A man who says he was detained by police for following an Ohio National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader's theme song from "Star Wars" on his phone sued the District of Columbia on Thursday, claiming the officers violated his constitutional rights.

Sam O'Hara's federal lawsuit says the ominous orchestral music of "The Imperial March" is the soundtrack for his peaceful protests against President Donald Trump's deployment of Guard members in Washington, D.C. Millions of TikTok users have viewed O'Hara's videos of his interactions with troops, according to the suit, filed by American Civil Liberties Union attorneys.

O'Hara, a 35-year-old Washington resident, says he didn't interfere with the Ohio National Guard troops during their Sept. 11 encounter on a public street. One of the troops summoned Metropolitan Police Department officers, who stopped O'Hara and kept him handcuffed for 15 to 20 minutes before releasing him without charges, according to the lawsuit.

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"The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests," his lawsuit says.

O'Hara also sued four MPD officers and the Guard member who called them to the scene. The suit accuses them of violating his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable seizures and excessive force. O'Hara is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

O'Hara, an artist who works in the hospitality industry, said he was looking for a humorous and creative way to protest what he views as a military "occupation."

"It feels surreal and dystopian," he told The Associated Press. "When I see armed troops at our farmers markets and outside of my favorite restaurants and my dog park, I don't think, 'Oh, wow, I feel safe.' I think: 'These feel like Stormtroopers. I feel like I'm living in a Star Wars episode or movie, and this is like an invading, dark force.'"

Spokespeople for Mayor Muriel Bowser's office and the police department declined to comment on the suit's claims. The MPD spokesperson said the four officers named as defendants all remain on full duty. A spokesperson for the Ohio National Guard didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

In August, Trump, a Republican, issued an executive order declaring a crime emergency in Washington. Within a month, more than 2,300 National Guard troops from eight states and the district were patrolling the city under the command of the secretary of the Army. Trump also deployed hundreds of federal agents to assist in patrols.

Trump's law enforcement surge has inflamed tensions with residents of the heavily Democratic district. District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb has sued Trump to end it.

O'Hara's lawsuit says he became "deeply concerned about the normalization of troops patrolling D.C. neighborhoods."

"To many District residents, the deployment constituted an attack on D.C.'s autonomy and a dangerous departure from the Nation's tradition of barring troops from policing civilians," the suit says.

O'Hara had staged and recorded other "Star Wars"-themed protests against Guard deployments. The troops mostly ignored him, the suit says.

On Sept. 11, O'Hara was returning home from work when he began following four armed Guard members from Ohio. Less than two minutes later, one of the troops warned him that he would summon police officers to "handle" him if he kept following them, according to the suit.

The police officers who arrived minutes later accused O'Hara of harassing the troops, which he denied. They detained him without conducting any investigation and ignored his complaints that the handcuffs were too tight, the suit alleges.

"Mr. O'Hara brings this suit to ensure accountability, secure compensation for his injuries, and vindicate core constitutional guarantees," the suit says.

The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

President Donald Trump's favorability has fallen among Hispanic adults since the beginning of the year, a new AP-NORC poll shows, a potential warning sign from a key constituency that helped secure his victory in the 2024 election.

The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a somewhat or very favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before the Republican took office for the second time. The percentage of Hispanic adults who say the country is going in the wrong direction has also increased slightly over the past few months, from 63% in March to 73% now.

The shift could spell trouble for Republicans looking to cement support with this group in future elections. Many Hispanic voters were motivated by economic concerns in last year's election, and the new poll shows that despite Trump's promises of economic revitalization, Hispanic adults continue to feel higher financial stress than Americans overall. Hispanic voters made up 10% of the electorate in 2024, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of interviews with registered voters, and the number of eligible Hispanic voters has been growing rapidly in recent decades.

Alejandro Ochoa, 30, is a warehouse worker in Adelanto, California. He identifies as a Republican and voted for Trump last year, but hes now unhappy with the president. He criticized some of Trumps budget cuts, adding that the cost of groceries is too high and buying a home is still unattainable for him.

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He was kind of relying on essentially the nostalgia of, Hey, remember, before COVID? Things werent as expensive, Ochoa said. But now its like, OK, youre in office. Im still getting done dirty at the grocery store. Im still spending an insane amount of money. Im trying to cut corners where I can, but that bill is still insanely expensive.

Declining approval on economy and immigration

Hispanic voters shifted toward Trump in the last election, though a majority still backed Democrat Kamala Harris: 43% of Hispanic voters nationally voted for Trump, according to AP VoteCast, up from 35% in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

But the poll now finds that Hispanic adults are slightly less likely to approve of Trump's handling of the economy and immigration two issues that were major strengths for him in last year's presidential campaign and their views of his overall presidential performance have slipped a little as well.

In March, 41% of Hispanic adults approved of the way Trump was handling his job as president, but now that has fallen to 27%.

Over the past few months, Hispanic communities have also been a target of the presidents hard-line immigration tactics. The poll found that Hispanic adults approval of his handling of immigration has declined slightly since March.

Some see the two issues as linked. Trumps attacks on immigration have affected low-wage and high-skilled workers alike, at a moment when the economy is already uncertain because of his erratic trade policies.

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Fel Echandi, of Winter Haven, Florida, is a behavioral specialist who identifies as a Democrat but sometimes votes for Republican candidates. He said he appreciates Trumps views on transgender issues, including restroom access for transgender women.

But hes concerned that Trumps immigration policies leave many people living in fear, with negative effects on the economy.

A lot of people rely on immigrants to do labor in certain areas, Echandi said. When that gets affected, all prices go up. Our food costs more because of the costs to get people to do that work.

The poll found particularly high levels of financial stress among Hispanic adults, compared with the rest of the country. More Hispanics say the cost of groceries, housing and health care and the amount of money they get paid are major sources of stress, compared with U.S. adults overall.

Favorability among Hispanic Republicans drops slightly

Views of Trump have even soured a little among Hispanic Republicans.

In the latest poll, 66% of Hispanic Republicans said they have a very or somewhat favorable view of Trump. That's a slight shift compared with where Trump stood in an AP-NORC poll from September 2024, when 83% of Hispanic Republicans viewed him at least somewhat favorably. About 8 in 10 white Republicans had a favorable view of Trump in the new poll, which was unchanged from the year before.

In another potentially worrying sign for the president, younger Hispanics and Hispanic men two groups that swung particularly dramatically toward him in last year's election also see him a bit more negatively.

About two-thirds of Hispanic adults under age 45 and Hispanic men now view Trump unfavorably, according to the new poll. That's a slight uptick from September 2024, when about half in both groups had a negative opinion of him.

Other concerns about Trump's chaotic second term emerged in interviews.

Teresa Covarrubias, a 65-year-old retired schoolteacher from Los Angeles, feels things are going in the wrong direction and said she was troubled by how some of Trumps actions have defied norms and may impact social safety net programs.

My major concern is the disregard for the Constitution and the law, and then also the level of cronyism, said Covarrubias, who is an independent voter. The people at the top are just grifting and taking, and then theres the rest of us.

Hispanic adults are more likely to prioritize immigration

There are signs in the poll that Trump's tough immigration approach may be alienating some Hispanic adults. Over the past few months, the president has doubled down on his pledge of mass deportations, with escalating crackdowns in Latino neighborhoods in cities including Chicago.

The poll found that, in general, Hispanic adults are more likely to say immigration is an important issue to them personally. About two-thirds of Hispanic adults prioritize immigration, compared with about 6 in 10 white adults and about half of Black adults.

And although their views on immigration enforcement aren't uniform, Hispanic adults are much less likely than U.S. adults overall to favor deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. About one-quarter of Hispanic adults support this policy, the new poll found, while roughly half of them are opposed and the rest dont have an opinion. Among U.S. adults overall, about 4 in 10 favor deporting all immigrants in the U.S. illegally, while 34% are opposed and about 2 in 10 dont have an opinion.

Rick Alvarado, 63, a Republican who lives in San Diego, says he still supports Trump and praised his actions to cut public spending. Alvarado, a property manager, is behind Trump's immigration crackdown in cities including Los Angeles and Chicago, saying he believes some immigrants are involved in organized crime.

But he added that he would like to see a solution for those without criminal records to obtain legal residency status.

The people who are productive should have a pathway to stay here somehow, Alvarado said.

The Department of Justice is preparing to send federal election observers to California and New Jersey next month, targeting two Democratic states holding off-year elections following requests from state Republican parties.

The DOJ announced Friday that it is planning to monitor polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, and five counties in southern and central California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno. The goal, according to the DOJ, is to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law."

Transparency at the polls translates into faith in the electoral process, and this Department of Justice is committed to upholding the highest standards of election integrity, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement to The Associated Press.

Election monitoring is a routine function of the Justice Department, but the focus on California and New Jersey comes as both states are set to hold closely-watched elections with national consequences on Nov. 4. New Jersey has an open seat for governor that has attracted major spending by both parties and California is holding a special election aimed at redrawing the state's congressional map to counter Republican gerrymandering efforts elsewhere ahead of the 2026 midterms.

The DOJ's efforts are also the latest salvo in the GOPs preoccupation with election integrity after President Donald Trump spent years refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election and falsely railing against mail-in voting as rife with fraud. Democrats fear the new administration will attempt to gain an upper hand in next years midterms with similarly unfounded allegations of fraud.

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The announcement comes days after the Republican parties in both states wrote letters to the DOJ requesting their assistance. Some leading Democrats in the states blasted the decision.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin called the move highly inappropriate and said the DOJ has not even attempted to identify a legitimate basis for its actions.

Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, said in a statement that No amount of election interference by the California Republican Party is going to silence the voices of California voters."

California's House districts at stake

The letter from the California GOP, sent Monday and obtained by the AP, asked Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, to provide monitors to observe the election in the five counties.

In recent elections, we have received reports of irregularities in these counties that we fear will undermine either the willingness of voters to participate in the election or their confidence in the announced results of the election, wrote GOP Chairwoman Corrin Rankin.

The state is set to vote Nov. 4 on a redistricting proposition that would dramatically redraw Californias congressional lines to add as many as five additional Democratic seats to its U.S. House delegation.

Each of the counties named, they alleged, has experienced recent voting issues, such as sending incorrect or duplicate ballots to voters. They also take issue with how Los Angeles and Orange counties maintain their voter rolls.

California is one of at least eight states the Justice Department has sued as part of a wide-ranging request for detailed voter roll information involving at least half the states. The department has not said why it wants the data.

Brandon Richards, a spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said the DOJ has no standing to interfere with California's election because the ballot contains only a state-specific initiative and has no federal races.

Deploying these federal forces appears to be an intimidation tactic meant for one thing: suppress the vote," he said in an email.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page said he welcomes anyone who wants to watch the county's election operations and said it's common to have local, state, federal and even international observers. He described Orange County's elections as accessible, accurate, fair, secure, and transparent.

Los Angeles County Clerk Dean Logan said election observers are standard practice across the country and that the county, with 5.8 million registered voters, is continuously updating and verifying its voter records.

"Voters can have confidence their ballot is handled securely and counted accurately," he said.

Most Californians vote using mail ballots returned through the postal service, drop boxes or at local voting centers, which typically leaves polling places relatively quiet on Election Day. But in pursuit of accuracy and counting every vote, the nations most populous state has gained a reputation for tallies that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer.

In 2024, it took until early December to declare Democrat Adam Gray the winner in his Central Valley district, the final congressional race to be decided in the nation last year.

Passaic County the target in New Jersey

California's request echoed a similar letter sent by New Jersey Republicans asking the DOJ to dispatch election monitors to oversee the receipt and processing of vote-by-mail ballots and monitor access to the Board of Elections around the clock" in suburban Passaic County ahead of the states governor's race.

The New Jersey Republican State Committee told Dhillon that federal intervention was necessary to ensure an accurate vote count in the heavily Latino county that was once a Democratic stronghold, but shifted to President Donald Trumps column in last year's presidential race.

The county could be critical to GOP gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarellis hopes against Democrat Mikie Sherrill. But the letter cited previous voter fraud cases in the county and alleged a long and sordid history of vote-by-mail shenanigans.

In 2020, a judge ordered a new election for a city council seat in Paterson the largest city in Passaic County after the apparent winner and others were charged with voter fraud.

Platkin said the state is committed to ensuring its elections are fair and secure. With the DOJ's announcement, he said the attorney general's office is "considering all of our options to prevent any effort to intimidate voters or interfere with our elections.

Election observers are nothing new

Local election offices and polling places around the country already have observers from both political parties to ensure rules are followed. The DOJ also has a long history of sending observers to jurisdictions that have histories of voting rights violations to ensure compliance with federal civil rights laws.

Last year, when the Biden administration was still in power, some Republican-led states said they would not allow federal monitors to access voting locations on Election Day.

Trump has for years railed against mail voting as part of his repeated false claims that former President Joe Bidens victory in 2020 was rigged. He alleges it is riddled with fraud, even though numerous studies have found no evidence of widespread fraud in U.S. elections.

Earlier this year, Trump pledged to ban vote-by-mail across the country, something he has no power to do under the U.S. Constitution.

The DOJs effort will be overseen by Dhillons Civil Rights Division, which will deploy personnel in coordination with U.S. attorneys offices and work closely with state and local officials, the department said

The department also is soliciting further requests for monitoring in other jurisdictions.

David Becker, a former DOJ attorney who has served as an election monitor and trained them, said the work is typically done by department lawyers who are prohibited from interfering at polling places.

But Becker, now executive director of the Center for Election Integrity & Research, said local jurisdictions normally agree to the monitors presence.

If the administration tried to send monitors without a clear legal rationale to a place where local officials didnt want them, That could result in chaos," he said.

The U.S. military is sending an aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, the Pentagon announced Friday, in the latest escalation of military firepower in a region where the Trump administration has unleashed more rapid strikes in recent days against boats it accuses of carrying drugs.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to the U.S. Southern Command region to bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States," Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media.

The USS Ford, which has five destroyers in its strike group, is now deployed to the Mediterranean Sea. One of its destroyers is in the Arabian Sea and another is in the Red Sea, a person familiar with the operation told The Associated Press. As of Friday, the aircraft carrier was in port in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea.

RELATED STORY | US carries out 10th strike on boat suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations, would not say how long it would take for the strike group to arrive in the waters off South America or if all five destroyers would make the journey.

Deploying an aircraft carrier will surge major additional resources to a region that has already seen an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela. The latest deployment and the quickening pace of the U.S. strikes, including one Friday, raised new speculation about how far the Trump administration may go in operations it says are targeted at drug trafficking, including whether it could try to topple Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro. He faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

Moving thousands more troops into the region

There are already more than 6,000 sailors and Marines on eight warships in the region. If the entire USS Ford strike group arrives, that could bring nearly 4,500 more sailors as well as the nine squadrons of aircraft assigned to the carrier.

Complicating the situation is Tropical Storm Melissa, which has been nearly stationary in the central Caribbean with forecasters warning it could soon strengthen into a powerful hurricane.

Hours before Parnell announced the news, Hegseth said the military had conducted the 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, leaving six people dead and bringing the death count for the attacks that began in early September to at least 43 people.

Hegseth said on social media that the vessel struck overnight was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang. It was the second time the Trump administration has tied one of its operations to the gang that originated in a Venezuelan prison.

If you are a narco-terrorist smuggling drugs in our hemisphere, we will treat you like we treat Al-Qaeda, Hegseth said in his post. Day or NIGHT, we will map your networks, track your people, hunt you down, and kill you.

RELATED STORY | Trump administration says the US struck another alleged drug-carrying boat, this time in the Pacific

The strikes have ramped up from one every few weeks when they first began last month to three this week, killing a total of at least 43 people. Two of the most recent strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, expanding the area where the military has launched attacks and shifting to where much of the cocaine is smuggled from the worlds largest producers, including Colombia.

Escalating tensions with Colombia, the Trump administration imposed sanctions Friday on Colombian President Gustavo Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.

US focus on Venezuela and Tren de Aragua

Friday's strike drew parallels to the first announced by the U.S. last month by focusing on Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization and blamed for being at the root of the violence and drug dealing that plague some cities.

While not mentioning the origin of the latest boat, the Republican administration says at least four of the boats it has hit have come from Venezuela. On Thursday, the U.S. military flew a pair of supersonic heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela.

Maduro argues that the U.S. operations are the latest effort to force him out of office.

Maduro on Thursday praised security forces and a civilian militia for defense exercises along some 2,000 kilometers (about 1,200 miles) of coastline to prepare for the possibility of a U.S. attack.

In the span of six hours, 100% of all the countrys coastline was covered in real time, with all the equipment and heavy weapons to defend all of Venezuelas coasts if necessary, Maduro said during a government event shown on state television.

The U.S. militarys presence is less about drugs than sending a message to countries in the region to align with U.S. interests, according to Elizabeth Dickinson, the International Crisis Groups senior analyst for the Andes region.

An expression that Im hearing a lot is Drugs are the excuse. And everyone knows that, Dickinson said. And I think that message is very clear in regional capitals. So the messaging here is that the U.S. is intent on pursuing specific objectives. And it will use military force against leaders and countries that dont fall in line.

Comparing the drug crackdown to the war on terror

Hegseths remarks around the strikes have recently begun to draw a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administrations crackdown on drug traffickers.

President Donald Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an armed conflict with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.

When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasnt the plan.

I think were just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? Were going to kill them, you know? Theyre going to be like, dead, Trump said during a roundtable at the White House.

Lawmakers from both major political parties have expressed concerns about Trump ordering the military actions without receiving authorization from Congress or providing many details.

Ive never seen anything quite like this before, said Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who previously worked in the Pentagon and the State Department, including as an adviser in Afghanistan.

We have no idea how far this is going, how this could potentially bring in, you know, is it going to be boots on the ground? Is it going to be escalatory in a way where we could see us get bogged down for a long time? he said.

Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who has long been involved in foreign affairs in the hemisphere, said of Trumps approach: Its about time.

While Trump obviously hates war, he also is not afraid to use the U.S. military in targeted operations, Diaz-Balart said. I would not want to be in the shoes of any of these narco-cartels.

Target said Thursday that it is eliminating about 1,800 corporate positions in an effort to streamline decision-making and accelerate initiatives to rebuild the flagging discount retailers customer base.

About 1,000 employees are expected to receive layoff notices next week, and the company also plans to eliminate about 800 vacant jobs, a company spokesperson said. The cuts represent about 8% of Target's corporate workforce globally, although the majority of the affected employees work at the company's Minneapolis headquarters, the spokesperson said.

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Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke, who is set to become Target's next CEO on Feb. 1, issued a note to personnel on Thursday announcing the downsizing. He said further details would come on Tuesday, and he asked employees at the Minneapolis offices to work from home next week.

The truth is, the complexity weve created over time has been holding us back, Fiddelke, a 20-year Target veteran, wrote in his note. Too many layers and overlapping work have slowed decisions, making it harder to bring ideas to life.

Target, which has about 1,980 U.S. stores, lost ground to Walmart and Amazon in recent years as inflation caused shoppers to curtail their discretionary spending. Customers have complained of messy stores with merchandise that did not reflect the expensive-looking but budget-priced niche that long ago earned the retailer the jokingly posh nickname Tarzhay.

Fiddelke said in August when he was announced as Target's next CEO that he would step into the role with three urgent priorities: reclaiming the companys position as a leader in selecting and displaying merchandise; improving the customer experience by making sure shelves are consistently stocked and stores are clean; and investing in technology.

He cited the same goals in his message to employees, calling the layoffs a "necessary step in building the future of Target and enabling the progress and growth we all want to see."

"Adjusting our structure is one part of the work ahead of us. It will also require new behaviors and sharper priorities that strengthen our retail leadership in style and design and enable faster execution," he wrote.

Target has reported flat or declining comparable sales those from established physical stores and online channels in nine out of the past 11 quarters. The company reported in August that comparable sales dipped 1.9% in its second quarter, when its net income also dropped 21%.

The job cuts will not affect any store employees or workers in Target's sorting, distribution and other supply chain facilities, the company spokesperson said.

The corporate workers losing their jobs will receive pay and benefits until Jan. 8 as well as severance packages, the spokesperson said.

Alaska Airlines said its operations have resumed Friday after it had to ground its planes for hours because of an information technology outage.

The airline said in a statement that 229 flights were canceled because of the outage and that more flight disruptions were expected as it worked to reposition aircraft and crews.

Alaska Airlines said it is working on getting travelers affected by the disruption to their destinations.

It asked that passengers check their flight status before heading to the airport.

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The grounding Thursday affected Alaska Air and Horizon Air flights.

Hawaiian Airlines, which was bought by Alaska Air Group last year, said its flights were operating as scheduled.

In July, Alaska grounded all of its flights for about three hours after the failure of a critical piece of hardware at a data center.

There has been a history of computer problems disrupting flights in the industry, though most of the time the disruptions are only temporary.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the citys mayoral election Thursday, throwing his weight behind a bitter rival as he cast the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, as an avatar for radicals and gentrifiers.

Am I angry Im not the one taking down Zohran, the socialist and communist? Youre darn right I am, Adams said, as he stood alongside a smiling Cuomo in Harlem. We're fighting against a snake-oil salesman."

Adams had deemed Cuomo a snake and a liar before dropping his election campaign last month. Brothers fight, Adams said on Thursday. But when families are attacked, brothers come together.

RELATED STORY | Mamdani and Cuomo spar over experience, integrity in NYC mayoral debate

The endorsement comes as Cuomo has lobbed increasingly caustic attacks on Mamdani, equating his criticism of Israel with antisemitism and warning of a city beset by crime, hatred and disorder if his opponent wins.

Adams, in his endorsement, went a step further.

New York cant be Europe, folks, Adams said. I dont know what is wrong with people. You see whats playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism, he continued, citing examples of recent terror attacks in Europe and Africa.

The mayor did not elaborate on what those Islamic terror attacks had to do with Mamdani, who would be the city's first Muslim mayor.

Cuomo then thanked Adams for his comments, describing him as a real Democrat and a real New Yorker.

Its not immediately clear if Adams endorsement would help Cuomo in the citys November election. Adams has seen his political capital crumble under the weight of a federal corruption case that was ultimately dismissed following an extraordinary intervention from the Trump administration.

Cuomo's own political image was tarnished following a sexual harassment scandal, which forced him to resign as governor in 2021. He has denied the allegations.

Cuomo, a centrist, has cast himself as the only candidate who can beat Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist and state assemblymember who shocked the political establishment by soundly defeating the former governor in the June primary.

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In a statement Thursday, Mamdani said Andrew Cuomo is running for Eric Adams second term.

Its no surprise to see two men who share an affinity for corruption and Trump capitulation align themselves at the behest of the billionaire class and the president himself, Mamdani said.

Cuomos path to victory rests on his ability to win over moderates and Republicans, but in recent days he has admitted that it is becoming harder mathematically for him as long as Republican Curtis Sliwa remains in the race.

Sliwa, the colorful founder of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, has steadfastly refused calls to drop out from both Cuomo and his supporters.

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The endorsement would mark a reconciliation between the two longtime New York politicians, each of whom had escalated attacks against the other before Adams ended his campaign.

Shortly before dropping out, Adams accused Cuomo making a career of pushing Black candidates out of races, referring to the former governors past state races.

Cuomo, meanwhile, has described Adams management of the city as a never-ending series of government corruption.

On Wednesday night, immediately after the final mayoral debate, the former governor and mayor were photographed sitting courtside at Madison Square Garden, fueling speculation of an incoming endorsement.

Misty Copeland took one last spin on her pointe shoes Wednesday, showered with golden glitter and bouquets as she retired from American Ballet Theatre after a trailblazing career in which she became an ambassador for diversity in an overwhelmingly white art form.

Copeland, who a decade ago became the first Black female principal dancer in the companys 75-year history, was feted at its star-studded fall gala at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Oprah Winfrey and Debbie Allen were among those who gave speeches of praise.

Winfrey spoke of the power of young people of color seeing Copeland lead iconic ballets like Swan Lake.

Misty didnt just perform ballet," Winfrey said of the ballerina who has achieved a unique crossover fame. "She changed it. She redefined who belongs, who gets to be seen, and who gets to lead.

In a way, the gala was both a return and a departure for Copeland, 43. She was dancing with the company for the first time in five years. During that time, Copeland has been raising a son, Jackson, with her husband. The 3-year-old came onstage to hug his mother during curtain calls, wearing a tuxedo.

Copeland has also been continuing her career as an author the second volume of her Bunheads series appeared in September and working to increase diversity in the dance world with her namesake foundation, including Be Bold, an afterschool program designed for young children of color.

But she decided to dust off the pointe shoes so she could have one last spin on the ABT stage including as Juliet, one of the most passionate roles in ballet and her personal favorite. Copeland's Romeo in the balcony pas de deux was Calvin Royal III, who in 2020 became ABT's first Black male principal dancer in two decades.

The duo later reappeared for another duet, this time a modern one, in Wrecka Stow, by Kyle Abraham. For Copeland's final performance of the night, she performed Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite with another of her favorite partners, Herman Cornejo.

The night, which also celebrated ABT's 85th anniversary and was curated in large part by Copeland herself, included speeches and film clips about her career. And her fellow dancers performed excerpts of ballets in her honor. At the end, a beaming Copeland was given a quintessential ballet farewell, as colleagues, teachers, friends and family came out to greet her, one by one, with hugs and bouquets while glittery confetti poured from the rafters.

On to the next stage

Though Copeland has not closed the door on dancing altogether, its clear an era is ending.

Its been 25 years at ABT, and I think its time, she told The Associated Press in an interview in June, when she announced her retirement. Its time for me to move to the next stage.

She added: You know, Ive become the person that I am today, and have all the opportunities I have today, because of ballet, (and) because of American Ballet Theatre. I feel like this is me saying thank you to the company. So its a farewell. (But) it wont be the end of me dancing. Never say never.

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On the carpet Wednesday before her performance, she said: I feel good. I feel ready to take this next step." She noted that she would be continuing her work promoting diversity: "Theres so much work and effort that has to be continuous.

Allen told reporters that Copeland had "helped to redefine the face of ballet. Shes inspired millions of people around the world and hopefully, American Ballet Theatre will not wait another 50 years before they have another beautiful Black principal dancer.

The evening at Lincoln Centers David H. Koch Theater was streamed live to nearby Alice Tully Hall across the plaza, with attendance free to the public another sign of Copeland's unique brand of fame in the dance world.

Copeland was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in San Pedro, California, where she lived in near poverty and through periods of homelessness as her single mother struggled to support her and five siblings.

For a future professional dancer, she came to ballet relatively late at 13 but soon excelled and went on to study at the San Francisco Ballet School and ABT on scholarship opportunities. After a stint in the junior company, Copeland joined ABT as a member of the corps de ballet in April 2001, becoming a soloist six years later.

In June 2015, Copeland was promoted to principal dancer. Unlike other promotions, which are announced quietly, Copeland's was announced at a news conference a testament to her celebrity. Only days before, shed made a triumphant New York debut in Swan Lake in the starring role of Odette/Odile, drawing a diverse and enthusiastic crowd to the Metropolitan Opera House.

Trying times for DEI efforts

In the AP interview, Copeland acknowledged that its striking that when she leaves ABT, there will no longer be a Black female principal dancer at the company.

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Its definitely concerning, Copeland said. I think Ive just gotten to a place in my career where theres only so much I can do on a stage. Theres only so much that visual representation can do. I feel like its the perfect timing for me to be stepping into a new role, and hopefully still shaping and shifting the ballet world and culture.

She also noted this is an especially trying moment for anyone working in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Its a difficult time, she said. And I think all we can really do is keep our heads down and keep doing the work. Theres no way to stop the people that feel passionate about this work. We will continue doing it.

A federal grand jury indicted a man on a charge he fatally stabbed a Ukrainian refugee on a Charlotte, North Carolina, commuter train

Wednesday's indictment on a charge of causing death on a mass transportation system keeps a possible death sentence on the table for Decarlos Brown Jr. if prosecutors decide to seek it.

Brown allegedly stabbed 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska in an apparently random attack captured on video. Brown is also charged with the killing in state court, but federal prosecutors stepped in after growing questions about why Brown was on the street despite 14 prior criminal arrests.

President Trump's administration has used the case to show how it thinks local leaders, judges and policies in Democratic-led cities like Charlotte are failing to protect their residents from violent crime.

Video from the commuter train showed Zarutska entering a light-rail train on Aug. 22 and taking a seat in front of Brown, who was seated behind her. Minutes later, without any apparent interaction, he pulled out a pocket knife, stood up and slashed her in the neck, investigators said. Passengers screamed and scattered as she collapsed.

RELATED STORY | Man accused of killing Ukrainian refugee on Charlotte light rail could face death penalty

Zarutska had been living in a bomb shelter in Ukraine before coming to to the U.S. to escape the war, according to relatives, who described her as determined to build a safer life.

The indictment indicates the charge against Brown is eligible for the federal death penalty.

Brown had cycled through the criminal justice system for more than a decade including serving five years for robbery with a dangerous weapon in Mecklenburg County, according to court records. He was arrested earlier this year after repeatedly calling 911 from a hospital, claiming people were trying to control him. A judge released him without bail. His mother told local television she sought an involuntary psychiatric commitment this year after he became violent at home. Doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia.

The federal case will run parallel with the state case charging Brown with first-degree murder.

The death penalty is also a potential punishment for people convicted of first-degree murder in North Carolina. However, the state has not carried out an execution since 2006. Legal challenges over the use of lethal injection drugs have in part delayed action.

North Carolina's legislature passed a package of criminal justice bills last month in response to the killing that limits bail and seeks to ensure more defendants undergo mental health evaluations.

It also could restart the state death penalty by calling for the state Adult Correction Department secretary to find another form of execution if lethal injection is not available.

The NCAA approved a rule change on Wednesday that will allow athletes and athletic department staff members to bet on professional sports.

Two weeks after the Division I cabinet approved the change, Division II and III management councils signed off on it, allowing the new rule to go into effect Nov. 1.

This doesnt change the NCAA rule forbidding athletes from betting on college sports. The NCAA also prohibits sharing information about college competitions with bettors. The institution also doesnt accept advertising or sponsorships of NCAA championships by betting sites.

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Despite the change, the NCAA emphasized that it doesnt endorse betting on sports, particularly for student-athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker anticipated the rule change would be passed when he talked with the media on Monday at a Big East Conference roundtable on the future of college basketball.

This change recognizes the realities of todays sports environment without compromising our commitment to protecting the integrity of college competition or the well-being of student-athletes," said Roberta Page, athletic director at Slippery Rock and chair of the Division II Management Council.

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The change comes as NCAA enforcement caseloads involving sports betting violations have increased in recent years. Last month, the NCAA banned three mens college basketball players for sports betting, saying they had bet on their own games at Fresno State and San Jose State and were able to share thousands of dollars in payouts.

We run the largest integrity program in the world on sports betting across all the various games, Baker said Monday. Sadly, we discovered some student-athletes involved with some problematic activity.

Several conservative news outlets said Wednesday they had agreed to a new press policy rejected by virtually all legacy media organizations and will take their place in the Pentagon to cover Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the U.S. military.

The new Pentagon press corps will include the Gateway Pundit, the National Pulse, Human Events, podcaster Tim Pool, the Just the News website founded by journalist John Solomon, Frontlines by Turning Point USA and LindellTV, run by "MyPillow" CEO Mike Lindell.

The Pentagon's announcement came less than a week after dozens of reporters from outlets like The New York Times, The Associated Press, CNN and the Washington Post turned in their access badges rather than agree to a policy the journalists say will restrict them to covering news approved by Hegseth.

Hegseth's spokesman, Sean Parnell, announced the "next generation" of the Pentagon press corps with more than 60 journalists who had agreed to the new policy. He said 26 journalists who had previously been part of the press corps were among the signees. The department wouldn't say who any of them were, but several outlets reposted his message on X saying they had signed on.

There isn't even unanimity among organizations that appeal to conservative consumers. Fox News Channel, by far the most popular news source for fans of President Donald Trump, was among the walkouts, as was Newsmax.

RELATED STORY | Major news outlets refuse to sign Pentagons new press rules

Accusations of 'self-righteous media'

In a post on X, Parnell denounced the "self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon."

"Americans have largely abandoned digesting their news through the lens of activists who masquerade as journalists in the mainstream media," Parnell wrote. "We look forward to beginning a fresh relationship with members of the new Pentagon press corps."

The journalists who left the Pentagon haven't stopped working covering the U.S. military. Many have been reporting aggressively, for example, on stories about strikes against boats in central America alleged to be part of the drug trade.

By not being in the Pentagon, "reporters will have to work harder, there's no question about it," said Barbara Starr, a longtime Pentagon reporter retired from CNN.

"But the real price is paid by the American people and the American military families," Starr said. "Military families who have their sons and daughters serving, they want to know everything and they want to know it fast."

Starr wondered about Hegseth: "What is he so afraid of?" New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote a biting piece about the defense secretary over the weekend titled "Fraidy-Cat at the Pentagon." But Hegseth's boss, President Trump, has expressed support for the new media policy and Hegseth's aggressive moves mirror some of those made by the administration. The president has sued outlets like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal for their coverage of him.

New outlets must add staff

Some of the outlets that accepted Hegseth's rules will have to staff up for their new roles: Just the News, for example, posted an ad online seeking a Pentagon reporter.

The Gateway Pundit's White House correspondent, Jordan Conradson, posted on Wednesday that he was excited to join the Pentagon press corps "and help restore honest journalism after agreeing to follow basic rules ... something the legacy media refuses to do!"

Lindell, whose My Pillow ads once blanketed Fox News before he joined the political media, posted a statement that LindellTV was "proud to be part of a new generation of news organizations reshaping how real information reaches the public."

Some of the publications pronounce themselves conservative in their mission statements. The "about" page on the National Pulse features a picture of Trump.

In the midst of a federal government shutdown, the U.S. governments gross national debt surpassed $38 trillion Wednesday, a record number that highlights the accelerating accumulation of debt on Americas balance sheet.

It's also the fastest accumulation of a trillion dollars in debt outside of the COVID-19 pandemic the U.S. hit $37 trillion in gross national debt in August this year.

The $38 trillion update is found in the latest Treasury Department report, which logs the nations daily finances.

Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvanias Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bushs Treasury Department, told The Associated Press that a growing debt load over time leads ultimately to higher inflation, eroding Americans' purchasing power.

The Government Accountability Office outlines some of the impacts of rising government debt on Americans including higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars, lower wages from businesses having less money available to invest, and more expensive goods and services.

I think a lot of people want to know that their kids and grandkids are going to be in good, decent shape in the future that they will be able to afford a house, Smetters said. That additional inflation compounds" and erodes consumers' purchasing power, he said, making it less possible for future generations to achieve home ownership goals.

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The Trump administration says its policies are helping to slow government spending and will shrink the nations massive deficit. A new analysis by Treasury Department officials states that from April to September, the cumulative deficit totaled $468 billion. In a post on X Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that's the lowest reading since 2019.

During his first eight months in office, President Trump has reduced the deficit by $350 billion compared to the same period in 2024 by cutting spending and boosting revenue," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, adding that the administration would pursue robust economic growth, lower inflation, tariff revenue, lower borrowing costs and cuts to waste, fraud and abuse.

The Joint Economic Committee estimates that the total national debt has grown by $69,713.82 per second for the past year.

Michael Peterson, chair and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, said in a statement that reaching $38 trillion in debt during a government shutdown is the latest troubling sign that lawmakers are not meeting their basic fiscal duties."

Along with increasing debt, you get higher interest costs, which are now the fastest growing part of the budget," Peterson added. We spent $4 trillion on interest over the last decade, but will spend $14 trillion in the next ten years. Interest costs crowd out important public and private investments in our future, harming the economy for every American.

The U.S. hit $34 trillion in debt in January 2024, $35 trillion in July 2024 and $36 trillion in November 2024.

Social media platform Reddit sued the artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI and three other entities on Wednesday, alleging their involvement in an industrial-scale, unlawful economy to scrape the comments of millions of Reddit users for commercial gain.

Reddit's lawsuit in a New York federal court takes aim at San Francisco-based Perplexity, maker of an AI chatbot and answer engine that competes with Google, ChatGPT and others in online search.

Also named in the lawsuit are Lithuanian data-scraping company Oxylabs UAB, a web domain called AWMProxy that Reddit describes as a former Russian botnet, and Texas-based startup SerpApi, which lists Perplexity as a customer on its website.

It's the second such lawsuit from Reddit since it sued another major AI company, Anthropic, in June.

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But the lawsuit filed Wednesday is different in the way that it confronts not just an AI company but the lesser-known services the AI industry relies on to acquire online writings needed to train AI chatbots.

Scrapers bypass technological protections to steal data, then sell it to clients hungry for training material. Reddit is a prime target because its one of the largest and most dynamic collections of human conversation ever created, said Ben Lee, Reddits chief legal officer, in a statement Wednesday.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of unfair competition and unjust enrichment and alleges that some of them violated U.S. copyright laws.

Perplexity said it has not yet received the lawsuit but will always fight vigorously for users rights to freely and fairly access public knowledge. Our approach remains principled and responsible as we provide factual answers with accurate AI, and we will not tolerate threats against openness and the public interest.

SerpApi's customer success director, Ryan Schafer, said in an email: We strongly disagree with Reddits allegations and intend to vigorously defend ourselves in court.

Oxylabs said in a statement it was shocked and disappointed and will not hesitate to defend itself against these allegations.

Oxylabs position is that no company should claim ownership of public data that does not belong to them, said a statement from Denas Grybauskas, the company's chief governance and strategy officer. It is possible that it is just an attempt to sell the same public data at an inflated price.

AWMProxy could not immediately be reached for comment.

Scraping for publicly available online data is a common practice used by businesses and researchers but Reddit compares the companies it is suing to would-be bank robbers who can't get into the bank vault, so they break into the armored truck instead. The lawsuit alleges they are evading Reddits own anti-scraping measures while also circumventing Googles controls and scraping Reddit content directly from Googles search engine results."

Lee said that because they're unable to scrape Reddit directly, they mask their identities, hide their locations, and disguise their web scrapers to steal Reddit content from Google Search. Perplexity is a willing customer of at least one of these scrapers, choosing to buy stolen data rather than enter into a lawful agreement with Reddit itself.

Reddit made a similar argument in its lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that the company ignored Reddit's appeals to cease using its content. That case was initially filed in California Superior Court but was later moved to federal court and has a hearing scheduled for January.

Along with digitized books and news articles, websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit are deep troves of written materials that can help teach an AI assistant the patterns of human language.

Reddit has previously entered licensing agreements with Google, OpenAI and other companies that are paying to be able to train their AI systems on the public commentary of Reddits more than 100 million daily users.

The licensing deals helped the 20-year-old online platform raise money ahead of its Wall Street debut as a publicly traded company last year.

The Supreme Court said on Monday that it will consider whether people who regularly smoke marijuana can legally own guns, the latest firearm case to come before the court since its 2022 decision expanding gun rights.

President Donald Trumps administration asked the justices to revive a case against a Texas man charged with a felony because he allegedly had a gun in his home and acknowledged being a regular pot user. The Justice Department appealed after a lower court largely struck down a law that bars people who use any illegal drugs from having guns.

The Republican administration favors Second Amendment rights, but government attorneys argued that this ban is a justifiable restriction.

They asked the court to reinstate a case against Ali Danial Hemani. His lawyers got the felony charge tossed out after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the blanket ban is unconstitutional under the Supreme Courts expanded view of gun rights. The appellate judges found it could still be used against people accused of being high and armed at the same time, though.

Hemani's attorneys argue the broadly written law puts millions of people at risk of technical violations since at least 20% of Americans have tried pot, according to government health data. About half of states legalized recreational marijuana, but it's still illegal under federal law.

The Justice Department argues the law is valid when used against regular drug users because they pose a serious public safety risk. The government said the FBI found Hemani's gun and cocaine in a search of his home as they probed travel and communications allegedly linked to Iran. The gun charge was the only one filed, however, and his lawyers said the other allegations were irrelevant and were mentioned only to make him seem more dangerous.

The case marks another flashpoint in the application of the Supreme Court's new test for firearm restrictions. The conservative majority found in 2022 that the Second Amendment generally gives people the right to carry guns in public for self-defense and any firearm restrictions must have a strong grounding in the nations history.

The landmark 2022 ruling led to a cascade of challenges to firearm laws around the country, though the justices have since upheld a different federal law intended to protect victims of domestic violence by barring guns from people under restraining orders.

Amazon said its cloud computing service was recovering from a major outage that disrupted online activity around the world on Monday.

Amazon Web Services provides remote computing services to many governments, universities and companies, including The Associated Press.

On DownDetector, a website that tracks online outages, users reported issues with Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite, online broker Robinhood, the McDonalds app and many other services. Coinbase and Signal both said on X that they were experiencing issues related to the AWS outage.

The first signs of trouble emerged at around 3:11 a.m. Eastern Time, when Amazon Web Services reported on its Health Dashboard that it is investigating increased error rates and latencies for multiple AWS services in the US-EAST-1 Region.

Later the company reported that there were significant error rates and that engineers were actively working on the problem.

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Around 6 a.m. Eastern Time, the company said that it was seeing recovery across most of the affected services. We can confirm global services and features that rely on US-EAST-1 have also recovered, it said, adding that it is working on a full resolution.

AWS customers include some of the worlds biggest businesses and organizations.

So much of the world now relies on these three or four big (cloud) compute companies who provide the underlying infrastructure that when theres an issue like this, it can be really impactful across a broad range, a broad spectrum of online services, said Patrick Burgess, a cybersecurity expert at U.K.-based BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

The fragile ceasefire in Gaza faced its first major test Sunday as an Israeli security official said the transfer of aid into the territory was halted until further notice after a Hamas ceasefire violation, and Israeli forces launched a wave of strikes.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement on the halt in aid, a little over a week since the start of the U.S.-proposed ceasefire aimed at ending two years of war.

Israels military earlier Sunday said its troops came under fire from Hamas militants in southern Gaza, and later said two soldiers were killed there.

Israels military said then it struck dozens of what it called Hamas targets. Health officials said at least 29 Palestinians were killed across Gaza, including children.

RELATED STORY | Israel identifies the remains of one more hostage while 9 Palestinians are killed in Gaza City

A senior Egyptian official involved in the ceasefire negotiations said round-the-clock contacts were underway to deescalate the situation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasnt authorized to speak to reporters.

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the military to take strong action against any ceasefire violations but didn't threaten to return to war.

Israel's military said militants had fired at troops in areas of Rafah city that are Israeli-controlled according to agreed-upon ceasefire lines.

Hamas, which continued to accuse Israel of multiple ceasefire violations, said communication with its remaining units in Rafah had been cut off for months and we are not responsible for any incidents occurring in those areas.

Strikes in Gaza

Palestinians quickly feared the return of war.

It will be a nightmare, said Mahmoud Hashim, a father of five from Gaza City, who appealed to U.S. President Donald Trump and other mediators to prevent the ceasefire's collapse.

An Israeli airstrike on a makeshift coffeehouse in Zawaida town in central Gaza killed at least six Palestinians, according to Gazas Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government.

Another strike killed at least two people near the Al-Ahly soccer club in the Nuseirat refugee camp, the ministry said. The strike hit a tent and wounded eight others, said Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties.

The hospital said it also received the bodies of four people killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced families in Nuseirat. Six others were killed in a tent in Nuseirat, one killed at a charging point west of Nuseirat and four killed at a house in Bureij camp.

Another strike hit a tent in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis in the south, killing at least four people, including a woman and two children, according to Nasser Hospital.

A strike in Beit Lahiya in the north killed two men, according to Shifa hospital.

More bodies of hostages identified

Israel identified the remains of two hostages released by Hamas overnight.

Netanyahu's office said the bodies belonged to Ronen Engel, a father from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Sonthaya Oakkharasri, a Thai agricultural worker from Kibbutz Be'eri.

Both were believed to have been killed during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Engel's wife, Karina, and two of his three children were kidnapped and released in a ceasefire in November 2023.

Hamas in the past week has handed over the remains of 12 hostages.

Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, said that it found the body of a hostage and would return it on Sunday if circumstances in the field allowed. It warned that any escalation by Israel would hamper search efforts.

RELATED STORY | Palestinians, Israel disagree on whether Gaza's crucial Rafah crossing will reopen Monday

Israel on Saturday pressed Hamas to fulfill its ceasefire role of returning the remains of all 28 deceased hostages, saying the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt would stay closed until further notice."

Hamas says the war's devastation and Israeli military control of certain areas of Gaza have slowed the handover. Israel believes Hamas has access to more bodies than it has returned.

Israel has released 150 bodies of Palestinians back to Gaza, including 15 on Sunday, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israel has neither identified the bodies nor said how they died. The ministry posts photos of bodies on its website to help families attempting to locate loved ones. Some are decomposed and blackened. Some are missing limbs and teeth.

Only 25 bodies have been identified, the Health Ministry said.

Israel and Hamas earlier exchanged 20 living hostages for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Ceasefire's second phase

A Hamas delegation led by chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya arrived in Cairo to follow up the implementation of the ceasefire deal with mediators and other Palestinian groups, Hamas said in a statement.

The next stages are expected to focus on disarming Hamas, Israeli withdrawal from additional areas it controls in Gaza, and future governance of the devastated territory.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Kassem said late Saturday that the second phase of negotiations requires national consensus. He said Hamas has begun discussions to solidify its positions.

The U.S. plan proposes the establishment of an internationally backed authority to run Gaza.

Kassem reiterated that Hamas wont be part of the ruling authority in a postwar Gaza. He called for the prompt establishment of a body of Palestinian technocrats to run day-to-day affairs.

For now, government agencies in Gaza continue to perform their duties, as the (power) vacuum is very dangerous, he said.

Rafah border crossing

The Rafah crossing was the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side.

A fully reopened crossing would make it easier for Palestinians to seek medical treatment, travel or visit family in Egypt, home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.

On Sunday, the Palestinian Authoritys Interior Ministry in Ramallah announced procedures for Palestinians wishing to leave or enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing. For those who want to leave, Palestinian Embassy staff from Cairo will be at the crossing to issue temporary travel documents for entry into Egypt. Palestinians who wish to enter Gaza will need to apply at the embassy.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesnt distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the attack that sparked the war.

Large crowds of protesters marched and rallied in cities across the U.S. Saturday for No Kings demonstrations decrying what participants see as the government's swift drift into authoritarianism under President Donald Trump.

People carrying signs with slogans such as Nothing is more patriotic than protesting or Resist Fascism" packed into New York Citys Times Square and rallied by the thousands in parks in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. Demonstrators marched through Washington and downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside capitols in several Republican-led states, a courthouse in Billings, Montana, and at hundreds of smaller public spaces.

Trump's Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as Hate America rallies, but in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, huge banners with the U.S. Constitutions We The People preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon.

It was the third mass mobilization since Trump's return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.

In Washington, Iraq War Marine veteran Shawn Howard said he had never participated in a protest before but was motivated to show up because of what he sees as the Trump administrations disregard for the law. He said immigration detentions without due process and deployments of troops in U.S. cities are un-American and alarming signs of eroding democracy.

I fought for freedom and against this kind of extremism abroad, said Howard, who added that he also worked at the CIA for 20 years on counter-extremism operations. And now I see a moment in America where we have extremists everywhere who are, in my opinion, pushing us to some kind of civil conflict.

Trump, meanwhile, was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

They say theyre referring to me as a king. Im not a king, the president said in a Fox News interview that aired early Friday, before he departed for a $1 million-per-plate MAGA Inc. fundraiser at his club.

A Trump campaign social media account mocked the protests by posting a computer-generated video of the president clothed like a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.

Nationwide demonstrations

In San Francisco hundreds of people spelled out No King! and other phrases with their bodies on Ocean Beach. Hayley Wingard, who was dressed as the Statue of Liberty, said she too had never been to a protest before. Only recently she began to view Trump as a dictator.

I was actually OK with everything until I found that the military invasion in Los Angeles and Chicago and Portland Portland bothered me the most, because I'm from Portland, and I don't want the military in my cities. That's scary, Wingard said.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Portland for a peaceful demonstration downtown. Later in the day, tensions grew as a few hundred protesters and counterprotesters showed up at a U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement building, with federal agents at times firing tear gas to disperse the crowd and city police threatening to make arrests if demonstrators blocked streets.

The building has been the site of mostly small nightly protests since June the reason the Trump administration has cited for trying to deploy National Guard troops in Portland, which a federal judge has at least temporarily blocked.

About 3,500 people gathered in Salt Lake City outside the Utah State Capitol to share messages of hope and healing after a protester was fatally shot during the citys first No Kings march in June.

And more than 1,500 people gathered in Birmingham, Alabama, evoking and the citys history of protests and the critical role it played in the Civil Rights Movement two generations ago.

It just feels like were living in an America that I dont recognize, said Jessica Yother, a mother of four. She and other protesters said they felt camaraderie by gathering in a state where Trump won nearly 65% of the vote last November.

It was so encouraging, Yother said. I walked in and thought, Here are my people.

Organizers hope to build opposition movement

Big rallies like this give confidence to people who have been sitting on the sidelines but are ready to speak up, Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy said in an interview with The Associated Press.

While protests earlier this year against Elon Musk's cuts and Trumps military parade drew crowds, organizers say this one is uniting the opposition. Top Democrats such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders are joining what organizers view as an antidote to Trump's actions, from the administration's clampdown on free speech to its military-style immigration raids.

More than 2,600 rallies were planned Saturday, organizers said. The national march against Trump and Musk this spring had 1,300 registered locations, while the first No Kings day in June registered 2,100.

Were here because we love America, Sanders said, addressing the crowd from a stage in Washington. He said the American experiment is in danger under Trump but insisted, We the people will rule.

Republican critics denounce the demonstrations

Republicans sought to portray protesters as far outside the mainstream and a prime reason for the government shutdown, now in its 18th day.

From the White House to Capitol Hill, GOP leaders called them communists and Marxists. They said Democratic leaders including Schumer are beholden to the far-left flank and willing to keep the government shut to appease those liberal forces.

I encourage you to watch we call it the Hate America rally that will happen Saturday, said House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Lets see who shows up for that," Johnson said, listing groups including antifa types, people who hate capitalism and Marxists in full display.

Many demonstrators, in response, said they were meeting such hyperbole with humor, noting that Trump often leans heavily on theatrics such as claiming that cities he sends troops to are war zones.

So much of what weve seen from this administration has been so unserious and silly that we have to respond with the same energy, said Glen Kalbaugh, a Washington protester who wore a wizard hat and held a sign with a frog on it.

New York police reported no arrests during the protests.

Democrats try to regain their footing amid shutdown

Democrats have refused to vote on legislation that would reopen the government as they demand funding for health care. Republicans say they are willing to discuss the issue later, only after the government reopens.

The situation is a potential turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats and their allies were divided and despondent. Schumer in particular was berated by his party for allowing an earlier government funding bill to sail through the Senate without using it to challenge Trump.

What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine, said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group. The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.

In a brazen, seven-minute strike, thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre on Sunday morning and, as tourists were already inside, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with jewels of inestimable value, France's interior minister said.

The worlds most visited museum closed for the day as police sealed gates and ushered visitors out during the investigation.

A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre Museum, Culture Minister Rachida Dati wrote on X. The museum cited exceptional reasons for the closure. No injuries were reported.

Around 9:30 a.m. several intruders forced open a window, stole jewels from vitrines and escaped on two-wheelers, according to the Interior Ministry. It said forensic work is underway and a precise inventory of the stolen objects is being compiled, adding that the items have inestimable historical value. Dati and Nuez were on site with museum leadership.

Video from the scene showed confused tourists being ushered out of the glass pyramid and surrounding courtyards as officers shut the iron gates and closed nearby streets along the Seine.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuez called it a major robbery, saying the intruders entered from the outside using a basket lift. He said on France Inter radio that the heist took seven minutes and the thieves used a disc cutter to slice through the panes. He said it was manifestly a team that had done scouting.

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The heist occurred in the Galerie dApollon, a vaulted hall in the Denon wing that displays part of the French Crown Jewels beneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIVs court artist, according to the ministry.

French daily Le Parisien reported the thieves entered via the Seine-facing facade, where construction is underway, and used a freight elevator to reach the gallery. After breaking windows, they reportedly took nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress. One stolen jewel was later found outside the museum, the paper reported, adding that the item was believed to be Empress Eugnies crown and that it had been broken.

Security and staffing at the Louvre in the spotlight

Security around marquee works remains tight. The Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass and a custom high-tech display system as part of broader anti-theft measures across the museum.

Staffing and protection have been flashpoints at the Louvre. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions have warned that mass tourism strains security and visitor management.

It wasnt immediately clear whether staffing levels played any role in Sundays theft.

In January, President Emmanuel Macron announced a decadelong Louvre New Renaissance plan roughly 700 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece its own dedicated gallery by 2031 but workers say relief has been slow to reach the floor.

Other European museums have been robbed

The theft, less than half an hour after doors opened, echoes other recent European museum raids.

In 2019, thieves smashed vitrines in Dresdens Green Vault and carried off diamond-studded royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. In 2017, burglars at Berlins Bode Museum stole a 100-kilogram (220-pound) solid-gold coin. In 2010, a lone intruder slipped into Pariss Museum of Modern Art and escaped with five paintings, including a Picasso.

The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat. It was recovered two years later in Florence an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vincis portrait the worlds best-known artwork.

Home to more than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and painting from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters the Louvres star attractions include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The museum can draw up to 30,000 visitors a day.

Israel's military said it struck multiple targets on Sunday in Gaza, using aircraft and artillery, after it said Hamas militants shot at Israeli soldiers who were inside the area still under Israeli control, the first major test of the ceasefire reached over a week ago.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held consultations with Israels security heads and directed the military to take strong action against any ceasefire violations, but did not threaten to return to war.

Hamas said that it was not connected to any clashes in Rafah in Southern Gaza.

The strikes came as Israel identified the remains of two hostages released by Hamas overnight, and the Palestinian group said talks to launch the second phase of ceasefire negotiations have begun.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the bodies belonged to Ronen Engel, a father of three from Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Sonthaya Oakkharasri, a Thai agricultural worker killed at Kibbutz Be'eri.

Both were believed to have been killed during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and their bodies were taken to Gaza. Engel's wife, Karina, and two of his three children were kidnapped and released in a ceasefire in November 2023.

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Meanwhile, Israel threatened to keep the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt closed until further notice. The statement by Netanyahus office said reopening Rafah would depend on how Hamas fulfills its ceasefire role of returning the remains of all 28 deceased hostages.

In the past week, Hamas has handed over the remains of 13 bodies, 12 of which have been identified as hostages. Israel said one of the bodies released did not belong to a hostage.

Israel has released 150 bodies of Palestinians back to Gaza, including 15 on Sunday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government. Israel has neither identified the bodies nor said how they died. The ministry has posted photos of dozens of bodies on its website to help families and relatives attempting to locate their loved ones, but the bodies were decomposed, blackened and some were missing limbs and teeth. Only 25 bodies have been identified, the Health Ministry said.

After Israel and Hamas exchanged 20 living hostages for more than 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, the handover of the remains of deceased hostages and prisoners remains a major issue in the first stage of the ceasefire proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. A major scale-up of aid, including the opening of the Rafah border crossing, for humanitarian aid and people entering or leaving Gaza, is the other central issue.

The next stages of the ceasefire will focus on disarming Hamas, Israeli withdrawal from additional areas it controls in Gaza, and future governance of the devastated territory.

Second phase

The Israeli military said on Sunday that militants shot at troops in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, in the Israeli-controlled areas, according to the agreed-upon ceasefire lines. No injuries were reported. A senior Hamas official denied that Hamas was involved. Hamas and Israel have each accused each other of violating the fragile ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Hamas says that talks with mediators to start the second phase of the ceasefire have begun.

Hazem Kassem, a Hamas spokesman, said in a statement late Saturday that the second phase of negotiations requires national consensus. He also said Hamas has begun discussions to "solidify its positions," without providing further details.

According to Trump's plan, the negotiations will include disarming Hamas and the establishment of an internationally backed authority to run the embattled Gaza Strip.

Kassem reiterated that the group wont be part of the ruling authority in a postwar Gaza. Hamas-run government bodies in the Gaza Strip are running day-to-day affairs to avoid a power void, he said.

Government agencies in Gaza continue to perform their duties, as the vacuum is very dangerous, and this will continue until an administrative committee is formed and agreed upon by all Palestinian factions, he said.

Kassem called for a Community Support Committee, a body of Palestinian technocrats, to run the day-to-day affairs, to be established promptly.

Rafah border crossing

Israel didn't open the Rafah border crossing on Sunday, in an attempt to pressure Hamas to return more hostages' bodies. Hamas says it needs special equipment to locate the bodies of additional hostages, but Israel believes Hamas has access to more bodies than it has returned.

The Rafah crossing was the only one not controlled by Israel before the war. It has been closed since May 2024, when Israel took control of the Gaza side. A fully reopened crossing would make it easier for Palestinians to seek medical treatment, travel or visit family in Egypt, home to tens of thousands of Palestinians.

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On Sunday, the Palestinian Authoritys Interior Ministry in Ramallah announced procedures for Palestinians wishing to leave or enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing. For those who want to leave Gaza, Palestinian Embassy staff from Cairo will be at the crossing to issue temporary travel documents that allow entry into Egypt. Palestinians who wish to enter the Gaza Strip will need to apply at the embassy in Cairo for relevant entry documents.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government in the territory. Its figures are seen as a reliable estimate of wartime deaths by U.N. agencies and many independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

Thousands more people are missing, according to the Red Cross.

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the attack that sparked the war.

Hamas rejects US claim

The group rejected on Sunday a claim by the U.S. State Department that said it had credible reports of an imminent planned attack by Hamas against residents of Gaza.

This planned attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement and undermine the significant progress achieved through mediation efforts, the U.S. State Department said in a statement Saturday.

Hamas called the claim false allegations, and accused Israel of supporting armed groups operating in Israeli-controlled areas. Hamas urged the U.S. administration to pressure Israel to stop supporting the gangs and providing them a safe haven.

Hamas-led fighters clashed with at least two armed groups in eastern Gaza City that the group alleges are involved in looting aid and collaborating with Israel. They executed a handful of suspects in public, in widely condemned street killings.

The Interior Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says its forces were working to restore law and order across areas Israels military withdrew from following the ceasefire.