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California man convicted of killing his mother is captured in Mexico after ditching halfway house

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man convicted of killing his mother as a teenager was captured in Mexico a week after he walked away from a halfway house, violating the conditions of his probation, authorities said.

Ike Nicholas Souzer, 20, was arrested Wednesday in the coastal city of Rosarito by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. He was returned to California.

During the weeklong manhunt, the district attorney’s office described Souzer as dangerous and violent.

Souzer had already served his sentence for stabbing his mother to death in 2017, when he was 13. He was subsequently convicted on a vandalism charge and served a short sentence, then released from custody March 20, prosecutors said.

The judge in that case also sentenced Souzer to two years of probation.

This was the second time Souzer disappeared from a halfway house. In 2022, he was let out of jail and moved to a halfway house in Santa Ana where he removed his electronic monitor and left. He was later captured by police.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Souzer deserved harsher sentences and blamed judges who have handled his cases.

“My prosecutors have spent years and years trying to do everything they can to keep this violent criminal behind bars, and at every turn, the very judges who are elected to protect public safety have done little to do so and instead have given him break after break after break,” Spitzer said in a statement.

Souzer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of his mother. His defense attorney argued that the killing was in self-defense and said the teen had experienced years of abuse, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Souzer has also been charged with three attacks on correctional officers, possessing a shank in jail, and most recently, drawing graffiti on a freeway underpass, prosecutors said.

He also escaped a juvenile detention facility in 2019.


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Haiti now needs up to 5,000 police to help tackle `catastrophic’ gang violence , UN expert says

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Haiti now needs between 4,000 and 5,000 international police to help tackle “catastrophic” gang violence which is targeting key individuals and hospitals, schools, banks and other critical institutions, the U.N. rights expert for the conflict-wracked Caribbean nation said Thursday.

Last July, William O’Neill said Haiti needed between 1,000 and 2,000 international police trained to deal with gangs. Today, he said the situation is so much worse that double that number and more are needed to help the Haitian National Police regain control of security and curb human rights abuses.

O’Neill spoke at a news conference launching a U.N. Human Rights Office report he helped produce which called for immediate action to tackle the “cataclysmic” situation in Haiti where corruption, impunity and poor governance compounded by increasing gang violence have eroded the rule of law and brought state institutions “close to collapse.”

The report, covering the five-month period ending in February, said gangs continue to recruit and abuse boys and girls, with some children being killed for trying to escape.

Gangs also continue to use sexual violence “to brutalize, punish and control people,” the report said, citing women raped during gang attacks in neighborhoods, “in many cases after seeing their husbands killed in front of them.”

In 2023, the number of people killed and injured as a result of gang violence increased significantly – with 4,451 killed and 1,668 injured, the report said. And up to March 22 this year, the numbers skyrocketed to 1,554 killed and 826 injured.

As a result of the escalating gang violence, so-called “self-defense brigades” have taken justice into their own hands, the report said, and “at least 528 cases of lynching were reported in 2023 and a further 59 in 2024.”

The human rights report reiterated the need for urgent deployment of a multinational security mission to help Haiti’s police stop the violence and restore the rule of law. And it urged tighter national and international controls to stem the trafficking of weapons and ammunition to gangs and others – much of it from the United States.

O’Neill, who was appointed by the Geneva-based U.N. human rights chief, said the “alarming” targeting of key institutions and individuals began in the last four or five weeks – with 18 attacks on hospitals documented, attacks on schools including one set on fire three days ago, and one of Haiti’s elite academic institutions set ablaze on Wednesday night. Gangs have also stormed Haiti’s two biggest prisons.

In addition, he said, gangs have made two attempts to take control of the National Palace, and they are targeting human rights defenders, journalists and people they see as threats to their continuing control of territory.

Another new element documented by the U.N. human rights team in Haiti, O’Neill said, is the use of children not only as messengers, lookouts, sex slaves and cooks, but young teenagers are now involved in frontline activities and attacks in numbers not seen before.

The closure of the airport and roads has also left about 1.4 million Haitians on the verge of famine. And the number of people fleeing their homes has increased from 50,000 last July according to the U.N. International Organization for Migration to at least 362,000, “and I would say given the last three to four weeks, we’re probably close to 400,000 if not over that,” the U.N. envoy said.

O’Neill said re-establishing security is key, and getting the international security force on the ground in Haiti is critical and urgent.

Getting the transitional presidential council officially installed and active is also “crucial” and “absolutely vital,” O’Neill said, expressing hope this could happen possibly next week. For one thing, Kenya’s President William Ruto has said he won’t deploy police to lead the multinational security operation until he has a Haitian counterpart, the U.N. expert said.

O’Neill said the trust fund to finance the international police operation also desperately needs funds.

Haiti asked for an international force to combat gangs in October 2022, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a force last July, he said.

“We’re still waiting and every day lost means more people die, and more women and girls get raped, and more people flee their homes,” O’Neill said. “So the sooner the better.”


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Baltimore bridge collapse puts the highly specialized role of ship’s pilot under the spotlight

The expert pilots who navigate massive ships in and out of Baltimore’s port must often maneuver with just 2 feet (0.6 meter) of clearance from the channel floor and memorize charts, currents and every other possible maritime variable.

The highly specialized role — in which a pilot temporarily takes control of a ship from its regular captain — is coming under the spotlight this week.

Two pilots were at the helm of the cargo ship Dali about 1:25 a.m. Tuesday when it lost power and, minutes later, crashed into a pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the bridge to collapse and kill six construction workers.

While the incident will undoubtedly raise larger questions about ship and port safety protocols, so far there is no indication the pilots on the Dali did anything wrong given the immediate situation they faced. The ship sent out a mayday call, which gave just enough time for authorities to close the bridge to traffic and likely prevented further deaths. The lead pilot also dropped an anchor, issued steering commands and called for help from nearby tugboats, according to a preliminary timeline outlined by the National Transportation Safety Board.

But in the end, maritime experts say, there was likely nothing the pilots could have done to stop the 95,000-ton ship from ploughing into the bridge.

“It’s completely their worst nightmare,” said Capt. Allan Post, the deputy superintendent of the Texas A&M Maritime Academy in Galveston. “It is terrifying to even imagine not being able to control the vessel, and knowing what’s going to happen, and not being able to do anything about it.”

Pilots are local knowledge experts, and they give commands to the bridge team for rudder and engine settings, and for what course to steer, Post said.

U.S. pilots are typically graduates of maritime academies and have spent many years at sea before they join a lengthy apprentice program to learn every aspect of a local area, including memorizing charts, he said.

“A ship’s captain is a general practitioner, if I was to use a medical term,” Post said. “And a pilot would be a surgeon.”

Ship pilots have been working in the Chesapeake Bay since 1640, and the Association of Maryland Pilots currently has 65 active pilots on its books.

The association describes on its website how the bay throws up unique challenges, including that pilots must maneuver container ships that can sit nearly 48 feet (14.6 meters) deep in the water through the main Baltimore shipping channels, which are only 50 feet (15.2 meters) deep.

“Pilots are on the front lines protecting the environmental and ecological balance of the Chesapeake Bay by ensuring the safe passage of these large ships that carry huge quantities of oil and other hazardous materials,” the association says on its site.

The association, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, has issued a statement thanking first responders to the bridge accident and saying its members’ thoughts and prayers are with the families of victims.

There is lucrative pay for pilots because the job comes with plenty of responsibility and risk, Post said.

On a typical day, he said, a pilot might make multiple trips. He or she would be assigned to one ship leaving a port, Post said, and then disembark to board a second, inbound ship.

He said that of the two pilots assigned to the Dali, one would have been in command, with the second able to assist if necessary. He said that, typically, the ship’s regular captain would also have been on the bridge, along with one of the watch officers and a couple of other crew.

The NTSB timeline indicated the pilots had less than five minutes from when they first lost power to when the ship struck the pillar.

“They had very little time from the start of the incident until the time they were upon the bridge,” Post said. “I believe the pilots did what they could with the abilities that they had onboard the ship at the time to avoid the collision.”


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Tennessee politicians strip historically Black university of its board

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Trustees of Tennessee’s only publicly funded historically Black university were removed Thursday under legislation signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee. Black lawmakers and community leaders said state leaders, a majority of whom are white, are unfairly targeting Tennessee State University.

The legislation cleared the state GOP-controlled House on Thursday in a 66-25 vote, and Lee signed off a few hours later without commenting on the controversial decision to vacate the board. He instead praised TSU as a “remarkable institution” as he unveiled that he already had selected 10 new replacements.

“I’m pleased to appoint these highly qualified individuals who will work alongside administrators and students to further secure TSU’s place as a leading institution,” Lee said.

The new appointees, largely from the business community, are now subject to confirmation by the Legislature. Their selection will be critical as TSU is already seeking a new leader because President Glenda Glover plans to retire at the end of this school year.

“All we’re talking about is the board … It’s vacating some personalities and bringing others in,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth told reporters. “The goal is to make TSU successful.”

Republican leaders have long grumbled about TSU’s leadership as multiple state audits have found student housing shortages, unsustainable scholarship increases and lingering financial discrepancies. Audits released Thursday morning ahead of the House vote found 56 “significant procedural deficiencies” ranging from the school failing to follow its own procedures, to not properly documenting transactions or identifying improvements to its budgeting procedures.

However, one review stated that it “did not identify evidence indicative of fraud or malfeasance by executive leadership.”

Democrats and others say Republicans are focusing on the wrong issues, pointing out that TSU’s problems are primarily due to its being underfunded by an estimated $2.1 billion over the last three decades. They also allege that the majority-white Legislature distrusts a Black-controlled university’s ability to manage itself.

Rep. Bo Mitchell, a Democrat whose district includes TSU, also questioned removing the board of a historically Black college that the state has failed to adequately fund. “I’ve seen many audits of many universities that look horrendous,” Mitchell said. “Have we ever, ever vacated an entire board of a university before? Have we ever done that?”

Multiple Democrats filed last minute motions and amendments that would have delayed the vote or cut the number of board seats to be vacated to five rather than 10. Ultimately, the GOP supermajority voted down each of the proposals.

“Instead of us rectifying the problems that we created through racist policies by underfunding Tennessee State University, we’re now advocating to vacate their board,” said Rep. Justin Pearson, a Democrat from Memphis, raising his voice as he criticized his Republican colleagues.

Last year, the Tennessee Legislature provided TSU with a lump sum of $250 million for infrastructure projects to help fix a portion of the shortfall.

Republican Rep. Ryan Williams said that money was “completely blown through” after officials gave too many student scholarships, so many that students were placed in hotels because there wasn’t enough housing. Other universities, including University of Tennessee in Knoxville, have also been required to house some students temporarily in hotels without the same criticism from state lawmakers.

“The challenges are dire,” Williams said. “But we have to have assurances that future investment, or that remedy to this problem, is going to be well taken care of.”

TSU supporters and students watched from the galleries Thursday and cheered at times when Democrats criticized the bill. Some booed Republicans once the legislation cleared, while others lamented at the Legislature’s punishing response to the university’s challenges.

“We have people who realize it takes a bridge sometimes to get where you’re trying to go,” Barry Barlow, a pastor and TSU grad said during a news conference after the vote. “But we have people in the Tennessee General Assembly who will take your bridge of promise and stick dynamite to it.”

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise contributed to this report.


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Mississippi Senate passes trimmed Medicaid expansion and sends bill back to the House

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi lawmakers will try to negotiate on expanding Medicaid in one of the poorest states in the U.S. after the Senate voted Thursday for a vastly different plan than one proposed by the House.

The upper chamber’s proposal would insure fewer people and bring less federal money to the state than the version approved by the House last month. But the Senate’s approach includes a tougher work requirement and measures to prevent a wider expansion of Medicaid benefits in the future.

Senators debated the bill for nearly two hours before approving it in a 36-16 vote. The move to increase eligibility for the government-funded health insurance program that covers low-income people has set off a struggle between Republican Gov. Tate Reeves and members of his own party. In a social media post Wednesday, Reeves called the bill “Obamacare Medicaid” and said it would amount to “welfare expansion to those able-bodied adults that could work but choose not to.”

Republican Sen. Kevin Blackwell, who chairs the Senate Medicaid Committee, has dubbed the Senate proposal Medicaid expansion “lite,” and said it is much narrower that what is allowed under the Affordable Care Act, a 2010 federal health overhaul signed by then-President Barack Obama.

“Many of the comments I’ve seen recently on social media are misleading, inaccurate and designed to be inflammatory,” Blackwell said. “This bill is not Obamacare expansion. This bill is a very responsible, conservative bill geared toward helping the working poor.”

The Senate’s amended bill would extend eligibility only to those making up to 100% of the federal poverty level, just over $15,000 for one person. That is down from the 138% figure, just under $21,000 for one person, approved by the House.

House Medicaid Committee Chairwoman Missy McGee said her proposal could extend benefits to as many as 200,000 people. Blackwell said the new version of the bill approved by his committee could make 80,000 people eligible for expanded coverage, but he projects only about 40,000 would enroll.

Mississippi ranks at the bottom of virtually every health care indicator and at the top of every disparity. Hospitals are struggling to remain open. The state also has one of the nation’s lowest labor force participation rates. Expansion proponents have said the policy could help improve these conditions.

Senate Democrats introduced amendments that would have expanded Medicaid to more people, but Republicans voted them down on the floor. Even still, Senate Democrats all voted for the bill, with Minority Leader Derrick Simmons arguing that Mississippi is experiencing a “health care crisis” and that the bill is better than the status quo.

Opponents of Medicaid expansion say the program would foster government dependency, increase wait times for health services and push people off private insurance.

Republican lawmakers have said expansion without a work requirement is a nonstarter. The Senate version would require people to work at least 30 hours per week to become eligible for expanded benefits, up from the 20-hour work requirement approved by the House.

The Senate makes expansion depend on President Joe Biden’s administration approving its work requirement. But the administration has consistently revoked work requirement waivers, arguing people should not face roadblocks to getting health care.

Only Georgia has managed to tie a work requirement to a partial expansion of Medicaid benefits. But the state only requires people to document 80 monthly hours of work, 40 hours less than what Mississippi senators have proposed. Georgia’s program has seen abysmal enrollment.

The House proposal would have allowed expansion to continue without a work requirement, but the Senate version would disallow Medicaid expansion without one. Blackwell said he is counting on Biden losing in November to a Republican whose administration would welcome a work requirement.

Under the reduced eligibility level approved by the Senate, Mississippi would also lose an additional financial bonus for expanding Medicaid that would be available under the House’s version.

The bill now heads back the House, and Reeves is likely to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk. Lawmakers could override his veto with a two-thirds vote from the House and Senate.

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Michael Goldberg 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 undercovered issues.


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Tennessee governor signs bill to undo Memphis traffic stop reforms after Tyre Nichols death

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Thursday signed off on the repeal of police traffic stop reforms made in Memphis after the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by officers in January 2023, despite pleas from Nichols’ parents to GOP lawmakers and the governor to give them a chance to find compromise.

The Republican governor’s signature means the law immediately renders some of Memphis’ ordinances null and void, including one that outlawed so-called pretextual traffic stops, such as for a broken taillight and other minor violations. Lee echoed arguments from Republican lawmakers who argued Nichols’ death needed to result in accountability for officers who abuse power, not new limits on how authorities conduct traffic stops.

“I think what’s most important for us to remember is that we can give law enforcement tools, but we’ve got to hold law enforcement to a standard of using those tools appropriately, where there’s an appropriate interaction with the public,” Lee told reporters Friday, earlier this month of his decision to sign the bill. “That’s not what we understand has happened all the time, and certainly their family would attest to that.”

To date, Lee has never vetoed a piece of legislation since taking office nearly seven years ago, only occasionally letting bills become law without signing them to send a message of his concern or disapproval. He rarely bucks his political party’s wishes, and he is notably attempting to push through a contentious universal school voucher bill where he needs Republican support in order for it to pass.

Nichols’ death last January sparked outrage and calls for reforms nationally and locally. Videos showed an almost 3-minute barrage of fists, feet and baton strikes to Nichols’ face, head, front and back, as the 29-year-old Black man yelled for his mother about a block from home.

Nichols’ parents, mother RowVaughn Wells and stepfather Rodney Wells, were among the advocates who drummed up support for the Memphis city council last year to pass ordinance changes.

Many Republican elected officials in Tennessee also joined in the public outcry over Nichols’ death at the time. The month afterward, Lee even mentioned the Nichols family in his annual State of the State speech, saying “their courage, along with the compassion shown by the people of Memphis, is a picture of hope.”

Yet the majority-white Legislature has repeatedly rebuffed many Black leaders’ call for police reforms and oversight, and instead have sided with advocates who don’t want new limits on police authority.

In recent years, lawmakers have reacted similarly when they disagree with how Democrat-voting Memphis and Nashville run their cities. They have preempted local power to undo progressive policies, took more authority over local boards, and kept a hardline approach to crime in Memphis.

Nichols’ parents, in this case, said their attempts to get the bill sponsors to commit to finding some middle ground failed, leaving them and supporters in the Memphis community feeling marginalized and discouraged. Nichols’ parents said they felt misled by Rep. John Gillespie, leading them to skip one trip to Nashville when they thought he would delay the bill. Instead, House Republicans passed it without the Nichols’ parents there. Gillespie argued it was a miscommunication.

When they returned another day for the Senate vote, Sen. Brent Taylor denied their pleas to pause the bill and try to find middle ground. RowVaughn Wells was in tears after the exchange, and the couple left before the Senate passed the bill.

They also penned a letter to Lee before he ultimately signed the bill.

“After the death of our son, you generously offered your support in our pursuit of justice,” they wrote, imploring Lee to veto the bill. “This is that moment, Governor. We need your support now, more than ever.”

Five officers, who were also Black, were charged with federal civil rights violations in Nichols’ death, and second-degree murder and other criminal counts in state court. One has pleaded guilty in federal court. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating how Memphis Police Department officers use force and conduct arrests and whether the department in the majority-Black city engages in racially discriminatory policing.

Democratic lawmakers said the bill is a slap in the face to Nichols’ grieving parents and the government in majority-Black Memphis. Some also were flummoxed that state Republicans were trying to undo changes made in reaction to Nichols’ death even while federal authorities are still broadly investigating policing and race in Memphis.

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Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi and Adrian Sainz contributed to this report.


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4th person charged in ambush that helped Idaho prison inmate escape from Boise hospital

A fourth person has been charged in connection with an ambush that allowed a white supremacist Idaho prison gang member to escape as he was being discharged from a Boise hospital.

Tia J. Garcia, 27, of Twin Falls, owned the car that inmate Skylar Meade and his accomplice, Nicholas Umphenour, fled in after Umphenour shot and wounded two corrections officers who were preparing to bring Meade back to prison early on March 20, Shawn Kelley, of the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office, told a judge Thursday.

She falsely reported the car stolen less than an hour after the ambush, Kelley said, and text messages from the day before showed that Umphenour had instructed her to do so.

Police tracked Meade and Umphenour down about 36 hours after their escape, but the pair is also suspected in the killings of two men while they were on the run. They have not been charged in the killings.

Here’s what to know about the case.

WHO IS THE LATEST PERSON ARRESTED?

Garcia is an acquaintance of Umphenour and Meade, Kelley said, and she picked up Umphenour from the airport when he arrived in Boise on March 17. It’s not clear where Umphenour had travelled from, but prosecutors have said he recently spent time in Florida and intended to return there. Umphenour and Garcia were seen in surveillance video from several places around Boise that day.

Garcia lives with her sister and is unemployed, according to a public defender who represented her during an initial court appearance Thursday. Her criminal record includes six felonies and four misdemeanors, including battery and drug charges as well as fleeing and eluding.

She is being held on $1 million bail on a charge of aiding and abetting escape. She did not enter a plea. The Ada County public defender’s office, which represents Meade, Umphenour and Garcia, declined to comment Thursday.

HOW WAS THE ESCAPE PLANNED?

Authorities are still looking into exactly how the ambush was planned and executed. Idaho Department of Correction officials have said that Meade and Umphenour were both members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” within the state’s prison system.

Meade, 31, was serving 20 years in prison for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same prison — the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise — in January after serving time for theft and gun convictions.

The two had at times been housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade had recently been held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.

The attack on the corrections officers came just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance bay of Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade had been brought to the hospital earlier in the night because he injured himself, officials said. Kelley told the court on Thursday that Meade refused all treatment once he got to the hospital.

Two corrections officers were wounded by Umphenour and a third by responding police who mistook the officer for the gunman. All are expected to recover.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE AMBUSH?

The Idaho State Police say that while on the run, Umphenour and Meade apparently killed two men in northern Idaho — Gerald Don Henderson, the 72-year-old resident of a remote cabin near Orofino who had taken Umphenour in about a decade ago, when Umphenour was in his late teens and having trouble at home; and James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs.

Investigators found shackles at Henderson’s cabin. Mauney’s minivan was located about seven hours south, in Filer. As agents secured that area, Meade and Umphenour fled in separate cars but were apprehended, police said.

A woman identified as Tonia Huber was driving the truck Meade was in, according to investigators. She has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession. Huber’s attorney, Daniel Brown, said Thursday his client “is presumed to be innocent and we stand by that presumption.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Meade, Umphenour and Garcia face preliminary hearings before Ada County Magistrate Judge Abraham Wingrove on April 8. Huber, who is charged in Twin Falls County, faces a preliminary hearing April 5.

Correction Director Josh Tewalt has promised to review its policies and practices in light of the escape. The attack came amid a wave of gun violence at hospitals and medical centers, which have struggled to adapt to the rise of threats.

“We’re channeling every resource we have to trying to understand exactly how they went about planning it,” Tewalt said last week.

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Johnson reported from Seattle, Thiessen from Anchorage, Alaska.


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Oklahoma judge rules death row inmate not competent to be executed

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — An Oklahoma judge ruled Thursday that a death row inmate is not competent to be executed for his role in the 1999 slayings of a mother and son.

Pittsburg County Judge Michael Hogan issued an order in the case involving 61-year-old James Ryder in that county.

“The court could go on ad nauseum discussing the irrational thought processes of Mr. Ryder, but this is not needed,” Hogan wrote in his order. “To be clear, the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence, Mr. Ryder is not competent to be executed” under state law.

Hogan’s decision followed a competency hearing this week in which two experts for Ryder’s defense testified that he suffers from a psychotic disorder diagnosed as schizophrenia.

“James has suffered from schizophrenia for nearly 40 years and has little connection to objective reality,” Ryder’s attorney, Emma Rolls, said in an email to The Associated Press. “His condition has deteriorated significantly over the years and will only continue to worsen.

“As the court concluded, executing James would be unconstitutional. We urge the State to cease any further efforts to execute him,” Rolls continued.

Under Oklahoma law, an inmate is mentally incompetent to be executed if they are unable to have a rational understanding of the reason they are being executed or that their execution is imminent.

An expert for the state testified he believes Ryder is competent to sufficiently and rationally understand why he is being executed and that this execution is imminent.

Ryder was sentenced to die for the 1999 beating death of Daisy Hallum, 70, and to life without parole for the shotgun slaying of her son, Sam Hallum, 38.

Court records show Ryder lived on the Hallum’s property in Pittsburg County for several months in 1998 and took care of their home and horses when they were out of town. He had a dispute with the family over some of his property after he had moved out.

Under state law, the Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services are now tasked with determining the best place for Ryder to be held in safe confinement until his competency is restored.

“Attorney General Drummond respects the court’s decision, but is disappointed that James Ryder is now ineligible to be executed for the horrific slaying of Daisy Hallum and her son, Sam Hallum,” Drummond spokesperson Phil Bacharach said in a statement. “The state will continue working to restore competency so justice can be served.”


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Trump can’t match Biden’s 2024 fundraising, Republican’s campaign says

By Tim Reid and Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Donald Trump will be unable to match President Joe Biden’s fundraising totals in this year’s presidential election race, the Republican candidate’s campaign said on Thursday.

“We’re never gonna be able to raise dollar for dollar with Biden,” a Trump campaign adviser said in a call with reporters.

The adviser blamed the fundraising disparity on “billionaire” supporters of the Democratic president, and appeared keen to paint a picture of a Trump campaign fueled by grassroots, working-class supporters.

A second campaign adviser said Trump’s campaign is “fueled by hundreds of thousands of grassroots contributors across the country, and I’d much rather have that because each one of those votes.”

Asked for a response, Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said: “Trump’s campaign is strapped for cash.”

Democratic candidates have raised more money in support of their White House bids than their Republican counterparts in all election cycles after 2004. Money, however is not always an indication of success; Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 even though she raised far more cash than he did.

Biden has been routinely outraising former President Trump, whose campaign, together with a joint fundraising committee, pulled in $20.3 million in February compared with the more than $53 million raised by Biden’s reelection effort that month.

Large contributions make up about 55% of the $128.7 million that Biden’s campaign committee has raised so far in the election cycle, OpenSecrets data showed, compared with 45% from small contributions.

For Trump, large contributions comprise 64% of the $96.1 million his campaign committee has raised, versus 36% from small contributions.

The two face a Nov. 5 general election rematch, in a race that opinion polls suggest will be extremely close.

Biden was holding a star-studded fundraiser in New York on Thursday night with his Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton that his campaign said has already raised $25 million.

The Trump campaign is due to hold a fundraiser on April 6 hosted by billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson in south Florida that aims to bring in $33 million, according to a person familiar with the event.

The Trump advisers on Thursday said that together with the Republican National Committee, the campaign will be opening dozens of offices and hiring hundreds of staff in the next few weeks, as they ramp up their general election infrastructure now that Trump has become the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

Trump cemented his grip over the RNC in March when a loyalist, his daughter-in-law, and a senior campaign adviser were installed as chair, co-chair and chief of staff of the organization following his endorsement. An aggressive overhaul ensued, with dozens of employees losing their jobs.

As part of the leadership restructuring, a new slate of deputies will focus on battleground states as well as relationships with state parties and grassroots organizations, the second Trump campaign adviser said. Gone are regional directors who oversaw broad areas of the country.

“Folks that are focused on the battleground states will have a very narrow focus,” the adviser said. “We will not have that sort of middle layer that has historically existed to oversee a large region.”

(Reporting by Tim Reid and Nathan Layne; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)


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Texas judge transfers lawsuit over card fees to Washington, D.C

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) – A federal judge in a Texas court that has become a favorite for conservative challenges to Biden administration policies transferred a lawsuit challenging a rule curbing credit card late fees to a court in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said half of the business groups that sued are based in Washington, as are most of the lawyers representing them and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which wrote the rule the groups are seeking to block.

The CFPB had asked the judge to transfer the case, as no card issuer subject to the rule is based in Fort Worth.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which sued with five other groups, countered that potentially affected cardholders reside there.

Pittman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, rejected that argument on Thursday, saying it would allow the lawsuit to be filed anywhere in the country, instead of where the underlying events occurred.

“Venue is not a continental breakfast; you cannot pick and choose on a plaintiffs’ whim where and how a lawsuit is filed,” Pittman said.

Spokespeople for the CFPB and Chamber of Commerce did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The groups had urged Pittman to block the rule, which is set to take effect in May, while the lawsuit plays out, arguing that in order to make changes that may be necessary, they will need to send out notices to consumers starting on Friday. They have asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Pittman’s decision not to expedite the case.

The rule deals with what the CFPB has called “excessive” fees credit card issuers charge for late payments, something the consumer protection agency estimated costs consumers $12 billion a year.

Under that rule, credit card issuers with more than 1 million open accounts can only charge $8 for late fees, unless they can prove higher fees are necessary to cover their costs. The previous rule allowed issuers to charge up to $30 or $41 for subsequent late payments.

Pittman, one of two active federal judges in Fort Worth, had raised concerns about whether the lawsuit belonged in his court after the federal court administrators announced a new policy aimed at curbing “judge shopping.”

The Fort Worth courthouse has become a popular destination for conservative litigants and business groups challenging the policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, including on student debt, guns and LGBTQ rights.

Pittman said Thursday several factors supported transferring the credit card case, including that his court is busier than the one in Washington, and that taxpayers would pay for CFPB lawyers to travel to Texas.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)


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