AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
Harris and Walz say they're 'joyful warriors,' narrowly miss tarmac confrontation with Vance
ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself and her new running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, "joyful warriors" against Donald Trump on Wednesday as they spent their first full day campaigning together across the Midwest. They got an unusual glimpse of how hotly contested the region will be when they overlapped on a Wisconsin tarmac with Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
The Democrats visited Wisconsin and Michigan, hoping to shore up support among the younger, diverse, labor-friendly voters who were instrumental in helping President Joe Biden win the 2020 election.
Harris told the day's first rally in Eau Claire, "As Tim Walz likes to point out, we are joyful warriors." Contributing to that feeling, the Harris campaign said it had raised $36 million in the first 24 hours after she announced Walz as her running mate.
The vice president said the pair look on the future with optimism, unlike Trump, the former president and Republican White House nominee, whom she accused of being stuck in the past and preferring a confrontational style of politics - even as she criticized her opponent herself.
"Someone who suggests we should terminate the Constitution of the United States should never again have the chance to sit behind the seal of the United States," Harris said, her voice rising.
___
Vance and other Trump allies amplify a false claim about Harris' racial identity
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump's running mate, defended on Wednesday a false claim the former president made about Vice President Kamala Harris ' racial identity, suggesting wrongly that Harris had downplayed her Black heritage in trying to suggest she's inauthentic.
"What I took it as was an attack on Kamala Harris being a chameleon," he told reporters when asked in Michigan about the former president's suggestion that Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, had only recently identified as Black.
"I think he was observing the basic foundational reality that Kamala Harris pretends to be something different depending on what audience she´s speaking to," Vance said. "She fakes who she is depending on the audience she´s in front of, and that´s who she is and that´s who she´s always been."
Vance's was the most recent of the Republican criticisms of how Harris portrays herself, in the wake of Trump's comments last week to the National Association of Black Journalists conference in Chicago. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a high-profile Trump surrogate who is a Black man, echoed the claim on Sunday as a guest on ABC's "This Week."
The proliferation of Trump´s falsehood by other Republicans is part of their effort to stay in his favor, said former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
___
Organizers cancel Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna over fears of an attack
VIENNA (AP) - Organizers of three Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna this week called them off on Wednesday after officials announced arrests over an apparent plot to launch an attack on an event in the Vienna area such as the concerts.
Swift was scheduled to play at the Austrian capital´s Ernst Happel Stadium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday as part of her Eras Tour.
Event organizer Barracuda Music said in a post on its Instagram channel late Wednesday that "we have no choice but to cancel the three scheduled shows for everyone´s safety." It cited government officials' "confirmation" of a planned attack at the stadium.
Earlier Wednesday, authorities said they had arrested two suspected extremists, one of whom appeared to be planning an attack on an event in the Vienna area such as the upcoming concerts.
The 19-year-old main suspect was arrested in Ternitz, south of Vienna, and the second person in the Austrian capital.
___
9/11 hearings at Guantanamo Bay in upheaval after surprise order by US defense chief
FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's surprise decision to throw out a plea deal with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his co-defendants has left their case at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in disarray, with the defense, prosecution and judge all uncertain about when and how it would move forward.
A court session on Wednesday was the first since the Pentagon released notice of Austin's decision late Friday. The plea agreement, which would have spared the defendants the risk of the death penalty, generated strong feelings among both opponents and supporters of the deal, including the families of Sept. 11 victims. It drew intense criticism of the Biden administration from senior Republican lawmakers.
The disruption caused by the unexpected override of the plea deal was just the latest to hit the special U.S. military-run commissions and their more than decadelong effort to bring the men accused of killing nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, to trial.
The unusual location and nature of the offshore commissions, and legal challenges, including those stemming from the torture the men underwent in CIA custody in the first years after their capture, all have contributed to the delays, keeping the case still in pre-trial hearings.
Defense attorneys on Wednesday said they would challenge the legality of Austin's order and suspended their participation in hearings until those challenges were resolved. They contended that the plea deal still stood.
___
Lin Yu-ting advances to gold-medal Olympic bout, excelling amid misconceptions about her gender
PARIS (AP) - Boxer Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan has advanced to the gold-medal bout in the women´s featherweight division, winning her third consecutive bout while dealing with widespread scrutiny regarding misconceptions about her gender at the Paris Olympics.
One day after welterweight Imane Khelif of Algeria reached the women's welterweight final with a third straight victory in Paris, Lin defeated Esra Yildiz Kahraman of Turkey 5:0 on Wednesday night for her third win.
Lin will fight for gold on Saturday, taking on Julia Szeremeta of Poland.
"I will use everything I´ve learned in my life to do my best in the next match," Lin said through an interpreter.
Lin and Khelif both have won every round in all three of their Olympic bouts despite the massive distractions created by the fallout from the Olympic-banished International Boxing Association´s decision last year to disqualify both fighters from the world championships for allegedly failing an eligibility test.
___
Tropical Storm Debby doles out repeat deluges for weather-weary residents
HUGER, S.C. (AP) - Days of rain forced the deluge-hardened residents of a South Carolina community to begin the near-ritualistic task of assessing damage left behind by Tropical Storm Debby, which continued spinning over the Atlantic Ocean and influencing thunderstorms from the East Coast to the Great Lakes on Wednesday.
In Huger, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Charleston, Gene Taylor was waiting in the afternoon for a few inches of water to drain from his house along French Quarter Creek as high tide passed.
Taylor saw the potential for flooding last week and started moving belongings out or up higher in his home. It´s a lesson learned the hard way - Taylor estimated that this is the fourth time he has had floodwater in his home in the past nine years.
"To save everything, we´ve learned from the past it´s better be prepared for the worst. And unfortunately, I think we got it," Taylor said.
A few doors down, Charles Grainger was cleaning up after about 8 inches (20 centimeters) of water got into his home.
___
NASA says chances are growing that astronauts may switch from Boeing to a SpaceX ride back to Earth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - What should have been a quick trip to the International Space Station may turn into an eight-month stay for two NASA astronauts if they have to switch from Boeing to SpaceX for a ride home.
There's lingering uncertainty over the safety of Boeing's new Starliner capsule, NASA officials said Wednesday, and the space agency is split over the risk. As a result, chances are increasing that test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams may have to watch from the space station as their Starliner is cut loose to return to Earth empty.
If that happens, NASA would leave behind two of four astronauts from the next SpaceX taxi flight in late September, with the vacant seats set aside for Wilmore and Williams on the return trip next February. The pair expected to be gone just a week or two when they launched June 5 as Starliner´s first crew.
NASA is bringing in additional experts to analyze the thruster failures experienced by Starliner before it docked. At the same time, NASA is looking more closely at SpaceX as a backup,
At this point, "we could take either path," said Ken Bowersox, NASA´s space operations mission chief.
___
US abortion numbers have risen slightly since Roe was overturned, study finds
The number of women getting abortions in the U.S. actually went up in the first three months of 2024 compared with before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a report released Wednesday found, reflecting the lengths that Democratic-controlled states went to expand access.
A major reason for the increase is that some Democratic-controlled states enacted laws to protect doctors who use telemedicine to see patients in places that have abortion bans, according to the quarterly #WeCount report for the Society of Family Planning, which supports abortion access.
The data comes ahead of November elections in which abortion-rights supporters hope the issue will drive voters to the polls. In some places, voters will have a chance to enshrine or reject state-level abortion protections.
Fallout from the Supreme Court´s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women´s Health Organization has remade the way abortion works across the country. The #WeCount data, which has been collected in a monthly survey since April 2022, shows how those providing and seeking abortion have adapted to changing laws.
The survey found that the number of abortions fell to nearly zero in states that ban abortion in all stages of pregnancy and declined by about half in places that ban it after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. Fourteen states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with some exceptions, and four others bar it after about six weeks of pregnancy.
___
Hamas has a new leader. How will that affect the war in Gaza and cease-fire efforts?
Yahya Sinwar's appointment as the top leader of Hamas formalizes a role he assumed in the early hours of Oct. 7, when the surprise attack into Israel that he helped mastermind ushered in the bloodiest chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
He is seen as a hard-liner with closer ties to Hamas' armed wing than his predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an explosion in Iran's capital last month that was widely blamed on Israel and could spark an all-out regional war.
Sinwar was already seen as having the final word on any cease-fire agreement for Gaza and the release of dozens of Israeli hostages still held by Hamas.
But he is deep in hiding inside Gaza, and mediators say it takes several days to exchange messages with him. That raises questions about how he would manage a sprawling organization with cadres across the Middle East.
Hamas has survived the killing of several top leaders across more than three decades, while maintaining a high degree of internal cohesion - and tapping Sinwar, who tops Israel´s most-wanted list, was a show of defiance.
___
EPA issues rare emergency ban on pesticide that damages fetuses
ST. LOUIS (AP) - For the first time in roughly 40 years, the Environmental Protection Agency used its emergency authority to halt the sale of a weed-killing pesticide that harms the development of unborn babies.
Officials took the rare step because the pesticide DCPA, or Dacthal, could cause irreversible damage to fetuses, including impaired brain development and low birthweight. The agency struggled to obtain vital health data from the pesticide's manufacturer on time and decided it was not safe to allow continued sale, EPA said in an announcement Tuesday.
"In this case, pregnant women who may never know they were exposed could give birth to babies that experience irreversible lifelong health problems," said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.
DCPA is mostly used on broccoli, cabbage and certain other crops and about 84,000 pounds were used on average in 2018 and 2020, officials said.
In 2023, the EPA assessed the pesticide's risks and found it was dangerous even if a worker wore personal protective equipment. The manufacturer had instructed people to stay off fields where the pesticide had been applied for 12 hours, but agency officials said it could linger at dangerous levels for more than 25 days.
