Lawmakers removed a measure that would have diverted $93 million in funding from counties to the Met Council from the transportation funding bill Monday during the Legislature’s special session.

Under 2023 legislation metro area counties have received 17% of funds derived from a three-fourth cent regional transportation sales tax, with the remaining 83% going to the Met Council. The proposal would have cut that sum by half and reallocated the money to the Met Council for Bus Rapid Transit expansion. That proposal was removed Monday morning.

Prior to the removal of the measure from the overall transportation budget bill, it drew criticism from a number of metro area county officials. The proposal had surprised county officials as it had not been discussed publicly or voted on during the regular session.

Dakota County would have lost an estimated $14 million in the next two years with the proposal, according to county officials. That money was to fund road preservation, local transit service and trail expansion in Dakota as well as other metro area counties.

State estimates showed that in addition to the $93 million cut over two years for the seven metro-area counties, an additional nearly $100 million would be diverted to the Met Council in the following two-year budget cycle.

The Met Council did not ask for or need the additional funds to complete BRT projects, county officials said. Met Council officials had no comment on the matter Monday.

Though Ramsey County officials recognize that legislators have dealt with difficult budget decisions, the proposed cut was “deeply harmful in several ways,” Ramsey County Board Chair Rafael Ortega wrote in a Wednesday letter to lawmakers from his county.

The proposed cut for the county would have amounted to $8 million to $9 million per year that is already designated for transit and other projects, Ortega wrote.

For Washington County the diverted funding would have amounted to $3.6 million in 2026 and more than $14 million over the next four years, county officials said.

Minnesota lawmakers returned to the Capitol Monday morning to complete the state’s next two-year budget and are expected to finish their work by Tuesday morning, though that could be delayed if lawmakers introduce amendments or take part in lengthy debate.

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By KELVIN CHAN and MATT O’BRIEN

LONDON (AP) — Getty Images is facing off against artificial intelligence company Stability AI in a London courtroom for the first major copyright trial of the generative AI industry.

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Opening arguments before a judge at the British High Court began on Monday. The trial could last for three weeks followed by a written decision from the judge expected at a later date.

Stability, based in London, owns a widely used AI image-making tool that sparked enthusiasm for the instant creation of AI artwork and photorealistic images upon its release in August 2022. OpenAI introduced its surprise hit chatbot ChatGPT three months later.

Seattle-based Getty has argued that the development of the AI image maker, called Stable Diffusion, involved “brazen infringement” of Getty’s photography collection “on a staggering scale.”

Tech companies have long argued that “fair use” or “fair dealing” legal doctrines in the United States and United Kingdom allow them to train their AI systems on large troves of writings or images. Getty was among the first to challenge those practices when it filed copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States and the United Kingdom in early 2023.

“What Stability did was inappropriate,” Getty CEO Craig Peters told The Associated Press in 2023. He said creators of intellectual property should be asked for permission before their works are fed into AI systems rather than having to participate in an “opt-out regime.”

Getty’s legal team told the court Monday that the case isn’t a battle between the creative and technology industries and that the two can still work together in “synergistic harmony” because licensing creative works is critical to AI’s success.

“The problem is when AI companies such as Stability AI want to use those works without payment,” Getty’s trial lawyer, Lindsay Lane, said.

She said the case was about “straightforward enforcement of intellectual property rights,” including copyright, trademark and database rights.

Getty Images “recognizes that the AI industry is a force for good but that doesn’t justify those developing AI models to ride roughshod over intellectual property rights,” Lane said.

Stability AI had a “voracious appetite” for images to train its AI model, but was “completely indifferent to the nature of those works,” Lane said.

Stability didn’t care if images were protected by copyright, had watermarks, were not safe for work or were pornographic — it just wanted to get its model to the market as soon as possible, Lane said.

“This trial is the day of reckoning for that approach,” she said.

Stability lawyers are expected to make their opening arguments Tuesday. They say in a prepared written argument that Getty’s claims “represent an overt threat to Stability’s whole business, and the wider generative AI industry.”

Stability has argued that the case doesn’t belong in the United Kingdom because the training of the AI model technically happened elsewhere, on computers run by U.S. tech giant Amazon. The company also argues that “only a tiny proportion” of the random outputs of its AI image-generator “look at all similar” to Getty’s works.

Once the trial concludes later this month, the judge’s decision is unlikely to give the AI industry what it most wants, which is expanded copyright exemptions for AI training, said Ben Milloy, a senior associate at UK law firm Fladgate, which is not involved in the case.

But it could “strengthen the hand of either party – rights holders or AI developers – in the context of the commercial negotiations for content licensing deals that are currently playing out worldwide,” Milloy said.

Similar cases in the U.S. have not yet gone to trial.

In the years after introducing its open-source technology, Stability confronted challenges in capitalizing on the popularity of the tool, battling lawsuits, misuse and other business problems.

Stable Diffusion’s roots trace back to Germany, where computer scientists at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich worked with the New York-based tech company Runway to develop the original algorithms. The university researchers credited Stability AI for providing the servers that trained the models, which require large amounts of computing power.

Stability later blamed Runway for releasing an early version of Stable Diffusion that was used to produce abusive sexual images, but also said it would have exclusive control of more recent versions of the AI model.

Stability last year announced what it described as a “significant” infusion of money from new investors including Facebook’s former president Sean Parker, who is now chair of Stability’s board. Parker has experience in intellectual property disputes as the co-founder of online music company Napster, which temporarily shuttered in the early 2000s after the record industry and popular rock band Metallica sued over copyright violations.

Hollywood director James Cameron, whose films include “Titanic” and “Avatar” is also a Stability board member.

The new investments came after Stability’s founding CEO Emad Mostaque quit and several top researchers left to form a new German startup, Black Forest Labs, which makes a competing AI image generator.

O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

By JACK BROOK

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities arrested a former New Orleans jail employee on Monday and accused her of aiding in the 10-inmate breakout at the facility last month, which included an escape by her boyfriend — a convicted murderer.

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The former jail employee, Darriana Burton, 28, is one of at least 16 people arrested and accused of aiding the escape of the inmates on May 16. Authorities said only two remain at large: her boyfriend, Derrick Groves, and Antoine Massey, who is facing charges of rape, kidnapping and domestic battery.

The group of inmates escaped by yanking open a faulty cell door, removing a toilet, crawling through a hole and scaling a barbed wire fence in the early morning hours when a lone guard left to get food.

Two days before the escape, Groves made a FaceTime video call to Burton using a jail-issued iPad. During that call, she helped him speak with a man who police did not identify. The conversation was “intentionally vague” and appeared to coordinate communication on other, unmonitored lines, according to a police affidavit for Burton’s arrest.

In another call shortly after, the same man warned Groves against escaping, saying it would be a “bad move” that would trigger a manhunt. He told Groves to seek release via the judicial system.

The exchange showed Burton’s direct role in helping with Groves’ escape, according to the arrest affidavit.

This image provided by the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office shows former jail employee, Darriana Burton, 28, who was arrested on felony charge of conspiracy to commit simple escape, Monday, June 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (Louisiana Attorney General’s Office via AP)

Burton faces a felony charge for conspiracy to commit simple escape.

According to other police reports, Burton also allegedly “picked up” and transported another fugitive, Lenton Vanburen, to a relative’s home during his escape.

Burton began working at the jail in 2022 and was fired the following year after she was arrested on allegations of bringing a folding knife and a bag of Cheetos containing tobacco and marijuana into the jail. The charges were dropped in part due to her lack of criminal history, and she “successfully completed” a pretrial diversion program, the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office told The Associated Press.

“I categorically deny any involvement in introducing contraband into the jail or assisting in any escape,” Burton said May 30 in a text message to The Associated Press. “These allegations are false and I intend to fully defend myself through the proper legal channels.”

Agents with the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Marshals Service coordinated Burton’s arrest after obtaining a warrant on May 27. She was taken into custody in the Plaquemines Parish jail, authorities said.

FILE – A Louisiana state police SWAT member works the scene on Iberville Street as police pursue a fugitive that escaped from a New Orleans jail, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Burton and Groves “were in an on-again, off-again relationship for three years,” dating back to the time when she was still working in the jail, authorities said.

“We will continue to pursue anyone and everyone who has aided and abetted these criminals. We will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you to the full extent of the law,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement. “We will arrest all aiders and abettors, and we will eventually get Antoine Massey and Derrick Groves back to prison where they belong.”

Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump made no secret of his willingness to exert a maximalist approach to enforcing immigration laws and keeping order as he campaigned to return to the White House. The fulfillment of that pledge is now on full display in Los Angeles.

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The president has put hundreds of National Guard troops on the streets to quell protests over his administration’s immigration raids, a deployment that state and city officials say has only inflamed tensions. Trump called up the California National Guard over the objections of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — the first time in 60 years a president has done so — and is deploying active-duty troops to support the guard.

By overriding Newsom, Trump is already going beyond what he did to respond to Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, when he warned he could send troops to contain demonstrations that turned violent if governors in the states did not act to do so themselves. Trump said in September of that year that he “can’t call in the National Guard unless we’re requested by a governor” and that “we have to go by the laws.”

But now, the past and current president is moving swiftly, with little internal restraint to test the bounds of his executive authority in order to deliver on his promise of mass deportations. What remains to be seen is whether Americans will stand by him once it’s operationalized nationwide, as Trump looks to secure billions from Congress to dramatically expand the country’s detention and deportation operations.

For now, Trump is betting that they will.

“If we didn’t do the job, that place would be burning down,” Trump told reporters Monday, speaking about California. “I feel we had no choice. … I don’t want to see what happened so many times in this country.”

‘A crisis of Trump’s own making’

The protests began to unfold Friday as federal authorities arrested immigrants in several locations throughout the sprawling city, including in the fashion district of Los Angeles and at a Home Depot. The anger over the administration’s actions quickly spread, with protests in Chicago and Boston as demonstrations in the southern California city also continued Monday.

But Trump and other administration officials remained unbowed, capitalizing on the images of burning cars, graffiti and Mexican flags — which, while not dominant, started to become the defining images of the unrest — to bolster their law-and-order cause.

Leaders in the country’s most populous state were similarly defiant.

California officials moved Monday to sue the Trump administration, with the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, arguing that the deployment of troops “trampled” on the state’s sovereignty and pushing for a restraining order. The initial deployment of 300 National Guard troops was expected to quickly expand to the full 2,000 that were authorized by Trump.

The state’s senior Democratic senator, Alex Padilla, said in an interview that “this is absolutely a crisis of Trump’s own making.”

“There are a lot of people who are passionate about speaking up for fundamental rights and respecting due process, but the deployment of National Guard only serves to escalate tensions and the situation,” Padilla told The Associated Press. “It’s exactly what Donald Trump wanted to do.”

Padilla slammed the deployment as “counterproductive” and said the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department was not advised ahead of the federalization of the National Guard. His office has also pushed the Pentagon for a justification on the deployment, and “as far as we’re told, the Department of Defense isn’t sure what the mission is here,” Padilla added.

Candidate Trump previewed immigration strategy during campaign

Much of this was predictable.

During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump pledged to conduct the largest domestic deportation operation in American history to expel millions of immigrants in the country without legal status. He often praised President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-style immigration raids, and the candidate and his advisers suggested they would have broad power to deploy troops domestically to enact Trump’s far-reaching immigration and public safety goals.

Trump’s speedy deployment in California of troops against those whom the president has alluded to as “insurrectionists” on social media is a sharp contrast to his decision to issue no order or formal request for National Guard troops during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, despite his repeated and false assertions that he had made such an offer.

Trump is now surrounded by officials who have no interest in constraining his power. In 2020, Trump’s then-Pentagon chief publicly rebuked Trump’s threat to send in troops using the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that empowers the president to use the military within the U.S. and against American citizens.

Current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signaled support on his personal X account for deploying troops to California, writing, “The National Guard, and Marines if need be, stand with ICE,” referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The Defense Department said Monday it is deploying about 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles to support National Guard troops already on the ground to respond to the protests.

White House responds to an ‘incompetent’ governor

Protesters over the weekend blocked off a major freeway and burned self-driving cars as police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades in clashes that encompassed several downtown blocks in Los Angeles and led to several dozen arrests. Much of the city saw no violence.

But the protests prompted Trump to issue the directive Saturday mobilizing the California National Guard over Newsom’s objections. The president and his top immigration aides accused the governor of mismanaging the protests, with border czar Tom Homan asserting in a Fox News interview Monday that Newsom stoked anti-ICE sentiments and waited two days to declare unlawful assembly in the city.

Trump told Newsom in a phone call Friday evening to get the situation in Los Angeles under control, a White House official said. It was only when the administration felt Newsom was not restoring order in the city — and after Trump watched the situation escalate for 24 hours and White House officials saw imagery of federal law enforcement officers with lacerations and other injuries — that the president moved to deploy the Guard, according to the official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

“He’s an incompetent governor,” Trump said Monday. “Look at the job he’s doing in California. He’s destroying one of our great states.”

Local law enforcement officials said Los Angeles police responded as quickly as they could once the protests erupted, and Newsom repeatedly asserted that state and city authorities had the situation under control.

“Los Angeles is no stranger to demonstrations and protests and rallies and marches,” Padilla said. “Local law enforcement knows how to handle this and has a rapport with the community and community leaders to be able to allow for that.”

The aggressive moves prompted blowback from some of Trump’s erstwhile allies. Ileana Garcia, a Florida state senator who in 2016 founded the group Latinas for Trump and was hired to direct Latino outreach, called the recent escalation “unacceptable and inhumane.”

“I understand the importance of deporting criminal aliens, but what we are witnessing are arbitrary measures to hunt down people who are complying with their immigration hearings — in many cases, with credible fear of persecution claims — all driven by a Miller-like desire to satisfy a self-fabricated deportation goal,” said Garcia, referring to Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff and key architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The tactics could be just a preview to what more could come from the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. GOP lawmakers are working to pass a massive tax-and-border package that includes billions to hire thousands of new officers for Border Patrol and for ICE. The goal, under the Trump-backed plan, is to remove 1 million immigrants without status annually and house 100,000 people in immigration detention centers.

Associated Press writers Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.