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  • Armed man charged toward Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at fair, law enforcement says

    Armed man charged toward Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at fair, law enforcement says

    WASHINGTON — An armed assailant charged toward the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, Amy Acton, on Sunday during a campaign stop at the Canfield Fair, injuring several people before he was stopped by troopers, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.

    The Ohio State Highway Patrol said in a statement that a man it identified as Patrick Havas, 38, forced his way through a crowd, knocking over multiple members of the audience as he moved toward Acton, the state’s former public health director. He had a taser and two pistols, the statement said.

    The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office said two handguns and a set of brass knuckles were recovered after his arrest, and “no weapons were ever brandished or even removed from their holsters.”

    Havas was taken to the county jail and booked on charges of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault, the highway patrol statement said, adding that no other details were available pending an investigation. Online court records didn’t yet list the case, and it wasn’t clear as of Sunday night whether Havas has an attorney.

    Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.that the man “tried to forcefully push himself” toward Acton as she was speaking at the fair in Canfield, in northeastern Ohio. “Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable,” he added.

    The attempted attack is the latest political violence to roil the United States. And the Ohio gubernatorial race is one of the most high-profile races this year as the campaigns enter the final six weeks of campaigning before the election in November.

    Acton is facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who has parlayed his national name recognition, tech industry connections, and alliance with President Donald Trump into a record fundraising haul that he is tapping for advertising spots aimed at the November election. He is using campaign rallies and advertising to criticize Acton.

    Ramaswamy’s campaign called the incident Sunday unacceptable.

    “Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence. What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics, and we hope that no one was hurt,” Ramaswamy’s communications director, Connie Luck, said in a statement.

    Addie Bullock, communications director for Acton’s campaign, said in a statement that the suspect “lunged” at Acton. She said the Democratic candidate “will always stand up to the chaos, hate, and vitriol that pits us against one another.”

    The incident brought condemnation from Ohio Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who said on X that he and his wife were “disturbed by the attempted attack on Amy Acton today at the Canfield Fair. We are grateful for law enforcement’s quick response. There is no place for this kind of behavior, and it must never be tolerated.”

    The country has seen a rise in political violence over the past decade. That includes the 2017 shooting at a Republican congressional baseball team practice in Alexandria, Va.; the 2022 hammer assault on the husband of Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in California; the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally during his presidential campaign as well as another on the president at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April; and the assassinations last year of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in Utah.

    Federal political committees spent more than $40 million on expenses labeled as security during the 2023-24 campaign cycle, the most recent one for which data is publicly available, according a report released in April from the Public Service Alliance, a nonpartisan group that focuses on security for public officials.

    Before running for governor, Acton was recruited by DeWine in 2019 to lead the Ohio Department of Health while serving as an associate professor of public health at Ohio State University. As the COVID-19 pandemic ramped up in early 2020, she was thrown into the state and national spotlight — becoming a source of comfort to many viewers of the governor’s daily news conferences.

    For her service as health director, Acton earned the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in COVID Courage Award, the Columbus Foundation’s Spirit of Columbus Award, and Ohio State’s highest alumni honor, the Alumni Medalist Award.

    Her position as the face of the DeWine administration’s aggressive stance against the virus also earned Acton many enemies, among them statehouse Republicans and average Ohioans who opposed pandemic restrictions.

  • Federal investigators probe Amazon cargo jet’s fiery runway crash that killed 5 in Miami

    Federal investigators probe Amazon cargo jet’s fiery runway crash that killed 5 in Miami

    MIAMI — The five people killed when an Amazon cargo jet ran off a runway at Miami International Airport were all inside a van carrying seven people from a cleaning company and an SUV hit outside of airport property, National Transportation Safety Board Chairperson Jennifer Homendy said Monday.

    Homendy called the scene of Sunday’s crash “utter devastation.” She didn’t detail how many people were in the SUV or where the dead were located.

    Homendy walked the route the Boeing 767 followed, noting tire marks from the pavement into the grass, the destroyed van carrying the cleaning crew, torn fencing, navigational equipment, and the crushed SUV outside airport property.

    The debris included vehicle air bags, equipment from the vehicles, the airplane, and the airport, and “fencing everywhere,” Homendy said.

    “It’s pretty extensive. Hard to see and I’m sure it must have been very difficult for the responders as well,” Homendy said.

    The airline, all told, traveled about 1,300 feet past the paved surface. Debris was everywhere, she said.

    “I would describe it in one word as devastating, utter devastation,” Homendy said.

    The van with seven people inside was “torn apart. It certainly must have been devastating,” she said. The van was owned by Professional Ocean Service Corp., an airline cleaning contractor.

    Homendy said the NTSB would issue more information on Tuesday, including possibly information on speed that is confirmed by the flight data recorder.

    Federal investigators examining cause

    Federal investigators examining the crash spent Monday determining whether the plane touched down too late to stop safely.

    Video of Sunday’s landing appears to show the Boeing 767 remaining airborne well down the runway before touching down. Aviation experts said investigators will seek to determine exactly where the plane landed, whether it was beyond the normal touchdown zone, and why the pilots did not abandon the landing.

    Investigators will also examine the plane’s speed and braking, weather and wind conditions, the aircraft’s mechanical condition, and other factors that could have contributed to the deadly overrun.

    The aircraft on Sunday flew from Cincinnati to Miami and then to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was returning to Miami when it overran the runway around 2 p.m. and plowed across a road used by warehouse workers and other businesses that surround the airport.

    Aside from the five who died, three people were critically injured and two others were hospitalized with less severe injuries, officials said.

    The crash, which sent thick black smoke billowing into the sky, trapped the pilot and copilot in the cockpit and some occupants in cars, said Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Ray Jadallah. The agency said crews also had to extricate a person who was trapped under a vehicle.

    The typical landing zone for a plane is within the first 3,000 feet of a runway, experts said. If the cargo jet was beyond that area, it should have aborted the landing and gone around for another try, aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said.

    Mary Schiavo, who is a pilot and former Inspector General of the Transportation Department, said video posted online shows the Amazon plane floating above the runway for an extended period without flaring the nose upward to force the main landing gear onto the ground.

    It wasn’t raining at the time, but dark storm clouds loomed and strong winds were reported. Schiavo said that if the plane had a tail wind, that could have contributed to it floating further down the runway.

    “A tail wind would certainly add to your troubles if you’ve already given up a good chunk of the runway by not touching down and landing right away,” Schiavo said.

    Airport appears compliant without updated system

    The Miami airport is not equipped with arresting systems that the FAA says have been installed at more than 120 airports nationwide to safely stop planes that do go past the end of a runway. Those beds of lightweight, crushable material at the end of a runway have been credited by the FAA with helping save at least 497 lives aboard planes that overran runways.

    Miami’s airport appears to be in compliance and wasn’t required to have an arresting system because it has a 1,000-foot safety buffer at the end of its runways, said Mike O’Donnell, the FAA’s former director of airport safety and accident investigations.

    The requirement was prompted by American Airlines Flight 1420 overrunning a runway at Little Rock National Airport in Arkansas in 1999, killing nine.

    The Prime Air plane came to rest beside a roadway near two semitrucks, images showed. The aircraft appeared to be resting on its belly and was largely intact despite the fire.

    The flight had been operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina. The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for several airlines for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

    Schiavo said the NTSB will also closely examine the maintenance history of this plane — particularly since it has a history of foreign ownership, including by a Russian company.

    The crash halted flights at the busy travel hub for much of Sunday afternoon and continued to hamper air travel into Monday.

    Miami International Airport said that two of its four runways remained closed Monday and that operations were to be affected throughout the day because of aircraft and flight crews not arriving there due to Sunday’s cancellations after the crash.

    An airport spokesperson said there were 160 cancellations and more than 300 delayed flights Sunday, plus another 69 canceled flights Monday through mid-afternoon. Flight tracking sites were reporting widespread delays at the airport.

    Amazon said in a statement that it would cooperate with any investigation.

    “We’re heartbroken to learn that five people lost their lives in today’s incident at Miami International Airport,” the company said. “Our deepest sympathies go out to the families, loved ones, and all those affected by this devastating loss.”

    Last year, a UPS plane crashed after losing its engine while accelerating down the runway at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport. The crash killed all three pilots and 12 people on the ground. Twenty-three more were injured.

  • Assailant lunged at Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at fair, campaign says

    Assailant lunged at Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at fair, campaign says

    WASHINGTON — An armed assailant lunged at the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, Amy Acton, on Sunday during a campaign stop at the Canfield Fair, injuring several people, campaign officials said.

    The suspect knocked volunteers to the ground and was arrested with “multiple weapons,” Mahoning County Democratic Party chairperson Chris Anderson said in a statement.

    Acton, the state’s former public health director, was not injured, but her campaign said multiple people were hurt.

    “Dr. Acton will always stand up to the chaos, hate, and vitriol that pits us against one another,” said Addie Bullock, communications director for the campaign.

    Ohio State Highway Patrol and other authorities at the fair quickly responded “when a man tried to forcefully push himself toward Dr. Acton as she was speaking and injured other attendees at the Mahoning County Democrat booth,” Republican Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.

    “Violence or the threat of violence at political or public events is always unacceptable,” he added.

    The attempted attack is the latest political violence to roil the United States. And the Ohio gubernatorial race is one of the most high-profile races this year as the campaigns enter the final six weeks of campaigning before the election in November.

    Acton is facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who has parlayed his national name recognition, tech industry connections, and alliance with President Donald Trump into a record fundraising haul that he is tapping for advertising spots aimed at the November election. He is using campaign rallies and advertising to criticize Acton.

    Ramaswamy’s campaign called the incident Sunday unacceptable.

    “Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence. What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics, and we hope that no one was hurt,” Ramaswamy’s communications director, Connie Luck, said in a statement.

    The fairground’s police department referred inquiries to the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department, which didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment. The Ohio State Highway Patrol didn’t immediately respond to a request for information.

    The incident brought condemnation from Ohio Republican Sen. John Husted, who said on X that he and his wife were “disturbed by the attempted attack on Amy Acton today at the Canfield Fair. We are grateful for law enforcement’s quick response. There is no place for this kind of behavior, and it must never be tolerated.”

    The country has seen a rise in political violence over the past decade. That includes the 2017 shooting at a Republican congressional baseball team practice in Alexandria, Va.; the 2022 hammer assault on the husband of Democratic then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in California; the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally during his presidential campaign as well as another on the president at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in April; and the assassinations last year of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband and of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk in Utah.

    Federal political committees spent more than $40 million on expenses labeled as security during the 2023-24 campaign cycle, the most recent one for which data is publicly available, according a report released in April from the Public Service Alliance, a nonpartisan group that focuses on security for public officials.

    Before running for governor, Acton had been recruited by DeWine in 2019 to lead the Ohio Department of Health while serving as an associate professor of public health at Ohio State University. As the COVID-19 pandemic ramped up in early 2020, she was thrown into the state and national spotlight — becoming a source of comfort to many viewers of the governor’s daily news conferences.

    For her service as health director, Acton earned the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in COVID Courage Award, the Columbus Foundation’s Spirit of Columbus Award and Ohio State’s highest alumni honor, the Alumni Medalist Award.

    Her position as the face of the DeWine administration’s aggressive stance against the virus also earned Acton many enemies, among them Statehouse Republicans and average Ohioans who opposed pandemic restrictions.

  • At least 5 dead after Amazon cargo plane overshoots runway in Miami

    At least 5 dead after Amazon cargo plane overshoots runway in Miami

    MIAMI — An Amazon cargo plane barreled off a runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday, killing at least five people as it struck vehicles and burst into flames, authorities said.

    The aircraft overran the runway around 2 p.m. after arriving from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Five people were killed, three critically injured, and two others hospitalized with less severe injuries, Miami-Dade County officials told a news conference.

    More than 60 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to the crash, arriving to find the aircraft on fire as crews worked to extinguish the flames and assess patients.

    The Prime Air plane came to rest beside a roadway near two semi-trucks, according to images from the scene. The aircraft appeared to be resting on its belly and was largely intact despite the fire.

    The flight had been operated by 21 Air, a cargo carrier based in North Carolina. The 32-year-old Boeing 767 was originally built to carry passengers and flew for several airlines for more than two decades before being converted to a cargo plane in 2015, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

    About 250 flights were delayed at the airport late afternoon Sunday, according to FlightAware, a website that tracks flight disruptions.

    The National Transportation Safety Board said it was gathering information about the crash.

    “We’re working closely with local authorities and officials to understand exactly what happened,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a social media post. “Right now, our absolute priority is the safety, well-being, and care of everyone involved.”

  • Nepal flood survivor’s family in China relieved after days of anxious waiting

    Nepal flood survivor’s family in China relieved after days of anxious waiting

    HONG KONG — After days of waiting anxiously, Lu Haitao’s family could finally breathe a sigh of relief when the Chinese man was rescued from a tunnel in Nepal where devastating floods killed more than 1,300 people.

    Rescuers carried out Lu from a 740-foot hydropower tunnel and evacuated him by helicopter Saturday, 10 days after the floods. He was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.

    The Aug. 26 floods were likely caused by a glacier collapse, and nearly 4,900 remain missing in the South Asian country, according to Nepal’s disaster management agency.

    Lu recalled climbing to the highest point inside the tunnel and thinking the whistles he heard from the rescue crews were in his imagination, according to audio shared by CCTV. He told a Chinese embassy staffer that the emergency personnel initially could not hear him when he shouted toward their lights.

    “When they shone before my eyes, I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I no longer shouted. I had lost hope.”

    Lu Hairong, Lu’s sister in China, told state media Red Star News that she received a call about the rescue before the news emerged. But she only found it believable after seeing him in a picture in the news.

    Her 49-year-old brother, who is married with a son, was previously a farmer from Henan province in central China and took additional work, mainly carpentry, during his spare time. He headed to Nepal for work with a fellow villager in February, his first time working abroad, she told Red Star News.

    She told Cover News, another Chinese state media outlet, that Lu had not shared his exact working location and she could only watch the news sent by others in a mutual aid group for families of the missing, unable to eat or sleep well.

    “It’s a stroke of sheer luck amid the misfortune,” she said of the rescue.

    Lu’s cousin, Lu Haiqing, said her mind went blank after learning he was missing on the sixth day after the floods. She then searched for Nepal news every day and used artificial intelligence to translate Nepali to Chinese. She wept every day on her way to work, Chinese news portal Jiupai News reported.

    On Saturday, Lu’s cousin received a picture from his sister asking her to help confirm his identity. The man looked very similar but she needed to call another relative to help confirm, the report said.

    “This day has finally come,” she was quoted as saying. “There is hope when one doesn’t give up.”

    On the Tibet side of the border, 43 people died and 519 were missing, of whom 261 were foreigners, as of Saturday evening, CCTV reported.

    Rescuers operated excavators to search for those unaccounted for after a mudslide hit the Gyirong border facility and swallowed people, according to videos from foreign media pool coverage on a government-organized trip.

    The border crossing area was seen Sunday covered by fragments of rocks and gravel, with yellow chrysanthemums being laid on the ground in the disaster zone in an apparent tribute to the victims.

  • U.S. denies Iran’s claim to have struck an unmanned ship in Strait of Hormuz

    U.S. denies Iran’s claim to have struck an unmanned ship in Strait of Hormuz

    The U.S. military has denied Iran‘s claim to have struck an unmanned American military vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a “total lie.”

    Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed seven people and leveled a vacant hospital, according to Lebanese authorities, near an area that has become a flash point in fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

    Iran says it hit a U.S. boat in the strait

    State-run media in Tehran said the U.S. vessel was trying to enter an area that Iran says is restricted in the Strait of Hormuz, but Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command, called it “a total lie.”

    The claim came a day after the U.S. said it struck Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran launching ballistic missiles at Navy warships. Attacks resumed last week after roughly a month of quiet.

    The war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. But negotiations have collapsed after a ceasefire agreement was announced in June, and on-and-off fighting has persisted with both sides trying to inflict military and economic pain.

    Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said the era of “proportionate responses” is over and Iran’s retaliation will be “faster, heavier and more painful.”

    Israeli strikes kill 7 in Lebanon

    Israeli strikes killed at least seven people in southern Lebanon and leveled an empty hospital, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

    Strikes on the village of Arabsalim killed two, the ministry said. Two others were killed in Nabatiyeh al-Fawqa, near a strategic hill that Israel said its forces gained control over Thursday. And three people were killed in the village of Nabatiyeh al-Tahta after an Israeli drone struck a parking lot. At least 20 others were wounded in strikes, the ministry said, among them three children and five women.

    Israel’s military said its latest strikes came in response to a drone attack launched earlier Sunday by Hezbollah on troops in southern Lebanon. It said Hezbollah had used the empty hospital as a command center.

    Since a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and Hezbollah more than two months ago, low-level skirmishes and Israeli strikes continue in the south.

    Mass funeral in Gaza for over 110 Palestinians found in rubble

    Dozens of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City to mourn over 110 people, including at least 70 children, after their remains were recovered.

    Rescue crews have been digging out the bodies from the Zeitoun neighborhood. They said the dead came from three families whose houses were flattened by Israeli strikes earlier in the war.

    “We are witnessing a painful, heartbreaking scene,” said Mustafa Quzghat, a relative.

    The bodies were wrapped in white shrouds and draped with Palestinian flags. Some shrouds bore images of the deceased, according to Associated Press footage. They were laid out in rows on the ground.

    Over 73,650 Palestinians have been killed since the war in Gaza began, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and international organizations. It doesn’t give a breakdown of civilians and militants.

    Kushner says Gaza has long been ‘dystopian’

    Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, defended the lack of progress in talks about next steps in the fragile Gaza ceasefire, saying, “It’s been a dystopian place for a long time.”

    Speaking at a news conference in Ukraine, Kushner defended his work with Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, saying the militarization by the Hamas militant group in the Palestinian territory was “beyond our comprehension, so demilitarizing it is not going to be easy.”

    “But we’re very determined, and we’re working through these things,” Kushner said.

    He added: “We’re working through some political issues in Israel. I think we agree with them on the end state. They just have a crazy election, and that makes them a little irrational in certain regards.” Israel’s election is set for Oct. 27.

    Israeli strike in Gaza kills a father and daughter

    An Israeli strike on a civilian vehicle in western Gaza City killed a father and his daughter and wounded at least six others, according to health officials at Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.

    The Israeli military said it struck a “terrorist” in Gaza City.

    Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,344 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire agreement was reached with the Hamas militant group in October, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel says it is targeting Hamas and other militants who pose a threat, and in response to ceasefire violations, including occasional attacks.

    The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

    Muslim nations condemn Israeli proposal to empty Gaza

    Any Israeli plan or action to remove Palestinians from Gaza would violate international law and undermine the U.S.-backed plan for drawing down the war, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and five other governments said in a statement.

    Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, last week published a plan to encourage Palestinian migration from Gaza. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, has said Israel is prepared to facilitate the removal of Palestinians by sea, air, or other means, and that plans remain under discussion.

    The governments called the statements “inflammatory” and said they threatened the “legitimate and inalienable rights” of Palestinians and the future establishment of a Palestinian state.

  • As workplace surveillance grows, experts say it’s good to know the ways your employer is watching

    As workplace surveillance grows, experts say it’s good to know the ways your employer is watching

    NEW YORK — College administrators read an adjunct professor’s comments to students on personal essays. Managers told a pharmacist to spend less time with patients after tracking the number and length of her appointments. Scanners on a warehouse conveyor belt monitored the pace of workers to ensure they inspected hundreds of items per hour.

    Thousands of employers are keeping tabs on the whereabouts, productivity, and communications of workers with technology that was adopted widely during the coronavirus pandemic. A vast array of digital tools still are being used to track locations, collect data on task completion rates, and access work-issued smartphone and laptop cameras, raising concerns about how much privacy employees have relinquished, even in their own homes.

    Employers have always monitored workers, but recent advances in artificial intelligence and data science enable them to create extensive data sets or “dossiers” that can be used to punish workers or attempt to predict employee behavior, said Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at Coworker, a nonprofit that helps workers organize to improve working conditions.

    “Oftentimes, the workers with the least amount of power in the labor markets tend to be testing grounds for some of the more intrusive forms of data collection,” Negrón said.

    Some of the most common workplace monitoring programs have shared names, email addresses, and other personal worker data with hundreds of outside data brokers and technology companies without clearly disclosing the practice, according to an investigation by Vanderbilt University, Northeastern University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

    Data privacy experts and workers who say they’ve been closely monitored spoke with the Associated Press about what they see as the risks of employer surveillance and the steps employees can take to protect their personal information.

    Team up with like-minded colleagues to advocate for yourself

    Pharmacist Lannie Duong’s job at a medical clinic involved meeting with patients who had chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. She reviewed their medical histories, blood work, and symptoms, and adjusted their medications. She frequently enlisted interpreters to help her communicate with patients who had limited English language skills.

    Duong said her employer tracked the length of her phone calls and appointments, and in performance evaluations questioned why she took so long with each patient.

    “Everything was counted. How many minutes you’re on the phone. The minutiae of it was ridiculous,” Duong said. “We’re just tasked to do what feels like the impossible.”

    Under what she described as unrelenting pressure, Duong felt “not trusted, not appreciated, almost completely hopeless. It was so depressing.” She eventually went on medical leave and began volunteering with other pharmacists to organize a union.

    “I spoke up, hoping others would voice their concerns as well, but that didn’t really pan out,” Duong said. She says her employment was terminated after the medical leave.

    Many of the employers using surveillance tools do so transparently and engage employee boards in reviewing how the tools are used, Negrón said. But there are also employers tracking, ranking, and scoring employees in ways that are not transparent to workers, she said.

    “Workers are going to have to come together because the forces of centralizing this kind of tracking and monitoring are moving too fast,” Negrón said.

    Find out what kind of data your employer is collecting about you

    As awareness about surveillance tools grows, some workers are pushing back on tools that track how long it takes to fulfill tasks, saying such monitoring contributes to injuries, and questioning what personal information is being collected and how it’s being used, said Hayley Tsukayama, director of state affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on digital privacy.

    “Unfortunately, if you are on a machine that’s been issued by your workplace, you should expect that there’s some type of monitoring,” Tsukayama said.

    Researching data collection and surveillance trends in your industry is a good idea, according to Negrón. Without that knowledge, workers may find themselves unprepared when confronted with information unearthed during surveillance.

    While teaching a college writing class, Arianna Anaya discovered that an administrator was reading the papers her students uploaded to the school’s learning management software and the comments Anaya made on the work. The students often wrote about intimate topics, including abuse, eating disorders, and family trauma.

    “The school essentially used the online learning system to allow administrators and staff to read student work that was often immensely private and personal, something we were specifically told students should not know about,” Anaya said.

    A colleague who printed out the comments criticized the casual tone Anaya used with students and accused her of not sticking to the course syllabus. A few months later, Anaya’s teaching contract wasn’t renewed, although she doesn’t know the exact reason.

    “It made me quite paranoid,” Anaya said. “It made me feel less safe in the world.”

    Check state laws to see what’s required of employers

    Some states, including Delaware, New York, Connecticut, and Maine, require employers to notify workers if they’re being monitored. Maine’s law goes further, prohibiting visual monitoring in employees’ homes or personal vehicles unless that kind of observation is required for the duties of the job, said Edward Halle, a privacy and AI compliance manager.

    “The question becomes, what does the law mean by ‘the duties of the job’?” Halle said. “A telehealth nurse needs a camera; the camera is the job. A productivity webcam bolted onto ordinary desk work almost certainly isn’t. Where that line falls is the first thing the Department of Labor will be asked to sort out.”

    If you work in a state without a notification requirement, it’s difficult to find out if an employer is using technology to monitor your performance.

    To raise the issue with managers, Tsukayama suggests coordinating with a union. If that’s not an option and you’re asking managers individually, approach the topic cautiously and take a curious tone, she advised. You could say you’ve noticed something on the computer and have questions, such as, “How is this information being used within the company? How might it get out of the company?” Tsukayama said.

    One place to start is asking what specific employee data your organization collects, said Aiha Nguyen, director of the Labor Futures Initiative at Data & Society, a nonprofit institute studying the impacts of technology. If your manager doesn’t know, the information technology department may have answers, since the people working there often are the ones turning on the features, Nguyen said.

    Some common software programs such as Microsoft Office and Zoom have tools that can be used for tracking worker productivity, but the tracking features aren’t always activated. Knowing whether those tracking features are turned on can be difficult, because they’re built into the programs, Nguyen said.

    “It’s automatic. It’s considered something that employers have been able to say, ‘This is necessary for work. You have to use these tools,’” she said.

    To help safeguard personal information, don’t use work devices to handle family matters or sensitive personal information such as medical conditions, experts advise.

    “I think most people know that,” Nguyen said. ”But it can become tedious to switch between phones, or people don’t really think it’s that harmful. … You don’t want to potentially put yourself at risk.”

  • A mistrial is declared in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy. Here’s what could happen next

    A mistrial is declared in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy. Here’s what could happen next

    The trial to decide if Lindsay Clancy was criminally responsible when she strangled her three children in 2023 ended in a mistrial Friday after jurors were unable to reach a consensus after weeks of conflicting testimony about her postpregnancy mental health and seven days of deliberations.

    What happens now?

    Clancy, a 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse, remains charged with murder and will continue to be held in a psychiatric hospital until the case is resolved. Attorneys on both sides have a few options when it comes to the next steps.

    A hearing later this month could determine the path forward

    Judge William Sullivan set a hearing for Sept. 29. During that proceeding, defense attorney Kevin Reddington will likely ask the judge to declare Clancy not guilty. It’s a long shot move and very unlikely to succeed.

    That hearing could also reveal whether prosecutors will move to put Clancy on trial for a second time. They could also choose to seek a plea deal or even drop the case entirely, though that option is unlikely.

    Sullivan suggested that everyone involved in the case, from attorneys to witnesses to court administrators, would need to look at their calendars to find a suitable time for a new trial, if one is held.

    Clancy doesn’t deny strangling her children at their home south of Boston, but says postpartum psychosis led to her actions. After the killings, her husband found her badly injured in the yard, where she landed after jumping from a second-story window. She was left paralyzed from the waist down.

    Prosecutors argue she knew what she was doing.

    Prosecutors will weigh many factors as they decide on a new trial

    Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz said there would not be an immediate decision about a second trial, but he emphasized that his goal was always “getting justice for those three little babies.”

    “This case was about Lindsay Clancy and what she did … the cruel and calculated killing of three innocents,” Cruz said shortly after court ended on Friday. He later continued, “Children were murdered and it’s our job to seek justice.”

    Still, prosecutors typically consider a lot of things when determining whether to retry a case, said New York Law School professor Heather Ellis Cucolo, including the potential expense and the likely outcome.

    “I know the prosecutor stated openly that he would not allow public opinion to sway his decision, which is accurate, but the prosecution serves the public,” Cucolo said. “If it is believed that justice must be served by another trial, that is something the prosecutor’s office will take into account and weigh very heavily.”

    A conviction could mean life in prison for Clancy, while an acquittal might lead to confinement in a mental health facility.

    Clancy’s defense will likely push to drop the charges

    Cucolo said the defense attorney will likely push for the charges to be dropped entirely, and might also be open to a plea deal.

    “But if the prosecution chooses to move forward with a trial, there’s no way to prevent that from happening,” Cucolo said.

    Reddington said in court that he believed Clancy’s constitutional rights were violated when the judge declined to remove one juror after the other jurors suggested that he was not following the judge’s instructions on reasonable doubt. But a mistrial isn’t subject to an appeal, Cucolo said, because it’s not a final judgment.

    The impact on family members is another consideration, said Randy Gioia, a Boston-based defense lawyer who formerly supervised public defenders across the state.

    Gioia said prosecutors should not put Clancy through another trial. He said he accepts Reddington’s disclosure that Clancy was extremely close to an acquittal, based on a note presented to the judge by the jury foreperson.

    “Why put everyone through the trauma again: 16 to 18 jurors, all the witnesses, Patrick Clancy,” Gioia said, referring to Lindsay Clancy’s former husband. “What’s to be served here when we’ve had a long trial and long deliberations? You don’t have a strong case. You almost lost the case.”

    Attorneys on both sides could tweak their approach in a retrial

    It’s not clear exactly how the jury reached an impasse, but Reddington suggested that just one juror stood in the way of an acquittal, and said the other jurors were “robbed.”

    “They know they were robbed by one man, for whatever his agenda was, who stole seven weeks of the life of these other jurors that were so attentive, so beautiful, so wonderful,” he said outside the courthouse. “You could see how defeated they were sitting there. I got a funny feeling they would have gone on for another week if they had to. So I hope that guy can sleep well at night.”

    Jurors are under no obligation to speak to attorneys on either side of the case, but it’s common for the attorneys to see if any are open to talking about their experience, Cucolo said. Prosecutors can then use any information they get to reassess and fine-tune their approach, she said, perhaps focusing more on specific evidence or witnesses.

    A retrial would have rippling impacts

    David Meier, a lawyer who represents Patrick Clancy in a lawsuit over his former wife’s mental health treatment, released a statement about the emotional burden of the case, saying “there will never be closure” from the loss of the children.

    “The prospect of reliving this tragedy through another trial is extraordinarily painful — for Patrick, for his family, and for all of us,” Meier said.

    The statement didn’t indicate whether Patrick Clancy would support a second trial.

    Lindsay Clancy has also filed a lawsuit over her mental health treatment. A retrial would likely force those civil cases to be put on hold, Cucolo said.

    “They would not be able to move forward for now because of concerns of possible Fifth Amendment violations,” Cucolo said, because anything Clancy says in a civil case could potentially be used against her in the criminal case. That means the lawsuits could remain in legal limbo for a year or more, she said.

  • Kennedy Center board renews call for Trump-backed shutdown after part of a ceiling collapses

    Kennedy Center board renews call for Trump-backed shutdown after part of a ceiling collapses

    WASHINGTON — A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the Kennedy Center, according to a spokesperson who said the damage underscores the need to shut down the historic arts venue for renovations sought by President Donald Trump.

    No one was injured when a piece of the ceiling inside the Kennedy Center’s grand foyer collapsed Friday evening, said Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president for public relations.

    Photos provided by the center showed a large hole in the high ceiling and debris littering the red carpet in part of the hallway that connects the Kennedy Center’s three main performance auditoriums. The damage occurred during stormy weather in Washington.

    The Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board is fighting in court to move forward with plans to add Trump’s name to the building’s facade and to close the center for two years as it undergoes $250 million in renovations.

    Daravi called the partial ceiling collapse Friday “another example of the urgent need to close for renovation and revitalization, as our Chairman President Trump has championed.”

    “This structural failure stems from decades of neglect and deferred maintenance by the previous leadership, and there’s no justification for further delays in restoring America’s cultural center,” Daravi said in a statement.

    Trump’s efforts to add his name and make other big changes to the center established to honor President John F. Kennedy following his assassination are just part of Trump’s broader second-term agenda to reshape Washington.

    Trump already has demolished the East Wing of the White House to make way for a ballroom. He also plans a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and a renovated golf course along the Potomac River.

    U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that Trump’s name had been added to the Kennedy Center illegally and ordered that it be taken down. He also blocked the administration from closing the venue for renovations.

    Now before the judge is an August vote by the Kennedy Center’s board to return Trump’s name to the facade so it reads: “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” Justice Department lawyers have argued donations for renovations will dry up without Trump’s name on the building.

    Other changes have moved forward. Last week, the Kennedy Center took down a large stick figure sculpture known as Blue that had stood outside the center since 2019. The Kennedy Center gave no reason for its removal, but said in a statement “we are honored to have been stewards” of the late sculptor Joel Shapiro’s work.

    Grace Terpstra of Keep the KC, a community group fighting the Kennedy Center’s closure, said she suspects the board will seize on what appears to be limited ceiling damage “to make the point that the whole thing needs to be shut down, that it’s going to fall on everybody.”

    “I think they’ll try to make it into a bigger thing and show that they’ve found a lot of other things,” said Terpstra, the group’s founder.

  • U.S. military hits 3 Iranian oil tankers after saying Navy ships were targeted with missiles

    U.S. military hits 3 Iranian oil tankers after saying Navy ships were targeted with missiles

    CAIRO — U.S. forces struck three Iranian oil tankers after Navy warships were targeted with missiles, the American military said Saturday, warning that it would “if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”

    The strikes — a day after U.S. President Donald Trump sought to minimize the conflict as “small potatoes” — keep up a new tilt back toward fighting after six months of on-again, off-again war that began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on the country on Feb. 28. Both sides have sought to inflict both military and economic pain, and negotiations have collapsed.

    The military’s statement said that an American aircraft carrier and a destroyer evaded “multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks” while patrolling in the region and no U.S. personnel were hurt. It said that two Iranian oil carriers were “permanently disabled” and the third, unladen one, was destroyed.

    The U.S. statement said that the tankers were part of a shadow network helping to fund Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and its armed proxies in the region.

    There was no immediate Iranian response.

    Iran had reported a strike near Kharg Island

    Earlier, Iranian state television had said that four U.S. missiles struck a tanker about 6 miles from Kharg Island, home to a terminal through which the country exports most of its oil. Kharg Island has been repeatedly targeted during the war, including U.S. strikes on military sites there in March.

    The U.S. said that one tanker was struck off Kharg Island and another was struck near Jask, east of the Strait of Hormuz. The unladen tanker was hit in the Gulf of Oman, and the U.S. said its crew had been “directed to abandon ship.” The statement shared what it called video footage of the strikes.

    After the U.S. statement, Iran’s state broadcaster reported the two other tankers attacked, saying their crews had evacuated.

    “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command.

    The strikes came nearly a week after the U.S. and Iran resumed attacks following a month of relative calm, with the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian communities along it again being targeted. At least five people were killed earlier in the week during a U.S. bombardment of southern Iran. One strike hit a wedding.

    Masoumeh Zarei, 13, was wounded in the attack. She spoke to the Associated Press at a hospital while being treated for injuries to her abdomen.

    She said that the wedding celebration had already begun when she set out to join it. She never made it there. She was knocked unconscious when a telecommunications tower was struck. Her next memory was of waking up in a hospital.

    “The party had just started, and we wanted to go there,” Zarei said, her voice hoarse. “I had made my nails really pretty for the party, but everything changed.”

    Her friend, 14-year-old Kiana Karimi, also was wounded and in intensive care. She told the AP that she heard five explosions.

    “The first three explosions at the telecommunications tower threw us to the ground,” Karimi said. “I quickly got up to pick my brothers up off the ground. Then there were two more explosions, and after that I don’t remember anything.”

    U.S. had tried to turn to economic pressure

    The resumption of fighting in the past week came after new U.S. efforts to apply economic pressures on Tehran, whose hard-line new senior leaders have signaled the willingness to dig in after weathering decades of sanctions. The elected government of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, however, has said that it favors a negotiated end to the war.

    Iran has found ways over the years to circumvent sanctions — and now a U.S. blockade of its ports — and get its oil to buyers to help ease growing economic pressures. That relies in part on a shadow fleet transporting its oil.

    Meanwhile, the issue that helped lead to the war — Iran’s nuclear program — was meant to be addressed in negotiations that fell apart soon after the U.S. and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding in mid-June. Now diplomats say the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany seek to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for failure to comply with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations.

    Instead, Tehran’s new leverage focuses on the strait that is crucial to global oil and natural gas shipments and was seen as an international waterway before the war began.

    The U.S. military has been helping to guide ships through the strait as Tehran asserts control and targets some vessels, but overall traffic remains low.