The Biden administration is enlisting the help of officials in 15 states to enforce consumer-protection laws covering airline travelers, a power that by law is limited to the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said Tuesday that the states, which include California, New York and Illinois, will help ensure that government enforcement activities keep up with a current boom in air travel.

Under an agreement announced by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, state attorney general offices will be able to investigate complaints about airline service. If they believe an airline violated the law or is refusing to cooperate with investigators, the states could refer cases to the Transportation Department for enforcement.

In return, the Transportation Department, or DOT, will give the states access to its consumer-complaint system and train state employees about federal consumer laws covering airlines.

“This is a partnership that will greatly improve DOT’s capacity to hold airlines accountable and to protect passengers,” Buttigieg told reporters.

Buttigieg pointed to travelers whose flights are canceled and then must wait days for another flight or pay more to fly home on another airline. “Things like that are a violation of passenger rights, and we are seeing far too many cases of that,” he said.

Other states whose officials signed the “memorandum of understanding” with the Transportation Department are: Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

The District of Columbia and two U.S. territories also signed the agreement.

Buttigieg repeatedly cast the agreement as bipartisan, but only two of the state officials who signed on are Republicans. Buttigieg indicated his department is hoping to recruit more states.

Under U.S. law, the federal government alone regulates consumer-protection laws covering airlines. The carriers are not legally required to respond to state investigations.

Consumer advocates have pushed to expand enforcement power to the states. However, both the full House and a key Senate committee declined to include that proposal in pending legislation that covers the Federal Aviation Administration, part of the Transportation Department.

“During the pandemic, we actually got more complaints about airline traffic than any other topic, and it was frustrating” because the state had no authority to investigate the complaints, Colorado Attorney General Philip Weiser said.

Weiser argued that Congress should give states power to enforce airline consumer-protection laws, “but I have to say, we didn’t wait for Congress to act.”

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plus the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

HOUSTON (AP) — A judge has recommended that the conviction and death sentence of Melissa Lucio, a Texas woman whose execution was delayed in 2022 amid growing doubts she fatally beat her 2-year-old daughter, should be overturned amid findings that evidence in her murder trial was suppressed.

Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson on Friday approved an agreement between prosecutors and Lucio’s attorneys that found the suppressed evidence, including witness statements from Lucio’s children and a report by Child Protective Services, would have corroborated Lucio’s defense that her daughter Mariah died of a head injury sustained in an accidental fall down a steep staircase two days before her death.

“She would not have been convicted in light of the suppressed evidence,” according to the 33-page agreement between the office of Cameron County District Attorney Luis Saenz and Lucio’s attorneys.

Nelson’s recommendation has been sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final decision on whether Lucio’s conviction and death sentence are overturned. There was no timetable for a ruling by the appeals court. Lucio’s case has become a cause célèbre among people, including Kim Kardashian.

“We hope and pray the Court of Criminal Appeals will agree with the District Attorney, the defense, and Judge Nelson and our mother can come home to her family. It’s been 17 years that we have been without her. We love her and miss her and can’t wait to hug her,” Lucio’s children said in a statement Monday.

The agreement on findings in Lucio’s case had remained in limbo for 16 months before another judge, Gabriela Garcia. On April 5, Lucio’s lawyers and Saenz had issued a joint public statement in which they discussed that the findings were still under review by Garcia.

On April 10, Missy Medary, the presiding judge for the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region in South Texas, assigned Nelson to address the pending findings in the case. Nelson, who is a retired judge and had presided over Lucio’s 2008 trial, approved the findings two days later.

It was not immediately known why Nelson was assigned to review the findings. Court administrators for Garcia and Medary did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment.

Lucio, 55, had been set for lethal injection in April 2022 for the 2007 death of her daughter in Harlingen, a city of about 71,000 in Texas’ southern tip. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals halted her lethal injection two days before her scheduled execution so Lucio’s claims that new evidence would exonerate her could be reviewed.

Before the agreed findings approved by Nelson, prosecutors had long maintained Mariah was the victim of abuse and noted her body was covered in bruises.

Lucio’s case has garnered support from Kardashian and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody.

“Melissa Lucio has been in jail for more than a decade and a half, which is an unimaginable injustice, but one that can at least be undone,” Moody said in a post Tuesday on the social platform X.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York’s highest court will hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit that seeks to throw out a regulation requiring health insurance policies to cover medically necessary abortions — a case that could jeopardize a similar state law.

The lawsuit was filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and other church groups that argue that the rule violates their religious beliefs.

State financial regulators approved the abortion coverage requirement in 2017 and the Legislature codified the rule into law in 2022.

The religious groups are only challenging the state’s regulation, not the law, meaning the coverage will remain in place regardless of the case’s outcome.

But if the Court of Appeals throws out the rule, attorneys in the case said the law could then be challenged using a similar argument, giving the case larger implications for abortion access in New York.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition by MyPillow founder and election denier Mike Lindell to consider his challenge to the legality of the FBI’s seizure of his cellphone at a restaurant drive-through.

The high court, without comment Monday, declined to reconsider three lower court rulings that went against Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.

FBI agents seized the cellphone from him at a Hardee’s fast-food restaurant in the southern Minnesota city of Mankato in 2022 as part of an investigation into an alleged scheme to breach voting system technology in Mesa County, Colorado. Lindell alleged the confiscation violated his constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure and was an attempt by the government to chill his freedom of speech.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.

“While he has at times attempted to assert otherwise, Lindell’s objective in this action is apparent — this litigation is a tactic to, at a minimum, interfere with and, at most, enjoin a criminal investigation and ultimately hamper any potential federal prosecution,” a three-judge appeals panel wrote last September.

In February, when Lindell turned to the Supreme Court, his attorneys said Lindell had still not gotten his phone back.

Monday’s decision was the latest in a run of legal and financial setbacks for Lindell, who is being sued for defamation by two voting machine companies. Lawyers who were originally defending him in those cases quit over unpaid bills.

A credit crunch last year disrupted cash flow at MyPillow after it lost Fox News as one of its major advertising platforms and was dropped by several national retailers. A judge in February affirmed a $5 million arbitration award to a software engineer who challenged data Lindell said proves China interfered in the 2020 election.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Prosecutors plan to file charges of financial crimes against the former leader of the Michigan House, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she would speak to reporters in the state capital at 2 p.m. EDT. Her office disclosed no other details.

Lee Chatfield, a Republican who is no longer a state lawmaker, was House speaker in 2019 and 2020 when the GOP controlled the chamber.

“We’ve learned that the charges are financial in nature,” Chatfield’s attorney, Mary Chartier, told The Associated Press. “We’re prepared to fight them each and every step of the way.”

“It took almost 2 1/2 years for the AG’s office to come up with charges. It’s going to be pretty flimsy if it took that long,” Chartier said.

Chatfield has been under investigation s ince his sister-in-law said he sexually assaulted her. He has denied the allegations and said they had a consensual affair.

“We’ve learned there is no CSC charge or something like that,” Chartier told AP, referring to criminal sexual conduct.

Two people who were top aides to Chatfield when he ran the House were charged last year with crimes, including embezzlement from nonprofit funds created for political purposes. Rob and Anne Minard have pleaded not guilty.

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White reported from Detroit.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in a technology firm based in the United Arab Emirates and overseen by the country’s powerful national security adviser.

Microsoft and the technology holding company G42 announced the deal Tuesday. As part of the agreement, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, will join G42’s board of directors.

The deal “was developed in close consultation with both the UAE and U.S. governments,” Microsoft said.

Based in Abu Dhabi, G42 runs data centers in the Middle East and elsewhere and has increasingly identified itself as an AI firm. It has built what’s considered the world’s leading Arabic-language AI model, known as Jais.

Microsoft said G42 will run its AI applications and services on the U.S. tech giant’s cloud computing platform, and the two companies will work to bring digital infrastructure to countries where G42 has established a presence in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

G42 has previously said it would cut ties to Chinese hardware suppliers over American concerns it was too close to the Chinese government.

The company has faced spying allegations for its ties to a mobile phone app identified as spyware. It has also faced claims it could have gathered genetic material secretly from Americans for the Chinese government.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, is chairman of the company’s board.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defiant and determined, House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back Tuesday against mounting Republican anger over his proposed U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other allies, and rejected a call to step aside or risk a vote to oust him from office.

“I am not resigning,” Johnson said after a testy morning meeting of fellow House Republicans at the Capitol

Johnson referred to himself as a “wartime speaker” of the House and indicated in his strongest self-defense yet he would press forward with a U.S. national security aid package, a situation that would force him to rely on Democrats to help pass it, over objections from his weakened majority.

“We are simply here trying to do our jobs,” Johnson said, calling the motion to oust him “absurd … not helpful.”

Tuesday brought a definitive shift in tone from both the House Republicans and the speaker himself at a pivotal moment as the embattled leader tries, against the wishes of his majority, to marshal the votes needed to send the stalled national security aid for Israel, Ukraine and other overseas allies to passage.

Johnson appeared emboldened by his meeting late last week with Donald Trump when the Republican former president threw him a political lifeline with a nod of support after their private talk at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. At his own press conference Tuesday, Johnson spoke of the importance of ensuring Trump, who is now at his criminal trial in New York, is re-elected to the White House.

Johnson also spoke over the weekend with President Joe Biden as well as other congressional leaders about the emerging U.S. aid package, which the speaker plans to move in separate votes for each section — with bills for Ukraine, Israel, the Indo-Pacific region. He spoke about it with Biden again late Monday.

It’s a complicated approach that breaks apart the Senate’s $95 billion aid package for separate votes, and then stitches it back together for the president’s signature.

The approach will require the speaker to cobble together bipartisan majorities with different factions of House Republicans and Democrats on each measure. Additionally, Johnson is preparing a fourth measure that would include various Republican-preferred national security priorities, such as a plan to seize some Russian assets in U.S. banks to help fund Ukraine and another to turn the economic aid for Ukraine into loans.

The plan is not an automatic deal-breaker for Democrats in the House and Senate, with leaders refraining from comment until they see the actual text of the measure, due out later Tuesday.

House Republicans, however, were livid that Johnson will be leaving their top priority — efforts to impose more security at the U.S.-Mexico border — on the sidelines. Some predicted Johnson will not be able to push ahead with voting on the package this week, as planned..

Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., called the morning meeting an “argument fest.”

She said Johnson was “most definitely” losing support for the plan, but he seemed undeterred in trying to move forward despite “what the majority of the Conference” of Republicans wanted.

When the speaker said the House GOP’s priority border security bill H.R. 2 would not be considered germane to the package, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a chief sponsor, said it’s for the House to determine which provisions and amendments are relevant.

“Things are very unresolved,” Roy said.

Roy said said Republicans want “to be united. They just have to be able to figure out how to do it.”

The speaker faces a threat of ouster from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., the top Trump ally who has filed a motion to vacate the speaker from office in a snap vote — much the way Republicans ousted their former speaker, Kevin McCarthy, last fall..

While Greene has not said if or when she will force the issue, and has not found much support for her plan after last year’s turmoil over McCarthy’s exit, she drew at least one key supporter Tuesday.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., rose in the meeting and suggested Johnson should step aside, pointing to the example of John Boehner, an even earlier House speaker who announced an early resignation in 2015 rather than risk a vote to oust him, according to Republicans in the room.

“Speaker Johnson must announce a resignation date and allow Republicans to elect a new Speaker to put America First and pass a Republican agenda,” Greene wrote on social media, thanking Massie for his support for her motion to vacate.

Johnson did not respond, according to Republicans in the room, but told the lawmakers they have a “binary” choice” before them.

The speaker explained they either try to pass the package as he is proposing or risk facing a discharge petition from Democrats that would force a vote on their preferred package — the Senate approved measure. But that would leave behind the extra Republican priorities.

By Rajesh Kumar Singh

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday announced a partnership with state attorneys general to fast-track investigations into complaints against airlines and ticket agents as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to enhance consumer protections.

Currently, the authority to enforce passenger protections lies solely with the federal government. And while state attorneys general receive consumer complaints, airlines are not legally required to respond to their inquiries.

Under the partnership, Buttigieg said the states will investigate complaints against airlines and refer them to the U.S. Department of Transportation for priority review and enforcement action.

They will also report carriers for failure to respond to requests for information. The DOT will give the states access to its consumer complaint database.

“The truth is we need force multipliers to help meet the need given the record-breaking air travel that we have seen,” Buttigieg told reporters.

Complaints about U.S. airlines climbed sharply last year even as flight cancellations dropped to a 10-year low, data from the Transportation Department shows.

The Biden administration has been aggressively pushing measures to expand consumer rights for airline passengers.

It has proposed rules to make passenger compensation and amenities mandatory when airlines are responsible for flight delays or cancellations. It has also pressed carriers to get rid of junk fees, including those for seating families together.

Buttigieg has opened numerous investigations and imposed fines for carrier misbehavior. Last year, the DOT imposed a $140 million fine on Southwest Airlines for a December 2022 holiday meltdown that led to 16,900 flight cancellations and stranded 2 million passengers.

The latest move comes as passenger traffic in the United States is projected to reach an all-time high this year.

Buttigieg said the bipartisan agreement brings together attorneys general from Republican and Democratic states.

It includes 18 states such as California, New York, Nevada and Colorado that have some of the busiest U.S. airports. The DOT said seven more states – Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington – are interested in joining the initiative.

(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

A barge operator believes it has found a sunken barge in the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, one of 26 that broke loose and floated away during weekend flooding, company officials said Tuesday.

Crews used sonar to locate an object in a stretch of river north of the city, which Campbell Transportation Company Inc. said it presumes to be its missing barge.

The river remained closed to maritime traffic while the company worked to salvage the runaway barges.

Cmdr. Justin Jolley, of the U.S. Coast Guard’s marine safety unit in Pittsburgh, said Tuesday that once the object in the river is confirmed to be the missing barge, “we’re hopeful we can reduce the security zone to that area and allow traffic to resume.”

Seventeen of the barges are secure and under control, while seven remain positioned against the Emsworth Locks and Dam and one is pinned against the Dashields Locks and Dam, the company said.

“We are actively developing a recovery plan for all affected vessels, which will be implemented when safe for the recovery workers, barges and the public,” said Gary Statler, the company’s senior vice president for river operations.

Jolley said Campbell began retrieving barges pinned against the Emsworth dam on Tuesday morning.

The Coast Guard is investigating how the barges got loose from their moorings late Friday, striking a bridge and smashing a pair of marinas. All but three of the barges were loaded with coal, fertilizer and other dry cargo. Statler said the barges broke loose “under high water conditions on the rivers, resulting in strong currents due to flooding in the area.”

No injuries were reported.

An inspection of the Sewickley Bridge revealed no significant damage, and the bridge was reopened to traffic on Saturday,

The barge mishap took place more than two weeks after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after it was hit by a wayward cargo ship, killing six construction workers who plunged to their deaths.

Campbell, of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, owns and manages more than 1,100 barges and moves about 60 million tons of dry and liquid cargo each year, according to its website.

Changing course, a Democratic Florida prosecutor suspended from office by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday he will seek reelection while a court battle continues over his 2022 removal from the post.

Andrew Warren had said in January he would not run this year. But that was before a federal appeals court ruled that a lower court should consider Warren’s argument that statements he made about hot-button issues such as abortion were political advocacy protected by the First Amendment. That case remains pending.

DeSantis cited those statements in suspending Warren, contending he was improperly refusing to uphold and enforce certain laws. The governor appointed Republican Suzy Lopez to replace Warren, and she is running for the position that prosecutes cases in Tampa and surrounding Hillsborough County.

In his announcement in a video posted on social media, Warren said the governor “illegally forced me from office” and that he decided to seek a third term even as a judge in Tallahassee considers whether to order his reinstatement later this year. Qualifying for the election ends next week.

“I’m running to protect our values, for a woman’s right to choose, for a fair and just system and — above all — for freedom and democracy,” Warren said in a statement. “I’m running to do what’s right.”

The governor’s office said after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court ruling in favor of Warren that it sets a “dangerous precedent” that could permit politically motivated prosecutors to ignore laws they oppose.

The appeal will eventually go before U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, who previously ruled that Warren’s statements were protected by the First Amendment but that he lacked authority to reinstate the prosecutor. The appeals court said Hinkle does have that authority.

Warren’s suspension was the first one made by the Republican governor involving Democratic elected state attorneys. Last year, DeSantis suspended Monique Worrell, who was the state attorney for the Orlando area. Worrell is challenging the decision before the Florida Supreme Court.