Category: National News Feed

The leader of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather before the deadly Texas floods, but it is now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesman for camp’s operators said Wednesday.

Richard “Dick” Eastland, the owner of Camp Mystic, began taking action after more than 2 inches of rain had fallen in the area along the Guadalupe River, said Jeff Carr, a spokesman for the family and the camp. He said Eastland had a “home weather station” and was monitoring the rain on July 4.

But after initially portraying to the media this week that Eastland got the weather alerts about a flash flood, Carr told The Associated Press that critical moment in the timeline of the tragedy isn’t as clear as the family and staff first thought. No one in the family or camp staff, Carr said, could now say whether Eastland got the alert at 1:14 a.m.

“It was assumed that just because he had a cellphone on and shortly after that alert, he was calling his family on the walkie-talkies saying, ‘Hey, we got two inches in the last hour. We need to get the canoes up. We got things to do,’ ” Carr said.

The new account by the family comes as Camp Mystic staff has come under scrutiny of their actions, what preventive measures were taken and the camp’s emergency plan leading up to a during the catastrophic flood that has killed at least 132 people.

The flash-flood warning that the National Weather Service issued at 1:14 a.m. on July 4 for Kerr County triggered an emergency alerts to broadcast outlets, weather radios and mobile phones. It warned of “a dangerous and life-threatening situation.” The weather service extended the warning at 3:35 a.m. and escalated it to flash-flood emergency at 4:03 a.m.

Eastland died while trying to rescue girls and was found in his Tahoe that was swept away by the floodwaters, Carr said.

Even without a storm, the cellphone coverage at Camp Mystic is spotty at best, so campers and staff turn on their Wi-Fi, Carr said. He called ridiculous criticism that Eastland waited too long before beginning to evacuate the campers, which he said appears to have begun sometime between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.

“Communication was a huge deficiency,” Carr said. “This community was hamstrung, nobody could communicate. The first responder, the first rescue personnel that showed up was a game warden.”

According to Carr, Eastland and others started evacuating girls from cabins nearest the overflowing river and moved them to the camp’s two-story recreation hall. Of the 10 cabins closest to the river, the recreation hall is the furthest at 865 feet (264 meters) with the closest cabin about 315 feet (96 meters), according to an Associated Press analysis of aerial imagery.

To reach Senior Hill, which was on higher ground , they would have had to cross an overflowing creek, Carr said. At times the young campers were climbing hills in bare feet, he said.

Some of the camp’s buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area. Carr said there were “legitimate” reasons for filing appeals and suggested that the maps may not always be accurate.

Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. Crews in helicopters, boats and drones have been searching for victims.

Officials say 97 people in the Kerrville area may still be missing.

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Associated Press writer Christopher Keller contributed to this report from Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Questions and finger-pointing have increased in the days since a fire at a Massachusetts assisted-living facility killed nine and hurt dozens, as some residents had to hang out of windows screaming for help.

Union officials say the city didn’t staff enough firefighters to rescue all the residents trapped in the blaze, and the facility’s owner had a previous citation for failing to report numerous health and safety incidents. The tragedy has also called attention to the minimal regulations that govern assisted-living facilities.

Here’s what to know about the blaze, its victims, and how authorities and residents have reacted in the aftermath.

No foul play is suspected, but the cause is still unknown

The fire started in a room on the second floor on the east side of the Gabriel House facility, but details about the exact origin and cause are under investigation, and the Bristol County district attorney’s office said the cause “does not appear to be suspicious.”

The city’s fire chief teared up Wednesday as he described the chaotic scene his crew faced when they arrived at around 9:50 p.m. Sunday, finding heavy smoke and flames at the front of the building.

“They described seeing faces in windows,” Chief Jeffrey Bacon told reporters, choking back tears. “And having to decide who to rescue.”

A firefighter hoisted six residents, one by one, over his shoulder and carried them to safety. The smoke was so thick on the second floor that two other firefighters couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. Another dragged a resident down the hall to a waiting colleague.

“That wing had nobody who could escape on their own,” he said.

Status of the victims

Two of the roughly 30 injured people were in critical condition on Wednesday, Bacon said, up from just one person a day earlier.

Gov. Maura Healey has described the facility’s residents as a vulnerable population with many in wheelchairs and having oxygen tanks. Those who died ranged in age from 61 to 86, Bacon said.

Tension over fire preparedness and response

A day after the fire, the firefighters union said inadequate staffing hindered the fire response and contributed to the death toll. One fire captain said breathing equipment was unavailable when he arrived, so he searched door to door without an air tank until the smoke got to him.

“We did the best we could with what we had, and what we had was not enough,” said Michael O’Reagan, president of the Fall River firefighters union.

About 50 firefighters responded to the scene, including 30 who were off-duty. Police helped break down doors and carried about a dozen residents to safety.

By Wednesday, city officials said they had figured out a plan to add more firefighters to each shift, initially via overtime and eventually by hiring new staff. The cost for the additional staffing is estimated to be nearly $1.5 million, Fall River Mayor Paul Coogan said.

Home to around 94,000 people, the city in southern Massachusetts is one of the poorest in the state.

A growing outcry

The blaze in Fall River is the state’s deadliest fire since 1984 when 15 people were killed in a rooming house, according to the state Department of Fire Services.

Richard Moore, a former head of the Massachusetts Assisted Living Association and a former longtime state senator, called on the attorney general to investigate. Moore said he’d heard reports of insufficient fire drills and an owner who was indicted in 2012 on medical assistance fraud and kickback charges that were dismissed three years later.

Dennis Etzkorn, the facility’s owner, has declined to comment.

What is known about Gabriel House

The assisted-living facility was cited for failing to report more than two dozen health and safety incidents within a day after they occurred, as required by state law, according to regulators’ most recent review of the facility.

The Gabriel House website promotes studio apartments “for those seniors who cannot afford the high end of assisted living,” as well as group adult foster care within walking distance of shopping, restaurants and churches. It has three floors with 100 units and opened in 1999, according to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Aging and Independence.

Those who live alone in studio apartments, arranged around a central courtyard area, pay between $1,850 and $2,400 monthly, depending on their level of services, according to the website. The residence also offers a basic living plan that includes shared studio apartments, but doesn’t specify a price.

“If an emergency occurs, no matter the time, there will be someone ready to help,” the website states.

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Contributors to this report include Associated Press writers Michael Casey and Kimberlee Kruesi in Fall River, Massachusetts; Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island; and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation’s largest public utility says it is looking at other sites for a new natural gas power plant after its preferred location in Tennessee drew heavy public scrutiny, including from country musician John Rich.

The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Tuesday that the Cheatham County site is no longer its preferred one.

Rich, a conservative supporter of President Donald Trump who has Cheatham County roots, has been a key opponent of TVA’s 900-megawatt plant in the county. He said he enlisted Trump to team up on the issue. A TVA spokesperson declined to comment about Rich’s comments, including whether Trump was involved. A White House spokesperson also declined to comment.

The community has raised concerns about the potential impact on water quality, air quality, noise pollution, safety, property rights and more, in a rural area that also has homes and schools nearby. Clean energy and environmental groups have also led resistance to the proposal.

Rich said Trump and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “joined forces with me and all the residents of Cheatham County.”

“They pulled out under threat,” Rich said about TVA in a social media post Tuesday. “They pulled out because they’re afraid President Trump is going to fire every member on that board.”

Based on feedback, the federal utility says it is considering a site at a nearby industrial park and other Middle Tennessee locations.

Additionally, it floated options such as working with the Trump administration to extend the use of some fossil fuel plants. The utility has been planning to retire the last of its coal-fired plants by 2035. But Trump has signed executive orders aimed at boosting the coal industry.

Power from the proposed Cheatham plant was intended to replace some of the electricity from the second unit of the coal-fired Cumberland Fossil Plant, which had been planned for retirement in 2028 but is now among the coal units being evaluated for potentially longer life.

The site that sparked opposition includes the power plant and a battery storage system on 286 acres in Cheatham County, in addition to a 12-mile natural gas pipeline and up to 45 miles of transmission lines to the project. Rich last week posted a map showing many areas of farmland around the preferred area, saying it “CANNOT happen.” Rollins, the agriculture secretary, replied, “ON IT” and “Standby.”

Rich additionally has called for a “complete revamping” of TVA, saying, “Cheatham County ain’t the only place they’re doing this.”

Any final decision on the plant would need to await the installation of more TVA board members.

Trump recently announced four nominees for the board, which for months has not had enough members to take many actions because Trump fired some of former President Joe Biden’s picks. TVA provides power to more than 10 million people across seven southern states.

The board normally has nine members and requires five to make a quorum. It currently has three. Trump’s picks would not be seated until the U.S. Senate confirms them.

Clean energy advocates applauded TVA’s decision to back off the Cheatham County location, but said it should instead invest more in clean energy options and heed the concern of communities where similar gas plants are proposed in Cumberland City, Kingston and Memphis.

“Instead of simply shifting those harmful impacts to another area, TVA should scrap its plans for a new gas plant altogether and invest in clean and cost-effective power options, like solar power and battery storage,” said Trey Bussey, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Communities in areas along a 700-mile (1,127-km) stretch of Alaska’s southern coast ordered residents to higher ground after a powerful earthquake Wednesday, but officials quickly downgraded a tsunami warning for the region. There were no immediate reports of significant damage.

The earthquake, with a preliminary magnitude of 7.3, struck at 12:37 p.m. local time south of Sand Point, a community of about 600 people on Popof Island, in the Aleutian chain, according to the Alaska Earthquake Center. The first waves were projected to land there, but the state’s emergency management division said an hour after the quake that it had received no reports of damage.

“We have seen other earthquakes in the area that have not generated significant tsunami waves, but we’re treating it seriously and going through our procedures, making sure communities are notified so they can activate their evacuation procedures,” division spokesperson Jeremy Zidek said.

The quake was felt as far away as Anchorage, almost 600 miles (966 km) to the northeast.

The National Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for an area stretching from about 40 miles (64.4 km) southwest of Homer to Unimak Pass, a distance of about 700 miles (1,126 kilometers). Among the larger communities in the area is Kodiak, with a population of about 5,200. The warning was downgraded to an advisory about an hour later, and canceled just before 2:45 p.m.

In Unalaska, a fishing community of about 4,100, officials urged people in possible inundation zones to move at least 50 feet above sea level or 1 mile (1.6 km) inland. In King Cove, which has about 870 residents on the south side of the Alaska Peninsula, officials sent an alert calling on those in the coastal area to move to higher ground.

The National Weather Service said in posts on social media that there was no tsunami threat for other U.S. and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America, including Washington, Oregon and California.

Alaska’s southern coast is earthquake-prone, and Wednesday’s was the fifth in roughly the same area since 2020 exceeding magnitude 7, state seismologist Michael West said.

“Something’s moving in this area,” he said. “I would not call this an isolated earthquake. It appears to be part of a larger sequence spanning the last several years.”

That has the attention of seismologists, he said.

“This area has been and remains capable of larger earthquakes and earthquakes capable of significant tsunami damage,” he said.

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Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska. Associated Press reporter Lisa Baumann contributed from Bellingham, Washington.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Make American Coke Great Again?

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Coca-Cola has agreed to use real cane sugar in its flagship soft drink in the U.S. at his suggestion — though the company didn’t confirm such a move.

Any switch from high-fructose corn syrup in Coke sold in the United States would put Coca-Cola more in line with its practice in other countries, including Mexico and Australia. But it wouldn’t affect Trump’s drink of choice, Diet Coke, which uses aspartame as a calorie-free beverage.

“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”

A spokesperson for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. said in a statement that the company appreciated Trump’s enthusiasm and promised that more details on new offerings within its products would be shared soon.

Coca-Cola didn’t elaborate. But the company has long indulged U.S. fans of cane sugar by importing glass bottles of Mexican Coke to the U.S. since 2005.

Returning to sugar in U.S. production, meanwhile, might affect the nation’s corn farmers, whose yields are used in artificial sweeteners.

“Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar doesn’t make sense,” Corn Refiners Association President and CEO John Bode said in a statement. “President Trump stands for American manufacturing jobs, American farmers, and reducing the trade deficit. Replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar would cost thousands of American food manufacturing jobs, depress farm income, and boost imports of foreign sugar, all with no nutritional benefit.”

Trump himself is such a fan of Diet Coke that that he had a red button installed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office that he can press to have a White House butler bring one in for him.

Despite his fondness for Diet Coke, his relationship with the company hasn’t always been sweet.

In a series of posts in 2012, Trump suggested diet soda might be connected to weight gain before eventually writing, “The Coca Cola company is not happy with me — that’s okay, I’ll still keep drinking that garbage.”

A bottle of Diet Coke could be seen sitting next to his chair years later, at a G20 summit in 2017. And The New York Times reported in 2018 that he was drinking a dozen Diet Cokes daily.

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Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit and Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed to this story.

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland could soon become the second to block President Donald Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide, if an appeals court were to allow it.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman said in an opinion Wednesday that she would grant class action status on behalf of all children affected by the order and grant a preliminary injunction blocking it. But she did not immediately rule, noting a previous decision of hers to block the order was on appeal to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court and that court would have to return the case to her.

Boardman said an immediate ruling from her would “promote judicial efficiency and economy because it would enable the Fourth Circuit to consider the merits of a class-wide preliminary injunction sooner rather than later.”

A federal judge in New Hampshire issued a ruling last week prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante issued a preliminary injunction and certified a class action lawsuit including all children who will be affected. The order, which followed an hour-long hearing, included a seven-day stay to allow for appeal.

The decision put the birthright citizenship issue on a fast track to return to the Supreme Court. The justices could be asked to rule whether the order complies with their decision last month that limited judges’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions. The high court said that district judges generally can’t issue nationwide, or universal, injunctions. But it didn’t rule out whether judges could accomplish it through a class action lawsuit.

Trump’s January order would deny citizenship to infants born to parents living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily.

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois has one of the nation’s worst problems with child sex abuse at juvenile detention centers, attorneys representing more than 900 survivors who have filed lawsuits said Wednesday.

Dozens of complaints, including several filed this week in Chicago, allege decades of systemic abuse of children by the employees of detention facilities. Similar lawsuits have popped up in states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, but Illinois stands out for the volume of cases that began piling up last year and the lackluster response from state leaders, according to attorneys.

“The scale and the magnitude and the severity of these cases are some of the worst we’ve seen all over the United States,” Jerome Block, an attorney who has filed lawsuits nationwide, said at a news conference.

The latest Illinois complaints, filed Tuesday, represent 107 people who experienced abuse as children at 10 centers statewide. Some have since closed. The lawsuits allege abuse from the mid-1990s to 2018, including rape, forced masturbation and beatings by chaplains, counselors, officers and kitchen supervisors.

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 some who have filed lawsuits have done. Most plaintiffs are identified by initials in the lawsuits.

Survivor Kate-Lynn, who appeared at a Chicago news conference, said she only felt comfortable speaking publicly using her first name. The Illinois woman, now 26, said she was held in solitary confinement at a suburban Chicago facility for a year when she was 14. She said she was sexually and physically abused by at least five staff members who came into her cell and stripped her naked.

As she spoke, a fellow survivor who also planned to speak became overcome with emotion and left the room. He didn’t return.

Kate-Lynn said she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.

“Going to public places is very hard for me,” she said, wiping tears at times. “I feel like I ‘m going to be attacked when dealing with authority figures.”

The lawsuits, first filed in May 2024, and they are slowly making their way through the courts.

Two lawsuits against the state — representing 83 people — were filed in the Illinois Court of Claims and seek damages of roughly $2 million per plaintiff, the most allowed under law. Separate lawsuits representing 24 people held as children at a Chicago center, were filed in Cook County and seek more than $100,000 per plaintiff.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who represents the state, has tried to dismiss the cases in court.

Raoul, whose office has investigated church sex abuse cases, declined to comment Wednesday as did officials with the Department of Juvenile Justice and Cook County. The lawsuits also name the state of Illinois and the Department of Corrections. Officials for the governor’s office and Corrections did not return messages Wednesday.

While the number of lawsuits grows, few cases have gone to trial or resulted in settlements. Arrests are infrequent.

Many alleged offenders are not named in the lawsuits, represented by initials or physical descriptions as the plaintiffs remembered them. There are several alleged repeat offenders, including a corrections officer who currently serves as a small-town Illinois mayor and was accused separately by 15 people. He has denied the allegations.

Attorneys have called for legislative hearings, outside monitors, victim input and criminal charges by local authorities. Block has also harshly criticized Illinois leaders, including Raoul, saying there is a double standard for the abuse victims juvenile detention centers versus church abuse victims.

“When it’s the state who perpetrated the abuse, when it’s state employees who perpetrated the abuse rather than Catholic priests, the attorney general doesn’t want to support the survivors,” he said.

Horrific accounts are detailed in the hundreds of pages of complaints. Many plaintiffs said their abusers threatened them with violence, solitary confinement and longer sentences if they reported the abuse. Others were given fast food, candy, cigarettes or the chance to play videos games if they kept quiet.

Another survivor, a 40-year-old Texas man identified in the lawsuit by the initials J.B. 2, said he was abused when he was 14 years old and staying a facility in St. Charles, which is outside Chicago. He issued a statement through attorneys.

“I want to let my fellow survivors know that we are not alone in this,” he wrote. “Speaking your truth, no matter how gruesome it is, it can help to set you free from yourself and all the hurt that’s been bottled up.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Travelers giddy about being able to keep their shoes on while walking through TSA checkpoints at the airport again may have something else to look forward to: changes to how much liquid they can carry.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Wednesday during a conference hosted by “The Hill” that she is questioning “everything TSA does” and spoke of possible changes to the amount of liquids travelers can tote in their carry-on baggage.

“The liquids, I’m questioning. So that may be the next big announcement is what size your liquids need to be,” Noem said. “We have put in place in TSA a multilayered screening process that allows us to change some of how we do security and screening so it’s still as safe.”

She gave no details about precisely what those changes might be or how quickly travelers could expect to see them.

Under the Transportation and Security Administration’s current guidance, travelers can carry liquids in travel-sized containers 3.4 ounces (100 milliliters) or less per item in their carry-on bag. Those containers must be placed in a one-quart resealable plastic bag. Bigger containers must go in checked baggage, though there are exceptions for medications and baby formula.

Noem announced on July 8 that travelers were no longer required to take their shoes off while going through screening after a pilot program showed TSA had the equipment needed to keep airports and aircraft safe while allowing people to keep their shoes on.

That policy had been in place since 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001.

The limits on liquids were triggered by a 2006 incident where authorities foiled a plot to used liquid explosives smuggled aboard carry-on luggage to blow up planes.

Ever since the guidelines were put in place TSA checkpoints have been the scene of travelers quickly guzzling water, digging through luggage to find and discard a too-large tube of hair gel and chucking jars of everything from jam to bottles of coffee that didn’t meet the size requirement.

The guidance also triggered discussions — sometimes arguments — over what constitutes a liquid. Yogurt? Peanut butter? Jam and jelly? All are currently restricted to containers no bigger than 3.4 ounces as detailed on an extensive list that TSA maintains on its website titled “What can I bring?”

Noem also laid out her vision for the future of airport travel during the talk Wednesday.

“Hopefully, the future of an airport, where I’m looking to go is that you walk in the door with your carry-on suitcase, you walk through a scanner and go right to your plane,” Noem said. “It takes you one minute.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia tried to poke holes in the federal human smuggling case against him on Wednesday, while a federal judge won’t rule this week on releasing Abrego Garcia from jail, a decision that could ultimately lead to his deportation.

Sean Hecker, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, questioned Homeland Security special agent Peter Joseph over the possibility that government witnesses cooperated against Abrego Garcia.

Joseph said he was unaware that a lead witness was calling other witnesses from jail. Asked whether there was reason to believe they might have coordinated their testimony, Joseph noted that three of the witnesses are related.

“That’s always a possibility,” he said.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys cited the new evidence in their efforts to raise more concerns about the reliability of witness testimony in the smuggling case. Federal prosecutors are relying on those witnesses in part to show that Abrego Garcia is a flight risk, a danger to the community and should stay in jail.

U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. is considering whether or not to release Abrego Garcia from jail to await his trial. He said from the bench Wednesday that he won’t rule on the matter this week. His decision could allow U.S. immigration officials to try to deport the Salvadoran national for a second time.

Lawyers for the Justice Department have said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will detain Abrego Garcia if he’s freed. ICE officials have said they will initiate deportation proceedings against him and will possibly try to send the construction worker who was living in Maryland to a third country such as Mexico or South Sudan.

Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over the Republican Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge’s 2019 order that shields Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faces threats of gang violence there.

The Trump administration claimed Abrego Garcia was in the MS-13 gang, although he wasn’t charged and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”

Crenshaw is reviewing last month’s ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville that Abrego Garcia is eligible for release. Holmes determined that Abrego Garcia was not a flight risk or a danger to the community and set various conditions for his release, including wearing an ankle bracelet and living with his brother in Maryland.

Crenshaw scheduled Wednesday’s hearing following a motion by federal prosecutors to revoke Holmes’ release order. The prosecutors argue Abrego Garcia is a flight risk and a danger to the community.

Holmes has kept Abrego Garcia in jail at the request of his lawyers over concerns the Trump administration will try to deport him upon release. The attorneys asked Holmes to keep him in jail until Wednesday’s hearing before Crenshaw to review her release order.

The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Police in Tennessee suspected human smuggling, but he was allowed to drive on.

Abrego Garcia lived and worked in Maryland for more than a decade, doing construction and raising a family. Abrego Garcia’s American wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is suing the Trump administration in federal court in Maryland over his wrongful deportation in March, while trying to prevent any attempts to expel him again.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland to order the government to send him to Maryland if he’s released in Tennessee, a request that aims to prevent his expulsion before trial.

In court on Friday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys also asked for at least a 72-hour hold that would prevent his immediate deportation. Attorney Andrew Rossman called it the “critical bottom-line protection” needed to prevent a potentially egregious violation of due process rights.

Xinis didn’t rule from the bench Friday but said she’d issue an order before Crenshaw’s hearing on Wednesday.

If Abrego Garcia is released into ICE custody, his lawyers have vowed to fight expulsion efforts within the U.S. immigration court system, which is part of the Justice Department.

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This story has been corrected to show the district judge’s surname is Crenshaw, not Waverly.

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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — An $8 billion class action investors’ lawsuit against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and company leaders — current and former — began Wednesday, with claims stemming from the 2018 privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.

Investors allege in their lawsuit that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users’ personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016. Shareholders say Facebook officials repeatedly and continually violated a 2012 consent order with the Federal Trade Commission under which Facebook agreed to stop collecting and sharing personal data on platform users and friends without their consent.

Facebook later sold user data to commercial partners in direct violation of the consent order and removed disclosures from privacy settings that were required under consent order, the lawsuit alleges.

The fallout led to Facebook agreeing to pay a $5.1 billion penalty to settle FTC charges. The social media giant also faced significant fines in Europe and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users. Now shareholders want Zuckerberg and others to reimburse Meta for the FTC fine and other legal costs, which the plaintiffs estimate total more than $8 billion.

The first trial witness, privacy expert Neil Richards, testified Monday morning for the shareholders.

“Facebook’s privacy disclosures were misleading,” said Richards, a professor at Washington University Law School.

In later testimony, Jeffrey Zients, who served on Facebook’s board from 2018 to 2020, testified that consumer privacy and user data were priorities for both management and the board.

Nonetheless, he supported settling with the FTC as it investigated potential violations of the 2012 consent order, so the company could move forward.

“It was difficult because this was a lot of money, but I think it was better than the alternative,” Zients said.

Asked if the board considered making its founder a party to the settlement, he said Zuckerberg was “essential” to running the company.

And, Zients, who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, said, “there was no indication that he had done anything wrong.”

The case is expected to run through late next week and include testimony from both Zuckerberg and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Other witnesses expected in Delaware Chancery Court, where Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is incorporated, include board member Marc Andreessen and former board member Peter Thiel. The judge is not expected to rule for several months.

Meta had hoped the Supreme Court would dismiss the case. Justices heard arguments in November before deciding they should not have taken it up. The high court dismissed the company’s appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.

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Ortutay reported from San Francisco.