By GARY D. ROBERTSON

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s legislature formally began redrawing the state’s congressional district map Monday, plainly stating their intent to help Republicans gain another U.S. House seat under President Donald Trump’s push to retain his party’s grip on Congress next year.

Related Articles

Authorities charge 2 more suspects with attack on prominent DOGE employee

Government shutdown means many CDC experts are skipping a pivotal meeting on infectious disease

Trump draws outrage for AI video of himself dumping waste on protestors

The White House starts demolishing part of the East Wing to build Trump’s ballroom

Trump vows to reach a ‘fantastic deal’ with China after future meeting with Xi

The state Senate gave initial approval along party lines to enact new boundaries for two eastern North Carolina districts in a move aimed to thwart the reelection of Democratic Rep. Don Davis, one of the state’s three Black members of Congress. That followed a committee meeting in which dozens of speakers from the public sharply accused Republican lawmakers in the ninth-largest state of bowing to Trump.

The plan’s chief author was direct about the map’s intent to help his party in the 2026 midterm elections.

“The motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular — draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation,” said GOP Sen. Ralph Hise, who shepherded it through his chamber. If Democrats otherwise take back the House, Hise added, they will “torpedo President Trump’s agenda.”

The Republican legislative leaders announced plans a week ago to rework the map, stepping into the fray over mid-decade redistricting that has Democrats and Republicans battling for electoral advantages coast to coast, including Texas and California. Democrats need just three more seats to seize control of the House, and the president’s party historically has lost seats in midterm elections.

Under the map used in the 2024 elections, Republicans won 10 of the state’s 14 U.S. House seats in a state where statewide races are often close. That compared to a 7-7 seat split between Democrats and the GOP under the map used in 2022. Based on past statewide elections, Republicans would stand a decent chance to win an 11th seat in 2026 should the proposed map be implemented.

Final vote expected this week, veto can’t block map

North Carolina state Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke (left and standing), presides over the Senate Committee on Elections while it considers legislation to redraw the state’s U.S. House district map at the Legislative Office Building in Raleigh N.C., Monday, Oct. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Gary D. Robertson)

After a Senate procedural vote Tuesday, the proposed map will head to the House, which is expected to give it final General Assembly approval later this week. The state Democratic Party plans an outdoor rally Tuesday to oppose it. But Democrats are the minority in both chambers, and state law prevents Democratic Gov. Josh Stein from using his veto stamp on redistricting action. Litigation challenging the map is almost certain, with allegations of harming the voting power of Black residents likely.

“This is an attack on Black voters,” Sen. Kandie Smith, an African American legislator who represents a county in Davis’ current district, said during Senate floor debate. “It’s about stealing elections by design, so that the outcomes are predetermined and accountability becomes optional.”

Counties added, removed to make district lean more to right

Under the proposal, Davis’ current 1st District — the state’s only swing seat — would shift to the right as mapmakers remove inland counties, including Davis’ home county, and replace them with several from the coast. Counties removed from the 1st District are placed in a retooled 3rd District held by Republican Rep. Greg Murphy. Election results indicate the 3rd would remain favorable for Murphy.

FILE – Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C., speaks at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, at East Carolina University, Oct. 13, 2024, in Greenville, N.C. (AP Photo/David Yeazell, File)

North Carolina Republicans, equipped with recent legal rulings that permit partisan advantage in drawing boundaries, last redrew the map in 2023, leading to three incumbent Democrats deciding against running in 2024 because lines had shifted rightward. Those changes helped Republicans maintain their House majority entering 2025.

Trump is also asking other red states for more seats. Apparently pleased with North Carolina’s action, he encouraged Republican legislators last Friday on Truth Social “to work as hard as they can to pass this new Map so that we can continue our incredible Record of SUCCESS.”

Senate Democrats and their allies blasted North Carolina GOP legislative leaders for acting on a partisan map while they are still over three months late passing a state budget.

“They are wasting precious time and taxpayer dollars bending the knee to Donald Trump and ripping away the voice of the voters. It is shameful, it is pathetic,” Eric Willoughby, a 19-year-old college student, told the committee.

The national redistricting battle began over the summer when Trump urged Republican-led Texas to reshape its U.S. House districts. After Texas lawmakers acted, California Democrats reciprocated by passing their own plan that still needs voter approval in November.

Former 1st District reps call proposal “a moral regression”

The current 1st District covers a region that has elected African Americans for over 30 years and where some counties have majority Black populations.

The proposed map is “not merely a political act — it is a moral regression,” said former 1st District representatives Eva Clayton and G.K. Butterfield, both Black Democrats, in a news release. “It weakens the representation of Black North Carolinians and undermines the promise of equal voice and fair elections that so many have fought to secure.”

Hise said there’s nothing unlawfully discriminatory about the map — race-based data wasn’t used to create the proposal and said the lack of evidence of racially polarized voting in the region would make it unconstitutional to draw lines with the chief goal of helping Black voters elect their favored candidates.

By MARYCLAIRE DALE

GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man who sent a Facebook message that said, “So I raped you,” to a woman he later pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting on a Pennsylvania college campus was sentenced to two to four years in prison on Monday.

Related Articles

US man arrested in Scotland and convicted of Utah rape gets at least 5 years in prison

What to know about the Amazon Web Services outage

Disney+ and Hulu cancellations rose after ABC briefly pulled ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

Broadway actors and producers reach tentative labor deal, but musicians still threaten a strike

Government shutdown imperils dozens of Head Start preschool programs

The judge took into account Ian Cleary’s guilty plea, his remorse and his long history of mental illness in giving a sentence below state guidelines. Cleary, 32, said he sent the messages as part of a 12-step program, in hopes of seeking atonement.

However, victim Shannon Keeler told the court on Monday that the messages only reopened wounds she had long carried over the assault, which went years without being prosecuted.

“The system meant to protect me protected you instead,” said Keeler, detailing in a powerful 10-minute impact statement the years she spent pursuing charges, which prosecutors are often reluctant to do in campus sexual assault cases.

“This isn’t just my story, it’s the story of countless women,” she said.

Cleary faced a maximum of 10 years in prison for the 2013 attack on Keeler at Gettysburg College, and the two sides had initially proposed a four- to eight-year sentence.

Andrea Levy, Keeler’s lawyer, said the sentence was “less than what we expected and certainly less than he deserves.”

Senior Judge Kevin Hess said that anyone with daughters or, like him, granddaughters in college would find the crime “horrifying.” Nevertheless, he said, “the defendant has admitted his guilt, he’s come forward and even though 10 to 11 alarming years have passed in the meantime, we wouldn’t be here today but for his hope for some kind of forgiveness and contrition.”

According to Keeler, Cleary sneaked into her first-year dorm on the eve of winter break, when few people were left on campus, then pushed his way into her room and assaulted her.

Cleary left Gettysburg after the attack and ultimately finished college in Silicon Valley, California, where he’d grown up. He then got a master’s degree and worked for Tesla before moving overseas.

Years later, he sent the Facebook message to Keeler, and she renewed her efforts with police and prosecutors to have charges filed. In 2021, she shared her experience in an Associated Press story on the reluctance of prosecutors to pursue campus sex crimes.

Cleary was indicted weeks after the AP story was published, and following a three-year search, was extradited from Metz, France, where he had been detained on minor, unrelated charges in April 2024.

Cleary, standing just a few feet away, apologized to Keeler in court on Monday, as well as to his family.

“I’m committed to getting treatment for mental health and stuff like that as I go forward,” he said.

Keeler, in interviews with the AP, described her decade-long effort to persuade authorities to pursue charges, starting hours after the assault.

“I had been thinking about this moment for 12 years,” Keeler said after seeing Cleary in court in July when he pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault. She called it a surreal moment.

Authorities in the U.S. and Europe tried to track Cleary down after the indictment, but seemed unable to follow his trail, online or otherwise, until his arrest in the unrelated case.

In court in July, defense lawyer John Abom said Cleary was homeless at times and unaware of the charges. Adams County District Attorney Brian Sinnett said he had his doubts, but could not prove that Cleary was on the run.

Cleary’s family members have declined to comment on the case and did not attend most of his court hearings. His father was present at Monday’s sentencing, however.

The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Keeler has done.

“There’s a lot of joy in just the relief there is that this is over, and Shannon’s going to be able to turn the page (and) move on with the next steps of healing,” her lawyer said.

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and MEAD GRUVER

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah judge on Monday sentenced a man who appeared to fake his death and flee the United States to avoid arrest on rape charges to anywhere from five years to life in prison.

Related Articles

What to know about the Amazon Web Services outage

Disney+ and Hulu cancellations rose after ABC briefly pulled ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’

Broadway actors and producers reach tentative labor deal, but musicians still threaten a strike

Government shutdown imperils dozens of Head Start preschool programs

What to know about the murder trial of an Illinois sheriff deputy who killed Sonya Massey

Nicholas Rossi, 38, is “a serial abuser of women” and “the very definition of a flight risk,” District Judge Barry Lawrence said before handing down the sentence.

It was Rossi’s first of two sentencings after separate convictions in August and September of raping two women in northern Utah in 2008. He is scheduled to be sentenced in November in the second case.

Utah allows prison sentences to be given as a range rather than a set period of time. A parole board will determine if and when Rossi is released.

Five years to life is the entire range of possible prison time under Utah law for rape, a first-degree felony.

Jurors found Rossi guilty of rape in August after a three-day trial in which his accuser and her parents each took the stand.

Rossi left a “trail of fear, pain and destruction” behind him, the victim in the case told the court shortly before Rossi was sentenced. The Associated Press does not typically identify rape victims.

“This is not a plea for vengeance. This is a plea for safety and accountability, for recognition of the damage that will never fully heal,” she said.

Rossi “uses rape to control women” and posed a risk to community safety, argued Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Brandon Simmons, a prosecutor in the case, before Rossi’s sentencing.

Rossi did not testify on his own behalf at his trial. Given a chance to speak before being sentenced Monday, he maintained his innocence.

“I am not guilty of this. These women are lying,” Rossi said in a soft, raspy voice.

Utah authorities began searching for Rossi, whose legal name is Nicholas Alahverdian, when he was identified in 2018 through a decade-old DNA rape kit. He was among thousands of rape suspects identified and later charged when Utah made a push to clear its rape kit backlog.

Months after he was charged in that case, an online obituary claimed Rossi died on Feb. 29, 2020, of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. But police in his home state of Rhode Island, along with his former lawyer and a former foster family, cast doubt on whether he was dead.

He was arrested in Scotland the following year while receiving treatment for COVID-19. Hospital staff recognized his distinctive tattoos — including the crest of Brown University inked on his shoulder, although he never attended — from an Interpol notice.

He was extradited to Utah in January 2024 after a protracted court battle. At the time, Rossi insisted he was an Irish orphan named Arthur Knight who was being framed. Investigators say they identified at least a dozen aliases Rossi used over the years to evade capture.

In his first trial, Rossi’s public defender denied the rape claim and urged jurors not to read too much into his move overseas. Even so, the jury convicted Rossi of the rape charge for which he was sentenced Monday.

The victim in the case had been living with her parents and recovering from a traumatic brain injury in 2008 when she responded to a personal ad Rossi posted on Craigslist. They began dating and were engaged within a couple weeks.

She testified that Rossi asked her to pay for dates and car repairs, lend him $1,000 so he wouldn’t be evicted, and take on debt to buy their engagement rings. He grew hostile soon after their engagement and raped her in his bedroom one night after she drove him home, she said.

She went to police years later, after hearing that Rossi was accused of raping another woman in Utah around the same time.

The victim in that case went to police soon after Rossi attacked her at his apartment in Orem. The woman had gone there to collect money she said he stole from her to buy a computer.

Rossi was convicted in that case in September and sentencing is set for Nov. 4.

Rossi grew up in foster homes in Rhode Island and returned there before he appeared to fake his death and flee the country. He was previously wanted in the state for failing to register as a sex offender. The FBI says he also faces fraud charges in Ohio, where he was convicted of sex-related charges in 2008.

Gruver reported from Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Outrage spread Monday over President Trump’s effort to mock the huge No Kings protests over the weekend by posting an AI video of himself dumping waste on demonstrators.

Supporters of the sprawling rallies that drew millions slammed Trump for posting the 18-second clip depicting him wearing a crown and piloting a KING TRUMP warplane over some of the sprawling crowds that gathered on Saturday to protest his hard-line second term in power.

The phony plane was shown dumping foul brown waste on some of the throngs of people who marched through Times Square.

“Anybody who would depict himself as dumping waste on the American people … doesn’t really warrant [holding] the powers of the presidency,” said Mike Zamore of the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNN on Monday. “It’s another reflection of the lack of regard the president has for the people of this country,”

“The GOP can smear these protests all they want, but they can’t silence the truth,” tweeted Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn), who participated in the Times Square rally.

Rocker Kenny Loggins, whose hit “Danger Zone” is used in the Trump clip, demanded that the song be removed.

“I can’t imagine why anybody would want their music used or associated with something created with the sole purpose of dividing us,” the “Footloose” singer said in a statement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson Monday accused protesters of inciting violence because some carried signs with the slogan “86 47,” a euphemism for ousting Trump, who is the 47th president.

“He’s using satire to make a point,” Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill. “He’s not calling for the murder of his political opponents.”

Trump didn’t immediately comment on the reaction to the video, which was created by a right-wing Artificial Intelligence meme creator.

But he derided the nationwide crowds, estimated at up to 7 million people in cities and towns from coast to coast, as being unrepresentative of the country and said the rallies were bankrolled by “radical left lunatics.”

The White House has recently stepped up its use of AI-generated fake videos to needle political opponents.

Related Articles

The White House starts demolishing part of the East Wing to build Trump’s ballroom

Trump vows to reach a ‘fantastic deal’ with China after future meeting with Xi

Nuclear security agency begins furloughing workers as part of shutdown, energy secretary says

US appeals court says Trump can take command of Oregon troops though deployment blocked for now

Comey’s lawyers say case against him is driven by Trump’s ‘personal animus’ and must be thrown out

It posted a fake short video featuring Democratic congressional leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, with the latter wearing a Mexican-style sombrero, to dramatize the false GOP claim that Democrats want to fund health care for undocumented immigrants.

Vice President JD Vance said the sombrero video was all in good fun.

A Republican campaign committee last week used AI to create a realistic-looking video of Schumer boasting about the political impact of the government shutdown.

But critics say it’s no joke to depict a president attacking his constituents.