NEW YORK (AP) — The start of New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez’s bribery trial was pushed back a week to mid-May on Friday after lawyers agreed the extra days would aid trial preparation.

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein changed from May 6 to May 13 the start of jury selection during a pretrial hearing in Manhattan. Menendez was allowed to participate in the conference by telephone after his lawyers said a late night in the U.S. Senate on Thursday made it impossible for him to attend the Friday morning hearing.

Menendez and two New Jersey businessmen have pleaded not guilty to charges that cash, gold bars and a luxury car were given to Menendez and his wife since 2017 in return for the Democratic senator carrying out political favors.

Menendez’s wife, Nadine, who also has pleaded not guilty, will not go on trial until July, at the earliest, because she faces medical issues.

A third businessman, Jose Uribe, has pleaded guilty to bribery charges and agreed to testify against the others at trial.

The criminal case last fall forced Menendez to give up his powerful role as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Earlier this week, lawyers for Menendez indicated in a court filing that they may seek exoneration at trial by claiming that he lacked criminal intent since his wife didn’t disclose anything illegal to him about her dealings with New Jersey businessmen.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of Sen. Bob Menendez at https://apnews.com/hub/robert-menendez.

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania school board’s cancellation of an upcoming appearance by actor and children’s book author Maulik Pancholy was ill-advised and sends a hurtful message, especially to the LGBTQ+ community, education officials said.

A member of Cumberland Valley School District’s board cited concerns about what he described as Pancholy’s activism and “lifestyle” before the board voted unanimously Monday to cancel his appearance at a May 22 assembly at the Mountain View Middle School. Pancholy, who is gay, was scheduled to speak against bullying.

Besides their concerns about Pancholy, some board members also noted the district’s policy about not hosting overtly political events, news outlets reported. The policy was enacted after the district was criticized for hosting a rally by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president.

District Superintendent Mark Blanchard and nine other senior leaders — including assistant superintendents and district-level directors of technology, curriculum, legal affairs, human resources, student services and special education — sent a letter to the board, faculty and staff on Thursday asserting that Pancholy’s speech should have been allowed. Pancholy’s representatives shared a copy of the letter with The Associated Press.

The education officials said they were not given “a real opportunity” to answer questions or provide guidance about the event, which they said was aimed at reinforcing the importance of treating all people equally.

The administrators added that the school board’s decision had “significant ramifications for our school community, especially for our students and staff who are members of the LGBTQ+ community.” They also noted that the actor’s sexual identity was cited as a factor in the decision, meaning “Mr. Pancholy’s personhood was reduced to a single aspect, and his ability to communicate a message of anti-bullying and hate was discredited.”

The Associated Press sent emails to individual school board members seeking comment Friday.

Pancholy, 48, is an award-winning actor, including for his roles on the television shows “30 Rock” and “Weeds,” and as the voice of Baljeet in the Disney animated series, “Phineas & Ferb.” He also has written children’s books and in 2014 was named by then-President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, where he co-founded a campaign to combat AAPI bullying.

Pancholy’s appearance was scheduled by the school’s leadership team, which each year selects an author to present a “unique educational experience for students,” according to the district.

The school board’s vote to cancel Pancholy’s appearance also sparked criticism from several parents, students and community members, who called the decision “homophobic.” Some have started online petitions urging that Pancholy’s appearance be reinstated.

In a statement posted on social media this week, Pancholy said his school visits are meant “to let all young people know that they’re seen.”

“To let them know that they matter.”

He also said that one of the reasons he became an author was because as a child he never saw himself represented in stories.

“That’s the power of books. They build empathy,” Pancholy wrote. “I wonder why a school board is so afraid of that?”

WASHINGTON (AP) — With rare bipartisan momentum, the House pushed ahead Friday on a foreign aid package of $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support as a coalition of lawmakers helped it clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend. Friday’s vote produced a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan House, with Democrats helping Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan advance 316-94. Final House approval could come this weekend, when the package would be sent to the Senate.

It was a victory for the strategy Speaker Mike Johnson set in motion this week after he agonized for two months over the legislation. Still, Johnson has had to spend the past 24 hours making the rounds on conservative media working to salvage support for the wartime funding, particularly for Ukraine as it faces a critical moment battling Russia, but also for his own job as the restless right flank threatens to oust him over the effort.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about what we’re doing here and why,” Johnson told the conservative host of The Mark Levin Show.

“Ukrainians desperately need lethal aid right now. … We cannot allow Vladimir Putin to roll through another country and take it,” he said about the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. “These are very serious matters with global implications.”

After months of delay, the House worked slowly but deliberately once Johnson made up his mind this week to plough ahead. President Joe Biden sent a swift endorsement of the speaker’s plan and, in a rare moment, Donald Trump, the Republican presumed presidential nominee who opposes most overseas aid for Ukraine, has not derailed the speaker’s work.

“The world is watching what the Congress does,” the White House said in a statement. “Passing this legislation would send a powerful message about the strength of American leadership at a pivotal moment.”

In an extremely rare step, the members of the House Rules Committee joined forces late Thursday in a near midnight vote, the four Democrats giving their support on a procedural step, to push past the Republican majority’s three hardline holdouts to send the package to the House floor for debate on a 9-3 vote. It was a moment unseen in recent House memory.

Johnson will need to rely on Democrats again Friday to clear the next procedural vote and turn back amendments Republicans have offered that could kill the package. One from hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene would reduce spending for Ukraine to zero.

Greene has filed the “motion to vacate” the speaker from office, and has drawn at least one other Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky as a co-sponsor. It could launch a bid to evict Johnson from the speaker’s office, should she call it up for a vote, much the way Republicans booted Kevin McCarthy from the position last fall.

With one of the most narrow House majorities in modern times, Johnson can only afford to lose a single vote or two from his Republican ranks to pass any bill. That dynamic has thrust him into the arms of Democrats as he searches for votes to pass the package.

Without his Republican majority fully behind him, Johnson cannot shape the package as the ultra-conservatives demand lest he lose Democratic backing. It has forced him to leave behind tough security measures to clamp down on migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and other priorities.

At best, Johnson has been able to carve up a Senate-passed version of the bill into separate parts, as is the preference among House Republicans, and the final votes will be on distinct measures — for Ukraine, Israel and Indo-Pacific allies.

The package would also include a fourth provision that includes many Republican priorities that Democrats endorse, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl, and potentially ban the video app TikTok if its China-based owner doesn’t sell its stake within a year.

Passing each bill, in votes expected Saturday, will require Johnson to form complicated bipartisan coalitions on each, with Democrats for example ensuring Ukraine aid is approved, but some left-leaning progressives refusing to back military aid for Israel over the destruction of Gaza.

The components would then be automatically stitched back together into a single package sent to the Senate where hardliners there are also planning procedural moves to stall final approval.

By Gram Slattery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee launched a program on Friday to combat voter fraud in the lead-up to the November election, even as voting irregularities have proven extremely rare in the United States.

The RNC and the Trump campaign said they were preparing to deploy more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers across the states that are expected to be competitive in the presidential race.

The Republican Party and the Trump campaign said in a statement that they plan to recruit an army of poll watchers, who will monitor individual polling sites for irregularities.

Attorneys, meanwhile, will be stationed at “Republican Party War Rooms” in competitive states, where they will staff an “Election Integrity Hotline” to answer calls from poll watchers and voters who have observed possible irregularities.

“Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day,” Trump said in a statement.

“Republicans are now working together to protect the vote and ensure a big win on November 5th!”

The RNC ran a voter integrity program during the 2022 congressional elections, though the 2024 effort appears to represent a significant step up in terms of its scope and ambition.

During this election cycle, the RNC has already engaged in 82 lawsuits in 25 states related to election integrity, the committee said in the Friday statement.

Since launching his reelection campaign in late 2022, Trump has continued to falsely claim he lost the 2020 election due to widespread voter fraud, despite a lack of supporting evidence and dozens of failed lawsuits seeking to establish foul play.

Echoed by many of his allies in Congress, Trump’s false claims about voter fraud have been absorbed broadly by the Republican electorate, a majority of which does not believe Biden was legitimately elected, according to opinion polls.

On the campaign trail, Trump has sought to portray Democratic voters as chronic cheaters who cannot be trusted.

During a speech in Iowa in December he told supporters to be ready to “guard the vote” in Democratic-run cities, and more recently he has demanded his backers vote in such large numbers as to render the election “too big to rig” by the Democrats.

The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

While most Republican poll watchers have conducted themselves peacefully, there have been many reports of alleged intimidation by poll watchers in recent elections that have drawn the attention of election officials in competitive states, including North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington; Additional reporting by Nathan Layne; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration will require 10 hours off between shifts for air traffic controllers, and 12 hours off before a midnight shift, effective in 90 days, the agency’s head said on Friday.

“In my first few months at the helm of the FAA, I toured air traffic control facilities around the country — and heard concerns about schedules that do not always allow controllers to get enough rest,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement.

“With the safety of our controllers and national airspace always top of mind for FAA, I took this very seriously – and we’re taking action.”

The FAA in 2023 commissioned an independent panel to assess the risks of controller fatigue and provide recommendations, which included between 10 and 12 hours off between shifts.To alleviate pressure on the workforce, Whitaker said the FAA had ramped up recruitment and was on track to meet a 2024 goal of hiring 1,800 air traffic controllers, up from 1,500 last year.”I understand this lengthened rest period will be an adjustment for thousands of our air traffic controllers,” Whitaker said in the statement.

(Reporting by David Ljungren and Ismail Shakil; writing by Paul Grant; Editing by Caitlin Webber)

DETROIT (AP) — The United Auto Workers’ ambitious drive to expand its reach to nonunion factories across the South and elsewhere faces a key test Friday night, when workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, will finish voting on whether to join the union.

The UAW’s ranks in the auto industry have dwindled over the years as foreign-based companies with nonunion U.S. plants have sold increasingly more vehicles.

Twice in recent years, workers at the Chattanooga plant have rejected union membership. Most recently, they handed the UAW a narrow defeat in 2019 just as federal prosecutors were breaking up a bribery-and-embezzlement scandal at the union.

But this time, the UAW is operating under new leadership, directly elected by its members for the first time and basking in a successful confrontation with Detroit’s major automakers. The union’s pugnacious new president, Shawn Fain, was elected on a platform of cleaning up after the scandal and turning more confrontational with automakers. An emboldened Fain, backed by President Joe Biden, led the union in a series of strikes last fall against Detroit’s automakers that resulted in lucrative new contracts.

The new contracts raised union wages by a substantial one-third, arming Fain and his organizers with enticing new offers to present to workers at Volkswagen and other companies.

“I’m very confident,” said Isaac Meadows, an assembly line worker in Chattanooga who helped lead the union organizing drive at the 3.8 million-square-foot (353,353-square-meter) plant, which manufactures Atlas SUVs and the ID.4 electric vehicles. “The excitement is really high right now. We’ve put a lot of work into it, a lot of face-to-face conversations with co-workers from our volunteer committee.”

The UAW’s supporters have faced resistance from the company as well as from some Republican leaders. In a presentation this week apparently aimed at dissuading the plant’s 4,300 production workers from voting for the union, Volkswagen listed examples of how it pays and treats them well. And six Southern governors, including Tennessee’s Bill Lee, warned the workers in a joint statement last week that joining the UAW could cost them their jobs and threaten the region’s economic progress.

Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who studies the UAW, said there is a good chance that this election could bring the union a historic victory. Public opinion, Masters said, is now generally more aligned with unions than it was in the past.

To approve membership, though, the workers in Chattanooga will have to look past the warnings that joining the union, with the accompanying higher wages, would lead to job losses. Since the UAW’s new contracts were signed in the fall with General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, all three companies have cut a relatively small number of factory positions. But Ford CEO Jim Farley has said that his company will have to rethink where it builds future vehicles because of the strike.

“While the UAW’s reputation has improved as a result of new leadership and contracts, it’s still associated with a decline in the auto industry,” Masters said.

Shortly after the Detroit contracts were ratified, Volkswagen and other nonunion companies handed their workers big pay raises. Fain characterized those wage increases as the “UAW bump” and asserted that they were intended to keep the union out of the plants.

Last fall, Volkswagen raised production worker pay by 11%, lifting top base wages to $32.40 per hour, or just over $67,000 per year. The average production worker makes about $60,000 a year, excluding benefits and an attendance bonus. VW said its pay exceeds the median household income for the Chattanooga area, which was $54,480 last May, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

But under the UAW contracts, top production workers at GM, for instance, now earn $36 an hour, or about $75,000 a year excluding benefits and profit sharing, which ranged from $10,400 at Ford to $13,860 at Stellantis this year. By the end of the contract in 2028, top-scale GM workers would make over $89,000.

Zach Costello, a worker who trains new employees at the Volkswagen plant, said pay shouldn’t be benchmarked against typical wages in the Chattanooga area.

“How about we decide what we’re worth, and we get paid what we’re worth?” he asked.

VW asserts that its factories are safer than the industry average, based on data reported to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And the company contends that it considers workers’ preferences in scheduling. It noted that it recently agreed to change the day that third-shift workers start their week so that they have Fridays and Saturdays off.

But Meadows, whose job involves preparing vehicles for the assembly line after the auto bodies are painted, said the company adds overtime or sends workers home early whenever it wants.

“People are just kind of fed up with it,” he said.

VW, he argued, doesn’t report all injuries to the government, instead often blaming pre-existing conditions that a worker might have. The union has filed complaints of unfair labor practices, including allegations that the company barred workers from discussing unions during work time and restricted the distribution of union materials.

Volkswagen disputed the union’s allegations and said it properly reports injuries and supports the workers’ right to vote on union representation.

If the union prevails in the vote at the VW plant, it would mark the first time that the UAW has represented workers at a foreign-owned automaking plant in the South. It would not, however, be the first union auto assembly plant in the South. The UAW represents workers at two Ford assembly plants in Kentucky and two GM factories in Tennessee and Texas, as well as some heavy-truck manufacturing plants.

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration will investigate after a flight at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport was instructed to cross a runway where another flight was starting its takeoff, the agency said.

A JetBlue flight was starting its takeoff roll on runway 4 at the airport in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., around 7:41 a.m. Thursday, when an air traffic controller instructed a Southwest Airlines flight to cross the same runway, the FAA said in a statement. The agency will investigate the event.

Southwest Airlines Flight 2937, which was bound for Orlando, Florida, took off from the airport at 7:47 a.m., according to FlightAware, which tracks flight activity. JetBlue flight 1554 was bound for Boston and according to FlightAware, the flight took off from Reagan National at 1:48 p.m.

JetBlue said in a statement that the flight aborted takeoff because of another aircraft trying to cross the runway, but no injuries were reported. The aircraft was inspected before it left for Boston and JetBlue said it will “work closely with federal officials as this event is fully investigated.” Southwest said in a statement that it was aware of the incident and was “working with the FAA to fully understand the circumstances.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday imposed sanctions on two entities accused of fundraising for extremist Israeli-occupied West Bank settlers who have harassed and attacked Palestinians, as well as the founder of an organization whose members regularly assault Palestinians.

The Treasury Department announcement comes as the West Bank has seen some of its worst violence perpetrated by extremist settlers against Palestinians since the war in nearby Gaza began.

There is also friction between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose far-right government has reacted angrily to previous sanctions imposed against West Bank settlers.

Included in the Friday sanctions are two entities — Mount Hebron Fund and Shlom Asiraich — accused of raising funds for sanctioned settlers Yinon Levi and David Chai Chasdai.

The fundraising campaigns established by Mount Hebron Fund for Levi and by Shlom Asiraich for Chasdai generated the equivalent of $140,000 and $31,000, respectively, according to U.S. Treasury.

The penalties aim to block them from using the U.S. financial system and bar American citizens from dealing with them.

Additionally, the State Department is designating Ben-Zion Gopstein, the founder and leader of Lehava, an organization whose members have assaulted Palestinian civilians.

Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the organizations “undermine the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank. We will continue to use our tools to hold those responsible accountable.”

In February, Biden issued an executive order that targets Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory.

Tesla is recalling 3,878 of its 2024 Cybertrucks after it discovered that the accelerator pedal can become stuck, potentially causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally and increase the risk of a crash.

The accelerator pedal pad may dislodge and become trapped by the interior trim, according to a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall involves model year 2024 Cybertrucks made between Nov. 13, 2023 and April 4, 2024, according to the NHTSA.

As of Monday, Tesla was not aware of any collisions, injuries or deaths related to the issue, the NHTSA said. Cybertrucks in production had been outfitted with a new accelerator pedal component by Wednesday of this week, according to the NHTSA.

Tesla, which is headed by billionaire Elon Musk, said that it will replace or repair the accelerator pedal assembly for free. Owners may contact Tesla customer service at 1-877-798-3752. Tesla’s number for the recall is SB-24-33-003

Notification letters are expected to be mailed to vehicle owners in June.

The automaker delivered the first dozen or so of its futuristic Cybertruck pickups to customers in November, two years behind the original schedule, with uncertainty over when large-scale production could begin.

Musk addressed the difficulties of mass producing the vehicle, saying during the company’s third-quarter conference call in October that “we dug our own grave with Cybertruck.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday designated two forever chemicals that have been used in cookware, carpets and firefighting foams as hazardous substances, an action intended to ensure quicker cleanup of the toxic compounds and require industries and others responsible for contamination to pay for its removal.

Designation as a hazardous substance under the Superfund law doesn’t ban the chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS. But it requires that releases of the chemicals into soil or water be reported to federal, state or tribal officials if they meet or exceed certain levels. The EPA then may require cleanups to protect public health and recover costs that can reach tens of millions of dollars.

PFOA and PFOS have been voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers but are still in limited use and remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time. The compounds are part of a larger cluster of forever chemicals known as PFAS that have been used since the 1940s in industry and consumer products including nonstick frying pans, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs and cosmetics.

The term PFAS is short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The chemicals can accumulate and persist in the human body for long periods. Evidence from animal and human studies indicates that exposure to PFOA or PFOS may lead to cancer or other health problems, including liver and heart damage and developmental problems in infants and children.

President Joe Biden’s administration “understands the threat that forever chemicals pose to the health of families across the country,″ EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. “Designating these chemicals under our Superfund authority will allow EPA to address more contaminated sites, take earlier action and expedite cleanups — all while ensuring polluters pay for the costs to clean up pollution threatening the health of communities.”

The final rule issued Friday follows strict limits set by the EPA on certain PFAS in drinking water that will require utilities to reduce them to the lowest level they can be reliably measured. Officials say the drinking water rule, announced April 10, will reduce exposure for 100 million people and help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancers.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical industry, said it strongly oppose the EPA’s action and believes it “will undermine overall remediation efforts” for PFAS contamination.

The Superfund law “is an expensive, ineffective and unworkable means to achieve remediation for these chemicals,” the group said in a statement Friday. The 1980 law “is fraught with unintended consequences and will likely result in extensive, unnecessary delays for cleanups,” the chemistry council said, adding that there are more effective and timely means to clean up PFAS sites “through existing regulatory processes.”

Last year, three chemical companies announced they had reached a $1.18 billion deal to resolve complaints of polluting many U.S. drinking water systems with PFAS. DuPont de Nemours Inc., The Chemours Co. and Corteva Inc. said they would establish a fund to compensate water providers for contamination.

And earlier this month, chemical manufacturer 3M Co. announced it will begin payments to many U.S. public drinking water systems as part of a multibillion-dollar settlement over contamination with forever chemicals.

Besides the final rule, the EPA issued a notice clarifying that the agency will focus enforcement efforts on businesses and people who significantly contribute to the release of PFAS chemicals into the environment, including companies that have manufactured PFAS or used it in the manufacturing process, as well as federal agencies and other responsible groups.

PFAS used in firefighting foam has tainted groundwater on and near military bases and other locations where it’s used in training exercises.

The Superfund law allows the EPA to clean up contaminated sites across the country and forces parties responsible for the contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government for EPA-led cleanup work. When no responsible party can be identified, Superfund gives the EPA money and authority to clean up contaminated sites.

The EPA’s action follows a report by the National Academies of Science that calls PFAS a serious public health threat in the U.S. and worldwide. The EPA said in 2022 that PFOA and PFOS are more dangerous than previously thought and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.

David Uhlmann, the EPA’s assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance, called the Superfund designation “a major step toward holding polluters accountable for significant releases of PFAS into the environment.” Officials “intend to exercise our enforcement discretion to focus on significant sources of PFAS contamination,” he said, not farmers, municipal landfills, water utilities, municipal airports or local fire departments.

Water utilities, fire departments and other groups had complained that an earlier EPA proposal could have imposed unfair costs on them without defined cleanup standards.

The federal designation will ensure that manufacturers most responsible for widespread PFAS contamination will bear the costs of cleaning it up, said Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a lawyer for the environmental group Earthjustice.

He said it “just got a lot harder” for polluters including chemical companies that long manufactured PFAS “to pass the costs of their PFAS releases off on impacted communities and taxpayers.”

Erik Olson, a health expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA’s action will help protect millions of American families exposed to the toxic chemicals.

“We all learned in kindergarten that if we make a mess, we should clean it up,” he said. “The EPA’s Superfund rule is a big step in the right direction for holding polluters accountable for cleaning up decades of contamination.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called the EPA’s action “ill-advised” and said it “puts local communities and ratepayers on the hook for PFAS contamination they had nothing to do with in the first place.″

The Superfund designation could have disproportionate effect on water and waste utilities, airports, farmers, ranchers and fire departments, Capito said, adding that the agency’s action underscores the need for Congress to act to address PFAS.

“We must pass legislation to safeguard American ratepayers from the financial burden imposed by this misguided rule,” she said.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Environmental Protection Agency at https://apnews.com/hub/us-environmental-protection-agency.