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Trump stumps for candidates in deep red Alabama and says he'll be back again next week
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- President Donald Trump rallied supporters in deep red Alabama Friday, returning to the place where he drew his first mega crowd, but a state that is hardly considered a top midterm battleground.
With just weeks to go before elections that will determine control of Congress, Trump urged his supporters to back Republicans including Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is running for Alabama governor, and state Rep. Rhett Marques, who is seeking to flip Alabama's newly redrawn 2nd Congressional District.
Trump's decision to spend so much time in deep red states that have garnered relatively little attention during the critical final stretch underscores his party's uphill climb and the electorate's broad disapproval of his performance as president. The event at the University of South Alabama also gave Trump the chance to be surrounded by some of his most loyal supporters as he confronts dismal poll numbers and growing pessimism from his party about their chances of holding onto the House and Senate in November.
"I'm here really because, you know, sometimes, even though you don't have to come here, you gotta pay respect to the people that have loved you right from the beginning," he told the crowd a day after visiting Oklahoma.
And he announced that he would be returning to Alabama yet again next Saturday for the college football game between the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama Crimson Tide.
Trump held his first mega-rally in Mobile more than a decade ago, drawing what some estimated to be 30,000 people to a college football stadium. The huge crowd made clear that Trump was more than a celebrity candidate and had the potential to make waves in the 2016 primary.
"I don't know if you know, it sort of all began here," Trump said after taking the stage. "We packed the stadium, and the rest is history."
Former GOP Rep. David Rivera sentenced to 10 years for secret Venezuela lobbying
MIAMI (AP) -- A former Miami congressman and longtime friend of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison in connection with a secret $50 million lobbying campaign on Venezuela's behalf during the first Trump administration.
Republican David Rivera has been jailed since jurors found him guilty in May on all counts, including failing to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering as part of his work for former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro 's government.
Rivera, 61, appeared stone-faced as Judge Melissa Damian denounced him for betraying his life's mission, saying he would surely have been judged harshly his many friends had the millions of dollars come from the Cuban regime instead of its allies in Caracas.
"Nobody would accept that's ok and I don't think this is different," the judge said. "There's no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime."
The seven-week trial offered a rare glimpse into Miami's role as a crossroads for foreign influence campaigns aimed at shaping U.S. policy toward Latin America, highlighting the city's reputation as a magnet for both anti-communist crusaders and corruption among its sizable exile population.
It included testimony from President Donald Trump's secretary of state, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas and a top Washington lobbyist -- all of whom testified they felt betrayed when learning of Rivera's mammoth consulting contract with a U.S.-based affiliate of Venezuela's state oil company, PDVSA.
Attorneys for Rivera plan to appeal and in June applied for a presidential pardon. Rivera faces additional federal charges in Washington, D.C., in a related foreign lobbying case.
Prosecutors said betrayal featured coded figures -- 'Sombrero' and 'Miss Clairol'
In an indictment unsealed in 2022, prosecutors alleged that Rivera was tapped by then Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez -- now Venezuela's acting president -- to work Republican connections to get the first Trump administration to abandon its hard line and crippling sanctions on Venezuela.
Police bodycam footage of Luigi Mangione's arrest released
NEW YORK (AP) -- Police bodycam footage released Friday shows the moment officers located and arrested Luigi Mangione at a Pennsylvania McDonald's in connection with the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan.
In one video, officers ask Mangione to lower the face mask he was wearing to hide his identity.
"That's 100% him," one officer says eagerly as they step outside to speak out of Mangione's earshot.
"I told you, man," another responds off camera.
Later, an officer searches Mangione's belongings and smiles widely as she pulls out a gun cartridge, seemingly confirming they'd found their suspect.
The trove of videos comes from Mangione's Dec. 9, 2024, arrest in Altoona, five days after Thompson, a 50-year-old Minnesota executive, was gunned down as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for his company's annual investor conference.
A Manhattan judge unsealed the recordings Friday after CNN petitioned for their release. Parts of the videos were shown during a December court hearing as Mangione's lawyers unsuccessfully sought to get key evidence thrown out, including his initial statements to police and items seized at the time of his arrest.
Mangione pleaded guilty in August to federal stalking charges and faces life in prison when he's sentenced in December. He also faces murder charges in New York state court, though those proceedings have been postponed indefinitely as his lawyers seek to have the case thrown out.
The videos released Friday begin as officers descend on the McDonald's in central Pennsylvania, nearly 300 miles from Manhattan.
They find Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, seated at a table wearing a ski hat, surgical face mask and winter coat. The officers say they're responding to a call about a suspicious person and ask for his name and identification.
"You're a little nervous right now. Why are you nervous?" an officer asks at one point.
They order him to put his hands on his head and ask him if he's been in New York recently. They confront him about a phony New Jersey driver's license he offers up bearing the name Mark Rosario.
"You're under official police investigation right now," one officer warns. "You give a false name to us again, you're gonna be arrested for false ID."
FBI gives employees a classified 'Patel Report' about times when it 'fell short'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has released a classified report to its workforce examining what it says are chapters from the bureau's history "where this institution fell short," according to an internal message obtained Friday by The Associated Press.
It was unclear what episodes from the FBI's past are chronicled in the new "Patel Report." But the document's existence is in keeping with Director Kash Patel's vocal criticism of the leaders who preceded him and with his determination to rid the FBI of agents he contends have politicized the bureau in the past. Patel's critics say he is the one who has weaponized the FBI and that his scrutiny of his predecessors and their decision-making is part of an effort to rewrite history in favor of President Donald Trump.
Patel pledged at his confirmation hearing last year that he would not look "backward," but as director, he has encouraged investigations of former senior officials and presided over sweeping terminations, including of employees who participated in years-old investigations of Trump, were photographed taking a knee during a 2020 racial justice protest and contributed to a disputed analytical memo about Catholic extremism.
"The Patel Report looks backward because accountability demands it," says a message to the workforce signed by the FBI's co-deputy directors, Christopher Raia and Andrew Bailey. The message describes the report as marking the "closing of one chapter in our history and the beginning of another complete with a brighter future ahead."
Bailey announced his resignation earlier this week, and his last day is Friday. The FBI declined to comment on the report.
The message also says: "We cannot change what happened before we arrived. But we can confront it honestly. We can recognize failures instead of protecting them. We can hold people accountable. We can fix what was broken. And we can build safeguards strong enough to ensure the mistakes of the past are never allowed to define this institution again. These steps are consistent with any institution of excellence that is constantly striving for improvement."
Kennedy Center Honors to be held at Capital One Arena amid fight over adding Trump's name
This year's Kennedy Center Honors will be held at Washington's Capital One Arena, not the riverfront building that's been at the center of a legal fight over adding President Donald Trump's name to the building.
The 49th annual awards are set to take place at Washington's downtown arena, a Kennedy Center spokesperson said Friday. Few other details were immediately available, and an explanation for the change wasn't given.
The center's board voted last month to close the iconic performing arts venue along the Potomac River waterfront after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump's name to the building.
Trump has said in social media posts that the center needed to close for safety repairs. But he said the repairs would only happen if the board was allowed to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.
A federal judge has twice said that can't happen without the approval of Congress, which has allocated $257 million for repairs.
The president hosted the 2025 awards, whose honorees included Sylvester Stallone and George Strait. He said at the time that he would rename the facility the "Trump Kennedy Center," and not long after workers began adding his name to the building.
The board of trustees, named by Trump, voted unanimously for the change, which has been challenged in court since.
Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated.
The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person's name on the building's exterior.
The Kennedy Center Honors, which recognize people for lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts, was established in 1978. The 2026 honorees are set to be named at a later day, the center's spokesperson said. The event will take place on Dec. 7.
Christa Pike on a ventilator and unconscious after failed Tennessee execution, attorneys say
Christa Pike was placed on a ventilator and remained unconscious in a hospital in the hours after her failed execution in Tennessee, her attorneys said in a court filing Friday.
Hospital staff, her lawyers said, were working to save Pike's life and as of late Thursday were trying to clear the two doses of the drug that the state uses to execute prisoners.
The stunning failure in Tennessee's execution chamber on Wednesday has left both sides of the death penalty debate demanding answers. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has ordered an independent review.
The court filing offered the first detailed account of Pike's condition after an ambulance carried her away from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville on Wednesday night. Her attorneys said a day earlier that she was in critical condition.
Pike's attorneys said they believed problems with the IV lines caused the pentobarbital to flow into her body instead of her bloodstream.
"Apparently at no point did any member of the execution team realize that the IV lines were not correctly placed or that the veins had blown and that the pentobarbital was, in whole or in part, entering Ms. Pike's body," they wrote in the court filing.
Instead of "remedying this failure," they prepared and administered a second dose of pentobarbital, her lawyers said.
State officials have not offered any explanations about what went wrong.
Lee demanded a review of the execution procedures and indefinitely postponed Pike's execution and another that had been scheduled for this year. Republican Tennessee lawmakers said the state should review whether to stop single-drug lethal injections and consider other options to carry out death sentences.
The execution team worked for an hour to administer the lethal drugs, said Pike's defense lawyer Randy Spivey, who counted at least seven needles in her left arm.
Neither the initial nor the backup dose of pentobarbital worked. Pike was still snoring when the execution chamber's microphone was cut off more than an hour into the attempt.
Pike's attorneys asked a state court to order the Tennessee Department of Correction to preserve all evidence from the failed execution.
Dolly Parton's nephew wants more time to defend himself against restraining order from her estate
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Dolly Parton's nephew wants more time to get a lawyer in place to defend himself against a temporary restraining order granted to her estate against him and his security company.
Representing himself, Bryan Seaver filed a motion Friday in a Tennessee court asking that a hearing on the order now set for Oct. 9 be delayed by about 10 days.
The serious rift in the country music legend's circle opened and spilled into public view weeks after her Aug. 25 death. She's Alive, the entity founded to manage and protect her estate, accused Seaver in a court petition of threatening to commit violence and destroy Parton's legacy and business empire. She's Alive is run by Parton's longtime manager Danny Nozell.
The petition names Seaver -- who was handpicked by the star to announce her death from cancer -- and his company, Squadron Augmented Protection Services.
Seaver's new motion says "the defendants lack any legal knowledge or skills to proceed in this matter without retained counsel or what, if any, challenges can or should be raised." It says the delay is necessary because the lawyer he wants to represent him cannot meet with him until Monday, and says he won't object to the restraining order being extended until a new hearing date.
Chancellor I'Ashea L. Myles, the judge overseeing the case, has not yet replied to Seaver's motion. In granting the restraining order, she said the court took into account the repeated threats cited in the complaint, as well as the alleged demands for payment and Seaver's "claimed access to weapons, experience with violence, and intention to retaliate."
In the petition and other court documents filed by She's Alive, Seaver is accused of sending increasingly threatening messages starting just before Parton's death. She's Alive terminated Seaver and SAPS in the week before the petition, saying his "terrorizing conduct made their continued retention untenable."
Seaver has not responded to email and phone messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Parton was a widely beloved country music giant, philanthropist and cultural icon who wrote hundreds of songs, including classics like "Jolene," "Coat of Many Colors" and "I Will Always Love You," that earned a total of more than 100 million worldwide sales and more than 1 billion online streams.