SAN DIEGO (AP) — US official: Government plans to send “massive" number of migrants from Texas border to Haiti on flights starting Sunday.

California Republicans didn't draw the huge turnout they needed in this week’s recall election to remove Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in the nation's most populated state. Preliminary vote tallies suggest overall turnout was around 55%, about average for a California midterm election and way below the 80% turnout in the 2020 presidential contest. About 64% of the votes counted so far opposed the recall. The pro-recall side appears headed for about about 37% of the total. That's in line with what the party's 2018 candidate for governor received in his blowout loss to Newsom. It indicates GOP voters are no more enthused now than then. 

A judge has ruled there's enough evidence for the case to proceed against a southern Colorado man who was charged with first-degree murder nearly a year after his wife was reported missing on Mother’s Day 2020. The judge ruled Friday that 53-year-old Barry Morphew should stand trial for the presumed death of Suzanne Morphew. The 49-year-old mother of two was reported missing after she did not return from a bike ride near her home in the Salida area. Barry Morphew was arrested May 5 of this year. His wife's body has not been found.  

A California prison guard has been arrested on suspicion of beating a Wells Fargo branch manager and calling him a racial slur after being asked to wear a mask inside the bank. Police in Grover Beach said James Allen Jones was arrested Tuesday at his job following a 10-day investigation into the attack. The bank employee told police that a customer upset about being asked to put on a mask assaulted him in the parking lot and fled before officers arrived. Police say Jones, who is white, made racist comments to the Hispanic victim. Investigators identified him after interviewing witnesses and obtaining video and still images of him. 

A federal jury in Delaware has awarded $1.5 million to the daughter of a former Delaware pastor who said her father sexually abused her as a child and trafficked her to other men. Alicia Cohen said in a lawsuit that Ronald Cohen began sexually abusing her when she was three and started selling her to other men for sex when they were living in Oklahoma about two years later. Ronald Cohen denied the claims as false and defamatory. The jury on Friday found him liable under Delaware law for child sexual abuse and other offenses. But it ruled in his favor regarding allegations of human trafficking and various other offenses.

A Utah county sheriff said Friday detectives have determined there is no connection between the disappearance of a Florida woman who went missing during a cross-country trip with her boyfriend and a still-unsolved slaying of two women who were fatally shot. Police in Florida had said Thursday a possible connection was being explored because the women were found dead in the same tourist town of Moab, Utah, where the missing woman, Gabrielle “Gabby” Petito, and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie had an emotional fight to which police had been called. 

A longtime prison reform advocate in Tennessee says he's being held in solitary confinement as revenge for his advocacy. Alex Friedmann filed a federal lawsuit Thursday asking that he be moved out of solitary, where he has been housed for 18 months. Friedman is accused of hiding loaded guns and ammunition in a new Nashville jail under construction. He has not yet faced trial. In a letter to The Associated Press, Friedman says he thinks he's being punished by prison officials for his many years of advocacy. The lawsuit claims prison officials violated his Constitutional rights by placing him in punitive conditions although he has not been convicted of any crime. 

The Navy is conducting a deep-sea search for the remains of five sailors and the wreckage of a Navy helicopter that spun out on an aircraft carrier off San Diego on Aug. 31 and plunged into the Pacific ocean. The Navy launched the search Wednesday bring in sailors from its command that is specialized in undersea searches and salvage. They will be using the ship Dominator, which uses a sonar scanner. The ship is typically used for submarine recovery missions.

As the spread of the delta variant continues unabated in much of the U.S., public health leaders have approved health care rationing in Idaho and parts of Alaska and Montana. Several more states are veering dangerously close to reaching “crisis standards of care” with less than 10% of intensive care unit beds available. The move to ration healthcare comes amid a spike in the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization.  Crisis standards of care allow health care providers to give scarce resources, like ventilators, to the patients most likely to survive. But determining who gets what is no easy feat.

Kids across the U.S. are posting TikTok videos of themselves smashing bathroom mirrors or stealing soap dispensers and even turf off football fields. The “devious licks” social media challenge went viral this week and is bedeviling principals and school district administrators. Some schools have even had to shut down bathrooms, where much of the damage is occurring. In northeast Kansas, Lawrence High School had to close several bathrooms after students pried soap dispensers off the walls. But schools, students and parents across the U.S. also have reported similar incidents. A southern Alabama high school student faces criminal charges after being caught on a surveillance camera stealing a fire extinguisher.

A grand jury in California has indicted two police officers on felony assault charges in the alleged beating of an unresisting Black teenager last year. The San Joaquin County district attorney announced the indictments against the two former Stockton police officers Friday. Photos released by the 17-year-old teen’s attorney show massive bruising to his face. Former officers Michael Stiles and Omar Villapudua were fired in March after a police investigation found they had used excessive force outside the department's policy and training. The charges come amid growing outrage over the use of excessive police force, especially against African Americans in the U.S. 

Tropical Storm Odette has formed off the mid-Atlantic coast and is expected to weaken Saturday night as it approaches eastern Canada. Odette was traveling to the northeast Friday evening at 15 mph and was located about 225 miles southeast of Cape May, New Jersey. It had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. Forecasters say swells generated by the storm are affecting parts of the mid-Atlantic coast and will cause dangerous conditions off the coasts of the Northeast U.S. and parts of Canada over the weekend. No tropical storm warnings or watches have been issued.

The board that oversees Arizona’s most populous county has scheduled a special Friday afternoon meeting where members may announce whether they will comply with a state Senate subpoena to hand over its computer routers to contractors conducting an unprecedented partisan review of 2020 election results. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a decision last month that Maricopa County must comply with the subpoena issued by Republican Senate President Karen Fann or lose about $700 million in yearly state funding. 

The knock on the door that Kristen Bigogno has long dreaded finally arrived Friday — two St. Louis deputies came to evict her, joined by a couple of other men there to change the locks on the apartment. The eviction was months in the making, but also fast: The judgment against her was last winter, but thanks to a national moratorium, she got a reprieve. She received her final notice on Tuesday. When two deputies pulled up around noon on Friday, she knew it was over. Bigogno is among thousands of Americans facing eviction now that the CDC moratorium has ended.

If you're seeking an exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, you might not get any help from your clergy person. Some religious groups are telling their clergy not to endorse requests for a faith exemption. Leaders of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America are saying there is no exemption from any vaccination for religious reasons. They're telling their priests not to support any requests. Some Catholic dioceses have taken a similar stance, though others are more accommodating. Most major religious groups support the vaccines, but some don't have policies on exemptions.

Garbage and debris are piling up along many New Orleans streets almost three weeks after Hurricane Ida pounded southeast Louisiana. Anger is rising, too. Some residents told City Council members Friday that they haven't had garbage picked up since a week before Ida hit. Council members, meanwhile, say Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration is delivering confusing messages about what will be picked up when. The city says much of the problem is due to labor shortages that pre-date the storm. And Cantrell's administration said there have been few companies responding to bids for additional collection work.

A U.N. migration agency official says she's concerned about the disappearance of thousands of Europe-bound migrants who were intercepted and returned to Libya. The spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration said Friday that Libya's coast guard intercepted more than 24,000 Europe-bound migrants in the Mediterranean Sea so far this year, including over 800 this week alone. She, however, says only 6,000 are accounted for in official detention centers in the North African country. The fate of thousands of other migrants remains unknown. Libya has for years been a hub for African and Mideast migrants fleeing war and poverty in their homelands and hoping for a better life in Europe.

A Pakistan resident has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for a conspiracy to “unlock” phones from AT&T's network, a scheme that the company says cost it more than $200 million. Muhammad Fahd began bribing employees of an AT&T call center in Bothell, Washington, in 2012, to use their credentials to unlock phones — allowing them to be removed from AT&T's network, even if customers had not finished paying for the expensive devices. He later had them install malware on the company's network, allowing him to unlock the phones from Pakistan. He paid three AT&T workers $922,000 from 2012 to 2017 before he was arrested in Hong Kong.

California's unemployment rate declined slightly in August as the state added 104,300 new jobs for the month. New data from the Califonria Employment Development Department shows that nearly 45% of all job gains in August came from government jobs. The agency said that's likely because public schools have started again after the summer break. California's unemployment rate is now 7.5% and the second highest in the nation behind Nevada. Gov. Gavin Newsom says the figures show promising progress but said that the state must do more to regain the jobs that were lost amid the pandemic. California lost more than 2.7 million jobs in March and April of 2020.

South Dakota legislative leaders are distributing a petition to lawmakers asking them to support a special session to consider impeaching Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg for a car crash last year that killed a pedestrian. House Speaker Spencer Gosch released the text of the petition. Two-thirds of both the House and Senate must support it to convene the special session. Lawmakers would meet in November, the day after they are scheduled to hold a special session to consider new legislative districts. The attorney general pleaded no contest to a pair of misdemeanors last month. 

The mayor of San Francisco was spotted dancing and singing at an indoor nightclub without a mask, despite a strict city order to wear masks when inside. Mayor London Breed has promoted restrictive measures aimed at curbing the coronavirus, frustrating business owners who have had to shut down or limit customers. An August health order by San Francisco and other Bay Area counties orders people to wear “well-fitting mask indoors in public settings” regardless of vaccination status. The city also requires proof of full vaccination to patronize indoor businesses like bars and restaurants, which Breed says the club did. She said she is regularly tested for COVID-19.

North Carolina judges have struck down the state’s latest photo voter identification law. Two of the three trial judges hearing a lawsuit declared on Friday that the December 2018 law is unconstitutional. The judges barred its enforcement, agreeing with minority voters that Republicans rammed through rules tainted by racial bias as a way to remain in power. The majority's decision is now likely headed to a state appeals court. With two other pending lawsuits, it's looking more unlikely that a voter ID mandate for in-person and absentee balloting will happen in the 2022 elections. A previous ID law was struck down five years ago.

Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has funded organizations that received the most money for racial equity in 27 different states following the police killing of George Floyd. According to an AP analysis of new preliminary data from the philanthropy research organization Candid, Scott was responsible for approximately $567 million given to these organizations. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been gifted to HBCU powerhouses like Morehouse College and other little-known groups. In at least 11 states, Scott provided the majority of racial equity-oriented contributions to the top recipients. But the scope of her impact could be much larger in some states, mainly because it’s unclear how all of her donations have been fragmented to individual groups. 

A federal investigator says three people were killed when a helicopter crashed in a densely forested area in central Georgia. Investigator Aaron McCarter of the National Transportation Safety Board told reporters Friday that the Robinson R66 helicopter scattered debris over a path 125 feet long. He said two pilots and a passenger died in the crash Wednesday night. The helicopter went down in the Piedmont National Wildlife Refuge north of Macon during cloudy, rainy weather after taking off from Thomasville. McCarter said its destination is still unclear. The identities of those killed were not immediately released.  

A former high school student convicted of teaming up with a classmate in a plot to kill teens in a suburban Denver high school in 2019 is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Devon Erickson was convicted in June of all 46 charges against him, including murder for the death of a student who tried to stop the attack. Prosecutors said Erickson, now 20, partnered with Alec McKinney in the shooting that killed Kendrick Castillo, 18, and wounded eight others at STEM School Highlands Ranch. Since he was 18 and an adult at the time of the shooting, Erickson faces a mandatory sentence. McKinney, who was 16, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after about two decades behind bars.

A federal judge has lifted race- and sex-based hiring quotas imposed on the Cincinnati Police Department 40 years ago to fix the department's lack of diversity. A U.S. district judge says in a Wednesday ruling that the provisions put in place city in 1981 no longer pass constitutional muster. The judge also said Cincinnati has failed to provide evidence that the hiring and promotional goals are continuing to remedy past discrimination or its lingering effects. The judge noted that Cincinnati has admitted that efforts to diversify the department have been relatively successful.

A former Liberian military commander who supervised the slaughter of hundreds of unarmed civilians at a church during that country’s civil war in 1990 is liable under U.S. law for participating in extrajudicial killings and torture. A federal judge in Philadelphia ruled this week against Moses W. Thomas and in favor of four anonymous plaintiffs. They lived through the military assault on people seeking safety at a Red Cross shelter on church grounds. After the war, Thomas emigrated to the United States but he's now back in Liberia. His lawyer says they accept the decision but don't agree with it and may appeal.

The International Mission Board is requiring its missionaries get the COVID-19 vaccine. The board is a Southern Baptist Convention agency and deploys thousands of evangelical missionaries across the globe. It says it implemented the new policy because of health risks and the need to show proof of vaccination in more places. Other faith groups are addressing vaccines for missionaries in a variety of ways. The United Methodist Church encourages but does not require the shot due to uneven access globally. A willingness to get vaccinated varies across faith traditions. A survey shows white evangelical Protestants have a high refusal rate compared with other faith groups. 

A lawyer and former lawmaker in West Virginia has filed notice that he again intends to sue Gov. Jim Justice over his residency.  The Charleston Gazette-Mail reported that Isaac Sponaugle sent Justice a 30-day intent to sue notice Thursday for the governor’s alleged failure to comply with a March 1 settlement agreement to reside at the seat of government in Charleston. Justice agreed in March to live in Charleston, ending a lawsuit Sponaugle filed in 2018 because the state constitution says the governor “shall reside at the seat of government.” Justice’s personal attorneys said Sponaugle is “grasping for media attention by trying to revive this pointless suit.”

A federal judge has again blocked Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee from allowing parents to opt out of school mask requirements aimed at limiting coronavirus infections in Shelby County. U.S. District Judge Sheryl Lipman issued a preliminary injunction on Friday for schools in Tennessee's largest county. Parents in two Memphis suburbs are suing on behalf of their children with health problems. They argue that the Republican governor's executive order has endangered these students and harmed their ability to attend classes in person by allowing others to opt out of a mask mandate and spread infections.   

Hundreds of protesters in Tetovo, a city in the west of North Macedonia are calling for the resignation of officials in the wake of last week's fire that destroyed a COVID-19 field hospital, killed 14 people and injured a dozen more. Friday's protest was organized by victims’ families, with demonstrators demanding that authorities announce the findings of an investigation into the blaze. Chanting “justice, justice”, the protesters stopped briefly in front of the local government building, throwing eggs and demanding the resignation of Tetovo’s mayor, Teuta Arifi. Nine days after the hospital fire, no information has been released regarding the investigation being conducted into the causes. 

A woman accused of assaulting a woman and calling her a racial slur on a Spirit Airlines flight to Detroit has been arraigned. Thirty-nine-year-old Alexandra Farr, of Roseville, faces ethnic intimidation and assault charges. She was released Friday on personal bond. The victim was a Black, Muslim woman. Prosecutors say Farr and another passenger on Saturday’s flight were involved in a verbal confrontation when the 29-year-old victim was called a racial slur and started recording the encounter with her cellphone. That’s when Farr allegedly struck the woman’s hand. Farr later was arrested by airport police. She also was charged with being a disorderly person.

Jury selection has wrapped up in the trial of one of two Georgia prisoners accused of killing two guards more than four years ago. Prosecutors and defense attorneys finished choosing a jury Friday, and opening statements are set to begin Monday. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Donnie Rowe in the killings of Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue in June 2017. Rowe and Ricky Dubose are accused of using the guards’ guns to shoot them while escaping from a prison transfer bus southeast of Atlanta. They were arrested in Tennessee a few days later. Dubose also faces the death penalty and will be tried separately.

SpaceX's first private crew is taking in sweeping views of Earth that few have witnessed. The capsule's four space tourists are flying exceedingly high, even by NASA standards. SpaceX got the chartered flight into a 363-mile orbit following Wednesday night's launch, higher than the International Space Station. The heath care worker on board chatted Thursday with patients at St. Jude Children's hospital. That's where she was treated for bone cancer almost 20 years ago and now works. The three-day flight ends with a splashdown off the Florida coast this weekend. 

New Yorkers will be able to avoid jail time for most nonviolent parole violations under a new law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. The law signed Friday largely eliminates New York’s practice of incarcerating people for technical parole violations that include being late to an appointment with a parole officer, missing curfew, changing a residence without approval, and failing to attend a mandated program. Supporters say incarcerating people for technical parole violations is costly and fuels recidivism. The Republican minority in the Legislature has accused Democrats of focusing more on perpetrators of crimes than victims. 

A judge says he would postpone the Oct. 12 trial of five men accused of planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. A new date wasn’t immediately set. But federal Judge Robert Jonker suggested the trial might get pushed to February or March. Defense lawyers say they need more time to pore over evidence shared by federal prosecutors, especially the work of FBI agents and informants. The government says the five men were upset over coronavirus restrictions when they conspired to kidnap Whitmer, even scouting her second home in northern Michigan. They’ve pleaded not guilty. A sixth man, Ty Garbin, pleaded guilty and is expected to be a star witness for prosecutors.

A Chicago woman has been charged with taking advantage of the pandemic and the city's surging homicide count to defraud the government out of thousands of dollars in tax refunds and coronavirus stimulus payments. Katrina Pierce faces federal charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, according to a criminal complaint made public Thursday. A judge ordered Pierce, who was sent to prison for a similar scheme nine years ago, to remain locked up pending trial. Her next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Pierce obtained the death certificates of dozens of young homicide victims and used them to collect thousands of dollars in payments. 

A former Army doctor convicted for the 1970 slayings of his wife and two young daughters at North Carolina's Fort Bragg has ended his appeal of a court ruling denying his requested release. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Jeffrey MacDonald's appeal dismissal on Thursday. MacDonald is serving a life sentence in a Maryland prison. His lawyers had asked Boyle to release him because of deteriorating health, but a judge said he lacked authority to do that. His lawyers said Friday that MacDonald had decided the ruling was "correct as a technical legal matter." MacDonald says he's innocent in the “Fatal Vision” case, named for a book about the investigation.

Supporters of a plan to open supervised injection sites to try to reduce overdose deaths urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to review a court decision that bans the practice. The test case centers on Philadelphia, but officials in several states are watching closely as they debate the idea. Philadelphia's mayor and top prosecutor endorse the plan, but former U.S. Attorney William McSwain insisted it would violate a 1980s-era drug law aimed at “crackhouses.” Nationally, more than 93,000 people died last year from overdose deaths. The Justice Department under President Joe Biden has so far stayed neutral in the litigation.

A former University of Miami football player has pleaded not guilty to charges of killing a teammate outside a South Florida apartment complex in 2006. An attorney for 35-year-old Rashaun Jones entered the plea Friday morning after prosecutors formally filed second-degree murder charge against him. Jones was arrested last month. But he was long suspected in the death of 22-year-old defensive lineman Bryan Pata. Jones was originally arrested on a first-degree murder charge, and prosecutors said he could still face that charge. Pata was expected to be an early pick in the 2007 NFL draft but was gunned down as he returned home from practice.

Audio from an inquest into the shooting death of Derontae Martin offers widely conflicting accounts of how the young Black man died inside a rural Missouri home during a party in April. One witness says someone confessed to killing Martin. Another says he saw Martin shoot himself. The Associated Press obtained the audio through an open records request. At the hearing in July, a six-person jury overruled a local coroner’s decision that Martin shot himself, finding instead that he died by “violence.” No investigator involved will discuss the case. Martin’s relatives worry that despite the ruling, investigators are so convinced of suicide that they’ve moved on. 

Thousands of Haitian migrants have assembled under and around a bridge in a small Texas border town, presenting the Biden administration with a fresh and immediate challenge as it tries to manage large numbers of asylum-seekers who have been reaching U.S. soil. Images show Haitians crossing the Rio Grande in huge groups and assembling under a bridge in Del Rio, a city of 35,000 people. Estimates are as high as 8,000 to 10,000. Haitians have been migrating to the U.S. from South America for years, including many who left the Caribbean nation after a devastating earthquake in 2010. It is unclear how so many Haitians amassed so quickly in Del Rio.

Boston’s famous Skinny House has sold for a nice fat price. Zillow reports that the home that hit the market in August for $1.2 million sold Thursday for $1.25 million. Real estate agency CL Properties posted on Facebook that the home went under agreement for over list price in less than one week. A plaque on the four-story home's facade says it was built in 1862, has over 1,100 square feet and is about 10 feet wide at its widest point. It is also known as the Spite House because of a legend about its origins stemming from a rivalry between brothers.

RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (AP) — Former Arkansas sheriff’s deputy charged with manslaughter in fatal shooting of white teenager during traffic stop.

A former Arkansas sheriff’s deputy has been charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a white teenager whose death has drawn the attention of civil rights activists nationally. A special prosecutor on Friday announced the charge against former Lonoke County sheriff’s deputy Sgt. Michael Davis in the fatal shooting of Hunter Brittain. Davis shot Brittain during a traffic stop June 23. Davis, who is white, was fired in July for not turning on his body camera until the shooting occurred. Brittain was eulogized by the Rev. Al Sharpton and attorneys for George Floyd’s family.

Minnesota regulators have ordered Enbridge to pay more than $3 million for allegedly violating state environmental law by piercing a groundwater aquifer during construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline. The state Department of Natural Resources says Enbridge, while working near Clearbrook in January, dug too deeply into the ground and pierced an artesian aquifer, which resulted in a 24 million gallon groundwater leak and endangered nearby wetlands. Enbridge did not immediately return a call for comment Friday. The company's 340-mile Line 3 pipeline will carry Canadian crude across northern Minnesota to the company’s terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. The pipeline, opposed by environmental groups and some Ojibwe tribes, is 90% complete.

Jacobo Rendon knows dozens of birds by name and grew up drawing them. During the coronavirus pandemic, the 14-year-old from the Antioquia region of Colombia turned that passion into a conservation project and a labor of love. He has been working on a photographic and illustrated bird guide that he plans to donate to his municipality. Rendon hopes the guide will inspire other teenagers to illustrate and help preserve birds in one of the countries with the highest biodiversity in the world. He was recently recognized as one of the 2021 International Young Eco-Hero winners by the Action for Nature nonprofit. 

President Joe Biden is trying to hammer out the world’s next steps against rapidly worsening climate change in a private, virtual session with a small group of other global leaders. Friday's session at the White House opened with Biden announcing a new U.S.-European pledge to cut climate-wrecking methane leaks from oil and gas rigs and other sources. Leaders of European blocs and the U.N. joined a handful of other national leaders in the private White House talks. The White House sessions and other upcoming ones are trying to ensure that world leaders come to a U.N. climate summit in Glasgow in November with significant new commitments to cut climate-wrecking oil, gas and coal emissions. 

Anthony Doerr, Richard Powers and Lauren Groff are among this years nominees on the National Book Awards’ fiction longlist, which also includes Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ debut novel “The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois,” already an Oprah Winfrey selection and finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is his first novel since his Pulitzer Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See” and Powers’ “Bewilderment” is his first book since the Pulitzer winning “The Overstory.” Groff’s “Matrix” is her third consecutive work to receive a National Book Award nomination, following “Fates and Furies” and the story collection “Florida.” 

From dusty towns to forests in the West, illegal marijuana growers are taking water in uncontrolled amounts when there often isn’t enough to go around for even licensed users. Conflicts about water have long existed, but amid a severe drought, illegal marijuana farms add additional strain on the precious resource. In Oregon, the number of illegal grows appears to have increased recently even as the Pacific Northwest this year endured its driest spring since 1924. Illegal grows continue to proliferate despite legalization in West Coast states.