WASHINGTON (AP) — A man who became a fugitive after a federal jury convicted him of assaulting police officers during the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison.

David Joseph Gietzen, 31, of Sanford, North Carolina, struck a police officer with a pole during a mob’s Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Gietzen told U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols that he didn’t intend to hurt anybody that day. But he didn’t express any regret or remorse for his actions on Jan. 6, when he joined a mob of Donald Trump supporters in interrupting the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

“I have to make it explicitly known that I believe I did the right thing,” he said before learning his sentence.

The judge said Gietzen made it clear during his trial testimony — and his sentencing hearing — that he clings to his baseless beliefs that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.

“Mr. Gietzen essentially was unapologetic today about his conduct,” Nichols said.

Last August, a jury convicted Gietzen of eight counts, including assault and civil disorder charges. After his trial conviction, Gietzen disregarded a court order to report to prison on Oct. 20, 2023, while awaiting sentencing. He missed several hearings for his case before he was arrested at his mother’s home in North Carolina on Dec. 12, 2023.

“This pattern of flouting rules and laws and doing what he wants, regardless of the consequences, is how Gietzen operates,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Defense attorney Ira Knight said Gietzen apparently remained at his house, “just waiting to be picked up,” and wasn’t on the run from authorities or trying to hide after his conviction.

Prosecutors recommended a prison term of 10 years and one month for Gietzen, who worked as a computer programming engineer after graduating from North Carolina State University in 2017 with bachelor’s degrees in computer engineering and electrical engineering.

“Clearly, Gietzen is bright and able to get something done when he puts his mind to it – be it a college degree or assaulting officers as part of in a violent mob,” prosecutors wrote.

Gietzen’s attorneys requested a four-year prison sentence.

“David’s current philosophy is that he no longer wishes to be engaged with the political process,” defense attorneys wrote. “His involvement with politics has concluded and should be an indication to the Court that he is no longer interested in being a threat to the public or political process.”

Gietzen traveled to Washington, D.C., with his brother from their home in North Carolina. He attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6 before marching to the Capitol.

As the mob of Trump supporters overwhelmed a police line on the Capitol’s West Plaza, Gietzen shoved a police officer, grabbed another officer’s gas mask and struck an officer with a pole.

“And all of Gietzen’s violence was based on a lack of respect for law enforcement and the democratic process — its goal was to get himself and other rioters closer to the building so they could interfere with the certification of the election,” prosecutors wrote.

Gietzen later bragged about participating in the riot in messages to friends and relatives, saying he had “never been prouder to be an American.”

More than 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting terms of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Supporters of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota are cheering new federal legislation to help build the library and to showcase artifacts of the 26th president, who as a young man hunted and ranched in the state during its territorial days.

Last week, North Dakota’s three-member, all-Republican congressional delegation announced the bill to “authorize funding for the Library’s continued construction and go towards ensuring the preservation of President Roosevelt’s history and legacy.” The bill’s Interior Department grant is for $50 million of one-time money, most of which “will go into creating the museum spaces in our facility,” said Matt Briney, the library’s chief communications officer.

The bill also enables and directs federal agencies to work with the library’s organizers to feature Roosevelt items in the library’s museum, he said.

In 2019, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a $50 million operations endowment for the library, available after its organizers raised $100 million in private donations for construction. That goal was met in late 2020.

The project has raised $240 million in private donations, and complete construction costs $333 million, Briney said. Covering the library’s construction costs has not been an issue, he said.

Construction is underway near Medora, in the rugged, colorful Badlands where the young future president briefly roamed in the 1880s. Organizers are planning for a grand opening of the library on July 4, 2026, the United States’ 250th anniversary of independence.

In a statement, the congressional delegation hailed the bill as “a wise investment in our nation’s historical preservation.” In the same press release, the bill drew praise from descendant Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt V and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who championed the library to the 2019 Legislature.

The bill would require a two-thirds match from state funds or non-federal sources, and it would prohibit the federal money from going toward the library’s maintenance or operations.

Planned exhibits include a chronological view of Roosevelt’s life, such as galleries of his early life, time in the Badlands, travels to the Amazon and his presidency, Briney said.

The 2023 Legislature approved a $70 million line of credit for the library through the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, which Briney said library planners have not tapped.

That line of credit drew scrutiny last year from Republican state Rep. Jim Kasper, who called it a “$70 million slush fund” that could leave taxpayers on the hook. Library CEO Ed O’Keefe has said the line of credit was intended as backstop to help ensure construction could begin.

In an interview, Kasper called the library, which he supported, “a beautiful thing for the state of North Dakota … but I want private funds raised to pay for it.”

“If there’s going to be taxpayers’ dollars that are used, then I’d rather have federal dollars used than taxpayers of North Dakota dollars,” Kasper said. “Obviously there’s still taxpayer dollars. But I really don’t support any taxpayer dollars being used for the project, whether they’re state or federal.”

Other presidential libraries have been built with private donations or non-federal money. Some have received funds for construction and development from state and local governments and universities, then have been transferred to the federal government and run by the National Archives and Records Administration through that agency’s budget, according to the National Archives’ website.

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will always be privately held, said Briney, who called the legislation’s money “not necessarily uncommon.”

Former U.S. Rep. George Santos on Tuesday said he is dropping his longshot bid to return to Congress, months after he was expelled from the House while facing a slew of federal fraud charges.

Santos, who was running as an independent candidate for the 1st Congressional District in New York, said he was withdrawing from the race in a post on the social media platform X.

The announcement came after the disgraced former congressman’s campaign committee reported no fundraising or expenditures in March, raising speculation that his campaign had failed to get off the ground.

Santos last month launched a campaign to challenge Republican Rep. Nick LaLota in the GOP primary for the eastern Long Island congressional district, which is a different district than the one he previously represented. Weeks later, Santos said he was leaving the Republican Party and would instead run for the seat as an independent.

“Although Nick and I don’t have the same voting record and I remain critical of his abysmal record, I don’t want to split the ticket and be responsible for handing the house to Dems,” Santos wrote on X, adding, “Staying in this race all but guarantees a victory for the Dems in the race.”

Santos was expelled from the House in December following a damaging ethics committee report that determined there was “overwhelming evidence” of lawbreaking and that he “cannot be trusted.” He was just the sixth member expelled by colleagues in the chamber’s history.

The former congressman has pleaded not guilty to federal charges that include deceiving Congress about his wealth, stealing from his campaign and obtaining unemployment benefits he didn’t deserve. He has a trial tentatively scheduled for later this year.

In his post on X, Santos did not rule out seeking office in the future.

“It’s only goodbye for now,” he wrote, “I’ll be back.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former presidential candidate Dean Phillips will receive at least three of Ohio’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention even though he has dropped out of the race and endorsed President Joe Biden. But they’re likely to be Phillips delegates in name only.

The president locked up the Democratic nomination on March 12 and so far has won 99% of convention delegates, a sign that even some of the more organized efforts to oppose him haven’t gained traction with the party’s voters. Party rules also make it nearly impossible at this point in the presidential primary process for any candidate other than Biden to even be eligible to receive votes for the nomination at its summer convention.

In several states, activists have been encouraging voters to fill out their ballots for the option of “uncommitted” to protest Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, earning the option 27 delegates. Such an effort is underway on Tuesday in Pennsylvania as it holds its presidential primary.

The minimum goal for Democrats competing for delegates is to win 15% of the statewide vote or 15% of the vote in an individual congressional district. In the March 19 Ohio primary, “uncommitted” wasn’t a ballot option, leaving Democrats wishing to express opposition to Biden with only one other choice: Phillips.

It has taken more than a month to determine the delegate count in Ohio because the state doesn’t release presidential primary results by congressional districts, requiring news outlets such as The Associated Press and the parties to do it themselves. On election night, Phillips came close to the threshold in four congressional districts, per an AP count, but it remained unclear if he would receive any delegates in the end.

The Ohio Democratic Party said that Phillips’ campaign had not sent in a delegate list, making it unclear if any delegate slots he qualified for could be filled. In addition, the margins were so thin in those districts that certified totals were required to confirm he had received delegates.

An AP analysis of the certified results, released Friday, at the precinct level shows he met the 15% threshold to receive a delegate in the state’s 2nd, 6th and 14th congressional districts. He still could qualify for a fourth delegate in the 12th Congressional District, but the margin there is so razor-thin that additional details are needed from local elections officials to confirm.

Bill DeMora, the delegate and convention director for the Ohio Democratic Party, said that any delegates Phillips qualified for would be counted as pledged to support him — but also said the spots would be filled by Biden supporters.

“They are Phillips delegates who will vote for Biden,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Phillips’ campaign confirmed it will encourage delegates they won in Ohio to vote for Biden.

In fact, there are few options for delegates who attend the national convention to support candidates other than Biden, who will almost certainly be the only candidate who is eligible for the nomination. DNC rules require candidates to receive support from at least 300 delegates before the roll call vote to be considered for the nomination. Only Biden has exceeded that threshold and no other candidate has come near it, meaning the only options for delegates will likely be Biden or to register a nominal protest vote such as voting “present.”

At this point in the race, it’s virtually impossible for any other candidate to reach that 300-delegate threshold. More than two-thirds of the total Democratic delegates have been allocated already. Biden has won 3,078 of the 3,111 delegates already allocated and clinched enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination on March 12.

Phillips joins Jason Palmer, who won three delegates in American Samoa, and the “uncommitted” option as the only non-Biden choices to receive delegates.

Palmer told the AP that while he had not “technically suspended his campaign,” he is endorsing Biden and planning to work with the Democratic National Committee to figure out what role he and his pledged delegates could play at the convention in Chicago. For now, Palmer says, his priority is making sure his delegates in American Samoa can afford travel expenses to actually attend the convention. He won three delegates at the American Samoa Democratic caucuses after winning 51 votes; Biden only won 40 votes.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” at Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday after they passed a bill that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.

The 68-28 vote in favor of the bill sent it to Republican Gov. Bill Lee for consideration. If he signs it into law, it would be the biggest expansion of gun access in the state since last year’s deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville.

Members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.

Four House Republicans and all Democrats opposed the bill, which the state Senate previously passed. The measure would bar disclosing which employees are carrying guns beyond school administrators and police, including to students’ parents and even other teachers. A principal, school district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to let staff carry guns.

The proposal presents a starkly different response to The Covenant School shooting than Lee proposed last year. Republican legislators quickly cast aside his push to keep guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others.

A veto by Lee appears unlikely, since it would be a first for him and lawmakers would only need a simple majority of each chamber’s members to override it.

“What you’re doing is you’re creating a deterrent,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Ryan Williams, said before the vote. “Across our state, we have had challenges as it relates to shootings.”

Republicans rejected a series of Democratic amendments, including parental consent requirements, notification when someone is armed, and the school district assuming civil liability for any injury, damage or death due to staff carrying guns.

“My Republican colleagues continue to hold our state hostage, hold our state at gunpoint to appeal to their donors in the gun industry,” Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said. “It is morally insane.”

In the chaos after the vote, Democratic and Republican lawmakers accused each other of violating House rules, but only voted to reprimand Jones for recording on his phone. He was barred from speaking on the floor through Wednesday.

It’s unclear if any school districts would take advantage if the bill becomes law. For example, a Metro Nashville Public Schools spokesperson, Sean Braisted, said the district believes “it is best and safest for only approved active-duty law enforcement to carry weapons on campus.”

About half of the U.S. states in some form allow teachers or other employees with concealed carry permits to carry guns on school property, according to the Giffords Law Center, a gun control advocacy group. Iowa’s governor signed a bill that the Legislature passed last week creating a professional permit for trained school employees to carry at schools that protects them from criminal or civil liability for use of reasonable force.

In Tennessee, a shooter indiscriminately opened fire in March 2023 at The Covenant School — a Christian school in Nashville — and killed three children and three adults before being killed by police.

Despite subsequent coordinated campaigns urging significant gun control measures, lawmakers have largely refused. They dismissed gun control proposals by Democrats and even by Lee during regular annual sessions and a special session, even as parents of Covenant students shared accounts of the shooting and its lasting effects.

Under the bill passed Tuesday, a worker who wants to carry a handgun would need to have a handgun carry permit and written authorization from the school’s principal and local law enforcement. They would also need to clear a background check and undergo 40 hours of handgun training. They couldn’t carry guns at school events at stadiums, gymnasiums or auditoriums.

Tennessee passed a 2016 law allowing armed school workers in two rural counties, but it wasn’t implemented, according to WPLN-FM.

Tennessee Republicans have regularly loosened gun laws, including a 2021 permit-less carry law for handguns backed by Lee.

The original law allowed residents 21 and older to carry handguns in public without a permit. Two years later, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti struck a deal amid an ongoing lawsuit to extend eligibility to 18- to 20-year-olds.

Meanwhile, shortly after the shooting last year, Tennessee Republicans passed a law bolstering protections against lawsuits involving gun and ammunition dealers, manufacturers and sellers. Lawmakers and the governor this year have signed off on allowing private schools with pre-kindergarten classes to have guns on campus. Private schools without pre-K already were allowed to decide whether to let people bring guns on their grounds.

They have advanced some narrow gun limitations. One awaiting the governor’s signature would involuntarily commit certain criminal defendants for inpatient treatment and temporarily remove their gun rights if they are ruled incompetent for trial due to intellectual disability or mental illness. Another bill that still needs Senate approval would remove the gun rights of juveniles deemed delinquent due to certain offenses, ranging from aggravated assault to threats of mass violence, until the age of 25.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane carrying two people crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday and burst into flames, authorities said. No survivors have been found.

The plane took off in the morning from Fairbanks International Airport. It crashed about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from there and “slid into a steep hill on the bank of the river where it caught fire,” according to Alaska State Troopers.

The C-54 is a military version of the Douglas DC-4, which was a World War II-era airplane. The website www.airlines.net said standard passenger seating for a DC-4 was 44 during its heyday, but most have been converted to freighters.

The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a Douglas C-54. Troopers identified it as a DC-4.

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending investigators to the site, said Clint Johnson, chief of the NTSB’s Alaska regional office.

Johnson said it remained unclear what happened in the time between the takeoff and the crash but the tower operator “saw a large plume of smoke.”

Further information such as the flight’s purpose and destination was not immediately available.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A large alligator made its way onto the runway at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida where it had to be captured and taken away for release in a nearby river, officials said.

The toothy reptile was spotted Monday morning beside the landing gear of a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft, officials at the base in Tampa posted on Facebook.

Officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were summoned. They captured the animal and then released it into the nearby Hillsborough River.

According to wildlife officials, alligators become more likely to wander into unfamiliar territory in April as they search for mates.

CHICAGO (AP) — For college senior Nana Ampofo, an unconventional book club inside one of the nation’s largest jails has transformed her career ambitions.

Each week, the 22-year-old drives a van of her DePaul University peers to Cook County Jail to discuss books with inmates and recently, the well-known activist Sister Helen Prejean. Ampofo comes prepared with thought-provoking questions to launch the conversations at the Chicago jail about the most recent books they’ve been reading together.

One club rule is clear: Discussions about personal lives are encouraged, but no questions are permitted about why other members are in jail.

“That’s part of dehumanizing people. You want people to tell you their own story and have their own autonomy,” Ampofo said. “When you go in with an open mind, you see how similar people are to you.”

The student-led volunteer effort started years ago as an offshoot of a DePaul program offering college credit classes at the jail on the city’s southwest side for students and detainees. The book club, with a new cohort each academic quarter, tackles books that resonate personally with group members who are nearly all Black or Latino.

Associated Press journalists were allowed into the jail Monday to observe the current club’s final meeting to discuss Prejean’s book “Dead Man Walking,” where the Louisiana anti-death penalty activist made a special appearance. The book, which was also adapted into a movie and an opera, is about her experiences as a spiritual adviser to a pair of men on death row in the 1980s.

Sitting in a circle inside a window-filled jail chapel, 10 inmates in tan jail-issued uniforms sat among four college students and Prejean, who visits the Catholic university in Chicago each year.

Ampofo, who advocated for Prejean’s visit, cried when she talked about how important the group members and their discussions are to her. Laughter erupted when Prejean told a vulgar joke involving Louisiana bayou folk characters. And there were fierce nods when Steven Hayer, a detainee, discussed why many inmates return to jail.

“Our society doesn’t invest in solutions,” he said. “And when they get out, they will go back to what they know.”

Book club members seized the chance to ask Prejean questions, including differences between the book and movie and what it’s like to watch people die.

The 85-year-old nun has been present for seven executions. Her archival papers are housed at DePaul, including script notes for the 1995 movie starring Susan Sarandon.

After witnessing her first execution, Prejean said she threw up, but decided that being with people in their final moments was a privilege.

“When you’ve been a witness to something then that fire begins to burn in your heart for justice that we’ve got to change this,” she said.

As a white woman who grew up in the South, Prejean said her prison work opened her eyes about racism.

Most of the detained members of the book club are Black, mirroring demographics of the jail, which houses nearly 5,000 detainees. Roughly 70% of inmates are involved in some type of educational programming like the book club, according to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

But having college student participation sets the book club apart from other activities.

“When you all of a sudden have students from the outside, sitting next to you, you start thinking of yourself different,” said Dart. “It changes mentalities.”

Detainees are invited to participate based on their interests, he said. Their behavior on the inside determines their ability to join, not what they are serving time for, he added. Health issues are also taken into consideration.

The jail’s wait list to get into the club has been up to 40 people.

Jarvis Wright, who has been detained at Cook County for two years, said he’s a reader but had never been in a book club before. The 30-year-old reads at night when it’s quiet at the jail. The other book club picks included “The Color of Law,” which delves into housing segregation.

“Even though we’re sitting in here incarcerated doing time, awaiting trial for our cases, this gives us something positive to look forward to,” Wright said. “We’re not in here just wasting time.”

DePaul has offered college classes through a national program called the Inside-Out Prison Exchange since 2012. Classes are held at both the Cook County Jail and the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security men’s prison about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Chicago.

During book club, security guards are present, but no one is shackled.

Helen Damon-Moore, who oversees the jail education programs at DePaul, says there has never been a security issue.

“They are all equal when they’re inside,” Damon-Moore said.

Stanley Allen, a 36-year-old detainee, said he was drawn to the club because it was linked to a college. He hopes to take classes for credit in the future. For him, the most surprising part of the club was meeting the college students and Prejean.

“There’s really good people out there,” he said.

Other book club members say the experience has brought them close.

“I feel like I’m talking to a bunch of my brothers,” Seven Clark, a DePaul sophomore from Chicago, told the group. “They way you talk is so familiar. It feels like home.”

Ampofo will return to the jail by week’s end when a new club focusing on Black women’s writing begins. It’s a topic that resonates with her as the American-born daughter of a Ghanian immigrant mom.

The first to graduate high school in her family, Ampofo is planning on graduate school to further pursue museum studies. She dreams of improving access to museums for incarcerated people and their families.

“I want to take care of people,” she said. “And I found the people I want to take care of.”

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two U.S. senators said they hope TikTok will remain in business in the U.S. under a new owner as the chamber prepared to vote on Tuesday on legislation requiring Chinese owner ByteDance to divest the popular short video app’s U.S. assets.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Mark Warner, a Democrat, said lawmakers recognized that the short video app is used by 170 million Americans, especially young people.

“To those young Americans, I want to say, we hear your concern and we hope that TikTok will continue under new ownership — American or otherwise… from Britain, Canada, Brazil France. It just needs to be no longer controlled by an adversary.”

Driven by concerns that China could access Americans’ data or surveil them with the app, the U.S. House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation on Saturday that would give ByteDance nine months to divest TikTok with a possible three-month extension.

If the legislation is approved by the Senate, President Joe Biden has said he would sign it into law. The company has said it would challenge the order in court.

TikTok, which says it has not shared and would not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, has argued the law amounts to a ban that would violate the U.S. free speech rights of its users.

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell said Congress is not acting to punish ByteDance or TikTok but “to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, malign operations, harming vulnerable Americans.”

She said the timeline was reasonable. “This is not a new concept to require Chinese divestment from U.S. companies,” Cantwell said. “We are giving people a choice here to improve this platform.”

But Democratic Senator Ed Markey said ByteDance was unlikely to be able to execute a divestment that maintains the app for U.S. users. “We should be very clear about the likely outcome of this law. It’s really just a TikTok ban,” he said.

“Censorship is not who we are as a people. We should not downplay or deny this trade off.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman)

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — The man charged with starting a fire outside independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office earlier this month pleaded not guilty to a federal charge on Tuesday.

Shant Michael Soghomonian, 35, was indicted by a grand jury on a charge of maliciously damaging or attempting to damage and destroy by fire a building used in interstate commerce.

Surveillance video shows the man throwing a liquid April 5 at the bottom of a door opening into Sanders’ third-floor office in Burlington and setting it on fire, according to an affidavit filed by a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Sanders was not in the office at the time. Seven employees working in the office were able to get out unharmed. The building’s interior suffered damage from the fire and water sprinklers.

Soghomonian, who was previously from Northridge, California, had been staying at an area hotel for nearly two months, according to the special agent’s report.