LEWISTON, Maine (AP) – Authorities say a man suspected of fatally shooting 18 people and wounding 13 in Maine has been found dead.

Robert Card, who was wanted in connection with the shootings at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley in Lewiston, is believed to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a law enforcement official tells The Associated Press.

The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke to The AP on condition of anonymity. A 10 p.m. news conference was scheduled by police.

Card, 40, of Bowdoin, Maine, was a U.S. Army reservist who underwent a mental health evaluation in mid-July after he began acting erratically during training, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.

Card had been sought since the Wednesday night shootings, and murder warrants were issued against him.

A bulletin sent to police across the country shortly after the attack said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base.

A U.S. official said Card was training with the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in West Point, New York, when commanders became concerned about him.

State police took Card to the Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point for evaluation, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans eagerly elected Rep. Mike Johnson as House speaker on Wednesday, elevating a deeply conservative but lesser-known leader to the seat of U.S. power and ending for now the political chaos in their majority.

Johnson, 51, of Louisiana, swept through on the first ballot with support from all Republicans anxious to put the past weeks of tumult behind and get on with the business of governing. He was quickly sworn into office.

“We are ready to get to work again,” he said after taking the gavel.

To the American people watching he said, “Our mission here is to serve you well and to restore the people’s faith in this House.”

A lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, Johnson emerged as the fourth Republican nominee in what had become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockeyed for power. While not the party’s top choice for the gavel, the deeply religious and even-keeled Johnson has few foes and an important GOP backer: Donald Trump.

“I think he’s gonna be a fantastic speaker,” Trump said Wednesday at the New York courthouse where the former president, who is now the Republican front-runner for president in 2024, is on trial over a lawsuit alleging business fraud.

Three weeks on without a House speaker, the Republicans have been wasting their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House is expected to function.

Far-right members had refused to accept a more traditional speaker, and moderate conservatives didn’t want a hard-liner. While Johnson had no opponents during a private party roll call late Tuesday, some two dozen Republicans did not vote, more than enough to sink his nomination.

But when GOP Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik rose to introduce Johnson’s name Wednesday as their nominee, Republicans jumped to their feet for a standing ovation.

“House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson will never give up,” she said.

Democrats again nominated their leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, criticizing Johnson as an architect of Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

With Republicans controlling the House only 221-212 over Democrats, Johnson could afford just a few detractors to win the gavel. He won 220-209, with a few absences.

Jeffries said House Democrats will work with Republicans whenever possible for the “good of the country.”

Overnight the endorsements for Johnson started pouring in, including from failed speaker hopefuls. Rep. Jim Jordan, the hard-charging Judiciary Committee chairman, gave his support, as did Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the fellow Louisiana congressman, who stood behind Johnson after he won the nomination.

“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a press conference after the late-night internal vote, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a show of support.

Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to move on.

Johnson’s rise comes after a tumultuous month, capped by a head-spinning Tuesday that within a span of a few hours saw one candidate, Rep. Tom Emmer, the GOP Whip, nominated and then quickly withdraw when it became clear he would be the third candidate unable to secure enough support from GOP colleagues after Trump bashed his nomination.

“He wasn’t MAGA,” said Trump, referring to his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.

Attention quickly turned to Johnson. A lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, Johnson had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

Elevating Johnson to speaker gives Louisianians two high-ranking GOP leaders, putting him above Scalise, who was rejected by hard-liners in his own bid as speaker.

Johnson is affable and well liked, with a fiery belief system, and colleagues swiftly started giving him their support.

“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said after winning the nomination. “We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who led a small band of hard-liners to engineer McCarthy’s ouster at the start of the month, posted on social media that “Mike Johnson won’t be the Speaker the Swamp wants but, he is the Speaker America needs.”

Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine business as they fight amongst themselves with daunting challenges ahead.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

Many hard-liners have been resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo. They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and other top Cabinet officials.

During the turmoil, the House was led by a speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee. His main job was to elect a more permanent speaker.

Some Republicans — and Democrats — wanted to give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing. But McHenry, the first person to be in the position that was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as an emergency measure, declined to back those overtures. He, too, received a standing ovation.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson as their latest nominee for House speaker late Tuesday, hours after an earlier pick, Rep. Tom Emmer, abruptly withdrew in the face of opposition from Donald Trump and hardline GOP lawmakers.

Johnson of Louisiana, a lower-ranked member of the House GOP leadership team, becomes the fourth nominee after Emmer and the others fell short in what has become an almost absurd cycle of political infighting since Kevin McCarthy’s ouster as GOP factions jockey for power.

Refusing to unify, far-right members won’t accept a more traditional speaker and more moderate members don’t want a hardliner. Johnson immediately faced a roll call behind closed doors to test his support ahead of a House floor vote, when he’ll need almost all Republicans to win the gavel.

Three weeks on, the Republicans are frittering away their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House is expected to function.

“Pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “Maybe on the fourth or fifth or sixth or 10th try we’ll get this thing right.”

After he withdrew Tuesday afternoon, Emmer briskly left the building where he had been meeting privately with Republicans, but he returned later to offices at the Capitol. He said Trump’s opposition did not affect his decision to bow out.

“I made my decision based on my relationship with the conference,” he said, referring to the GOP majority. He said he would support whomever emerges as the new nominee. “We’ll get it done.”

Trump, speaking as he left the courtroom in New York where he faces business fraud charges, said his “un-endorsement” must have had an impact on Emmer’s bid.

“He wasn’t MAGA,” said Trump, the party’s front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, referring to his Make America Great Again campaign slogan.

House Republicans returned behind closed doors, where they spend much of their time, desperately searching for a leader who can unite the factions, reopen the House and get the U.S. Congress working again.

Attention quickly turned to Johnson of Louisiana, a member of party leadership who was the second highest vote-getter on Tuesday’s internal ballots. He earned 128 votes in the evening vote.

A lawyer specializing in constitutional issues, Johnson had rallied Republicans around Trump’s legal effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

But hardliners swiftly resisted Johnson’s bid and a new list of candidates emerged within minutes of an evening deadline. Among them was Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, a Trump ally who ran third on the morning ballot, and a few others. McCarthy, who was not on the ballot, won a surprising 43 votes.

“We’re in the same cul-de-sac,” said Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., the chairman of the far-right House Freedom Caucus.

Yet Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., one of the hardliners, said, “This is what democracy looks like.”

One idea circulating, first reported by NBC News, was to reinstall McCarthy as speaker with hardline Rep. Jim Jordan in a new leadership role.

It was being pitched as a way to unite the conference, lawmakers said, but they were not certain it would fly.

“I think sometimes it’s good to have fresh ideas and fresh people,” said Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind.

Emmer of Minnesota had jumped out in front during private morning balloting among a hodgepodge list of mostly lesser-known congressmen aspiring to be speaker, a powerful position second in line to the presidency.

While Emmer won a simple majority in a roll call behind closed doors — 117 votes — he lost more than two dozen Republicans, leaving him far short of what will be needed during a House floor tally ahead.

But Trump allies, including the influential hard-right instigator Steve Bannon, have been critical of Emmer. Some point to his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president. Among the far-right groups pressuring lawmakers over the speaker’s vote, some quickly attacked Emmer.

Coming in a steady second in the morning balloting, Johnson offered his full support to Emmer, saying, “What we have to do in this room is unite and begin to govern again.”

Others were eliminated during multiple rounds of voting, including Donalds and Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, a conservative leader and former McDonald’s franchise owner who plied his colleagues with hamburgers seeking their support. Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Pete Sessions of Texas, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania also dropped out.

Having rejected the top replacements, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and the Trump-backed Jordan, there is no longer any obvious choice for the job.

With Republicans controlling the House 221-212 over Democrats, any GOP nominee can afford just a few detractors to win the gavel.

Republicans have been flailing all month, unable to conduct routine business as they fight amongst themselves with daunting challenges ahead.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, the hard-right leader who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, has said several of those who were running — Hern, Donalds or Johnson — would make a “phenomenal” choice for speaker.

Nevertheless, Gaetz voted for Emmer, though others who joined in ousting McCarthy did not.

Many Emmer opponents were resisting a leader who voted for the budget deal that McCarthy struck with Biden earlier this year, which set federal spending levels that far-right Republicans don’t agree with and now want to undo. They are pursuing steeper cuts to federal programs and services with next month’s funding deadline.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted assurances the candidates would pursue impeachment inquiries into Biden and other top Cabinet officials.

During the turmoil, the House is now led by a nominal interim speaker pro tempore, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the bow tie-wearing chairman of the Financial Services Committee. His main job is to elect a more permanent speaker.

Some Republicans — and Democrats — would like to simply give McHenry more power to get on with the routine business of governing. But McHenry, the first person to be in the position that was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks as an emergency measure, has declined to back those overtures.

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

UPDATE: – U.S. Representative Austin Scott did not win the nomination for Speaker of the House of Representative.  House GOP selected Ohio Representative Jim Jordan.

Representative Scott released a statement Friday afternoon in support of Rep. Jordan.

“I highly respect Jim Jordan. He is an asset to the Republican Party and our nominee for Speaker,” Scott said. “Our conference has spoken, and now we must unite behind Jordan so we can get Congress back to work.”

This doesn’t mean Jordan will be the next speaker, he still needs majority of the votes on the House floor.

That vote might not happen until next week.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — U.S. Representative Austin Scott filed to run to be the new Speaker of the House of Representatives Friday morning.

Representative Scott, who represents Georgia’s 8th congressional district, is looking to be the new Speaker after the previous one, Kevin McCarthy of California, was ousted earlier in October.

Scott had this to say in reference to his bid for speaker:

“I have filed to be the Speaker of the House. We are in Washington to legislate, and I want to lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people,”

Scott represents several counties in the 41NBC coverage area in Middle Georgia and parts of South Georgia.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans chose Rep. Jim Jordan as their new nominee for House speaker on Friday during internal voting, putting the gavel within reach of the staunch ally of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

Jordan, of Ohio, will now try to unite colleagues from the deeply divided House GOP majority around his bid ahead of a floor vote, which could push to next week.

Frustrated House Republicans have been fighting bitterly over whom they should elect to replace the speaker they ousted, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, and the future direction of their party. The stalemate, now in its second week, has thrown the House into chaos, grinding all other business to a halt.

“I think Jordan would do a great job,” McCarthy said ahead of the vote. “We got to get this back on track.”

Attention swiftly turned to Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman and founder of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, as the next potential candidate after Majority Leader Steve Scalise abruptly ended his bid when it became clear holdouts would refuse to back him.

But not all Republicans want to see Jordan as speaker, second in line to the presidency. Overwhelmed and exhausted, anxious GOP lawmakers worry their House majority is being frittered away to countless rounds of infighting and some don’t want to reward Jordan’s wing, which sparked the turmoil.

“If we’re going to be the majority party, we have to act like the majority party,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., who posed a last-ditch challenge to Jordan.

While the firebrand Jordan has a long list of detractors who started making their opposition known, Jordan’s supporters said voting against the Trump ally during a public vote on the House floor would be tougher since he is so popular and well known among more conservative GOP voters.

Heading into a morning meeting, Jordan said, “I feel real good.”

Other potential speaker choices were also being floated. Some Republicans proposed simply giving Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who was appointed interim speaker pro tempore, greater authority to lead the House for some time.

The House, without a speaker, is essentially unable to function during a time of turmoil in the U.S. and wars overseas. The political pressure increasingly is on Republicans to reverse course, reassert majority control and govern in Congress.

With the House narrowly split 221-212, with two vacancies, any nominee can lose just a few Republicans before they fail to reach the 217 majority needed in the face of opposition from Democrats, who will most certainly back their own leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

Absences heading into the weekend could lower the majority threshold needed, and Republicans said they were down about a dozen lawmakers as of midday Friday. No floor votes were scheduled as attendance thinned before the weekend.

In announcing his decision to withdraw from the nomination, Scalise said late Thursday the Republican majority still has to come together and “open up the House again. But clearly not everybody is there.”

Asked if he would throw his support behind Jordan, Scalise said, “It’s got to be people that aren’t doing it for themselves and their own personal interest.”

But Jordan’s allies swung into high gear at a chance for the hard-right leader to seize the gavel.

“Make him the speaker. Do it tonight,” said Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind. “He’s the only one who can unite our party.”

Jordan also received an important nod Friday from the Republican party’s campaign chairman, Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who made an attempt to unify the fighting factions.

“Removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy was a mistake,” Hudson wrote on social media, saying the party found itself at a crossroads also blocking Scalise. “We must unite around one leader.”

Earlier in the week, Jordan had nominally dropped out of the race he initially lost to Scalise, 113-99, during internal balloting.

Scalise had been laboring to peel off more than 100 votes, mostly from those who backed Jordan. But many hard-liners taking their cues from Trump have dug in for a prolonged fight to replace McCarthy after his historic ouster from the job.

The holdouts argued that as majority leader, Scalise was no better choice, that he should be focusing on his health as he battles cancer and that he was not the leader they would support.

Handfuls of Republicans announced they were sticking with Jordan, McCarthy or someone other than Scalise — including Trump, the former president. The position as House speaker does not need to go to a member of Congress.

Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, repeatedly discussed Scalise’s health during a radio interview that aired Thursday.

Scalise has been diagnosed with a form of blood cancer known as multiple myeloma and is being treated, but he has also said he was definitely up for the speaker’s job.

On Friday, another California Republican, Rep. Tom McClintock, had introduced a motion to reinstate McCarthy during the morning meeting, but it was shelved.

“I just told them, no, let’s not do that,” McCarthy said afterward. “Let’s walk through this and have an election.”

The situation is not fully different from the start of the year, when McCarthy faced a similar backlash from a different group of far-right holdouts who ultimately gave their votes to elect him speaker, then engineered his historic downfall.

But the math this time is even more daunting, and the problematic political dynamic is only worsening.

Exasperated Democrats, who have been waiting for the Republican majority to recover from McCarthy’s ouster, urged them to figure it out.

“The House Democrats have continued to make clear that we are ready, willing and able to find a bipartisan path forward,” Jeffries said, including doing away with the rule that allows a single lawmaker to force a vote against the speaker. “But we need traditional Republicans to break from the extremists and partner with us.”

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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves and Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans on Wednesday nominated Rep. Steve Scalise to be the next House speaker and will now try to unite around the conservative in a floor vote to elect him after ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the post.

In private balloting at the Capitol, House Republicans pushed aside Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman, in favor of Scalise, the current majority leader, lawmakers said. The Louisiana lawmaker is seen as a hero to some after surviving a mass shooting on lawmakers at a congressional baseball game practice few years ago.

Republicans who have been stalemated after McCarthy’s removal will seek to assemble their narrow House majority around Scalise in what is certain to be a close vote of the full House. Democrats are set to oppose the Republican nominee.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is meeting behind closed doors Wednesday to try to choose a new leader, but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.

The two leading contenders, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. McCarthy, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told fellow GOP lawmakers not to nominate him this time.

“I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, referring to the majority vote typically needed in the 435-member House to become speaker. “It could be a long week.”

It’s an extraordinary moment of political chaos that has brought the House to a standstill at a time of uncertainty at home and crisis abroad, just 10 months after Republicans swept to power. Aspiring to operate as a team and run government more like a business, the GOP majority has drifted far from that goal with the unprecedented ouster of a speaker.

Americans are watching. One-quarter of Republicans say they approve of the decision by a small group of Republicans to remove McCarthy as speaker. Three in 10 Republicans believe it was a mistake, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The hard-right coalition of lawmakers that ousted McCarthy, R-Calif., has shown what an oversize role a few lawmakers can have in choosing his successor.

“I am not thrilled with either choice right now,” said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who voted to oust McCarthy.

Both Scalise and Jordan are working furiously to shore up support. Both are easily winning over dozens of supporters and could win a majority of the 221 Republicans.

But it’s unclear whether either Scalise or Jordan can amass the votes that would be needed from almost all Republicans to overcome opposition from Democrats during a floor vote in the narrowly split House. Usually, the majority needed would be 218 votes, but there are currently two vacant seats, dropping the threshold to 217.

Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker.

“People are not comfortable going to the floor with a simple majority and then having C-SPAN and the rest of the world watch as we have this fight,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. “We want to have this family fight behind closed doors.”

Some have proposed a rules change that Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the interim speaker pro tempore, is considering to ensure a majority vote before the nominee is presented for a full floor vote.

McCarthy himself appeared to agree with a consensus approach. “They shouldn’t come out of there until they decide that they have enough votes for whoever they bring to the floor,” McCarthy said.

But short of a rules change, Republican lawmakers would be expected to agree to a majority-wins process – whichever candidate wins the internal private vote would be given the full backing of the Republicans on the floor.

It’s no guarantee. Scalise and Jordan indicated they would support the eventual nominee, lawmakers said. But many lawmakers remained undecided.

While both are conservatives from the right flank, neither Scalise nor Jordan is the heir apparent to McCarthy, who was removed in a push by the far-right flank after the speaker led Congress to approve legislation that averted a government shutdown.

Scalise, as the second-ranking Republican, would be next in line for speaker and is seen as a hero among colleagues for having survived severe injuries from a mass shooting during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. He is now battling blood cancer.

“We’re going to go get this done,” Scalise said as he left a candidate forum Tuesday night. “The House is going to get back to work.”

Jordan is a high-profile political firebrand known for his close alliance with Donald Trump, particularly when the then-president was working to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump has backed Jordan’s bid for the gavel.

Scalise and Jordan presented similar views at the forum about cutting spending and securing the southern border with Mexico, top Republican priorities.

Several lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, said they would be willing to support either Scalise or Jordan.

Others though, particularly more centrist conservative Republicans from districts that are narrowly split between the parties, are holding out for another choice.

“Personally, I’m still with McCarthy,” said Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who represents a California district not far from McCarthy’s.

“We’ll see how that plays out, but I do know a large percentage of the membership wants to be there with him as well.”

“I think it’s important whoever takes that job is willing to risk the job for doing what’s right for the American public,” McCarthy said.

For now, McHenry is effectively in charge. He has shown little interest in expanding his power beyond the role he was assigned – an interim leader tasked with ensuring the election of the next speaker.

The role was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure the continuity of government. McHenry’s name was at the top of a list submitted by McCarthy when he became speaker in January.

While some Republicans, and Democrats are open to empowering McHenry the longer he holds the temporary position, that seems unlikely as the speaker’s fight drags on.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of the job Tuesday in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history, The 216-210 vote, forced by a contingent of hard-right conservatives, throws the House and its Republican leadership into chaos.

McCarthy’s chief rival, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, brought forward the “motion to vacate” drawing together more than a handful of conservative Republican critics of the speaker and many Democrats who say he is unworthy of leadership.

Next steps are uncertain, but there is no obvious successor to lead the House Republican majority.

ATLANTA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will not seek to get his Georgia election interference case transferred to federal court, his attorneys said in a filing Thursday, three weeks after a judge rejected a similar attempt by the former president’s White House chief of staff.

The notice filed in federal court in Atlanta follows a Sept. 8 decision from U.S. District Judge Steve Jones that chief of staff Mark Meadows “has not met even the ‘quite low’ threshold” to move his case to federal court, saying the actions outlined in the indictment were not taken as part of Meadows’ role as a federal official. Meadows is appealing that ruling.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including an alleged violation of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law, over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He was indicted last month along with Meadows and 17 others.

The notice, filed in state court in Atlanta by Trump’s defense attorney, expressed confidence in how Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will handle the trial, but may have also reflected the difficulties that other defendants have had in trying to move their cases to federal court.

“President Trump now notifies the court that he will NOT be seeking to remove his case to federal court,” the notice states. “This decision is based on his well-founded confidence that this honorable court intends to fully and completely protect his constitutional right to a fair trial and guarantee him due process of law throughout the prosecution of his case in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia.”

If Trump had gotten his case moved to federal court, he could have tried to get the charges dismissed altogether on the grounds that federal officials have immunity from prosecution over actions taken as part of their official job duties.

Trump, though, is still making arguments in the state court case that he can’t be prosecuted because of his federal position. On Thursday, his lawyer filed a motion saying in part that Trump is immune from state prosecution for all the acts he took while president, and that Georgia’s prosecution violates the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says federal law overrides state law.

A venue change also could have broadened the jury pool beyond overwhelmingly Democratic Fulton County and meant that a trial that would not be photographed or televised, as cameras are not allowed inside federal courtrooms. A venue change would not have meant that Trump — if he’s reelected in 2024 — or another president would have been able to issue a pardon because any conviction would still happen under state law.

Several other defendants — three fake electors and former U.S. Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark — are also seeking to move their cases to federal court. Jones has not yet ruled on those cases.

Meadows testified as part of his bid to remove his case, although the others did not. Trump would not have been required to testify at his own hearing, but removal might have been difficult to win if he didn’t take the stand. That would have given prosecutors a chance to question him under cross-examination, and anything he said could have be used in an eventual trial.

Meadows had asked for the charges to be dismissed, saying the Constitution made him immune from prosecution for actions taken in his official duties as White House chief of staff.

The judge ruled that the actions at the heart of prosecutors’ charges against Meadows were taken on behalf of the Trump campaign “with an ultimate goal of affecting state election activities and procedures.”

Trump, who is facing three other criminal cases, has so far been been unsuccessful in seeking to have a state case in New York, alleging falsified business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn actor, transferred to federal court. He asked a federal appeals court to reverse a judge’s opinion keeping the case in state court.

Feinstein died on Thursday night at her home in Washington, D.C., her office said on Friday. Opening the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that “earlier this morning, we lost a giant in the Senate.”

“Dianne Feinstein was one of the most amazing people who ever graced the Senate, who ever graced the country,” Schumer said, his voice cracking. “As the nation mourns this tremendous loss, we know how many lives she impacted and how many glass ceilings she shattered along the way.”

President Joe Biden, who served with Feinstein for years in the Senate, called her “a pioneering American,” a “true trailblazer” and a “cherished friend.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint a temporary replacement, and there is sure to be a spirited battle to succeed her.

Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, was a passionate advocate for liberal priorities important to her state — including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control — but was also known as a pragmatic lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.

Her death came after a bout of shingles sidelined her for more than two months earlier this year – an absence that drew frustration from her most liberal critics and launched an unsuccessful attempt by Democrats to temporarily replace her on the Senate Judiciary Committee. When she returned to the Senate in May, she was frail and using a wheelchair, voting only occasionally.

On Friday morning, her Senate desk was draped in black and topped with a vase of white roses. Senators gave tearful tributes as members of the California House delegation stood in the back of the chamber and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat in the gallery with Feinstein’s daughter, Katherine.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell was one of several Republicans who gave tributes to the Democratic icon, calling her his friend. “Dianne was a trailblazer, and her beloved home state of California and our entire nation are better for her dogged advocacy and diligent service,” McConnell said.

Biden said in a statement, “Dianne made her mark on everything from national security to the environment to protecting civil liberties. “Our country will benefit from her legacy for generations.”

Former president Barack Obama also saluted her as “a trailblazer,” and former President Bill Clinton called her a champion “of civil rights and civil liberties, environmental protection and strong national security.”

She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and became its first female board president in 1978, the year Mayor George Moscone was gunned down alongside Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former supervisor. Feinstein found Milk’s body.

After Moscone’s death, Feinstein became San Francisco’s first female mayor. In the Senate, she was one of California’s first two female senators, the first woman to head the Senate Intelligence Committee and the first woman to serve as the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat.

Although Feinstein was not always embraced by the feminist movement, her experiences colored her outlook through her five decades in politics.

“I recognize that women have had to fight for everything they have gotten, every right,” she told The Associated Press in 2005, as the Judiciary Committee prepared to hold hearings on President George W. Bush’s nomination of John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court.

“So I must tell you, I try to look out for women’s rights. I also try to solve problems as I perceive them, with legislation, and reaching out where I can, and working across the aisle,” she said.

Feinstein’s bipartisan efforts helped her notch legislative wins throughout her career. But it also proved to be a liability in her later years in Congress, as her state became more liberal and as the Senate and the electorate became increasingly polarized.

A fierce debater who did not suffer fools, the California senator was long known for her verbal zingers and sharp comebacks when challenged on the issues about which she was most fervent. But she lost that edge in her later years in the Senate, as her health visibly declined and she sometimes became confused when answering questions or speaking publicly. In February 2023, she said she would not run for a sixth term the next year. And within weeks of that announcement, she was absent for the Senate for more than two months as she recovered from a bout of shingles.

Amid the concerns about her health, Feinstein stepped down as the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel after the 2020 elections, just as her party was about to take the majority. In 2023, she said she would not serve as the Senate president pro tempore, or the most senior member of the majority party, even though she was in line to do so. The president pro tempore opens the Senate every day and holds other ceremonial duties.

One of Feinstein’s most significant legislative accomplishments was early in her career, when the Senate approved her amendment to ban manufacturing and sales of certain types of assault weapons as part of a crime bill that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994. Though the assault weapons ban expired 10 years later and was never renewed or replaced, it was a poignant win after her career had been significantly shaped by gun violence.

Feinstein remembered finding Milk’s body, her finger slipping into a bullet hole as she felt for a pulse. It was a story she would retell often in the years ahead as she pushed for stricter gun control measures.

She had little patience for Republicans and others who opposed her on that issue, though she was often challenged. In 1993, during debate on the assault weapons ban, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, accused her of having an insufficient knowledge of guns and the gun control issue.

Feinstein spoke fiercely of the violence she’d lived through in San Francisco and retorted: ”Senator, I know something about what firearms can do.”

Two decades later, after 20 children and six educators were killed in a horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, first-term Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas similarly challenged Feinstein during debate on legislation that would have permanently banned the weapons.

“I’m not a sixth grader,” Feinstein snapped back at the much younger Cruz – a moment that later went viral. She added: “It’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I’ve been here a long time.”

Feinstein became mayor of San Francisco after the 1978 slayings of Moscone and Milk, leading the city during one of the most turbulent periods in its history. Even her critics credited Feinstein with a calming influence, and she won reelection on her own to two four-year terms.

With her success and growing recognition statewide came visibility on the national political stage.

In 1984, Feinstein was viewed as a vice presidential possibility for Walter Mondale but faced questions about the business dealings of her husband, Richard Blum. In 1990, she used news footage of her announcement of the assassinations of Moscone and Milk in a television ad that helped her win the Democratic nomination for California governor, making her the first female major-party gubernatorial nominee in the state’s history.

Although she narrowly lost the general election to Republican Pete Wilson, the stage was set for her election to the Senate two years later to fill the Senate seat Wilson had vacated to run for governor.

Feinstein campaigned jointly with Barbara Boxer, who was running for the state’s other U.S. Senate seat, and both won, benefiting from positive news coverage and excitement over their historic race. California had never had a female U.S. senator, and female candidates and voters had been galvanized by the Supreme Court hearings in which the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Anita Hill about her sexual harassment allegations against nominee Clarence Thomas.

Feinstein was appointed to the Judiciary panel and eventually the Senate Intelligence Committee, becoming the chairperson in 2009. She was the first woman to lead the intelligence panel, a high-profile perch that gave her a central oversight role over U.S. intelligence controversies, setbacks and triumphs, from the killing of Osama bin Laden to leaks about National Security Agency surveillance.

Under Feinstein’s leadership, the intelligence committee conducted a wide-ranging, five-year investigation into CIA interrogation techniques during President George W. Bush’s administration, including waterboarding of terrorism suspects at secret overseas prisons. The resulting 6,300-page “torture report” concluded among other things that waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” did not provide key evidence in the hunt for bin Laden. A 525-page executive summary was released in late 2014, but the rest of the report has remained classified.

The Senate investigation was full of intrigue at the time, including documents that mysteriously disappeared and accusations traded between the Senate and the CIA that the other was stealing information. The drama was captured in a 2019 movie about the investigation called “The Report,” and actor Annette Bening was nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Feinstein.

In the years since, Feinstein has continued to push aggressively for eventual declassification of the report.

“It’s my very strong belief that one day this report should be declassified,” Feinstein said. “This must be a lesson learned: that torture doesn’t work.”

Feinstein sometimes frustrated liberals by adopting moderate or hawkish positions that put her at odds with the left wing of the Democratic Party, as well as with the more liberal Boxer, who retired from the Senate in 2017. Feinstein defended the Obama administration’s expansive collection of Americans’ phone and email records as necessary for protecting the country, for example, even as other Democratic senators voiced protests. “It’s called protecting America,” Feinstein said then.

That tension escalated during Donald Trump’s presidency, when many Democrats had little appetite for compromise. Feinstein became the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel in 2016 and led her party’s messaging through three Supreme Court nominations — a role that angered liberal advocacy groups that wanted to see a more aggressive partisan in charge.

Feinstein closed out confirmation hearings for Justice Amy Coney Barrett with an embrace of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and a public thanks to him for a job well done. “This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” Feinstein said at the end of the hearing.

Liberal advocacy groups that had fiercely opposed Barrett’s nomination to replace the late liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg were furious and called for her to step down from the committee leadership.

A month later, Feinstein announced she would remain on the committee but step down as the top Democrat. The senator, then 87 years old, did not say why. In a statement, she said she would “continue to do my utmost to bring about positive change in the coming years.”

Feinstein was born on June 22, 1933. Her father, Leon Goldman, was a prominent surgeon and medical school professor in San Francisco, but her mother was an abusive woman with a violent temper that was often directed at Feinstein and her two younger sisters.

Feinstein graduated from Stanford University in 1955, with a bachelor’s degree in history. She married young and was a divorced single mother of her daughter, Katherine, in 1960, at a time when such a status was still unusual.

In 1961, Feinstein was appointed by then-Gov. Pat Brown to the women’s parole board, on which she served before running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Typical of the era, much of the early coverage of her entrance into public life focused on her appearance rather than her experience and education.

Feinstein’s second husband, Bert Feinstein, was 19 years older than she, but she described the marriage as “a 10” and kept his name even after his death from cancer in 1978. In 1980, she married investment banker Richard Blum, and thanks to his wealth, she was one of the richest members of the Senate. He died in February 2022.

In addition to her daughter, Feinstein has a granddaughter, Eileen, and three stepchildren.

___

Blood reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Las Vegas police have arrested a man in the deadly 1996 drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur, a long-awaited break in a case that has frustrated investigators and fascinated the public ever since the hip-hop icon was gunned down on the Las Vegas Strip 27 years ago.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis was arrested early Friday morning, although the exact charge or charges were not immediately clear, according to two officials with first-hand knowledge of the arrest. They were not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an expected indictment later Friday.

Davis has long been known to investigators and has himself admitted in interviews and in his 2019 tell-all memoir, “Compton Street Legend,” that he was in the Cadillac where the gunfire erupted during the September 1996 drive-by shooting. Shakur was 25 when he was gunned down.

The arrest comes more than two months after Las Vegas police raided his wife’s home July 17 in neighboring Henderson. Documents said police were looking for items “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.”

Police reported collecting multiple computers, a cellphone and hard drive, a Vibe magazine that featured Shakur, several .40-caliber bullets, two “tubs containing photographs” and a copy of Davis’ memoir.

In the book, Davis said he broke his silence over Tupac’s killing in 2010 during a closed-door meeting with federal and local authorities. At the time, he was 46 and facing life in prison on drug charges when he agreed to speak with the authorities.

“They promised they would shred the indictment and stop the grand jury if I helped them out,” he wrote.

He has described himself as one of the last living witnesses to the shooting.

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996. Shakur was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight in a convoy of about 10 cars. They were waiting at a red light when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted.

Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later.

In 2018, after a cancer diagnosis, Davis admitted publicly in an interview for a BET show to being inside the Cadillac during the attack. He implicated his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, saying he was one of two people in the back seat where the shots were fired.

The shooting happened shortly after a casino brawl earlier in the evening involving Anderson, Shakur and others.

Anderson denied any involvement in the Shakur shooting. He died two years later in a shooting in Compton, California.

Shakur’s death came as his fourth solo album, “All Eyez on Me,” remained on the charts, with some 5 million copies sold. Nominated six times for a Grammy Award, Shakur is largely considered one of the most influential and versatile rappers of all time.

Shakur was feuding at the time with rap rival Biggie Smalls, also known as the Notorious B.I.G., who was fatally shot in March 1997. At the time, both rappers were in the middle of an East Coast-West Coast rivalry that primarily defined the hip-hop scene during the mid-1990s.

Greg Kading, a retired Los Angeles police detective who spent years investigating the Shakur killing and wrote a book about it, said he would not be surprised by Davis’s indictment and arrest.

“It’s so long overdue,” Kading told The Associated Press during a recent interview. “People have been yearning for him to be arrested for a long time. It’s never been unsolved in our minds. It’s been unprosecuted.”

Kading said he interviewed Davis in 2008 and 2009, during Los Angeles police investigations of the killings of Shakur in Las Vegas and the slaying of Biggie Smalls.

Kading said also that he talked with a Las Vegas police detective about the case, including after the SWAT raid in July at the home in Henderson.

The former Los Angeles police detective said he believed the investigation gained new momentum in recent years following Davis’s public descriptions of his role in the killing, including his 2019 memoir.

“It’s those events that have given Las Vegas the ammunition and the leverage to move forward,” Kading said. “Prior to Keffe D’s public declarations, the cases were unprosecutable as they stood.”

“He put himself squarely in the middle of the conspiracy,” Kading said of Davis and the Shakur slaying. “He had acquired the gun, he had given the gun to the shooter and he had been present in the vehicle when they hunted down and located both Tupac and Suge (Knight).”

Kading noted that Davis is the last living person among the four people who were in the vehicle from which shots were fired at Shakur and Knight. Others were Anderson, Davis’s nephew; Terrence “Bubble Up” Brown and DeAndre “Freaky” Smith.

“It’s a concerted effort of conspirators,” Kading said, adding that he believed that because the killing was premeditated Davis could face a first-degree murder charge.

“All the other direct conspirators or participants are all dead,” Kading said. “Keffe D is the last man standing among the individuals that conspired to kill Tupac.”

(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was indicted Thursday on federal firearms charges, the latest and weightiest step yet in a long-running investigation into the president’s son.

Biden is accused of lying about his drug use when he bought a firearm in October 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction to crack cocaine, according to the indictment filed in federal court in Delaware.

President Joe Biden’s son has also been under investigation for his business dealings. The special counsel overseeing the case has indicated that charges of failure to pay taxes on time could be filed in Washington or in California, where he lives.

The indictment comes as congressional Republicans pursue an impeachment inquiry into the Democratic president, in large part over Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Republicans have obtained testimony about how Hunter Biden used the “Biden brand” to drum up work overseas, but they have not produced hard evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

A gun possession charge against Hunter Biden, 53, had previously been part of a plea deal that also included guilty pleas to misdemeanor tax charges, but the agreement imploded during a court hearing in July when a judge raised questions about its unusual provisions.

Defense attorneys have argued that a part of the deal sparing Hunter Biden prosecution on the gun count if he stays out of trouble remains in place. It includes immunity provisions against other potential charges. Attorneys indicated they would fight additional charges filed against him.

Prosecutors, though, maintain the agreement never took effect and is now invalid.

Republicans had denounced the plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal.” It would have allowed Hunter Biden to serve probation rather than jail time after pleading guilty to failing to pay taxes in both 2017 and 2018.

His personal income during those two years totaled roughly $4 million, including business and consulting fees from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, prosecutors have said.

Congressional Republicans have continued their own investigations into the Justice Department’s handling of the case as well as nearly every aspect of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, seeking to connect his financial affairs directly to his father. They have failed to produce evidence that the president directly participated in his son’s work, though he sometimes had dinner with his son’s clients or said hello to them on calls.

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia judge ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump and 16 others will be tried separately from two defendants who are set to go to trial next month in the case accusing them of participating in an illegal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro had filed demands for a speedy trial, and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set their trial to begin Oct. 23. Trump and other defendants had asked to be tried separately from Powell and Chesebro, with some saying they could not be ready by the late October trial date.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis last month obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others charging them under the state’s anti-racketeering law. Willis had been pushing to try all 19 defendants together, arguing that it would be more efficient and more fair.

Chesebro and Powell had sought to be tried separately from each other, but the judge also denied request.

Pennsylvania (CNN) — The manhunt for Danelo Cavalcante, the convicted murderer who escaped from prison in Pennsylvania nearly two weeks ago, has ended.

He was captured Wednesday morning in Chester county, Pennsylvania– about 20 miles north of the prison he escaped from. A law enforcement source says he was found lying down in the grass, sleeping on top of a rifle.

Pennsylvania State Department of corrections says Cavalcante will stay with state police to be “medically assessed” before going to a state correctional facility. Cavalcante had been on the run since august 31st evading hundreds of officers for days. There had been multiple sightings of him, but Cavalcante was able to slip through police search perimeters, steal a van, change his appearance and steal a firearm.

Cavalcante was convicted last month of first-degree murder for killing his former girlfriend.

More than 230,000 customers were without electricity as trees snapped by strong winds brought down power lines and rushing water covered streets. Along the coast, some homes were submerged to near their rooftops and structures crumpled. As the eye moved inland, destructive winds shredded signs and sent sheet metal flying.

“We have multiple trees down, debris in the roads, do not come,” posted the fire and rescue department in Cedar Key, where a tide gauge measured the storm surge at 6.8 feet (2 meters), submerging most of hte downtown.

Idalia came ashore in the lightly populated Big Bend region, where the Florida Panhandle curves into the peninsula. It made landfall near Keaton Beach at 7:45 a.m. as a high-end Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph (205 kph). More than an hour later, it remained a Category 2 hurricane with top winds of 110 mph (175 mph), and it was expected to remain a hurricane while crossing Florida and Georgia before punishing the Carolinas as a tropical storm.

The hurricane turned streets into rivers in Tampa and swamped the Florida Capital, where power went out well before the center of the storm arrived. Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey urged everyone to shelter in place — it was too late to risk going outside. Florida residents living in vulnerable coastal areas had been ordered to pack up and leave as Idalia gained strength in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

“Don’t put your life at risk by doing anything dumb at this point,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Wednesday morning. “This thing’s powerful. If you’re inside, just hunker down until it gets past you.”

Storm surge could rise as high as 16 feet (4.9 meters) in some places.

“For those who have chosen to remain on the beaches despite the mandatory evacuation order, please restrict your water and toilet usage,” the city of Clearwater posted. “Due to flooding, the city’s lift stations and stormwater system are under strain.”

Diane Flowers was sound asleep at 1 a.m. Wednesday in her Wakulla County home, but her husband was up watching the weather on TV, and got a text from their son when the storm was upgraded to a Category 4. He’s a firefighter/EMT in Franklin County, which is also along the Gulf Coast.

“He said, ‘You guys need to leave,’” Flowers said. “And he’s not one for overreacting, so when he told us to leave, we just packed our stuff, got in our car and got going.”

They quickly packed a few clothes, medicine, dog food for their two border collies, a computer, important documents and a bag of Cheetos. Motels were packed all the way into Alabama, where they ended up finding a room in Dothan.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee called Idalia “an unprecedented event” since no major hurricanes on record have ever passed through the bay abutting the Big Bend. The state, still dealing with lingering damage from last year’s Hurricane Ian, feared disastrous results.

But not everyone heeded the warnings.

Andy Bair, owner of the Island Hotel on Cedar Key, said he intended to “babysit” his bed-and-breakfast, which predates the Civil War. The building has not flooded in the almost 20 years he has owned it, not even when Hurricane Hermine flooded the city in 2016.

“Being a caretaker of the oldest building in Cedar Key, I just feel kind of like I need to be here,” Bair said. “We’ve proven time and again that we’re not going to wash away. We may be a little uncomfortable for a couple of days, but we’ll be OK eventually.”

Idalia had grown into a Category 2 system on Tuesday afternoon and became a Category 3 just hours earlier Wednesday before strengthening to a Category 4 and then weakening slightly to a high-end Category 3.

Hurricanes are measured on a five category scale, with a Category 5 being the strongest. A Category 3 storm is the first on the scale considered a major hurricane and the National Hurricane Center says a Category 4 storm brings “catastrophic damage.”

Tolls were waived on highways out of the danger area and shelters were opened. More than 30,000 utility workers were gathering to make repairs as quickly as possible in the hurricane’s wake. About 5,500 National Guard troops were activated.

In Tarpon Springs, on the coast northwest of Tampa, 60 patients were evacuated from a hospital after warnings of a potential 7-foot (2.1-meter) storm surge there.

Both Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced states of emergency, freeing up state resources and personnel, including hundreds of National Guard troops.

“We’ll be prepared to the best of our abilities,” said Russell Guess, who was topping off the gas tank on his truck in Valdosta, Georgia. His co-workers at Cunningham Tree Service were doing the same. “There will be trees on people’s house, trees across power lines.”

Asked about the hurricane Tuesday, President Joe Biden said he had spoken to DeSantis and “provided him with everything that he possibly needs.”

Ian was responsible last year for almost 150 deaths. That Category 5 hurricane damaged 52,000 structures, nearly 20,000 of which were destroyed or severely damaged.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently said the 2023 hurricane season would be far busier than initially forecast, partly because of extremely warm ocean temperatures. The season runs through Nov. 30, with August and September typically the peak.

___

Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida; Mike Schneider in St. Louis, Missouri; Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Curt Anderson in Orlando, Florida; Chris O’Meara in Clearwater, Florida; Cristiana Mesquita in Havana; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Tara Copp in Washington; and Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — He’ll be missing from the stage, but Donald Trump will still be a central figure at the first Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday night as the remaining candidates hoping to take on President Joe Biden confront each other in person for the first time.

The eight contenders who are scheduled to attend the Milwaukee debate hosted by Fox News will likely face pressure to articulate how they would differ in style and substance from Trump, who holds a commanding early lead in the race. That could be a delicate task, forcing candidates to decide how closely to align themselves with the former president’s most outlandish positions, including his lies about widespread fraud during the 2020 election.

With less than five months until the Iowa caucuses jumpstart the GOP presidential nomination process, the debate is a critical opportunity for lower-polling candidates to introduce themselves to millions of voters, many of whom are just beginning to pay attention to the race. The pressure is perhaps greatest for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who announced his campaign in May to great fanfare but has since struggled to gain traction and is now fighting to maintain his distant second-place status.

“It’s really important for the whole crowd and an opportunity for them to connect,” said former Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who passed on a run of his own. But the stakes, he said, are highest for DeSantis.

“It’s really do or die for him, make or break. Finally time to show that he’s a capable candidate. And if he doesn’t,” he added, “I think this could be the end.”

Beyond DeSantis, the debate will include South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum also made the cut but hurt his Achilles tendon playing basketball with members of his campaign staff on Tuesday and was taken to the emergency room. Burgum plans to have a walk-through of the debate stage on his injured leg on Wednesday and then assess with his campaign if he can do the debate.

The primetime event will unfold at a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party.

Trump is now the prohibitive early front-runner in the race, raising serious questions about whether the party will have much of a competitive primary. Yet Trump’s vulnerabilities in a general election are clear, particularly after four criminal indictments that charge him with hoarding classified documents, conspiring to overturn the 2020 election and making hush money payments to a porn actor and other women.

The debate will take place a day before Trump is set to travel to Georgia to again be booked on criminal charges.

Yet Trump’s standing in the primary has only increased as the charges have mounted, leaving the GOP on track — barring a stunning realignment — to nominate a candidate who would enter the race against Biden, a Democrat, in a potentially weak position. Polling this month from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 64% of Americans are unlikely to support Trump if he is the GOP nominee, including 53% who say they would definitely not support him and 11% who say they would probably not support him in November 2024.

At Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee, metal barricades were in place outside the arena that is home to the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team as candidates, campaign staff and members of the media gathered. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and local officials planned an event to showcase local businesses ahead of next summer’s convention, which will also be held in the city in a sign of the state’s premier battleground status. Democrats were planning to hold rival events and hired a plane to fly around Milwaukee with a banner reading: “GOP 2024: A Race for the Extreme MAGA Base.”

The RNC had set polling and donor thresholds and required participants to sign a loyalty pledge in order to qualify for the debate, which will be moderated by Fox’s Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

Trump had long said he felt it would be foolish to participate, given his dominant lead in the race.

His decision to boycott is nonetheless a blow to the network, which had wooed him privately and publicly on air to appear. Instead, Trump has pre-recorded an interview with ex-Fox host Tucker Carlson that is expected to be broadcast on the platform formerly known as Twitter as the debate takes place.

Even in his absence, Trump’s presence is expected to be felt at the debate. MacCallum has made clear she will press his rivals to respond to Trump’s indictments, telling Vanity Fair that, “It will absolutely be incumbent upon them to address” them.

In a statement, Trump senior campaign advisor Chris LaCivita declared that Trump had “already won this evening’s debate because everything is going to be about him.”

“In fact, tonight’s Republican undercard event really shouldn’t even be called a debate, but rather an audition to be a part of President Trump’s team in his second term,” he quipped.

So far, the candidates have been reticent to take Trump on directly, given his broad support from the GOP base, and one key question will be how aggressively his rivals take him on.

In his absence, DeSantis’ campaign is preparing for the Florida governor to be the debate’s top target as the front-runner on stage.

In a memo sent to donors and supporters over the weekend, DeSantis campaign manager James Uthmeier said they “are fully prepared for Governor DeSantis to be the center of attacks” because, he said, “this is a two-man race for the Republican nomination between Governor DeSantis and Donald Trump.”

Uthmeier said DeSantis would try to remain above the fray, and that his “objective in this debate will be to lay out his vision to beat Joe Biden, reverse American decline, and revive the American Dream.”

Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor and DeSantis supporter, said DeSantis will have to be prepared to fend off attacks from the rest of the field, but “should focus on policy and what he’s going to do for voters — and not let the debate be all about the one candidate who is not on the stage.”

“The stakes,” he added, “are huge for Gov. DeSantis. He will be the front-runner on the stage and everyone has to go through him to eventually take on Trump.”

Also expected to be a target for criticism is Ramaswamy, who has been gaining ground in some polls. Never Back Down, the Super PAC supporting DeSantis, had advised the candidate to defend Trump and instead “Take a sledge-hammer” to Ramaswamy, who recently suggested the federal government might have been involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is among the long list of Trump supporters who traveled to Milwaukee to back him in his absence, called Wednesday’s debate “a waste of time” given Trump’s lead in polls.

“It’s pointless,” she said. “He’s over 40 points ahead … I believe the primaries are over. … We’re just watching people try out for the cabinet.”

Most of the field has been reluctant to attack Trump on the campaign trail so far. But some, including Hutchinson, have been vocal in their opposition. Pence has criticized Trump over his efforts to overturn the election, while Christie has positioned himself as the field’s most anti-Trump candidate and called the former president a “coward” for refusing to participate in the debate.

Christie, who in earlier campaigns had helped Trump prepare for his debates by playing the role of Trump’s opponents, offered a preview of punches he may land as he campaigned in Atlanta over the weekend.

“When are we going to allow our country to understand again that nominating someone who’s out on bail in four jurisdictions is not a winning formula?” he asked.

Democrats meanwhile, dismissed the field as extreme and divisive, even without Trump on stage.

“The truth is, it doesn’t matter who wins the debate,” said Biden-Harris Campaign Co-Chair Rep. Cedric Richmond in a call with reporters. “They’re all playing out of the same playbook, and they’re all espousing the same unpopular positions that Donald Trump led with and he continues to drag this party to the extreme.”

___ Colvin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Steve Peoples and Michelle Price in New York contributed to this report.

(AP) – The union representing 340,000 UPS workers said Tuesday that its members voted to approve the tentative contract agreement reached last month, putting a final seal on contentious labor negotiations that threatened to disrupt package deliveries for millions of businesses and households nationwide.

The Teamsters said in a statement that 86% of the votes casts were in favor of ratifying the contract. The union said said it was passed by the highest vote for a contract in the history of the Teamsters at UPS.

The union said all supplemental agreements were also ratified, expect for one which covers roughly 170 members in Florida.

“Our members just ratified the most lucrative agreement the Teamsters have ever negotiated at UPS. This contract will improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “Teamsters have set a new standard and raised the bar for pay, benefits, and working conditions in the package delivery industry. This is the template for how workers should be paid and protected nationwide, and nonunion companies like Amazon better pay attention.”

Voting on the new five-year contract began Aug. 3 and concluded Tuesday.

After negotiations broke down in early July, UPS reached a tentative contract agreement with the Teamsters just days before an Aug. 1 deadline.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Camp David, the rustic presidential retreat in the mountains of Maryland, has been a backdrop for signal moments in U.S. foreign policy, perhaps none more notable than the peace accord President Jimmy Carter brokered between Egypt and Israel in 1978.

On Friday, President Joe Biden will reach for his own place in Camp David lore, hoping that walks on leafy trails and necktie-free talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol will encourage the U.S. allies, who have been thawing their frosty relationship, to cooperate more given their shared concerns about aggression from China and North Korea.

It will be the first time that Biden has hosted world leaders at the secluded retreat nestled in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains, about an hour’s drive northwest of the White House.

Run by the Navy, guarded by Marines and less imposing than the White House, Camp David was a deliberate choice by a president who puts a premium on face-to-face interactions with his foreign counterparts, Biden aides said.

“One of the interesting things about Camp David is that it provides a less formal venue for presidents and their visitors to really get to know each other on a one-to-one basis,” said Sarah Fling, a historian at the White House Historical Association.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Margaret Thatcher, a successor to Churchill, are just a few of the storied world figures who have spent time at Camp David at the invitation of U.S. presidents.

President Barack Obama assembled leaders of the world’s largest economies for a Group of Eight summit in 2012, the biggest foreign contingent to ever gather there.

President Donald Trump tweeted in September 2019 that he had canceled a secret meeting planned for Camp David with Taliban and Afghanistan leaders after an American soldier was among those killed in a bombing in Kabul.

To produce the Camp David Accords, Carter sought an intimate location, a place away from the press where he thought Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin would be encouraged to talk to one another. Unlike at the White House, where journalists come and go, the news media are barred from Camp David, unless they are invited to cover an event, like Friday’s summit.

Three days were set aside for the talks, but the summit lasted nearly two weeks. The Camp David Accords were signed at the White House in March 1979.

Camp David was established in 1942 during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency and has been used by every president since.

Roosevelt had liked to relax on a presidential yacht, but the military and Secret Service started to worry about his safety on the open water during World War II. Roosevelt asked the National Park Service to identify sites within 100 miles of the White House that he could use for rest.

He chose what is now known as Camp David. He gave it the original name of Shangri-La, from James Hilton’s novel “Lost Horizon.” President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it Camp David, after his grandson and father.

Roosevelt also set the precedent for hosting foreign leaders at Camp David, inviting Churchill to the retreat twice. In 1943, they discussed the Normandy invasion; Roosevelt also took the prime minister along on a fishing trip.

Eisenhower hosted Khrushchev for two days in 1959, the first time a Soviet leader had come to the United States. They watched American Western movies, among other activities.

Bill Clinton hoped to replicate Carter’s feat by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to Camp David for a fresh round of Mideast peace talks in 2000. But after two weeks of talks, the summit ended without an agreement.

George W. Bush visited often, hosting an array of foreign leaders and spending Christmases with his family. Britain’s Tony Blair was first to visit the newly elected Bush there in 2001.

When reporters asked the president to describe something that he and Blair found they had in common, Bush quipped, “We both use Colgate toothpaste.”

“They’re gonna wonder how you know that, George,” Blair responded.

In addition to the G-8 summit, Obama hosted a group of Persian Gulf leaders in 2015.

But Camp David is more than just a place for presidents to hold sensitive diplomatic talks with foreign leaders or ponder issues of war and peace. Its primary function is as a place for presidents, and their families, to escape Washington, a place where they can be themselves and where they can rest, relax and recharge as much as a 24/7 president is allowed to.

The 180-acre (73-hectare) retreat has a cabin, named Aspen by first lady Mamie Eisenhower, that’s reserved for the president, plus about a dozen other cabins for guests. There’s a main lodge with conference rooms, a dining room and an office for the president.

Guests have a range of indoor and outdoor amenities at their disposal, including a fitness center, bowling alley, movie theater, heated swimming pool, and tennis and basketball courts. There’s also a chapel for religious services.

Carter liked to run on the trails. Ronald Reagan liked to ride horses and is the president who spent the most time at Camp David, said Fling, the historian.

“Reagan really enjoyed visiting Camp David,” she said. “He and first lady Nancy Reagan enjoyed just going and spending time together there as a couple.”

Susan Ford, President Gerald Ford’s daughter, once described it as a place where “you could go and have fun and be silly and not end up in the press.”

One presidential wedding has been held there. Bush’s sister, Dorothy, married her second husband, Robert Koch, at Camp David in 1992.

Biden goes to spend time with his family. He first visited in February 2021, weeks after taking office, and trounced one of his granddaughters as they played the Mario Kart video game, according to a post on Naomi Biden Neal’s social media accounts.

Biden has returned 27 times since, spending all or part of a total of 96 days, according to Mark Knoller, a former CBS News White House correspondent who keeps presidential statistics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against Donald Trump warned on Friday that there are limits on what the former president can publicly say about the investigation as he campaigns for a second term in the White House.

Presiding over her first hearing for the case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington heard arguments on how to structure a protective order that would prevent a public airing of all the evidence turned over by prosecutors. But she also used the forum to address the case’s unprecedented mix of legal and political concerns.

Chutkan stressed that political considerations wouldn’t guide her decisions. She also repeatedly said Trump was subject to the court’s rules as a defendant before trial even as he runs for the 2024 Republican nomination for president.

“Your client’s defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom, not on the internet,” Chutkan told Trump’s lawyers.

The judge said that the more anyone makes “inflammatory” statements about the case, the greater her urgency will be to move the case more quickly to trial to prevent the contamination of the jury pool. She noted that “arguably ambiguous statements” could be construed as intimidation or harassment of potential witnesses.

“I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of the case,” she said.

A prosecutor said the Justice Department was prepared to turn over an initial batch of more than 11 million pages of evidence to Trump’s lawyers.

Chutkan agreed with Trump’s defense team on a looser version of a protective order for evidence in the case, but she largely sided with the prosecution on what sensitive materials should be protected.

She rejected prosecutors’ broader protective order proposal that sought to prevent the public release of all evidence they hand over to Trump’s defense as they prepare for trial. She instead seemed poised to impose a more limited protective order that would bar the public release only of materials deemed “sensitive,” such as grand jury materials.

The government considers the vast majority of evidence in the case to be sensitive. The judge sided with the prosecution on what materials are considered sensitive and therefore protected under the order.

Thomas Windom, a top deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, argued that Trump needed to be supervised when he reviews case materials. In another sign of the unique circumstances facing the former president, Windom quipped about the indictment Trump faces in Florida after classified materials were discovered in his Mar-a-Lago residence.

“He has shown a tendency to hold on to material to which he should not,” Windom said.

When prosecutors proposed the protective order, it became an early flashpoint in the case. The prosecutors called the judge’s attention to a post on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, in which he said he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him.

They warned Trump could improperly share sensitive information online that could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.”

“The defendant has broadcast their strategy, and that is to not try this case in the courtroom,” Windom said.

Lawyers for Trump, who has railed against prosecutors and the judge on social media and during campaign events, said the government’s proposed order went too far and would restrict his free speech rights.

John Lauro, an attorney for Trump, raised the example of former Vice President Mike Pence — who is both competing against Trump for the Republican nomination and a potential witness in the case before Chutkan. Trump has repeatedly attacked Pence for being disloyal.

“President Trump has the ability to respond fairly to political opponents,” Lauro said.

Trump, the early front-runner in the GOP presidential primary, says he is innocent of the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. He has portrayed investigations of him as politically motivated.

Prosecutors say that a substantial amount of evidence they’re ready to turn over to Trump’s legal team includes sensitive and confidential information — like transcripts from the grand jury that investigated the case and evidence obtained through sealed search warrants. Grand jury proceedings are secret.

Prosecutors’ filing last week seeking the protective order included a screenshot of a post from Trump’s Truth Social platform that day in which the ex-president wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

“If the defendant were to begin issuing public posts using details — or, for example, grand jury transcripts — obtained in discovery here, it could have a harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case,” prosecutors wrote in their motion.

The prosecutors proposed a protective order barring Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court.

Trump’s team, meanwhile, asked for a more narrow order that would bar the public release only of the materials deemed “sensitive,” such as grand jury documents. Defense attorneys wrote in court papers that the need to protect sensitive information “does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government.”

The case, unsealed last week, is the first criminal case that seeks to hold Trump accountable for his efforts to cling to power before an angry mob of supporters fueled by his election lies attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It comes as Trump faces two other criminal cases and tries to reclaim the White House.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to four felony counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The charges could lead to a lengthy prison sentence in the event of a conviction, with the most serious counts calling for up to 20 years.

Smith’s team has indicated that it wants the case to move to trial swiftly, and this week it proposed a Jan. 2 trial date. Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in a New York case stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in another case brought by Smith accusing the former president of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart in June imposed a similar protective order in the Florida case that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday he has appointed a special counsel in the Hunter Biden probe, deepening the investigation of the president’s son ahead of the 2024 election.

Garland said he was naming David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware who has been probing the financial and business dealings of the president’s son, as the special counsel.

Just as his appointment as special counsel was announced, Weiss notified a federal judge in Delaware that plea deal talks in the Hunter Biden case were at an “impasse.”

Garland noted the “extraordinary circumstances” of the matter as he made the announcement at the Justice Department. He said that Weiss asked to be appointed to the position and told him that “in his judgment, his investigation has reached a stage at which he should continue his work as a special counsel.”

“Upon considering his request, as well as the extraordinary circumstances relating to this matter, I have concluded it is in the public interest to appoint him as special counsel,” Garland said.

The move is a momentous development from the typically cautious Garland and comes amid a pair of sweeping Justice Department probes into Donald Trump, the former president, and President Joe Biden’s chief rival in next year’s election.

It also comes as House Republicans are mounting their own investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Last month, Hunter Biden’s plea deal over tax evasion collapsed after U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, raised multiple concerns about the specifics.

Republicans had derided that agreement as a “sweetheart” deal as they pushed their own probe.

The Republicans claimed Weiss was being blocked from becoming a special counsel a claim he and the Justice Department denied.

By being named special counsel Weiss will have broader authority to conduct a more sweeping investigation across various areas.