Trump appeals Maine ruling barring him from ballot under the Constitution´s insurrection clause
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday appealed a ruling by Maine´s secretary of state barring him from the state's primary ballot over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appealed the Maine decision by Democrat Shenna Bellows, who became the first secretary of state in history to bar someone from running for the presidency under the rarely used Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That provision prohibits those who "engaged in insurrection" from holding office.
The former president is expected to soon appeal a similar ban by the Colorado Supreme Court. That appeal would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, while Bellows' action is being appealed to a Maine Superior Court.
Trump´s appeal on Tuesday asks that Bellows be required to place him on the March 5 primary ballot. The appeal argues that she abused her discretion and relied on "untrustworthy evidence."
"The secretary should have recused herself due to her bias against President Trump, as demonstrated by a documented history of prior statements prejudging the issue presented," Trump´s attorneys wrote.
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Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims, backlash from antisemitism testimony
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school´s conduct policy.
Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month following the congressional testimony - Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned Dec. 9.
Gay, Harvard´s first Black president, announced her departure just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community.
Following the congressional hearing, Gay´s academic career came under intense scrutiny by conservative activists who unearthed several instances of alleged plagiarism tqm in education research papers her 1997 doctoral dissertation. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard´s governing board, initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up "a few instances of inadequate citation" but no evidence of research misconduct.
Days later, the Harvard Corporation said it found two additional examples of "duplicative language without appropriate attribution." The board said Gay would update her dissertation and request corrections.
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Apparent Israeli strike kills senior Hamas figure in Beirut and raises fears conflict could expand
BEIRUT (AP) - An apparent Israeli strike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut killed Hamas' No. 2 political leader Tuesday, marking a potentially significant escalation of Israel's war against the militant group and heightening the risk of a wider Middle East conflict.
Saleh Arouri, who was the most senior Hamas figure killed since the war with Israel began, was also a founder of the group's military wing. His death could provoke major retaliation by Lebanon´s powerful Hezbollah militia.
The strike hit an apartment in a building in a Shiite district of Beirut that is a Hezbollah stronghold, and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to strike back against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire almost daily over the Israeli-Lebanese border since Israel´s military campaign in Gaza began nearly three months ago. But so far the Lebanese group has appeared reluctant to dramatically escalate the fighting. A significant response now could send the conflict spiraling into all-out war on Israel´s northern border.
Lebanon´s state-run National News Agency said the strike was carried out by an Israeli drone, and Israeli officials declined to comment. Speaking to reporters, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari did not directly mention Arouri's death but said, "We are focused and remain focused on fighting against Hamas."
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Prosecutors say Sen. Menendez cashed in by linking Qatari royal family member with NJ businessman
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez used his international clout to help a friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, partly by taking actions favorable to Qatar´s government, federal prosecutors said Tuesday in a revised indictment.
The new allegations deepen the legal challenges for Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, who already was charged with wielding his political influence to secretly advance Egypt´s interests.
The superseding indictment in New York said the senator and his wife accepted bribes of gold bars and cash from New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes as a reward for several corrupt acts that included his help securing a major investment from the Qatari fund.
Prosecutors said Menendez introduced Daibes to a member of Qatar´s royal family who was also a principal in the investment firm, met personally with Qatari officials and made public statements supportive of Qatar while the real estate deal was being negotiated.
The indictment said the Qatari investor eventually invested tens of millions of dollars in Daibes' development project, in a deal finalized in 2023.
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Powerful earthquakes in Japan leave at least 62 dead. Fears grow about saving people still trapped
SUZU, Japan (AP) - A series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan left at least 62 people dead Wednesday, as rescue workers fought to save those feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas two days after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area. The first 72 hours are considered crucial to save lives after disasters.
Water, power and cell phone service were still down in some areas. Residents expressed sorrow about their uncertain futures.
"It´s not just that it´s a mess. The wall has collapsed, and you can see through to the next room. I don´t think we can live here anymore," Miki Kobayashi, an Ishikawa resident, said as she swept around her house.
The house was also damaged in a 2007 quake, she said.
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Planes collide and catch fire at Japan's busy Haneda airport, killing 5. Hundreds evacuated safely
TOKYO (AP) - A large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing five people aboard the coast guard plane, officials said.
All 379 people on Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 got out safely before the Airbus A350 was fully engulfed in flames, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed.
The pilot of the coast guard's Bombardier Dash-8 plane escaped but the five crew members died, Saito said. The aircraft was preparing to take off to deliver aid to an area affected by a major earthquake on Monday, officials said.
Television footage showed an orange fireball erupting from the Japan Airlines plane as it collided while landing, and the airliner then spewed smoke from its side as it continued down the runway. Within 20 minutes, all passengers and crew members slid down emergency chutes to get away.
As firefighters tried to put out the blaze with streams of water, the area around the passenger plane´s wing caught fire. The flames spread throughout the plane, which eventually collapsed. The fire was extinguished after about six hours.
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Souvenir sellers have flooded the Brooklyn Bridge. Now the city is banning them
NEW YORK (AP) - Visitors to New York City hoping to take home a souvenir from the Brooklyn Bridge will now have to settle for a photograph, as vendors are about to be banned from the iconic span.
The new rule, which goes into effect Wednesday, aims to ease overcrowding on the bridge´s heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway, where dozens of trinket sellers currently compete for space with tourists and city commuters.
As crowds flocked to the bridge over the holiday season, the situation turned dangerous, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He pointed to videos that showed pedestrians leaping from the elevated walkway onto a bike lane several feet below in order to bypass a human traffic jam.
"It´s not only a sanitary issue, it´s a public safety issue," Adams said on Tuesday. "People would´ve trampled over each other. We need order in this city. That is one of our major landmarks."
The new rules will apply to all of the city's bridges - though none have close to as many vendors as the 140-year-old Brooklyn Bridge, which is often lined with tables offering phone cases, knock-off Yankees caps, novelty license plates and more.
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US women are stocking up on abortion pills, especially when there is news about restrictions
Thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills just in case they needed them, new research shows, with demand peaking in the past couple years at times when it looked like the medications might become harder to get.
Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren´t pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use.
Aid Access received about 48,400 requests from across the U.S. for so-called "advance provision" from September 2021 through April 2023. Requests were highest right after news leaked in May 2022 that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade - but before the formal announcement that June, researchers found.
Nationally, the average number of daily requests shot up nearly tenfold, from about 25 in the eight months before the leak to 247 after the leak. In states where an abortion ban was inevitable, the average weekly request rate rose nearly ninefold.
"People are looking at looming threats to reproductive health access, looming threats to their reproductive rights, and potentially thinking to themselves: How can I prepare for this? Or how can I get around this or get out ahead of this?" said Dr. Abigail Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the letter's authors.
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Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities, killing 5 and injuring at least 130, Kyiv officials say
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's two largest cities came under attack early Tuesday from Russian missiles that killed five people and injured as many as 130, officials said, as the war approached its two-year mark and the Kremlin stepped up its winter bombardment of urban areas.
Air defenses shot down all 10 of the Russian Kinzhal missiles, which can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, out of about 100 of various types that were launched, said Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief.
But other missiles got through in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the provincial capital of the northeastern region. In Kyiv and its surrounding region, four people were killed and about 70 were wounded, while in the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and about 60 were hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile that is rarely used by Russian forces due to its cost and limited stocks. The barrage fired Tuesday was the highest number used in one attack since the start of the war, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.
The latest round of attacks by Russia began Friday with its largest single assault on Ukraine of the war, as fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has subsided into grinding attrition amid winter. At least 41 civilians were killed since the weekend.
___
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is free and reflecting on prison term for conspiring to kill her abusive mother
Gypsy Rose Blanchard said she has found a way to forgive her mother - and herself. But it has been a long journey from years of abuse and the darkest parts of her life splashed across tabloids to living in prison.
Blanchard, now 32, was paroled last week from a Missouri women's prison. Her release came 8 1/2 years after she persuaded her boyfriend at the time to kill her abusive mother, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard - in a desperate bid to be free of her.
For years, her mother forced her to pretend that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses.
"At first I was really angry with her, very confused. And I´m still confused," Blanchard told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday. "But I understand that she had a lot of mental issues. And so I think that´s brought me to a place of forgiveness by just trying to understand where she was coming from. I don´t believe that she was evil.
"I know, that she was very sick," she continued. This journey, Blanchard explained, also involved forgiving herself.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday appealed a ruling by Maine´s secretary of state barring him from the state's primary ballot over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appealed the Maine decision by Democrat Shenna Bellows, who became the first secretary of state in history to bar someone from running for the presidency under the rarely used Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That provision prohibits those who "engaged in insurrection" from holding office.
The former president is expected to soon appeal a similar ban by the Colorado Supreme Court. That appeal would go to the U.S. Supreme Court, while Bellows' action is being appealed to a Maine Superior Court.
Trump´s appeal on Tuesday asks that Bellows be required to place him on the March 5 primary ballot. The appeal argues that she abused her discretion and relied on "untrustworthy evidence."
"The secretary should have recused herself due to her bias against President Trump, as demonstrated by a documented history of prior statements prejudging the issue presented," Trump´s attorneys wrote.
___
Harvard president Claudine Gay resigns amid plagiarism claims, backlash from antisemitism testimony
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned Tuesday amid plagiarism accusations and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say unequivocally that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school´s conduct policy.
Gay is the second Ivy League president to resign in the past month following the congressional testimony - Liz Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned Dec. 9.
Gay, Harvard´s first Black president, announced her departure just months into her tenure in a letter to the Harvard community.
Following the congressional hearing, Gay´s academic career came under intense scrutiny by conservative activists who unearthed several instances of alleged plagiarism tqm in education research papers her 1997 doctoral dissertation. The Harvard Corporation, Harvard´s governing board, initially rallied behind Gay, saying a review of her scholarly work turned up "a few instances of inadequate citation" but no evidence of research misconduct.
Days later, the Harvard Corporation said it found two additional examples of "duplicative language without appropriate attribution." The board said Gay would update her dissertation and request corrections.
___
Apparent Israeli strike kills senior Hamas figure in Beirut and raises fears conflict could expand
BEIRUT (AP) - An apparent Israeli strike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut killed Hamas' No. 2 political leader Tuesday, marking a potentially significant escalation of Israel's war against the militant group and heightening the risk of a wider Middle East conflict.
Saleh Arouri, who was the most senior Hamas figure killed since the war with Israel began, was also a founder of the group's military wing. His death could provoke major retaliation by Lebanon´s powerful Hezbollah militia.
The strike hit an apartment in a building in a Shiite district of Beirut that is a Hezbollah stronghold, and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to strike back against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire almost daily over the Israeli-Lebanese border since Israel´s military campaign in Gaza began nearly three months ago. But so far the Lebanese group has appeared reluctant to dramatically escalate the fighting. A significant response now could send the conflict spiraling into all-out war on Israel´s northern border.
Lebanon´s state-run National News Agency said the strike was carried out by an Israeli drone, and Israeli officials declined to comment. Speaking to reporters, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari did not directly mention Arouri's death but said, "We are focused and remain focused on fighting against Hamas."
___
Prosecutors say Sen. Menendez cashed in by linking Qatari royal family member with NJ businessman
NEW YORK (AP) - U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez used his international clout to help a friend get a multimillion-dollar deal with a Qatari investment fund, partly by taking actions favorable to Qatar´s government, federal prosecutors said Tuesday in a revised indictment.
The new allegations deepen the legal challenges for Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, who already was charged with wielding his political influence to secretly advance Egypt´s interests.
The superseding indictment in New York said the senator and his wife accepted bribes of gold bars and cash from New Jersey real estate developer Fred Daibes as a reward for several corrupt acts that included his help securing a major investment from the Qatari fund.
Prosecutors said Menendez introduced Daibes to a member of Qatar´s royal family who was also a principal in the investment firm, met personally with Qatari officials and made public statements supportive of Qatar while the real estate deal was being negotiated.
The indictment said the Qatari investor eventually invested tens of millions of dollars in Daibes' development project, in a deal finalized in 2023.
___
Powerful earthquakes in Japan leave at least 62 dead. Fears grow about saving people still trapped
SUZU, Japan (AP) - A series of powerful earthquakes that hit western Japan left at least 62 people dead Wednesday, as rescue workers fought to save those feared trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Aftershocks continued to shake Ishikawa prefecture and nearby areas two days after a magnitude 7.6 temblor slammed the area. The first 72 hours are considered crucial to save lives after disasters.
Water, power and cell phone service were still down in some areas. Residents expressed sorrow about their uncertain futures.
"It´s not just that it´s a mess. The wall has collapsed, and you can see through to the next room. I don´t think we can live here anymore," Miki Kobayashi, an Ishikawa resident, said as she swept around her house.
The house was also damaged in a 2007 quake, she said.
___
Planes collide and catch fire at Japan's busy Haneda airport, killing 5. Hundreds evacuated safely
TOKYO (AP) - A large passenger plane and a Japanese coast guard aircraft collided on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing five people aboard the coast guard plane, officials said.
All 379 people on Japan Airlines flight JAL-516 got out safely before the Airbus A350 was fully engulfed in flames, Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito confirmed.
The pilot of the coast guard's Bombardier Dash-8 plane escaped but the five crew members died, Saito said. The aircraft was preparing to take off to deliver aid to an area affected by a major earthquake on Monday, officials said.
Television footage showed an orange fireball erupting from the Japan Airlines plane as it collided while landing, and the airliner then spewed smoke from its side as it continued down the runway. Within 20 minutes, all passengers and crew members slid down emergency chutes to get away.
As firefighters tried to put out the blaze with streams of water, the area around the passenger plane´s wing caught fire. The flames spread throughout the plane, which eventually collapsed. The fire was extinguished after about six hours.
___
Souvenir sellers have flooded the Brooklyn Bridge. Now the city is banning them
NEW YORK (AP) - Visitors to New York City hoping to take home a souvenir from the Brooklyn Bridge will now have to settle for a photograph, as vendors are about to be banned from the iconic span.
The new rule, which goes into effect Wednesday, aims to ease overcrowding on the bridge´s heavily trafficked pedestrian walkway, where dozens of trinket sellers currently compete for space with tourists and city commuters.
As crowds flocked to the bridge over the holiday season, the situation turned dangerous, according to New York City Mayor Eric Adams. He pointed to videos that showed pedestrians leaping from the elevated walkway onto a bike lane several feet below in order to bypass a human traffic jam.
"It´s not only a sanitary issue, it´s a public safety issue," Adams said on Tuesday. "People would´ve trampled over each other. We need order in this city. That is one of our major landmarks."
The new rules will apply to all of the city's bridges - though none have close to as many vendors as the 140-year-old Brooklyn Bridge, which is often lined with tables offering phone cases, knock-off Yankees caps, novelty license plates and more.
___
US women are stocking up on abortion pills, especially when there is news about restrictions
Thousands of women stocked up on abortion pills just in case they needed them, new research shows, with demand peaking in the past couple years at times when it looked like the medications might become harder to get.
Medication abortion accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., and typically involves two drugs: mifepristone and misoprostol. A research letter published Tuesday in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at requests for these pills from people who weren´t pregnant and sought them through Aid Access, a European online telemedicine service that prescribes them for future and immediate use.
Aid Access received about 48,400 requests from across the U.S. for so-called "advance provision" from September 2021 through April 2023. Requests were highest right after news leaked in May 2022 that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade - but before the formal announcement that June, researchers found.
Nationally, the average number of daily requests shot up nearly tenfold, from about 25 in the eight months before the leak to 247 after the leak. In states where an abortion ban was inevitable, the average weekly request rate rose nearly ninefold.
"People are looking at looming threats to reproductive health access, looming threats to their reproductive rights, and potentially thinking to themselves: How can I prepare for this? Or how can I get around this or get out ahead of this?" said Dr. Abigail Aiken, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and one of the letter's authors.
___
Russian missiles hit Ukrainian cities, killing 5 and injuring at least 130, Kyiv officials say
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine's two largest cities came under attack early Tuesday from Russian missiles that killed five people and injured as many as 130, officials said, as the war approached its two-year mark and the Kremlin stepped up its winter bombardment of urban areas.
Air defenses shot down all 10 of the Russian Kinzhal missiles, which can fly at 10 times the speed of sound, out of about 100 of various types that were launched, said Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief.
But other missiles got through in Kyiv and in Kharkiv, the provincial capital of the northeastern region. In Kyiv and its surrounding region, four people were killed and about 70 were wounded, while in the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and about 60 were hurt, the Interior Ministry said.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is an air-launched ballistic missile that is rarely used by Russian forces due to its cost and limited stocks. The barrage fired Tuesday was the highest number used in one attack since the start of the war, Ukraine air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said.
The latest round of attacks by Russia began Friday with its largest single assault on Ukraine of the war, as fighting along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has subsided into grinding attrition amid winter. At least 41 civilians were killed since the weekend.
___
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is free and reflecting on prison term for conspiring to kill her abusive mother
Gypsy Rose Blanchard said she has found a way to forgive her mother - and herself. But it has been a long journey from years of abuse and the darkest parts of her life splashed across tabloids to living in prison.
Blanchard, now 32, was paroled last week from a Missouri women's prison. Her release came 8 1/2 years after she persuaded her boyfriend at the time to kill her abusive mother, Clauddine "Dee Dee" Blanchard - in a desperate bid to be free of her.
For years, her mother forced her to pretend that she was suffering from leukemia, muscular dystrophy and other serious illnesses.
"At first I was really angry with her, very confused. And I´m still confused," Blanchard told The Associated Press in a phone interview Tuesday. "But I understand that she had a lot of mental issues. And so I think that´s brought me to a place of forgiveness by just trying to understand where she was coming from. I don´t believe that she was evil.
"I know, that she was very sick," she continued. This journey, Blanchard explained, also involved forgiving herself.