NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump squirmed and scowled, shook his head and muttered as Stormy Daniels described the unexpected sex she says they had nearly two decades ago, saying she remembered “trying to think of anything other than what was happening.”

It was a story Daniels has told before. This time, Trump had no choice but to sit and listen.

Years in the making, the in-person showdown between the former president and the porn actor who has become one of his nemeses happened Tuesday in a New York courtroom that has become the plainspoken stage for the historic spectacle of Trump’s hush money trial, where the gravitas of the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. commander-in-chief butts up against a crass and splashy tale of sex, tabloids and payoffs.

It’s often said that actual trials are not like the TV drama versions, and in that way, this one is no exception — a methodical and sometimes static proceeding of questions, answers and rules. But if Tuesday’s testimony wasn’t an electric scene of outbursts and tears, it was no less stunning for its sheer improbability.

Daniels’ testimony had been speculated about for as long as Trump has been under indictment. But when it would happen was still a mystery until Tuesday morning, when her lawyer Clark Brewster confirmed in an email to an Associated Press reporter that it was “likely today.”

But even after the trial resumed, Daniels still had to wait.

The first witness of the day was a publishing executive who read passages from some of Trump’s business books.

Then, when the judge asked for the prosecution’s next witness, Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger matter-of-factly declared, “The people call Stormy Daniels.”

Daniels strode briskly to the stand, not looking at Trump, her shoes clunking on the floor. The former president stared straight ahead until the moment she had passed his spot at the defense table, then tilted his head slightly in her direction.

As is standard in court proceedings, Daniels was asked if she saw Trump in the courtroom and to identify him. Before answering, Daniels, wearing eyeglasses, shuffled in her seat for a beat, looking around the courtroom. She then pointed toward him, describing his navy suit coat and gold tie, and said he was sitting at the defense table. Trump looked straight forward, lips pursed.

Dozens of reporters and a handful of public observers packed the courtroom gallery.

In one row alone: CNN anchor Erin Burnett, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell and Andrew Giuliani, the son of Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who wore a media credential from WABC Radio, where he and his dad host shows. Trump’s son Eric sat elsewhere in the courtroom.

As she testified, Daniels spoke confidently and at a rapid clip, the sound of reporters typing reaching a frenetic tempo.

She spoke so quickly, at least six times during her testimony she was asked to slow down so a court stenographer could keep pace.

Jurors seemed as attentive as they’ve been all trial as Daniels recounted her path from aspiring veterinary student to porn actor.

One juror smiled when Daniels mentioned one of the ways into the industry was by winning a contest, like “Ms. Nude North America.” Another juror’s eyes widened as he read along on the monitor displaying a Truth Social post in which Trump said he “did NOTHING wrong” and used an insulting nickname to disparage Daniels’ looks.

Trump denies her claims and has pleaded not guilty in the case, in which he’s charged with falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep quiet.

Many of the jurors jotted notes throughout her testimony, peering up from notepads and alternating their gaze from Daniels in the witness box to the lawyers questioning her from a lectern.

Guided by prosecutors, Daniels drew a detailed scene of her alleged evening with Trump at a hotel suite in Lake Tahoe in 2006, delving frankly into details that Judge Juan M. Merchan would later concede “should probably have been left unsaid.”

She recalled entering the sprawling suite to find Trump in a pair of silk pajamas. She sheepishly admitted to snooping through his bathroom toiletries in the bathroom, finding a pair of golden tweezers. Daniels even acted out part of her interaction with Trump, reclining back in the witness box to demonstrate how she said he was positioned on the bed of his hotel suite when she emerged from the restroom.

Her willingness to provide extra details prompted an usual moment: Trump’s lawyers consented to allowing a prosecutor to meet with Daniels in a side room, during a break in testimony, to give her some instructions to — as Judge Merchan put it — “make sure the witness stays focused on the question, gives the answer and does not give any unnecessary narrative.”

Out of the earshot of the jury, or the reporters in the room, Merchan also asked Trump’s lawyers to stop him from cursing as Daniels spoke.

“I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” the judge said. “I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan added.

“I will talk to him,” said one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche.

Peppy and loquacious when she was being questioned by prosecutors, Daniels was feistier on cross-examination, digging in when defense lawyer Susan Necheles questioned her credibility and motives.

Daniels forcefully denied Necheles’ suggestion that she had tried to extort Trump, answering the lawyer’s contention: “False.”

Daniels left the witness stand just before 4:30 p.m. She didn’t look at Trump as she trod past. He didn’t look at her, either, instead leaning over to whisper to Necheles.

Moments later, Merchan adjourned court until Thursday — with Wednesday the trial’s usual off day. Trump left the courtroom with his entourage of lawyers and aides.

“This was a very revealing day in court. Any honest reporter would say that,” Trump said to journalists in the hallway outside the courtroom. He is limited by court order from saying much more about Daniels to the media.

Inside the courtroom, the witnesses to history reconciled their thoughts, gathered their belongings and waited for Trump to leave the building, so they could, too.

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — State experts have found the man charged with shooting and killing 10 people at a Colorado supermarket in 2021 had untreated mental illness but was legally sane at the time of the attack, lawyers said Tuesday.

The results of the sanity evaluation of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa done at the state mental hospital are not public but were discussed during a court hearing as Alissa, dressed in a jail uniform and his wrists in shackles, and relatives of some of those killed listened.

According to the defense, the evaluators found that the attack would not have happened but for Alissa’s untreated mental illness, which attorney Sam Dunn said was schizophrenia that included “auditory hallucinations.” He also said the evaluators were “less confident” in their sanity conclusion than they would be in other cases but did not elaborate on why.

Prosecutors did not provide any details of their own about what the evaluators found during the hearing. District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who said he is limited to commenting on what has been made public about the evaluation, declined to comment on Dunn’s description of the evaluation’s findings.

“I look forward to the trial, and these are issues that are going to be litigated fully at trial,” Dougherty said after the hearing.

Alissa has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the March 22, 2021, shooting at a King Soopers store in the college town of Boulder. The plea means his lawyers are claiming he did not understand the difference between right from wrong at the time of the shooting and therefor should not be convicted of a crime.

Investigators say he researched how to carry out a mass shooting before he launched his own attack and targeted moving people, killing most of the 10 victims in just over a minute using a gun with a high-capacity magazine.

Alissa’s mental health was raised as an issue by his lawyers right after the shooting, and the issue of whether he was mentally competent to stand trial — able to understand court proceedings and help his lawyers in his defense — put proceedings on hold for about two years. After Alissa was forcibly medicated and then deemed mentally competent to proceed, he entered the not guilty by reason of insanity plea in November.

On Tuesday, Judge Ingrid Bakke granted the defense’s request for Alissa’s sanity at the time of the shooting to be evaluated a second time by their own expert, but she rejected their proposal to delay the trial until March 2025 to give them time for that process. Instead, she delayed the trial by only about a month, scheduling it to start Sept. 2, after hearing strong objections from relatives of the victims and in letters submitted to the court.

As Alissa sat nearby with his lawyers, Erika Mahoney, whose father Kevin Mahoney was killed in the shooting, urged Bakke to allow the families to enter the fall with the trial behind them so they could go on to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah with that chapter closed.

During a prolonged discussion among the lawyers and Bakke, Erika Mahoney was not feeling hopeful, but she was relieved when the judge only delayed the trial by a month.

“It’s funny the things you that become grateful for,” she said after the hearing, “but I am grateful to know that this is moving forward.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — People buying tickets online for concerts, sporting events and other live events in Minnesota will be guaranteed more transparency and protection under a so-called Taylor Swift bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Tim Walz.

The law, prompted by the frustration a legislator felt at not being able to buy tickets to Swift’s 2023 concert in Minneapolis, will require ticket sellers to disclose all fees up front and prohibit resellers from selling more than one copy of a ticket, among other measures. The law will apply to tickets purchased in Minnesota or other states for concerts or other live events held in Minnesota.

Walz signed House File 1989 — a reference to Swift’s birth year and an album with that title — at First Avenue, a popular concert venue in downtown Minneapolis.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that we would be at a bill signing for House File 1989 at First Avenue,” Democratic Rep. Kelly Moller, chief author of the bill, said.

Moller was among thousands of people who became stuck in ticket sales company Ticketmaster’s system after it crashed in 2022 amid the huge demand for Swift concert tickets and attacks from bots, which tried to buy tickets for resale at inflated prices. The situation led to congressional hearings but no federal legislation.

Supporters of Minnesota’s new law say the state joins Maryland as among the few states to pass protections for ticket buyers into law.

Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new Minnesota law. Taylor Swift’s media team also did not respond.

Jessica Roey, a spokesperson for StubHub, said in an email, “StubHub has long advocated for legislation that protects fans from anti-competitive and anti-consumer practices in the ticket buying process. We share the goals of HF1989 and look forward to continuing discussions with policymakers to advance policies that provide more transparency, more control, and more choice for ticket buyers.”

Walz, a Democrat, said the new law is “protection so you don’t get a bad ticket, a fraudulent ticket, and resellers can’t snatch them all up before you get an opportunity.”

Two young girls — one wearing a shirt that said “A LOT going on at the moment” in a nod to Swift, and another wearing a shirt that said “Iowa 22” in reference to basketball star Caitlin Clark — attended the bill signing with their dad, Mike Dean, who testified in support of the bill this year.

Dean said his daughter “came to me in December and said, ‘Dad, I want to go to see Caitlin Clark.’ As a father, I just couldn’t resist. And so I went online to go buy tickets.”

The tickets were supposed to cost $300 total, Dean said, but they ended up costing over $500 because of hidden fees. The timer had begun in the online checkout process, so he had just minutes to decide whether to buy the tickets or lose them.

He ultimately bought the tickets. But Dean said these practices mean customers can’t make informed decisions. The new law, he said, will bring transparency to the process.

The law takes effect Jan. 1, 2025, and applies to tickets sold on or after that date.

Adrianna Korich, director of ticketing at First Avenue, said she supports the new rules, saying fans are sometimes tricked into paying up to 10 times a ticket’s face value because of deceptive websites and resellers who list tickets without actually possessing them. The new law bans both, she said.

“We have all heard the horror stories from the Taylor Swift Eras tour and have seen the astronomical prices that are being charged at checkout,” Korich said.

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Trisha Ahmed is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @TrishaAhmed15

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Transgender activists have flooded a Utah tip line created to alert state officials to possible violations of a new bathroom law with thousands of hoax reports in an effort to shield trans residents and their allies from any legitimate complaints that could lead to an investigation.

The onslaught has led the state official tasked by the law with managing the tip line, Utah Auditor John Dougall, to bemoan getting stuck with the cumbersome task of filtering through fake complaints while also facing backlash for enforcing a law he had no role in passing.

“No auditor goes into auditing so they can be the bathroom monitors,” Dougall said Tuesday. “I think there were much better ways for the Legislature to go about addressing their concerns, rather than this ham-handed approach.”

In the week since it launched, the online tip line already has received more than 10,000 submissions, none of which seem legitimate, he said. The form asks people to report public school employees who knowingly allow someone to use a facility designated for the opposite sex.

Utah residents and visitors are required by law to use bathrooms and changing rooms in government-owned buildings that correspond with their birth sex. As of last Wednesday, schools and agencies found not enforcing the new restrictions can be fined up to $10,000 per day for each violation.

Although their advocacy efforts failed to stop Republican lawmakers in many states from passing restrictions for trans people, the community has found success in interfering with the often ill-conceived enforcement plans attached to those laws.

Within hours of its publication Wednesday night, trans activists and community members from across the U.S. already had spread the Utah tip line widely on social media. Many shared the spam they had submitted and encouraged others to follow suit.

Their efforts mark the latest attempt by advocates to shut down or render unusable a government tip line that they argue sows division by encouraging residents to snitch on each other. Similar portals in at least five other states also have been inundated with hoax reports, leading state officials to shut some down.

In Virginia, Indiana, Arizona and Louisiana, activists flooded tip lines created to field complaints about teachers, librarians and school administrators who may have spoken to students about race, LGBTQ+ identities or other topics lawmakers argued were inappropriate for children. The Virginia tip line was taken down within a year, as was a tip line introduced in Missouri to report gender-affirming health care clinics.

Erin Reed, a prominent trans activist and legislative researcher, said there is a collective understanding in the trans community that submitting these hoax reports is an effective way of protesting the law and protecting trans people who might be targeted.

“There will be people who are trans that go into bathrooms that are potentially reported by these sorts of forms, and so the community is taking on a protective role,” Reed said. “If there are 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 form responses that are entered in, it’s going to be much harder for the auditor’s office to sift through every one of them and find the one legitimate trans person who was caught using a bathroom.”

The auditor’s office has encountered many reports that Dougall described as “total nonsense,” and others that he said appear credible at first glance and take much longer to filter out. His staff has spent the last week sorting through thousands of well-crafted complaints citing fake names or locations.

Despite efforts to clog the enforcement tool they had outlined in the bill, the Republican sponsors, Rep. Kera Birkeland and Sen. Dan McCay, said they remain confident in the tip line and the auditor’s ability to filter out fake complaints.

“It’s not surprising that activists are taking the time to send false reports,” Birkeland said. “But that isn’t a distraction from the importance of the legislation and the protection it provides women across Utah.”

The Morgan Republican had pitched the policy as a safety measure to protect the privacy of women and girls without citing evidence of threats or assaults by trans people against them.

McCay said he hadn’t realized activists were responsible for flooding the tip line. The Salt Lake City senator said he does not plan to change how the law is being enforced.

LGBTQ+ rights advocates also have warned the law and the accompanying tip line give people license to question anyone’s gender in community spaces, which they argue could even affect people who are not trans.

Their warnings were amplified earlier this year when a Utah school board member came under fire — and later lost her reelection bid — for publicly questioning the gender of a high school basketball player she wrongly assumed was transgender.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A woman who fell from the stands to her death during a graduation ceremony at Ohio State University last weekend has been identified as a Georgia resident, authorities announced Tuesday.

The Franklin County Coroner’s Office said Larissa Brady, 53, was pronounced dead at the scene, just outside Ohio Stadium in Columbus on Sunday. The Columbus Dispatch reported the death was being investigated as an apparent suicide, citing coroner documents.

An investigation continues into how Brady fell from the stadium, which the school says is 136 feet (41 meters) tall, to the pavement below. However, Ohio State police do not suspect foul play and believe the fall was not accidental, university spokesperson Ben Johnson said Tuesday.

It happened around midday, near the stadium’s Bell Tower, as the last graduates were filing into the stadium. According to the commencement program, Brady’s daughter was among those graduating.

The commencement continued without mention of what happened, but some students and others at the ceremony were visibly upset after the fall. A spokesman said the university has contacted all graduates and staff who volunteered at graduation to offer counseling services.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Seven more Republican-led states sued Tuesday to challenge a new federal regulation that seeks to protect the rights of transgender students in the nation’s schools. Republican plaintiffs call the effort to fold protection for transgender students under the 1972 Title IX law unconstitutional.

The lawsuits filed in federal courts in Missouri and Oklahoma are the latest GOP attempts to halt the new regulation seeking to clarify Title IX, a landmark 1972 sex discrimination law originally passed to address women’s rights and applied to schools and colleges receiving federal money. The rules spell out that Title IX bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, too.

Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota joined as plaintiffs in the Missouri lawsuit.

The cases come as many Republicans seek to limit the rights of transgender youth, including restricting which bathrooms or pronouns they can use in school. Such prohibitions that could be invalidated by the new federal regulation. The GOP states suing argue that the new federal rules goes beyond the intent of Title IX and that the Biden administration doesn’t have the authority to implement them.

“The interpretation of the Biden administration is completely inconsistent with the statute and the way it’s been interpreted for decades,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said at a news conference with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

The federal regulation applies to all schools that receive federal funding. The latest filings bring to at least 21 the number of GOP states challenging the new rules. Officials in several states, including Arkansas, have said they don’t plan to comply with the regulation.

The U.S. Department of Education said it does not comment on pending litigation.

An Arkansas high school athlete, Amelia Ford, also joined the Missouri case, saying she doesn’t believe transgender women should be allowed to compete on women’s sports teams.

The Biden administration’s new rules broadly protect against discrimination based on sex, but they don’t offer guidance around transgender athletes. Most of the states challenging the regulation have laws restricting what teams transgender athletes can play on.

Lawsuits also have been filed in federal courts in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky. The multiple challenges give the states suing a better chance that one of the cases will put the rule on hold nationally.

NEW YORK (AP) — One-time movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was returned to a New York City jail in what his publicist said Tuesday was the result from a published report claiming he was getting VIP treatment during his 10-day stay at a hospital.

The publicist, Juda Engelmeyer, said Weinstein was moved late Monday from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan to an infirmary at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex.

The move came hours after The City, a nonprofit news outlet, reported that Weinstein was housed in a private room in the hospital’s intensive care unit with a television, phone and a bathroom rather than a separate floor where inmates normally reside.

Engelmeyer disputed the account, saying Weinstein “wasn’t getting preferential or VIP treatment” and wasn’t housed in what could be characterized as a hospital suite. Engelmeyer said he’d been housed on the floor for inmates where everyone has access to a room with phones and a television room.

“He’s been moved back to Rikers largely due to pressure, I believe, due to pressure because of the news about what somebody thought was VIP treatment,” he said.

Weinstein was brought to Bellevue Hospital only hours after he was transferred on April 26 from the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany, to Rikers less than a day after the New York Court of Appeals vacated his conviction.

The appeals court ruled that a Manhattan trial judge permitted jurors to see and hear too much evidence not directly related to the charges he faced, and it ordered a new trial, negating his 23-year prison sentence. However, he remained jailed because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

While prosecutors have asked for a September retrial on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013, it was unclear if key trial witnesses would return for a new trial. Weinstein has disputed the allegations.

Frank Dwyer, a New York City Department of Correction spokesperson, said Weinstein was originally taken to Bellevue for medical care and was returned to the West Facility, a Rikers Island jail in Queens, when the treatment was completed.

The West Facility houses 140 specially air-controlled housing units for inmates with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, according to a city website, though the jail has reportedly also been used for inmates that need to be isolated from the general jail population for other reasons.

Craig Rothfeld, a jail consultant working with Weinstein attorneys, responded to an email sent to a Weinstein lawyer by saying the decision to return Weinstein to Rikers was made by medical staff “who are more than qualified to make these medical decisions.”

He said there are no more updates to provide regarding Weinstein’s health, and all of his health conditions continue to be closely monitored by city jail and health officials.

“We have every confidence in their decision-making ability regarding Mr. Weinstein’s safety and well-being and are grateful for their continued communication,” Rothfeld said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein had been treated at the hospital for pneumonia, a recurring issue related to his heart troubles, along with his other medical issues, including diabetes.

“He appreciates the care he was getting in Bellevue,” he said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein was “disappointed” at his return to Rikers and was “uncomfortable” there, where the spokesperson described Weinstein’s housing as “more like an infirmary.”

He said Weinstein was regularly speaking by phone with his lawyers when he was at the hospital as other inmates awaiting trial are allowed to do.

“He didn’t get any treatment different from others. He wasn’t talking to his friends and buddies and having a good time,” Engelmeyer said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein gained some “relief and hope” from the appeals ruling, but he knows he faces a long prison term from the California case and an appeal of that conviction won’t be heard for another year.

“His spirits are up, but he also knows he has a long, long trip ahead of him,” Engelmeyer said. “He knows that he won’t be getting out soon.

DENVER (AP) — A bill to ban the sale and transfer of semi-automatic firearms was nixed in Colorado’s Democratic-controlled Legislature on Tuesday as lawmakers pressed forward with a slew of other gun control bills on the 25th anniversary year of the Columbine High School massacre.

The western state has a deep history with firearms that is pockmarked by some of the most high-profile mass shootings nationwide. Both factors loom large over gun control debates in the Legislature, complicating attempts at such bans that nine other Democratic-controlled states have in place, including California and New York.

The Colorado House passed the ban in a historic first and what proponents see as a “tremendous achievement” after roughly the same proposal was swiftly nixed last year. But some Senate Democrats are wary of the efficacy and breadth of the ban, which prohibits the sale, transfer and manufacture of semi-automatic firearms.

Colorado’s blue shift is evident in part by a number of successful gun control measures passed last year, including raising the buying age for a gun from 18 to 21. Some half-dozen proposals are nearing passage this year, including a bill to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot to tax sales of guns and ammunition. Another would give the Colorado Bureau of Investigation more power to investigate gun sales that are already illegal.

The state’s purple roots have frustrated attempts at a broader ban.

A decade ago, two lawmakers were ousted in the state’s first recall elections over their support for bills that set limits on ammunition magazines and expanded background checks.

“That history, I think, lingers,” said Democratic state Sen. Julie Gonzales, one of the semi-automatic ban bill’s sponsors. She added that the proposal’s success in the House “signals that there is a new space for us to have different conversations.”

But for now, at a sparsely attended committee hearing Tuesday, Gonzales asked that the legislation be put to rest in the face of opposition from Senate Democrats.

On that committee sits Democratic state Sen. Tom Sullivan, who would have been a “no” vote, along with Republican lawmakers who have decried the bill as an encroachment on Second Amendment rights.

Sullivan’s son, Alex, was one of 12 killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” The tragedy catapulted Sullivan into activism around gun control and then public office, where he has spearheaded many bills on the issue.

Sullivan said the weapons that the bill seeks to curtail are involved in only a small fraction of gun deaths and injuries. Those firearms include a long list of semi-automatic rifles, along with some pistols and shotguns, with certain characteristics, such as a threaded barrel or detachable stock.

Their prohibition wouldn’t make much of a dent in gun violence, Sullivan argued, and the proposal takes up immense political oxygen in the state capitol — energizing the opposition and detracting from more effective and less controversial gun control measures.

“The narrative is all wrong,” Sullivan said. “That’s what they want you to believe, that it’s assault weapons and schools. It’s not. … It’s suicides and it’s domestic violence.”

Democratic state Rep. Tim Hernández, one of the bill’s sponsors, said he’d had many discussions with Sullivan in the preceding months.

“We both agree that an assault weapons ban is not a silver bullet to the epidemic of gun violence,” Hernández said. “For us to get to a place where we are interrogating all the ways that gun violence shows up, we have to run policies for all the ways it manifests itself.”

The proposal is expected to be revived next year.

Meanwhile, other bills nearing the governor’s desk include a proposal to require more rigorous safety training for someone seeking a concealed carry permit. And one would require firearm dealers to obtain a state permit, not just a federal one, to give regulators greater power to enforce state gun laws.

(Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it has opened an investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to see whether some employees committed “misconduct” by claiming certain tests that were not performed had been completed. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING? 

The U.S. FAA has opened another investigation into Boeing, which was already facing probes related to a Jan. 5 panel blowout on a 737 MAX. The FAA wants to know if Boeing completed inspections to confirm adequate bonding and electrical grounding where wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes at its factory in South Carolina.

HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT? 

Boeing informed the FAA that an employee at the South Carolina plant found irregularities in a 787 test – and said in an email from a company vice president that the planemaker “learned that several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed.”

IS THIS THE FIRST TIME AN ISSUE INVOLVING PAPERWORK HAS EMERGED AT BOEING? 

No. Investigators looking at the Jan. 5 737 MAX blowout have not turned up specific documentation related to the production of the aircraft in question as well. In that incident, a door plug was removed to address manufacturing problems, but when the panel was reinstalled, four bolts needed to hold the door in place were missing. Boeing so far has not produced any paperwork that shows whether this step took place or not, and has said it believes required documents detailing the removal of the bolts were never created. Missing or falsifying documentation is seen by experts as an egregious problem in aerospace where regulators require meticulous production records.   

WILL THIS NEWEST INVESTIGATION AFFECT PLANE PRODUCTION OR EXISTING PLANES? 

It is possible. The FAA said on Monday that Boeing is “reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.” Boeing currently produces fewer than five 787 planes per month. The company in April had said it was already dealing with a slower rate of production due to parts shortages.

WILL ANYONE BE HELD RESPONSIBLE? 

Boeing has said it is taking “swift and serious corrective action with multiple employees,” but it is not clear how the planemaker will fully respond to this issue. The company’s safety culture has been under scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators after the Jan. 5 blowout that has damaged the aerospace giant’s reputation. 

In April, Sam Salehpour, a current engineer at the company, said Boeing’s manufacturing practices are inadequately addressing safety concerns.    

Boeing was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

CHICAGO (AP) — Three men who say they were sexually abused as children while incarcerated at Illinois juvenile detention centers came forward Tuesday as part of a lawsuit that chronicles decades of disturbing allegations of systemic child abuse.

Calvin McDowell, 37, who alleged he was abused by a chaplain at a suburban Chicago youth center as a teenager, said he didn’t want others suffering as he did for decades.

“Instead of being cared for, I felt more alone than ever,” McDowell said at a Chicago news conference. “I held my secret from the people I loved out of fear and embarrassment. I had nights where I wanted to give up on life.”

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly, as McDowell and two other men who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit have.

The complaint filed Monday alleges widespread abuse from 1996 to 2017 at nine youth detention centers, including gang rape, forced oral sex and beatings of children by corrections officers, sergeants, nurses, therapists, a chaplain and others. Many of the 95 plaintiffs, who are mostly identified by their initials in the lawsuit, said they were threatened or rewarded to keep quiet.

The lawsuit follows similar complaints of abuse at youth detention centers in New Jersey, California, Maryland and elsewhere.

Ten of the 95 men and women who brought the Illinois complaint appeared at the news conference.

Jeffery Christian, 36, said he was abused at two different Illinois Youth Centers, including by a counselor who groped him during counseling sessions. His family’s efforts to report the abuse were ignored at the time, he said — a pattern that was familiar to the others.

“I want the world to know what happened to me and the rest of the survivors that are with me,” Christian said. “I want to shine a light on these dark times I went through as a juvenile.”

When Christian shed tears, another survivor patted him on the back in support. There were nods in agreement and applause as the survivors spoke. Several said that meeting others who had the same harrowing experiences has helped them find peace.

The lawsuit contends Illinois failed to supervise, discipline, remove or investigate alleged abusers, enabling abuse to continue. The complaint alleges the abuse happened at youth centers in locations all over the state, including Chicago, St. Charles and Harrisburg. Several detention center locations have since closed.

Filed in the Illinois Court of Claims, the lawsuit names the state of Illinois and its Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice as defendants. It seeks damages of roughly $2 million per plaintiff, the most allowed under law.

Spokespeople for Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who took office in 2019, and the two corrections agencies have said the alleged incidents took place under former administrations and that any allegations of staff misconduct are “thoroughly investigated.” They did not immediately have further comment Tuesday.

Attorneys who brought the lawsuit said they are skeptical that things have changed.

Attorney Todd Mathews said there are hundreds of other former child detainees in Illinois who allege sexual abuse and that he expects to file more lawsuits. Attorney Jerome Block, who has helped bring lawsuits against juvenile detention facilities elsewhere, said states always maintain they have the right procedures in place to deter abuse and that children are safe.

“It’s hard to believe the state when they say there’s no problem right now, because that’s what they said for all these past decades,” Block said.

Some survivors said they hope they’ll get more answers through legal action, including the names of their alleged abusers.

The lawsuit notes six alleged repeat offenders who are identified by name. But many others are identified only as the alleged victims remembered them, including by physical descriptions or nicknames.

Stephen Lucas, 36, was about 13 years old when he said was repeatedly abused and harassed by a supervisor at a downstate youth facility. He hopes that his coming forward will help others.

“I was afraid to share my hardship with those closest to me because I didn’t want to be looked at differently. But joining the lawsuit has freed a part of me that I locked away for 22 years,” he said. “I’m finally reclaiming what was taken from me all those years ago.”