AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Indiana, Idaho governors sign bans on gender-affirming care

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Republican governors in Indiana and Idaho have signed into law bills banning gender-affirming care for minors, making those states the latest to restrict transgender health care as Republican-led legislatures continue to curb LGBTQ+ rights this year.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed legislation Wednesday that will prohibit transgender youth from accessing medication or surgeries that aid in transition and mandate those currently taking medication to stop by the end of the year.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little had signed legislation Tuesday evening that criminalizes gender-affirming care for youth.

More than a dozen other states are considering bills that would prohibit transgender youth from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries, even after the approval of parents and the advice of doctors. Other proposals target transgender individuals’ everyday life — including sports, workplaces and schools.

“Permanent gender-changing surgeries with lifelong impacts and medically prescribed preparation for such a transition should occur as an adult, not as a minor,” Holcomb said in a statement about the Indiana bill.

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Report details ‘staggering’ church sex abuse in Maryland

BALTIMORE (AP) — More than 150 Catholic priests and others associated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore sexually abused over 600 children and often escaped accountability, according to a long-awaited state report released Wednesday that revealed the scope of abuse spanning 80 years and accused church leaders of decades of coverups.

The report paints a damning picture of the archdiocese, which is the oldest Roman Catholic diocese in the country and spans much of Maryland. Some parishes, schools and congregations had more than one abuser at the same time — including St. Mark Parish in Catonsville, which had 11 abusers living and working there between 1964 and 2004. One deacon admitted to molesting over 100 children. Another priest was allowed to feign hepatitis treatment and make other excuses to avoid facing abuse allegations.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office released the findings of their yearslong investigation during Holy Week — considered the most sacred time of year in Christianity ahead of Easter Sunday — and said the number of victims is likely far higher. The report was redacted to protect confidential grand jury materials, meaning the identities of some accused clergy were removed.

“The staggering pervasiveness of the abuse itself underscores the culpability of the Church hierarchy,” the report said. “The sheer number of abusers and victims, the depravity of the abusers’ conduct, and the frequency with which known abusers were given the opportunity to continue preying upon children are astonishing.”

Disclosure of the redacted findings marks a significant development in an ongoing legal battle over their release and adds to growing evidence from parishes across the country as numerous similar revelations have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

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Amid polarization, minority party lawmakers face penalties

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Republicans removed the state’s only nonbinary legislator from House committees after the lawmaker provided refuge to a transgender rights activist. In Florida, two Democratic leaders were arrested for participating in a protest over abortion restrictions. And in Tennessee, three Democratic House members are facing expulsion for using a bullhorn in the House chamber to show support for demonstrators demanding gun control.

In an increasingly polarized political atmosphere, experts say these kinds of harsh punishments for minority party members standing up for principles they believe in are becoming more common, especially when acts of civil disobedience clash with the rigid policies and procedures of legislative decorum.

The modern-day division between Democrats and Republicans is at its highest level since immediately after the Civil War, said Scot Schraufnagel, a political science professor at Northern Illinois University who has studied and written about political incivility.

“I used to teach students that it’s not as bad as it once was,” Schraufnagel said. “It’s as bad or worse than it’s ever been, with the caveat that we don’t have data from pre-Civil War era.”

While many Republican leaders are loudly complaining about the arrest of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony criminal charges, it’s members of the Democratic minority in GOP-led states who have been facing a crackdown for their political actions.

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Violence resumes at Jerusalem holy site for 2nd night

JERUSALEM (AP) — Violence resumed for a second straight night in Jerusalem on Wednesday when Palestinian worshippers barricaded themselves inside Al-Aqsa Mosque at the Old City’s sensitive compound and Israeli police used force to remove dozens of worshippers.

The unrest was less intense than the previous night. But the situation remained combustible as Muslims marked the Ramadan holy month and Jews began the weeklong Passover holiday. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip renewed their rocket fire at Israel, raising fears of a wider conflagration.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported at least six people were injured in the latest violence. The Islamic Waqf authorities, which manages the compound, said police fired stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.

The Israeli police said that “dozens of law-breaking juveniles” had fomented chaos, throwing rocks and other objects at officers and compelling police to act to restore “security, law and order.”

More Palestinians had gathered in the mosque, responding to calls by Waqf to pray inside overnight. At one of the mosque entrances, police officers could be seen escorting dozens of Palestinians out of the compound. Residents and shoppers milled around, watching social media videos on their phones showing the renewed clashes that had happened just meters away.

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Russian charged with war crimes: Ukrainian kids can go home

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who is being sought for war crimes for deporting children from Ukraine, told a U.N. meeting Wednesday that the children were taken for their safety and Moscow is coordinating with international organizations to return them to their families.

Ambassadors from Western countries boycotted the informal U.N. Security Council meeting, sending low-level diplomats instead. Diplomats from the United States, Britain, Albania and Malta walked out when the commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, started to address the meeting by video link.

The International Criminal Court last month issued an arrest warrant for her and Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing them of abducting children from Ukraine.

Russia, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, called the meeting to counter what it claims is disinformation about the Ukrainian children.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters before the session that the United States strongly opposed the briefing and joined the United Kingdom in blocking the United Nations from outside broadcast of the meeting.

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Peru ex-leader Toledo loses bid to stop extradition from US

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. federal court on Wednesday denied an appeal by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo Manrique to stop his extradition to his native country to face charges he accepted millions of dollars in bribes as part of a mammoth corruption scandal involving officials across Latin America.

Toledo, 77, had filed for a stay on his extradition pending a legal challenge to the U.S. State Department’s decision to send him back to Peru, where he is accused of taking $20 million in bribes from Odebrecht, a giant Brazilian construction company that has admitted to U.S. authorities that it bribed officials to win contracts throughout the region.

U.S. officials said the U.S. Marshals Service would move to turn Toledo, who was Peru’s president in 2001-2006, over to Peruvian authorities. It was not clear when that might happen.

The Odebrecht corruption scandal has shaken Peru’s politics, with nearly every living former president now on trial or under investigation.

Former President Ollanta Humala is standing trial on charges that he and his wife received over $3 million from Odebrecht for his presidential campaigns in 2006 and 2011. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

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Dealer pleads guilty in death of actor Michael K. Williams

NEW YORK (AP) — A Brooklyn drug dealer pleaded guilty Wednesday to providing “The Wire” actor Michael K. Williams with fentanyl-laced heroin, causing his death.

Irvin Cartagena’s plea to a charge of conspiring to distribute drugs was entered in Manhattan federal court. Sentencing was set by U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams for Aug. 18, when Cartagena will face a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and the possibility of as many as 40 years.

The famed actor, who also starred in films and other TV series including “Boardwalk Empire,” overdosed in his Brooklyn penthouse apartment in September 2021. Authorities said he died hours after buying the heroin from Cartagena on a Brooklyn sidewalk in a deal that was recorded by a security camera.

Cartagena, 39, signed a plea agreement with prosecutors stipulating that the mix of heroin and fentanyl he sold Williams resulted in his death. His lawyer, Sean Maher, declined comment.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who is not related to the actor, said in a statement that the sale occurred in “broad daylight in New York City, feeding addiction and causing tragedy.”

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Bob Lee, Cash App founder, fatally stabbed in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Bob Lee, a technology executive who created Cash App and was currently chief product officer of MobileCoin, was fatally stabbed in downtown San Francisco early Tuesday, according to the cryptocurrency platform and police.

The San Francisco Police Department did not disclose details about the circumstances of the attack, but said in a statement that officers responded to a report of a stabbing near the city’s Embarcadero waterfront at 2:35 a.m. Tuesday. They found a 43-year-old man suffering from apparent stab wounds and the victim died at a hospital, the statement said.

Police did not identify the victim but MobileCoin confirmed Lee’s death in response to an email from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“Our dear friend and colleague, Bob Lee passed away yesterday at the age of 43, survived by a loving family and collection of close friends and collaborators,” MobileCoin CEO Josh Goldbard said in a statement.

Lee was fatally stabbed in the densely populated Rincon Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, near Google’s office and Oracle Park, home to the San Francisco Giants. The neighborhood is a mix of offices and modern condo buildings.

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Publisher drops children’s illustrator for anti-trans notes

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A children’s book illustrator from Alaska known for drawing mother-baby animal pairs like sea otters and wolves was dropped by his publisher this week after authorities allege he posted transphobic notes threatening children.

Mitchell Thomas Watley, 47, will have a preliminary hearing April 11 in Juneau on a single count of terroristic threatening for allegedly placing notes in businesses that included an assault rifle superimposed over the transgender flag. The text on the notes read: “Feeling Cute Might Shoot Some Children.”

The notes were found during a period of heightened rhetoric and laws targeting transgender people across the country and came just days after a shooting at a Christian school in Nashville that left six dead. Social media accounts and other sources indicate that the shooter identified as a man; police said the shooter “was assigned female at birth” but used male pronouns on a social media profile.

After the Nashville shooting, a false and baseless online narrative emerged that claimed there’s been a rise in transgender or nonbinary mass shooters in recent years. Some pundits and political influencers on social media went further, falsely suggesting that movements for trans rights are radicalizing activists into terrorists.

Court documents show that Watley referenced the Nashville shooting suspect after his arrest. Watley, who lives in the small coastal city of Juneau 575 miles (923 kilometers) southeast of Anchorage had his $10,000 bail paid by his wife, according to online records.

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NPR protests as Twitter calls it ‘state-affiliated media’

NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter has labeled National Public Radio as “state-affiliated media” on the social media site, a move some worried Wednesday could undermine public confidence in the news organization.

NPR said it was disturbed to see the description added to all of the tweets that it sends out, with John Lansing, its president and CEO, calling it “unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way.”

It was unclear why Twitter made the move. Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, quoted a definition of state-affiliated media in the company’s guidelines as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”

“Seems accurate,” Musk tweeted in a reply to NPR.

NPR does receive U.S. government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The company said it accounts for less than 1% of NPR’s annual operating budget. But until Wednesday, the same Twitter guidelines said that “state-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the United States, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy.”

The Associated Press