Officers hit him with a stun gun and pepper sprayed him, but he managed to get away and tried to run home. Five officers caught up with him just steps from his house, and, as he called out for his mother, they kicked him, punched him and hit him with a police baton. The attack was captured on the officers' body cameras and a stationary police pole camera.

Nichols died in a hospital of his injuries three days later on Jan. 10, 2023. His death shook Memphis to its core and led to impassioned protests throughout the U.S. On Sunday night, Nichols' family members and their supporters gathered at the site of the beating to remember the life of the father, FedEx employee, skateboarding aficionado and amateur photographer who was taken from them at the age of 29.

More than 100 people held candles that flickered in the chilly Memphis air as they heard Nichols' mother, stepfather and three siblings talk about how difficult the past year has been for them. His mother, RowVaughn Wells, recalled how her stomach began hurting the night of the traffic stop, not knowing that her son was being beaten just steps from her house.

Wearing Converse sneakers her son gave her last Christmas, Wells cried as she talked about missing her son.

“Regardless of wherever my kids are, they're going to call me, they're going to come by if they're close enough,” Wells said. "This year, I didn't get that from Tyre. I didn't get a phone call. I didn't get a text message. I didn't get a ‘Merry Christmas.’ I didn't get none of that from my baby this year.

“That's the most hurtful thing because he used to try to be the first one to call,” Wells said. “'Mama, was I the first one to call you today?'”

Nichols' beating was one in a string of instances of police violence against Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and the need for police reform in the U.S.

His death also led to serious repercussions for the Memphis Police Department and the city. Seven officers were fired for violating department policies during the traffic stop and beating, while an eighth was allowed to retire before he could be fired.

Five of the fired officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were charged with second-degree murder and other offenses in state court, and with civil rights violations in federal court. The five officers are Black.

Mills pleaded guilty in November to federal charges of excessive force and obstruction of justice. The plea is part of a larger deal in which prosecutors said he had also agreed to plead guilty later to state charges. The four other officers have pleaded not guilty to the state and federal charges.

The officers said they pulled Nichols over because he was driving recklessly, but police Chief Cerelyn “CJ’ Davis has said no evidence was found to support that allegation.

An autopsy report showed Nichols died from blows to the head and that the manner of death was homicide. The report described brain injuries and cuts and bruises to the head and other parts of the body.

After Nichols’ death, the crime-suppression unit the officers were part of was disbanded. Former members of the so-called Scorpion team have been assigned to other units within the police department.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced an investigation in July into how Memphis police officers use force and conduct arrests, one of several “patterns and practices” investigations it has undertaken in other cities.

In March, the Justice Department said it was conducting a separate review concerning use of force, de-escalation strategies and specialized units in the police department.

The police department, the city and the former officers are also being sued by Nichols' mother in federal court. Filed in April, the $550 million lawsuit blames them for his death and accuses Davis of allowing the Scorpion unit’s aggressive tactics to go unchecked despite warning signs.

Also last year, the Memphis City Council approved several ordinances in the wake of Nichols' death, including one preventing traffic stops for minor infractions. News outlets have reported that then-Mayor Jim Strickland sent a letter to the council in December saying he did not enforce the ordinances because he believed they were illegal.

New Mayor Paul Young, who took office Jan. 1 after Strickland's two terms expired, told media on Tuesday that he would enforce the ordinances.

Alaska Airlines had returned 18 of its 65 737 Max 9 aircraft to service Saturday, less than 24 hours after part of the fuselage on another plane blew out three miles (4.8 kilometers) above Oregon.

The reprieve was short-lived.

The airline said Sunday that it received a notice from the Federal Aviation Administration that additional work might be needed on those 18 planes.

Alaska said that it had canceled 170 flights — more than one-fifth of its schedule — by mid-afternoon on the West Coast because of the groundings.

“These aircraft have now also been pulled from service until details about possible additional maintenance work are confirmed with the FAA," the airline said in a statement. “We are in touch with the FAA to determine what, if any, further work is required."

United Airlines said it had scrapped about 180 flights Sunday while salvaging others by finding other planes not covered by the grounding.

Alaska and United are the only U.S. airlines that fly the Max 9.

United said it was waiting for Boeing to issue what is called a multi-operator message, which is a service bulletin used when multiple airlines need to perform similar work on a particular type of plane.

Boeing is working on a bulletin but had not yet submitted it to the FAA, according to a person familiar with the situation. Producing a detailed, technical bulletin frequently takes a couple days, the person said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the company and regulators have not publicly discussed the process.

Boeing declined to comment.

A panel used to plug an area reserved for an exit door on the Max 9 blew out Friday night shortly after Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off from Portland, Oregon. The depressurized plane, carrying 171 passengers and six crew members, returned safely to Portland International Airport with no serious injuries.

Hours after the incident, the FAA ordered the grounding of 171 Max 9s including all those operated by Alaska and United until they could be inspected. The FAA said inspections will take four to eight hours.

Boeing has delivered 218 Max 9s worldwide, but not all of them are covered by the FAA order. They are among more than 1,300 Max jetliners — mostly the Max 8 variant — sold by the aircraft maker. The Max 8 and other versions of the Boeing 737 are not affected by the grounding.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., chair of the Senate's Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said she agreed with the decision to ground the Max 9s.

“Safety is paramount. Aviation production has to meet a gold standard, including quality control inspections and strong FAA oversight,” she said in a statement.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board searched Sunday for the paneled-over exit door that blew out from flight 1282. They have a good idea of where it landed, near Oregon Route 217 and Barnes Road in the Cedar Hills area west of Portland, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference late Saturday.

“If you find that, please, please contact local law enforcement,” she said.

Early Sunday afternoon, some local residents were scouring a patch of land with dense thickets, sandwiched between busy roads and a light rail train station. The area is located across from a sprawling hospital complex.

Searcher Adam Pirkle said he had ridden 14 miles (22 kilometers), maneuvering his bicycle through the overgrowth. “I’ve been looking at the flight track, I was looking at the winds,” he said. “I’ve been trying to focus on wooded areas.”

Daniel Feldt navigated the same thickets on foot, equipped with binoculars after descending from the roof of a parking garage beside the light rail station. “I was up on the parking garage and scanning everything. Didn’t see any holes in the bushes that looked obvious where something had fallen through,” he said.

Gavin Redshaw even brought his drone for an aerial view but hadn’t found anything either by Sunday afternoon. “Lots of trash, but no door,” he said.

There has not been a fatal crash involving a U.S. passenger carrier within the country since 2009 when a Colgan Air flight crashed near Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines flight arriving from South Korea crashed at San Francisco International Airport, killing three of the 307 people on board.

Flight 1282 took off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour flight to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the chunk of the fuselage blew out as the plane was at about 16,000 feet (4.8 kilometers). One of the pilots declared an emergency and asked for clearance to descend to 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), the altitude where the air would have enough oxygen to breathe safely.

Videos posted by passengers online showed a gaping hole where the paneled-over exit had been and passengers wearing masks. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout. Firefighters then came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.

It was extremely lucky that the airplane had not yet reached cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants might be walking around the cabin, Homendy said.

“No one was seated in 26A and B where that door plug is, the aircraft was around 16,000 feet and only 10 minutes out from the airport when the door blew,” she said. The investigation is expected to take months.

The aircraft involved rolled off the assembly line and received its certification two months ago, according to online FAA records. It had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day.

Aviation experts were stunned that a piece would fly off a new aircraft. Anthony Brickhouse, a professor of aerospace safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said he has seen panels of fuselage come off planes before, but couldn’t recall one where passengers “are looking at the lights of the city.”

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max 8 and Max 9 planes were grounded worldwide for nearly two years until Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

The Max has been plagued by other issues, including manufacturing flaws, concern about overheating that led FAA to tell pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system, and a possible loose bolt in the rudder system.

The gaping hole in the side of the Alaska Airlines jet opened up where aircraft maker Boeing fits a “plug” to cover an emergency exit that the airline does not use.

The plugs are on most Boeing 737 Max 9 jets. The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily grounded those planes until they undergo inspections of the area around the door plug.

WHY THE PLUG IS THERE

Some larger Boeing 737s have emergency exits on fuselages behind the wings to meet a federal requirement that planes be designed so passengers can evacuate within 90 seconds even if half the exits are blocked.

The more passenger seats there are on a plane, the more exits are required.

Some carriers, including Indonesia's Lion Air and Corendon Dutch Airlines, cram more than 200 seats into their Max 9s, so they must have extra emergency exits. However, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines configure their 737 Max 9s to have fewer than 180 seats, so the planes don't need the two mid-cabin exits to comply with U.S. evacuation rules.

On Alaska and United, the only two U.S. airlines using the Max 9, those side exits near the back of the plane are replaced with a permanent plug the size of an exit door.

ARE THEY ONLY ON MAX 9s?

No. Boeing also makes bigger versions of its 737-900 — a predecessor to the Max — and the Max 8 with space for extra exits in the back. Buyers of those planes also may opt to have either exit doors or plugs installed.

WHO INSTALLS THE PLUGS?

A spokesman for Spirit AeroSystems — which is unrelated to Spirit Airlines — confirmed to The New York Times that the company installed door plugs on Max 9s, including the plug on the Alaska Airlines plane involved in Friday's incident. The spokesman told The Associated Press that the plugs are assembled into 737 fuselages at Spirit's factory in Wichita, Kansas, but declined further comment.

Boeing declined to comment on the issue.

THE BOEING SUPPLIER

Spirit is Boeing's largest supplier for commercial planes and builds fuselages and other parts for Boeing Max jets. The company has been at the center of several recent problems with manufacturing quality on both the Max and a larger plane, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Last year, Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems discovered improperly drilled fastener holes in a bulkhead that keeps 737 Max jets pressurized at cruising altitude.

THE INVESTIGATION

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board, led by the board's chair, Jennifer Homendy, arrived in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday to begin an investigation that is likely to last a year or longer. Homendy declined to discuss possible causes when she briefed reporters on Saturday night.

The NTSB team includes a metallurgist, and Homendy said investigators will look at the exit-door plug if they can find it, as well as its hinges and other parts.

Examining the damage to the door will be crucial to the investigation, according to independent experts.

“The good thing about metal is that metal paints a picture, metal tells a story,” said Anthony Brickhouse, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida. "I'm pretty confident they will find the piece that came off, and they will be able to speak to scientifically what happened to cause this failure.”

Brickhouse said the exit doors, whether plugged or not, are not necessarily a weak point in the fuselage. He had never heard of an exit door plug falling off a plane before Alaska Airlines flight 1282.

WERE THERE WARNINGS?

Aerospace analysts for the investment bank Jefferies wrote that the plane involved in Friday's incident experienced pressurization issues on two earlier flights. The NTSB has not commented on the plane's history, but Homendy said investigators would examine maintenance records even on such a new plane.

OTHER FUSELAGE BLOWOUTS

There have been rare instances of holes opening in the fuselages of airliners. In most cases, they have been the result of metal fatigue in the plane's aluminum skin.

In the most horrific case, a flight attendant for Aloha Airlines was blown out of the cabin of a Boeing 737 over the Pacific Ocean in 1988 after an 18-foot-long chunk of the roof peeled away. Her body was never found. The tragedy led to tougher rules for airlines to inspect and repair microscopic fuselage cracks before they tear open in flight.

In 2009, a hole opened in the roof of a Southwest Boeing 737 flying 35,000 feet over West Virginia. And in 2011, a 5-foot-long gash unfurled in another Southwest Boeing 737, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing at a military base in Arizona. No one was injured in either of those cases, both of which were blamed on metal fatigue.

Bailey and her boyfriend, rapper and social media influencer DDG, 26, announced the birth of their first child, Halo, on Instagram on Saturday.

"Even though we're a few days into the new year, the greatest thing that 2023 could have done for me was bring me my son," Bailey wrote alongside a photo of her son's hand. "Welcome to the world my Halo. The world is desperate to know you."

Bailey is one half of the musical sister duo Chloe x Halle, and she recently starred in "The Little Mermaid" and "The Color Purple" musical.

The 23-year-old had not confirmed her pregnancy until this recent announcement, though social media has been rife with speculation over the past several months.

On April 1, 2023, DDG posted an ultrasound image on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: "Can't wait to be your dad." Since it was April Fools Day, many users on the platform brushed it off as a joke.

"Manifestation is real. Even jokes," one person commented.

"The yearly April Fools prank from DDG once again," another person wrote.

DDG, whose full name is Darryl Dwayne Granberry, Jr., shared the news about Halo on Instagram over the weekend, as well.

"My biggest blessing by far," he wrote. "Never been so in love. Baby Halo."

He and Bailey have been romantically linked since January 2022, Elle reported.

Now, the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) is trying to help you get paid.

The agency set up a website where anyone can check to see if they are owed back pay from a previous company. The worker will need to see if their company is listed first before gaining access to see if they are among those who are owed money.

The division says it often gets unpaid wages on behalf of workers when companies can't locate previous employees and holds the funds while the Labor Department continues to look for them.

"One of our top priorities is to ensure that the back wages we recover are swiftly paid to the workers who earned them," WHD administrator Jessica Looman told USA Today.

However, workers have only three years to claim any back pay or else the funds get sent to the U.S. Treasury, according to the WHD.

USA Today reported in 2023, the Labor Department doled out more than $26.9 million through the worker-owed wage system. However, there are still thousands of employees who haven't claimed their money yet, the report said.

Winter storm warnings and watches were in effect throughout the Northeast, and icy roads made for hazardous travel as far south as North Carolina.

The Northeast snow came as a Sierra Nevada storm packing heavy snow shut down a stretch of interstate Saturday and briefly knocked out power to tens of thousands in Reno, Nevada.

More than 11,000 electric customers in California were without power Sunday afternoon.

Some communities in Massachusetts had recorded more than a foot (30 centimeters) of snow by Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Nearly 13,000 electric customers in the state were without power Sunday afteroon.

Hundreds of flights at Logan International Airport were delayed or canceled Sunday according to tracking website FlightAware.

Snow totals were lower for coastal communities, with Boston reporting just a few inches (centimeters). Snow was expected to continue throughout the day.

In Cambridge, where snowfall was lighter, residents quickly ventured out.

“I think it’s funny because everyone’s been freaking out about it," said Alison Conley, 26, a consultant. “We’ve been betting as to how much snow we’re actually going to have and it’s looking like not that much is going to stick.”

Conley, who was out walking her dog Sunny, said the possibility that climate change is contributing to relatively warmer winter days in the region — the temperature in Boston is expected to be in the 50s on Wednesday, melting much of the snow — is a concern.

“I think it’s super alarming," she said. “It is very weird, but, I don’t know, from a selfish side it’s like kind of nice to not have snow.”

The storm reached into Maine with snow totals of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) in some places — with locally higher amounts over southern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine. Wind gusts up 35 mph (56 kph) could add to blowing and drifting snow. Moderate to heavy snow was expected to continue in Vermont, with total snow accumulations of 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters)

Major winter storm conditions were expected into Sunday evening, including snow in parts of New England and rain and freezing rain around the central Appalachian mountains.

New York City mainly saw rain, but counties to the north and west recorded double-digit snow totals by Sunday morning. Millbrook in Dutchess County, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of New York, recorded a foot of snow. Port Jervis in Orange County reported 13 inches (33 centimeters).

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday that she expected two-thirds of her state to get 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow or more, “fortunately missing some of our more populated areas downstate, the Long Island and New York City.”

In the West, a winter storm warning was in effect through Saturday night in the Sierra Nevada from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Reno, where the weather service said as much as 20 inches (50 centimeters) of snow could fall in the mountains around Lake Tahoe with winds gusting up to 100 mph (160 kph).

The California Highway Patrol said numerous spinouts and collisions forced an hourslong closure of Interstate 80 from west of Truckee, California to the state line west of Reno.

In Arizona transportation officials said several highways in the state's northern reaches -- including Interstate 40 near Williams and State Route 64 near Grand Canyon National Park -- were closed Sunday afternoon due to weather-related crashes and slide-offs from snowfall.

The National Weather Service said Flagstaff was expected to get 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeterds) of snow by Sunday night with Window Rock was forecast to receive 3 to 5 inches (7 to 12 centimeters).

In Nevada, the weather service said the wind chill dropped to 32 degrees at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Winds were gusting to 37 mph (60 kph). In northern and western New Mexico, wind chills of 10 to 25 degrees below zero (minus 23 to minus 30 Celsius) were forecast for early Tuesday.

The East Coast system was expected to track along the Northeast coast throughout the weekend.

A foot (30 centimeters) of snow was reported in parts of Monroe County, Pennsylvania, and 11 inches (27 centimeters) in New Jersey's Sussex County.

While warnings were being canceled and highway reduced-speed limits and other restrictions were lifted Sunday, motorists were being cautioned about the hazards of spotty freezing rain and black ice in southeast Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey.

In Massachusetts and portions of Rhode Island, the National Weather Service declared a winter storm warning from 4 p.m. Saturday through 1 a.m. Monday, with snow accumulations of between 6 and 12 inches and winds gusting to 35 mph (55 kph).

Ice arrived early Saturday in some western North Carolina and southern Virginia areas, ranging from a fine coating to around a quarter-inch (6 millimeters).

Forecasters also warned of another Northeast storm Tuesday into Wednesday that is expected to drop heavy rain on already saturated ground. They warned of possible flooding and coastal flooding and a threat of damaging winds that could topple trees and power lines.

___

Associated Press reporters Ron Todt in Philadelphia, Walter Berry in Phoenix, Arizona, and Carolyn Thompson contributed to this report.

Optimism was high this autumn as the U.S. headed into the viral season. The national arsenal against these viruses had vaccines against RSV for the first time, newly updated COVID-19 vaccines, and the flu “immunity debt” that plagued children in 2022 was history.

But now, confidence is waning. Accessing the vaccine for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, has been a struggle for many, and enthusiasm for the new COVID-19 vaccines turned out to be abysmal. COVID-19 hospital admissions have been rising since November and wastewater detection indicates most sites — 69 percent — are seeing large increases in virus levels. 

Flu activity across the country is currently "elevated and continues to increase in most parts of the country,” according to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And vaccine uptake for the flu seems to be lagging, with the CDC saying nearly 8 million fewer people got the shot by mid-December compared to the same period in 2022. 

During the first couple of years of the pandemic, flu activity remained low, attributed to the precautionary measures that communities took to mitigate the viral spread of COVID. The 2022-23 flu season appeared to mark a return to normal flu levels.

Only about a fifth of U.S. adults say they’ve received the newest COVID-19 shot, according to polling from KFF. Uptake for the previous bivalent shots was similarly low and many Americans likely haven’t been immunized since receiving their first doses in 2020 or 2021. 

“We're definitely seeing an increase in the number of flu cases, COVID-19. They're both surging right now,” said Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases and epidemiology with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann. 

Speaking on the RSV cases he’s seen in the Houston area, Ostrosky said infections appeared to surge earlier in December, though he is still seeing a “steady” number. 

“This is so alarming that it prompted CDC to send out a health alert towards the end of December reminding all clinicians to really work on getting patients vaccinated and, when they have symptoms, tested so that they can access therapy if they need it,” Ostrosky noted. 

Available RSV data from the CDC does seem to suggest test positivity peaked toward the end of November, with the positivity rates for antigen and PCR tests just beginning to drop in recent weeks. 

Hopes were high that the approval of two RSV vaccines for seniors and a preventive monoclonal antibody for infants would help keep cases low this season. 

But Sanofi, the maker of the monoclonal antibody Beyfortus, said in October that “unprecedented demand” had led to short supply, leading the CDC to advise doctors to reserve doses for their highest-risk patients. 

And RSV vaccine uptake among seniors appears rather lackluster, with CDC data suggesting only about 10 percent of nursing home residents had gotten immunized against the virus by mid-December. 

“The numbers are not looking good,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, of the three circulating viruses. 

“I think when we get some new numbers for the last week, it's going to be sort of continued trends in the same direction and increased activity across all of those conditions,” added Plescia. 

A holiday “bump” in cases is to be expected following weeks of year-end travel. AAA estimated in December that more than 115 million people in the U.S. would be traveling 50 miles or more from home during the festivities. 

Amid all the travel, Plescia lamented that social norms which he hoped became commonplace following the pandemic appeared to have been largely abandoned. 

“I think we're kind of going back to, you know, the old approach of people don't stay home when they're sick,” said Plescia. “And they think it's sort of a minor thing and the thought that they might infect somebody else just doesn't really occur to them.” 

Masking has also become rare once again, though Plescia noted many hospital systems are bringing back mask requirements amid the rise in respiratory viruses. These hospital-enacted requirements may be more easily accepted by communities than those issued by the government, and Plescia expects to see more like them in the future. 

While cases are rising, Plescia said his organization hasn’t yet heard of any health systems around the country being unduly stressed by the respiratory viral situation. 

"That is sort of the first concern with some kind of 'tripledemic' is that we would have so many people getting sick that hospitals would become overwhelmed either because they didn't have enough beds or they didn't have enough staff to care for that number of people. We're not hearing that we're approaching that, but that is the thing that we're most concerned about," he said.

Ostrosky is optimistic case rates will begin to go down soon after a potential holiday bump, with past winter peaks indicating a drop sometime in early January. He emphasized it is still worthwhile to get tested if you experience symptoms because there is now a plethora of therapeutics available for treating these infections. 

Going forward, Plescia also recommended that more focus be placed on vaccinations among health care workers. 

“That's important not just because we don't want health care workers to get sick and give it to their patients but also, you know, when you have a lot of health care workers getting sick, this whole capacity thing becomes problematic,” Plescia said.

“Because what we're hearing now is that hospitals are less concerned about not having enough beds. They're more concerned about having enough health care workers to staff those beds.” 

But what is cyber kidnapping and how can you protect yourself from becoming a victim?

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations, cyber — or virtual — kidnapping takes on many forms, but it is always an extortion scheme.

"Unlike traditional abductions, virtual kidnappers have not actually kidnapped anyone. Instead, through deceptions and threats, they coerce victims to pay a quick ransom before the scheme falls apart," FBI officials explained.

The scheme works by calling or contacting family members and saying their loved one is being held captive. Family members are coerced into paying a ransom to ensure the loved one's "quick release." In most cases, the loved one is never in actual physical danger.

Typically, victims have reported getting calls and hearing screams in the background. In another version of the fraud, victims are told their family member is injured and won't be allowed to go to the hospital until damages are paid.

In the case of Kai Zhang, the teen who was reported missing from Riverdale, Utah, in late December, police said it was a little bit different.

The Riverdale Police Department explained that virtual kidnappers have been known to target foreign exchange students. The kidnappers contact both the student and their families abroad, telling each that the other is in danger. They demand a ransom from the family while telling students to isolate themselves and monitor them through a cell phone, including the use of Facetime or Skype sessions. The victims are also convinced to take photos of themselves that make it appear as though they've been taken captive.

"The victims comply out of fear that their families will be harmed if they don't comply with the cyber kidnappers," said Riverdale Police in a press release. "The cyber kidnappers continue to extort the family by using fear tactics, photos and voice recordings of the victim, leading the family to believe the kidnappers are with the victim, causing them harm."

How to protect yourself from cyber kidnapping

Police said that anyone approached by cyber kidnappers should not give them any money and should contact the authorities immediately while stopping all communication with the criminals.

"I want foreign exchange students to know they can trust the police to protect them and to work with police to ensure their safety as well as their family's safety abroad," said Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren.

The FBI said the best course of action is to hang up and not engage with the caller, including mentioning your loved one's name on the phone. If you do engage with the caller, attempt to reach the alleged kidnap victim through social media or on another phone to ensure their safety.

"Try to slow the situation down. Request to speak to your family member directly and ask, 'How do I know my loved one is okay?'" the FBI suggested. "Ask questions only the alleged kidnap victim would know, such as the name of a pet. Avoid sharing information about yourself or your family."

Both the FBI and the National Institutes of Health said calls typically do not come from the alleged kidnapped victim's phones and callers will go to "great lengths" to keep you on the phone and prevent you from reaching out to your family member. They will also try to work quickly to get you to send them money.

If you suspect you've been the victim of cyber kidnapping or a real kidnapping is taking place, call 911 immediately and ask that the FBI be notified.

Since then, his family, loved ones, and the city have tried to heal.

"Tyre was a beautiful person. For this to happen to him is just unimaginable," RowVaughn Wells said at her son's funeral.

A mother's pain was forced into the nation's spotlight as she grieved her son's death.

Tyre Nichols was pulled over on January 7, 2023. Police said he was recklessly driving, although they've shown no proof.

The situation quickly escalated and was all caught on camera. It ended with a group of officers in black clothing surrounding Nichols.

Video of the incident showed Nichols was handcuffed as they used pepper spray and a stun gun, kicking and beating him. Nichols was heard calling for his mother. Her home was blocks away.

He was taken to the hospital where he died, three days later.

"You just beat him like a dog in the street," Wells said in an interview days later.

Nichols' family hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump.

Meanwhile, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy asked the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to investigate. Soon after, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice said they were investigating the incident as well.

On January 20, 2023, the Memphis Police Department announced it terminated five police officers involved. Indictments then followed.

Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Emmitt Martin, and Justin Smith were charged with second-degree murder, among other charges.

"The world is watching us, and we need to show them what lessons can be learned," DA Mulroy said.

The world continued to watch as part of the body camera and video footage of the brutal beating was released the next day. Outcry, pain, and emotions felt near and far.

"I want each and every one of you to protest in peace," Wells told protesters.

Thousands across Memphis and the country united to call for change.

It was clear Memphis reignited a larger, nationwide debate of what police reform should look like.

"How can we make some progress?" President Joe Biden asked as he called on lawmakers to once again discuss the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It would ban things like no-knock warrants and make it easier for the federal government to successfully prosecute police misconduct.

While the bill didn't make it past the Senate, there was action locally.

The Memphis City Council passed an ordinance in April preventing police from stopping drivers for minor traffic infractions. It also required MPD to make more of its traffic stop data public — data that has yet to be published.

Some activists said they want more.

"This has been a long-standing narrative and historical trajectory of the department," activist and pastor Earle Fisher said.

Others argue the council's reform prevents police from doing their job to keep the city safe. One state lawmaker will try to pass a law this session reversing the council's actions.

In the weeks and months following Nichols' death, three Memphis firefighters were fired, two Shelby County Sheriff's deputies were relieved of duty pending an investigation, and at least two more Memphis officers were terminated.

Seven officers were placed under internal review, and we found out that the supervising police lieutenant that night resigned before he could be disciplined.

"It's going to be important for us to demonstrate to the community that we can be trusted," Chief C.J. Davis said after the five officers were terminated.

Davis has since said officers are getting more training and supervision, and she disbanded the specialized unit the officers were assigned to. It was known as the SCORPION unit, and it was created in 2021 to focus on crime suppression, auto theft and gang activity.

Through the Tennessee Records Act, WREG Investigators requested the unit's directives, but that request remains in limbo. In fact, most of the requests by Nexstar's WREG pertaining to the unit, like complaints made and officers' disciplinary files, haven't been provided.

Despite a judge issuing an order last fall granting permission for the city to release additional video and employment files, that hasn't happened. At last check, the city said it was working to release the rest of the footage and employment files but there were a lot of redactions required by the court.

What has happened? Misconduct complaints have since surfaced surrounding the SCORPION Unit and the now-former officers, and more lawsuits were filed.

The DA's office says it dropped more than 30 cases since they all depended on testimony and reports from the five now-former officers. A dozen more sentences in cases were reduced.

The DOJ has also launched an investigation into the pattern of practice investigation within MPD over the summer.

In September, the former officers were federally charged, and two months after that, Mills pleaded guilty to two felony charges in federal court as part of a plea agreement, which includes pleading guilty to some of the state charges.

"This is one of many that I hope will come in our favor," Wells said.

Nichols' mother says it was the first time someone admitted to what they did to her 29-year-old son. The person who one year ago she was expecting to come home.

But then, as so much was during the pandemic, the deadline got pushed back. And back again. 

It’s a new year though, so you may be wondering, “Will I actually need that REAL ID this year?”

The short answer is no, you will not need a REAL ID to fly in 2024, but there is still a deadline in place. Here’s what you need to know. 

What is a REAL ID?

A REAL ID, meaning a driver’s license or state identification card, contains a star stamp. That star can have multiple different appearances depending on your state — more on that in a moment.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a special commission recommended that the federal government enact certain minimum security standards for driver’s licenses and identification cards. In 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act to do just that.

As part of the REAL ID Act, federal agencies, like TSA, are prohibited from accepting state-issued IDs that don’t meet the federal minimum standards, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This means that if you don’t have a REAL ID by the current federal deadline, you won’t be able to fly domestically, visit certain federal facilities, or enter a nuclear power plant.

When the REAL ID Act first passed, states required different types of documents to obtain a driver’s license, with some wanting more than others. Thankfully, all states now require, at minimum, that applicants provide the same information: proof of legal name, date of birth, Social Security number, legal residency, and two forms of your address.

When do I need a REAL ID?

Previously, the deadline was May 3, 2023. But roughly six months before that deadline, DHS extended it to May 7, 2025. It is worth noting that REAL ID-compliant documents are already required to enter some federal facilities. 

Once the deadline comes, anyone 18-years-old and older will require a REAL ID to pass through airports across the country. 

How to get a REAL ID

Luckily, you may already have a REAL ID. Many states have been issuing REAL IDs for years, meaning if you recently got or renewed your license, it’s likely REAL ID-compliant.

You can, in most cases, quickly tell if you have a REAL ID by checking the upper right-hand corner of your license or state-issued ID.

There should be a star of some sort. It will either be black or gold, a star or a cutout of a star, or a cut-out star in a bear if you live in California. This sample Kansas driver’s license, for example, has a gold circle with a white star cutout.

If your license or ID doesn’t have a star, it is still valid and you can still use it to fly until the 2025 deadline. Without a REAL ID, you’ll need another form like a valid passport or U.S. military ID. TSA lists other forms of ID that can also be used to board a plane, but only once the deadline has passed.

Those who opt out of getting a REAL ID will be issued licenses like the one pictured below, which has a “Federal Limits Apply” note in place of the star.

Ultimately, you’ll want to check with your local DMV to determine roughly how long it will take for your REAL ID to be available. If you have additional questions about REAL IDs, you can visit TSA’s website, DHS’s website, or contact your local DMV.

TSA lists other forms of ID that will also be accepted to board a plane when the time comes, like a passport or military ID.

Either way, you have well over a year to make sure you’re REAL ID-compliant.

The research effort spearheaded by UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography sheds new light on exactly what objects lay beneath the surface after thousands of "barrel-like" objects likely containing toxic chemicals were discovered by sonar in stretches of the seafloor in 2021.

Made public on Friday, the latest survey using sonar and robotic vehicles found a multitude of discarded munitions boxes and other explosives along debris lines between Los Angeles and Catalina, thousands of feet below the surface where they were previously identified.

Among the items discovered were depth charges typically used to attack submarines, Hedgehog and Mark 9 depth charges, and Mark 1 smoke floats, which are chemical smoke munitions that were often used by warships to conceal their movements.

Researchers say that these were likely discarded by Navy warships headed back to port — a practice that military officials confirmed was common in years past.

In a statement to the Scripps team, U.S. Navy officials said that "disposal of munitions at sea at this location was approved at that time to ensure safe disposal when naval vessels returned to U.S. port.” They added that officials are reviewing the findings to determine "the best path forward to ensure that the risk to human health and the environment is managed appropriately.”

These findings, scientists explained, are an important milestone in the exhaustive efforts to better understand the impacts of industrial dumping into the waters off the Southern California coast between the 1930s and 1970s, leading to the presence of the pesticide DDT that has plagued marine life in the area.

"This is a really interesting piece of work, because what it demonstrated or what it validated is that in fact there aren't a huge, vast quantity of barrels down there — at least not what we were thinking," Brice Simmons, a marine biologist with Scripps, said during a press briefing Friday. "It turns out that a lot of the dumping was simply bulk material dumped off to the side."

As the researchers explained, the barrel-like objects found in two of the dumpsites identified in earlier surveys using primarily sonar technology had near identical dimensions to the WWII munitions. Even more advanced sonar technology and the use of a high-definition deep-sea camera helped researchers distinguish between the two.

However, researchers say it will still take time to understand how massive amounts of DDT ended up in these areas, as well as how far it may be spreading through the food chain from the seafloor.

"There clearly is DDT present. One of the challenges working in the deep sea is being able to survey large areas at high resolution," said Eric Terrill, the director of Scripps' Marine Physical Laboratory. Terrill co-led the latest deep-ocean survey with researcher Sophia Merrifield.

"There is a lot of cloudiness around how the DDT actually arrived at the dump site: was it in the form of containerized waste or was it bulk dumping?" he continued. "What this does right now is set the stage for understanding an improved strategy about how to sample and understand the impacts to the environment."

Preliminary analyses suggest that it may have been through less visible pollution like the bulk dumping of DDT directly into the environment rather than through the discarding of containers.

“Our analysis of sediments are showing that bulk dumping of DDT acid waste was the norm, that DDT immediately entered the environment and was likely not in barrels,” said David Valentine, a researcher with the UC Santa Barbara team who first came across dozens of barrels — the contents of which remain a mystery.

“Once dumped, DDT spread at the seafloor, expanding its footprint to at least the base of the Catalina slope," he continued. "We are finding that original DDT remains abundant in the seafloor today, in both absolute and relative terms.” 

According to Scripps, there remains a plethora of information that its research team has yet to piece together — findings that can help inform additional studies of DDT and seafloor exploration at large.

“Our survey provides an opportunity to develop and apply analytical techniques to acoustic and optical imagery over wide-areas,” said Merrifield, an observational physical oceanographer who specializes in ocean robotics. “We anticipate these datasets will inform additional studies addressing impacts of dumping activities on the marine food web.” 

Amanda Brochu first shared her shocking story on GoFundMe back on Dec. 28. She said shortly after listing her Orlando-area home for sale, she began getting calls from people claiming they were "sent by a landlord to replace the driveway."

The problem? Brochu owns the home and said she never needed a new driveway.

According to WFTV, Brochu's son told her that people had stopped by the house to measure the driveway. The local outlet said Brochu counted five different contractors in the span of just a few days.

Then, one day when she came home, she found ripped-up grass and a muddy patch in the place where her concrete driveway used to sit.

"I came home and my driveway is gone,” she told WFTV.

According to WFTV, Brochu had confronted one of the contractors, who said a man claiming to be the landlord, named "Andre," reached out to him to ask about a driveway replacement quote.

"While I was preparing to head out of town for my birthday and Christmas with my kids, I received a Ring doorbell notification that someone was outside of my house, ripping up my driveway before my eyes," she wrote in her GoFundMe campaign.

Brochu added that by the time the cops got to her home, her driveway was "only dirt."

She stated that when the cops called the number for whomever "requested" the job, "they first denied it and hung up on the cops, but then proceeded to text the cop 'it was a mistake' and sent the number of a supposed contractor that was actually the number to the Orlando Airport."

"They said that he said it was a mistake," she told WFTV. "He just got the address wrong, nothing else will happen again." The next week, her driveway was gone.

The sight even left Brochu's real estate agent, Rocki Sanchez, in disbelief, according to WSVN.

"Utter shock. I’ve never seen this before. I’ve never had this happen to myself or anyone in our office,” Sanchez said.

Sanchez told WSVN that she posted about the incident in a Facebook group for relators, who said they've "seen things like this happen" before. Sanchez said she believes Brochu is a victim of a scam.

"I had multiple people come forward saying that they’ve seen things like this happen — whether it be driveways, roofs, painting, even outside the exterior,” she told WSVN. "So it happens more often than we actually see it."

According to WSVN, Brochu had previously replaced her roof and made another investment, and didn't have the $10,000 she was quoted to replace her driveway. With a missing driveway, she feared that no one would buy her home.

"No one’s gonna buy this. This brings down the property now, and that just messes it up for me and my family," she said.

Luckily for Brochu and her family, WFTV reported that after hearing her story, a sponsor for a local radio station offered to install a new driveway at no cost. The local outlet said Brochu plans to donate the $13,543 raised on GoFundMe to a local nonprofit.

The stunning visuals of the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-121 b, also known as Tylos, were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope during observations in the late 2010s.

Astronomers were able to combine those observations to create the video above. They described the fiery visual as cyclones being repeatedly created and destroyed because of the difference in temperatures on the exoplanet.

WASP-121 b is described as a hot Jupiter, an exoplanet with no direct solar system analog, and has temperatures exceeding 3,000 Kelvins. They're inflated gas giants that complete an orbit in a matter of a few days.

ESA said seeing the cyclones can help astronomers observing weather patterns on exoplanets like WASP-121 b.

“Weather on Earth is responsible for many aspects of our life, and in fact the long-term stability of Earth’s climate and its weather is likely the reason why life could emerge in the first place,” Quentin Changeat, an ESA Research Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in a press release. “Studying exoplanets’ weather is vital to understanding the complexity of exoplanet atmospheres, especially in our search for exoplanets with habitable conditions.”

The door is believed to be around Barnes Road near Hwy 217 and the Cedar Hills neighborhood, an area roughly 10 miles southwest of Portland International Airport (PDX).

That's the information National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy provided during a press conference Saturday night that is the first of likely many public briefings over the "terrifying" accident that happened on a Boeing 737 Max 9 carrying 171 passengers and 6 crew.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 lost the door plug mid-cabin at 16,000 feet shortly after takeoff from Portland Friday night, en route to Ontario, California. The pilot requested an emergency landing back at PDX and safely landed the plane around 5:30 p.m.

Homendy said their first full day of investigation will be Sunday and she said she would not speculate on what caused the mid-cabin door to blow out.

She said, "No one was seated in 26A and 26B," the seats immediately next to the non-operational door. That door, Homendy said, can be opened from the outside but was not operational on this aircraft because of the customer's request, which is to provide for a little more comfort for travelers.

The headrests are gone from seats 25A and 26A, she said, and there was some clothing in the area.

"It was a very chaotic scene" inside the plane, Homendy described. Although it may not seem this way from the video, "it was very loud" as well.

"Fortunately, they were not at cruise altitude of 35,000 feet," she said. At that altitude, people often unbuckle their seat belts and could have been walking around.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg reached out to Homedy to offer help and coordination, and she went out of her way to thank the first responders at the scene, including the Port of Portland and the Portland police.

The lead investigator is John Lovell. Anyone who spots the door or any other debris is urged to report it to NTSB via email.

As the investigation begins with other parties, including the FAA, Boeing, Alaska Airlines and the pilot and flight attendants associations, Homendy said their focus at this time is this particular aircraft.

But she added, "At this stage of the investigation, everything is in. As we are gathering information, we could go very broad or we could hone in on certain aspects."

There will likely be another press briefing on Sunday and Homendy said she hopes to have more detail on the pressurization, locks, and hinges around the door along with safety briefings.

At this time, Homendy said they do not suspect a design flaw.

"We are only focused on this investigation and this airplane. But, again, nothing is out and we will go where the investigation takes us."

The Associated Press reports the plane involved in Friday's incident is brand-new — it began carrying passengers in November and has made only 145 flights, according to Flightradar24, a flight-tracking service.

In a statement late Saturday afternoon, Alaska Airlines said, "The aircraft involved in flight 1282 was delivered to us on Oct. 31, 2023. The part of the aircraft involved in this event is called a plug door – a specific panel of the fuselage near the rear of the aircraft."

Alaska Airlines added, "As of 4 pm PT today (Saturday), we have cancelled 160 total flights, affecting roughly 23,000 guests. We are identifying necessary cancellations for tomorrow and expect the disruption to last through at least mid-week. A flexible travel policy is in place for guests to change or cancel their flights. Guests should visit alaskaair.com for rebooking options. We are deeply sorry for the disruption this has caused our guests."

Federal officials on Saturday ordered the immediate grounding of some Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners until they are inspected.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Morgan was found dead in her room by a roommate on December 30, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office told TMZ and USA Today.

Morgan's roommate reportedly explained that she went to check on the actress after returning from a holiday trip but received no response when she knocked on Morgan's door.

The roommate told police she smelled a strong odor coming from inside and called 911. She had last seen Morgan alive 11 days prior.

No foul play is suspected, but an investigation into her death is underway. The sheriff's office said Morgan died of "natural causes," TMZ and USA Today report.

Born in Chicago in 1954, Morgan studied communications at Northern Illinois University before giving weather reports on WIFR-TV and working at WROK in Rockford, Illinois.

According to her IMDb biography, after appearing at auto shows for Fiat, she moved to Los Angeles in 1978.

Morgan played Lacey Underall in the 1980 comedy "Caddyshack" opposite Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Rodney Dangerfield.

In 1982, she played both Dr. Lora Baines and her digital counterpart, Yori, opposite Jeff Bridges in the cutting-edge Disney sci-fi movie "Tron."

On television, she had roles in "The Love Boat," "CHiPs," "The Fall Guy," "Matlock," "Falcon Crest," and more.

"It is vitally important that you read your email and texts carefully, social media strategist and expert Scott Kleinberg told WGN Radio's Bob Sirott earlier this month. "When it comes to our online life, we scan — we don't read, and we don't read because we don't have time to read."

By not reading carefully, Kleinberg warns, we can miss important clues that what we're reading is, in fact, a scam.

Take, for example, an email asking you to update your credit card information for a company. You may be prompted to log into an account to do this, likely already a red flag that the email is a scam.

"That's just not how reputable companies operate. Just because you receive it doesn't mean you should act on it, and therein lies the big problem — so many of us do," Kleinberg says (you can listen to his full interview in the audio player below).

He also notes that there are "tells" that will give away a spam email, even if it's written by a bot. Among those is the language of the message.

"When the English sounds just a little bit off, or the sentence has extra spaces between periods," Kleinberg says, pointing out some of the key red flags of an AI-written email. Other warning signs may include a different text or font type than you might expect.

If you've taken a cyber security course for work, you've likely been warned to check the originating email address on a suspicious email. Kleinberg says if you hover over or click on the sender's name and see an email that doesn't seem to fit, it "should be a big red flag waving in your face that you may be about to fall for something sinister."

Here's an example of a scam email. While it may seem like a real Delta Airlines message, the email address shows it's most likely a scam.

Falling for a scam email can have dire consequences. Let's say you do send that suspicious account your login information — you may have just made your other accounts vulnerable as well if they use the same login, Kleinberg warns.

If you have even the slightest bit of doubt about the validity of an email, Kleinberg recommends calling the company or logging into your account to see if the request is valid.

"I would much rather take five or ten minutes now to call the company and inquire than deal with the consequences of not taking that step," he adds, noting that in most cases, a reputable company wouldn't contact you via email or text for your personal information.

Last year, the Better Business Bureau warned that while older adults are prime to falling victim to scams, younger adults, specifically Gen Z, are losing the most money to scams. The BBB does offer a Scam Tracker, which allows you to report suspected scams and view those that others have reported.

The required inspections take around four to eight hours per aircraft and affect about 171 airplanes worldwide.

Alaska Airlines said in a statement that of the 65 737 Max 9 aircraft in its fleet, crews had inspected the paneled-over exits as part of recent maintenance work on 18 planes, and those were cleared to return to service Saturday. Inspections for the remaining aircraft were expected to be completed in the coming days, the company said.

An Alaska Airlines jetliner blew out a portion of its fuselage shortly after takeoff 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) above Oregon late Friday, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing as its 171 passengers and six crew members donned oxygen masks.

No one was seriously hurt as the depressurized plane returned safely to Portland International Airport about 20 minutes after departure.

Authorities are still looking for the door from the paneled-over exit and have a good idea of where it landed, near Oregon Route 217 and Barnes Road in the Cedar Hills area west of Portland, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference late Saturday.

“If you find that, please, please contact local law enforcement,” she said.

It was extremely lucky that the airplane had not yet reached cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants might be walking around the cabin, Homendy said.

“No one was seated in 26A and B where that door plug is, the aircraft was around 16,000 feet and only 10 minutes out from the airport when the door blew,” she said.

The headrests were gone on seats 26A and 25A and 26A was missing part of its seatback. There were also clothing items strewn about the area, Homendy said.

There has not been a major crash involving a U.S. passenger carrier within the country since 2009 when a Colgan Air flight crashed near Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people onboard and one person on the ground. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines flight arriving from South Korea crashed at San Francisco International Airport, killing three of the 307 people onboard.

Passenger Evan Smith said a boy and his mother were sitting in the row where the panel blew out, and the child’s shirt was sucked off him and out of the plane.

“You heard a big loud bang to the left rear. A whooshing sound and all the oxygen masks deployed instantly and everyone got those on,” Smith told KATU-TV.

Homendy could not confirm reports that anyone had a shirt sucked off by the depressurization or provide details yet about what happened to those sitting closest to the blown fuselage.

Homendy and investigators from the NTSB arrived in Portland on Saturday to begin an investigation that is likely to last months.

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said the inspection of the company's 737-9 aircraft could take days to complete. They make up a fifth of the company's 314 planes.

“We are working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred ... and will share updates as more information is available,” Minicucci said. “My heart goes out to those who were on this flight – I am so sorry for what you experienced.”

Alaska canceled more than 100 flights, or 15% of its Saturday schedule by midday, according to FlightAware. United said the plane inspections would result in about 60 cancellations.

The Port of Portland, which operates the airport, told KPTV that the fire department treated minor injuries at the scene. One person was taken for more treatment but wasn't seriously hurt.

Flight 1282 took off from Portland at 5:07 p.m. Friday for a two-hour flight to Ontario, California. About six minutes later, the chunk of the fuselage blew out as the plane was at about 16,000 feet (4.8 kilometers). One of the pilots declared an emergency and asked for clearance to descend to 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), the altitude where the air would have enough oxygen to breathe safely.

'We need to turn back to Portland," the pilot told controllers in a calm voice that she maintained throughout the landing.

Videos posted by passengers online showed a gaping hole where the paneled-over exit had been and passengers wearing masks. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout. Firefighters then came down the aisle, asking passengers to remain in their seats as they treated the injured.

The aircraft involved rolled off the assembly line and received its certification two months ago, according to online FAA records. It had been on 145 flights since entering commercial service Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft's third of the day.

Aviation experts were stunned that a piece would fly off a new aircraft. Anthony Brickhouse, a professor of aerospace safety at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said he has seen panels of fuselage come off planes before, but couldn’t recall one where passengers “are looking at the lights of the city.”

He said the incident is a reminder for passengers to stay buckled in.

“If there had been a passenger in that window seat who just happened to have their seat belt off, we’d be looking at a totally different news story.”

The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s venerable 737, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane frequently used on U.S. domestic flights. The plane went into service in May 2017.

The president of the union representing flight attendants at 19 airlines, including Alaska Airlines, commended the crew for keeping passengers safe.

“Flight Attendants are trained for emergencies and we work every flight for aviation safety first and foremost,” Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said in a statement Saturday.

Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a near two-year worldwide grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes. They returned to service only after Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.

Last year the FAA told pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system on the Max in dry conditions because of concern that inlets around the engines could overheat and break away, possibly striking the plane.

Max deliveries have been interrupted at times to fix manufacturing flaws. The company told airlines in December to inspect the planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder-control system.

2004 was also a significant year for music.

Wanting to go in a new direction after winning the debut season of "American Idol," Kelly Clarkson released her second studio album, "Breakaway," in 2004, which sold over 12 million copies and eventually earned the artist her first two Grammys.

Gwen Stefani, the face of the popular rock group "No Doubt," released her first solo album, diving deeper into the pop genre.

After making a name for himself as a ground-breaking producer, Kanye West (who now goes by just Ye) proved himself to be an equally capable rapper, releasing his first album, "The College Dropout," which launched him into stardom.

Pop punk and emo were at the peak of their popularity, spawning singles that would make an impact on the radio charts.

Add a few one-hit wonders and some all-star collaborations, and it's easy to see why 2004 is a year in music that arguably defined a generation.

Below are just a few of the songs released in 2004, making 2024 the year they turn 20 years old:

• "1985" — Bowling for Soup
• "Accidentally In Love" — Counting Crows
• "All Falls Down" — Kanye West feat. Shyleena Johnson
• "American Idiot" — Green Day
• "Confessions, Pt. 2" — Usher
• "Drop It Like It's Hot" — Snoop Dogg feat. Pharrell
• "Float On" — Modest Mouse
• "Gasolina" — Daddy Yankee
• "Goodies" — Ciara feat. Petey Pablo
• "Heaven" — Los Lonely Boys
• "Hollaback Girl" — Gwen Stefani
• "Leave (Get Out)" — JoJo
• "Let Me Love You" — Mario
• "Live Like You Were Dying" — Tim McGraw
• "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" — My Chemical Romance
• "Mr. Brightside" — The Killers
• "My Happy Ending" — Avril Lavigne
• "On The Way Down" — Ryan Cabrera
• "Over And Over" — Nelly feat. Tim McGraw
• "Pieces of Me" — Ashlee Simpson
• "Redneck Woman" — Gretchen Wilson
• "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" — Big & Rich
• "Since U Been Gone" — Kelly Clarkson
• "The Reason" — Hoobastank
• "Vertigo" — U2
• "Yeah" — Usher feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris

The pileup involving 35 cars happened around 7:30 a.m. Saturday west of Bakersfield, according to authorities. Kern County Fire Department spokesman Jim Calhoun told reporters that visibility was roughly 10 feet when crews arrived to the “chaotic” scene.

The crash, spread over about half a mile (0.80 kilometers), involved 17 passenger vehicles and 18 big rigs. Two people were pronounced dead at the scene and nine others were hospitalized with minor injuries, authorities said.

“It was pretty chaotic when I first pulled up at the scene, it was compressed natural gas, saddle tanks on the side of some the big rigs that were ruptured, so a lot of the bystanders that weren’t injured were trying to help people and were in a plume of natural gas so we had to deal with that first and get everyone evacuated from that area,” Calhoun told KBAK-TV on Saturday.

The California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans, said Saturday that southbound lanes would remain closed overnight while crews cleaned up debris and determined an official cause of the crash.

A message left Sunday with Caltrans wasn’t immediately returned.

The show is known for its boozy celebration of film and television and as an early stop for awards season contenders. Scandals have led to a membership revamp and a new broadcaster for the Jan. 7 show, but a key question remains: Will viewers tune in? The show certainly is betting on it, unveiling a starry list of presenters including the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Yeoh, Ben Affleck and Dua Lipa.

Here’s what to know about the 81st Golden Globe Awards.

HOW CAN I WATCH THE GOLDEN GLOBES?

Viewers in the United States can catch the ceremony, broadcast live from the Beverly Hilton hotel, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. It will air beginning at 5 p.m. on the West Coast.

Here's more information about how to watch the Golden Globes live, including streaming the red carpet and backstage interviews.

WHAT’S NEW WITH THE GOLDEN GLOBES?

It will be the first major broadcast of awards season, with a new home on CBS. And while to audiences it might look similar on the surface, it’s been a tumultuous few years behind the scenes following a bombshell report in the Los Angeles Times. The 2021 report found that there were no Black members in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which voted on the awards.

Stars and studios boycotted the Globes and NBC refused to air it in 2022 as a result. After the group added journalists of color to its ranks and instituted other reforms to address ethical concerns, the show came back last January in a one-year probationary agreement with NBC. The network did not opt to renew.

In June, billionaire Todd Boehly was granted approval to dissolve the HFPA and reinvent the Golden Globes as a for-profit organization. Its assets were acquired by Boehly’s Eldridge Industries, along with Dick Clark Productions, a group owned by Penske Media — whose assets also include Variety, Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone and Billboard.

The show has also added a new award for stand-up comedy, with Chris Rock, Amy Schumer and former Globes host Ricky Gervais among the nominees.

WHO'S HOSTING THE GLOBES?

Comedian Jo Koy, who has headlined several Netflix specials and starred in last year's comedy film “Easter Sunday,” will host the Globes.

Organizers cited his “infectious energy and relatable humor" in announcing Koy would headline the event.

Hosting the Globes typically requires serving a mix of biting humor to the audience of film and television stars and keeping the ceremony from getting too sloppy. Koy promised to deliver, in an interview with The Associated Press.

“They’re giving me the blessing to be me,” he said. “I want to bring my style to the Globes. Of course, I’m going to have fun. But most importantly, I want to make sure everyone’s happy. I’m going to make fun of myself. If I can do that, I can make fun of other people.”

WHO'S PRESENTING AT THE GLOBES?

The full list of presenters was unveiled Friday, following an early peek Wednesday.

Yeoh is returning to the Globes a year after she won best actress in a drama film for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” delivering a poignant acceptance speech (and a semi-serious threat to beat up the piano player who started to cut her off).

Other presenters announced include Angela Bassett, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Annette Bening, Mark Hamill, Kevin Costner, Jonathan Bailey, Orlando Bloom and Will Ferrell.

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINEES

“Barbie” is the top nominee this year, followed closely by “Oppenheimer.”

The films reflect one unique aspect of the Globes — they split the top film winners into two categories. With Greta Gerwig's “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer” leading the way, it gives the show a chance to capitalize on the Barbenheimer craze that boosted theaters.

Films nominated for best motion picture drama include “Oppenheimer,” Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” and Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.”

In the best motion picture musical or comedy category, “Barbie” was joined by Ben Affleck's “Air,” Cord Jefferson's “American Fiction,” Alexander Payne's “The Holdovers,” Todd Haynes' “May December” and Yorgos Lanthimos' “Poor Things.”

“Succession” was the top-nominated television program, with nine nods including for series stars Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin, followed by Hulu’s “The Bear.”

For the full list of nominees, click here.

WHO VOTES ON THE GLOBES?

The group nominating and voting for the awards is now made up of a more diverse group of over 300 people from around the world.

WHAT ARE THE GLOBES KNOWN FOR?

The Golden Globe Awards had long been one of the highest-profile awards season broadcasts, second only to the Oscars.

The show was touted as an A-list party whose hosts often took a more irreverent tone than their Academy counterparts. It also only honored the flashiest filmmaking categories — picture, director, actors among them — meaning no long speeches from visual effects supervisors or directors of little-known shorts.

But the voting body was a small group of around 87 members who wielded incredible influence in the industry and often accepted lavish gifts and travel from studios and awards publicists eager to court favor and win votes.

Some years, the HFPA were pilloried for nominating poorly reviewed films with big-name talent in hopes of getting them to the show — the most infamous being “The Tourist,” with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. In the past decade, they’ve more often overlapped with the Oscars. The show also recognizes television.

Before the expose and public relations crisis though, no one in the industry took much umbrage with who was voting on the awards. The show had become an important part of the Hollywood awards ecosystem, a platform for Oscar hopefuls and was, until recently, a reliable ratings draw. As of 2019, the broadcast was still pulling in nearly 19 million viewers. In 2023, NBC’s Tuesday night broadcast got its smallest audience ever for a traditional broadcast, with 6.3 million viewers.

But it would seem that Cecil has pretty expensive taste, considering he ate $4,000 in cash that he snatched off the couple's counter.

In a video posted to Instagram last month, Carrie Law shared their story, which has since gone viral with millions of views and made national headlines.

Law says the money was out on the counter to pay for a housing and landscaping project, and this was the first time Cecil had ever pulled something off the counter.

Thankfully Cecil is OK, but the couple had to dig through the Goldendoodle's feces and vomit to salvage all the money they could find.

After deep-cleaning the pieces, the couple tried taping the cash back together to see what the bank could replace. In the Instagram video, Law says they've recovered $3,550 so far.

"The bank assured us that this happens all the time," Law said in the post.

The remaining pieces are being converted into the couple's "most expensive piece of art," the video says.

According to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, mutilated money can be redeemed if:

1. Clearly more than 50% of a note identifiable as United States currency is present, along with sufficient remnants of any relevant security feature; or
2. 50% or less of a note identifiable as United States currency is present and the method of mutilation and supporting evidence demonstrate to the satisfaction of the BEP that the missing portions have been totally destroyed.

We've already surpassed "the darkest" day of the season, which fell on Dec. 21 last year. Depending on where you live, you saw as little as six hours of daylight that day.

Since then, we've been on an upswing, slowly gaining more daylight each day. The sun has been setting later, but that has been offset by sunrise happening later.

In Chicago, for example, the sun rose at 7:15 a.m. on Dec. 21 and set at 4:23 p.m., according to NOAA's Solar Calculator. As of Jan. 4, the sun is rising at around 7:18 a.m. and setting at 4:33 p.m., working out to a roughly seven-minute net gain in daylight hours.

We'll gain much more daylight as January continues along. In some parts of the country, there will be more than an extra hour of daylight by the end of the month.

Residents in Anchorage, Alaska, will see the largest increase in daylight hours this year. NOAA's Solar Calculator shows the sun rose around 10:14 a.m. local time on Jan. 1 and set around 3:53 p.m., working out to less than six hours of daylight total. By Jan. 31, sunrise will be around 9:23 a.m., and sunset will happen shortly after 5 p.m.: That's seven hours and 41 minutes of total daylight, an increase of more than two hours over the start of the month.

Areas across the northern Lower 48, like Seattle and the northern tip of Minnesota, will see their total daylight increase by about an hour. The further south you travel in the U.S., the less drastic that increase is, which isn't necessarily a surprise because these areas are already having more daylight than the northern states.

Tampa, Florida, started the new year with almost 10 and a half hours of daylight. The area will gain about 28 minutes of sunshine before February. Meanwhile, Honolulu is on pace to gain only 20 minutes of daylight — Hawaii is already seeing much more sunlight than the rest of the country, and will close out January with more than 11 hours of sun each day.

Here's a look at how much daylight cities across the U.S. will gain before February begins:

You can compare your January sunrise and sunset times using NOAA’s Solar Calculator, seen here. You can either click on one of the pre-marked cities on the map, drag the red pin to your location, or input your latitude and longitude below the map. Then, click the “Create Sunrise/Sunset Tables for the Year” button.

We'll continue to see more and more daylight hours until June, when we have the longest "day," or most hours between sunrise and sunset. Then, we start losing daylight again.

The daylight gain may seem like it's briefly interrupted when daylight saving time begins in March. The sun will come up later in the morning and stick around later into the day, but the days will still continue to get longer — much longer than they are now. While Chicago has about nine hours of daylight right now, that'll be up to almost 12 hours when daylight saving starts.

Strikingly, the flare-up of debate in Catholic ranks coincides with developments in two other international Christian denominations — the global Anglican Communion and the United Methodist Church — that are fracturing over differences in LGBTQ-related policies.

Taken together, it’s a dramatic illustration of how – in a religion that stresses God’s love for humanity – divisions over marriage, sexuality, and inclusion of gays and lesbians are proving insurmountable for the foreseeable future in many sectors of Christianity.

Ryan Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University and pastor of an American Baptist church, says it's become increasingly difficult for Christian denominations to fully accommodate clergy and congregations with opposing views on same-sex relationships, particularly as such marriages have become legal in much of Europe and the Western Hemisphere.

“A lot of denominations are in the position where you have to make a decision — you can’t be wishy-washy anymore,” said Burge, a specialist in religious demographics. “That’s the tension they’re facing: how to keep older conservatives in the fold while attracting younger people.”

For global denominations — notably Catholics, Anglicans and United Methodists — Burge sees another source of tension: Some of their biggest growth in recent decades has been in socially conservative African countries where same-sex relationships are taboo.

“African bishops have this ammunition,” Burge said. “They say to the West, 'We’re the ones growing. You have the money, we have the numbers.'”

Kim Haines-Eitzen, a professor of religious studies at Cornell University, said Christianity — throughout its history — has been divided over differing theological views, such as whether women could be ordained as clergy.

“Christianity is incredibly diverse — globally, theologically, linguistically, culturally,” she said. “There are bound to be these incredibly divisive issues, especially when bound up in scriptural interpretation. That’s what keeps world religions alive — that kind of push and pull.”

ANGST AMONG ANGLICANS

Among Christian denominations, the Anglican Communion is second only to the Catholic Church in geographic spread. Divisions over marriage, sexuality and LGBTQ inclusion have roiled the communion for many years, and they widened Dec. 17, when Church of England priests offered officially sanctioned blessings of same-sex partnerships for the first time.

The Church of England’s ban on church weddings for gay couples remains, but the decision to allow blessings has infuriated several conservative Anglican bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific.

Caught in the middle is the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby — the top bishop of the Church of England and ceremonial leader of the Anglican Communion.

Welby says he won’t personally bless same-sex couples because it’s his job to unify the world’s 85 million Anglicans. That hasn’t appeased some conservative bishops, who say they no longer recognize Welby as their leader.

The decision to allow blessings of same-sex couples followed five years of discussions about church positions on sexuality. Church leaders apologized for a failure to welcome LGBTQ people but also affirmed the doctrine that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.

“What we have proposed as a way forward does not go nearly far enough for many, but too far for others,” said Sarah Mullally, bishop of London.

UNITED METHODIST SEPARATION

A slow-motion breakup is underway in the United Methodist Church. A few years ago, it was the third-largest denomination in the United States, but a quarter of U.S. congregations have recently received permission to leave over disputes involving LGBTQ-related policies.

Of the more than 7,650 departing churches, most are conservative-leaning congregations responding to what they see as a failure to enforce bans on same-sex marriage and the ordaining of openly LGBTQ people.

There’s no firm estimate of how many members are leaving, as some who belong to departing congregations are joining other UMC churches. But UMC officials are preparing to cut denominational agencies' budgets in anticipation of lower revenues from church offerings.

United Methodist rules forbid same-sex marriage rites and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals,” but progressive Methodist churches in the U.S. have increasingly defied these rules.

Conservatives have mobilized like-minded congregations to exit; many are joining the new Global Methodist Church, which intends to enforce such rules.

More than half of United Methodist members are overseas, many in conservative African churches. When UMC delegates meet this spring, they're expected to debate proposals to liberalize ordination and marriage policies, and make it easier for overseas churches to leave.

SPLITS IN OTHER PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS

Presaging the UMC schism, several other mainline Protestant denominations over the past two decades endured splits resulting from irreconcilable differences between supporters and opponents of LGBTQ inclusion. For example, after the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay bishop in 2003, some dioceses and conservatives formed the Anglican Church in North America.

Similar liberal/conservative differences prompted hundreds of congregations to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) after they embraced LGBTQ-inclusive policies.

Some conservative denominations — such as the Southern Baptist Convention and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — have adhered firmly to policies that reject recognition of same-sex relationships and ordination of openly LGBTQ people. These policies have prompted departures, but no major schism.

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptists’ public policy commission, reiterated the SBC’s position in a statement asserting that the Vatican — under Pope Francis — “has been on a trajectory that seems destined for the allowance of same-sex marriage.”

“The reality is marriage has been defined by God ... It is a union between one man and one woman for life,” Leatherwood said. “Southern Baptists remain anchored in this truth.”

ORTHODOX CHURCH DISAPPROVAL

The world's second-largest Christian communion, after the Catholic Church, is the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 220 million members, concentrated mostly in Eastern Europe and Western Asia. To a large extent, Orthodox Christians disapprove of same-sex marriage and relationships.

In Greece, where the government is pledging to legalize same-sex marriage, the Orthodox Church has expressed strong opposition.

Russia's Orthodox Church has supported tough anti-LGBTQ legislation enacted with the support of President Vladimir Putin.

NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS

Debate over LGBTQ inclusion hasn't been as divisive in the world's other major religions as in Christianity.

In the Muslim world, there's widespread disapproval of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage; many Muslim nations criminalize homosexuality. However, some LGBTQ-inclusive mosques have surfaced in North America and other places.

Among Jews around the world, there are varying approaches to LGBTQ issues, but relatively little high-profile rancor. Orthodox Judaism disapproves of same-sex marriage and sexual relations, while they're widely accepted in the Reform and Conservative branches.

In Hinduism and Buddhism, there is no universal, official position on same-sex marriage. Many practitioners of the two faiths disapprove of such unions; some communities are more accepting.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

At Florida's only public historically Black university, some students now fear political constraints might get in the way of teaching parts of their history.

A law signed last spring by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, blocks public colleges from using taxpayer money on diversity programs. It also forbids instruction of theories that "systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.”

The new law, part of broader GOP efforts to rein in campus efforts on equity and inclusion, has spurred protests on campus. Some students say they are watching for signs the new guidance will affect teaching of topics related to race and American history.

Chad Preston, a senior political science major, said he worries some viewpoints will be silenced.

“We deserve the same level of education that all these other states are getting. We deserve the same information,” he said.

DeSantis describes the law as an effort to rid university classrooms of what he calls left-leaning “woke” indoctrination. His education policies — including limits on what schools can teach about racism and which bathrooms students use — have faced criticism from civil rights leaders but fueled his political rise by harnessing culture war passions.

“In reality, what this concept of DEI has been is to attempt to impose orthodoxy on the university,” DeSantis said at a ceremony in May when he signed the bill into law. “This has basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda, and that is wrong.”

The university, founded in 1887, hosts about 10,000 students at its campus a few blocks from the state capitol.

The new law has made Florida a difficult learning environment for students and faculty of color, said Marybeth Gasman, a Rutgers University historian whose research focuses on historically Black colleges and universities and systemic racism in higher education.

“I’ve talked to some FAMU faculty who have basically told me that they’re keeping their head down because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs,” Gasman said. “If I were in Florida, I would probably be concerned as well.”

FAMU has not seen upheaval anywhere near the scale of New College of Florida, a progressive campus where DeSantis and his allies overhauled the Board of Trustees and installed a majority of conservative figures. But many on the FAMU campus are wary.

Asked about the impact of the new law, a university spokesperson referred to a comment Florida A&M President Larry Robinson made in June.

“There are more than 30 pieces of legislation passed this legislative session that have some impact on educational institutions in Florida, including FAMU, and we take them all seriously,” Robinson said. “But our commitment to ‘Excellence With Caring’ remains strong, and remains unchanged.”

In early December, the board overseeing Florida’s state university system released proposed regulations outlining programs that would be prohibited from receiving state or federal money under the new law. Programs on the outs would include any that promote “differential or preferential treatment of individuals, or classifies such individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

The FAMU Democrats have been taking steps to ensure the messages of speakers they invite to campus are moderate, said Jovan Mickens, a senior and president of the student political group.

“With my organization, there are certain things I can’t do like bring certain people on campus for a panel discussion. We’re tip-toeing around this university,” he said.

Historically Black colleges and universities often receive less funding than predominantly white public colleges. A group of students at FAMU have filed a lawsuit against the state, saying it has underfunded their school by nearly $1.3 billion.

But for leaders of public colleges, pushing back on policies they disagree with could put them at odds with the same officials deciding on their budgets, said Abul Pitre, chair of the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University.

“It requires a certain kind of balance that does not allow them to have too much of an Afrocentric social justice perspective, because they have to go to the same politicians for money who are advocating to eliminate it,” he said.

Raghan Pickett, a senior at FAMU, traces her lineage back to Rosewood, Florida, where hundreds of Black people were killed or driven out in 1923 by a mob of white men who then destroyed their neighborhoods. She fears the new law could stop instructors from teaching about such atrocities.

“Back then, it was afraid of being lynched,” Pickett said. “Today, Black people are still struggling. We’re still fighting to learn basic history.”

___

The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

A 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel dissolved a temporary hold on a lower court injunction blocking the law. The hold was issued by a different 9th Circuit panel and had allowed the law to go into effect Jan. 1.

Saturday's decision keeps in place a Dec. 20 ruling by U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney blocking the law. Carney said that it violates the Second Amendment and that gun rights groups would likely prevail in proving it unconstitutional.

The law, signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, prohibits people from carrying concealed guns in 26 types of places including public parks and playgrounds, churches, banks and zoos. The ban applies regardless of whether a person has a concealed carry permit.

Newsom has positioned himself as a leader on gun control and says he will keep pushing for stricter regulations.

Following Saturday's ruling his office issued a statement saying, “this dangerous decision puts the lives of Californians on the line.”

The president of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, which sued to block the law, countered that “the politicians’ ploy to get around the Second Amendment has been stopped for now.”

Winter storm warnings and watches were in effect throughout the Northeast, and icy roads made for hazardous travel as far south as North Carolina.

The National Weather Service said it was a “major winter storm” that would continue into Sunday evening, with up to a foot (30 centimeters) of snow in parts of New England and pockets of rain/freezing rain in the central Appalacians.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she expected two-thirds of her state to get 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow or more, “fortunately missing some of our more populated areas downstate, the Long Island and New York City.”

“If they get anything beyond rain, it’ll be just a wintry mix of 1 to 2 inches (2.5 to 5 centimeters), but really for our Southern Tier ... it’s going to be the first major snowstorm of the year and we’re ready for it,” she told Spectrum News.

In the West, a winter storm warning was in effect through Saturday night in the Sierra Nevada from south of Yosemite National Park to north of Reno, where the weather service said as much as 20 inches (51 centimeters) of snow could fall in the mountains around Lake Tahoe with winds gusting up to 100 mph (160 kph) over ridgetops.

The California Highway Patrol said numerous spinouts and collisions forced the temporary closure of I-80 for several hours from west of Truckee, California, to the state line west of Reno, where more than 27,000 homes briefly lost power in high winds at midday.

Fewer than 1,000 customers were without power by nightfall, and westbound lanes of the interestate had reopened but a steady snow was falling in Reno and CHP warned of potential closures throught the night.

The weather service said that system would continue to bring heavy mountain snow and coastal rain overnight before moving into central and Southern California, then off to the Southwest and the southern Rockies.

The East Coast system was expected to track along the northeastern coastline throughout the weekend, with the heaviest snowfall expected in Pennsylvania, parts of the Hudson Valley and portions of New England.

In Massachusetts and portions of Rhode Island, the National Weather Service declared a winter storm warning from 4 p.m. Saturday through 1 a.m. Monday, with snow accumulations of 6 inches (15.2 centimeters) up to a foot (30.4 centimeters) and winds gusting as high as 35 mph (56 kph).

The weather service predicted similar levels of snow in portions of Maine and New Hampshire, with slightly less — 3 to 6 inches (7.6 to 15.2 centimeters) — in areas of Vermont.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the city was preparing for the storm but wasn’t expecting it to be a major event, and the timing of the snow meant it would likely have less of an impact on city life. Storm surges were also not expected.

Ice arrived early Saturday to some western North Carolina and southern Virginia areas, ranging from a fine coating to around a quarter-inch (6.4 millimeters). Watauga County, North Carolina saw some of the highest amounts, said meteorologist Dennis Sleighter of the National Weather Service’s Blacksburg, Virginia, office.

The National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, said 6 to 12 inches (15.2 to 30.4 centimeters) of snow could fall in the southern Pocono mountains and northern New Jersey, with smaller snow and sleet totals changing to rain in other areas that could cause some flooding. Forecasters also warned of hazardous marine conditions Saturday night with gale-force wind gusts and 6-foot to 10-foot (1.8- to 3-meter) seas.

Forecasters also warned of another storm Tuesday into Wednesday that is expected to bring rain and some flooding as well as high winds and coastal flooding.

Philadelphia has already reached 705 consecutive days with less than an inch (0.64 centimeters) of snow, through Friday — beating the prior record of 661 days that ended on Dec. 15, 1973. New York City went 691 days through Friday, outstripping the prior record of 383 days that ended on March 21, 1998. Baltimore reached 707 days through Friday, beating the prior record of 672 days that ended on Dec. 25, 2012.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont says it’s been about two years since a major storm hit the state.

“I think this storm’s been a long time coming,” Lamont said.

___

Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press reporters Julie Walker in New York, Ron Todt in Philadelphia, Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee, and Michael Sisak in New York contributed.

The study gave the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data on fatal collisions between the years of 2017 and 2021 in order to compare the amount of total fatal crashes to total fatal crashes involving two-wheeled vehicles.

“Hawaii is a beautiful place to cycle, with stunning views and weather, bike tourism is on the rise,” said an Anidjar and Levine spokesperson.

According to reports, Hawaii had a total of 483 fatal crashes overall, 21 of them involving cyclists and 130 of them involving a motorcycle. The state had the highest percentage of two-wheeled fatal incidents in comparison to total fatal incidents at 31.26%.

“Motorcycles are also a common mode of transport but this data demonstrates that pedal and motorcyclists need to take to the road with caution, and remain doubly alert and aware of their surroundings, but also that all road users are responsible for each others’ safety," said the spokesperson.

The island of Oahu ended 2023 with 55 traffic fatalities. The last fatality involving a cyclists occurred on Dec. 4, when a bicyclist was involved in a motor vehicle collision after turning into a vehicle’s path, launching them into the roadway.

Riding into 2024, there have been multiple motor vehicle collisions and incidents, some involving two-wheeled vehicles. The most recent incident happened on Jan. 3, involving an attempted murder in Makiki after a car struck a moped.

However, the latest incidents involving motorcycles, mopeds, and cyclists have not resulted in fatalities. 

At a news conference, Pa Cheng Vang, the children's father, said he was grateful for the community’s support since the fire broke out early Wednesday. He was at work at the time.

The children were identified as 5-year-old twin girls Sivntxhi Vang and Ntshiab Si Vang, and a 4-year-old boy, Manj Those Nutj Vang. Sivntxhi died Wednesday. The family announced the two other deaths Saturday,

A 1-year-old and their 28-year-old mother remained hospitalized in critical condition, they said. Two other children also remain hospitalized, but their conditions have improved.

“I highly encourage every single family to start practicing fire drills at home, especially in the middle of the night,” the father told reporters. “I don’t want any family, or the community, to see faces (in the) same condition as my family.”

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter joined the family at the news conference, saying he knew the couple and their children because Vang’s wife, Ker Lor, had previously interned in his office.

“You’ve endured all of our worst nightmares," the mayor said.

The cause of the fire was accidental, but it remains under investigation, Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso said earlier. The home had working smoke detectors.

"I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Sioux City.

“It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here," he added. "But have to get over it, we have to move forward."

His somewhat harsh rhetoric comes after a gunman entered Perry High School on Thursday morning, the first day back from winter break, with a pump action shotgun and handgun. He shot and killed one student, and left several others injured — including the school principal, authorities confirmed.

The suspect, 17-year-old Dylan Butler, then shot and killed himself as law enforcement responded, the police said. They did not comment on whether they found any potential motive.

The shooting occurred just miles from where Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, seen as Trump's closest ally in the race, was scheduled to hold an event the same day. The entrepreneur's campaign canceled the event and held private prayer instead.

Ramaswamy predicted politicians would respond to the incident with calls for gun control, criticizing them for what he said are "knee-jerk policy reactions." Instead, the GOP hopeful said the focus of legislation should be on mental health.

“The temptation is just pass some law, paper and over and say we did something in response to this,” he said. “You mark my words: Tomorrow, if not later today, you’re going to hear calls for, ‘Stop the guns, that’s the problem,’ sweeping under the rug this real ailment at the heart and soul of our nation and our culture that has spread to the entire next generation and to the unit of the family. The loss of purpose.”

Rival Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who has gained momentum in the polls, gave a similar argument.

“We have to deal with the cancer that is mental health. We have to,” Haley told voters at a CNN town hall in Des Moines on Thursday evening, later adding "What we see is that 80 percent of mass shooters are in some sort of crisis at the time that they do that."

"We have got to do better. The problem is we don’t have enough mental health therapists," she said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has focused much on his presidential campaign on Iowa, voiced support for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) — who endorsed him for 2024 — and local law enforcement following the shooting. He too said the focus should be on mental health.

Their comments come as the Iowa caucuses — which will kickstart primary voting season for the 2024 GOP primary — are set to take place in just over a week. The candidates have been on the ground in the state this week vying for support ahead of the Jan. 15 caucuses.

Trump still remains the clear front-runner in the race, leading with 51.6 percent support, according to Iowa polling averages from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ. DeSantis trails in second place at 18 percent, while Haley closely follows at 17.1 percent. 

Yet even after the release of thousands of pages of court records in recent days, some questions about the millionaire pedophile remain unanswered. The documents have gotten a lot of attention, but they shed little new light on the financier’s habitual sexual abuse of underage girls.

More than anything, the public is still fascinated with the possibility that some of the rich and powerful men in Epstein's social circle were also involved in the abuse.

Here's a look at what we know — and what we don't — about Epstein and his crimes:

JETSETTER TO CONVICT

Epstein first began getting media attention in 2002 after news organizations, including The Associated Press, covered a trip to Africa by former President Bill Clinton, actor Kevin Spacey and comedian Chris Tucker. The five-day tour of Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa was intended to draw attention to the fight against AIDS.

After the visit, New York magazine ran a profile of the man who provided the private jet for the trip: Jeffrey Epstein. The story portrayed him as an “international moneyman of mystery,” who cultivated relationships with Nobel Prize-winning scientists and diplomats but puzzled Wall Street insiders who couldn't figure out how a college dropout got so rich.

“Terrific guy,” Epstein's neighbor in both Florida and New York, Donald Trump, said in the story. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Those celebrity contacts made it big news when Epstein was arrested in 2006 over allegations that he had hired multiple teenage girls to give him sexualized massages at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Two years later, prosecutors allowed Epstein to plead guilty to a charge involving a single victim. He served 13 months in a jail work-release program, then quietly started rebuilding his network of influential friends, with the help of his socialite former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

After a series of Miami Herald stories about the plea bargain that deprived Epstein's victims of justice, federal prosecutors in New York revived the investigation and charged Epstein in 2019 with sex trafficking.

When Epstein killed himself in jail, prosecutors charged Maxwell with facilitating his illicit sexual encounters and participating in some of the abuse. She was convicted and is serving a 20-year prison term.

WAS ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED?

In 2009, one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre, filed a lawsuit saying he had flown her around the world for sexual encounters with billionaires, politicians, royals and heads of state.

She initially kept the names of those men secret, but in later legal filings started providing names: Britain's Prince Andrew, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, the French modeling scout Jean Luc Brunel, the billionaire Glenn Dubin and the law professor Alan Dershowitz, who had represented Epstein.

Some details of Giuffre's allegations have changed over time. She initially said she was 15 when Epstein began to abuse her, but she later acknowledged that she met him the summer she turned 17.

In 2022, she withdrew her allegations against Dershowitz, saying she “may have made a mistake” in identifying him as one of her abusers. She said she “was very young at the time” and “it was a very stressful and traumatic environment.”

In one newspaper interview, for which Giuffre was paid $160,000, she described dancing with Prince Andrew at a club but said there was no sexual contact. Later, she said they had three sexual encounters. She said the newspaper had refused to print those allegations.

In another interview, she described riding in a helicopter with Bill Clinton and flirting with Donald Trump, but she later said in a deposition that those things hadn't happened and were mistakes by the reporter.

Giuffre's allegations have been investigated by the FBI. No charges have been brought based on her claims, but because of the attention generated by them Brunel was investigated in France and charged with raping other underage girls. He killed himself while awaiting trial.

Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor in 2020, Geoffrey Berman, sought to speak with Prince Andrew about matters related to Epstein, but the royal declined to be interviewed. Berman blasted Andrew at the time for falsely portraying himself to the public as eager to cooperate when he was actually dodging questions.

Andrew has repeatedly denied having sex with Giuffre and said he couldn’t recall ever meeting her, though a photograph appears to show them together, and a member of Epstein's household staff also testified about seeing the two at Epstein's home in New York.

Many of the documents unsealed in recent days involve efforts by Maxwell's lawyers to discredit Giuffre, and Giuffre's lawyers' efforts to gather evidence backing up her accounts.

The records released in the case have contained scant evidence of wrongdoing by famous figures, but testimony from multiple witnesses confirmed Giuffre's accounts of Epstein's sexual misconduct.

DEATH BEHIND BARS

Any chance that Epstein himself might have been able to answer questions about his famous friends died with him at a federal detention center in Manhattan in August 2019.

The death, a month after he was arrested, has fueled conspiracy theories. But multiple investigations, including an autopsy and FBI probe, have concluded Epstein died by suicide.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in a June report that Epstein was able to take his own life because of “negligence, misconduct and outright job performance failures” within the jail.

The Metropolitan Correctional Center was shut down in 2021 amid concerns about squalid conditions, COVID-19, crumbling infrastructure and lingering questions about Epstein's death.

Overworked officers assigned to guard Epstein had failed to recognize he had amassed a surplus of bed linens. After a first suspected suicide attempt, jail officials left him alone and never assigned him a new cellmate.

On the night Epstein died, officers sat at desks just 15 feet (4.6 meters) from his cell, shopping online and snoozing instead of making required rounds every 30 minutes, prosecutors said.

The day before Epstein killed himself, a federal court unsealed about 2,000 pages of records in Giuffre's lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell — the same case involved in the records released in recent days.

That, combined with a lack of significant interpersonal connections and “the idea of potentially spending his life in prison were likely factors contributing to Mr. Epstein’s suicide,” prison officials wrote in documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Whether Epstein would have ever been keen to answer questions to clear up some of the mysteries surrounding his life is a different story. In a 2016 deposition in Giuffre’s lawsuit, he repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

WHAT’S NEXT

The document dump isn’t over yet. So far, 191 of the approximately 250 files that U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska authorized for release have been made public. Lawyers involved in the case are posting them to the docket on a rolling basis, as per the judge’s instructions.

Another batch is expected Monday, though there is little indication they will yield more than what has already been seen in the nearly 3,000 pages of deposition transcripts, legal memos, emails and other records made public since Wednesday.

Versions of many of those records had already been made public in past years, though with some sections blacked out for privacy reasons or to protect the identities of Epstein's victims.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 originally departed from Portland International Airport around 5 p.m. and then turned around after reaching an altitude of 16,000 feet when the incident happened. The plane landed safely at PDX shortly before 5:30 p.m.

Social media video appeared to show that one of the passenger window panels had been blown out.

The flight included 171 passengers and six crew members, Alaska Airlines officials confirmed to KOIN 6.

In a statement to CBS News, the Federal Aviation Administration said the crew reported a “pressurization issue,” which the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are now investigating.

The Boeing 737 Max 9 flight was certified in November 2023. Boeing said it has a technical team standing by to support the investigations.

Just after 11:30 p.m. Friday, Alaska Airlines CEO, Ben Minicucci reacted to the incident, stating:

At Alaska Airlines, safety is our foundational value and the most important thing we focus on every day. Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft. Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections. We anticipate all inspections will be completed in the next few days.

I am personally committed to doing everything we can to conduct this review in a timely and transparent way.

We are working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred tonight, and will share updates as more information is available. The NTSB is investigating this event and we will fully support their investigation.  

My heart goes out to those who were on this flight – I am so sorry for what you experienced. I am so grateful for the response of our pilots and flight attendants. We have teams on the ground in Portland assisting passengers and are working to support guests who are traveling in the days ahead.

-Ben

It wasn't immediately clear whether there were any reported injuries in the incident, but one passenger said a teenage boy had his shirt ripped off and his mother saved him from getting pulled out of the plane.

“The oxygen masks dropped down, and I look to my left to hear and see wind blasting, with a piece of the wall gone,” said passenger Elizabeth Le. “There was no one in the window seat but a mom and her teenage son sitting [on] the aisle.”

One passenger told KOIN 6 about the reaction from others on the plane.

“Everyone was very calm, actually. It kind of helped. Everyone was just focused on making sure we were back on the ground safely,” he said.

Attorneys with Judicial Watch, a conservative legal activist group, filed the suit in California federal court on behalf of Aaron Babbitt and his estate for wrongful death, and assault and battery. 

His wife was shot and killed by law enforcement during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol when she tried to climb through a barricaded door near the House chamber.

The suit alleges that Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd was negligent when he fired at Babbitt, a supporter of former President Trump.

"The facts speak truth. Ashli was ambushed when she was shot by Lt. Byrd," the attorneys wrote, arguing that she traveled to Washington, D.C., only to attend Trump's rally.

"Ashli did not go to Washington as part of a group or for any unlawful or nefarious purpose," they wrote, claiming Babbitt, an Air Force veteran, "posed no threat to the safety of anyone."

The attorneys also accused Byrd of violating standards for care governing the safe use of a firearm, use of force and imminent threat assessment.

Furthermore, the suit said that at the time of the shooting, Byrd was not in uniform, did not identify himself as an officer and failed to provide Babbitt with "any warnings or commands" before shooting.

In an interview following the incident, Byrd said he believes he helped to save "countless lives" that day and doesn't doubt that he made the right decision. He was later exonerated.

“I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger," he told NBC News following the incident, defending his actions. "And that’s my job."

The Hill reached out to Capitol Police for comment.

A group of Disney World fans belonging to the unofficial Disney Day Drinkers Club have lost their silly mascot — a trash can nicknamed “Binny” — after staffers at Walt Disney World seemingly removed it from its longtime spot at Epcot last week.

The Disney Day Drinkers Club, also known as Club D3, was founded in 2021 to bring together Disney fans who shared a love for the park and (as the club’s name would suggest) alcoholic beverages.

“We were coming out of COVID, so we were drinking around the World [Pavillion],” Club D3 founder and president Skip Sher told Nexstar. “We were just having fun, and we thought, this [trash can] would be fun to have as a mascot.”

At the time, restrictions on indoor capacities forced the group’s first members to congregate outside, often around something that had a hard, flat surface to rest their beverages on.

“So that’s why the trash can made sense,” Sher said.

One of the group’s members, a priest, even blessed the trash can during a meet-up — albeit with Smithwick’s instead of holy water.

Since then, Binny the trash can (who is “always trashed”) has been one of the club’s most popular members. Fans belonging to the club’s Facebook group (which boasts 85,000 members) also post photos of themselves with Binny when they’re not organizing meet-ups or sharing cocktail recipes.

Then, one day, Binny wasn’t there.

In September 2023, Sher said the trash can was suddenly removed from its longtime spot in front of the Rose & Crown at the United Kingdom pavilion and placed across the street. The Wall Street Journal, which recently reported on Binny's disappearance, said staffers were forced to move the trash can because it was causing crowds and becoming a safety hazard, citing a Disney spokesperson.

Some members were a little miffed, of course, but Sher said there wasn’t much of a controversy at the time. And there certainly wasn’t any “feud” with Disney, despite reports to the contrary.

“I’m not sure it was intentional,” he said. “You know, Disney moves things around. It’s Disney’s property. … Maybe they didn’t know the significance of the trash can for the club.”

In any case, Sher said he never asked Disney to put Binny back. But about three weeks ago, the group's beloved trash-scot suddenly reappeared. And members were able to confirm it was the same Binny by its recognizable scratches and rivets.

“People were immediately making plane reservations, and they wanted a picture with the original Binny,” Sher claims.

Only about a week later, however, Binny was gone again. But this time, most of the members were unfazed.

“Some people were really passionate about it … we had to kick a few people out [of the Facebook group],” according to Sher. Otherwise, it wasn't that big of a deal, he said.

Now, Sher is hoping the club’s members — and the media — start focusing on the reasons he started the group in the first place. He’s also keen to keep up the group’s charitable efforts, including a recent fundraiser which gathered $7,000 for the Kellsie’s Hope childhood cancer foundation, and meet-ups where members donate back-to-school items.

“We’re a positive group,” he says. “It’s really about the friendships. And the drinks and the bartenders.”

A representative for Walt Disney World did not respond to Nexstar’s request for comment on Friday. But Sher told Nexstar he harbors no ill will. The park has already provided so many memories for the club, and Disney World doesn’t need to provide an explanation.

“I would love to hear from them,” he said. “But my biggest thing is, you know, we love Disney. We’re big fans. … And there is absolutely zero feud.”

Based in Harlem, it became a famous megachurch with the political rise of the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. perhaps the most influential of the many men who have led the congregation. Powell, pastor from 1937 to 1972, served in Congress for 26 years.

Among the countless believers making Abyssinian their spiritual home was Eboni Marshall Turman, who came to believe she could become the first woman to be the church’s senior pastor. She rose through the ranks and in 2007 became the youngest pastor ordained in Abyssinian’s history.

After longtime senior pastor Calvin O. Butts III died in 2022, Marshall Turman — by then a professor at Yale Divinity School — was among dozens of people who applied to fill the vacancy.

She was full of optimism that she would be chosen. Instead, she wasn’t even a finalist, and is so convinced that sexism was the key factor that she has now filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing Abyssinian and its search committee of gender discrimination.

Along with the church, the lawsuit — filed Dec. 29 — specifically names the search committee chair, Valerie S. Grant, accusing her of behaving inappropriately by asking Marshall Turman questions and pressing issues not broached with her male counterparts.

“Gender discrimination motivated the decision not to hire (Marshall Turman), a fact discussed openly during meetings of the Committee, including by Grant and another Committee member, who said that Abyssinian would only hire a woman as its Senior Pastor ‘over my dead body,’” the complaint states.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages from the defendants for “lost wages, lost benefits, other economic damages, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, and mental distress," as well as an injunction forbidding any hiring-related gender discrimination.

The Harlem church and Grant, who also is a board member of Morehouse College in Atlanta, disputed the lawsuit’s discrimination accusations.

“While she and others were considered for the role because of their impressive backgrounds, she ultimately fell short of some key requirements for the role, where other finalist candidates prevailed and moved forward in the process,” said Abyssinian spokesperson LaToya Evans. In her statement, she said the church is prepared to defend itself against the allegations.

Grant, who described the search process as rigorous, said Marshall Turman was one of 11 people who advanced from a 47-applicant field. While some committee members may have felt she was the strongest candidate, she did not receive enough votes to advance to the next round, Grant said.

Due to varied beliefs on whether women can have authority over men, the Black church broadly has been a minefield for women aspiring to pastoral leadership. Beyond that, the question of who gets to preach from the pulpit has caused deep rifts in denominations and congregations all across Christian America.

Marshall Turman, who did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment, researches gender politics in Black churches and related issues. It also is the focus of her forthcoming book.

“I further interrogate theological erasure and violence against Black women in Black churches,” she said about “Black Women’s Burden: Male Power, Gender Violence, and the Scandal of African American Social Christianity” in a September post on Facebook.

“Currently, life is tracking my theory.”

The remaining Abyssinian finalists are men. The lawsuit gives reasons why Marshall Turman believed she stood a real chance of filling Abyssinian’s top job, including being told by committee members that she was the obvious pick and being held in high esteem by Calvin Butts, her ministry mentor.

Grant said the process “was designed to be fair to everyone.”

“I have an issue with people characterizing this process as discriminatory and designed to deny opportunities to women," she said. “It’s simply not the case.”

The process was the same for every candidate, she said, adding that her job was to tell the committee to set their biases aside. Some wanted an older person, or a younger one; some wanted the candidate to be married and others wanted them to have existing connections to Abyssinian, she said.

She took issue with the lawsuit’s accusations against her own interviewing of Marshall Turman. Grant explained that every candidate was asked a series of common questions, and additional ones tailored to each person were asked as well. Grant said Marshall Turman was asked certain questions that other candidates did not get “because she was the only woman” candidate.

When Butts died in October 2022, after a bout with cancer, Marshall Turman felt that God had called her to the moment.

She wrote an application to Abyssinian’s senior pastorate that reflected her credentials, including a Master of Divinity and doctorate from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and experience on the Abyssinian staff as a minister for Christian education.

Butts called her the best assistant he had ever had, and the smartest, too, according to the lawsuit.

Marshall Turman was among those invited to apply.

But after not making it to the final round, she alleged in a Facebook post on Sept. 23, 2023, that the hiring process was tainted by secrecy and gender bias. She contended that Abyssinian deacons had worked alongside “an energized group of Morehouse supporters and committee leadership to systematically eliminate all female applicants from the pool of candidates.”

“I write only to underscore that gender bias has no place in God’s house,” Marshall Turman continued in her post. “Moreover, gender bias is illegal in the City of New York in 2023 no matter the prior legacy of the organization involved.”

Among the remaining contenders for the open senior pastor job are the Rev. Dr. Kevin Johnson, formerly of the historic Bright Hope Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, and Derrick Harkins, who was recently working for Marcia Fudge at the U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development.

For years, as detailed in the book, “Witness: Two Hundred Years of African American Faith and Practice at the Abyssinian Baptist Church of Harlem, New York,” women’s treatment in the church has been an unsettled issue among its members.

In her book, “Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation: Black Bodies, the Black Church and the Council of Chalcedon,” Marshall Turman critiqued the Morehouse social gospel tradition, even interviewing Butts.

In terms of Black woman as pastoral leaders, Butts told Turman that at Morehouse the thought of women as pastoral leaders had never crossed his mind. “It was not an issue at Morehouse,” said Butts, in an excerpt from the book. “I just never even thought about it.”

She described finding herself in a world where Black women aren’t listened to, but also one in which their labor is essential to Black survival.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Regardless of where you stand, let’s revisit what happened earlier this week. 

Videos began circulating online of people, mostly women, were seen standing outside Target stores or pouncing on the displays of some limited edition Stanley cups. One customer even claimed that a “brawl” broke out.

The pink and red tumblers in question were part of a special release ahead of Valentine’s Day. Stanley partnered with Starbucks to create a variety for just under $50. The mugs are no longer available for purchase online, and Starbucks told Nexstar in a statement that the limited-edition Starbucks x Stanley Quencher will not be restocked once it has sold out. 

Still confused about what a Quencher is and why people can’t get enough of them? Let’s explain. 

Stanley isn’t a new brand at all: it celebrated its 110th anniversary last year. According to the drinkware company’s website, William Stanley Jr. “fused vacuum insulation and the strength of steel in one portable bottle, inventing the all-steel vacuum bottle we know and love today.”

For years, Stanley sold thermoses, much like the one pictured below next to a Quencher. You can still find them for sale, intermingled with the tumblers you’re likely more familiar with today. 

It’s those tumblers that are now taking the Internet (and your local Target) by storm.

It’s safe to argue that word of mouth helped bring the Stanley Quencher back to the forefront. Yes, you read that right — even the Stanley Quencher isn’t a new product. 

The Quencher, a stainless-steel tumbler that comes in five sizes ranging from 14 ounces to 64 ounces, has been available since the mid-2010s. It wasn’t seeing much success though, and the company stopped stocking it online, Terence Reilly, the global president of Stanley, told The New York Times in 2022. 

“The Buy Guide,” an e-commerce blog and Instagram account run by Ashlee LeSueur, Taylor Cannon, and Linley Hutchinson, is largely credited for helping to bring the Quencher back in 2020, according to The New York Times. The trio, after agreeing to buy 5,000 Quenchers from Stanley and selling all of them, struck a deal with the company and continued promoting the product. 

Last year, when recounting the 5,000 Quenchers deal, LeSueur told CNBC said the move was “a big risk.”

The overall sales continued to perform well, and, as you may have guessed, more and more people began promoting and posting about their Stanley Quenchers. 

There are a number of reasons why an item like these Stanley cups can become such a huge hit. Word of mouth can make (or break) a brand, according to Jonah Berger, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He previously explained to the Journal of Consumer Research that there are six principles that can help drive what people are talking about, mostly related to how we’re perceived by others. If everyone has a Stanley, then you may feel the need to have a Stanley. If a blogger or influencer you’re following has a Stanley, you’ll likely want one too. 

Another notable part of the story? Stanley started catering to an audience they didn’t originally focus on: women. Their previous thermoses were arguably more manly, while the Quenchers have seemingly attracted the attention of women, CNBC notes. 

Now, Stanley Quenchers are highly-coveted items (remember the chaos we mentioned at Target above?). They’ve even become the brand’s most popular option, unseating the aforementioned green thermos. 

The variation has also made a big difference on Stanley’s revenue. CNBC reports that, based on available data, Stanley’s annual sales in 2023 could top $750 million — vastly more than the $73 million the company reported in 2019.

Resale markets also appear to be profiting. If you weren’t able to get a Valentine’s Day-edition Stanley Quencher this week, there are some available on eBay with price tags exceeding $100. 

And while the company aims to create “sustainable products” that reduce the “demand for disposable products,” some Quencher stans say they don’t even use the bottles. 

“They’re too pretty to use,” one Stanley fan, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Nexstar. Instead, they use one or two from their collection of more than a dozen.

Stanley tumblers aren’t the first item to go viral thanks to social media, and they likely won’t be the last. So if you missed the Starbucks x Stanley release, have no fear: there will undoubtedly be a new color available soon.

Also, the Stanley brand on your drinkware isn’t the same as the yellow-and-black Stanley tools. Although, maybe Stanley hammers will be the next viral item.

The species that Gaia belongs to — the black-footed cat — is among the smallest (and arguably the cutest) cat species on the planet. But it's also considered the deadliest, being an extremely cunning species with an incredibly successful hunting rate.

"We kind of joke that they're very adorable, but they are wild animals," Rachael Eames, a representative for the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, told Nexstar.

The black-footed cat is estimated to have a successful kill rate of 60%, according to researchers and experts cited in the 2018 PBS miniseries "Super Cats" — and she's not all that picky about her diet, either. She'll eat rodents, insects, and even pluck small birds out of the air. Black-footed cats have also been known to kill adult Cape hares, despite being slightly smaller and much slower when running, Canada's International Society for Endangered Cats (ISEC) noted.

"She finds almost anything that moves is a potential meal," a 2018 PBS documentary explained of the species.

Black-footed cats are so successful at hunting, in part, because of their small size (an adult stands about 8 inches tall, and weighs between two and five pounds) and their sneaky hunting methods.

"They wait for up to 2 hours, absolutely immobile, just silently waiting," explained Luke Hunter, an expert in endangered carnivores and a founding member of the wildcat-conservation organization Panthera, in a Nov. 2021 interview with LiveScience.

The cats will also snake silently through tall grasses to stalk prey. But other times, they'll run wildly through the grasses — largely unseen — to flush out any critters, according to the ISEC.

Gaia, the black-footed cat at SLC's Hogle Zoo, will be fed by staffers, though she'll still be given the chance to practice her "natural behaviors" with the facility's animal-care staff, Eames told Nexstar.

She's already "showing a lot of great confidence," the zoo rep said.

Gaia's arrival at the zoo, meanwhile, is part of a larger conservation effort for her species, as black-footed cats are currently listed as "vulnerable" due to the loss of their natural habitat and other threats from larger predators. Conservation groups like the Black-Footed Cat Consortium, where Gaia came from, are seeking to put the cats into breeding programs across the country.

Eames said there are around 30 other black-footed cats currently in captivity at AZA-accredited (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) facilities — and another, a male named Ryder, even resides at Hogle.

In time, the goal is for Gaia to "get acquainted" with Ryder once she reaches maturity, which could go a long way toward the conservation of her species, the zoo wrote on Instagram.

"The goal is to have a successful breeding program," Eames told Nexstar.

Carriers have rolled out some new tools to help warn people against scammers – you may see a warning like "scam likely" on your phone screen when it rings – but they aren't perfect. There are a few other things you can look for to tip you off that an incoming call probably isn't worth your time.

The first major red flag is if the call is coming from an area code that hasn't been allocated, explained Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail, a phone screening and blocking service.

"Those area codes are 100% guaranteed to be a scammer. Like area code 300. There's not really a 300, so any calls coming it there are going to be a scam," Quilici said.

In fact, any time the second and third digits of an area code are the same, it's designated an "easily recognizable code," or ERC, by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator. Those are set aside for special use (like 411, for example) or they are left unallocated to any specific region (like 200, 300 and 400).

Another sign a call may be trouble is if it's from the 202 area code, which is for Washington, D.C. It's not because there are more scammers in D.C. – it's because scammers like to spoof the 202 area code to make it seem like they're calling from government agencies, like the IRS or Health and Human Services for things like Medicare.

"The other place though, is a substantial portion of the 800 number calls are a scam," Quilici said. "It's for a couple reasons. One is there's a lot of emptiness in the 800 space, like a lot of numbers that aren't assigned in it, and it's hard to know to block an 877 number. ... The second is scammers are spoofing a lot of 800 numbers still."

Another common tactic scammers like to use is "neighbor spoofing," where they imitate not just your area code, but also the first three numbers of your phone number. That makes it look like the call is coming from somewhere local to try and trick you into answering.

One other scammer tactic you may see: three rings and then nothing. Some robocalling softwares used by bad actors ring three times and then hang up to avoid going to voicemail and leaving an audio trace, Quilici explained.

When in doubt, let the call go to voicemail, Quilici said. You can call back if the unknown number ended up being a legitimate phone call. If it's someone claiming to be from your bank or credit card company, make sure to call the number on the back of your card – not necessarily the number you received the call from.

To be extra safe, always dial the number on your utility bill, bank statement, health insurance card – or whatever the official source may be – instead of relying on the callback number left from an unidentified caller.

Perry High School Principal Dan Marburger and six others, including two staff members and four teenage students, were injured in the Thursday morning shooting that left one sixth-grader dead. The 17-year-old student who opened fire also died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

The state Department of Public Safety said Marburger, who is being treated in a Des Moines hospital, “acted selflessly and placed himself in harm’s way in an apparent effort to protect his students.”

Details also emerged about other victims. The student killed was identified as 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, who was shot three times, authorities said. The mother of one teenager posted on Facebook that her son was helped to an ambulance after he was shot multiple times. Perry Superintendent Clark Wicks said several people helped others to safety.

“This is an extremely painful and difficult time for our entire school community, and in our grief, we will take time to remember,” Wicks said.

Yellow crime tape still lined the campus Perry High School shares with the town’s middle school on Friday, and flowers and stuffed toys had cropped up in mini memorials. Wicks said classes will not resume in the district before next Friday at the earliest.

The news that seven students and staff suffered “wounds or injuries of varying degree” during the shooting was two more than authorities said Thursday afternoon. Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said the number increased after investigators later learned about two more wounded faculty members. All seven are believed to have been either wounded or grazed by bullets, and suffered injuries ranging from significant to minor.

On Friday, Marburger and two students remained hospitalized.

In a Facebook post Thursday night, the principal’s daughter said he was in “surgery all day, and is currently stable.”

Claire Marburger called her father a “gentle giant” and said it wasn't surprising that her father tried to protect his students.

“As I heard of a gunman, I instantly had a feeling my Dad would be a victim as he would put himself in harms way for the benefit of the kids and his staff,” his daughter wrote. “That’s just Dad.”

Mortvedt said Marburger, who has been principal since 1995, did some “pretty significant things” to protect others during the shooting, but didn’t release details. Wicks, the superintendent, said Marburger was a “hero” who intervened with Butler so students could escape. Wicks said other staff also acted heroically, including Middle School Assistant Principal Adam Jessen who “carried a wounded student into a safe area.”

One mother, Bobbi Bushbaum, posted on Facebook that her son Corey was shot multiple times, suffering a fractured femur and wrist. Bushbaum said Corey was able to stumble to a nearby field after being wounded, and when she arrived, he was being helped toward an ambulance. In the post, Bushbaum said her son underwent one surgery, but still had bullets in his body and won’t be able to walk for weeks.

Bushbaum expressed thanks to those who helped pull Corey to safety, saying: “I would like them to know my son wouldn’t be here without them.”

The shooting happened just after 7:30 a.m. Thursday, shortly before classes were set to begin on the first day back after winter break. Mortvedt said the shooting started in the cafeteria, where students from several grades were eating breakfast, then spilled outside the cafeteria but was contained to the north end of the school.

Authorities said the suspect, identified as Dylan Butler, had a pump-action shotgun and a small-caliber handgun. Mortvedt told The Associated Press that authorities also found a “pretty rudimentary” improvised explosive device in Butler's belongings, and that experts advised “it was something that they needed to disarm.” It was rendered safe.

A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation said federal and state investigators were interviewing Butler’s friends and analyzing Butler’s social media profiles, including posts on TikTok and Reddit. However, authorities have provided no information about a possible motive.

Shortly before Thursday’s shooting, Butler posted a photo on TikTok inside the bathroom of Perry High School, the official said. The photo was captioned “now we wait” and the song “Stray Bullet” by the German band KMFDM accompanied it. Investigators also have found posted photos of Butler posing with firearms, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Two friends and their mother who spoke with the AP said Butler was a quiet person who had been bullied relentlessly since elementary school. Sisters Yesenia Roeder and Khamya Hall, both 17, said alongside their mother, Alita, that it escalated recently when Butler's younger sister started getting picked on, too.

“He was hurting. He got tired. He got tired of the bullying. He got tired of the harassment," Yesenia Roeder Hall said. "Was it a smart idea to shoot up the school? No. God, no.”

Police said Thursday they believe Butler acted alone. But investigators have not said how Butler obtained the firearms.

Investigators are still working to get a “good grasp of who Dylan was,” and the parents have been cooperating, Mortvedt said. The investigation will include Butler’s background along with the “environment of the school,” he said.

Wicks wouldn’t discuss whether Butler had been bullied but he defended the way his district responds to those situations.

“We take every bullying situation seriously and our goal is to always have that safe and inviting atmosphere, but I’m not going to comment on this individual case as well as any other individual case,” Wicks said.

Butler’s parents have been fixtures of the Perry community. His father is director of the city’s airport after serving as its public works director for years, where he won praise helping clean up Perry after a devastating wind storm in 2020. His mother has also owned a small business and served on a city development board. The parents have not responded to messages seeking comment.

On Thursday night, hundreds gathered for a candlelight prayer vigil at a park where hours earlier, students had been brought to reunite with their families after the shooting. Bundled up against freezing temperatures, they listened to clergy from many faiths and heard a message of hope in English and Spanish.

Perry has about 8,000 residents and is about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines, on the edge of the state capital’s metropolitan area. It is home to a large pork-processing plant and low-slung, single-story homes spread among trees now shorn of their leaves by winter.

The high school is part of the 1,785-student Perry Community School District. Perry is more diverse than Iowa as a whole. Census figures show 31% of its residents are Hispanic, compared with less than 7% statewide. Those figures also show nearly 19% of the town’s residents were born outside the U.S.

Despite the shock of the shooting, Perry Mayor Dirk Cavanaugh expressed confidence the community would get through the painful experience.

“We are a small town, but we will pull together in a big way to get through this," Cavanaugh said.

___

McFetridge reported from Des Moines, Iowa, Foley from Iowa City, Iowa, and Funk from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia, Mike Balsamo in New York and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis also contributed.

According to Flight Aware flight trackers, the plane originally departed from the Portland International Airport around 5 p.m. and "quickly turned around" after reaching an altitude of 16,000 feet.

The plane quickly diverted and landed safely at PDX shortly before 5:30 p.m.

Social media video appeared to show that one of the passenger window panels had been blown out.

The flight included 171 passengers and six crew members, Alaska Airline officials confirmed to KOIN 6.

CBS News reported that immediately after the incident, the pilot radioed to the air traffic controller, declaring that the flight had depressurized.

"We're declaring an emergency," the pilot said. "We do need to come down to 10,000."

“The oxygen masks dropped down, and I look to my left to hear and see wind blasting, with a piece of the wall gone,” said passenger Elizabeth Le. “There was no one in the window seat but a mom and her teenage son sitting [on] the aisle.”

Le said the mother apparently saved her son from getting pulled out of the plane.

“I looked up and saw that the son’s shirt was completely off and his skin was very red, most likely due to the cold air. I heard after from the son’s friend that the mom had to drag him back into the plane after the piece flew off.”

The airline released the following statement Friday night.

"The safety of our guests and employees is always our primary priority, so while this type of occurrence is rare, our flight crew was trained and prepared to safely manage the situation. We are investigating what happened and will share more information as it becomes available."

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement to CBS News that the crew reported a "pressurization issue," which the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are now investigating.

People who stop taking the drugs have noticed a "rebound effect."

"The problem is when people stop taking the medication, they'll gain their weight back. We haven't come up with something that is permanent yet," explained Dr. Jeffrey Kopin, chief medical officer of Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital.

Wegovy and Zepbound's injections work similarly to Ozempic and Mounjaro, which are also in high demand right now. The drugs imitate the hormones that regulate appetites by communicating fullness between the gut and brain when people eat.

But those changes aren't permanent. Once someone stops injecting the drugs, they no longer feel the effects.

A study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2021, looked at overweight and obese adults taking semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) for 20 weeks. Those who kept going after the 20-week period continued to lose weight, ultimately losing about 17% of their body mass on average over 68 weeks. Meanwhile, those who switched to a placebo at 20 weeks started to regain the weight they had lost, ending just 5% lower than where they had started.

Another study, published in August 2022, found that one year after participants stopped taking semaglutide, they regained two-thirds of the weight they had lost.

The study published in JAMA emphasized that obesity is a chronic condition, and therefore needs chronic treatment.

“Some people don’t have an awareness that this might have to be a medication that will be lifelong,” Dr. Alexandra Sowa, a doctor and NYU School of Medicine clinical instructor, told the Wall Street Journal.

"I think for somebody who's at high risk of bad things happening because of their weight – somebody who has diabetes, somebody who is about to get diabetes, they're way overweight, they've tried everything to lose weight – it would be good to lose weight, and the medication is going to help with that," Kopin said.

However, someone who hasn't tried to lose weight on their own may want to give it a serious try first, to avoid becoming dependent on the medication, he said.

Kopin said these types of decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, and in consultation with a health care professional.

Hear more from Dr. Kopin, including the impact of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy on smoking addiction and alcohol cravings, in the audio player below.

While the drugs have shown promising results, the cost of these injectables has largely limited them to the wealthy. A monthly supply of Wegovy rings up at $1,300 and Zepbound will put you out $1,000. Shortages for the drugs have also limited the supplies. Private insurers often do not cover the medications or place strict restrictions on who can access them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said Friday that it was not clear when Austin would be released from the hospital, but said the secretary was “recovering well."

The Pentagon’s failure to disclose Austin’s hospitalization is counter to normal practice with the president and other senior U.S. officials and Cabinet members. The Pentagon Press Association, which represents media members who cover the Defense Department, sent a letter of protest to Ryder and Chris Meagher, the assistant defense secretary for public affairs.

“The fact that he has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for four days and the Pentagon is only now alerting the public late on a Friday evening is an outrage,” the PPA said in its letter. “At a time when there are growing threats to U.S. military service members in the Middle East and the U.S. is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defense leader.”

The White House has refused to say when or how it had been notified of Austin’s hospitalization, and it referred questions to the Pentagon.

When Attorney General Merrick Garland went in for a routine medical procedure in 2022, his office informed the public a week in advance and outlined how long he was expected to be out and when he would return to work.

Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, cited an “evolving situation,” and said that due to privacy and medical issues, the Pentagon did not make Austin’s absence public. He declined to provide any other details about Austin’s medical procedure or health.

Austin, 70, spent 41 years in the military, retiring as a four-star Army general in 2016.

In a statement, Ryder said that at all times, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks “was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required.”

Austin's hospitalization comes as Iranian-backed militias have repeatedly launched drones, missiles and rockets at bases where U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria, leading the Biden administration to strike back on a number of occasions. Those strikes often involve sensitive, top-level discussions and decisions by Austin and other key military leaders.

The U.S. is also the chief organizer behind a new international maritime coalition using ships and other assets to patrol the southern Red Sea to deter persistent attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants in Yemen.

In addition, the administration, particularly Austin, has been at the forefront of the effort to supply weapons and training to Ukraine, and he's also been communicating frequently with the Israelis on their war against Hamas.

Why is it known by different names?

Some Western Christian churches know the feast day as Three Kings Day. It recalls the visit of three Magi, or wise men, to the infant Jesus, and their sense of wonder at the encounter. It is the 12th day after Christmas and closes the Christmas season.

Eastern traditions call it Theophany, and they focus on the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Orthodox Christians also know it as the Baptism of Christ.

What does Epiphany mean?

The Greek word “epiphaneia” means “appearance” or “manifestation,” and it refers to the manifestation of Jesus to the world, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

How is it celebrated?

The day is often celebrated by Catholics in Spain with parades that include decorative floats carrying people dressed as the biblical kings who brought gifts to the infant Jesus. Children in Spain and in some parts of Latin America traditionally unwrap holiday gifts that elsewhere in the world are delivered by Santa Claus on Christmas Day.

Greeks celebrate Epiphany with blessing of the waters ceremonies across the country, which is primarily Orthodox.

In Bulgaria, some observers plunge into rivers and lakes to retrieve crucifixes, in an old ritual marking the feast of Epiphany, also known as the Apparition of Christ.

By tradition, a crucifix is cast into the waters of a lake or river. It's believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy through the year. After the cross is fished out, the priest sprinkles believers with water using a bunch of basil.

When is it celebrated?

Orthodox Christian churches in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania celebrate the feast on Jan. 6. But for Orthodox Churches in Russia, Serbia and Ukraine that follow the Julian calendar, Epiphany is celebrated on Jan. 19, as their Christmas Eve falls on Jan. 6.

What is the origin of Epiphany?

It originated in the Eastern church and originally included a celebration of the birth of Jesus, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, which in its entry says that by the fourth century, the church in Rome began celebrating Epiphany separately on Jan 6.

The latest round of documents included excerpts of testimony from people who worked for Epstein, copies of phone messages he received — including one from Harvey Weinstein — and lots of legal memos from lawyers discussing who could potentially have been called as a witness if the lawsuit ever went to trial.

No blockbuster revelations were apparent. Lots of the records covered material that has been the subject of many past news stories about Epstein and his victims. But like other documents previously made public in lawsuits related to Epstein, they provide a window into the rarified world he inhabited.

The records are all related to a defamation lawsuit that one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, filed in 2015 against the millionaire's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was accused by multiple women of helping Epstein recruit underage victims. The suit was settled in 2017. Maxwell was later prosecuted and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Here are some takeaways from the latest batch of released documents:

PRINCE ANDREW

The records released Friday include the 2009 deposition of a former housekeeper at Epstein's home in Palm Beach, Florida, who talked about how much time the financier spent with Prince Andrew, the British royal who was a longtime friend of Maxwell's.

Juan Alessi testified that “Prince Andrew spent weeks with us” and when he visited, he would receive daily massages at the mansion.

Alessi said Andrew would stay in the main guest bedroom, which he described as “the blue room.” He recalled seeing Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, on one occasion, but added, “I don’t think she slept in there.”

Alessi also remembered seeing other celebrities including Donald Trump and “a lot of queens and other famous people that I can’t remember.”

Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago club is also in Palm Beach, would come over to Epstein’s home for dinner, Alessi said, but he “never sat at the table,” dining instead with Alessi in the kitchen. Asked whether Trump ever received massages, he said, “No. Because he’s got his own spa.”

Alessi, who worked at Epstein’s sprawling home from 1990 to 2002, previously testified at Maxwell’s 2021 trial that he saw “many, many, many” young adult female visitors, often lounging topless by the pool. He also admitted to stealing $6,300 from Epstein’s desk.

Prince Andrew was publicly criticized when photos emerged of him visiting Epstein in New York even after the financier was imprisoned in Florida for a sex crime.

Giuffre sued Andrew, accusing him of sexually abusing her when she was 17. Andrew said he didn't remember ever meeting Giuffre. The lawsuit was settled in 2022 without ever going to trial, but the allegations damaged his public standing and led Andrew to withdraw from some royal duties.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they are the victims of sexual abuse unless they have come forward publicly with their stories, as Giuffre has.

PHONE RECORDS

One document unsealed Friday contains copies of phone messages Epstein received, handwritten by staffers, in 2004, a year before police in Palm Beach started investigating allegations that he was paying underage girls for sex.

At the time, Epstein was getting attention for hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, offering free rides on his private jet to celebrities including former President Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey.

The phone messages, while mostly mundane, give a small taste of those associations.

“She had on the phone Mr. Harvey Weinstein,” reads one message about a missed call.

Weinstein, then a force in Hollywood, was once part of a media investment group that included Epstein.

“At the time, Epstein was seen as a wealthy power broker with access to many people of various industries and for many reasons,” said Weinstein’s spokesman, Juda Engelmayer. "It wasn’t uncommon for people of that caliber to talk, as we see from the lists that have been coming out. There was and remains nothing more to that.”

Weinstein would be charged years later with raping and sexually assaulting women in the entertainment business and is serving lengthy prison terms after convictions in New York and Los Angeles.

Epstein also got several messages about missed calls from Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who was close to Epstein. Brunel was awaiting trial on charges that he raped underage girls when he killed himself in a Paris jail in 2022.

RECRUITING YOUNG GIRLS

When Epstein was initially investigated by Palm Beach police in 2005, detectives spoke to a number of girls from an area high school who said they had been paid money to give massages to Epstein.

Tony Figueroa, who worked as a driver for Epstein and once dated Giuffre, talked about the effort to recruit those girls during his 2016 deposition.

“Jeffrey was giving us $200 apiece for every one that we brought over,” he said. “I would get friends that I went to school with and I would take them over there and introduce them, and then I would just leave.”

He said Maxwell would also call him occasionally, “asking me to get girls.”

Figueroa has told the same story in media interviews in the years since that deposition.

“HAVE MY BABY”

A woman who worked for Epstein, Johanna Sjoberg, testified in her 2016 deposition that Epstein asked her to perform sexualized massages.

He also told her he wanted her to be the mother of his baby, a request she said he made several times.

“I don’t believe that I said flat-out no. I didn’t agree to it. I would just say, ’Oh, yeah, really? Okay,” Sjoberg testified, according to a transcript of her deposition.

Later in her questioning, Sjoberg was asked if Maxwell ever made the same request. Sjoberg said no.

Maxwell was also asked about that in her 2016 deposition, and she called the claim “completely rubbish.”

“I can’t testify to anything Jeffrey did or didn’t do when I am not present, but I have never asked anybody to carry a baby for me,” Maxwell said. She added that she didn't remember having any conversations with Epstein about babies.

Sjoberg also testified that Epstein took her on a shopping trip to Victoria’s Secret where he “picked out everything and went into the room with me, the fitting room, which was very odd.”

Sjoberg said that while in the room, Epstein joked that he’d previously been in there with another girl who called him “Dad.”

Sjoberg, like Giuffre, has previously gone public with her story in media interviews.

PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER

The legal storm that Epstein and Maxwell were facing is captured well in a Jan. 11, 2015, email by her attorney Philip Barden, who referred to Maxwell as “G,” and to Epstein as “JE.”

He urged a strong public response to Giuffre's claims because silence was “reputational suicide.”

“Now it is reported that G engaged in direct abuse — as I feared would happen. Next reports to the authorities will be made,” Barden wrote in a message to an individual whose name was blacked out, with Maxwell copied on the missive.

“It is necessary from a litigation, investigatory and reputational reason to issue a cogent denial. I can see why JE doesn’t want this as it may not suit him but he is already toast,” he added.

Four years later Epstein would be dead by suicide, found in a jail cell after he was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges. It would be two more years before a jury in New York agreed that Maxwell helped Epstein recruit and groom teenage girls for sexual abuse and sometimes joined in the abuse.

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) -- Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody has signed on to an amicus brief with attorneys general from 24 other states to keep former President Donald Trump on the Colorado ballot.

The attorneys general signing on to the brief are all from states in which Trump either won the electoral votes in the 2020 election or have Republican governors. The Arizona House of Representatives and Arizona Senate, both controlled by Republicans, also signed the brief.

"The state court's choice to declare former President Donald Trump an insurrectionist under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment has vast consequences that reach far beyond Colorado," the attorneys general argue.

The brief argues that the Fourteenth Amendment is not "self-executing," and "anticipates" Congress should decide who is eligible for office.

"The Colorado court's decision to dilute former President Trump's votes in the upcoming election cannot stand for several reasons," the brief reads. "It threatens to throw the 2024 presidential election into chaos."

The brief also says Colorado used a loose definition of "insurrection" and that courts shouldn't decide the word's definition.

"Now that the Colorado court has intruded into an arena where courts previously have feared to tread, swift intervention is essential," the brief states.

The attorneys general argue that the Supreme Court should side with Trump. The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would review the case.

Attorneys general from the following states signed the brief:

• Alabama
• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Georgia
• Idaho
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• Wyoming

Earlier this week, the "Winter Pink" Stanley x Starbucks tumblers, sold exclusively at Target, caused a frenzy that had the insulated cups flying off the shelves. Videos of the events went viral, likely causing even more interest and demand for the insulated Stanley-brand cups.

The "Quenchers," which are hugely popular on TikTok and Instagram, come in several sizes and colors, and their popularity has led to them becoming something of a status symbol or lifestyle brand — especially on what's known as #watertok. Tumbler mania has hit Target stores particularly hard, since the stores recently released two limited-edition Stanley tumblers: the aforementioned Stanley x Starbucks collaboration cups, in addition to exclusive "Cosmo Pink" and "Target Red" editions for Valentine's Day.

Both cup drops were in limited quantities and sold out instantly — and those who still want one may be out of luck. Neither the Valentine's Day cups nor the Starbucks collaboration cups will be coming back.

“We are seeing an enthusiastic response to the limited-edition, pink Starbucks x Stanley Quencher (40 fl. oz.) available at Target stores in the U.S. for a limited time, while supplies last,” a Starbucks representative wrote in a statement shared with Nexstar earlier this week. “It will not be restocked.”

With many more Stanley fans still hoping to get one, police in Morton Grove, Illinois, are now warning shoppers who are looking to buy Stanley cups online: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

"Beware of tricky websites using the brand’s popularity. Shady websites pretending to offer discounts on Stanley cups have been found to be scamming shoppers. If you purchase a cup through a shady website, your personal information may be compromised and your money...gone," the department stated in a post on Facebook.

The police department shared the following tips to avoid online scams:

• Only make purchases through verified, trusted sellers
• Watch out for imitation websites
• Be cautious about social media ads
• Check out a businesses’ social media feed, website and read reviews

Scams involving alleged official Stanley cups are now so common that the Better Business Bureau even has a resource page. The bureau warns consumers not to be fooled just because an ad shows up on a reputable website, like major social media sites. Just because it appears in your feed doesn't mean it is coming from a verified seller.

And if all else fails, you can always drink out of the glasses already in your cabinet! Stay hydrated and vigilant.

The exchange came as lawyers for both sides filed papers highlighting their takeaways from the trial in court filings ahead of closing arguments, set for next Thursday. Trump is expected to attend, though plans could change.

It will be the final chance for state and defense lawyers to make their cases. The civil lawsuit, which accuses the leading Republican presidential hopeful of deceiving banks and insurers by vastly inflating his net worth, is consequential for him even while he fights four criminal cases in various courts.

The New York civil case could end up barring him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire. On top of that, state Attorney General Letitia James is seeking the $370 million penalty, plus interest — up from a pretrial figure of $250 million, nudged to over $300 million during the proceeding.

The state says the new sum reflects windfalls from wrongdoing, chiefly $199 million in profits from property sales and $169 million in savings on interest rates, as calculated by an investment banking expert hired by James' office.

Trump bristled at the proposed penalty, calling it “a disgrace” at a campaign stop in Sioux Center, Iowa.

“There was no victim. There was no default. There was no damages. No nothing,” he said. In an all-caps post hours earlier on his Truth Social platform, he complained that the attorney general was seeking $370 million and instead “should pay me,” asserting that businesses are fleeing New York.

(According to the state Labor Department, the number of private sector jobs in New York increased 1% in the year that ended this past November, compared to 1.6% nationally.)

James' office argued in a filing Friday that Trump, his company and executives clearly intended to defraud people.

“The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation," state lawyer Kevin Wallace wrote.

The state alleges Trump and his company ginned up exorbitant values for golf courses, hotels, and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The numbers were listed on personal financial statements that netted him attractive rates on loans and insurance, leaving him money to invest in other projects and even his 2016 presidential campaign, James' office says.

The defendants, including Trump's sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny any wrongdoing. The former president has painted the case as a political maneuver by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they’re abusing the legal system to try to cut off his chances of winning back the White House this year.

He asserts that his financial statements actually came in billions of dollars low, and that any overestimations — such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size — were mere mistakes and made no difference in the overall picture of his fortune.

He also says the documents are essentially legally bulletproof because they said the numbers weren't audited, among other caveats. Recipients understood them as simply starting points for their own analyses, the defense says.

None of Trump’s lenders testified that they wouldn’t have made the loans or would have charged more interest if his financial statements had shown different numbers, and 10-plus weeks of testimony produced “no factual evidence from any witness that the gains were ill-gotten,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote in a filing Friday. Nor, they said, was there proof that insurers were ripped off.

Separately, defense lawyers argued that claims against Executive Vice Presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be dismissed because they never had “anything more than a peripheral knowledge or involvement in the creation, preparation, or use of” their father's financial statements.

The sons relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared those documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the scions' own testimony.

Their father also took the stand, disputing the allegations, decrying the case as political and criticizing the judge and the attorney general. James' office argued in its filing Friday that Trump was “not a credible witness."

“He was evasive, gave irrelevant speeches and was incapable of answering questions in a direct and credible manner,” Wallace wrote.

The verdict is up to the judge because James brought the case under a state law that doesn’t allow for a jury. Engoron has said he hopes to decide by the end of this month.

He will weigh claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But he ruled before trial on the lawsuit's top claim, finding that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years. With that ruling, the judge ordered that a receiver take control of some of the ex-president’s properties, but an appeals court has frozen that order for now.

During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order. The order, imposed after Trump maligned a law clerk, barred all trial participants from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff.

Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.

___

Contributing were Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak and Jill Colvin in New York and Hannah Fingerhut in Sioux Center, Iowa.

The Capuchin Franciscans-Western American Province announced the news on its Facebook site where it posted images of a smiling LeBeouf receiving Communion, kneeling with his eyes shut in prayer at Mass and hugging friars who attended the ceremony.

The sacramental ceremony was held at Old Mission Santa Inés Parish in Solvang, California, the same friary where LaBeouf — who has acknowledged alcoholism and faced abuse allegations — trained for months for his role as one of Italy’s best-known and most revered saints in the 2022 film, “ Padre Pio.”

“The Capuchin Franciscan friars are overjoyed to welcome him into the fold and witness his deep commitment to his faith journey,” the Catholic religious order said.

LaBeouf “has embarked on a profound spiritual journey that has led him to embrace the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the order said. "His decision to fully enter the Church is a testament to his sincere desire to grow in his relationship with God and live out the Gospel values.”

LaBeouf first gained fame as a teenager on the Disney Channel show “Even Stevens,” and is best known for his roles in 2007′s “Transformers” and in 2008′s “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.” He also starred in the 2019 film “The Peanut Butter Falcon.”

He has had several run-ins with the law during his career, including a 2017 New York City arrest for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct that was captured on a livestreamed video. He was sent to court-mandated rehabilitation.

LaBeouf, who has been accused by a former girlfriend of abuse, spent months in the California friary preparing for his role in “Padre Pio.”

The actor has said the chance to play the mystic Capuchin monk best known for having displayed the “stigmata” wounds of Christ — he bled from his hands, feet and sides — was a miracle for him personally.

LaBeouf said last year in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron, of the Winona-Rochester diocese in Minnesota, that he was agnostic before turning to Catholicism. He said he had a bar mitzvah as a 13-year-old boy but never embraced the Jewish faith.

Barron, in an email to The Associated Press on Friday, described LaBeouf's conversion as “a testament to God’s grace.”

“God seems to specialize in finding the lost,” Barron wrote. “Jesus himself said, ‘I have come not for the righteous but for sinners.’ So, forgiveness is always available; redemption is always possible.”

LaBeouf’s confirmation sponsor, Capuchin friar Brother Alexander Rodriguez, told the AP that LaBeouf “would not have become a Catholic if he had not gone through the personal difficulties and sins that we know about.”

“It is because of his sufferings that he’s gone through that he was able to come to know God, especially with playing the part of Padre Pio," the friar said in a telephone interview.

Padre Pio died in 1968 and was canonized in 2002 by Pope John Paul II, going on to become one of the most popular saints in Italy, the U.S. and beyond.

The Capuchin Friars Minor is a Catholic religious order of men inspired by Saint Francis of Assisi. On its site they say their life mission is to serve the poor and live the Gospel “through fraternity, simplicity, and contemplative prayer.”

__

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

The outside of the box reads "Wild Fork Porcini Mushroom Risotto Bites," but inside consumers may actually find hot dogs in puff pastry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said in a news release Friday. Sesame, a known allergy and ingredient in the puff pastry bites, isn't declared on the packaging, according to the FSIS.

The 7.5-ounce cardboard boxes were shipped to retailers in California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.   

If you think you may have one of the boxes in your freezer, check to see if it has a lot code of 101231, a "best by" date of 10/11/2024 and EST. 39896 on the side of the box. If so, the FSIS recommends throwing them away or returning them to the store where they were bought.

The FSIS says there is no recall, since the product is no longer being sold, but they chose to warn consumers since the item could still be in many peoples' freezers.

There haven't been any reports of adverse reactions as of Friday, according to the FSIS.

Exposure to the seed can cause immune system reactions that range from mild, like an outbreak of hives, to severe, which include anaphylaxis.

Sesame was declared the ninth major food allergen in the U.S. as part of the 2021 Food Safety, Treatment, Education, and Reasearch (FASTER) Act, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Starting Jan. 1, 2023, the FDA stipulations around sesame and the major allergens went into effect, including labeling and manufacturing requirements.

Anyone with further questions regarding the public health alert is asked to reach out to Jessica Levitzki, director of food safety & compliance, at 201-439-1036 ext. 22 or jessica@fillofactory.com.

"Just before the holidays, it was discovered that I had a brain tumor, which required immediate surgery," he said on Instagram. "Thanks to my incredible medical team, the surgery was a success."

Bolton said he planned to take a break from touring for the next few months as he focused on recovery. At the time of his announcement, his website still showed tour dates planned for Florida, California, Ohio, Illinois and Ontario, Canada, in February, as well as additional concerts through spring. It's not clear how many shows Bolton will cancel or reschedule.

"It is always the hardest thing for me to ever disappoint my fans or postpone a show, but have no doubt I am working hard to accelerate my recovery and get back to performing soon," he wrote.

The 70-year-old singer has been nominated four times for the Grammy Award for best male pop vocal performance. He won in the category twice: once in 1990 for "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You" and then again two years later for "When A Man Loves A Woman."

On Friday he thanked his fans for their support over his long career. "I am beyond grateful for all the love and support you have so generously shown me through the years," he wrote. "Know that I'm keeping your positive messages in my heart, and I'll give you more updates as soon as I can."

Introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie as “the most pro-Second Amendment candidate in this race,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave his standard speech touting his record in his home state.

Then DeSantis opened the floor to questions. The first one was, “What actions would you take to reduce mass shootings?”

The shooting in Perry, Iowa, which left one sixth grader dead and seven more people injured, immediately cast a shadow over the state’s first-in-the-nation Republican presidential caucuses, scheduled for Jan. 15. Three candidates were asked about it Thursday and Friday at campaign stops, some just a short drive from the school where a 17-year-old junior opened fire as students were returning from winter break.

Pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was set to hold an event elsewhere in Perry — a town of 8,000 people — when emergency vehicles began to stream toward the nearby school.

As candidates swung through the state, questions about the shooting kept bubbling up. Still, the candidates largely stuck to their routines, with none canceling subsequent campaign stops. The questions didn't disrupt the contenders' pitches to Iowa's conservative caucusgoers.

That’s a reflection of both the Republican Party’s resistance to any new measures restricting guns and how horribly commonplace attacks like the one in Perry have become in American life.

On Friday, former President Donald Trump briefly mentioned the shooting, giving his condolences to those affected.

“It’s a very terrible thing that happened and it’s just terrible,” Trump said at a rally in Sioux Center. “To see that happening. That seems terrible. So surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it. We have to move forward. We have to move forward.”

At a pair of CNN town halls Thursday night, the first questions to both DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley were about guns. A childcare provider asked DeSantis: “In light of the shooting today and without taking away any gun rights, what would you do to address the issue?”

After both politicians answered by stressing the need for more mental health services and school security — “we have to secure our schools the same way we secure our airports,” Haley said — the town halls both turned back to traditional political fodder with questions about the border, Israel and former President Donald Trump.

Hours after the shooting, Ramaswamy posted to the social media app X, formerly known as Twitter, a video of him being asked in Perry about the attack shortly after it unfolded. The man in the video framed his question by saying of teens: “I don't think it's that they're too accessible to firearms."

Haley made a quip Friday morning about Iowa's sub-freezing temperatures when she was handed the microphone at the downtown Des Moines Rotary Club meeting before diving into her well-rehearsed campaign speech. She did not mention the shooting.

Two speakers preceding her referenced what happened and noted some of the personal connections in the audience of more than 100 to the school and town 40 miles northwest of Des Moines.

“I was waiting to see if she would mention it, and was surprised she didn’t,” said Robin Heinemann of Des Moines, who prefers Haley to all other Republican presidential candidates. “It’s such an obvious thing to mention, even a word of condolence.”

Still, some voters didn't want to hear more — especially about guns. “Everybody in Iowa owns guns to go hunting; we are a state that hunts,” said Sheila Blake, a retired worker in the Federal Reserve's anti-fraud office, as she waited for DeSantis Friday. “Mental health is what caused yesterday.”

Blake's friend, Debbie Overholser, 69, also didn't want DeSantis to talk about the shooting. “I'd like to hear him talk about what he's going to do,” Overholser said. “I don't want to hear any more heartache.”

Nonetheless, DeSantis was prompted to address the shooting Friday morning. He began by talking about the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, before he became governor, and touted how he removed the sheriff and school board members for the flawed law enforcement response to the attack.

“Parents out there can count on me as somebody that is going to put the safety of our kids and the safety of our souls on the front burner,” DeSantis said. "It’s important.”

But after several more questions about the border, bringing the nation together and democracy, someone asked DeSantis at the event's close, again — what would he do to stop mass shootings?

DeSantis noted the 17-year-old shooter in Perry was too young to be able to legally own a gun and that whoever allowed him to have one needs to be held responsible. He then segued into politically safer grounds, complaining about leniency against criminals in Democratic-run cities like Chicago.

“You have to hold people accountable,” DeSantis said.

Kate Schweit, a former FBI agent and author of “Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis,” said in an interview that Republicans who talk about addressing mass shootings are wrong to avoid talking about changing gun laws.

“Saying, ‘Don’t take my guns away, it’s all mental health,’ is not a realistic solution, just like saying, ‘Take all the guns away, it’s not mental health,’ isn’t one either,” Schweit said.

___

Associated Press reporter Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.