SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Federal Election Commission has fined the campaign fund of a former Illinois congressman $43,475 for failing to refund excess contributions in a timely manner.

A letter from the FEC this month reports the fine against Republican Rodney Davis’ campaign committee, Rodney for Congress, and its treasurer, Thomas Charles Datwyler.

The violations occurred during the 2021-2022 election cycle. Federal campaign finance law prohibits contributions of more than $2,900 per cycle from an individual or single-candidate political committee and $5,000 per election from a multicandidate committee. Excess contributions must be refunded or redesignated within 60 days.

In a negotiated settlement with Davis’ committee and Datwyler, the FEC found that one contribution of $3,625 and general election contributions of $479,784 were not properly redistributed within 60 days, resulting in the fine. Davis was not eligible for the larger amount because he was not on the 2022 general election ballot.

A call to a telephone number associated with Davis went unanswered. A phone message was left for Datwyler.

The FEC noted that the committee disclosed refunds of excessive contributions on quarterly and year-end reports for 2022 and in January 2024 filed paperwork disclosing the refunds that were part of the negotiated settlement.

Davis, a 54-year-old Taylorville resident, served five terms in Congress. After the 2020 congressional redistricting controlled by Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly, Davis was pushed into a district with conservative Republican Mary Miller, who beat Davis in the 2022 GOP primary with more than 57% of the vote.

Davis’ committee told the FEC it would dissolve upon resolving the matter. The fine is payable by July 18.

Harvey Weinstein is scheduled to appear in a New York City court on Wednesday, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

The May 1 court appearance will come less than a week after New York’s highest court threw out Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, ordering a new trial. The DA’s office has said it intends to pursue a retrial.

“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” the office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, a woman he was sent to prison for sexually assaulting said Friday she is considering whether she would testify at any retrial.

Mimi Haley said she is still processing Thursday’s decision by the state Court of Appeals and is considering numerous factors, including the trauma of having to prepare for another trial and again relive what happened to her.

“It was retraumatizing and grueling and exhausting and all the things,” she said during a news conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred. “I definitely don’t want to actually go through that again. But for the sake of keeping going and doing the right thing and because it is what happened, I would consider it.”

Weinstein was convicted in New York in February 2020 of forcing himself on Haley, a TV and film production assistant, in 2006 for oral sex and raping an aspiring actress in 2013. He had pleaded not guilty and maintained any sexual activity was consensual.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named and Haley has agreed to be named.

The conviction was overturned this week in a 4-3 decision by the appeals court, which found the case prejudiced Weinstein with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that he wasn’t charged with.

Weinstein, 72, was also convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison in California. But he may still remain in custody in New York while awaiting a new trial.

Allred said the New York appeals court decision shows how important it was to also bring charges in California, even when critics called that prosecution superfluous.

Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, did not immediately respond to an email seeking a response to Haley’s comments. But on Thursday he called the state Court of Appeals ruling “a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Friday that her office is analyzing the scale of the decision and how the state can make sure that all women feel safe coming forward.

“I don’t want this to be a moment of stifling the environment that was created where finally we were calling out people who were abusing women in their presence,” said Hochul, a Democrat. “We don’t want to have any setbacks where there’s this sense that you now have to be silenced, and that’s something that we have to protect.”

Allred said she welcomed the governor’s comments and likely would be suggesting possible legislation. She said she’s concerned that the ruling will lead to fewer cases being brought, especially against high-profile defendants.

Haley said she has talked to other alleged victims of Weinstein about the ruling, but the subject of testifying again did not come up.

“What would make me want to do it again would just be, like I said in the past, this isn’t just about me,” she said. “It’s a really important case. It’s in the public eye. It’s really difficult for me personally, but it’s important for the collective.”

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Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre contributed to this story from Albany, N.Y.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) — Temporary farmworkers will have more legal protections against employer retaliation, unsafe working conditions, illegal recruitment practices and other abuses under a Labor Department rule announced Friday.

Each year about 300,000 immigrants, mostly from Mexico, take seasonal jobs on U.S. farms. The new rule, which takes effect June 28, will target abuses experienced by workers under the H-2A program that undermine fair labor standards for all farmworkers.

Labor Secretary Julie Su said the rule aims to “breathe life” into existing worker protections.

“Our rule is meant to give H2-A workers more ability to advocate for themselves, to speak up when they experience labor law abuses,” Su said at a vineyard in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco.

The Biden administration announced a proposal for the new rule in September, saying it would boost safety requirements on farms and raise transparency around how such workers are recruited, to combat human trafficking.

The Labor Department is already required to ensure that the H-2A program doesn’t undercut the wages or working conditions of Americans who take similar jobs. Employers are required to pay minimum U.S. wages or higher, depending on the region. They are also required to provide their temporary workers with housing and transportation.

Reports of overcrowded farm vehicles and fatalities have increased as the number of guest farmworkers has risen, officials say. Transportation accidents are a leading cause of death for farm workers.

The new rule will require farmers who employ H-2A workers to provide vans and buses used to transport workers long distances and often driven by tired workers. Seatbelts will be required for all passengers.

The new rule also protects temporary agricultural workers from employer retaliation if they meet with legal service providers or union representatives at the housing provided by the employer. It also protects them from retaliation when they decline to attend “captive audience” meetings organized by their employer.

And in a step intended to counter human trafficking, employers would be required to identify anyone recruiting workers on their behalf in the U.S. or foreign countries and to provide copies of any agreements they have with those recruiters.

The proposal drew nearly 13,000 public comments, including some from industry groups that said new regulatory requirements were excessive. Ted Sester, who owns a wholesale nursery in Gresham, Oregon, said it was “full of heavy-handed enforcement and regulatory overreach.”

The Northwest Horticultural Council said the rule “makes the already complex H-2A program far more difficult for growers to navigate, while increasing the risk that growers may lose access to the program without the ability to exercise proper due process — a death knell for Pacific Northwest tree fruit growers utilizing the program.”

Labor advocates strongly applauded the rule.

“Agricultural guest workers are some of the most vulnerable workers in America, but this rule will empower H-2A workers to stand up to some of the biggest challenges they face,” the Congressional Labor Caucus, made up of about 100 pro-union members of Congress, said Friday.

Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers, said the rule will help prevent employers’ abuse. She said a requirement for employers to disclose contracts with their agents will make it easier to identify wrongdoers.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Former Rep. Peter Meijer withdrew his name from the U.S. Senate race in Michigan on Friday, ending a longshot bid to become the Republican nominee and return to Congress after being ousted by voters for supporting an effort to impeach then-President Donald Trump.

Meijer announced his candidacy in November and contended for the Republican nomination against former U.S. Reps. Mike Rogers and Justin Amash, in addition to wealthy businessman Sandy Pensler.

Meijer met an April 23 deadline to turn in petition signatures to get his name on the ballot for the August primary but withdrew from the race on Friday, a Michigan Secretary of State spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press. Meijer’s name will not be on the ballot since he met a 4 p.m. deadline Friday to withdraw from the race.

“The hard reality is the fundamentals of the race have changed significantly since we launched this campaign. After prayerful consideration, today I withdrew my name from the primary ballot,” Meijer said in a statement.

Although many believed that Meijer had the potential to be competitive in a general election, his vote to impeach Trump undermined his bid to be competitive in a primary in a state that supported Trump in 2016. Trump has endorsed Rogers in the race.

Meijer, who is from Grand Rapids, is an heir to a Midwestern grocery store empire and a former U.S. Army Reserve officer who served in Iraq. He was seen as part of the next generation of Republican leaders when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2020 at only 32 years old.

Meijer was among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021 following the deadly mob siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He then would lose reelection to a Trump-backed primary opponent in 2022 despite having a significant fundraising advantage.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — a potential running mate for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump — is getting attention again. This time, it’s for a new book where she writes about killing an unruly dog, and a smelly goat, too.

The Guardian obtained a copy of Noem’s soon-to-be released book, “No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.” In it, she tells the story of the ill-fated Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she was training for pheasant hunting.

She writes, according to the Guardian, that the tale was included to show her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” if it has to be done. But backlash was swift against the Republican governor, who just a month ago drew attention and criticism for posting an infomercial-like video about cosmetic dental surgery she received out-of-state.

In her book, Noem writes that she took Cricket on a hunting trip with older dogs in hopes of calming down the wild puppy. Instead, Cricket chased the pheasants while “having the time of her life.”

On the way home from the hunting trip, Noem writes that she stopped to talk to a family. Cricket got out of Noem’s truck and attacked and killed some of the family’s chickens, then bit the governor.

Noem apologized profusely, wrote the distraught family a check for the deceased chickens, and helped them dispose of the carcasses, she writes. Cricket “was the picture of joy” as all that unfolded.

“I hated that dog,” Noem writes, deeming her “untrainable.”

“At that moment,” Noem writes, “I realized I had to put her down.” She led Cricket to a gravel pit and killed her.

That wasn’t all. Noem writes that her family also owned a “nasty and mean” male goat that smelled bad and liked to chase her kids. She decided to go ahead and kill the goat, too. She writes that the goat survived the first shot, so she went back to the truck, got another shell, then shot him again, killing him.

Soon thereafter, a school bus dropped off Noem’s children. Her daughter asked, “Hey, where’s Cricket?” Noem writes.

The excerpts drew immediate criticism on social media platforms, where many posted photos of their own pets. President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign surfaced the story on social media alongside a photo of Noem with Trump.

The Lincoln Project, a conservative group that opposes Trump, posted a video that it called a “public service announcement,” showing badly behaved dogs and explaining that “shooting your dog in the face is not an option.”

“You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit,” Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project wrote on X. “Unsporting and deliberately cruel … but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Noem took to social media to defend herself.

“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” she said on X. “Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

She urged readers to preorder her book if they want “more real, honest, and politically INcorrect stories that’ll have the media gasping.”

Republican strategist Alice Stewart said that while some Republican voters might appreciate the story “as a testament to her grit,” it ultimately creates a distraction for Noem.

“It’s never a good look when people think you’re mistreating animals,” Stewart said. “I have a dog I love like a child and I can’t imagine thinking about doing that, I can’t imagine doing that, and I can’t imagine writing about it in a book and telling all the world.”

It’s not the first time Noem has grabbed national attention.

In 2019, she stood behind the state’s anti-meth campaign even as it became the subject of some mockery for the tagline “Meth. We’re on it.” Noem said the campaign got people talking about the methamphetamine epidemic and helped lead some to treatment.

Last month, Noem posted a nearly five-minute video on X lavishing praise on a team of cosmetic dentists in Texas for giving her a smile she said she can be proud of. “I love my new family at Smile Texas!” she wrote.

South Dakota law bans gifts of over $100 from lobbyists to public officials and their immediate family. A violation is a misdemeanor punishable up to a year in jail and/or a $2,000 fine. The state attorney general’s office has declined to answer questions about whether the gift ban applies to people who are not registered lobbyists.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. investigators are looking into allegations against 14 of the 19 staffers from the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians who Israel claims were involved in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants that spurred the latest war in Gaza, a spokesman said Friday.

The announcement by U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric provided the first information on the investigation ordered by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The U.N.’s internal watchdog — the Office of Internal Oversight Services — is carrying out the probe following Israel’s initial allegations in January.

The watchdog, known as the OIOS, reported that of the 19 allegations against UNRWA agency staffers, one case was closed because Israel provided no evidence and four others were suspended for lack of sufficient evidence, Dujarric said.

The United Nations was informed in January of Israeli allegations that 12 employees of the agency known as UNRWA had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, when Hamas and other Palestinian militants killed about 1,200 people and seized some 250 as hostages.

The agency had at the time terminated the contracts of all those employees.

Dujarric said the U.N. later received additional allegations from Israel about seven UNRWA staffers — five in March and two in April.

A separate, independent review of UNRWA’s neutrality. led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna was released on Monday. It said Israel had never before expressed concerns about anyone on the staff lists that UNRWA had given Israel every year since 2011.

UNRWA has 32,000 staff in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, including 13,000 in Gaza who provide education, health care, food and other services to several million Palestinians and their families.

The agency’s head, Philippe Lazzarini, said Tuesday that nearly 180 UNRWA staffers have been killed during the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, around two-thirds of them children and women, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

Israel’s original allegations led to the suspension of contributions to UNRWA by the United States, its biggest donor, and more than a dozen other countries, causing a pause in funding worth about $450 million, according to Colonna’s report.

A number of countries have since resumed contributions, but the U.S. Congress has suspended any money for the agency until March 2025.

Dujarric on Friday reiterated Guterres’ appeal to donors to support UNRWA generously. Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner general, says UNRWA has enough money to operate only through June. Dujarric pointed out that UNRWA had released the original information about the Israeli allegations and called for the independent review of its neutrality.

Colonna’s 48-page report said UNRWA has “robust” procedures to uphold the U.N. principle of neutrality but cited serious gaps in implementation. It made 50 recommendations to improve UNRWA’s neutrality, which Guterres and Lazzarini have pledged to implement.

Dujarric said OIOS has not given any indication when its investigation of the 14 staffers would be completed, not did he elaborate on the allegations. He told reporters that OIOS investigators had met with Israeli authorities and would visit again in May.

“These discussions are continuing and … have enabled progress on the investigations,” he said.

Of the 12 initial cases, eight remain under investigation, he said. Three cases have been suspended and one staffer has been cleared. U.N. “is exploring corrective administration action,” Dujarric said.

UNRWA’s Lazzarini said on Tuesday that anyone cleared by OIOS would be reinstated.

Of the seven additional cases brought to the U.N.’s attention after January, Dujarric said six remain under investigation and one has been suspended pending additional information.

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Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A tornado plowed through suburban Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday afternoon, damaging hundreds of homes and other structures as the twister tore for miles along farmland and into subdivisions. Injuries were reported but it wasn’t yet clear if anyone was killed in the storm.

Multiple tornadoes were reported in Nebraska but the most destructive storm moved from a largely rural area into suburbs northwest of Omaha, a city of 485,000 people.

Photos on social media showed heavily damaged homes and shredded trees. Video showed homes with roofs stripped of shingles, in a rural area near Omaha. Law enforcement were blocking off roads in the area.

Hundreds of houses sustained damage in Omaha, mostly in the Elkhorn area in the western part of the city, police Lt. Neal Bonacci said.

Police and firefighters are now going door-to-door helping people who are trapped.

“We are getting 911 calls of people in debris in their basement,” he said. “We are just working as quick as we can to help everyone who needs it.”

He said the injuries are minor so far and he was not aware of any damaged businesses.

“There’s lots of trees down. There’s roofs missing from houses. You definitely see the path of the tornado,” Bonacci said.

In one area of Elkhorn, dozens of newly built, large homes were damaged. At least six were destroyed, including one that was leveled, while others had the top half ripped off.

There were dozens of emergency vehicles in the area.

Dhaval Naik, who said he works with the man whose house was demolished, said three people, including a child, were in the basement when the tornado hit. They got out safely.

KETV-TV video showed one woman being removed from a demolished home on a stretcher in Blair, a city just north of Omaha.

Another tornado hit an area on the western edge of Omaha, passing directly through parts of Eppley Airfield, the city’s airport. Officials closed the airport to aircraft operations and were assessing any damage in the area, Omaha Airport Authority Chief Strategy Officer Steve McCoy said.

“We have folks in the terminal that are in shelters right now, but the airport is currently closed,” he said, adding that he wasn’t aware of any injuries. Flight delays are likely, he said.

After passing through the airport, the tornado crossed the Missouri River and into Iowa, north of Council Bluffs.

Nebraska Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Katrina Sperl said damage is just now being reported. Taylor Wilson, a spokesperson for the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said they hadn’t seen any injuries yet.

Before the tornado hit the Omaha area, three workers in an industrial plant were injured Friday afternoon when a tornado struck an industrial plant in Lancaster County, sheriff’s officials said in an update on the damage.

The building just northeast of the state capital of Lincoln had collapsed with about 70 employees inside and several people trapped, sheriff’s officials said. Everyone was evacuated, and three people had injuries that were considered not life-threatening, authorities said.

Sheriff’s officials say they also had reports of a tipped-over train near Waverly, also in Lancaster County.

The Omaha Public Power District reported that nearly 10,000 customers were without power in the Omaha area.

Daniel Fienhold, manager of the Pink Poodle Steakhouse in Crescent, Iowa, said he was outside watching the weather with his daughter and restaurant employees. He said “it looked like a pretty big tornado was forming” northeast of town.

“It started raining, and then it started hailing, and then all the clouds started to kind of swirl and come together, and as soon as the wind started to pick up, that’s when I headed for the basement, but we never saw it,” Fienhold said.

The Weather Service also issued tornado watches across parts of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. And forecasters warned that large hail and damaging wind gusts were possible.

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press writers Margery A. Beck in Omaha, Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.

PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities revealed Friday the conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges filed against an ex-aide of former President Donald Trump and four attorneys in Arizona’s fake elector case, but the names of former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani remained blacked out. The Arizona attorney general’s office released a copy of the indictment that revealed nine felony counts had been filed against Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations, and attorneys John Eastman, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis. The lawyers were accused of organizing an attempt to use fake documents to persuade Congress not to certify Joe Biden’s victory.

The office had announced Wednesday that conspiracy, fraud and forgery charges had been filed against 11 Arizona Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring that Trump won in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election. They included a former state GOP chair, a 2022 U.S. Senate candidate and two sitting state lawmakers.

The identities of seven other defendants, including Giuliani and Meadows, were not released on Wednesday because they had not yet been served with the indictments. They were readily identifiable based on descriptions of the defendants, but the charges against them were not clear. Roman, Epshteyn, Bobb and Ellis declined to comment, did not respond or could not be reached. Representatives of Eastman, Meadows and Giuliani have attacked the prosecution as political.

Trump himself was not charged but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator.

With the indictments, Arizona becomes the fourth state where allies of the former president have been charged with using false or unproven claims about voter fraud related to the election.

Those charged in the Arizona case are scheduled for their initial court hearing on May 21.

The 11 people who had been nominated to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claiming that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.

Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee teachers and staff will be allowed to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds under legislation signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on Friday.

Lee, a Republican, had announced his support for the proposal just the day before while flanked by top Republican legislative leaders who had helped shepherd the bill through the GOP-dominant General Assembly.

“What’s important is that we give districts tools and the option to use a tool that will keep their children safe,” Lee told reporters.

As the idea of arming teachers began to gain support inside the General Assembly, gun control advocates and families began swarming to the Capitol to show their opposition. During the final vote, protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” and many members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.

According to the statute, which becomes effective immediately, parents and other teachers will be barred from knowing who is armed at their schools.

A principal, school district and law enforcement agency would have to agree to let staff carry guns, and then workers who want 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.

The legislation is the biggest expansion of gun access in the state since last year’s deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville where shooter indiscriminately opened fire and killed three children and three adults before being killed by police.

Lee initially asked lawmakers to keep guns away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others in response to the shooting, the Republican supermajority ignored that request.

Many of the Covenant families had met with Lee and lawmakers hoping to persuade them to drop the idea of arming teachers. In the final days of the legislative session, Covenant families said they had collected nearly 4,300 signatures from Tennesseans against having public school staffers carry weapons on school grounds.

“There are folks across the state who disagree on the way forward, but we all agree that we should keep our kids safe,” Lee said Thursday.

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.”

(Reuters) -The U.S. Air Force said on Friday that it has awarded a $13 billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp to develop a successor to the E-4B, known as the Doomsday plane due to its ability to survive a nuclear war.

The Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC) project is intended to replace the aging 1970s-era aircraft, which is approaching end-of-service life, an Air Force spokesperson said in a statement.

Work on the SAOC will be carried out in Colorado, Nevada and Ohio and is expected to be completed in 2036, the Air Force added.

To satisfy operational requirements, the weapon system will comprise of a commercial derivative jet hardened and modified to meet military requirements.

Reuters in December reported that the U.S. Air Force eliminated Boeing from its competition to develop a successor to the E-4B Nightwatch.

While typically used to transport the U.S. secretary of defense, the E-4B is designed as a mobile command post capable of withstanding nuclear blasts and electromagnetic effects, allowing U.S. leaders to deliver orders to the military in the event of a national emergency.

The E-4B is also capable of refueling mid-air and features conference and briefing rooms and advanced communications equipment.

The Air Force currently operates four E-4B aircraft with at least one on alert at all times. The fleet of highly-modified Boeing 747-200 jumbo jets has become increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain as parts become obsolete.

The E-4B is expected to reach the end of its service life in the early 2030s.

(Reporting by Nathan Gomes in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)