WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will accept endorsements from at least 15 members of the Kennedy political family during a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Thursday as he aims to undermine former President Donald Trump and marginalize the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, niece of former President John F. Kennedy and sister of the current presidential contender, will deliver the endorsements of Biden, his campaign announced.

The decision to highlight the Kennedy family endorsement more than six months from Election Day is an indication of how seriously Biden’s team is taking the threat of the long shot bid potentially using his last name’s lingering Democratic magic to siphon off support from the president.

Both Democrats and Republicans worry that Kennedy’s candidacy could spoil their respective presumptive nominee’s campaigns. Biden was using the event, which caps a three-day campaign swing in a battleground state critical to his reelection effort, to also sustain the pressure on Trump.

“I can only imagine how Donald Trump’s outrageous lies and behavior would have horrified my father, Robert F. Kennedy, who proudly served as Attorney General of the United States, and honored his pledge to uphold the law and protect the country,” Kerry Kennedy will say, according to prepared remarks. “Daddy stood for equal justice, human rights and freedom from want and fear. Just as President Biden does today.”

The endorsement was hardly a surprise, as the prominent Democratic family has been vocal that they don’t see eye to eye politically with Robert Kennedy Jr., who started as a protest primary challenger to Biden in the Democratic party and now is running as an independent. Biden last month hosted more than 30 members of Kennedy’s extended family at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day, with family members posing with the president in the Rose Garden and Oval Office.

After the formal endorsement, Biden and members of the Kennedy family were set to meet with supporters at a campaign event, and members of the Kennedy clan were planning to make calls to voters and knock on doors on Biden’s behalf.

Several notable members of the family were not endorsing, including U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy and nonprofit leader Maria Shriver, which the Biden campaign said was due to their nonpolitical professional roles.

Robert Kennedy Jr. has spoken publicly in the past about disagreeing with his family on many issues, but maintains it can be done in “friendly” ways. After a Super PAC supporting his campaign produced a TV ad during the Super Bowl that relied heavily on imagery from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential run, Robert Kennedy Jr. apologized to his relatives on the X social media platform, saying he was sorry if the spot “caused anyone in my family pain.”

The Democratic National Committee has separately hired a communications team to combat the appeal of third-party candidates, Kennedy first among them. The DNC also filed a recent Federal Election Commission complaint against Kennedy’s campaign, charging that it coordinated too closely with an affiliated Super PAC to get his name on the presidential ballot in some states.

Kennedy is also viewed warily by the Trump campaign, which is fearful that he could also pull the GOP voters they need to defeat Biden in November. While Trump has released a recent video saying, “If I were a Democrat, I’d vote for RFK Jr. every single time over Biden,” he has also sometimes criticized Kennedy, including suggesting that he is more “radical left” than the incumbent president.

The Kennedy family endorsement is a capstone on three days of campaigning in Pennsylvania.

It was an opportunity for Biden to reconnect with his roots, starting on Tuesday in Scranton, where he lived until he was 10 years old. He swung by his childhood home, a three-story colonial that his family rented, and reminisced about attending Mass at St. Paul’s.

He seemed reluctant to leave town the next day, stopping for coffee before heading to the airport. “It’s good to be back in Scranton,” the president said when a customer welcomed him.

Biden’s next stop was Pittsburgh, where he called for higher tariffs on steel and aluminum from China to protect U.S. industry from what he called unfair competition.

But even that event involved some nostalgia, as Biden recalled an endorsement from the steelworkers when he was “a 29-year-old kid” from Delaware running for U.S. Senate.

“It changed everything,” he said.

By Jack Queen and Luc Cohen

(Reuters) – Donald Trump is due in Manhattan court on Thursday as lawyers continue searching for jurors to decide the former U.S. president’s fate in a historic criminal trial just months before his upcoming rematch with President Joe Biden.

Seven jurors have already been selected after two days of grilling by prosecutors and Trump’s lawyers, who are tasked with finding New Yorkers who can be fair to the Republican presidential candidate in heavily Democratic Manhattan, where the businessman-turned-politician made his name as a real estate tycoon decades ago.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The hush money trial kicked off on Monday. Jurors selected so far include a nurse, a software engineer and two corporate lawyers. The judge has said the identities of the 12 jurors and six alternates will remain anonymous except to Trump, his lawyers and prosecutors.

Opening arguments are expected to take place on Monday.

A guilty verdict would not bar Trump from office, but half of independent voters and one in four Republicans say they would not vote for him if he were convicted, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on April 8.

The same poll found that 64% of registered voters thought the hush money charges were at least “somewhat serious.”

The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, and Trump could potentially be convicted and sentenced before the election.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in three other criminal cases, but the New York trial could be the only one he faces before the Nov. 5 U.S. election.

In the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump is accused of illegally covering up a $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels to keep her quiet about a tryst she said she had with him in 2006.

Trump denies having an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

Over two days of questioning on Monday and Tuesday, lawyers probed a group of nearly 100 randomly selected New Yorkers for signs of bias as Trump looked on from the defendant’s table.

At least 50 jury candidates were immediately dismissed after saying they could not be impartial toward Trump, underscoring the challenge lawyers face in picking a jury for the first-ever trial of a former U.S. president.

Trump occasionally followed along as jury candidates gave responses to a 42-point list of initial questions.

On Tuesday, he was seen uttering to his lawyer and gesturing toward a jury candidate after she was called in for additional questioning, prompting the judge overseeing the case to warn Trump against intimidating potential jurors.

The judge, Justice Juan Merchan, has already imposed a gag order on Trump that bars him from talking publicly about certain people involved in the case and their families in ways that are meant to interfere with the case.

Prosecutors on Monday said Trump had already violated the order with posts on his Truth Social platform about Daniels and Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer who is set to be a star prosecution witness.

Merchan scheduled an April 23 hearing to rule on prosecutors’ request for a $1,000 fine for each of the three posts they identified.

Trump has also been charged in Georgia and Washington, D.C., for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and in Florida over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office.

Those cases do not yet have trial dates.

(Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Lisa Shumaker)

By Ted Hesson

GOLDEN VALLEY, Arizona (Reuters) – A restrictive abortion ban revived in Arizona is providing a new opening for Democrats in the runup to the Nov. 5 election and putting Republicans in a tricky political bind as they try to win over moderates in the battleground state.

U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego, the leading Democratic candidate in a closely watched U.S. Senate race, has criticized Republican former President Donald Trump for paving the way for the Arizona Supreme Court last week to reinstate a near-total abortion ban based on an 1864 law written during the U.S. Civil War and when women lacked the right to vote. 

The top Republican candidate in the race, former television newscaster Kari Lake, once praised the 1864 law, a stance Gallego highlighted in a new digital ad this week. Lake has since reversed her position and has spoken with Arizona lawmakers about overturning it, an adviser said.

Lake did not address abortion during her speech, however, and instead focused on Democratic President Joe Biden’s handling of border security and other Republican priorities on Saturday outside a restaurant in Golden Valley, Arizona, in the state’s staunchly conservative northwest corner.

Roughly 100 people gathered to hear Lake speak at Great American Pizza and Subs, an establishment that greets visitors outside with a mural promoting Trump’s re-election campaign and inside with Trump-themed art and patriotic decor. A local group raffled off an assault rifle beforehand.

Lake blasted Biden’s approach to border security as record numbers of migrants have been caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally during his presidency. She ripped Gallego for calling Trump’s border wall “stupid” in 2017.

“My first act as U.S. senator will be to write a short piece of legislation that fully funds the border wall and expedites the construction immediately,” Lake said to cheers.

Arizona is a swing state that could play a decisive role in the presidential race, as well as control of the U.S. Senate. Strategists in both parties said the ruling outlawing nearly all abortions would push moderate voters in Arizona toward Democrats, while also mobilizing young voters, women and voters of color. 

Democratic efforts in the Arizona legislature on Wednesday to overturn the ban, which would take effect within 60 days, were blocked by Republicans. 

Immigration is a top issue for voters and particularly animating for Republicans, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows. The issue could be especially relevant in Arizona, a border state where crossings have risen in the past year. Polls in recent months show Gallego with a slight edge against Lake.

State data shows 35% of Arizona voters are registered Republicans, 29% Democrats and 36% independent and other parties.

Lake hit on familiar themes – blaming the news media for opposition to Trump and hitting Biden for gas and food prices. She criticized “fake news media,” singling out a Reuters journalist who appeared to be the only reporter in attendance. One attendee suggested such reporters be charged with treason and arrested.

When asked about the state’s abortion ban after her remarks, Lake told Reuters states should be able to decide their abortion laws, potentially leaving it available in some places. 

“I’m pro-life and I’m not going to apologize that I want to save babies and help women,” she said. 

Robert Hall, the pro-Trump owner of the restaurant where the event took place, backs conservative causes, including gun rights, and had a 9 mm pistol on his hip. When it comes to abortion, he said it should be legal but rare, adding he still plans to vote for Trump and Lake if she wins the Republican nomination.

“I personally believe that it’s a woman’s choice,” he said. “That’s between her and the Lord.”   

‘TRUMP DID THIS’

Following the April 9 court decision reviving the 160-year-old abortion ban, the Biden campaign and Arizona Democrats raced to hammer Trump for opening the door to the ruling.

Trump appointed three conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices who in 2022 helped overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide. 

Trump, like Lake, has tried to distance himself from the Arizona ruling, saying the court went too far.

Vice President Kamala Harris flew from Washington, D.C., to Tucson, on Friday to emphasize the Biden campaign’s message blaming Trump. Gallego, a Latino and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who fought in Iraq, joined her on Air Force 2 and criticized Lake’s earlier endorsement of the ban.

“Trump did this and Kari Lake was cheerleading the whole way,” he said, speaking to reporters on the flight. “It doesn’t matter what happens from now on. The voters are just not going to trust her.”

Gallego said his internal campaign polling showed Latino voters, and younger Latinos especially, were concerned about abortion rights.

A third of Arizona residents are Hispanic, according to U.S. Census data, above the national average, and the community’s median age is 27 – a decade younger than the median for Arizonans overall.

Jennifer Contreras, a 33-year-old school administrator in Tucson, told Reuters that she strongly opposes Trump’s agenda, including the moves that led to Arizona’s abortion ban. 

Contreras, a queer woman born in Tucson to Mexican parents, said she planned to vote for Biden and Gallego even though they are not as progressive as she would prefer. She said her family members would follow her lead because they looked to her for guidance.

“If I vote, 10 other people vote the same way I do,” she said.

While migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border have been steady in recent months, the figures remain higher than under previous administrations. A spike in crossings could potentially elevate the issue, putting more pressure on Gallego.

“Donald Trump killed the border bill and Donald Trump killed our abortion protections,” Gallego said on Friday aboard Air Force 2. “And these are the two things that are going to cost them in the election in Arizona.”

At a remote stretch of the border near Sasabe, Arizona, on Sunday, Reuters encountered three dozen migrants from Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, India, Bangladesh and Albania. Gail Kocourek, a volunteer with the humanitarian group Tucson Samaritans, offered them water and food as they trekked along the border wall.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson in Golden Valley, Arizona; Editing by Mica Rosenberg, Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis)

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 15 members of the storied Kennedy political family will endorse U.S. President Joe Biden at a Philadelphia campaign event on Thursday in a rebuke of Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s independent bid for office.

Biden, a Democrat, faces Republican Donald Trump in a November re-match of the 2020 election. But members of both parties have bristled over the possibility that the candidacy of Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, or another third-party bid could spoil either of their chances.

Kennedy, son of the slain U.S. senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, made his name as an environmental lawyer, before becoming known as an anti-vaccine advocate, and with an eclectic mix of political views. He is backed by 15% of registered voters, versus 39% for Biden and 38% for Trump, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Many in Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s elite family – prominent Democrats since the 19th century – have broken with him over his views.

“I can only imagine how Donald Trump’s outrageous lies and behavior would have horrified my father, Robert F. Kennedy,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s younger sister Kerry Kennedy will say at the Biden campaign event, according to prepared remarks. “Daddy stood for equal justice, human rights, and freedom from want and fear. Just as President Biden does today.”

Kerry Kennedy and other members of the family are then expected to join local volunteers in door-knocking and phone-banking on Biden’s behalf, campaign aides said.

The event comes as Biden spends his third day this week in Pennsylvania, a critical swing state for his re-election bid. Biden needs strong turnout from Philadelphia’s Black community to win the state, and the Kennedys became icons for many African American families because of their advocacy for civil rights.

Biden, only the second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy, has long spoken of how he was inspired by the family’s political legacy.

In his 2007 book “Promises to Keep,” Biden describes himself as a young man moved to get into public service by the Kennedy brothers and the late civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., “swept up in their eloquence, their conviction, the sheer size of their improbable dreams.” A bust of President Kennedy sits in the Oval Office.

When Biden was later elected to Congress, fellow Senator Ted Kennedy would become one of his closest friends. Ted, John and Robert Sr. were brothers.

The family ties have continued in the years since. Dozens of members of the Irish American family joined Biden at the White House for St. Patrick’s Day last month.

Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the slain president, was appointed ambassador to Australia by Biden. She had served as ambassador to Japan under Democratic President Barack Obama.

“I have a big family,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr told Reuters last month. “Many of them are working in my campaign. Not everybody agrees with me.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Mary Milliken and Leslie Adler)

TOKYO (AP) — The United States ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday that America will stand with Japan until all the Japanese abducted by North Korea decades ago return home to end their painful separation.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the comments on Thursday as she began her visit to Tokyo by meeting with the families of those kidnapped.

Japan says North Korea abducted at least 17 Japanese citizens, possibly many more, to train them as agents during the 1970s and 1980s. After admitting in 2002 it had abducted 13 Japanese, North Korea apologized and allowed five to return home for a visit. They have since stayed in Japan. Pyongyang said eight others had died and denied that the other four entered its territory and never provided a reinvestigation it has promised.

The twelve who are still missing include teenage students and others living along Japan’s coasts. Many were bundled into small boats and taken across the sea to North Korea.

“The United Stats stands with all the families, with all of Japan and with the international community in pressing for a resolution that will allow all families separated by the regime’s policies to be reunited,” Thomas-Greenfield said at the outset of her meeting with five relatives of the abductees and a representative from their support group at the Prime Minister’s Office.

“I’m all too familiar with the pain and the loss and the suffering that you family members here are experiencing,” she said. “I know how painful it is for you, and then how long you have had to endure this pain.”

Thomas-Greenfield said she has worked on North Korea-related issues throughout her career.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is committed to raising the abduction issue “at every opportunity and calling for the return of abducted Japanese citizens to their family,” the ambassador said, adding that America sticks to that policy regardless of the leadership.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has repeatedly stated his determination to hold a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to achieve the return of the abductees.

Experts say Kim wants improved ties with Japan to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies, while Kishida, stung by a major corruption scandal in his governing party, wants to use possible progress in the abduction issue to turn around his dwindling support ratings at home. They say a summit, however, would be difficult because Japan cannot accept the preconditions set by Pyongyang in order to resolve the abduction issues.

Sakie Yokota, 88, whose then-13-year-old daughter, Megumi, was abducted in 1977 from Japan’s northern coast on her way home from school, told Thomas-Greenfield that she, her husband and Megumi’s brothers searched for her for 20 years until they found out she was abducted. They are still waiting to reunite with her, she said.

“All I want is to see her, while I’m still well,” Yokota said, beseeching the ambassador for continued support toward resolving the problem.

Thomas-Greenfield arrived in Tokyo after her earlier visit to Seoul, where she and South Korean officials discussed a new mechanism for monitoring North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Russia and China have thwarted U.S.-led efforts to step up U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile testing since 2022, underscoring a deepening divide between permanent Security Council members over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The United States, South Korea and Japan have been deepening security ties amid growing tensions in the region from North Korea and China. The three countries have expanded their combined military exercises and their deterrence strategies built around U.S. strategic assets.

___

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

HONOLULU (AP) — More than half a year after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century burned through a historic Maui town, officials are still trying to determine exactly what went wrong and how to prevent similar catastrophes in the future. But two reports released this week are filling in some of the blanks.

The most recent is a detailed timeline of the fire that tore through the heart of Lahaina on Aug. 8, 2023, killing 101 people. Released Wednesday by Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, it is the first phase of a three-part comprehensive investigation being conducted by the Fire Safety Research Institute, or FSRI, with more coming in the next several months.

The previous day, the Maui Fire Department put out an after-action report produced by the Western Fire Chiefs Association. It detailed the challenges the department faced, as well as more than 100 recommendations for improvements.

Here are the key takeaways from the reports:

A major windstorm was toppling power lines and utility poles throughout Lahaina, and the first fire of the day sparked when a live power line snapped and hit dry brush. But firefighters and police received mixed messages about whether Hawaiian Electric had de-energized the lines, according to the FSRI report.

In the early afternoon — before the initial fire flared back up and began overtaking the town — a utility worker told fire crews that he could not confirm if the lines were de-energized. It wasn’t until after homes began catching fire that dispatchers reached Hawaiian Electric and got confirmation that the power was out.

The report also described a communications breakdown between police, firefighters and other emergency officials. Cellular networks were down, and the police and fire agencies used separate channels that public officials and others couldn’t listen to. Overwhelmed dispatchers had single operators trying to monitor as many as five or six channels at once.

Residents and tourists had no way to get emergency alerts or communicate with loved ones, and 911 operators were inundated with calls. One of the operators was off-island and wasn’t getting geographical location information with calls, and thus didn’t know where to send people fleeing the flames.

Meanwhile the head of the Maui Emergency Management Agency, Herman Andaya, was off-island at a work conference and getting regular text messages and calls from staffers about the rapidly changing fires. After a series of evacuations in Lahaina, he asked his assistant if he should come home but was told that “it may look OK,” according to the report. A few hours later, after much of the town had burned, Andaya said he would come home the following morning.

An after-action report from police earlier this year also identified communication challenges and recommended that a high-ranking officer be placed in the island’s communication center during future emergencies.

Firefighters thought they had extinguished the morning blaze, which started near a part of town that is far from the ocean. But less than 40 minutes after they left the scene, the flames reerupted, quickly spreading from home to home in a nearby neighborhood.

Wind gusts that were still toppling power lines pushed embers and burning debris farther into Lahaina.

As firefighters and other emergency crews scrambled to evacuate houses and get people to safety, dark smoke dropped visibility to near-zero at times. Those roads that weren’t blocked by trees, utility poles or power lines became jammed with traffic that sometimes ground to a standstill.

But the time people had to escape would likely have been tight even if the roads were all clear: Within 90 minutes, spot fires were burning all the way to the ocean, according to the FSRI report, and spreading north and south.

Some people died in their cars. Others leaped into the ocean to escape the flames. Still others abandoned vehicles and fled on foot.

Firefighters risked their lives again and again — packing survivors into fire trucks to get them to safety, physically carrying victims away from danger, and taking shelter behind their own disabled vehicles — according to Tuesday’s report.

Many of the department’s crews and engines were already deployed to fight other wildfires on a different part of the island when Lahaina began to burn. The back-up fire engines used in emergencies weren’t fully stocked with equipment, and valuable minutes were lost restocking them before they could be put into action.

The report also highlighted a lack of mutual aid agreements between Hawaii counties, which meant that there was no standard way to request help from neighboring islands. The agencies also lacked a plan for evacuating tourists and residents who did not speak English — and language barriers made it difficult for the firefighters to warn some people of the need to flee.

FSRI investigators are still trying to get some records from the Maui Emergency Management Agency. Research program manager Derek Alkonis said Wednesday that they requested incident activity logs and other records from MEMA on multiple occasions but still had not received all the data.

Alkonis did not go into detail about what he called “a difficulty with gaining information” from the agency, but said the reason is “going to be analyzed in subsequent reports.”

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is working on a report about the origin and cause of the fire on behalf of the Maui Fire Department. That report is not yet complete but is expected to be released in the next few months.

___

Boone reported from Boise, Idaho; Keller from Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Lauer from Philadelphia. Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, Hallie Golden in Seattle, Anita Snow in Phoenix and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Politics and race are both factors in a pending court challenge of Louisiana’s new congressional maps. How much weight each carries is a major question before three federal judges whose ruling could affect the balance of power in the next Congress.

At issue is a congressional map that was approved this year with the backing of the state’s new governor, Jeff Landry — to the consternation of at least some of his fellow Republicans.

The map creates a new mostly Black congressional district in Louisiana, at the expense of a white Republican incumbent, Rep. Garret Graves, who backed another Republican in the governor’s election last fall. Given voting patterns in Louisiana, a mostly Black district would be more likely to send a Democrat to Congress.

Twelve self-described non-African American voters argued in a lawsuit that the new mostly Black district constitutes illegal “textbook racial gerrymandering.”

Not so, argue the new map’s backers. Politics, they argue, was the major influence in drawing the new district boundary lines. They say the new map protects most incumbents and draws together Black populations in a way that will comply with the federal Voting Rights Act, giving Louisiana, which is roughly one-third Black, a second majority Black district among six.

They also pointed to Republican backers of the plan, who said during legislative debates in January that they wanted to safeguard four GOP-held House districts, including those of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

That the new map put Graves in political peril by placing him in the new mostly Black district is further evidence race wasn’t the sole motivating factor, the map’s backers said in briefs and in testimony last week at a hearing in Shreveport.

“We all know that one of the main reasons it was drawn the way it was, was because Gov. Jeff Landry wants to get rid of Congressman Graves,” state Rep. Mandie Landry, a New Orleans Democrat who testified at the hearing, said in a social media post. Landry is no relation to the governor.

State Sen. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat from the Baton Rouge area who served in Congress in the 1990s, has already declared his candidacy in the newly configured district.

Whatever the three judges decide will likely be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s unclear when the judges will rule, but time is growing short. State election officials say they need to know the configuration of the districts by May 15 to prepare for the fall elections.

The controversy in Louisiana, as in other states, arose because new government district boundary lines are redrawn by legislatures every 10 years to account for population shifts reflected in census data. Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature drew a new map in 2022 that, despite some boundary shifts, was favorable to all six current incumbents: five white Republicans and a Black Democrat. Then-Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, vetoed the map but the majority-Republican Legislature overrode the veto, leading to a court challenge filed in Baton Rouge.

In June 2022, Baton Rouge-based U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued an injunction against the map, saying challengers would likely win their suit claiming it violated the Voting Rights Act. As the case was appealed, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unexpected ruling in June that favored Black voters in a congressional redistricting case in Alabama.

Dick sided with challengers who said the 2022 map packed a significant number of voters in one district — District 2 which stretches from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area — while “cracking” the remaining Black population by apportioning it to other mostly white districts.

In November, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the state a January deadline for drawing a new congressional district. Landry, who was the state’s attorney general when he was elected to succeed the term-limited Edwards, called a special session to redraw the map, saying the Legislature should do it rather than a federal judge.

The new map does not resemble the sample maps that supporters of a new majority Black district had suggested earlier, which would have created a new district largely covering the northeastern part of the state.

The new mostly Black district crosses the state diagonally, linking Shreveport in the northwest to parts of the Baton Rouge area in the southeast. And while its backers hail the creation of a new majority Black district, the plaintiffs say it results in “explicit, racial segregation of voters.”

The judges hearing the case are U.S. District Judges David Joseph and Robert Summerhays, both nominated to the court by former President Donald Trump; and Judge Carl Stewart of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.

The judges have given no indication when they will rule. “We’re going to have to know soon,” Mandie Landry said, citing the upcoming elections.

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — Closing arguments are expected Thursday in the trial against an Arizona rancher charged with fatally shooting an unarmed migrant on his property near the U.S.-Mexico border last year.

George Alan Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the January 30, 2023, shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, who lived just south of the border in Nogales, Mexico.

The more than two-week trial included jurors visiting Kelly’s nearly 170-acre (69-hectare) cattle ranch in Nogales, Arizona. Cuen-Buitimea, 48, was in a group of men that Kelly encountered. The other migrants weren’t injured and managed to escape back to Mexico.

The case has attracted national attention as border security continues to be a top issue this election year and garnered sympathy for the rancher from some on the political right. Court records show Cuen-Buitimea had previously entered the U.S. illegally several times and was deported, most recently in 2016.

Prosecutors maintained that Kelly recklessly fired an AK-47 rifle toward the group that was about 100 yards (90 meters) away. Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t shoot directly at anyone, and he feared for his safety and that of his wife and property.

Defense attorney Brenna Larkin has characterized groups of migrants crossing through Kelly’s property were an increasing concern over the years, prompting him to arm himself constantly for protection.

Kelly had earlier rejected an agreement with prosecutors that would have reduced the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he pleaded guilty.

Kelly was also charged with aggravated assault against another person in the group of about eight people, including a man from Honduras who was living in Mexico and who testified during the trial that he was seeking work in the U.S. that day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran’s attack against Israel over the weekend has spurred a flurry of bipartisan legislative action in Congress, uniting lawmakers against the country even as the risk of a larger regional war looms.

Several measures introduced and passed in the House and Senate seek to both publicly condemn Iran and punish the Islamic Republic financially. Lawmakers have denounced Iran’s actions, which came in response to a suspected Israeli strike weeks earlier on an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed two Iranian generals.

“The world is on fire, and history will judge us for our action,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, during a news conference Tuesday.

The swift, bipartisan condemnation of Iran has put on sharp display the durability of American support for Israel, even amid growing partisan division over how the country is handling its more than six-month war with Hamas.

The House passed nearly a dozen bills by Wednesday that would, among other things, issue a slate of new sanctions and other financial restrictions against Iran and its leaders. Other legislation looks to prevent current Iranian officials sanctioned from evading those penalties and urge the European Union to “expeditiously” designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization as the U.S. has already done.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday advanced five bills, including ones that targeted Iran for its human rights record and would require sanctions on ports and refineries that receive and process Iranian oil.

“Iran’s direct attack on Israel this week underscores the need to further cut off the Iranian regime’s key revenue streams,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said in a statement. “I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this bill — which has already passed the House — so that we can send it to President Biden’s desk immediately.”

A number of the bills had passed the House weeks before Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel in October but have been stalled in the Senate committee. An Israeli offensive in Gaza has since caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, according to local health officials. Israel’s conduct of the war has revealed the depth of unease among U.S. lawmakers as concerns over the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza have caused even some of President Joe Biden’s closest allies to threaten conditioning future aid to Israel.

Congressional Democrats have been reluctant to challenge Biden’s handling of the ongoing conflict and related regional tensions that have taken shape, mindful that criticism could further weaken Biden in his reelection campaign against former President Donald Trump.

But the attack on Saturday has proven to consolidate public support for the Biden administration’s quick response as it ordered U.S. forces to help Israel down “nearly all” the 300 drones and missiles that were headed its way.

It also comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., released legislation Wednesday that would provide $95 billion in aid collectively to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. The aid package had been held up for months over Republican opposition to continuing wartime funding for Ukraine as it battles Russia. Iran’s attack on Israel added urgency to Johnson’s plans to bring the issue to the floor for a vote.

While the measures targeting Iran have received overwhelming support — with the series of House bills mostly passing with at least 300 votes — there has been a quiet but growing dissent among progressive Democratic lawmakers in both chambers, who warn that legislative efforts could risk further escalation in the Middle East.

“Following last weekend’s unprecedented response by Iran to Israel’s attack on its consulate, the Republican Majority is explicitly leveraging a series of bills to further escalate tensions in the Middle East,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said in a statement Tuesday. “This is a blatant attempt to distract from their own incompetence.”

The strike on Saturday marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Israel has vowed to retaliate against Iran, risking further expanding the shadow war between the two foes into a direct conflict.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, condemned Iran’s attack in a statement but called on his colleagues to respond cautiously. He warned that further U.S. action against Iran could lead to a dangerous escalation that could drag America into a war in the Middle East.

“Cooler heads must now prevail to ensure peace in the region and security for Israel,” Sanders said.

NEW YORK (AP) — When the first batch of potential jurors was brought in for Donald Trump’s criminal trial this week, all the lawyers had to go on to size them up — at first — were their names and the answers they gave in court to a set of screening questions.

Then the lawyers went to work, scouring social media for posts that might reveal whether people in the jury pool had hidden biases or extreme views.

One potential juror was dismissed by the judge after the former president’s lawyers found a 2017 online post about Trump that said “Lock him up!” Trump’s lawyers rejected another potential juror after discovering she had posted a video of New Yorkers celebrating President Joe Biden’s election win.

It’s all part of an effort by both sides to get a competent jury that — just maybe — might slant slightly in their favor.

Even experts in the art of jury selection say there are limits to what any lawyer can do.

“We never pick a jury. We unpick jurors,” said Tama Kudman, a veteran West Palm Beach, Florida, criminal defense lawyer who also practices in New Jersey and New York.

“We never get who we want. We are just careful to get rid of who we think are dangerous to our clients,” she said. “You know you’ve picked a good jury when nobody’s happy. The prosecution hasn’t gotten who they want. The defense hasn’t gotten who they want. But everybody’s kind of gotten rid of the people who really raise the hair on the back of our neck.”

Jury selection in Trump’s trial resumes Thursday. So far, seven jurors have been chosen for the trial over allegations that Trump falsified business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. Ultimately, 12 jurors will determine the verdict, with six alternates on standby.

Nearly 200 potential jurors have been brought in so far. All potential jurors will be asked whether they can serve and be fair and impartial. Those who have said “no” so far have all been sent home.

Lawyers on both sides then comb through answers prospective jurors provide orally in court to a set of 42 questions that probe whether they have been part of various extremist groups, have attended pro- or anti-Trump rallies, or have been involved with Trump’s political campaigns, among other things.

The judge can dismiss people that don’t seem likely to be impartial. Under state law, each side also gets to “strike” up to 10 potential jurors they don’t like.

A jury consultant has helped Trump’s lawyers research the backgrounds of prospective jurors whose names are provided to lawyers on both sides, but not to the public.

Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant who worked on the O.J. Simpson trial team in the mid-1990s and remains employed in that capacity today, said a social media check has become critical in recent years. She likened it to a “juror polygraph” that can reveal whether a potential juror’s answers to questions in court are false.

Still, Dimitrius said, such checks aren’t foolproof. Potential jurors can scrub their online footprint before they show up or make their social media accounts private.

Some people considered but not selected for Trump’s jury had things on their social media that looked problematic. Some had shared inflammatory posts, including a meme showing Trump beheaded.

In each case, the person was brought into the courtroom alone to confirm the posts indeed appeared or originated on their account — and, in one case, the account of a spouse. They were asked again about their feelings about Trump and whether they could act impartially.

A bookseller who’d previously declined to share his feelings about the former president admitted to holding a “highly unfavorable overall impression” of him after being confronted by a series of Facebook posts, including a video mocking Trump.

In those cases, the judge agreed with Trump’s attorneys that the prospective jurors should be dismissed with cause. But in other instances, Judge Juan M. Merchan said the posts did not rise to that level, forcing Trump’s attorneys to use their limited number of strikes to have the prospective jurors removed.

“The question is not whether someone agrees with your client politically or not, the question is whether or not they can be fair and impartial,” Merchan told Trump’s attorneys.

The process led Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in this year’s presidential race, to say in a Truth Social post Wednesday that he thought strikes were supposed to be unlimited, not capped at 10, “as the Witch Hunt continues! ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

Among six people struck by the Manhattan district attorney’s office was a prosecutor who works for the district attorney in the Bronx and a man who works in real estate and said he read Trump’s book, “The Art of the Deal.”

Perhaps the most memorable was a former corrections officer who said he may have once served on a jury for a case involving Trump and Merv Griffin. He was dismissed by prosecutors after acknowledging that he appreciated Trump’s style of humor.

That man had also expressed reservations about Trump, noting that he’d known relatives of the wrongly accused teenagers in the Central Park Five case — a group that Trump famously said should face the death penalty.

Sabrina Shroff, a criminal defense attorney, said she considers the jury selection process one of the “most stressful and fun” parts of any trial.

“It’s like setting up a blind date with 12 people and you’re hoping that the blind date is at least a friendship at the end. It’s such a roll of the dice,” she said.

Shroff said she goes by her gut when choosing jurors. Scrutinizing social media profiles, she said, can be challenging because what people put online “isn’t who they are.”

“Maybe their affiliations are telling,” she said. “You’re still guessing. We make the wrong call all the time. Sometimes, you really think the juror was pulling for you and then you find he was leading the charge to convict.”

Shroff added: “You’re always worried you have it wrong. You’ve misread the scowl or the smile. Maybe they aren’t smiling at you; just thinking about a movie they saw and liked.”

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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.