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Georgia bill aimed at requiring law enforcement to heed immigration requests heads to governor

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s Legislature gave final approval Thursday to a bill that would require local jailers to check the immigration status of inmates and work with federal immigration officials instead of sheltering people who are in the country illegally.

The House voted 99-75 to accept changes to House Bill 1105, which was backed by Republicans and now goes to the governor for his signature. It previously passed the state Senate.

Under the measure, local law enforcement agencies would risk losing state funding for failing to work with immigration officials. Local officials could also face misdemeanor charges.

The measure gained traction after police accused a Venezuelan man of beating a nursing student to death on the University of Georgia campus.

Jose Ibarra was arrested last month on murder and assault charges in the death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. Immigration authorities say Ibarra, 26, unlawfully crossed into the United States in 2022. It is unclear whether he has applied for asylum.

Democrats raised concerns it would turn local law enforcement into immigration police, making communities less willing to report crime and work with them. They have also pointed to studies showing immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.

House Republican Jesse Petrea said on the floor Thursday that the bill was asking law enforcement only to work with immigration officials when someone has committed a crime and is in the country illegally.

“I don’t believe anyone in law enforcement believes that’s too much to ask,” he said.


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What to know about Day of Visibility, designed to show the world ‘trans joy’

Sunday is International Transgender Day of Visibility, observed around the world to bring attention to a population that’s often ignored, disparaged or victimized.

Here are things to know about the day.

The “day” is Sunday, but celebrations and educational events designed to bring attention to transgender people are occurring for several days around March 31.

Events were scheduled around the world and include panels and speakers in Cincinnati and Atlanta, marches in Melbourne, Florida and Philadelphia, and an inclusive roller derby league’s game on New York’s Long Island. A picnic is planned in the English town of Hitchin.

Perhaps the highest profile U.S. event is a rally scheduled for Sunday on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Major buildings and landmarks across the U.S. will be lit up in pink, white and light blue to mark the day. Last year, those lit included New York’s One World Trade Center and Niagara Falls.

Rachel Crandall-Crocker, the executive director and co-founder of Transgender Michigan, organized the first day in 2009.

“I think that once a person understands us, it’s hard to discriminate against us,” she said in an interview. “I created it because I wanted a time that we don’t have to be so lonely. I wanted a day that we’re all together all over the world as one community. And that’s exactly what we are.”

It was designed as a contrast to Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is held annually on Nov. 20 to honor the memory of of transgender people who were killed in anti-transgender violence.

Crandall-Crocker selected the day at the end of March to give it space from the day of remembrance and Pride Month in June, which celebrates all types of LGBTQ+ people.

She plans to take part in a rally in Lansing, Michigan.

Transgender people have become more visible in public life in the U.S. and elsewhere.

There also has been a backlash from conservatives officials. At least 11 states have adopted policies barring people from using the bathrooms aligning with their gender in schools or other public buildings, 25 have bans on transgender women and/or girls competing in sports for women or girls and more than 20 have adopted bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Some of the policies have been put on hold by courts.

Nico Lang, author of “American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era,” which is scheduled to be published later this year, said it’s important to find happiness even amid the political tumult.

“I feel like we as people — all of us queer people, trans people — are trying to assert our humanity right now,” said Lang, who uses they/them pronouns.

They said the day of visibility is powerful because it’s not just on social media but also in real life with rallies and potluck meals.

“It’s just us living our lives,” they said.


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Georgia joins states seeking parental permission before children join social media

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia could join other states in requiring children younger than 16 to have their parents’ explicit permission to create social media accounts.

Lawmakers on Friday gave final approval to Senate Bill 351, which also would ban social media use on school devices and internet services, require porn sites to verify users are 18 or over and mandate additional education by schools on social media and internet use. The House passed the measure 120-45 and the Senate approved it 48-7.

The bill, which Republican Sen. Jason Anavitarte of Dallas called “transformative,” now goes to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature or veto.

A number of other states including Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Utah passed laws last year requiring parental consent for children to use social media. In Arkansas, a federal judge in August blocked enforcement of a law requiring parental consent for minors to create new social media accounts.

Some in Congress also are proposing parental consent for minors.

State Rep. Scott Hilton, a Peachtree Corners Republican, argued the state should do more to limit social media use by children, saying it’s causing harm.

“Every rose has a thorn, and that’s social media in this generation,” Hilton said. “It’s great for connectivity and activism, but it has reared its ugly head on mental health.”

But opponents warned the bill would cause problems. For example, Rep. David Wilkerson, a Powder Springs Democrat, said that the ban on use of social media in schools could ban teachers from showing educationally valuable YouTube videos.

“If we do pass this, we’ll be back fixing this next year, because there are too many issues with this bill,” Wilkerson said.

The bill says social media services would have to use “commercially reasonable efforts” to verify someone’s age by July 1, 2025.

Services would have to treat anyone who can’t be verified as a minor. Parents of children younger than 16 would have to consent to their children joining a service. Social medial companies would be limited in how they could customize ads for children younger than 16 and how much information they could collect on those children.

To comply with federal regulation, social media companies already ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms, but children have been shown to easily evade the bans.

Up to 95% of teens aged 13 to 17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use them “almost constantly,” the Pew Research Center found.

The Georgia bill also aims to shut down porn sites by requiring submission of a digitized identification card or some other government-issued identification. Companies could be held liable if minors were found to access the sites, and could face fines of up to $10,000.

“It will protect our children,” said Rep. Rick Jasperse, a Jasper Republican who argues age verification will lead porn sites to cut off access to Georgians. In March, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Texas law, leading Pornhub to cut off access to Texans.

The Free Speech Coalition, which represents adult film makers, says the bill would be ineffective because users could mask their location and because people would be forced to transmit sensitive information. They also argue it’s unconstitutional because there are less restrictive ways to keep children out and discriminate against certain types of speech. The coalition has sued multiple states over the laws.

The ban on school social media excludes email, news, gaming, online shopping, photograph editing and academic sites. The measure also requires a model program on the effects of social media and for students in grades 6-12, and requires existing anti-bullying programs to be updated.

The move comes after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in May that social media hasn’t been proven to be safe for young people.

Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” and asked tech companies to share data and increase transparency and for policymakers to regulate social media for safety the way they do car seats and baby formula.

Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instragram, announced in 2022 it was taking steps to verify ages. Meta says it provides “age-appropriate experiences” for teens 13-17 on Instagram, including preventing unwanted contact from unknown adults.

Dozens of U.S. states, including California and New York, also are suing Meta Platforms Inc., claiming the company harms young people and contributes to a youth mental health crisis by knowingly and deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms.

Florida recently passed a law banning social media accounts for children under 14 regardless of parental consent and require parental permission for 14- and 15-year-olds.


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A growing number of Americans end up in Russian jails. The prospects for their release are unclear

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A journalist on a reporting trip in a Ural Mountains city. A corporate security executive traveling to Moscow for a wedding. A dual national returning to her hometown in Tatarstan to visit her family.

All of them are U.S. citizens, and all are behind bars in Russia on charges of varying severity.

Arrests of Americans in Russia have become increasingly common as relations between Moscow and Washington sink to Cold War lows. Washington accuses Moscow of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining chips, but Russian officials insist they all broke the law.

Some have been exchanged for Russians held in the U.S., while for others, the prospects of being released in a swap are less clear.

“It seems that since Moscow itself has cut off most of the communication channels and does not know how to restore them properly without losing face, they are trying to use the hostages. … At least that’s what it looks like,” said Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who quit after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Friday marks a year since the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, a 32-year-old reporter for The Wall Street Journal who is awaiting trial in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison on espionage charges.

Gershkovich was detained while on a reporting trip to the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and accused of spying for the U.S. Russian authorities haven’t revealed any details of the accusations or evidence to back up the charges, which he, his employer and the U.S. government all deny.

Another American accused of espionage is Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. He was arrested in 2018 in Russia and sentenced to 16 years in prison two years later. Whelan, who said he traveled to Moscow to attend a friend’s wedding, has maintained his innocence and said the charges against him were fabricated.

The U.S. government has declared both Gershkovich and Whelan to be wrongfully detained and has been advocating for their release.

Others detained include Travis Leake, a musician who had been living in Russia for years and was arrested last year on drug-related charges; Marc Fogel, a teacher in Moscow, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison, also on drug charges; and dual nationals Alsu Kurmasheva and Ksenia Khavana.

Kurmasheva, a Prague-based editor for the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service, was arrested October 2023 in her hometown of Kazan, where she traveled to see her ailing elderly mother. She has faced multiple charges, including not self-reporting as a “foreign agent” and spreading false information about the army.

Khavana, of Los Angeles, returned to Russia to visit family and was arrested on treason charges. According to Pervy Otdel, a rights group that specializes in treason cases, the charges against her stem from a $51 donation to a U.S. charity that helps Ukraine.

The precise number of Americans jailed in Russia is unclear, but the cases of Gershkovich and Whelan have received the most attention.

Gershkovich was designated as wrongfully detained by the State Department less than two weeks after his arrest, unusually fast action by the U.S government. The designation is applied to only a small subsection of Americans jailed by foreign countries.

Prisoners who get that classification have their cases assigned to a special State Department envoy for hostage affairs, who tries to negotiate their releases, and must meet certain criteria — including a determination that the arrest was done solely because the person is a U.S. national or as part of an effort to influence U.S. policy or extract concessions from the government.

The U.S. has had some success in recent years negotiating high-profile prisoner swaps with Russia, striking deals in 2022 that resulted in the releases of WNBA star Brittney Griner and Marine veteran Trevor Reed. Both Griner and Reed were designated as wrongfully detained.

In the exchanges for them, Moscow got arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S., and pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, given a 20-year prison term in the U.S. for cocaine trafficking.

It’s unclear whether there are any negotiations in the works on swapping other Americans held in Russia, such as Leake, Fogel, Kurmasheva or Khavana.

Kurmasheva’s husband, Pavel Butorin, told The Associated Press shortly after her arrest that he hoped the U.S. government would use “every avenue and every means available to it” to win her release, including designating her as a wrongfully detained person.

In December, the State Department said it had made a significant offer to secure the release of Gershkovich and Whelan, which it said Russia had rejected.

Officials did not describe the offer, although Russia has been said to be seeking the release of Vadim Krasikov, who was given a life sentence in Germany in 2021 for the killing in Berlin of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen descent who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

President Vladimir Putin, asked this year about releasing Gershkovich, appeared to refer to Krasikov by pointing to a man imprisoned by a U.S. ally for “liquidating a bandit” who had allegedly killed Russian soldiers during separatist fighting in Chechnya.

Beyond that hint, Russian officials have kept mum about the talks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeatedly said that while “certain contacts” on swaps continue, “they must be carried out in absolute silence.”

Whether there are any other Russians held in the West that Moscow might be interested in is unclear.

When Russia agreed to release Griner but not Whelan, a senior Biden administration official lamented to reporters that Russia had “rejected each and every one of our proposals for his release.”

Those scenarios — in which one detainee is released but not another — weigh heavily on officials in the U.S. government, said Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, speaking in a January interview with AP.

“Unless someone’s coming off a plane, onto a tarmac, in the United States of America and into the arms of their loved ones, we’re not getting a win,” Carstens said.

Historically, “when the relationships (between countries) are better, the exchanges seem to be smoother,” said Nina Khrushcheva, a Moscow-born professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and the great-granddaughter of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

She pointed to prisoner swaps between the Soviet Union and Chile during the detente period of the 1970s, as well as those with the U.S. and Germany shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev took office in the 1980s. Prominent Soviet dissidents Vladimir Bukovsky and Natan Sharansky were released in these exchanges.

Ultimately, however, the fate of those imprisoned in Russia “is only in Putin’s hands,” Khrushcheva said.

Carstens echoed her sentiment.

“These are tough cases. The fact is that Russia holds the key to the jail cell,” he told AP this week. “The United States continues to have conversations with allies and partners about what we can do to secure Evan and Paul’s freedom. These efforts are sensitive and it doesn’t help Evan and Paul to have negotiations in public. The United States will continue our efforts until we can bring Evan and Paul home.”

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Tucker reported from Washington.


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Former US Sen. Joe Lieberman and VP candidate to be remembered at hometown funeral service

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Political dignitaries, family and friends are gathering Friday to honor the late Joe Lieberman at a funeral service in Stamford, Connecticut, the hometown of the four-term U.S. senator who grew up as the son of a liquor store owner and came within hundreds of votes of becoming the first Jewish vice president in 2000.

Lieberman died Wednesday in New York City from complications from a fall, according to his family. He was 82.

Services will be held at Congregation Agudath Sholom in Stamford. For Lieberman, a self-described “observant jew” who followed the rules of the Jewish Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the congregation played a key role early on in his life.

He once recalled how the congregation’s former synagogue building was “a place that gave me the first sense of religion; a very special uplift,” according to a posting on the congregation’s website.

“I feel very lucky — my adherence to the Jewish tradition is really an asset,” he said. “Religious Catholics and Protestants find a bond of common value with my beliefs and stand. It is this that makes me so proud of being an American.”

Top Connecticut Democrats, including former Sen. Chris Dodd, Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Gov. Ned Lamont, Lieberman’s one-time rival for the Senate seat, are expected to attend the services Friday morning. A second public memorial is expected to be held at a future date.

Lieberman, a former state Senate leader and attorney general, was known for his pragmatic, independent streak. A moderate Democrat who ended up running as an independent to win a fourth term in the Senate, Lieberman came close to becoming Republican John McCain’s running mate in 2008. However, conservatives balked at the idea of tapping Lieberman, who was known for supporting gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes while taking a hawkish stand on military and national security matters.

President Joe Biden on Thursday called Lieberman a friend, someone who was “principled, steadfast and unafraid to stand up for what he thought was right.”

“Joe believed in a shared purpose of serving something bigger than ourselves,” Biden, who served 20 years in the Senate with Lieberman, said in his statement. “He lived the values of his faith as he worked to repair the wounds of the world.”

Lieberman came tantalizingly close to winning the vice presidency in the contentious 2000 presidential contest that was decided by a 537-vote margin victory for George W. Bush in Florida after a drawn-out recount, legal challenges and a Supreme Court decision. He was the first Jewish candidate on a major party’s presidential ticket.

Over the last decade, Lieberman helped lead No Labels, a centrist third-party movement that has said it will offer as-yet-unnamed candidates for president and vice president this year. Some groups aligned with Democrats oppose the effort, fearing it will help presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump win the White House.

Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, have four children.


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Chicago plans to move migrants to other shelters and reopen park buildings for the summer

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago plans to close five shelters for migrants in the coming weeks and move nearly 800 people, including families, in order to reopen park district buildings hosting popular summer camps, athletic contests and other community events in time for summer.

The shift is part of the city’s ongoing scramble to meet the needs of people arriving from the U.S. border with Mexico.

Advocates for the newly arrived have frequently criticized Mayor Brandon Johnson, a Democrat, and argued that the available services are inadequate. Others believe Chicago is unfairly prioritizing new arrivals over longtime residents, including unhoused people with similar needs.

Johnson announced the plan to close the park district shelters this week, saying they were “no longer necessary.”

“I am proud of the efforts of my administration, our partners, and the many Chicagoans who stepped up to welcome new arrivals by providing shelter in our Park District field houses at a time when this was clearly needed,” Johnson said in a statement Monday.

“We are grateful to the alderpersons and communities who have embraced new neighbors with open arms, and we are pleased that these park facilities will be transitioned back to their intended purpose in time for summer programming.”

Chicago has reported more than 37,000 migrants arriving to the city since 2022, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began sending buses of people to so-called sanctuary cities. Many migrants who land in Chicago come from Venezuela, where a social, political and economic crisis has pushed millions into poverty, and where three-quarters of residents live on less than $1.90 a day.

The city initially used police stations and airports as officials searched for other temporary shelters. Some residents of neighborhoods surrounding some of the park district fieldhouses have regularly protested their use as shelters since last summer.

On Friday, a city dashboard showed more than 10,000 people remain in city-run shelters. That’s down from a peak of nearly 15,000 in January.

The city has not specified when all the park buildings will be empty, only that it will take several weeks. Volunteers who work with migrants said residents of at least two of the park buildings were told they will begin moving to other shelters Saturday.

Nearly 20 other temporary shelters are still operating in the city, including churches, hotels, a library and former warehouses. The largest shelters are housing more than 1,000 people while others reported counts closer to 100, according to the city’s latest update this month.

The city is aiming to move people to other shelters closer to the park buildings, particularly families with children enrolled in nearby schools, Johnson’s statement said.

Chicago began enforcing a 60-day limit on shelter stays in mid-March. But many exemptions, including for families with children in school, have meant few people are actually being evicted yet.

The city has reported only 24 people leaving shelters so far because of the caps.

Other U.S. cities, including New York and Denver, have used similar shelter limits to cope with limited resource availability for migrants arriving by bus and plane. Mayors also have pleaded for more federal help.

In Chicago, people who are evicted can return to the city’s “landing zone” and reapply for shelter. Volunteers have said that sometimes means people leave a shelter and are sent back to the same location.

Volunteers who work with new arrivals said they understand the desire for neighborhoods to have park district facilities back, particularly for camps and other programs popular during summer months.

But they worry the forced move will upend migrants’ efforts to find work and get their children to school.

“Most people are actively, constantly trying to figure out how they get out of shelters,” volunteer Lydia Wong said. “I don’t know that this helps expedite it at all. The city is saying they want to keep people relatively close, but it’s extremely disruptive — needing to find new routes, new ways to get to school or work.”

Several people living in the park-based shelters told The Associated Press this week they had received little information about the city’s plan, including where they might be moved. They declined to give their names, with several saying they did not want to face any retaliation from employees of the private agency running the shelters.

As of Wednesday, the city said more than 15,000 people have found other housing since officials began keeping data in 2022.

Many have sought rental assistance provided by the state. More than 5,600 families have used the program to find housing, according to the Illinois Department of Human Services.

With a few exceptions like diplomats and people on tourist visas, immigrants in the U.S. must notify officials when they move.

Asylum seekers in the immigration court system have five days to do so after changing addresses, to ensure they receive notifications from the court. Missing mail might not sink their case directly, but failing to show up for a court date could lead to them being deported.

___

Associated Press reporter Cedar Attanasio contributed from New York.


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Building a new Key Bridge could take years and cost at least $400 million, experts say

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Rebuilding Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from 18 months to several years, experts say, while the cost could be at least $400 million — or more than twice that.

It all depends on factors that are still mostly unknown. They range from the design of the new bridge to how swiftly government officials can navigate the bureaucracy of approving permits and awarding contracts.

Realistically, the project could take five to seven years, according to Ben Schafer, an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“The lead time on air conditioning equipment right now for a home renovation is like 16 months, right?” Schafer said. He continued: “So it’s like you’re telling me they’re going to build a whole bridge in two years? I want it to be true, but I think empirically it doesn’t feel right to me.”

Others are more optimistic about the potential timeline: Sameh Badie, an engineering professor at George Washington University, said the project could take as little as 18 months to two years.

The Key Bridge collapsed Tuesday, killing six members of a crew that was working on the span, after the Dali cargo ship plowed into one its supports. Officials are scrambling to clean up and rebuild after the accident, which has shuttered the city’s busy port and a portion of the Baltimore beltway.

The disaster is in some ways similar to the deadly collapse of Florida’s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was was struck by a freighter in Tampa Bay in 1980. The new bridge took five years to build, was 19 months late and ran $20 million over budget when it opened in 1987.

But experts say it’s better to look to more recent bridge disasters for a sense of how quickly reconstruction may happen.

Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, cited the case of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota, which collapsed into the Mississippi River in 2007. The new span was up in less than 14 months.

“It’s the best comparison that we have for a project like this,” Tymon said. “They did outstanding work in being able to get the approvals necessary to be able to rebuild that as quickly as possible.”

Tymon expects various government agencies to work together to push through permits, environmental and otherwise.

“It doesn’t mean that all of the right boxes won’t get checked — they will,” Tymon said. “It’ll just be done more efficiently because everybody will know that this has to get done as quickly as possible.”

One looming issue is the source of funding. President Joe Biden has repeatedly said the federal government will pay for the new bridge, but that remains to be seen.

“Hopefully, Congress will be able to come together to provide those resources as soon as possible so that that does not become a source of delay,” Tymon said.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar helped to obtain funding quickly to rebuild the I-35W bridge in her state. But she said replacing the Baltimore span could be more complicated.

She noted that the I-35W bridge, a federal interstate highway, was a much busier roadway with about 140,000 vehicle crossings a day, compared with about 31,000 for the Maryland bridge.

“But where there’s a will there’s a way, and you can get the emergency funding,” Klobuchar said. “It’s happened all over the country when disasters hit. And the fact that this is such a major port also makes it deserving of making sure that this all gets taken care of.”

Badie, of George Washington University, said the cost could be between $500 million and $1 billion, with the largest variable being the design.

For example a suspension bridge like San Francisco’s Golden Gate will cost more, while a cable-stayed span, like Florida’s Skyway Sunshine Bridge, which handles weight using cables and towers, would be less expensive.

Whatever is built, steel is expensive these days and there is a backlog for I-beams, Badie said. Plus, the limited number of construction companies that can tackle such a project are already busy on other jobs.

“A project like this is going to be expedited, so everything is going to cost a lot more,” Badie said.

Hota GangaRao, a West Virginia University engineering professor, said the project could cost as little as $400 million. But that’s only if the old bridge’s pier foundations are used; designers may want to locate the new supports farther away from the shipping channels to avoid another collision.

“That’s going to be more steel, more complicated construction and more checks and balances,” GangaRao said. “It all adds up.”

Norma Jean Mattei, an emeritus engineering professor at The University of New Orleans, said replacing the Key Bridge likely will take several years. Even if it’s a priority, the process of designing the span, getting permits and hiring contractors takes a lot of time. And then you have to build it.

“It’s quite a process to actually get a bridge of this type into operation,” she said.


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Cranes arriving to start removing wreckage from deadly Baltimore bridge collapse

BALTIMORE (AP) — The largest crane on the Eastern Seaboard was being transported to Baltimore so crews on Friday can begin removing the wreckage of a collapsed highway bridge that has halted a search for four workers still missing days after the disaster and blocked the city’s vital port from operating.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the crane, which was arriving by barge and can lift up to 1,000 tons, will be one of at least two used to clear the channel of the twisted metal and concrete remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and the cargo ship that hit it this week.

“The best minds in the world” are working on the plans for removal, Moore said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Baltimore District told the governor that it and the Navy were mobilizing major resources from around the country at record speed to clear the channel.

“This is not just about Maryland,” Moore said. “This is about the nation’s economy. The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in America.”

He warned of a long road to recovery but said he was grateful to the Biden administration for approving $60 million in immediate aid. President Joe Biden has said the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the bridge.

“This work is not going to take hours. This work is not going to take days. This work is not going to take weeks,” Moore said. “We have a very long road ahead of us.”

Thirty-two members of the Army Corps of Engineers were surveying the scene of the collapse and 38 Navy contractors were working on the salvage operation, officials said Thursday.

The devastation left behind after the cargo ship lost power and struck a support pillar early Tuesday is extensive. Divers recovered the bodies of two men from a pickup truck in the Patapsco River near the bridge’s middle span Wednesday, but officials said they have to start clearing the wreckage before anyone can reach the bodies of four other missing workers.

State police have said that based on sonar scans, the vehicles appear to be encased in a “superstructure” of concrete and other debris.

Federal and state officials have said the collision and collapse appeared to be an accident.

The victims, who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said. At least eight people initially went into the water when the ship struck the bridge column, and two of them were rescued Tuesday, officials said.

The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds. Authorities had just enough time to stop vehicle traffic, but didn’t get a chance to alert the construction crew.

During the Baltimore Orioles’ opening day game Thursday, Sgt. Paul Pastorek, Cpl. Jeremy Herbert and Officer Garry Kirts of the Maryland Transportation Authority were honored for their actions in halting bridge traffic and preventing further loss of life.

The three said in a statement that they were “proud to carry out our duties as officers of this state to save the lives that we could.”

The cargo ship Dali, which is managed by Synergy Marine Group, was headed from Baltimore to Sri Lanka. It is owned by Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and was chartered by Danish shipping giant Maersk.

Synergy extended sympathies to the victims’ families in a statement Thursday.

“We deeply regret this incident and the problems it has caused for the people of Baltimore and the region’s economy that relies on this vitally important port,” Synergy said, noting that it would continue to cooperate with investigators.

Of the 21 crew members on the ship, 20 are from India, Randhir Jaiswal, the nation’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters, saying one was slightly injured and needed stitches but “all are in good shape and good health.”

Scott Cowan, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 333, said the union was scrambling to help its roughly 2,400 members whose jobs are at risk of drying up until shipping can resume in the Port of Baltimore.

“If there’s no ships, there’s no work,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

The huge vessel, nearly as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, was carrying nearly 4,700 shipping containers, 56 of them with hazardous materials inside. Fourteen of those were destroyed, officials said. However industrial hygienists who evaluated the contents identified them as perfumes and soaps, the Key Bridge Joint Information Center said, and there was “no immediate threat to the environment.”

About 21 gallons (80 liters) of oil from a bow thruster on the ship is believed to have caused a sheen in the waterway, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.

Booms were placed to prevent any spreading of oil, and state environmental officials were sampling the water and air.

At the moment there are containers hanging dangerously off the side of the ship, Gilreath said, adding, “We’re trying to keep our first responders … as safe as possible.”

The sudden loss of a roadway that carried 30,000 vehicles a day and the port disruption will affect not only thousands of dockworkers and commuters but also U.S. consumers, who are likely to feel the impact of shipping delays.

The governors of New York and New Jersey offered to take on cargo shipments that have been disrupted, to try to minimize supply chain problems.

From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collisions, according to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.

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Witte reported from Annapolis, Maryland. Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Washington, Krutika Pathi in New Delhi, and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.


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Network political contributors have a long history. But are they more trouble than they’re worth?

NEW YORK (AP) — One of the nation’s most prominent news outlets has found itself in an embarrassing mess over the hiring — and quick firing — of someone who isn’t even a journalist in the first place.

Among other things, NBC News’ brief employment of former Republican National Committee chief Ronna McDaniel has illustrated the role of political contributors in television news, and the frustration many executives feel in adequately representing the GOP point of view in the Donald Trump era.

NBC News’ leadership felt it had secured a prize in the services of McDaniel to provide an insider’s perspective on the Republican campaign. Yet they were taken aback and changed course Tuesday after network personalities like Chuck Todd and Rachel Maddow objected to working with someone who had trafficked in election disinformation.

Those bosses, starting with NBC Universal Chairman Cesar Conde, now face questions about their leadership and anger from Republicans, some of whom their journalists count upon as news sources heading into a presidential election.

“The reputation of a news organization will never rise on the hiring of a non-journalistic contributor,” said Mark Whitaker, a former NBC News senior vice president and Washington bureau chief. “But it can fall.”

Televised political combat existed in earlier times, like Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick’s “point-counterpoint” segment on “60 Minutes” in the 1970s. Politics and journalism had its share of cross-fertilization with figures such as George Stephanopoulos and the late Tim Russert.

Yet the idea of building rosters of paid political contributors took off with cable news. MSNBC, CNN and Fox News Channel are, in large part, political talk channels and seek experts to help fill the time. News streaming has similar needs. Being on call to opine can be lucrative work; several reports had NBC agreeing to pay McDaniel $300,000 a year.

The networks say they strive for political balance. Even NBC News, whose MSNBC cable outlet appeals to liberals, has more than a dozen Republican contributors. Yet most of them — figures like former RNC chief Michael Steele, former Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Bulwark founder Charlie Sykes — either predate Trump in their active political work or oppose him, or both.

Finding someone with a MAGA pedigree has been more difficult. Former Trump chiefs of staff Reince Priebus and Mick Mulvaney had short tenures at CBS News; some CBS journalists privately objected to hiring Mulvaney. Priebus last year joined ABC News, where former Trump Homeland Security adviser Tom Bossert also is a contributor.

Former Trump communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin is at CNN, along with ex-Trump campaign adviser David Urban and Mark Esper, a former defense secretary in the Trump administration.

Many figures who have stepped outside of Trump’s orbit, like Griffin, have turned against him. To some insiders and supporters, the simple act of becoming a network contributor makes you anti-MAGA. Even a generally reliable Trump defender such as Kayleigh McEnany, among a handful of former administration officials like Mike Pompeo now on Fox News’ payroll, has been criticized by her ex-boss as being insufficiently loyal.

A Trump supporter has to wonder if it’s worthwhile to continually feel outnumbered and defensive on television and be forced to account for every wild statement the former president makes, GOP consultant Alex Conant said.

Networks, meanwhile, need contributors to speak authoritatively and get beyond talking points, said Mark Lukasiewicz, a former NBC executive who is now dean of Hofstra University’s communications school.

“Journalists in a lot of newsrooms are starting to think more about the stakes, thinking about the costs of delivering a large audience and a platform to someone who doesn’t fundamentally believe in a system that allows that platform to exist,” Lukasiewicz said. “I think there is a higher bar for somebody who is on the payroll of a journalistic institution, rather than just somebody you interview.”

If publicly supporting, or at least not objecting to, Trump lies about a rigged 2020 election is a litmus test for a job as a network contributor — well, that would eliminate a lot of Republicans.

“To remain itself, the MAGA movement has to practice election denial, minimize the events of Jan. 6, and treat the news media as a hate object for pointing this out,” said Jay Rosen, a New York University professor and author of the Pressthink blog. “Extending the hand of welcome is just too costly for a self-respecting newsroom with a public service charter, as NBC learned this week.”

Networks should retire this category of contributors and switch to a system relying on their own journalists and vetted, unpaid experts, he said. He has no expectations: in reality, they rarely compete by striking out on their own in this manner.

NBC’s Conde made clear that while McDaniel didn’t work out, the principle behind her hiring stands. The network remains committed to seeking diverse viewpoints, and will “redouble our efforts” to seek such voices, he said in the internal memo announcing her firing. Whether that will placate Republicans is uncertain at best.

Some of the personalities who publicly objected to McDaniel at NBC News, such as “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, said they don’t object to airing conservative viewpoints but draw the line at people who actively tried to subvert the 2020 election.

That’s not a nuance many Republicans perceived. Through its failure, an effort designed to make NBC News more inviting had the opposite effect.

“For Republicans who already think NBC is biased, this confirms everything,” Conant said.

Trump, in messages on his Truth Social platform, has tried to draw in NBC’s corporate parent, Comcast.

“These sick degenerates over at MSDNC are really running NBC, and there seems nothing (Comcast) chairman Brian Roberts can do about it,” he wrote. There has been no public indication Conde and his management team has lost Comcast’s support.

Still, the aftermath has increased public scrutiny on Conde and his management team: Rebecca Blumenstein, NBC News president-editorial; MSNBC President Rashida Jones; and Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president for politics.

Among the questions: through two full days of NBC and MSNBC journalists and show hosts publicly condemning the McDaniel hiring, why didn’t anyone in management step forward to explain the motivations behind it? The Washington Post on Wednesday raised questions about Jones’ role in recruiting the former Republican leader.

Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University, wrote in the Guardian that NBC could “earn itself a lot of good will and recover from this blunder” by publicly apologizing.

There was no comment from NBC News on Thursday.

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David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.


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Many Americans say immigrants contribute to economy but there’s worry over risks, AP-NORC poll finds

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are more worried about legal immigrants committing crimes in the U.S. than they were a few years ago, a change driven largely by increased concern among Republicans, while Democrats continue to see a broad range of benefits from immigration, a new poll shows.

The poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that substantial shares of U.S. adults believe that immigrants contribute to the country’s economic growth, and offer important contributions to American culture. But when it comes to legal immigrants, U.S. adults see fewer major benefits than they did in the past, and more major risks.

About 4 in 10 Americans say that when immigrants come to the U.S. legally, it’s a major benefit for American companies to get the expertise of skilled workers in fields like science and technology. A similar share (38%) also say that legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture and values.

Both those figures were down compared with 2017, when 59% of Americans said skilled immigrant workers who enter the country legally were a major benefit, and half said legal immigrants contribute a major benefit by enriching American culture.

Meanwhile, the share of Americans who say that there’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S. has increased, going from 19% in 2017 to 32% in the new poll.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to say that immigration is an important issue for them personally, and 41% now say it’s a major risk that legal immigrants will commit crimes in the U.S., up from 20% in 2017. Overall, Republicans are more likely to see major risks — and fewer benefits — from immigrants who enter the country legally and illegally, although they tend to be most concerned about people who come to the country illegally.

Bob Saunders is a 64-year-old independent from Voorhees, New Jersey. He disapproves of President Joe Biden’s performance when it comes to immigration and border security and is particularly worried about the number of immigrants coming to the southern border who are eventually released into the country. He stressed that there’s a difference between legal and illegal immigration. Saunders said it’s important to know the background of the immigrants coming to the U.S. and said legal immigration contributes to the economy. He also noted the immigrants in his own family.

“It’s not anti-immigration,” Saunders said. “It’s anti-illegal immigration.”

Many Republicans, 71%, say there’s a risk of people in the country illegally coming to the U.S. and committing crimes , although many studies have found immigrants are less drawn to violent crime than native-born citizens. Even more, 80%, think there’s a major risk that people in the country without permission will burden public service programs, while about 6 in 10 Republicans are concerned that there’s a major risk of them taking American jobs, that their population growth will weaken American identity or that they will vote illegally — although only a small number of noncitizen voters have been uncovered.

Amber Pierce, a 43-year-old Republican from Milam, Texas, says she understands that a lot of migrants are seeking a better life for their children, but she’s also concerned migrants will become a drain on government services.

“I believe that a lot of them come over here and get free health care and take away from the people who have worked here and are citizens,” Pierce said. “They get a free ride. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to see benefits from immigration, although the poll did find that only half of Democrats now think that legal immigrants are making important contributions to American companies, a decrease of more than 20 percentage points from 2017. But they’re more likely than Republicans to say that the ability of people to come from other places in the world to escape violence or find economic opportunities is extremely or very important to the U.S’s identity as a nation.

“People who are coming, are coming for good reason. It’s how many of us got here,” said Amy Wozniak, a Democrat from Greenwood, Indiana. Wozniak said previous waves of immigrants came from European countries. Now immigrants are coming from different countries but that doesn’t meant they’re not fleeing for justifiable reasons, she said: “They’re not all drugs and thugs.”

There’s also a divide among partisans about the value of diversity, with 83% of Democrats saying that the country’s diverse population makes it at least moderately stronger, compared with 43% of Republicans and Independents. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say that a shared American culture and set of values is extremely or very important to the United States’ identity as a nation, although about half of Democrats also see this as important.

U.S. adults — and especially Republicans — are more likely to say that the country has been significantly changed by immigrants in the past five years than they are to say that immigrants have changed their own community or their state. About 3 in 10 U.S. adults say immigrants have had a major impact on their local community while about 6 in 10 say they’ve had a major impact on the country as a whole. The gap between perceptions of community impact and effects on the country as a whole is particularly wide among Republicans.

There is some bipartisan agreement about how immigration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico should be addressed. The most popular option asked about is hiring more Border Patrol agents, which is supported by about 8 in 10 Republicans and about half of Democrats. Hiring more immigration judges and court personnel is also favored among majorities of both parties.

About half of Americans support reducing the number of immigrants who are allowed to seek asylum in the U.S. when they arrive at the border, but there’s a much bigger partisan divide there, with more Republicans than Democrats favoring this strategy. Building a wall — former President Donald Trump’s signature policy goal — is the least popular and most polarizing option of the four asked about. About 4 in 10 favor building a wall, including 77% of Republicans but just 12% of Democrats.

Donna Lyon is a Democratic-leaning independent from Cortland, New York. She believes a border wall would do little to stop migrants. But she supports hiring more Border Patrol agents and more immigration court judges to deal with the growing backlog of immigration court cases: “That would stop all the backup that we have.”

Congress just recently approved money to hire about 2,000 more Border Patrol agents but so far this year, there’s been no significant boost for funding for more immigration judges. Many on both sides of the aisle have said it takes much too long to decide asylum cases, meaning migrants stay in the country for years waiting for a decision, but the parties have failed to find consensus on how to address the issue.

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The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.


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