A Wisconsin state senator who came in third in the Democratic primary for governor in 2018 is running again, saying in her campaign launch video that “extremists” like President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are putting the nation’s democracy at risk.

Kelda Roys, an attorney and small business owner who represents the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Senate, launched her campaign on Monday.

“We are in the fight of our lives for our democracy and our kids’ future,” Roys says in her campaign launch video. It shows people protesting along with images of Trump and Musk.

The two other highest-profile announced Democratic candidates are Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Several other Democrats are expected to join the race in coming days.

On the Republican side, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, 43, and suburban Milwaukee business owner Bill Berrien, 56, are the only announced candidates. Other Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and state Senate President Mary Felzkowski, are considering running.

Roys, 46, served in the state Assembly from 2009 until 2013. Roys ran for an open congressional seat in 2012, but was defeated by a fellow state lawmaker, Mark Pocan, by 50 points. She was elected to the state Senate in 2020.

As a lawmaker, Roys has been an outspoken defender of abortion rights and for union rights. In her launch video, Roys highlights her opposition to then-Gov. Scott Walker’s law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers in 2011.

“With everything on the line, Wisconsin needs a governor who’s been training for this moment her whole career and knows how to deliver,” she said.

Roys said she would work to improve public schools, make health care more affordable and create quality jobs.

The race to replace Gov. Tony Evers, who is retiring after two terms, is open with no incumbent running for the first time since 2010. Roys lost to Evers in the 2018 gubernatorial primary, coming in third out of eight candidates behind him and Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin.

Provisions of a Florida law restricting the state’s process for getting citizens’ initiatives on the ballot can go into effect, a federal appeals court has decided. The decision issued Tuesday overrules a lower court’s order that blocked portions of the law from being enforced while the legal challenge brought by grassroots campaigners plays out.

Known as H.B. 1205, the law sets new limits on how many petitions Florida voters can collect in their effort to get a constitutional amendment on the state’s ballot, a provision punishable by a felony if voters violate it. The measure also bars non-U.S. citizens and non-Florida residents from gathering signed petitions for ballot initiatives.

The citizenship and residency provisions had been blocked under a July 8 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has overturned that, siding with arguments made by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration that the restrictions are needed to reform a constitutional amendment process that lawmakers claim has been tainted by fraud.

Attorneys for the voter advocacy groups and campaigns for Medicaid expansion and recreational marijuana that brought the lawsuit have argued the measure unconstitutionally hamstrings citizens’ abilities to amend Florida’s constitution, arguments the appeals court rejected in a 2-1 decision.

“The State has made a strong showing that H.B. 1205’s residency and citizenship requirements likely do not violate the First Amendment, since Florida’s substantial interest in preventing and investigating instances of voter fraud ‘would be achieved less effectively’ without them,” Eleventh Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote in an opinion joined by Judge Elizabeth Branch. Judge Nancy Abudu dissented.

“Absent a stay of the preliminary injunction, Florida would be left unable to enforce H.B. 1205’s rules governing the collection of initiative petitions until this appeal is resolved on the merits—rules that were legitimately ‘enacted by representatives of its people’ and that are substantially likely to be upheld as constitutional,” the opinion continued.

Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature pushed the changes months after a majority of Florida voters supported ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana, though the measures fell short of the 60% needed to pass.

In her dissent, Abudu disagreed with what she described as a pattern of the court “disingenuously parsing Supreme Court precedent to accommodate a State’s unconstitutional legislative whims.”

“Florida, never one to run out of ideas on how to restrict access to the ballot box and voter engagement, has crafted yet another scheme to limit the ability of their constituent opponents to express their beliefs and to challenge the status quo,” Abudu wrote.

Nearly 150 bills were introduced across 15 state legislatures this year seeking to make it harder for initiatives to qualify for the ballot or win approval by voters — nearly double the amount of just two years ago, according to the Fairness Project, a progressive group that has backed dozens of ballot initiatives in states. Voting rights advocates say the trend betrays the promise of direct democracy.

A divided appeals court ruled Wednesday that President Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally remove and replace the director of the U.S. Copyright Office.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit voted 2-1 to temporarily block Trump’s Republican administration from firing Shira Perlmutter as the register of copyrights, who advises Congress on copyright issues.

Perlmutter claims Trump fired her in May because he disapproved of advice she gave to Congress in a report related to artificial intelligence. Perlmutter had received an email from the White House notifying her that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately,” her office said.

Circuit Judges Florence Pan and J. Michelle Childs concluded that Perlmutter’s purported firing was likely illegal.

“The Executive’s alleged blatant interference with the work of a Legislative Branch official, as she performs statutorily authorized duties to advise Congress, strikes us as a violation of the separation of powers that is significantly different in kind and in degree from the cases that have come before,” Pan wrote in the majority opinion.

The White House had no immediate comment on the court’s decision.

Perlmutter’s position is considered part of the legislative branch of government. Her office is housed within the Library of Congress. Its director is chosen by the librarian of Congress, who is also a legislative branch employee but is nominated by the president and is subject to Senate confirmation.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump nominee, ruled in May that Perlmutter failed to meet her legal burden to show how removing her from the position would cause her irreparable harm.

Pan and Childs, who were nominated by President Joe Biden, a Democrat, concluded that Kelly abused his discretion and failed to weigh other factors favoring Perlmutter’s request for a preliminary injunction.

“The President’s purported removal of the Legislative Branch’s chief advisor on copyright matters, based on the advice that she provided to Congress, is akin to the President trying to fire a federal judge’s law clerk,” Pan wrote.

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a dissenting opinion in which he said the register of copyrights “exercises executive power in a host of ways.”

“Recently, repeatedly, and unequivocally, the Supreme Court has stayed lower-court injunctions that barred the President from removing officers exercising executive power,” Walker wrote.

Pan said it appears Perlmutter is still serving as register despite her purported removal.

“And because she continues to serve as Register at the present time, ruling in her favor would not disrupt the work of the U.S. Copyright Office,” Pan wrote. “To the contrary, it is her removal that would be disruptive.”

Perlmutter’s attorneys say she is a renowned copyright expert who also has served as register of copyrights since then-Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden appointed her to the job in October 2020.

Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to replace Hayden at the Library of Congress. The White House fired Hayden amid criticism from conservatives that she was advancing a “woke” agenda.

The appeals court’s ruling says Blanche’s appointment to serve as acting librarian of Congress was likely unlawful, as well, because the position is subject to Senate confirmation.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk offers the latest example of how ordinary security measures can be defeated in an era of escalating political violence, when anyone associated with the political process is a potential target, including influencers.

Kirk was in a familiar setting Wednesday before a large crowd at a university in Utah, a red state where voting trends largely aligned with his pro-MAGA politics. The conservative firebrand appeared with his own security team, as he has at events on other campuses.

In hindsight, those with experience protecting high-profile officials and dignitaries say more could have been done to prevent the shooting.

Security experts interviewed by The Associated Press questioned whether the event was sufficiently staffed but also acknowledged the limitations of both campus police forces and outdoor venues. They said only the inner ring closest to Kirk appeared to be secure, leaving the outer and middle rings exposed.

The killing, apparently carried out from a nearby rooftop, had eerie parallels to the assassination attempt last year against Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old gunman managed to climb on top of a nearby building and open fire during a campaign stop.

Law enforcement officials were still searching for the shooter Thursday. Authorities said the assassin used a high-powered, bolt-action rifle and jumped off that building as spectators fled the scene. The FBI released photos of a “person of interest” and video of a person jumping down from a roof and fleeing toward a wooded area.

Many details remained unclear, including what security measures were taken ahead of the debate hosted by Kirk’s nonprofit political organization, Turning Point USA. The event at Utah Valley University drew more than 3,000 people.

Hours after the attack, Jeff Long, the campus police chief, told reporters that six of his officers staffed the debate, and that his department had coordinated with Kirk’s own security team. He noted that Kirk had been speaking “in a lower area surrounded by buildings” but did not say whether officers had inspected nearby rooftops.

“This is a police chief’s nightmare,” Long said. “You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately today we didn’t, and because of that we had this tragic incident.”

Students and others who attended the event told AP there were no metal detectors or bag checks, though the level of security appeared consistent with other speaking engagements on Kirk’s national tour.

“As soon as I was down by the courtyard in line, I was looking around and I was like ‘I love Charlie, but I have a weird feeling that if something did happen, he would be in a very vulnerable position,’” said Henry Dells, a business owner in Utah County who asked Kirk a question about a minute before the shooting.


“You don’t expect a threat to come from 200 yards away on a college campus,” Shaffer said. “We didn’t have enough manpower to put people on the rooftops.”

As Kirk was not an elected or government official, he or his organization likely would have had to pay for security beyond what the university provided.

“They probably didn’t have enough security personnel there,” said Ron Williams, a former U.S. Secret Service agent who now works as a private security consultant. “And the reason is because they really didn’t see the need, especially in Orem, Utah, which is a low-crime area.”

Videos posted to social media show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent. A single shot rings out, and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as blood gushes from the side of his neck.

The debate had been met with divided opinions on campus. An online petition calling on university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. Kirk, 31, had taken note of the rising temperature last week, posting on X images of news clips showing that his visit to Utah was sparking controversy.

“Charlie was no stranger to threats,” Turning Point USA posted Thursday on X under Kirk’s handle. “He received thousands throughout his life. But he always prioritized reaching as many young Americans as possible over his own personal safety.”

Still, it was unclear whether Kirk had received specific death threats or other indications he was in danger. Even if he had, experts said it can be difficult to provide airtight protection for a private individual without a presidential-level security detail.

An example is “The Satanic Verses” novelist Salman Rushdie, who drew death threats from Iranian leaders for decades before he was nearly stabbed to death in 2022 by an assailant who rushed the stage as he was about to give a lecture in western New York.

Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged the inherent security risks of political events in July as he spoke alongside Kirk at a Turning Point USA summit in Tampa, Florida. The younger Trump recalled a 2016 campus event in which he said he appeared with Kirk even after Michigan state police warned that they could not guarantee the men’s safety.

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of President Donald Trump who played an influential role in rallying young Republican voters, was shot and killed Wednesday at a Utah college event in what the governor called a political assassination carried out from a rooftop.

“This is a dark day for our state. It’s a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. “I want to be very clear this is a political assassination.”

No suspect was in custody late Wednesday, though authorities were searching for a new person of interest, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss the situation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Two people were detained earlier in the day but neither was determined to have had any connection to the shooting and both have been released, Utah public safety officials said.

Authorities did not immediately identify a motive but the circumstances of the shooting drew renewed attention to an escalating threat of political violence in the United States that in the last several years has cut across the ideological spectrum. The assassination drew bipartisan condemnation, but a national reckoning over ways to prevent political grievances from manifesting as deadly violence seemed elusive.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University show Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong.” A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away. The Associated Press was able to confirm the videos were taken at Sorensen Center courtyard on the Utah Valley University campus.

Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organization. Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the person asked. Kirk responded, “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Then a single shot rang out. The shooter, who Cox pledged would be held accountable in a state with the death penalty, wore dark clothing and fired from a building roof some distance away to the courtyard where the event took place.

Some 3,000 people were in attendance, according to a statement from the Utah Department of Public Safety, which also said the university police department had six officers working the event along with Kirk’s own security detail.

The death was announced on social media by Trump, who praised the 31-year-old Kirk, the co-founder and CEO of the youth organization Turning Point USA, as “Great, and even Legendary.” Later Wednesday, he released a recorded video from the White House in which he called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom” and blamed the rhetoric of the “radical left” for the killing.

Utah Valley University said the campus was immediately evacuated and remained closed. Classes were canceled until further notice. Those still on campus were asked to stay in place until police officers could safely escort them off campus. Armed officers walked around the neighborhood bordering the campus, knocking on doors and asking for information on the shooter.

The event, billed as the first stop on Kirk’s “The American Comeback Tour,” had generated a polarizing campus reaction. An online petition calling for university administrators to bar Kirk from appearing received nearly 1,000 signatures. The university issued a statement last week citing First Amendment rights and affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

Last week, Kirk posted on X images of news clips showing his visit was sparking controversy. He wrote, “What’s going on in Utah?”

The shooting drew swift condemnation across the political aisle as Democratic officials joined Trump, who ordered flags lowered to half-staff and issued a presidential proclamation, and Republican allies of Kirk in decrying the violence.

“The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last March hosted Kirk on his podcast, posted on X.

“The murder of Charlie Kirk breaks my heart. My deepest sympathies are with his wife, two young children, and friends,” said Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district.

The shooting appeared poised to become part of a spike of political violence that has touched a range of ideologies and representatives of both major parties. The attacks include the assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband at their house in June, the firebombing of a Colorado parade to demand Hamas release hostages, and a fire set at the house of Pennsylvania’s governor, who is Jewish, in April. The most notorious of these events is the shooting of Trump during a campaign rally last year.

Former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican who was at Wednesday’s event, said in an interview on Fox News Channel that he heard one shot and saw Kirk go back.

“It seemed like it was a close shot,” Chaffetz said, who seemed shaken as he spoke.

He said there was a light police presence at the event and Kirk had some security but not enough. “Utah is one of the safest places on the planet,” he said. “And so we just don’t have these types of things.”

Turning Point was founded in suburban Chicago in 2012 by Kirk, then 18, and William Montgomery, a tea party activist, to proselytize on college campuses for low taxes and limited government. It was not an immediate success.

But Kirk’s zeal for confronting liberals in academia eventually won over an influential set of conservative financiers.

Despite early misgivings, Turning Point enthusiastically backed Trump after he clinched the GOP nomination in 2016. Kirk served as a personal aide to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, during the general election campaign.

Soon, Kirk was a regular presence on cable TV, where he leaned into the culture wars and heaped praise on the then-president. Trump and his son were equally effusive and often spoke at Turning Point conferences.

President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade and immigration policies are undermining relationships that have been cornerstones of American foreign policy to counter China’s growing influence, eroding years of diplomatic investments spanning administrations.

The latest fracture came Friday, when hundreds of South Korean workers were detained at a Hyundai manufacturing plant in Georgia, a facility that had been a showcase for closer economic ties between the two countries. Some of the workers, who were being investigated for visa issues, were shackled.

Administration officials insist that trade will not be impacted, but foreign policy analysts have watched deteriorating relationships with alarm. Instead of following the conventional wisdom of building coalitions as a bulwark against China, Trump has reveled in turning the screws on friend and foe alike.

“Treaty allies are developing fallback options if the United States disengages from the region,” said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies U.S. strategy in Asia. “Some partners are hedging by cultivating better relationships with China.”

Ties with India also have cooled despite a previously cordial friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Trump, a Republican, imposed tariffs on India as punishment for buying Russian oil during the war in Ukraine, and he’s grown closer with Pakistan, a bordering rival.

Modi was recently photographed with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping during a security summit in Tianjin, prompting a social media jab from Trump.

“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China,” he wrote. “May they have a long and prosperous future together!”

It’s possible that recent spats could blow over. Trump called Modi “my very good friend” when announcing trade talks between the two countries would continue in a Truth Social post. “I feel certain that there will be no difficulty in coming to a successful conclusion for both of our Great Countries,” he wrote.

Modi responded by calling the two countries “close friends and natural partners” and said he was “confident that our trade negotiations will pave the way for unlocking the limitless potential of the India-US partnership.”

But concerns among Asian nations may not be temporary, especially if there’s a sense that Trump’s skeptical view of foreign engagement will linger after he’s no longer in office.

“Most countries in the region believe that Washington’s protectionist policies, unilateral tendencies and greater skepticism of overseas engagement will outlast the Trump administration,” Cooper said.

In a statement, the Chinese embassy in Washington said the country never engages “in zero-sum games or geopolitical confrontations where one wins and the other loses” but “is committed to maintaining world peace, stability and development, sharing development opportunities with countries around the world.”

Trump has occasionally talked tough toward China, and he risked a trade war between the world’s first and second largest economies by announcing steep tariffs. However, both sides have stepped back from that confrontation, and Trump has been focused on seeking a summit with Xi.

The man charged with trying to assassinate Donald Trump while he played golf last year in South Florida stood before a group of potential jurors in a Florida courtroom on Monday and said he was “sorry for bringing you all in here.”

Ryan Routh, wearing a gray sports coat, red tie with white stripes and khaki slacks, is representing himself in the trial that began with jury selection on Monday in the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida.

“Thank you for being here,” Routh told the first group of 60 jurors who were brought into the courtroom after U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon introduced prosecutors and Routh to the panel.

Cannon signed off on Routh’s request to represent himself but said court-appointed attorneys needed to remain as standby counsel.

During a hearing earlier to go over questions that would be asked of jurors, Routh was partially shackled. But he did not appear to be restrained when the first of three batches of 60 potential jurors were brought into the courtroom on Monday afternoon.

Cannon dismissed the questions Routh wanted to ask jurors as irrelevant earlier Monday. They included asking jurors about their views on Gaza, the talk of the U.S. acquiring Greenland and what they would do if they were driving and saw a turtle in the road.

The panel of 120 potential jurors filled out questionnaires on Monday morning and the first group was brought into the courtroom during the afternoon session. The judge inquired about any hardships that would prevent them from sitting as jurors during a weeks-long trial. Twenty-seven noted hardships and the judge dismissed 20 of them on Monday.

The other two groups of jurors will return to the courtroom on Tuesday morning for similar questioning. Those who are not dismissed will then return at 2 p.m. Tuesday for further questioning about the case and their views.

The court has blocked off four weeks for Routh’s trial, but attorneys are expecting they’ll need less time.

Jury selection was expected to take three days in an effort to find 12 jurors and four alternates. Opening statements were scheduled to begin Thursday, and prosecutors will begin their case immediately after that.

Cannon told Routh last week that he would be allowed to use a podium while speaking to the jury or questioning witnesses, but he would not have free rein of the courtroom.

Cannon is a Trump-appointed judge who drew scrutiny for her handling of a criminal case accusing Trump of illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. The case became mired in delays as motions piled up over months, and was ultimately dismissed by Cannon last year after she concluded that the special counsel tapped by the Justice Department to investigate Trump was illegally appointed.

Routh’s trial begins nearly a year after prosecutors say a U.S. Secret Service agent thwarted Routh’s attempt to shoot the Republican presidential nominee. Routh, 59, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer and several firearm violations.

Just nine weeks earlier, Trump had survived another attempt on his life while campaigning in Pennsylvania. That gunman had fired eight shots, with one bullet grazing Trump’s ear, before being shot by a Secret Service counter sniper.

Prosecutors have said Routh methodically plotted to kill Trump for weeks before aiming a rifle through the shrubbery as Trump played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club. A Secret Service agent spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Officials said Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and flee without firing a shot.

Law enforcement obtained help from a witness who prosecutors said informed officers that he saw a person fleeing. The witness was then flown in a police helicopter to a nearby interstate where Routh was arrested, and the witnesses confirmed it was the person he had seen, prosecutors have said.

The judge last week unsealed the prosecutor’s 33-page list of exhibits that could be introduced as evidence at the trial. It says prosecutors have photos of Routh holding the same model of semi-automatic rifle found at Trump’s club.

Routh was a North Carolina construction worker who in recent years had moved to Hawaii. A self-styled mercenary leader, Routh spoke out to anyone who would listen about his dangerous, sometimes violent plans to insert himself into conflicts around the world, witnesses have told The Associated Press.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine, Routh tried to recruit soldiers from Afghanistan, Moldova and Taiwan to fight the Russians. In his native Greensboro, North Carolina, he was arrested in 2002 for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers with a fully automatic machine gun and a “weapon of mass destruction,” which turned out to be an explosive with a 10-inch fuse.

In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. In both felony cases, judges gave Routh either probation or a suspended sentence.

In addition to the federal charges, Routh also has pleaded not guilty to state charges of terrorism and attempted murder.

Norwegians headed to the polls Monday in the main day of voting for a new parliament, after a campaign in which the future of a wealth tax that dates to the late 19th century has been a central issue.

About 4.3 million people in the Scandinavian nation are eligible to vote for the new 169-member parliament, or Storting. A close outcome is expected between a center-left bloc led by the Labor Party of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and a right-wing bloc.

Official results are expected Tuesday, and they are likely to be followed by weeks of negotiations to build a coalition and agree on Cabinet positions before King Harald can swear in a new government.

The result isn’t likely to have major implications for Norway’s foreign policy. The country is a stalwart member of NATO and a strong supporter of Ukraine’s defense against Russia, with which it has a border in the Arctic north. It isn’t a member of the European Union but has close economic ties with the 27-nation bloc.

Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. It has a generous welfare state, sits on billions of barrels of oil and gas, and has one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, worth around 20 trillion kroner ($2 trillion). Gross domestic product per person is the sixth-highest in the world, one place above the U.S., according to the International Monetary Fund.

It is also one of the world’s most egalitarian countries, sharing its wealth much more evenly than many others.

Labor wants to keep the wealth tax that has been a mainstay of Norwegian policy since 1892 — a levy of up to 1.1% on assets and shares worth more than 1.76 million kroner (around $176,000), though there are various reductions and discounts. Labor says that scrapping it would cost 34 billion kroner ($3.3 billion) per year.

Of its rivals on the right, the Conservatives want it reduced and the Progress Party of Sylvi Listhaug, which calls for lower taxes and more immigration controls, wants it scrapped.

Polls have shown Listhaug’s party ahead of the Conservatives, led by former Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who were the senior partner in the last center-right government from 2013 to 2021. It has been bolstered by an energetic social media campaign, driven by youthful influencers who have inspired younger voters against the wealth tax.

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit by book authors who say the company took pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot.

The landmark settlement, if approved by a judge as soon as Monday, could mark a turning point in legal battles between AI companies and the writers, visual artists and other creative professionals who accuse them of copyright infringement.

The company has agreed to pay authors or publishers about $3,000 for each of an estimated 500,000 books covered by the settlement.

“As best as we can tell, it’s the largest copyright recovery ever,” said Justin Nelson, a lawyer for the authors. “It is the first of its kind in the AI era.”

A trio of authors — thriller novelist Andrea Bartz and nonfiction writers Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson — sued last year and now represent a broader group of writers and publishers whose books Anthropic downloaded to train its chatbot Claude.

A federal judge dealt the case a mixed ruling in June, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.

If Anthropic had not settled, experts say losing the case after a scheduled December trial could have cost the San Francisco-based company even more money.

“We were looking at a strong possibility of multiple billions of dollars, enough to potentially cripple or even put Anthropic out of business,” said Thomas Long, a legal analyst for Wolters Kluwer.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco has scheduled a Monday hearing to review the settlement terms.

Anthropic said in a statement Friday that the settlement, if approved, “will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims.”

“We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems,” said Aparna Sridhar, the company’s deputy general counsel.

As part of the settlement, the company has also agreed to destroy the original book files it downloaded.

Books are known to be important sources of data — in essence, billions of words carefully strung together — that are needed to build the AI large language models behind chatbots like Anthropic’s Claude and its chief rival, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Alsup’s June ruling found that Anthropic had downloaded more than 7 million digitized books that it “knew had been pirated.” It started with nearly 200,000 from an online library called Books3, assembled by AI researchers outside of OpenAI to match the vast collections on which ChatGPT was trained.

Debut thriller novel “The Lost Night” by Bartz, a lead plaintiff in the case, was among those found in the dataset. Anthropic later took at least 5 million copies from the pirate website Library Genesis, or LibGen, and at least 2 million copies from the Pirate Library Mirror, Alsup wrote.

The Authors Guild told its thousands of members last month that it expected “damages will be minimally $750 per work and could be much higher” if Anthropic was found at trial to have willfully infringed their copyrights. The settlement’s higher award — approximately $3,000 per work — likely reflects a smaller pool of affected books, after taking out duplicates and those without copyright.

On Friday, Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, called the settlement “an excellent result for authors, publishers, and rightsholders generally, sending a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors’ works to train their AI, robbing those least able to afford it.”

The Danish Rights Alliance, which successfully fought to take down one of those shadow libraries, said Friday that the settlement would be of little help to European writers and publishers whose works aren’t registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

“On the one hand, it’s comforting to see that compiling AI training datasets by downloading millions of books from known illegal file-sharing sites comes at a price,” said Thomas Heldrup, the group’s head of content protection and enforcement.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.

Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots.

A longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy has made sweeping changes to agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research by laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines. The moves — some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings — have rattled medical groups and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice.

Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.

But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies.

The GOP senators noted that Kennedy said President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for the 2020 Operation Warp Speed initiative to quickly develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — and that he also had attacked the safety and continued use of those very shots.

“I can’t tell where you are on Operation Warp Speed,” said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.

Tillis and others asked him why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired last week, less than a month into her tenure. Kennedy said she was dishonest, and that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired.

He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies, and claimed — wrongly — that they “failed to do anything about the disease itself.”

“The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said. He later said they deserved to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease.

Trump was asked at a White House dinner with tech leaders on Thursday night if he has full confidence in what Kennedy is doing.

Trump said he didn’t watch the hearings but said of Kennedy, “he means very well.” Trump said Kennedy has “a different take, and we want to listen to all those takes.”

“It’s not your standard talk, I would say, and that has to do with medical and vaccines,” Trump said. “But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different.”

Last week, the Trump administration fired the CDC’s director — a Trump appointee who was confirmed by the Senate — less than a month into her tenure. Several top CDC leaders resigned in protest, leaving the agency in turmoil.

The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.

“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote. “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”

Kennedy told senators he didn’t make such an ultimatum, though he did concede that he had ordered Monarez to fire career CDC scientists. Monarez’s attorneys later responded that she stood by the op-ed and “would repeat it all under oath.”

Kennedy pushed back on concerns raised by multiple Republican senators, including Tillis and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Both Barrasso and Cassidy are physicians.

A former Alaska Airlines pilot who tried to cut the engines of a passenger flight in 2023 while riding off-duty in the cockpit pleaded guilty or no-contest to all charges against him Friday, saying in court that he regretted endangering those on board as well as the damage he caused to his former profession.

Joseph Emerson reached plea agreements with state and federal prosecutors to resolve the cases because he wanted to take responsibility for his actions and avoid further time behind bars, said his attorney, Noah Horst.

Emerson was subdued by the flight crew after trying to cut the engines of a Horizon Air flight from Everett, Washington, to San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2023, while he was riding in an extra seat in the cockpit. The plane was diverted to Portland, where it landed safely with more than 80 people on board.

He was sentenced in state court to 50 days in jail, with credit for time served, plus five years of probation, despite a presumption that the convictions would bring 16 to 18 months in prison. He is due to be sentenced in November in the federal case; his attorneys will recommend probation, while prosecutors will be able to argue for a sentence of up to one year in custody.

“What Joseph Emerson did was reckless, selfish, and criminal,” Multnomah County deputy district attorney Eric Pickard said in a written statement Friday. “We should remember how close he came to ruining the lives of not just the 84 people aboard Flight 2059, but all of their family members and friends as well.”

Emerson told Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Cheryl Albrecht he recognized that he had caused harm not only to those on board, but to society at large by reducing confidence in air travel and to the airline professionals who perform excellent work every day.

“It should not have happened, and I bear the responsibility for that,” he said.

Emerson told police he was despondent over a friend’s recent death, had taken psychedelic mushrooms about two days earlier, and hadn’t slept in over 40 hours. He has said he believed he was dreaming at the time and that he was trying to wake himself up by grabbing two red handles that would have activated the plane’s fire suppression system and cut off fuel to its engines.

The airline has said that other members of the flight crew had not observed signs of impairment that would have barred Emerson from the cockpit.

A passenger on the flight, Alison Snyder, told the court the “consequences proposed today seem insufficient relative to Mr. Emerson’s choices and actions, regardless of his explanations or circumstances.”

“Mr. Emerson knew he was not fit to fly, a requirement for sitting in the cockpit,” Snyder said. “Joseph Emerson’s behavior that day showed he lacks the judgment to be a pilot and should never be allowed anywhere near a flight deck ever again.”

Snyder said she will never again feel as safe flying as she did before, and she called on federal authorities and the airline industry to adopt better policies regarding pilot mental health.

Emerson also said he was grateful to the flight crew for restraining him and saving his life, along with those of everyone else on board. He called it “the greatest gift I ever got,” even though he lost his career and wound up in jail, because it made him confront his mental health challenges and reliance on alcohol.

“This difficult journey has made me a better father, a better husband, a better member of my community,” he said. “Today I get to be the dad I was incapable of when I had to use alcohol to deal with life as life is.”

Emerson, of Pleasant Hill, California, was charged in federal court with interfering with a flight crew. A state indictment in Oregon separately charged him with 83 counts of endangering another person and one count of endangering an aircraft.

He previously pleaded not guilty to all the charges, and in December 2023 he was released from custody pending trial, with requirements that he undergo mental health services, stay off drugs and alcohol, and keep away from aircraft.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to the federal count and no-contest to the state charges, which carries the same legal effect as a guilty plea.

The conditions of the state agreement include five years of probation, 664 hours of community service — eight hours for each person he endangered — and $60,569 in restitution, nearly all of it to Alaska Air Group.

Half of his community service can be performed at a pilot health nonprofit Emerson founded after his arrest. He must also undergo assessments for drug and alcohol and mental health treatment, refrain from using any non-prescribed drugs, and keep at least 25 feet (7.6 meters) away from operable aircraft unless he has permission from his probation officer.

In court Friday, Emerson reiterated that he had been unable to perceive reality for an extended period after taking the mushrooms, but “that doesn’t make this right,” he said.

The Trump administration already has denied visas for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and his large delegation to attend a high-level U.N. meeting this month and is now considering ramping up restrictions on several other delegations that would severely limit their ability to travel outside New York City.

Potential travel and other restrictions could soon be imposed on the delegations from Iran, Sudan, Zimbabwe and, perhaps surprisingly, Brazil, which has held a traditional place of honor during the high-level leaders gathering at the U.N. General Assembly that begins Sept. 22, according to an internal State Department memo seen by The Associated Press.

While the potential restrictions are still under consideration and the circumstances could change, the proposals would be another step in the Trump administration’s crackdown on visas, including a wide-ranging review of those already holding legal permissions to come to the U.S. and those seeking entry to head to the U.N. meeting.

The movements of Iranian diplomats are severely limited in New York, but one proposal being floated would bar them from shopping at big, members-only wholesale stores like Costco and Sam’s Club without first receiving the express permission of the State Department.

Such stores have been a favorite of Iranian diplomats posted to and visiting New York because they are able to buy large quantities of products not available in their economically isolated country for relatively cheap prices and send them home.

It was not immediately clear if or when the proposed shopping ban for Iran would take effect, but the memo said the State Department also was looking at drafting rules that would allow it to impose terms and conditions on memberships in wholesale clubs by all foreign diplomats in the U.S.

For Brazil, it was not clear if any potential visa restrictions affect President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or lower-level members of the country’s delegation to the U.N. gathering.

Brazil’s president is traditionally the first world leader to speak before the gathered officials on the opening day of the session. The U.S. president is by precedent the second speaker.

Lula has been a target of U.S. President Donald Trump, who objects to his government’s prosecution of his friend, former President Jair Bolsonaro, on allegations of leading an attempted coup.

One country that will see fewer restrictions is Syria, whose delegation members have received a waiver from limitations that have been put on their U.N. travel for more than a decade.

That waiver was issued last week, according to the memo, and comes as the Trump administration seeks to build ties following the ouster last year of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, and integrate the once-pariah nation into the Middle East.

Though named as possible targets, the memo did not specify what restrictions might be imposed on the Sudanese and Zimbabwean delegations.

The State Department did not immediately provide comment. The Iranian and Brazilian U.N. missions didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.