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Families suing over 2021 jet fuel leak into Navy drinking water in Hawaii seek $225K to $1.25M – World News

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Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, The Associated Press – | Story: 487234

A lawyer representing U.S. military families suing over a 2021 jet fuel leak into a Navy drinking water system in Hawaii asked a judge Monday to award plaintiffs a range of about $225,000 to about $1.25 million each in damages.

In a closing argument at the end of a two-week trial in federal court in Honolulu, the plaintiffs’ attorney, Kristina Baehr, said she is not asking for millions of dollars per person. She outlined various amounts they’re asking a judge to award each of them, including $400,000 for the past pain and suffering of Nastasia Freeman, wife of a Navy sailor and mother of three who described how the family thought their vomiting and diarrhea was Thanksgiving food poisoning.

Baehr said Freeman should also get $200,000 for future pain and suffering, $250,000 for mental anguish, $100,000 for impairment, $150,000 for loss of enjoyment of life, $93,000 for lost wages and $57,000 for therapy.

Freeman is at the high end of the requested amounts because the water contamination reactivated a seizure disorder that had been dormant, Baehr said.

Freeman is among the 17 “bellwether” plaintiffs: a cross-selection of relatives of military members representing more than 7,500 others, including service members, in three federal lawsuits.

The outcome can help determine future damages to be awarded or settlements for the others.

Baehr thanked attorneys representing the United States for admitting liability in the case. The government has said in court documents that the Nov. 20, 2021, spill at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility caused a nuisance for the plaintiffs, that the United States “breached its duty of care” and that the plaintiffs suffered compensable injuries.

But government attorneys dispute whether the residents were exposed to jet fuel at levels high enough to cause their alleged health effects, ranging from vomiting to rashes.

The plaintiffs described how the water crisis sickened them and left them with ongoing health problems, including seizures, asthma, eczema and vestibular dysfunction.

Eric Rey, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney, said in his closing statement that one of the families didn’t stop drinking the water until Dec. 9, even though the Navy first received complaints about the water on Nov. 27. That’s likely because they didn’t smell anything in the water before then, an indication the doses of jet fuel in the water were too low to cause their health effects, he said.

“There is no acceptable level of jet fuel in drinking water,” Baehr said. “We don’t expect to have jet fuel in our drinking water.”

A Navy investigation report in 2022 listed a cascading series of mistakes from May 6, 2021, when an operator error caused a pipe to rupture that led to 21,000 gallons (80,000 liters) of fuel spilling while it was transferred between tanks. Most of this fuel spilled into a fire suppression line and sat there for six months, causing the line to sag. When a cart rammed into this sagging line on Nov. 20, it released 20,000 gallons (75,700 liters) of fuel.

The military eventually agreed to drain the tanks, amid state orders and protests from Native Hawaiians and other Hawaii residents concerned about the threat posed to Honolulu’s water supply. The tanks sit above an aquifer supplying water to 400,000 people in urban Honolulu.

It’s not clear when U.S. District Judge Leslie Kobayashi will issue a ruling. Attorneys on both sides have until around July to submit additional closing briefs and respond to them.

“I appreciate what you’ve gone through,” Kobayashi told the plaintiffs in court Monday. “I hope at some point that wherever the decision lands that it gives you a sense that you’ve had your opportunity to speak your mind and represent your families.”

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Firdia Lisnawati, The Associated Press – May 13, 2024 / 12:22 pm | Story: 487157

Indonesian police raided what they said was a major drug lab hidden in a villa on the resort island of Bali and arrested four people, authorities said Monday.

Police raided the house in the upscale resort area of Canggu early this month and found two drug labs in the basement, said Wahyu Widada, head of the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department,

He said one of the villa’s labs was designed to produce the ingredients for ecstasy, and the other contained a hydroponic farm for marijuana. Police were tipped off to the facility after an earlier raid on a Jakarta lab linked to Indonesia’s most wanted drug lord.

During the raids, police arrested an Indonesian man identified by the initials LM, two Ukrainian men identified as IV and MV, and a Russian man identified as KK.

The four men could face execution. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, has strict laws against consumption and sale of marijuana and many other drugs.

Most of the more than 150 people on Indonesia’s death row were convicted of drug crimes, about one-third of whom are foreigners. The country’s last executions were in 2016, when one Indonesian and three foreigners were shot by a firing squad.

Widada said police were tipped off to the “clandestine” labs after interrogating a suspected drug trafficker arrested in an April raid in the capital, Jakarta, on a similar lab that police say was owned by drug lord Freddy Pratama.

Widada said one of the men arrested this month, LM, was Pratama’s accountant, and was involved in operating a drug lab in Jakarta before moving to Bali to avoid arrest. He was arrested at a rented house near Kuta, a popular tourist spot, with 6 kilograms (13.2 pounds) of crystal methamphetamine.

Widada said that IV and MV were accused of being investors and drugmakers at the Bali labs, while KK was accused of selling drugs for them, adding that police are searching for two more dealers, Ukrainian men identified as RN and OK.

Wearing orange detainee uniforms, the suspects were paraded with their hands tied at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province.

Police seized hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of precursor chemicals for ecstasy and equipment for growing marijuana, including ultraviolet lighting and an automatic watering system.

Last year, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court rejected a judicial review of the country’s narcotics law that would have paved the way for legalizing marijuana for medicinal use.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.

The Associated Press – May 13, 2024 / 9:40 am | Story: 487106

Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe, Michael Cohen, directly implicated the former president in a hush money scheme Monday, telling jurors that his celebrity client approved hefty payouts to stifle stories about sex that he feared could be harmful to his 2016 White House campaign.

“You handle it,” Cohen quoted Trump as telling him after learning that a doorman had come forward with a claim that Trump had fathered a child out-of-wedlock. The Trump Tower doorman was paid $30,000 to keep the story “off the market” even though the claim was ultimately deemed unfounded.

A similar episode occurred after Cohen alerted Trump that a Playboy model alleged that she and Trump had an extramarital affair. Again, the order was clear: “Make sure it doesn’t get released,” Cohen said Trump told him. The woman was paid $150,000 to stay quiet.

Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer is by far the Manhattan district attorney’s most important witness in the case, and his much-awaited appearance on the stand signaled that the first criminal trial of a former American president is entering its final stretch. Prosecutors say they may wrap up their presentation of evidence by the end of the week.

The testimony of a witness with such intimate knowledge of Trump’s activities could heighten the legal exposure of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee if jurors deem him sufficiently credible. Politically, Trump is likely to seize on prosecutors’ reliance on a witness with such a checkered past — Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the payments and to lying to Congress — as he raises money off his legal woes and paints the case as the product of a tainted criminal justice system.

Though jurors have heard from others about the tabloid industry practice of “catch-and-kill,” in which rights to a story are purchased so it can be quashed, Cohen’s testimony is especially important to prosecutors because of his proximity to Trump and because he says he was directly coordinating with the then-candidate about the payments.

Besides payments to the doorman and to McDougal, another sum went to porn actor Stormy Daniels, who told jurors last week that the $130,000 she received was meant to prevent her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in a hotel suite a decade earlier.

The reimbursements Cohen received from that payment form the basis of the charges against Trump — 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the reimbursements were logged as legal expenses to conceal the payments’ true purpose, violating the law.

To lay the foundation that the deals were done with Trump’s endorsement, prosecutors elicited testimony from Cohen — who spent a decade as a Trump Organization senior executive — designed to show Trump as a hands-on manager on whose behalf Cohen said he sometimes lied and bullied others, including reporters.

“When he would task you with something, he would then say, ‘Keep me informed. Let me know what’s going on,’” Cohen testified. He said that was especially true “if there was a matter that was troubling to him.”

“If he learned of it in another manner, that wouldn’t go over well for you,” Cohen testified.

Defense lawyers have teed up a bruising cross-examination of Cohen, telling jurors during opening statements that he’s an “admitted liar” with an “obsession to get President Trump.”

Prosecutors are expected to try to blunt those attacks by eliciting detailed testimony from Cohen about his past crimes. They have also called other witnesses whose accounts, they hope, will buttress Cohen’s testimony. Those witnesses included a lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal; a tabloid publisher who pledged to be the Trump campaign’s “eyes and ears”; and Daniels herself.

Trump sat silently with his eyes closed as Cohen’s testimony covered the payoff to the doorman and other aspects of the hush money machinations. He did not appear to make eye contact with Cohen as the lawyer took the stand.

Cohen’s role as star prosecution witness further cements the disintegration of a mutually beneficial relationship that was once so close that the attorney famously said he would “take a bullet for Trump.” After Cohen’s home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018, Trump showered him with affection on social media, praising him as a “fine person with a wonderful family” and predicting — incorrectly — that Cohen would not “flip.”

Months later, Cohen did exactly that, pleading guilty that August to federal campaign-finance charges in which he implicated Trump. By that point, the relationship was irrevocably broken, with Trump posting on the social media platform then known as Twitter: “If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!”

Cohen later admitted lying to Congress about a Moscow real estate project that he had pursued on Trump’s behalf during the heat of the 2016 Republican campaign. He said he lied to be consistent with Trump’s “political messaging.”

Defense lawyers are expected to exploit all the challenges that accompany a witness like Cohen. Besides painting him as untrustworthy, they’re also expected to cast him as vindictive, vengeful and agenda-driven.

Since their fallout, Cohen has emerged as a relentless and sometimes crude critic of Trump, appearing as recently as last week in a live TikTok wearing a shirt featuring a figure resembling Trump with his hands cuffed, behind bars. The judge on Friday urged prosecutors to tell him to refrain from making any more statements about the case or Trump.

“He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump go to prison,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said during opening statements. “He has talked extensively about his desire to see President Trump’s family go to prison. He has talked extensively about President Trump getting convicted in this case.”

No matter how his testimony unfolds, Cohen is indisputably central to the case, as evidenced by the fact that his name was mentioned during opening statements more than 130 times — more than any other person.

Other witnesses, including former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker and former Trump adviser Hope Hicks, have testified at length about the role Cohen played in arranging to stifle stories that were feared to be harmful to Trump’s 2016 candidacy. And jurors heard an audio recording of Trump and Cohen discussing a plan to purchase the rights to McDougal’s story.

Kasparman Piliang, The Associated Press – May 13, 2024 / 5:46 am | Story: 487102

Rescuers recovered more bodies Monday after monsoon rains triggered flash floods on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, bringing down torrents of cold lava and mud, leaving 43 people dead and another 15 missing.

The heavy rains, along with a landslide of mud and cold lava from Mount Marapi, caused a river to breach its banks.

The deluge tore through mountainside villages along four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight Saturday. The floods swept away people and submerged hundreds of houses and buildings, while forcing more than 3,100 people to flee to temporary government shelters in Agam and Tanah Datar districts, said National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari.

Cold lava, also known as lahar, is a mixture of volcanic material and pebbles that flows down a volcano’s slopes in the rain.

Rescuers on Monday recovered more bodies, mostly from villages that were worst hit in Agam and Tanah Datar districts, bringing the death toll to 43, Muhari said in a statement. At least 19 people were injured in the flash floods and rescuers were searching for 15 villagers reported missing, he said.

Television reports showed relatives wailing as they watched rescuers pull a mud-caked body from a devastated hamlet. It was placed in an orange and black bag and taken away for burial.

Authorities struggled to get tractors and other heavy equipment to the area over washed-out roads after flash floods brought mud and rocks onto the hilly hamlets, said Abdul Malik, who heads the search and rescue office in Padang, the provincial capital.

Hundreds of police, soldiers and residents dug through the debris with their bare hands, shovels and hoes as rain, damaged roads and thick mud and debris hampered relief efforts.

“The devastated area is so vast and complicated, we badly need more excavators and mud pumps,” Malik said.

Flash floods on Saturday night also caused main roads around the Anai Valley Waterfall area in Tanah Datar district to be blocked by mud, cutting off access to other cities, Padang Panjang Police Chief Kartyana Putra said on Sunday.

Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed roads that were transformed into murky brown rivers and villages covered by thick mud, rocks, and uprooted trees.

Heavy rains cause frequent landslides and flash floods in Indonesia, an archipelago nation of more than 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near floodplains.

The disaster came just two months after heavy rains triggered flash floods and a landslide in West Sumatra, killing at least 26 people and leaving 11 others missing.

A surprise eruption of Mount Marapi late last year killed 23 climbers.

Marapi is known for sudden eruptions that are difficult to predict because the source is shallow and near the peak, and its eruptions aren’t caused by a deep movement of magma, which sets off tremors that register on seismic monitors, according to Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

Marapi has been active since an eruption in January 2024 that caused no casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The country is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

 

Rahim Faiez, The Associated Press – May 13, 2024 / 5:44 am | Story: 487101

When he heard that devastating floods hit his village in northern Afghanistan last week, farmer Abdul Ghani rushed home from neighboring Kunduz province where he was visiting relatives. When he got home, he found out that his wife and three children had perished in the deluge.

Two of his sons survived but another son, who is 11, is still missing. “I couldn’t even find the road to my village,” he said, describing how he turned back and went another way to reach his district of Nahrin in Baghlan province.

Across Baghlan, others like Ghani and survivors of the disaster were still searching for their missing loved ones and burying their dead on Monday.

“Roads, villages and lands were all washed away,” Ghani said. His wife, his 7-year-old and 9-year-old daughters and a 4-year-old son died.

“My life has turned into a disaster,” he said, speaking to The Associated Press over the phone.

The U.N. food agency estimates that the unusually heavy seasonal rains in Afghanistan left more than 300 people dead and thousands of houses destroyed, most of them in Baghlan, which bore the brunt of floodings on Friday.

Survivors have been left with no home, no land, and no source of livelihood, the World Food Organization said. Most of Baghlan is “inaccessible by trucks,” said WFP, adding that it is resorting to every alternative it can think of to get food to the survivors.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed condolences to the victims, said a statement on Sunday, adding that the world body and aid agencies are working with the Taliban-run government to help.

“The United Nations and its partners in Afghanistan are coordinating with the de facto authorities to swiftly assess needs and provide emergency assistance,” according to the statement.

The dead include 51 children, according to UNICEF, one of several international aid groups that are sending relief teams, medicines, blankets and other supplies. The World Health Organization said it delivered 7 tons of medicines and emergency kits to the stricken areas.

Meanwhile, the U.N. migration agency has been distributing aid packages that include temporary shelters, essential non-food items, solar modules, clothing, and tools for repairs to their damaged shelters.

The latest disaster came on the heels of a previous one, when at least 70 people died in April from heavy rains and flash floods in the country. The waters also destroyed about 2,000 homes, three mosques and four schools in western Farah and Herat, and southern Zabul and Kandahar provinces.

Edgar M. Clemente, The Associated Press – May 12, 2024 / 5:07 pm | Story: 487080

A strong earthquake shook the border of Mexico and Guatemala early Sunday, driving frightened residents into the streets.

The temblor struck just before 6 a.m. near the Mexican border town of Suchiate, where a river by the same name divides the two countries. The epicenter was just off the Pacific coast, 10 miles (16 kilometers) west-southwest of Brisas Barra de Suchiate, where the river empties into the sea.

The earthquake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.4, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and a depth of 47 miles (75 kilometers).

In Mexico, there were no immediate reports of damage, but more mountainous, remote parts of the border are prone to landslides.

Across the border Guatemala’s national disaster prevention agency shared photos of small landslides onto highways in the Quetzaltenango region and large cracks in walls in a hospital in San Marcos on its social media accounts, but there were no reports of deaths.

In Tapachula, near the border, civil defense brigades were moving through the city looking for signs of damage.

Didier Solares, an official with Suchiate’s Civil Defense agency, said so far they had not found damage.

“Luckily, everything is good,” Solares said. “We are talking with companies, to the (rural areas) via radio and there’s nothing, there’s no damage thank God,” he said.

The early morning quake still gave people a fright.

In the mountainous and picturesque colonial city of San Cristobal, the shaking was strong.

“Here we got up because we have the seismic alert service,” said resident Joaquin Morales. “The alert woke me up because it comes 30 seconds before (the quake).”

In Tuxtla Chico, a town near Tapachula, María Guzmán, a teacher said: “It was horrible, it felt strong. It was a real scare.”

Later Sunday, there was a swarm of at least two dozen small earthquakes in Mexico’s northern state of Baja California, near the U.S. border. The largest of the quakes was of 4.6 magnitude, while the majority were between between 2.5 and 3.7.

No immediate damage was reported in the sparsely populated region roughly 30 miles ( 50 kilometers) south of a relatively unpopulated area south of El Centro, California.

They did not appear related to the quake in Suchiate, which is almost 2,330 miles (3,750 kilometers) to the southeast.

powerful solar storm put on an amazing skyward light show across the globe overnight but caused only minor disruptions to the electric power grid, communications and satellite positioning systems.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said that no FEMA region reported any significant impact from the storms. The U.S. Department of Energy said Saturday it was not aware of any impact from the storms on electric customers.

SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service said on its website Saturday that service had been degraded and its team was investigating. CEO Elon Musk wrote on the social platform X overnight that its satellites were “under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far.”

Brilliant purple, green, yellow and pink hues of the Northern Lights were reported worldwide, with sightings in Germany, Switzerland, China, England, Spain and elsewhere.

In the U.S., Friday’s solar storm pushed the lights much farther south than normal. The Miami office of the National Weather Service confirmed sightings in the areas of Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers, Florida. Meteorologist Nick Carr said another forecaster who lives near Fort Lauderdale photographed the lights and was familiar with them because he previously lived in Alaska.

People in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and other Midwestern states were able to capture photos of bright colors along the horizon.

Sunday night may provide another chance for many to see the spectacle.

NOAA issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated.

The agency alerted operators of power plants and orbiting spacecraft, as well as FEMA, to take precautions.

“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

“That’s really the gift from space weather: the aurora,” Steenburgh said. He and his colleagues said the best views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.

Snap a picture of the sky, and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.

The most intense solar storm in recorded history, in 1859, prompted auroras in central America and possibly even Hawaii.

This storm posed a risk for high-voltage transmission lines for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people’s homes, NOAA space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl told reporters. Satellites also could be affected, which in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth.

An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003, for example, took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.

Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long, Steenburgh noted.

The sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday, resulting in at least seven outbursts of plasma. Each eruption, known as a coronal mass ejection, can contain billions of tons of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona.

The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that is 16 times the diameter of Earth, NOAA said. It is all part of the solar activity ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year cycle.

Kasparman Piliang, The Associated Press – May 12, 2024 / 7:30 am | Story: 487017

Heavy rains and torrents of cold lava and mud flowing down a volcano’s slopes on Indonesia’s Sumatra island triggered flash floods that killed at least 37 people and more than a dozen others were missing, officials said Sunday.

Monsoon rains and a major mudslide from a cold lava flow on Mount Marapi caused a river to breach its banks and tear through mountainside villages in four districts in West Sumatra province just before midnight on Saturday. The floods swept away people and submerged more than 100 houses and buildings, National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

Cold lava, also known as lahar, is a mixture of volcanic material and pebbles that flow down a volcano’s slopes in the rain.

By Sunday afternoon, rescuers had pulled out 19 bodies in the worst-hit village of Canduang in Agam district and recovered nine other bodies in the neighboring district of Tanah Datar, the National Search and Rescue Agency said in a statement.

The agency said that eight bodies were pulled from mud during deadly flash floods that also hit Padang Pariaman, and one body was found in the city of Padang Panjang. It said rescuers are searching for 18 people who are reportedly missing.

Flash floods on Saturday night also caused main roads around the Anai Valley Waterfall area in Tanah Datar district to be blocked by mud, cutting off access to other cities, Padang Panjang Police Chief Kartyana Putra said Sunday.

Videos released by the National Search and Rescue Agency showed roads that were transformed into murky brown rivers.

The disaster came just two months after heavy rains triggered flash floods and a landslide in West Sumatra’s Pesisir Selatan and Padang Pariaman districts, killing at least 21 people and leaving five others missing.

The 2,885-meter (9,465-foot) Mount Marapi erupted late last year killing 23 climbers who were caught by a surprise weekend eruption. The volcano has stayed at the third highest of four alert levels since 2011, indicating above-normal volcanic activity under which climbers and villagers must stay more than 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) from the peak, according to Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.

Marapi is known for sudden eruptions that are difficult to predict because the source is shallow and near the peak, and its eruptions aren’t caused by a deep movement of magma, which sets off tremors that register on seismic monitors.

Marapi has been active since an eruption in January 2023 that caused no casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The country is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

Josh Funk, The Associated Press – May 11, 2024 / 5:33 pm | Story: 486977

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is now banned from entering nearly 20% of her state after two more tribes banished her this week over comments she made earlier this year about tribal leaders benefitting from drug cartels.

The latest developments in the ongoing tribal dispute come on the heels of the backlash Noem faced for writing about killing a hunting dog that misbehaved in her latest book. It is not clear how these controversies will affect her chances to become Donald Trump’s running mate because it is hard to predict what the former president will do.

The Yankton Sioux Tribe voted Friday to ban Noem from their land in southeastern South Dakota just a few days after the Sisseton-Wahpeton Ovate tribe took the same action. The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes had already taken action to keep her off their reservations. Three other tribes haven’t yet banned her.

Noem reinforced the divisions between the tribes and the rest of the state in March when she said publicly that tribal leaders were catering to drug cartels on their reservations while neglecting the needs of children and the poor.

“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Noem said at a forum. “But I’m going to fight for the people who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, ’Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge. We are scared.’ ”

Noem’s spokesman didn’t respond Saturday to email questions about the bans. But previously she has said she believes many people who live on the reservations still support her even though she is clearly not getting along with tribal leaders.

Noem addressed the issue in a post on X on Thursday along with posting a link to a YouTube channel about law enforcement’s video about drugs on the reservations.

“Tribals leaders should take action to ban the cartels from their lands and accept my offer to help them restore law and order to their communities while protecting their sovereignty,” Noem said. “We can only do this through partnerships because the Biden Administration is failing to do their job.”

The tribes have clashed with Noem in the past, including over the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock and during the COVID-19 pandemic when they set up coronavirus checkpoints at reservation borders to keep out unnecessary visitors. She was temporarily banned from the Oglala Sioux reservation in 2019 after the protest dispute.

And there is a long history of rocky relations between Native Americans in the state and the government dating back to 1890, when soldiers shot and killed hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at the Wounded Knee massacre as part of a campaign to stop a religious practice known as the Ghost Dance.

Political observer Cal Jillson, who is based at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said this tribal dispute feels a little different because Noem seems to be “stoking it actively, which suggests that she sees a political benefit.”

“I’m sure that Gov. Noem doesn’t mind a focus on tensions with the Native Americans in South Dakota because if we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about her shooting the dog,” Jillson said.

Noem appears to be getting tired of answering questions about her decision to kill Cricket after the dog attacked a family’s chickens during a stop on the way home from a hunting trip and then tried to bite the governor. Noem also drew criticism for including an anecdote she has since asked her publisher to pull from the book that described “staring down” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a private meeting that experts said was implausible.

After those controversies, she canceled several interviews that were planned as part of the book tour. With all the questions about “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward,” no one is even asking anymore about Noem’s decision to appear in an infomercial-style video lavishing praise on a team of cosmetic dentists in Texas who gave her veneers.

Jillson said it all probably hurts her chances with Trump, who has been auditioning a long list of potential vice-president candidates.

“I think that the chaos that Trump revels in is the chaos he creates. Chaos created by somebody else simply detracts attention from himself,” Jillson said.

University of South Dakota political science professor Michael Card said that if it isn’t the vice-president slot, it’s not clear what is in Noem’s political future because she is prevented from running for another term as governor. Noem is in her second term as governor.

She could go after U.S. Senator Mike Rounds’ seat or try to return to the House of Representatives, Card said.

Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press – May 11, 2024 / 5:26 pm | Story: 486974

Donald Trump is known for leveling constant and often personal attacks on top rivals such as Joe Biden. Lately, he’s increasingly taking that same approach against independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Among the recent jabs, Trump this past week posted a roughly four-minute video online in which he called Kennedy “fake,” a “Democrat ‘Plant’” and “Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place” to help the Democratic president. Trump railed against Kennedy’s family as “a bunch of lunatics.”

“He is not a Republican so don’t think you’re going to vote for him and feel good,” the former president and presumptive Republican nominee told supporters in the Truth Social post.

Directing such fierce attacks at Kennedy may signal concern from Trump and his campaign about the independent’s bid in what’s expected to be a tight November election, when a third-party hopeful siphoning even a small amount of support could sink one of the major candidates.

Six months out from an Election Day in which many Americans have voiced their dissatisfaction at a rematch between Trump and Biden, Kennedy has been offering himself as an alternative. Some of the issues Kennedy focuses on — stalwart support for Israel and criticism over COVID-19 lockdowns — could appeal more to conservative voters than Democrats.

Polls at this point show far more Republicans than Democrats have a favorable opinion of Kennedy, although many Americans don’t know who he is. A February Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that about half of Republicans, 53%, had a favorable view of him, compared with 30% of Democrats. About one-quarter in each case said they didn’t know enough about Kennedy to say.

Kennedy’s campaign argues that he threatens both Trump and Biden, who boasts support from several members of Kennedy’s own family and called the endorsements “an incredible honor.” The president has largely ignored Kennedy, who previously challenged him for the Democratic nomination before launching an independent bid.

Kennedy has gone after Trump as well, challenging him to a debate when both men speak — on separate days — at the Libertarian Party convention later this month. Kennedy claims Trump’s backers are “wavering” in their support.

But Kennedy faces steep challenges.

As an independent candidate, his name appearing on ballots isn’t automatic. He has had to work to secure ballot access across the 50 states, a process that Kennedy has said will be completed by this summer. According to his campaign, he has achieved that marker in five states — California, Delaware, Michigan, Oklahoma and Utah — with enough signatures collected for eight others. Officials haven’t verified those numbers in some states.

Kennedy has argued that his fairly strong showing in a few national polls gives him a reason to consider himself competitive, though horse-race polls are generally unreliable this far out from an election. This isn’t a new trend for third-party candidates in presidential elections. During the 2016 campaign, early national polls showed libertarian Gary Johnson’s support in the high single or low double digits; he ultimately received only about 3% of the popular vote.

Supporters flocking to Kennedy’s events, including a recent comedy showcase in a Detroit suburb, describe themselves as coming from across the political spectrum, from those who traditionally back third-party presidential efforts to disaffected Democratic and Republican voters. That included those who have previously backed both Biden and Trump, but are either jaded by or unenthusiastic about them now.

Ben Carter, a registered nurse from White Lake, Michigan, said that he supported Trump in 2016 but “couldn’t do it again,” opting for Biden four years later. This year, Carter said he admired Kennedy’s willingness to take on difficult topics, seeing the independent candidate as willing to voice unpopular opinions but doing so in a way more palatable than Trump.

“I just don’t hear Kennedy going out, lying about things. Trump, he just stands up in front of the camera and baldfaced lies about stuff that we know are true,” Carter said. “He has his opinions that you might not agree with, but I haven’t seen him stand up in front of a crowd and just lie to people.”

Trump’s supporters admit they are curious about Kennedy’s bid, even if they remain fiercely loyal to Trump.

“He’s super interesting,” Kim Hanson, a financial consultant from Hartford, Wisconsin, said on the sidelines of Trump’s recent rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “I love hearing from him.”

But Hanson, a Trump supporter, said she worried that the novelty appeal of voting for Kennedy could detract from Trump’s support.

“I am concerned about people voting for people they think aren’t going to get in, and they aren’t voting for Trump,” she said.

There are some issue areas where Kennedy and Trump seem aligned.

Like Trump, Kennedy has been a fierce defender of Israel in its war with Hamas. In April, he suggested that the prosecution of rioters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, might be politically motivated, partly aligning himself with the false portrayal being pushed by Trump and his allies.

Kennedy levied some criticism on Trump, saying the attack on the Capitol happened with Trump’s “encouragement” and “in the context of his delusion that the election was stolen from him.” But Kennedy also said that as president, he would appoint a special counsel to examine whether Trump allies were unfairly singled out for prosecution.

Kennedy has also blamed Trump for economic damage to the middle class. Kennedy called pandemic-era lockdowns “the worst thing that he did to this country,” while acknowledging in that same speech that Trump “gets blamed for a lot of things that he didn’t do.”

Like Trump, Kennedy — a lifelong Catholic who has described himself as “pro-choice” — has taken conflicting stands on abortion. He supported, then retreated, from the idea of a 15-week federal abortion ban, but says he disagrees with Trump that the matter should be left to state governments.

Bernard Tamas, a Valdosta State University professor who studies third-party presidential campaigns, pointed out that Kennedy’s policy positions, such as his vaccine skepticism and adamant support of Israel in the war with Hamas, are “more likely to appeal to conservative voters,” an apparent threat to Trump at this stage.

“It is quite possible that RFK will damage Trump more (than Biden), especially since there is unlikely to be any other moderate independent candidate for the never-Trumpers to vote for,” Tamas said.

Tamas said that even single-digit support for Kennedy could affect the general election outcome.

“Losing even a small percent of votes to candidates like RFK Jr. could easily flip the election from one major party candidate to the other,” Tamas said.

Brian Schimming, chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said he expects Kennedy to draw support away from Trump and Biden, perhaps from Trump earlier in the campaign but more from Biden down the stretch. He said Republicans have greater enthusiasm for the former president than Democrats do for the incumbent.

“But what does an incidental voter, or a voter who says to themselves consciously that they don’t feel strongly enough about either of these candidates, do?” said Schimming, a veteran Republican operative in Wisconsin. “In the end, they peel off votes from the weaker candidate because they’re dissatisfied, who in my mind is Biden.”

Desiree Sherdin, a small business owner from Germantown, Wisconsin, said at Trump’s rally in her state that Kennedy’s views “tend to go left” of her preference even though she agreed with his skepticism of vaccines. She said she was sticking with Trump, and imagined many others would, too.

“People who are loyal to Trump are fiercely loyal,” she said.

Josh Boak, The Associated Press – May 11, 2024 / 5:25 pm | Story: 486973

Former President Donald Trump may face an IRS bill in excess of $100 million after a government audit indicates he double-dipped on tax losses tied to a Chicago skyscraper, according to a report by The New York Times and ProPublica that drew on a yearslong audit and public filings.

The report’s findings could put renewed focus on Trump’s business career as the presumptive Republican nominee tries to regain the White House after losing in 2020.

Trump used his cachet as a real estate developer and TV star to build a political movement, yet he has refused to release his tax filings as past presidential candidates have. The tax filings that the public does know about have come from past reporting by the Times and a public release of records by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee in 2022.

Trump’s presidential campaign provided a statement in son Eric Trump’s name saying the IRS inquiry “was settled years ago, only to be brought back to life once my father ran for office. We are confident in our position.”

The tax records cited by the report indicate that Trump twice deducted losses on the Trump International Hotel and Tower, which opened in 2009 near the banks of the Chicago River that cuts through that city’s downtown.

The report said Trump initially reported losses of $658 million in his 2008 filings under the premise that the property fit the IRS definition of being “worthless” because condominium sales were disappointing and retail space went unfilled amid a deep U.S. recession.

But in 2010, the published report said, Trump transferred the ownership of the property to a different holding company that he also controlled, using the move to save money on taxes by reporting an additional $168 million in losses over the next decade on the same property.

The report did not have any updates on the status of the IRS inquiry since December 2022, but said Trump could owe more than $100 million, including penalties, if he were to lose the audit battle.

Trump, meanwhile, is appealing a New York judge’s ruling from February after a civil trial that Trump, his company and top executives lied about his wealth on financial statements, conning bankers and insurers who did business with him. In early April, Trump posted a $175 million bond, halting collection of the more than $454 million he owes from the judgment and preventing the state from seizing his assets to satisfy the debt while he appeals.

Democrat President Joe Biden has said that Trump largely owes his fortune to an inheritance from his father, rather than through his own financial acumen. Biden has gone after Trump for not wanting to pay taxes, while his administration has increased IRS funding in order to increase audits of the ultra-wealthy and improve compliance with the federal tax code.

The Trump campaign opposes the additional funding that Biden and Democrats provided to the IRS. At campaign rallies, Trump has said the United States would be destroyed as a country unless his 2017 tax cuts that are largely set to expire after 2025 are extended.

The Associated Press – May 11, 2024 / 12:45 pm | Story: 486928

A backcountry skier has died after being buried by an avalanche in Idaho, officials said.

The avalanche occurred Friday when two experienced backcountry skiers were traveling on Donaldson Peak in Idaho’s Lost River Range, the Sawtooth Avalanche Center said.

One skier triggered the slope collapse while climbing down to where the pair were going to ski. He got caught in a small avalanche, which set off a second larger avalanche.

The second skier used a satellite communication device to call for help, and then a rescue transceiver and probe pole to locate the first skier buried under about five feet of snow.

She performed CPR on the first skier after digging him out with a shovel. Search and rescue teams evacuated him, but he didn’t survive.

The fatality brings this winter’s tally of avalanche deaths in the U.S. to 16, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. An average of 30 people die in avalanches each year in the U.S.

Avalanche safety specialists say their job has become more difficult in recent years as climate change brings extreme weather. Rising numbers of skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers have also been visiting backcountry areas since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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