the National Security Agency, Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, who also oversaw the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, along with Haugh’s civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble.

When reached for comment, Loomer referred The Associated Press to an X post, saying she was not going to divulge any details about her Oval Office meeting with Trump “out of respect” for the president.

In a subsequent X post, Loomer appeared to take credit for the firings, writing, “You know how you know the NSC officials I reported to President Trump are disloyal people who have played a role in sabotaging Donald Trump?” She noted, “the fired officials” were being defended by Trump critics on CNN and MSNBC.

Loomer called for Waltz’s ouster in the weeks following revelations he had mistakenly added The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to a Signal chat being used to discuss military plans. As reports began to circulate that Waltz could be leaving the administration — he was ultimately nominated as United Nations ambassador — she appeared to take credit, writing “SCALP” in an X post.

A ‘pressure campaign’ targeting the Justice Department

Adam Schleifer, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, received an email in March saying he was being terminated “on behalf of President Donald J. Trump,” according to a person familiar with the matter. The email came exactly an hour after Loomer called for him to be fired in a social media post that highlighted Schleifer’s past critical comments about Trump while Schleifer was running in a Democratic primary for a congressional seat in New York.

Earlier this month, Loomer took a victory lap after the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a federal prosecutor in Manhattan who worked on the cases against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein, three people familiar with the matter told The AP.

Comey’s ouster, Loomer said on X, followed her two-month “pressure campaign.”

Has Loomer spoken out about others?

Yes, chief among them Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Loomer has called for Bondi’s resignation over failure to keep promises to release more files from the Justice Department’s sex trafficking investigation of Epstein, branding her a “total liar.”

Earlier this month, following DOJ’s revelations that no Epstein “client list” existed and no more files would be released, Loomer posted on X that she was told that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino was “seriously thinking about resigning” amid his ongoing clashes with Bondi over the case. Weeks later, both Bondi and Bongino were still on the job.

What has Trump said about Loomer’s role?

In April, Trump denied that Loomer had anything to do with aides being ousted from their jobs at the National Security Council, calling her a “very good patriot and a very strong person” who only made recommendations.

“Sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody,” Trump said then, adding: “She’s usually very constructive. She recommended certain people for jobs.”

Loomer was seen traveling with Trump during last year’s campaign, accompanying him on a trip to New York and Pennsylvania as he commemorated the 9/11 attacks. She also traveled with Trump to Philadelphia for a debate against then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Loomer said she never officially joined the campaign after Trump’s allies preferred he would keep his distance.

After a Harris-related post on X , Trump called Loomer “a supporter of mine” with “strong opinions,” but denied knowledge of her comments. He later posted on his Truth Social account that he disagreed with what she had said.

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Kinnard can be reached at .

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. fashion retailer American Eagle Outfitters wanted to make a splash with its new advertising campaign starring 27-year-old actor Sydney Sweeney. The ad blitz included “clever, even provocative language” and was “definitely going to push buttons,” the company’s chief marketing officer told trade media outlets.

It has. The question now is whether some of the public reactions the fall denim campaign produced is what American Eagle intended.

Titled “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans,” the campaign sparked a debate about race, Western beauty standards, and the backlash to “woke” American politics and culture. Most of the negative reception focused on videos that used the word “genes” instead of “jeans” when discussing the blonde-haired, blue-eyed actor known for the HBO series “Euphoria” and “White Lotus.”

Some critics saw the wordplay as a nod, either unintentional or deliberate, to eugenics, a discredited theory that held humanity could be improved through selective breeding for certain traits.

Marcus Collins, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, said the criticism could have been avoided if the ads showed models of various races making the “genes” pun.

“You can either say this was ignorance, or this was laziness, or say that this is intentional,” Collins said. “Either one of the three aren’t good.”

Other commenters on social media accused detractors of reading too much into the campaign’s message.

“I love how the leftist meltdown over the Sydney Sweeney ad has only resulted in a beautiful white blonde girl with blue eyes getting 1000x the exposure for her ‘good genes,’” former Fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote Tuesday on X.

American Eagle didn’t respond to queries from AP for comment.

A snapshot of American Eagle

The ad blitz comes as the teen retailer, like many merchants, wrestles with sluggish consumer spending and higher costs from tariffs. American Eagle reported in late May that total sales were down 5% for its February-April quarter compared to a year earlier.

A day after Sweeney was announced as the company’s latest celebrity collaborator, American Eagle’s stock closed more than 4% up. The company’s shares were trading nearly 2% on Wednesday.

Like many trendy clothing brands, American Eagle has to differentiate itself from other mid-priced chains with a famous face or by saying something edgy, according to Alan Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce.

Adamson said the Sweeney campaign shares a lineage with Calvin Klein jeans ads from 1980 that featured a 15-year-old Brooke Shields saying, “You want to know what comes in between me and my Calvins? Nothing.” Some TV networks declined to air the spots because of its suggestive double entendre and Shields’ age.

“It’s the same playbook: a very hot model saying provocative things shot in an interesting way,” he said.

Billboards, Instagram and Snapchat

Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers told industry news website Retail Brew last week that “Sydney is the biggest get in the history of American Eagle,” and the company planned to promote the partnership in a way that matched.

The campaign features videos of Sweeney wearing slouchy jeans in various settings. Her image will appear on 3-D billboards in Times Square and elsewhere, on Snapchat speaking to users, and in an AI-enabled try-on feature.

American Eagle also plans to launch a limited edition Sydney jean to raise awareness of domestic violence and to donate the sales proceeds to the nonprofit .

In a news release about the ads, the company noted “Sweeney’s girl next door charm and main character energy – paired with her ability to not take herself too seriously – is the hallmark of this bold, playful campaign.”

Jeans, genes and their many meanings

In one video, Sweeney walks toward an American Eagle billboard of her and the tagline “Sydney Sweeney has great genes.” She crosses out “genes” and replaces it with “jeans.”

But what critics found the most troubling was a teaser video in which Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”

The video appeared on American Eagle’s Facebook page and other social media channels but is not part of the official campaign.

While remarking that someone has good genes is sometimes used as a compliment, the phrase also has sinister connotations. Eugenics gained popularity in , and Nazi Germany embraced it to carry out Adolf Hitler’s plan for an Aryan master race.

Civil rights activists have noted signs of eugenics regaining a foothold through the far right’s promotion of the “great replacement theory,” a racist ideology that alleges a conspiracy to diminish the influence of white people.

Shalini Shankar, a cultural and linguistic anthropologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said she had problems with American Eagle’s “genes” versus “jeans” because it exacerbates a limited concept of beauty.

“American Eagle, I guess, wants to rebrand itself for a particular kind of white privileged American,” Shankar said. “And that is the kind of aspirational image they want to circulate for people who want to wear their denim.”

A cultural shift in advertising

Many critics compared the American Eagle ad to a misstep by Pepsi in 2017, when it released a TV ad that showed model Kendall Jenner offer a can of soda to a police officer while ostensibly stepping away from a photo shoot to join a crowd of protesters.

Viewers mocked the spot for appearing to trivialize protests of police killings of Black people. Pepsi apologed and pulled the ad.

The demonstrations that followed the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis pushed many U.S. companies to make their advertising better reflect consumers of all races.

Some marketers say they’ve observed another shift since President Donald Trump returned to office and moved to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies.

Jazmin Burrell, founder of brand consulting agency Lizzie Della Creative Strategies, said she’s noticed while shopping with her teenage daughter more ads and signs that prominently feature white models.

“I can see us going back to a world where diversity is not really the standard expectation in advertising,” Burrell said.

American Eagle’s past and future

American Eagle has been praised for diverse marketing in the past, including creating a denim hijab in 2017 for customers who wore the traditional Muslim head scarves. Its Aerie lingerie brand was recognized for creating a wide range of sizes. A year ago, the company released a limited edition denim collection with tennis player Coco Gauff.

The retailer has an ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion program that is primarily geared toward employees. Two days before announcing the Sweeney campaign, American Eagle named the latest recipients of its scholarship award for employees who are driving anti-racism, equality and social justice initiatives.

Marketing experts offer mixed opinions on whether the attention surrounding “good jeans” will be good for business.

“They were probably thinking that this is going to be their moment,” Myles Worthington, the founder and CEO of marketing and creative agency WORTHI. “But this is doing the opposite and deeply distorting their brand.”

Melissa Murphy, a marketing professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, said she liked certain parts of the campaign but hoped it would be expanded to showcase people besides Sweeney for the “sake of the brand.”

Other experts say the buzz is good even if it’s not uniformly positive.

“If you try to follow all the rules, you’ll make lots of people happy, but you’ll fail,” Adamson said. “The rocket won’t take off. ”