North Carolina to send mailers to about 200,000 voters asking for missing registration info
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina election officials will send mailers to about 200,000 voters asking them to provide information missing from their state registration records, seeking to address a Republican concern raised during a protracted legal fight over a state Supreme Court seat and a recent U.S. Justice Department lawsuit.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Tuesday to begin contacting voters whose records lack a driver's license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number. Last month, the Justice Department sued state election officials, alleging the board had violated federal law by failing to collect the identifying information.
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Winnipeg Free Press
30 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Federal judge orders Trump administration to release EV charger funding in 14 states
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in funding for the build out of electric vehicle chargers in more than a dozen states. U.S. District Judge Tana Lin in Washington state partially granted a preliminary injunction that sought to free up the money approved under then-President Joe Biden that the Trump administration withheld earlier this year. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia sued over the move, arguing that the administration did not have the authority to block the congressionally approved funds. The program was set to allocate $5 billion over five years to various states, of which an estimated $3.3 billion had already been made available. Lin ordered that funding be released in 14 of the states, including in Arizona, California and New York. But she denied granting the preliminary injunction for D.C., Minnesota and Vermont, saying that they did not provide enough evidence that they would face 'irreparable harm' if the money wasn't immediately freed up. Lin said the Trump administration overstepped its constitutional authority when it froze the funding previously approved by Congress in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 'When the Executive Branch treads upon the will of the Legislative Branch, and when an administrative agency acts contrary to law, it is the Court's responsibility to remediate the situation and restore the balance of power,' she wrote. The order will go into effect July 2 unless the Trump administration appeals. The Federal Highway Administration did not immediately respond to an email request for comment on the decision. The Trump administration in February directed states to stop spending money for electric vehicle charging under the program. The move was part of a broader push by the Republican president to roll back environmental policies advanced by his Democratic predecessor. States suing the Trump administration said the decision to freeze funding halted projects midstream, requiring immediate court intervention. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said after the ruling that the Trump administration could not 'dismiss programs illegally.' Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. 'We are pleased with today's order blocking the Administration's unconstitutional attempt to do so, and California looks forward to continuing to vigorously defend itself from this executive branch overreach,' he said in a statement. The Trump administration argued that it was working on new guidance for the program and was only pausing future funding in the meantime. The program was meant to assuage concerns about electric vehicles and build infrastructure along highway corridors first, then address gaps elsewhere once the state highway obligations were met. Some states with projects running under the program have already been reimbursed by the Biden-era federal funds. Others are still contracting for their sites. Still more had halted their plans by the time the Trump administration ordered states to stop their spending. Regardless, getting the chargers installed and operating has been a slow process with contracting challenges, permitting delays and complex electrical upgrades. It was expected that states would fight against the federal government's efforts to slow the nation's electric vehicle charger build out. New York, for example, which is part of the lawsuit, has been awarded over $175 million in federal funds from the program, and state officials say $120 million is currently being withheld by the Trump administration.
Winnipeg Free Press
30 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
POWs, abductees, defectors and separated families are the legacy of the Korean War
GIMPO, South Korea (AP) — Prisoners of war held for decades after the fighting stopped. Civilian abductees. Defectors. Separated families. They are Koreans who symbolize the decades of division and bitter animosities between North and South Korea, which have been split by a heavily fortified border since the the 1950-53 Korean War. Koreans aren't allowed to exchange visits, phone calls or letters with their loved ones on the other side. Wednesday is the 75th anniversary of the war's beginning. The Associated Press spoke with Koreans whose pain and sorrow likely won't be healed anytime soon as diplomacy between the Koreas remains dormant. South Korean prisoner of war isolated after his return home Lee Seon-wu, who was a South Korean soldier, lost three fingers and was captured by Chinese troops during a fierce battle in the eastern Gangwon province in the final days of the war. Like tens of thousands of other South Korean prisoners, Lee was held by North Korea even after a peace treaty ended the fighting. He was forced to resettle as a miner in the country's remote northeast. In North Korea, Lee said he belonged to the lowest social class and married a poor woman. He also lived under constant state surveillance. In 2006, he fled to South Korea via China, only to learn that his parents and two of his three siblings had already died. Lee said he was shunned by his nephew, who likely worried Lee would demand the return of land that was originally bought with compensation money that authorities gave to his family after they wrongly concluded that Lee had died in the war. Now 94, he doesn't stay in touch with any relatives in South Korea and misses family members in North Korea. Lee said his three daughters in North Korea rejected his offer to flee to South Korea because they feared punishment if caught. Lee said he also has a grandson whose parents — Lee's son and daughter-in-law — died in an accident. 'I'm happy because I've returned to my homeland but I shed tears when I think about them in North Korea,' Lee said during an interview at his home in Gimpo, a city near Seoul. A total of 80 South Korean POWs have fled to South Korea since 1994, but only seven of them including Lee are still alive. In 2016, the South Korean government estimated about 500 South Korean POWs were still alive in North Korea. North Korean daughter fights for her late South Korean POW dad Son Myong Hwa, 63, is the North Korea-born daughter of a South Korean POW held in the North. She said her father sang and played the harmonica well but often drank alone at home and wept. Son's father, who also worked as a miner in North Korea, died of lung cancer in 1984. Son said he left a will asking her to move his ashes to his South Korean hometown when the Koreas are unified. Son escaped to South Korea in 2005 and brought her father's remains to South Korea with the help of her brother and sister in North Korea in 2013. Her father's remains were eventually buried at the national cemetery. But Son said her demand for the government to give her father's compensation to her has gone unanswered because South Korean law only grants financial assistance to returning POWs, not their bereaved families. Son has been fighting legal battles to get what she thinks she deserves. She said she can't back down now because she has lost too many things. She said she learned that her brother and sister involved in the smuggling of their father's remains were later arrested by North Korean authorities and sent to a prison camp. The trouble has left Son estranged from her two other sisters who also resettled in South Korea. 'Why am I struggling like this? I harbor ill feeling against the South Korean government because I think they've abandoned POWs left in North Korea,' Son said. 'I think deceased POWs also have honors to be respected so their compensation must be provided posthumously.' South Korean son flies balloons for his father abducted to North In 1967, when Choi Sung-Yong was 15, his father was abducted by North Korean agents, whose armed vessels encircled his fishing boat near the Koreas' disputed western sea boundary. Choi said that South Korean officials and a North Korean defector told him that his father was executed in the early 1970s after North Korean interrogators uncovered his wartime service for a U.S. intelligence military unit. Choi said his family still doesn't hold an annual traditional memorial service for his father because they don't know exactly when he died. He said before his mother died in 2005, she asked him to bring his father's remains and bury them alongside hers in the future. Now, as head of a civic group representing families of people kidnapped by North Korea, Choi flies balloons across the border to drop leaflets demanding that North Korea confirm the fates of his father and others. 'I want to hear directly from North Korea about my father,' Choi said. The South Korean government estimates more than 500 South Korean kidnap victims, mostly fishermen, are still held in North Korea. Choi faces police investigations after the new liberal South Korean government cracked down on civilian leafleting campaigns to ease tensions with North Korea. Choi said Tuesday that senior South Korean officials told him they would strive to resolve the abduction issue as they asked him to halt balloon activities that it views as a major provocation. 'Our government has failed to fulfill their duties to find the fate of my father. So I've sent leaflets. But why do South Korean authorities try to punish me?' Choi said. 'Criminals are in North Korea.' South Korean hoping to meet his North Korean half-siblings When Kang Min-do's family gathered for major traditional holidays, he said his North Korea-born father often wept quietly when he honored the two other children he lost during the chaos of the Korean War. Kang, who was born to a woman his father remarried in South Korea, said his father told him bombings, likely from U.S. warplanes, scattered his family somewhere near Pyongyang in January 1951 as they were fleeing to South Korea. 'My father said he tried to search for them after the bombing ended, but bodies were piled so high and he just couldn't find anyone,' Kang, 67, said. Before he died in 1992, Kang's father hoped that his son would find his half-siblings one day to tell them how much their father missed them. In a video message posted on a South Korean government website, Kang expressed hopes of visiting his father's grave with his half-brother and half-sister when the Koreas are united. 'I need to tell them how much our father struggled after coming to the South and how deeply he missed his older son and daughter,' Kang said.
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Alvin Bragg, Manhattan prosecutor who took on Trump, wins Democratic primary in bid for second term
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor who oversaw the historic hush-money case against President Donald Trump, won Tuesday's Democratic primary as he seeks reelection. Bragg defeated Patrick Timmins — a litigator, law professor and former Bronx assistant district attorney — to advance to November's general election. About 70% of registered Manhattan voters are Democrats. The first-term incumbent will face Republican Maud Maron, who was a public defender for decades and previously ran for Congress and NYC's City Council as a Democrat. Bragg has long been one of the nation's most prominent prosecutors, spotlighted in TV's 'Law & Order' and other shows. The DA directs about 600 attorneys in one of the biggest local prosecutors' offices in the U.S. He raised the office's profile still further by bringing the hush-money case. His predecessor, fellow Democrat Cyrus R. Vance Jr., spent years investigating various Trump dealings but didn't procure an indictment. Bragg decided to focus on how and why porn actor Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000 to clam up about her claims of a 2006 sexual encounter with the married Trump. The payment was made, through the then-candidate's personal attorney, weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Trump's company records logged the money as a legal expense. Trump denied any wrongdoing and any sexual involvement with Daniels. But a jury last year found him guilty of 33 felony counts of falsifying business records, the first-ever felony conviction of a former — and now again — U.S. commander in chief. Trump is appealing the verdict. The Republican president has long derided the case as a political 'witch hunt,' and he has kept lambasting Bragg by social media as recently as March. Bragg, 51, was a civil rights lawyer, federal prosecutor and top deputy to New York's attorney general before becoming DA. Raised in Harlem and educated at Harvard, he's the first Black person to hold the post. His tenure had a rocky start. Days after taking office in 2022, he issued a memo telling staffers not to prosecute some types of cases, nor seek bail or prison time in some others. After criticism from the police commissioner and others, Bragg apologized for creating 'confusion' and said his office wasn't easing up on serious cases. The matter continued to animate his critics. Trump repeatedly branded Bragg 'soft on crime,' and Timmins said on his campaign site homepage that the memo 'has brought about increased crime and a perception of chaos in the subway and on our streets.' Timmins — who has raised about $154,000 to Bragg's $2.2 million since January 2022 — also pledged to do more to staunch subway crime, keep cases from getting dismissed for failure to meet legal deadlines, and prioritize hate crimes, among other things. Bragg's campaign emphasized his efforts to fight gun violence, help sexual assault survivors, prosecute hate crimes and go after bad landlords and exploitative bosses, among other priorities. His office, meanwhile, has been enmeshed in a string of high-profile cases in recent months. The office is using a post-9/11 terrorism law to prosecute UnitedHealthcare CEO killing suspect Luigi Mangione, lost a homicide trial against Marine veteran and Republican cause célèbre Daniel Penny in a case that stirred debate about subway safety and self-defense, and retried former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on sex crimes charges. Mangione, Penny and Weinstein all pleaded not guilty. Bragg unexpectedly inherited the Vance-era Weinstein case after an appeals court ordered a new trial. In a jumbled outcome, jurors this month convicted Weinstein on one top charge, acquitted him of another and didn't reach a verdict on a third, lower-level charge — which Bragg aims to bring to trial a third time.
