By JIM GOMEZ (Associated Press)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A small Philippine ferry turned upside down when passengers suddenly crowded to one side in panic as fierce winds pummeled the wooden vessel, leaving at least 26 people dead while 40 others were rescued, officials said Friday.

Coast guard and police said search and rescue efforts had resumed after a pause Thursday night. Officials said it remained unclear how many people were aboard the M/B Princess Aya, which capsized Thursday in Laguna de Bay in Rizal province east of Manila.

When people rushed to one side of the vessel amid severe winds, the boat tilted and its outrigger broke, then the boat capsized shortly after leaving a wharf in the town of Binangonan for nearby Talim island, police and the coast guard said.

The accident happened only about 46 meters (150 feet) from shore, officials said at a news conference.

The Rizal provincial police said that they immediately launched a rescue operation with the help of the coast guard and other local authorities, but that at least 26 people drowned. Forty others were saved.

“This is really a tragic event that has to be investigated,” coast guard Rear Adm. Hostillo Arturo Cornelio told reporters.

The ferry was supposed to carry a maximum of 42 passengers and crewmembers but was overloaded, Cornelio said. He said investigators would also look into reports that the passengers were not wearing life vests as required by safety regulations.

Asked how many people were on the boat, Cornelio said it was unclear if there were more than the 66 who died or were save. “We assume there could be more,” he said.

The search was continuing Friday.

A video released by the coast guard showed rescuers on a local government boat pulling a body out of the lake. Another video showed local fishermen aboard vessels approaching the overturned boat.

Typhoon Doksuri blew away Thursday after battering the northern Philippines and whipping up seasonal monsoon rains in a large swath of the archipelago.

The capsizing brought the death toll from a week of stormy weather across the main island of Luzon to 39. At least 13 people were reported killed earlier due to Doksuri’s onslaught, mostly due to landslides, flooding and toppled trees and thousands were displaced, disaster response officials said.

Sea travel was suspended in many ports during Doksuri’s onslaught from Tuesday to Wednesday, stranding thousands of passengers and cargo trucks. The no-sail orders were gradually lifted Thursday as weather improved in many areas.

Coast guard Rear Adm. Armand Balilo said the boat that capsized had set out after a no-sail order was lifted for Binangonan town. Only 22 passengers were listed on the ferry’s manifest and criminal complaints may be filed against the vessel’s owner, skipper and two crewmen, he said.

Sea accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of frequent storms, badly maintained boats, overcrowding and weak enforcement of safety regulations. In December 1987, the ferry Dona Paz sank after colliding with a fuel tanker, killing more than 4,300 people in the world’s worst peacetime maritime disaster.

By MATTHEW BROWN and RIO YAMAT (Associated Press)

HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — An Arizona teenager who disappeared days before her 15th birthday nearly four years ago is safe after walking into a small-town police station in Montana this week, authorities announced Wednesday.

Police in Havre, Montana, said Alicia Navarro, now 18, showed up alone Sunday morning in the town of about 9,200 people near the Canadian border and identified herself as a missing teenager from the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.

Navarro’s disappearance on Sept. 15, 2019, sparked a massive search that included the FBI. Glendale police spokesperson Jose Santiago said over the years, police had received thousands of tips.

Investigators are now trying to determine what happened to Navarro after vanishing at age 14 and how she ended up in Montana, more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) away from her hometown.

When she disappeared, Navarro left a signed note that read: “I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.”

But her mother, Jessica Nunez, raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, may have been lured away by someone she met online.

Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite, the lead investigator, said they were looking into all the possible scenarios that could have led to Navarro’s disappearance, including kidnapping.

“As much as we’d like to say this is the end,” Waite said, “we know this is only the beginning of where this investigation will go.”

Police said Navarro told them she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.

In a short video clip that police said was taken shortly after Navarro arrived at the police station this week, she can be heard telling authorities, “No one hurt me.”

In another short video, Navarro thanked the police.

“Thank you for offering help to me,” she said.

Authorities in both Montana and Arizona haven’t said how long Navarro had been in Havre before walking into the police station. Havre is surrounded by farmland and is north of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.

Waite described Navarro’s reunion this week with her mother as “emotionally overwhelming” and that Navarro said she was sorry for “what she has put her mother through.”

In an emotional video posted Wednesday to a Facebook account titled “Finding Alicia,” Nunez told her tens of thousands of followers, “I want to give glory to God for answering prayers and for this miracle.”

Nunez had been documenting her efforts to find her daughter on the Facebook page throughout the years. The account features hundreds of posts with photos of Navarro as a young child and pictures of Nunez holding up signs that read, “Children don’t just disappear!”

“For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example,” Nunez said in the video, which had been viewed more than 200,000 times. “Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”

___

Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZ (Associated Press)

NEW YORK (AP) — Three men ensnarled in a post-9/11 terrorism sting have been ordered freed from prison by a judge who deemed their lengthy sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” and decried the FBI’s role in radicalizing them in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.

Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the men known as the “Newburgh Four” — were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” caught up in a scheme more than a decade ago driven by overzealous FBI agents and a dodgy informant, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in her ruling Thursday.

“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote in granting the men’s request for compassionate release, effective in three months.

She said that it was “heinous” of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made for TV movie.” But, the judge added, “the sentence was the product of a fictitious plot to do things that these men had never remotely contemplated, and that were never going to happen.”

She excoriated the government for sending “a villain” of an informant “to troll among the poorest and weakest of men for ‘terrorists’ who might prove susceptible to an offer of much-needed cash in exchange for committing a faux crime.”

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the judge’s decision. A message seeking comment was sent to the FBI.

Citing concerns for the men’s health and her own qualms about the case, McMahon cut the 25-year mandatory minimum sentences she imposed on the men in 2011 to time served plus 90 days. She said that would allow time for probation officials to prepare and for Payen’s lawyer to line up supportive housing for the man, who has a severe mental illness.

Samuel Braverman, who represented Payen at trial, called the ruling “incredibly brave and just.”

“What we need to take from all of this is: We have been entrapped by a pathology of criminalization and anger and blaming, and we need to do better as a society,” Braverman said.

Messages seeking comment were sent to Payen’s most recent attorney and to lawyers for Onta Williams and David Williams, who are not related.

A fourth man, James Cromitie, has not sought early release and is expected to complete his prison sentence in 2030.

Payen, Cromitie and the Williamses were arrested in 2009, during a period of heightened public and law enforcement concern about the threat of terror strikes hatched within the U.S. by supporters of foreign extremists.

Officials portrayed Cromitie as the ringleader of a “chilling plot” among “extremely violent men” loyal to a Pakistani terrorist group — though the government later decided not to present any evidence about foreign terrorist organizations at trial. A court complaint described him as a man seething with anti-American and antisemitic sentiment and eager to translate those feelings into bloody action.

Prosecutors said the defendants had spent months scouting targets and securing what they thought were explosives and a surface-to-air missile, aiming to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up synagogues in Riverdale, a heavily Jewish part of the Bronx. They were arrested there after allegedly planting bombs that were, in fact, packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI.

From the start, relatives said the four were men who were down on their luck after doing prison time.

The men’s lawyers soon raised questions about entrapment — a legal defense that argues that people were enticed into illegal conduct they wouldn’t have otherwise committed.

The defense lawyers said federal informant Shaheed Hussain tried to stir up the men with rhetoric and went on to choose the targets, offer hefty payment, buy the defendants groceries, and provide the fake bombs and missile. The defense portrayed Hussain as a self-serving manipulator who was trying to please the government after his own, unrelated fraud conviction.

Jurors deliberated for eight days before convicting the men in 2010. Three years later, they lost an appeal.

A possible phone number for Hussain rang unanswered Thursday night.

Hussain also worked with the FBI on other stings, including one that targeted an Albany pizza shop owner and an imam — and involved a loan using money from a fictitious missile sale. Both men, who said they were tricked, were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid a terrorist group.

A few years later, Hussain was in the public eye again when a stretch limo crashed in rural Schoharie, New York, killing 20 people. Hussain owned the limo company, operated by son Nauman Hussain.

After it emerged that the limo had failed a safety inspection a month before the crash and that the slain driver didn’t have a commercial license, Nauman Hussain was charged with criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter. His lawyer blamed a repair shop for the vehicle’s problems and said his client was being treated like a scapegoat.

Nauman Hussain was convicted this May and is serving five to 15 years in prison.

A more than $700 flight to Indiana to watch a Christopher Newport University basketball game, a $200 a night hotel reservation, and roughly $1,100 in meals were among the inappropriate charges some Newport News City Council members made on city-issued credit cards earlier this year, according to an internal city review.

The credit card expenditures were detailed in a legal memo sent May 1 from Newport News City Attorney Collins Owens to City Manager Cynthia “Cindy” Rohlf. Owens said Rohlf had asked him to review whether specific credit card uses complied with federal and state law as well as the city’s travel policy.

Owens wrote that many of the expenses did violate the state code and the city’s travel policy. He said he believed city council members and city employees, such as the director of finance and the city manager, could face criminal penalties under state code if the city didn’t seek reimbursements and the council members did not return the money.

Ultimately, four did pay back the charges.

The Daily Press obtained a copy of Owens’ 8-page legal memo as well as credit card statements from all council members, and documentation of reimbursements through a Freedom of Information Act request. The legal memo did not name which council members made specific charges, but the credit card statements from members correlate with the expenses discussed in the memo.

Six city council members had city-issued credit cards. Owens said the Internal Revenue Code allows employers to pay business expenditures incurred by employees as long as there is a clear business connection to the spending, adequate accounting by the recipient and excess reimbursements or advances are returned within a reasonable period. But several charges made by four council members came under review and were found inappropriate and not allowable under the city’s policy.

The council members required to pay back expenses: Vice Mayor Curtis Bethany, in the amount of $2,756; Councilman John Eley ($1,050), Councilwoman Pat Woodbury ($35) and Councilman Cleon Long ($33). Bethany, Eley and Long took office in January.

Mayor Phillip Jones, who did not have to reimburse any expenditures, said when the new council members began their terms they were told city-issued credit cards were for “city business.”  But after the Jan. 6 Richneck Elementary School shooting, he said many planned briefings were “pushed to the side” as the council dealt with the fallout from the shooting.

Jones said Rohlf and Owens made him aware about the improper use of credit cards and that he told the other council members they should pay back the money. In response to the review, Jones said everyone on council — both old and new — will get training on appropriate use of city money. He also said because of the situation, the council will from now on only use purchasing cards, with the exception of the mayor — who can keep the credit card due to the frequency of his travel.

Rohlf is leaving her position as city manager on Aug. 1. The council voted Tuesday to approve a severance package for her that provides 18 months pay. She did not return calls this week seeking comment.

___

Curtis Bethany

The biggest offender was the vice mayor, who had to reimburse the city more than $2,700 in inappropriate charges.

He used a city credit card to purchase airfare to attend the NCAA Division III Basketball Tournament in Indiana. Bethany made two American Airlines charges for a $734 ticket and a $54 seat upgrade March 17. He also made a hotel charge of $205 on March 17, credit card receipts show.

Bethany said in an interview he wanted to support Christopher Newport University as a council member during the tournament and initially thought the expenses were appropriate. Bethany said no one advised him ahead of time that traveling to the game would be an improper use of city credit cards. Initially, he wanted the city to hold a parade if they won the championship.

Owens said in his letter to Rohlf that because hotel and airline costs to Indiana to attend a CNU basketball game were not associated with official city business, as required by the travel policy, the charges were improper. Owens also noted the expenses appeared to be “entertainment, amusement and/or recreation charges.”

Financial statements show Bethany also used a city credit card to pay two people who previously worked on his campaign for City Council in the fall to help him with constituent services. Bethany used Cash App to pay about $1,030 between the two people for helping him with city services, such as communication with constituents.

Owens said the services were not obtained per the city’s purchasing procedures and requirements and were therefore improper.  He noted the city clerk previously told the council her office is “willing and able to provide administrative services to City Council members, such as communicating with constituents, organizing emails and calendaring events.”

Other charges made by Bethany that he was asked to pay back include $24.50 for tickets to Woodside High School basketball games, two $69.99 payments for a premium subscription to LinkedIn, and a $25.75 donation to the Virginia Peninsula Foodbank.

The games were unrelated to any City Council purpose at the game, according to Owens. The LinkedIn payment was deemed improper because “city payment for a private social media subscription for a local government officer is not a special benefit authorized by law and is not a part of any compensation package or salary offered to members of City Council,” Owens wrote.

Bethany said the food bank donation occurred when his own personal credit card wasn’t working.

“So I tested it out on the food bank website, that was all that was,” he said.

Bethany said the matter was “all handled and resolved internally without any issue.”

Documents provided by the city show he reimbursed the city $2,241 on May 10 and $515 on May 24.

“We debated a little bit on the interpretation of the policy, but I voluntarily reimbursed the city so we can be squared and be on the same page going forward,” he said.

But Councilwoman Pat Woodbury offered a different account. She said she believed the relationship between Bethany and Rohlf deteriorated after the city manager questioned Bethany’s credit card use. On Thursday, Woodbury spoke of the council “getting rid of her” and felt the credit card situation was a likely factor in Rohlf’s departure.

Bethany said there was “absolutely no truth” to Woodbury’s statements.

___

John Eley

According to credit card statements, the councilman spent $1,457 on lunch and dinner meals from Jan. 29 to March 5. Meals included a $249 dinner at P.F. Chang’s, a $159 dinner at a Marriott in Virginia Beach, and a $286 lunch at Bay Local Eatery in Virginia Beach.

The letter from Owens to Rohlf indicates that restaurant charges during constituent meetings were problematic for several reasons. To be an allowable business expense, such charges must have a documented business purpose, and the meals “cannot be extravagant.” No documentation about the purpose of the meetings or the names of the constituents at the meetings were provided, the attorney said.

Eley reimbursed the city $1,050 on May 24. The remainder of the balance was deemed an allowable expense under the city’s travel policy.

Eley told the Daily Press that council members were told at the beginning of the year when they received credit cards that they were for city business. Eley said he used the cards to meet with various community members over a meal and learn about their community needs. During these meetings, he said he would offer to cover the bill. He said he believed that would have been considered a city business use and expressed frustration about not having clearer directions on what is an allowed use of the city credit card.

___

Pat Woodbury and Cleon Long

Woodbury had to reimburse the city $35.36 for a portion of various meals dating to late last year at Schooners, Smoke BBQ, Schlesingers and Warwick Restaurant. Woodbury recalled eating with reporters and a member of the Hampton Roads Transit during some of the meals.

“I have no problem reimbursing,” Woodbury said. “I did not realize I had gone over the amount that was allowed.”

Long reimbursed the city $33.81 for a March 29 meal at the Green Turtle. He said when the credit cards were initially distributed, the finance director did not provide training or a policy regarding their usage. However, the only policy provided was specifically for P-cards issued to city staff members.

“Unfortunately, the limits for non-travel meal expenses were not outlined in the P-Card policy,” Long said.

Long said on April 17, he met with the finance director, Rohlf and Owens and was informed about the limits for non-travel meal expenses. He said on May 2, the finance director provided a policy specifically addressing the usage of council credit cards.

“As a personal preference, I have now started submitting my receipts for reimbursement, as it helps me avoid the hassle of remembering the limits,” Long said.

Josh Janney, [email protected].

By HOLLY MEYER (Associated Press)

In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television. The pushback was swift, turning the late Irish singer-songwriter’s protest of sex abuse in the Catholic Church into a career-altering flashpoint.

More than 30 years later, her “Saturday Night Live” performance and its stark collision of popular culture and religious statement is remembered by some as an offensive act of desecration. But for others — including survivors of clergy sex abuse — O’Connor’s protest was prophetic, forecasting the global denomination’s public reckoning that was, at that point, yet to come. O’Connor, 56, died Wednesday.

The SNL moment stunned David Clohessy, a key early member of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. In his 30s at the time, he had only recently recalled the repressed memories of the abuse he suffered. He found O’Connor’s act deeply moving. It was something he and other survivors never thought possible.

That night O’Connor, head shaved and looking straight into the camera, stood alone singing Bob Marley’s song “War” a capella. She finished the final lines, “We know we will win/ We have confidence in the victory/of good over evil,” and then moved an off-screen photo of Pope John Paul II in front of the camera.

Then O’Connor ripped it to pieces. She called out, “Fight the real enemy,” before she threw the scraps to the ground. Clohessy remembers it well.

“We were all just deeply convinced that we would go to our graves without ever seeing any public acknowledgment of the horror and without any kind of validation whatsoever,” Clohessy said. “That’s what made her words so very powerful.”

Reaction at the time was fierce from many corners. Later that month she was booed at an all-star tribute to Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden. One group destroyed more than 200 of her albums, cassettes and CDs with a steamroller lumbering down New York’s Sixth Avenue.

The SNL performance also appalled Thomas Plante, a Catholic psychology professor at California’s Santa Clara University, and his wife who is Jewish. Plante was well aware of the issue since he was researching, evaluating and treating clerical sex offenders at the time.

“It is understandable that people would want to make strong statements about their issues with the Catholic Church, but tearing up a picture of the Pope on live TV was way over the top,” Plante said in an email. “Many people feel free to ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ when it comes to criticism of the Catholic Church.”

He also noted the prevalence of anti-Catholic hate, especially following the Boston Globe’s 2002 report revealing widespread abuse and cover-up by the church. Plante said the clergy abuse crisis was horrible, but people often fail to recognize that it is a problem of the 20th century and earlier — cases are extremely rare in this century, he said.

“Much progress has been made and current policies and procedures are actually working,” he said.

The quarter-century legacy of John Paul II — then pope, now a saint — has been badly tarnished by evidence he turned a blind eye to abuse even when the Vatican had copiously well-documented cases and even when bishops in the U.S., facing mounting legal liability, begged the Vatican for fast-track ways to defrock abusers in the 1980s.

Vatican officials have long excused John Paul’s attitude by arguing that he had seen first-hand how priests in his native Poland were intentionally discredited with false accusations by Communist authorities, and thus believed any accusations against clerics were mere “calumnies” intended to harm the church.

O’Connor was found unresponsive Wednesday at her home in southeast London. Saddened by her passing, Brenna Moore, a theology professor at Fordham University in New York and a big fan of O’Connor, described her as “a kind of prophetic truth-teller.”

Society, especially in the English-speaking world, is used to men taking on this role, Moore said, but when a woman does it, she’s accused of being crazy and angry. Moore, referencing O’Connor’s memoir, said the singer was more than a rebel with a shaved head.

“She sort of stands in a long line of artists and poets who have a kind of rebellious punk ability to speak truth to power in a very performative way,” Moore said. “She was a profoundly spiritual person, a profound seeker of transcendence and the truth.”

Jamie Manson, president of Catholics for Choice, was a teen living on Long Island with her traditional Catholic Italian family in 1992; she recalled just how horrified they were by O’Connor’s protest. But for Manson, who was feeling a call to the priesthood at the time, looked at it more with curiosity.

Manson called O’Connor a visionary, especially given that neither the Irish or U.S. Catholic hierarchy had yet publicly reckoned with the pervasiveness of clergy sex abuse.

“Not many people that we would call prophetic are willing to risk everything, and she was. … And she lost almost everything as a result,” Manson said. “It is very, very scary to challenge the church in a very public way. And it takes enormous bravery and a willingness to be able to let go of everything.”

Clohessy also depicted the 1992 protest as courageous: “I think young people can’t know — and older people to some extent have forgotten — just how extraordinarily powerful the Catholic hierarchy was in those days.”

Invoking the famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote, Clohessy said that “the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. She’s proof of that. And it bends so slowly — and it bends backwards along the way.”

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who has represented victims of Catholic clergy sex abuse in numerous cases across the U.S., connected with O’Connor around the time of her SNL appearance. In a statement, Anderson called her wise and ahead of her time.

“Sinéad saw predator priests not as a ‘couple bad apples’ but as signs and proof of a deeply corrupt and almost untouchable clerical system,” Anderson said. “It took tremendous courage for her to be one of those early, lonely voices for the voiceless.”

Michael McDonnell, interim executive director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said O’Connor “wore the anguish of victims of clergy abuse and it seems as though she knew in 1992 the horrors that hadn’t yet been revealed.

“Ultimately,” he said, “she relieved the pain for tens of thousands of victims with rebellion.”

___

Associated Press correspondent Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome. AP religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. Follow AP’s Holly Meyer at http://twitter.com/HollyAMeyer

By ADRIAN SAINZ and JONATHAN MATTISE (Associated Press)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday it is investigating how Memphis Police Department officers use force and conduct arrests, nearly seven months after the violent beating of Tyre Nichols by five officers after a traffic stop strengthened nationwide calls for police reform.

The in-depth federal probe adds more scrutiny to a city dealing with the aftermath of Nichols’ killing and answers long-standing calls for such an investigation from critics of the way police treat minorities.

Federal authorities will look collectively at the Memphis Police Department’s “pattern or practice” of force and stops, searches and arrests, and whether it engages in discriminatory policing.

Even in the majority Black city of Memphis, the police department may be disproportionately focusing its traffic enforcement on Black drivers, said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Civil Rights Division, who announced the investigation.

Clarke said the Department of Justice has received reports of officers escalating encounters with people in the community and using excessive force; using force punitively when they perceive someone’s behavior as insolent; and using force against people who are already restrained or in custody.

She mentioned Nichols’ death, but said the investigation is not based on a single event, or a single unit with the police agency. Caught on police video, the beating of the 29-year-old Nichols was one in a string of violent encounters between police and Black people that sparked protests and renewed debate about police brutality and police reform in the U.S.

“The tragic death of Tyre Nichols created enormous pain in the Memphis community and across the country,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a news release.

The Justice Department announced in March a separate review concerning use of force, de-escalation strategies and specialized units in the Memphis Police Department. Federal investigators also are looking specifically into Nichols’ arrest and death. And, Nichols’ mother has sued the city and its police chief over her son’s death.

Rodney Wells, Nichols’ stepfather, told the Associated Press that he hopes the probe will lead to changes in the way police deal with Memphis citizens.

“We’re moving in the right direction, trying to get some justice,” Wells said.

Clarke said investigators will ride along with Memphis police and speak with officers as part of the probe. She said the Justice Department told the police chief and mayor about the investigation, adding that they pledged to cooperate.

However, Mayor Jim Strickland said he was “disappointed that my request was not granted by the Department of Justice to discuss this step before a decision was made to move down this path.”

“I know they discussed the need for such an action with many other individuals. I hope the remainder of the process is more forthright and inclusive than it has been so far,” Strickland said in a statement.

Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said officers are expected to follow training and department policies.

“While the officers involved in the Tyre Nichols case demonstrated no regard for these tenets, I am appreciative of the MPD officers that continue to serve our city with integrity,” she said.

Five officers have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges including second-degree murder in the Jan. 7 beating of Nichols after a traffic stop — and his death three days later.

The five officers charged in the case are Black. So was Nichols.

The officers were part of a crime-suppression team known as Scorpion. They punched Nichols, kicked him and slugged him with a baton as he yelled for his mother. Davis disbanded the Scorpion unit after Nichols’ death, though members of the unit have been moved to other teams.

In addition to the officers fired and charged with murder, one white officer who was involved in the initial traffic stop has been fired. That officer will not face charges. Another officer, who has not been identified, also has been fired. An additional officer retired before he could be fired.

Activists have been calling for a pattern or practice investigation into Memphis police for years stemming from several encounters with the public, including the fatal shooting of Darrius Stewart, a Black man who was killed by a white officer during a traffic stop in 2015, and a federal court order about improper police surveillance of activists.

“This is a necessary step in ensuring the citizens of Memphis have our civil rights protected and that we are moving beyond tacit political talking points regarding criminal justice reform,” said Memphis activist Earle Fisher.

The Memphis City Council passed an ordinance earlier this year that outlawed so-called pretextual traffic stops, which include minor violations such as a broken tail light. But some activists have complained that the ordinance has not been consistently enforced.

In June, a similar Justice Department probe alleged that Minneapolis police systematically discriminated against racial minorities, violated constitutional rights and disregarded the safety of people in custody for years before George Floyd was killed.

And in March, the department found Louisville police engaged in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discrimination against the Black community following an investigation prompted by the fatal police shooting of Breonna Taylor.

The investigations can take years — both the Louisville and Minneapolis probes were launched in April 2021.

Depending on their findings, the investigations can result in agreements that require reforms that are overseen by an independent monitor and are approved by a federal judge. The federal oversight can continue for years.

___

Mattise reported from Nashville.

The name of the game was fun Wednesday at Hampton’s Phenix School, where students were driving solar go-karts they had built during a summer enrichment program.

The 10-year-olds scowled in concentration. The young teens nonchalantly steered with one hand. But all drove the go-karts, which were one of the projects during their four-week Summer STREAM enrichment program that ended this week.

The program is funded by the 21st Century Community Learning Centers federal grant, which seeks to provide free quality academic and social enrichments.

The go-karts were part of the Build & Soar project — a partnership between Flying Classroom and Hampton City Schools. Flying Classroom is a supplemental digital curriculum that offers experiential learning projects focused on STEM and technical skills. The program offers various engineering design challenges to students in all grade levels.

“We try to bring to life the things that students have to learn,” Barrington Irving, the founder of Flying Classroom, said at the event.

The program began with a focus on STEM fields but has expanded to include technical skills.

“We want more children exposed to using tools,” Irving said. “We have massive technical skill shortages. One of the things we found is the reason why kids don’t pursue technical fields is because, when do they actually ever use a tool?”

Irving said his programs are about providing students with real-world experiences.

“This is empowering,” he said. “We want them to feel like little explorers and engineers.”

As part of the Build & Soar program, students stripped down a gas-powered go-kart and transformed it into a solar-powered one.

Karen Johnson, the out-of-school time coordinator for Hampton City Schools, said the program exposes students to skills they’ll need for the jobs of the future.

Fallan Lee-Brown is the co-coordinator for the 21st Century Summer STREAM program at Cesar Tarrant Middle School. She brought her students to Phenix on Wednesday to drive the go-karts they had worked on during the program.

Lee-Brown said the program is about giving students the chance to explore, and instilling confidence in them as they gain new skills.

Kaylani Allen, 13, is a rising eighth grader. She was one of the students who worked on the go-karts.

“It was cool,” Allen said. “We got to learn about the different tools, and more about solar panels.”

Organizers also brought in some elementary school students who participated in different projects for a chance to see and drive the go-karts, as a preview of what they could do when they are older.

Empriss Williams, 10, attended Wednesday’s event. She said her older brother got to build the go-karts and talked about it at home.

“He told me they took some time but it was exciting,” Williams said.

She hopes she’ll have the chance to do it next year, mainly for one reason: “So I can drive them.”

Nour Habib, [email protected]

By RICK CALLAHAN (Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Human remains found buried in 1983 at an abandoned Indiana farm have been identified as those of a Chicago teenager who was a victim of the late serial killer Larry Eyler, authorities said Tuesday.

The remains, which were found near the remains of three young men Eyler also killed, are those of Keith Lavell Bibbs, who was 16 when he died, according to the Newton County Coroner’s Office and the DNA Doe Project.

Eyler confessed to at least 20 killings before dying in 1994 at an Illinois prison, where he was on death row for the 1984 murder of 15-year-old Danny Bridges of Chicago.

In 1990, Eyler confessed to killing a Black male in July 1983 at a Newton County farm and described that male as being in his late teens or early 20s, said Pam Lauritzen, spokeswoman for the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that works to identify cold case victims.

Bibbs, who was a Chicago resident, would have been 16 at the time of his death, she said.

The Newton County Coroner’s Office worked with the DNA Doe Project, Indiana State Police and the Identify Indiana Initiative to identify Bibbs nearly 40 years after his remains were discovered.

He is the last to be positively identified of the four victims found buried in shallow graves in October 1983 at the abandoned farm in Lake Village, about 60 miles (96 kilometers) southeast of Chicago. All four had been drugged and murdered by Eyler, according to his confessions.

Newton County Coroner Scott McCord said he was working Tuesday on paperwork needed to get Bibbs’ remains sent to his relatives for burial. He said the family is requesting privacy while they grieve.

“Everything’s done except for getting him back home,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “It’s been a long road getting all those kids identified.”

The DNA Doe Project said in a news release that Bibbs’ DNA was “highly degraded” and investigators spent more than two years repeatedly trying to create “a workable DNA profile” to compare to databases used for forensic cases. In January, the nonprofit said a team of investigative genetic genealogists had finally made progress unraveling Bibbs’ “complex family tree,” leading to his identification.

Two of Eyler’s four victims found buried at the farm were identified early in the investigation as Michael Bauer and John Bartlett. In April 2021, the coroner’s office announced that authorities had identified a third victim as John Ingram Brandenburg Jr. of Chicago, leaving only Bibbs’ body unidentified at that time.

In December 2021, authorities announced that the body of another of Eyler’s victims found at a different site in rural northwestern Indiana had been identified as 19-year-old William Joseph Lewis of Peru, Indiana.

Lewis’ body was also found in October 1983, but in a Jasper County field, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Chicago. He was last seen alive in 1982 by his family at a friend’s funeral in Houston, Texas, officials said.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Brandon Crutchfield committed to Old Dominion, he revealed on Twitter. The 5-foot-10, 165-pound rising senior cornerback from Heritage High in Wake Forest, North Carolina, also holds scholarship offers from Marshall, Hampton, Bethune-Cookman, Elon and North Carolina Central.

Lineman retires from Hokies after surgery

Virginia Tech offensive lineman Jesse Hanson announced his medical retirement after having surgery following a “long battle” with an unspecified injury. He said he’ll play a “different role” on the team this year.

Hanson played for the Hokies for four seasons, starting 11 games at left guard last year after being a reserve from 2019-21.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

CAA to hold men’s, women’s tournaments in D.C. through 2027

The Coastal Athletic Association agreed to a four-year contract with Events DC to conduct the conference men’s and women’s basketball tournament at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington, D.C.

The two tournaments would run back-to-back in the 2023-24 season, and the agreement goes through the 2027 tournament. The arena has been the home of the men’s tournament since 2020, while the women’s tourney would move to a neutral site for the first time since 2016 after being conducted on campuses s over the past seven years.

In 2024, the men’s tournament will run March 8-12, followed by the women’s March 13-17.

ODU reserve transfers to junior college

Jadin Johnson of Omaha, Nebraska, a 6-3 guard who played sparingly in seven games last season for Old Dominion after redshirting as a Monarch in 2021-22, has committed to Blinn College according to the Portal Report Twitter timeline.

Blinn, in Brenham, Texas, is a National Junior College Athletic Association program that went 23-8 last season.

HORSE RACING

Heat forecast prompts Colonial Downs to cancel Friday, Saturday racing

Colonial Downs, working jointly with the Virginia National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and Virginia Racing Commission, canceled the Friday and Saturday race cards in New Kent County because of a forecast of excessive heat — highs in the upper 90s and triple-digit heat indices.

The races scheduled for Friday will be held Wednesday, Aug. 2, with a 1:30 p.m. post time. There will be an additional date set to hold the races scheduled for Saturday.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN, MATTHEW DALY and DREW COSTLEY (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — With heat waves spreading across the United States, President Joe Biden on Thursday announced new steps to protect workers — including a hazard alert notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from extreme heat — as well as measures to improve weather forecasts and make drinking water more accessible.

The actions come as nearly 40% of the U.S. population faces heat advisories, according to the National Weather Service. High temperatures have already scorched the Southwest this month, and more heat is expected in the Midwest and the Northeast in the coming days. Washington won’t be spared, and the heat index in the capital could reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit or 43 degrees Celsius on Friday.

It’s a worldwide problem, and scientists calculate that July will be the hottest month on record.

Noting that ocean temperatures near Miami topped 100 F (38 C), Biden said “that’s more like jumping in a hot tub than jumping into the ocean to ride a wave.”

Citing federal data, Biden called extreme heat the No. 1 weather-related killer in the United States.

“Even those places that are used to extreme heat have never seen it as hot as it is now for as long as it’s been,” Biden said. “Even those who deny that we’re in the midst of a climate crisis can’t deny the impact of extreme heat is having on Americans.”

Biden’s bid to address the immediate effects of climate change come as he faces pressure from fellow Democrats and environmental groups to declare a climate “emergency,” a step he has so far resisted. The steps announced Thursday supplement his long-term agenda for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and deploying clean energy technology, policies that may not pay dividends for years to come while global temperatures continue to rise.

Biden directed the Labor Department to increase inspections of potentially dangerous workplaces such as farms and construction sites and called for heightened enforcement of heat safety violations.

As part of the initiative, the department will issue a hazard alert notifying employers and employees about ways to stay protected from extreme heat, which has killed 436 workers since 2011, according to federal statistics.

The Biden administration plans to spend $7 million to develop more detailed weather predictions to anticipate extreme weather like heat waves, plus $152 million to boost drinking water infrastructure and climate resilience in California, Colorado and Washington.

Biden was joined on Thursday by acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, as well as the leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mayors of Phoenix and San Antonio, two cities that have suffered from the heat waves, participated in the White House event virtually.

“Phoenix is known for heat,” said Mayor Kate Gallego. “We are often called the Valley of the Sun. But right now, this summer has really been unprecedented. It’s taking a real toll on our community. We feel like we are very much on the front lines of climate change.”

Phoenix is the first in the nation to have a permanent, publicly funded heat office, Gallego said, with efforts now focused on getting residents inside as much as possible, at public cooling centers and encouraging use of water stations throughout the city.

Phoenix has seen at least 27 days in a row of temperatures exceeding 110 F (43.3 C). No other major city — defined as the 25 most populous in the United States — has had any stretch of 110 F (38 C) days or 90-degree (32 C) nights longer than Phoenix, said weather historian Christopher Burt, of the Weather Company.

Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, reported recently that there were 25 heat-associated deaths between April 11 and July 22. An additional 249 deaths remain under investigation. There were 425 heat-associated deaths in the county last year.

Other areas of Arizona are also struggling. A 26-year-old farmworker died after collapsing in the fields on July 20, when the high temperature reached 116 F (46.7 C), according to the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office.

San Antonio, Texas, saw at least 15 straight days of 100-plus F (38-plus C) temperatures. At least 13 deaths in Texas have been blamed on the extreme heat.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said his city has moved to end the use of coal and is launching its first advanced rapid transit line, which will feature low- or zero-emission vehicles. The city is also developing solar power and other renewable energy, he said.

“I’m confident that the state best known for oil and gas production can help lead the way to a greener tomorrow,” he said.

Thursday’s announcement follows other steps that the Biden administration has taken to adapt to increasing threats from extreme heat. Among those it is highlighting:

The Labor Department is developing a standard for how workplaces deal with heat. The proposed rule by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would require employers to provide adequate water and rest breaks to outdoor workers, as well as medical services and training to address signs and symptoms of heat-related illness. That agency s holding meetings this summer to hear comments on how the heat standard would affect small businesses.

To keep low-income populations cool, the Department of Health and Human Services expanded its Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to provide more access to air conditioning and cooling centers such as libraries, senior centers or other public buildings. The Environmental Protection Agency also has provided assistance to help communities develop cooling centers within schools.

NOAA has been helping cities and towns map “heat islands” with dense buildings and fewer trees, and the Department of Agriculture issued guidance for creating more tree canopy coverage, which helps with cooling environments.

In addition, the administration launched a website called heat.gov with interactive maps, weather forecasts and tips for keeping cool amid record-breaking heat.

More than 100 members of Congress, led by Democratic Reps. Greg Casar and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and Judy Chu of California have called on the administration to implement the new heat standard for outdoor workers as quickly as possible.

“We know extreme weather events such as heat waves are becoming more frequent and more dangerous due to climate change,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter Monday. U”rgent action is needed to prevent more deaths,″ the lawmakers wrote in a letter Monday.

The United Farm Workers and other groups also called on OSHA to immediately issue a nationwide rule protecting outdoor workers after farm worker deaths this month in Florida and Arizona.

“Farm workers need and deserve the access to shade, water and paid breaks,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “How many more workers will we let dangerous heat and callous employers kill before this nation acts?”

Casar, a freshman lawmaker from Austin, staged a “thirst strike” on Tuesday outside the U.S. Capitol, forgoing water breaks for nearly nine hours, to protest a new Texas law that bans local governments from requiring water breaks and other safety measures for outdoor workers. Casar called the law “insane″ and accused Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of being “on the wrong side of history.” Republican lawmakers and other supporters of the law say it eliminates a patchwork of local regulations that are burdensome to businesses, and they say it won’t stop workers from taking breaks.

At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Ladd Keith, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona who studies heat policy and governance, said the record-breaking heat much of the nation is experiencing “is very much in line with climate change projections.”

Despite the recent headlines, rising temperatures have typically not received the same level of attention as other climate risks, such as flooding and wildfires, Keith said.

“Heat has just not been a topic at the national level or local level that we’ve even considered addressing until the last couple of years,” he said.

___

Costley reported from New Orleans. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.