WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that could determine whether doctors can provide abortions to pregnant women with medical emergencies in states that enact abortion bans.

The Justice Department has sued Idaho over its abortion law, which only allows a woman to get an abortion when her life — not her health — is at risk. The state law has raised questions about when a doctor is able to provide the stabilizing treatment that federal law requires.

The federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA, requires doctors to stabilize or treat any patient who shows up at an emergency room.

Here’s a look at the history of EMTALA, what rights it provides patients and how a Supreme Court ruling might change that.

Simply put, EMTALA requires emergency rooms to offer a medical exam if you present at their facility. The law applies to nearly all emergency rooms – any that accept Medicare funding.

Those emergency rooms are required to stabilize patients if they do have a medical emergency before discharging or transferring them. And if the emergency room doesn’t have the resources or staff to properly treat that patient, staff are required to arrange a medical transfer to another hospital, after they’ve confirmed the facility can accept the patient.

So, for example, if a pregnant woman shows up at an emergency room concerned that she is in labor but there is no OB/GYN on staff, hospital staff cannot simply direct the woman to go elsewhere.

Look to Chicago in the early 1980s.

Doctors at the city’s public hospital were confronting a huge problem: thousands of patients, many of them Black or Latino, were arriving in very bad condition – and they were sent there by private hospitals in the city who refused to treat them. Most of them did not have health insurance.

Chicago wasn’t alone. Doctors working in public hospitals around the country reported similar issues. Media reports, including one of a pregnant woman who delivered a stillborn baby after being turned away by two hospitals because she didn’t have insurance, intensified public pressure on politicians to act.

Congress drafted legislation with Republican Sen. David Durenberger of Minnesota saying at the time, “Americans, rich or poor, deserve access to quality health care. This question of access should be the government’s responsibility at the federal, state, and local levels.”

Then President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law in 1986.

The hospital is investigated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If they find the hospital violated a patient’s right to care, they can lose their Medicare funding, a vital source of revenue for most hospitals to keep their doors open.

Usually, however, the federal government issues fines when a hospital violates EMTALA. They can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has repeatedly reminded hospitals that his administration considers an abortion part of the stabilizing care that EMTALA requires facilities to provide.

The administration argues that Idaho’s law prevents ER doctors from offering an abortion if a woman needs one in a medical emergency.

But Idaho’s attorney general has pointed out that EMTALA also requires hospitals to consider the health of the “unborn child” in its treatment, too.

Anti-abortion advocates argue that state laws banning abortion can co-exist with the federal law that requires hospitals to stabilize pregnant patients in an emergency.

The prominent anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in a statement to The Associated Press on Friday that all 50 states offer life-saving care to women. The group responded to an AP article that found pregnancy-related EMTALA complaints spiked in some states with strict abortion bans in 2022.

“This is not a red state-blue state issue, this is a nationwide need for better emergency care for women and their unborn children,” said Kelsey Pritchard, the group’s state public affairs director. “EMTALA clearly requires care for both patients.”

But many doctors say it’s not as clear cut as anti-abortion advocates claim. Idaho’s state law banning abortion, except for the life of the mother, has left some doctors weighing if a patient is close enough to death to treat.

Most other states allow doctors to perform abortions to save the health of a mother. But, if the Supreme Court rules in Idaho’s favor, it could invite other states to pass restrictions without that exemption.

In a statement released Monday, Jack Resneck, the former president of the American Medical Association, said Idaho’s law forces doctors to withhold proper treatment for patients.

The state’s “dangerous standard cannot be applied to the real-life situations faced in emergency departments every day,” Resneck said. “There is no bright line when each patient’s condition suddenly reaches “life-threatening,” and deteriorating patients don’t want their physicians delaying care.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon is poised to send an initial $1 billion package of military aid to Ukraine, U.S. officials said Tuesday as the Senate began debate on long-awaited legislation to fund the weapons Kyiv desperately needs to stall gains being made by Russian forces in the war.

The decision comes after months of frustration, as bitterly divided members of Congress deadlocked over the funding, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson to cobble together a dramatic bipartisan coalition to pass the bill. The $95 billion foreign aid package including billions for Israel and Taiwan, passed the House on Saturday and the Senate approval was expected either Tuesday or Wednesday.

The votes are the result of weeks of high-voltage debate, including threats from Johnson’s hard right faction to oust him as speaker. About $61 billion of the aid is for Ukraine.

The package includes an array of ammunition, including air defense munitions and large amounts of artillery rounds that are much in demand by Ukrainian forces, as well as armored vehicles and other weapons. The U.S. officials said some of the weapons will be delivered very quickly to the battlefront — at times within days — but it could take longer for other items to arrive. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the initial aid had not yet been publicly announced.

America’s infusion of weapons comes on the heels of an announcement by the U.K. on Tuesday, pledging an additional $620 million in new military supplies for Ukraine, including long-range missiles and four million rounds of ammunition.

The announcement reflects President Joe Biden’s promise Monday in a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying that the U.S. would send the badly needed air defense weapons once the Senate approved the bill. Zelensky said in a posting on X, formerly Twitter, that Biden also assured him that a coming package of aid would include long-range and artillery capabilities.

The latest tranche of weapons will be provided through presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, which pulls systems and munitions from existing U.S. stockpiles and sends them quickly to the war front. Some of the munitions are already in Europe, so could move within days to Ukrainian forces.

Last week, an array of U.S. leaders described how urgently Ukraine needs the infusion of aid. Without it, said CIA Director Bill Burns, Ukraine could lose the war to Russia by the end of this year. And Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told House members that conditions on the battlefield were shifting and Russian forces were making incremental gains.

Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bluntly describe the situation to the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee:, saying Ukraine is facing ” dire battlefield conditions.” Desperate Ukrainian troops rationing or running out of ammunition on the front lines.

During a virtual meeting last Friday of defense ministers in the NATO-Ukraine Council, Austin underscored the need for “immediate, concerted action” on air defense weapons for Kyiv, the Pentagon said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Zelenskyy attended the meeting, along with other NATO allies.

The U.S. move to finally send the much-needed weapons comes as Pentagon leaders prepare to meet with defense officials from Europe and around the world on Friday to discuss international aid for Ukraine. The gathering – created by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – has been meeting about monthly for the past two years, but in recent sessions officials have expressed growing consternation over the U.S. gridlock.

More than $20 billion in the aid bill is earmarked to replenish U.S. military stocks that have been depleted because they were sent to Ukraine.

Ever since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the U.S. has sent more than $44 billion worth of weapons, maintenance, training and spare parts to Ukraine. For the bulk of that time, the aid packages were moving routinely every few weeks. But the money was drying up by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. And by mid-December, the Pentagon said it had run out of money and had to stop sending weapons because – without the funding package stalled in Congress — it could no longer afford to replace them.

The $1 billion package was first reported by Reuters.

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department announced a $138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.

When combined with other settlements, $1 billion now has been set aside by various organizations to compensate hundreds of women who said Nassar assaulted them under the guise of treatment for sports injuries.

Nassar worked at Michigan State University and also served as a team doctor at Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics. He’s now serving decades in prison for assaulting female athletes, including medal-winning Olympic gymnasts.

Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer said Nassar betrayed the trust of those in his care for decades, and that the “allegations should have been taken seriously from the outset.”

“While these settlements won’t undo the harm Nassar inflicted, our hope is that they will help give the victims of his crimes some of the critical support they need to continue healing,” Mizer said of the agreement to settle 139 claims.

The Justice Department has acknowledged that it failed to step in. For more than a year, FBI agents in Indianapolis and Los Angeles had knowledge of allegations against him but apparently took no action, an internal investigation found.

FBI Director Christopher Wray was contrite — and very blunt — when he spoke to survivors at a Senate hearing in 2021. The assault survivors include decorated Olympians Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney.

“I’m sorry that so many different people let you down, over and over again,” Wray said. “And I’m especially sorry that there were people at the FBI who had their own chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed.”

After a search, investigators said in 2016 that they had found images of child sex abuse and followed up with federal charges against Nassar. Separately, the Michigan attorney general’s office handled the assault charges that ultimately shocked the sports world and led to an extraordinary dayslong sentencing hearing with gripping testimony about his crimes.

“I’m deeply grateful. Accountability with the Justice Department has been a long time in coming,” said Rachael Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, who is not part of the latest settlement but was the first person to publicly step forward and detail abuse at the hands of Nassar.

“The unfortunate reality is that what we are seeing today is something that most survivors never see,” Denhollander told The Associated Press. “Most survivors never see accountability. Most survivors never see justice. Most survivors never get restitution.”

Michigan State University, which was also accused of missing chances over many years to stop Nassar, agreed to pay $500 million to more than 300 women and girls who were assaulted. USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement.

Mick Grewal, an attorney who represented 44 people in claims against the government, said the $1 billion in overall settlements speaks to “the travesty that occurred.”

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Associated Press reporters Mike Householder in Detroit; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

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For more updates on the cases against Larry Nasser: https://apnews.com/hub/larry-nassar

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden will be the commencement speaker at Morehouse College in Georgia, giving the Democrat a key election-year spotlight on one of the nation’s preeminent historically Black campuses as he works to shore up the racially diverse coalition that propelled him to the Oval Office.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed Biden will speak at the alma mater of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The May 19 speech will mark the second consecutive spring that Biden has spoken to the graduating class of a historically Black school. In 2023, the president delivered the commencement address at Howard University. The Washington, D.C., school is the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, the first nonwhite woman to hold that office. Morehouse, a private all-male school that is part of the multi-campus Atlanta University Center, also is the alma mater of Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black U.S. senator.

Polls have suggested Biden and Harris have work to do generate the same levels of Black support they won in 2020, especially among younger voters. It would not take a significant drop in Black turnout for Biden to yield several states to former President Donald Trump in their rematch.

Biden won Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes over Trump out of about 5 million ballots cast. The combined enrollment at Morehouse and its adjoining schools that make up the Atlanta University Center is about 9,000 students. Biden’s margin in Wisconsin, where Black voters in greater Milwaukee are an anchor of Democrats’ statewide vote totals, was less than 21,000 votes. The president had more comfortable margins in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but still cannot afford to lose Black support across the metro areas of Detroit and Philadelphia.

Among states Trump won, Biden is targeting North Carolina, which has a notable Black college student population. Trump’s margin in the state was about 75,000 votes.

The administration and reelection campaign have targeted HBCUs since Biden took office in January 2021. Harris and Cabinet members have spoken on several campuses. Among other policy achievements and priorities, they have touted increases in federal money support for HBCUs; Biden’s efforts to forgive up to $10,000 in student loan burden per borrower and increase Pell Grants for low-income students; energy investments to combat the climate crisis, and Democrats’ support for abortion rights and decriminalizing marijuana possession.

Reflecting the nation’s overall racial gaps in income and net worth, Black college students are disproportionately dependent on Pell Grants, which typically cover only a fraction of overall college costs, and student loans. According to Federal Reserve data, about 1 out of 3 Black households has student loan debt, compared to about 1 in 5 white households. The average Black borrower also is carrying about $10,000 more in debt than the average white borrower. Additionally, federal statistics show about 60% of Black undergraduates receive Pell Grants, compared to about 40% of the overall undergraduate population and a third of white students.

Most historically Black colleges and universities, both state-affiliated and private, were founded in the years after the end of the Civil War and ratification of the 13th Amendment that ended chattel slavery. Most established white campuses in that post-war era, especially in the Old Confederacy, denied admission to Black applicants altogether or, in the case of many northern schools, admitted only a few Black students.

Morehouse was founded in 1867, and Spelman College, its adjacent private all-women’s school, was founded in 1881. The University of Georgia, the state’s flagship public university, meanwhile, was chartered in 1785. That was more than three years before the U.S. Constitution was ratified, but UGA did not serve Black students until Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter were enrolled under a federal court order in 1961.

Biden’s undergraduate alma mater, the University of Delaware, traces its roots to 1743, and its modern iteration began classes in 1867. The university did not integrate to include any Black students until 1948, when the 81-year-old president was 6 years old.

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Kim reported from Washington.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota state senator and former broadcast meteorologist told police that she broke into her stepmother’s home because her stepmother refused to give her items of sentimental value from her late father, including his ashes, according to burglary charges filed Tuesday.

Democratic Sen. Nicole Mitchell, 49, of Woodbury, was arrested early Monday at the home in the northwestern Minnesota city of Detroit Lakes. The arresting officer wrote in the complaint that he heard Mitchell tell her stepmother “something to the effect of, ’I was just trying to get a couple of my dad’s things because you wouldn’t talk to me anymore.'”

Mitchell was dressed all in black and wearing a black hat, the complaint said. The officer said he discovered a flashlight near her that was covered with a black sock, apparently modified to control the amount of light coming from it.

The complaint, filed in Becker County District Court in Detroit Lakes, charges Mitchell with one count of first-degree burglary, a felony. She remained jailed ahead of her first court appearance Tuesday. Court records do not list an attorney who could comment on her behalf, but show that she applied for a public defender. She did not return a call left on the jail’s voicemail system for inmates.

“I know I did something bad,” the complaint quoted Mitchell as saying after she was told of her right to remain silent.

Mitchell’s father, Rod Mitchell, died last month, according to an obituary posted by a Detroit Lakes funeral home. He had been married to Mitchell’s stepmother for 40 years, it said.

Nicole Mitchell told the officer she was after pictures, a flannel shirt, ashes and other items, but that her stepmother had ceased all contact with her and that they weren’t speaking, the complaint said. But it was the ashes that got her “to this stage,” it said.

The senator acknowledged that she had entered the house through a basement window that had been propped open with a black backpack, the complaint said. Officers found her Minnesota Senate ID inside it, along with her driver’s license, two laptop computers, a cellphone and Tupperware containers, the complaint said. She indicated that she got caught soon after entering.

“Clearly I’m not good at this,” it quoted her as saying.

The stepmother said in an interview that she’s afraid of her stepdaughter and applied for a restraining order against her. She also said that while most of her husband’s ashes were buried, she sent Mitchell a miniature container with some of them.

Mitchell was arrested while the Senate is on its Passover break. Her arrest comes at an awkward time for Senate Democrats, who hold just a one-seat majority with just under four weeks left in the legislative session. Her absence would make it difficult to pass any legislation that lacks bipartisan support.

Mitchell’s arrest took Senate leaders by surprise. The Senate Democratic Caucus said in a statement Monday that it’s “aware of the situation and has no comment pending further information.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, said he was shocked but knew very few details.

“The public expects Legislators to meet a high standard of conduct,” Johnson said in a statement. “As information comes out, we expect the consequences to meet the actions, both in the court of law, and in her role at the legislature.”

Mitchell worked as a meteorologist with the U.S. military and for KSTP-TV and Minnesota Public Radio before she was elected to the Senate in 2022 from a suburban St. Paul district. She still serves as lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, commanding a weather unit, her official profile says. She worked for The Weather Channel earlier in her career, her profile says.

NEW YORK (AP) — When Anna Branch, 37, had her hours at work reduced at the start of the pandemic in 2020, she suddenly noticed ads for an app called EarnIn.

“You know how they get you — the algorithms — like they’re reading your mind,” Branch said. “The ad said I could get up to $100 this week and repay it in my next pay period.”

Branch, who was working as an administrative assistant in Charleston, South Carolina, downloaded the app, agreed to the flat fee, and added the suggested “tip.” The cash helped her cover expenses until payday, when the app debited the borrowed $100, plus $18 for the fee and tip. Four years later, Branch said she still uses the app, as often as once a month.

EarnIn is one of more than a dozen companies that provide this service, billed as Earned Wage Access. The apps extend small short-term loans to workers in between paychecks so they can pay bills and meet everyday needs. On payday, the user repays the money out of their wages. Between 2018 and 2020, transaction volume tripled from $3.2 billion to $9.5 billion, according to Datos Insights.

While Earned Wage Access apps have been around for over a decade, the pandemic and its aftermath boosted their popularity. Some apps have approachable human names — like Dave, Clio, Albert, and Brigit — while others suggest financial freedom: Empower, FloatMe, FlexWage, Rain. The typical user earns less than $50,000 a year, according to the Government Accountability Office, and has experienced the pinch of two years of high inflation.

Proponents of the apps say they help people living paycheck to paycheck manage their finances and avoid the need for more onerous options, such as payday loans or overdrawing a bank account. But some analysts, consumer advocates and lawmakers say the apps are actually payday loans in a new tech wrapper, and that they can trap users in an endless cycle of borrowing that depletes their earnings.

Critics also say the costs of the loans are not always transparent. Many charge monthly subscription fees and most charge mandatory fees for instant transfers of funds, though there is typically a no-cost option to receive funds in one to three business days. The average APR for a loan repaid in seven to 14 days was 367%, a rate comparable to payday lending, according to a report from the Center for Responsible Lending.

Muddying the waters is the fact that some employers have integrated Earned Wage Access apps into their payroll, with different costs, models, and fee structures. Amazon and Walmart, for example, do not always charge employees for early access to earned wages outside of regular pay periods.

Sheri Wilkins, 60, who works as a home health aide in College Station, Texas, said she’s used the apps since 2020, and that she feels “dependent on the money.”

The healthcare contractor that employs Wilkins offers DailyPay, and Wilkins typically uses the app to transfer the amount of that day’s wages ($10.60 an hour) twice a day — once after each of her two shifts, for which she’s paid separately. Each time, she pays a $3.49 fee, for a total of $7 a day. At $35 a week, the app eats up more than three hours of her pay weekly, or a-day-and-a-half’s work per month.

“They get you hooked on having that money,” Wilkins said. “It’s fine and great to have it — to buy groceries and cigarettes — but when it comes time to have your paycheck, it’s only $50-$60.”

Wilkins said she was not aware the app had a free option, which would transfer the money in one to three days. She said the app always directed her to the instant transfer option.

A spokesperson for DailyPay said in a statement that the app offers two option with no fees to most users and a third with what they described as a “small ATM-like fee.”

Matt Bahl, who researches workplace issues for the Financial Health Network, said the growth of the Earned Wage Access industry is a symptom of widespread financial insecurity.

“It’s meant to help solve short-term liquidity challenges,” he said. “But if those challenges are the result of insufficient income, it won’t solve them. You can’t ‘tech’ your way out of material deficits.”

Andrew Lewis, 32, who lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, said he uses EarnIn, in part to meet unexpected expenses. Lewis works as a process technician for an electronics manufacturing company, and said he sometimes uses the app as often as every week, for gas money or something his toddler or wife needs.

Lewis usually pays the “tips” the apps suggest, he said, but he doesn’t “like them that much,” in part because of the messaging.

“Tips keep us running for millions of members like you,” EarnIn’s in-app copy reads. The company says it uses tips to maintain a no-fee option.

“I feel a little guilty because of how they make it sound,” Lewis said.

In 2021, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation found “users often feel compelled to leave (tips) due to applied pressure tactics like… claiming tips are used to support other vulnerable consumers or for charitable purposes.”

In its report, the department found that borrowers who use Earned Wage Access take out an average of 36 loans a year. On 5.8 million transactions, 73% of consumers paid a “tip,” at $4.09 per tip on average. On three dozen loans, that’s $147 annually in tips alone.

Penny Lee, head of the Financial Technology Association, an industry group, says more people are turning to Earned Wage Access as a convenience that allows them to make up for the “disconnect between what the consumer needs to be able to spend … and their pay cycle.”

Like Buy Now, Pay Later loans, the apps don’t run credit checks and bill themselves as interest-free. Unlike payday loans or auto title loans, where borrowers pledge their vehicles as collateral, users of the apps don’t face balloon payments, black marks on their credit reports, or the possibility of losing their car if they fail to pay. Supporters also say the apps don’t sue or send collectors after unpaid debts.

The FTA says the average cost per use of an Earned Wage Access app is between $2.59 and $6.27. The companies say the charges are comparable to ATM fees and cheaper than overdraft fees, which people incur if they don’t have enough money left in a checking account to cover a bill before payday. The average overdraft fee is more than $25 and can be as high as $36.

However, in its report, the Center for Responsible Lending found that users of the apps experienced a 56% increase in checking account overdrafts.

A number of states have moved to subject Earned Wage Access to the Truth in Lending Act, which caps fees and interest for short-term loans and covers payday loans. The industry backs a federal bill, currently before Congress, that would exclude the apps from being regulated by the Truth in Lending Act.

When Connecticut passed a law capping the fees the apps could charge, EarnIn stopped operating in the state. Asked why, EarnIn CEO Ram Palaniappan said it was no longer “economically viable.”

Both California and Hawaii are currently drafting laws to rein in Earned Wage Access fees.

Rep. Bryan Steil, R-WI, one of the federal bill’s backers said, it will “ensure workers across the country can continue to use these services, which help them to better connect work to reward.”

But Hawaii State Sen. Chris Lee, a Democrat who introduced regulation targeting Earned Wage Access in the state Senate, called the 300-plus percentage interest rates a “modern payday loan scheme.” Lee said he would like to see more transparency and worker protections.

Lauren Saunders, an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, says this a pivotal moment for regulation.

“If (Earned Wage Access) were being used by people to cover one emergency cost a year, it could be better than being subject to overdraft fees or payday or auto title loans,” she said. “But being better than terrible predatory products shouldn’t be the bar.”

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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

BOSTON (AP) — William Strickland, a longtime civil right activist and supporter of the Black Power movement who worked with Malcom X and other prominent leaders in the 1960s, has died. He was 87.

Strickland, whose death April 10 was confirmed by a relative, first became active in civil rights as a high schooler in Massachusetts. He later became inspired by the writings of Richard Wright and James Baldwin while an undergraduate at Harvard University, according to Peter Blackmer, a former student who is now an assistant professor of Africology and African American Studies at Easter Michigan University.

“He made incredible contributions to the Black freedom movement that haven’t really been appreciated,” Blackmer said. “His contention was that civil rights wasn’t a sufficient framework for challenging the systems that were behind the oppression of Black communities throughout the diaspora.”

Strickland joined the Boston chapter of the Northern Student Movement in the early 1960s, which provided support to sit-ins and other protests in the South. He became the group’s executive director in 1963 and from there became a supporter of the Black Power movement, which emphasized racial pride, self-reliance and self-determination. Strickland also worked alongside Malcolm X, Baldwin and others in New York on rent strikes, school boycotts and protests against police brutality.

Amilcar Shabazz, a professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts, said Strickland followed a path very similar to civil rights pioneer Du Bois.

“He underwent a similar kind of experience to committing himself to being an agent of social change in the world against the three big issues of the civil rights movement — imperialism or militarism, racism and the economic injustice of plantation capitalism,” Shabazz said. “He committed himself against those triple evils. He did that in his scholarship, in his teaching, in his activism and just how he walked in the world.”

After the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Strickland co-founded the independent Black think tank, the Institute of the Black World. From its start in 1969, it served for several years as the gathering place for Black intellectuals.

From there, he joined the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he spent 40 years teaching political science and serving as the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Papers. He also traveled to Africa and the Caribbean, where Shabazz said he met leaders of Black liberation movements in Africa and Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Strickland also wrote about racism and capitalism for several outlets including Essence and Souls and served as a consultant for several documentaries including “Eyes on the Prize” and the PBS documentary “Malcolm X — Make It Plain,” Blackmer said.

Comparing him to Malcolm X, Blackmer said one of Strickland’s gifts was being able to take weighty issues like “complex systems of oppression” and make them “understandable and accessible” to popular audiences.

“As a teacher, that is how he taught us to think as students — to be able to understand and deconstruct racism, capitalism, imperialism and to be fearless in doing so and not being afraid to name the systems that we’re confronting as a means of developing a strategy to challenge them,” Blackmer said.

For relatives, Strickland was an intellectual giant with a sense of humor who was not afraid “to speak his mind.”

“He always spoke truth to power. That was the type of guy he was,” said Earnestine Norman, a first cousin recalling their conversations that often occurred over the FaceTime phone app. They were planning a trip to Spain where Strickland had a home before he started having health problems.

“He always told the truth about our culture, of being Africans here in America and the struggles we had,” she continued. “Sometimes it may have embarrassed some people or whatever but his truth was his truth. His knowledge was his knowledge and he was not the type of person as the saying goes to bite his tongue.”

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a rule extending mandatory overtime pay to an estimated 4 million salaried workers, going even further than an Obama-era rule that was struck down in court.

The U.S. Department of Labor rule will require employers to pay overtime premiums to workers who earn a salary of less than $1,128 per week, or about $58,600 per year, when they work more than 40 hours in a week.

The current salary threshold of about $35,500 per year was set by the Trump administration in a 2020 rule that worker advocates and many Democrats have said did not go far enough.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

A Michigan woman was arraigned Tuesday on second-degree murder and other charges after prosecutors say she drunkenly cashed her SUV into a boat club that was hosting a child’s birthday party, killing the 4-year-old birthday boy and his 8-year-old sister and injuring several other people.

Marshella Chidester, 66, did not enter a plea to the eight counts she faces in Saturday’s tragic crash at the Swan Boat Club in Monroe County, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Detroit.

During a court hearing that was livestreamed, Chidester’s right arm was in a cast from just above the elbow to her fingers.

She has been jailed since the crash and the judge set her bond at the $1.5 million prosecutors requested after relatives of some of the victims asked him to set it at that level.

In arguing for the $1.5 million bond, prosecutor Jeff Yorkey told the court that Chidester has had substance abuse issues that were corroborated by her friends and family.

Defense attorney Bill Colovos asked the judge to set Chidester’s bond at $100,000. He said she only had a glass of wine and a bowl of chili four hours before the crash, and that she has suffered since November with “epileptic-type seizures in her legs.”

“This is not a monster, ” Colovos said. “It’s horrible what happened, but there are some things we don’t have control over.”

Colovos added that prior to Saturday’s crash, Chidester had no traffic tickets or police record.

Yorkey responded that there was no indication that Chidester suffered a seizure before the crash and that testing showed her blood alcohol level was “significantly over the legal limit.”

If Chidester posts bond, she will be required to forfeit her passport, have no alcohol, wear a tether and not drive. A probable cause conference has been scheduled for April 30 followed by a May 6 preliminary examination.

Chidester is a former commodore at the boat club, The Detroit News reported.

The crash killed 8-year-old Alanah Phillips and her 4-year-old brother, Zayn Phillips, the sheriff’s office said. Their mother and another sibling were among the injured.

Raquel Smothers told the court that she was at the party and witnessed the deaths of her nephew and niece.

“They were sitting at that table eating, and this woman crashed her car through this building destroying all of our lives,” a nearly inconsolable Smothers said. “Nobody should ever have to go to a birthday party thinking that they’re gonna die.”

The dead children’s mother, Mariah Dodds, is suing Chidester and the tavern where she reportedly was before the crash, according to a Detroit law firm representing Dodds.

Dodds suffered broken ribs, a collapsed lung, cuts and bruises, the law firm said. Her surviving son suffered broken legs, broken ribs and a fractured skull.

The boat club located off Swan Creek near Lake Erie is a membership-based organization that hosts holiday parties and other events, and provides docking space for members who own boats, according to its website. The club also advertises on social media that members can rent the clubhouse or pavilion for personal events including birthday parties.

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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed.

MOSCOW (AP) — Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich will remain jailed on espionage charges until at least late June, after a Moscow court on Tuesday rejected his appeal that sought to end his pretrial detention.

The 32-year-old U.S. citizen was detained in late March 2023 while on a reporting trip and has spent over a year in jail, with authorities routinely extending his time behind bars and rejecting his appeals. Last month, his pretrial detention was continued yet again — until June 30 — in a ruling that he and his lawyers later challenged. A Moscow appellate court rejected it Tuesday.

In the courtroom on Tuesday, Gerhskovich, wearing a white T-shirt and an open checked shirt, looked relaxed, at times laughing and chatting with members of his legal team.

His arrest in the city of Yekaterinburg rattled journalists in Russia, where authorities have not detailed what, if any, evidence they have to support the espionage charges.

Gershkovich and his employer have denied the allegations, and the U.S. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained.

Analysts have pointed out that Moscow may be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips in soaring U.S.-Russian tensions over the Kremlin’s military operation in Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years — including WNBA star Brittney Griner — have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.

In December, the U.S. State Department said it had made a significant offer to secure the release of Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, another American imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges, which it said Moscow had rejected.

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

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

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

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB.

Daniloff was released without charge 20 days later in a swap for an employee of the Soviet Union’s U.N. mission who was arrested by the FBI, also on spying charges.