AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT
Arizona can enforce an 1864 law criminalizing nearly all abortions, court says
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona will soon join 14 other states that have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy after a state Supreme Court ruling Tuesday found that officials may enforce an 1864 law criminalizing all abortions except when a woman's life is at stake.
The court said enforcement won't begin for at least two weeks. However, it could be up to two months, based on an agreement reached in a related case in Arizona, according to state Attorney General Kris Mayes and Planned Parenthood, the plaintiffs in the current case.
The law provides no exceptions for rape or incest.
Under a near-total ban, the number of abortions in the state is expected to drop from about 1,100 monthly — as estimated by a survey for the Society of Family Planning — to almost zero. The forecast is based on what has happened in other states that ban abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
Arizona Sen. Eva Burch, who has had an abortion since announcing on the Senate floor last month that she was seeking one because her pregnancy wasn’t viable, criticized GOP lawmakers who back the ban.
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Michigan school shooter's parents sentenced to 10 years in prison for not stopping a 'runaway train'
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — The first parents convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting were sentenced to at least 10 years in prison Tuesday as a Michigan judge lamented missed opportunities that could have prevented their teenage son from possessing a gun and killing four students in 2021.
“These convictions are not about poor parenting,” Oakland County Judge Cheryl Matthews said. “These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train."
The hearing in a crowded, tense courtroom was the climax of an extraordinary effort to make others besides the 15-year-old attacker criminally responsible for a school shooting.
Jennifer and James Crumbley did not know Ethan Crumbley had a handgun — he called it his “beauty” — in a backpack when he was dropped off at Oxford High School. But prosecutors convinced jurors the parents still played a disastrous role in the violence.
The Crumbleys were accused of not securing the newly purchased gun at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son's deteriorating mental health, especially when confronted with a chilling classroom drawing earlier that same day.
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Judge in Trump's classified files case agrees to redact witness names, granting prosecution request
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump granted a request by prosecutors on Tuesday aimed at protecting the identities of potential government witnesses.
But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon refused to categorically block witness statements from being disclosed, saying there was no basis for such a “sweeping” and “blanket” restriction on their inclusion in pretrial motions.
The 24-page order centers on a dispute between special counsel Jack Smith's team and lawyers for Trump over how much information about witnesses and their statements could be made public ahead of trial. The disagreement, which had been pending for weeks, was one of many that had piled up before Cannon and had slowed the pace of the case against Trump — one of four prosecutions he is confronting.
The case remains without a firm trial date, though both sides have said they could be ready this summer. Cannon, who earlier faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant Trump’s request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, made clear her continued skepticism of the government's theory of prosecution, saying Tuesday that the case raised “still-developing and somewhat muddled questions.”
In reconsidering an earlier order and siding with prosecutors on the protection of witness identities, Cannon likely averted a dramatic exacerbation of tensions with Smith's team, which last week called a separate order from the judge “fundamentally flawed.”
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House to delay sending Mayorkas impeachment articles to Senate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson will delay sending the House's articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate this week as previously planned after Republican senators requested more time Tuesday to build support for holding a full trial.
The sudden change of plans cast fresh doubts on the proceedings, the historic first impeachment of a Cabinet secretary in roughly 150 years. Seeking to rebuke the Biden administration's handling of the southern border, House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February but delayed sending the articles while they finished work on government funding legislation.
Johnson had planned to send the impeachment charges to the Senate on Wednesday evening. But as it became clear that Democrats, who hold majority control of the chamber, had the votes to quickly dismiss them, Senate Republicans requested that Johnson delay until next week. They hoped the tactic would prolong the process.
While Republicans argued Tuesday that forgoing a full Senate trial would break precedent, most Senate Republicans voted to do just that when Donald Trump, the former president, was impeached a second time on charges he incited an insurrection in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Their effort to halt the proceedings failed. Trump was ultimately acquitted in the Senate trial.
“Our members want to have an opportunity not only to debate but also to have some votes on issues they want to raise,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican Senate leader. Under procedural rules, senators are required to convene as jurors the day after the articles of impeachment are transmitted for a trial.
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Biden meets Japan's PM Kishida over shared concerns about China and differences on US Steel deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a much-anticipated visit to Washington on Tuesday that spotlights shared concerns about provocative Chinese military action in the Pacific and at a rare moment of public difference between the two nations over a Japanese company's plan to buy an iconic U.S. company.
Kishida and his wife stopped by the White House Tuesday evening ahead of Wednesday's official visit and formal state dinner as President Joe Biden looks to celebrate a decades-long ally he sees as the cornerstone of his Indo-Pacific policy. Kishida will be the fifth world leader honored by Biden with a state dinner since he took office in 2021.
The two shook hands and first lady Jill Biden embraced Kishida's wife, Yuko. The foursome posed for a photo and briefly toured the grounds before heading to an upscale seafood restaurant, BlackSalt, for dinner.
The Bidens were presenting the prime minister with a three-legged table handmade by a Japanese American-owned company in Pennsylvania. The president was also gifting Kishida a custom-framed lithograph and a two-volume LP set autographed by Billy Joel. Jill Biden was giving Yuko Kishida a soccer ball signed by the U.S. women's national team and the Japanese women's national team.
Ahead of the White House visit, Kishida laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday and stopped by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and met with Microsoft’s vice chairman and president Brad Smith. Biden and Kishida on Wednesday will hold talks and take part in a joint news conference before Biden fetes the Japanese leader with the state dinner in the East Room.
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Idaho man faces federal terrorism charge. Prosecutors say he planned a church attack to support IS
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An 18-year-old man planned to attack churches in a northern Idaho city using a metal pipe, butane fuel, a machete and, if he could get them, his father's guns, according to federal prosecutors who charged him with attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State group.
Authorities said Alexander Scott Mercurio adopted the Muslim faith against his Christian parents' wishes and was in contact with FBI informants posing as Islamic State group supporters.
Mercurio was arrested Saturday, the day before investigators believe he planned to carry out the attack. Phone messages left for a relative and for his defense attorneys at the Federal Defenders of Eastern Washington & Idaho were not immediately returned Tuesday. Mercurio did not immediately respond to an email through a jail inmate email system.
Mercurio told one informant he intended to incapacitate his father with the pipe, handcuff him and steal his guns and a car to carry out the attack in Coeur d'Alene, according to an FBI agent's sworn statement in the case unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court.
The guns included rifles, handguns and ammunition his father kept in a locked closet, but Mercurio still planned to attack with the pipe, fire and knives if he couldn't get the firearms, alleged the sworn statement by FBI task force officer John Taylor II.
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Women's NCAA title game outdraws the men's championship with an average of 18.9 million viewers
The women's NCAA championship game drew a bigger television audience than the men's title game for the first time, with an average of 18.9 million viewers watching undefeated South Carolina beat Iowa and superstar Caitlin Clark, according to ratings released Tuesday.
The Sunday afternoon game on ABC and ESPN outdrew Monday's men's final between UConn and Purdue by four million. The Huskies’ 75-60 victory averaged 14.82 million on TBS and TNT.
The audience for the women's game — in which the Gamecocks won their fourth national title and denied Clark’s Hawkeyes their first — peaked at 24.1 million during the final 15 minutes.
“You’re seeing the growth in many places: attendance records, viewership and social media engagement surrounding March Madness,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I don’t think you can attribute it just to Iowa, though. A rising tide does lifts all boats. But I think all those boats have been on many different waterways. The product is really good, and the increase of exposure is getting rewarded.”
It was the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television, trailing only the 2015 Women’s World Cup final between the United States and Japan, which averaged 25.4 million on Fox. That also was on a Sunday and took place in prime time on the East Coast.
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Two days after $1.3 billion Powerball drawing, the winning Oregon ticket holder remains unknown
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The winner of the eighth-biggest lottery prize in U.S. history won't be announced for at least a couple more weeks until their ticket is verified and arrangements for the massive payment are made, Oregon lottery officials said Tuesday.
A person with a ticket matching all six Powerball numbers in Saturday’s $1.3 billion jackpot came forward Monday to claim the prize from last weekend's drawing. They bought the ticket at a convenience store in northeastern Portland.
For selling the winning ticket, managers of the Plaid Pantry location plan to share their $100,000 bonus. The store’s other employees typically get a cut of lottery prize bonus payments too, said Jonathan Polonsky, CEO and president of Plaid Pantry.
Lottery officials said they were taking precautions to verify the win and in order to send the winner the sum, they will need to coordinate with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees the Powerball and Mega Millions lotteries. That will take time.
“We’ve never had a jackpot this large in Oregon won here. There’s a lot of moving pieces," Oregon Lottery spokesperson Melanie Mesaros said.
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The Latest | Blinken says Israel hasn't told US of any specific date for Rafah ground invasion
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said Israel has not apprised the U.S. of any specific date for the start of a major offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but added that American and Israeli officials remained in contact to try to ensure that “any kind of major military operation doesn’t do real harm to civilians.”
Blinken spoke a day after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed that a date has been set to invade Rafah. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, says a ground operation into Rafah would be a mistake and has demanded to see a credible plan to protect civilians.
Rafah is filled with around 1.4 million Palestinians, most of whom are displaced from other parts of the Gaza Strip. Israel’s war against the militant group Hamas has pushed Gaza into a humanitarian crisis, leaving more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation.
International efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas are taking place in Cairo this week.
Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza over the past six months have killed at least 33,360 Palestinians and wounded 74,993, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
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New York City to wind down deal with embattled medical company tasked with housing migrants
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City will move to end its contract with a medical services company hired to house and care for a recent influx of international migrants, following scrutiny over the firm's costly deal with the city and the quality of its humanitarian services.
Mayor Eric Adams' office on Tuesday said the city would not renew its contract with DocGo before it expires on May 5 and will instead search for a new housing provider for migrants.
DocGo, which previously worked with the city to provide COVID-19 testing, was awarded a $432 million no-bid emergency contract last year to help the city manage a massive new population of migrants.
The arrangement drew questions from city Comptroller Brad Lander, who in reviewing the contract determined there wasn't enough detail to justify the cost and that it wasn't clear how the company had the expertise to transport, house and feed thousands of migrants.
News reports from the New York Times and Albany Times Union also detailed alleged mistreatment of migrants under the company's care, including issues with health care and food waste, among other things. Its chief executive officer resigned after he admitted to lying about his educational record.
The Associated Press
