By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City man who attempted to claim ownership of the New Yorker Hotel has pleaded guilty to fraud, ending a lengthy legal saga involving an obscure tenant law that allowed the man to live rent-free for years in the storied Manhattan hotel.

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Mickey Barreto entered the plea on Wednesday, admitting that he had forged property records in an effort to take ownership over the hotel. That effort was, at least on paper, partially successful.

In Barreto’s telling, he and his boyfriend paid $200 in 2018 to rent one of the more than 1,000 rooms in the towering, oft-photographed Art Deco hotel. Barreto then requested a lease, claiming his one night stay entitled him to protections under a city housing law that applies to single-room occupants of buildings constructed before 1969.

When the hotel rebuffed him, he took his case to housing court. After the hotel failed to send a lawyer to a key hearing, Barreto was awarded “possession” of the room.

But Manhattan prosecutors said Barreto then went a step further, defrauding the state by uploading a fake deed to a city website that purported to transfer ownership of the entire building to himself.

The property is currently owned by the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, which was founded in South Korea by a self-proclaimed messiah, the late Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The church did not respond to an e-mailed inquiry.

Barreto then attempted to collect rent from a hotel tenant and demanded the hotel’s bank transfer its accounts to him, according to prosecutors.

He was eventually evicted from the premises in 2024 and charged with multiple counts of felony fraud. He was later found unfit to stand trial and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment.

As part of the plea, Barreto was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence that he has already served, along with five years of probation, according to a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney.

Brian Hutchinson, an attorney for Barreto, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.

Barreto previously told the AP that the judge who granted him “possession” of his room indirectly gave him the entire building because it had never been subdivided.

“I never intended to commit any fraud. I don’t believe I ever committed any fraud,” Barreto said at the time. “And I never made a penny out of this.”

Just days before a deadly avalanche killed eight backcountry skiers near Tahoe, the guiding company leading the trip warned on social media that unstable snowpack could trigger “unpredictable avalanches.”

Blackbird Mountain Guides posted a video Sunday on Instagram cautioning that recent snow conditions around Tahoe were creating atypical layering in the snowpack — a combination that could lead to abnormal avalanche behavior.

The company was leading 15 backcountry skiers on a three-day trek to the Frog Lake Huts when they were caught in a football field-sized avalanche Tuesday near Castle Peak.

Six people survived. Eight were killed. One skier remains missing and is presumed dead as rescue efforts shift to recovery operations amid continued storm conditions and high avalanche danger.

Three of the four guides leading the trip were among those killed.

The Instagram post, published ahead of a major winter storm expected to dump several feet of snow across the Tahoe region, warned that recent dry periods followed by new snow had created a “particularly weak layer” within the snowpack.

In the video, guides on skis dig through layers of snow at Mount Rose on the Nevada side of Tahoe, identifying what they described as a “microcrust” and a layer of “sugary weak facets.” At higher elevations, they said, the crust was “almost nonexistent.”

“This weak layer could lead to some unpredictable avalanches!” text on the screen reads as a guide sifts soft snow through his fingers.

The company explained that the snowpack was forming “atypical layering” for this point in the season.

“Typically, we’d expect small amounts of faceting between big storms, but with a crust and extended dry period for the month of January into February, faceting has been a driving force in the snowpack,” the company wrote.

That layering, the post said, resulted in a “particularly weak layer.”

“As we move into a large storm cycle this week, pay close attention to places where faceting has been particularly strong — avalanches could behave abnormally, and the hazard could last longer than normal,” the company said, urging people to “use extra caution” and monitor alerts from the Sierra Avalanche Center.

The Sierra Avalanche Center had issued an avalanche warning for the central Sierra Nevada — including the Castle Peak area — at 5 a.m. Tuesday, hours before the slide. The warning, initially set to run through early Wednesday, rated avalanche danger in the region as “high,” the second-most-dangerous level below extreme. The center later extended the warning through Wednesday.

Authorities have said severe weather has complicated efforts to determine exactly what triggered the avalanche. Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said there were “great questions” about the company’s guiding decisions, though she did not elaborate.

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — A red, white and blue color scheme championed by President Donald Trump will become the new look for Air Force One, the U.S. military said Thursday.

The Air Force said a “red, white, gold and dark blue paint scheme” will be used for the updated jet that is slated to serve as Air Force One as well as other, smaller jets that routinely fly other top government officials.

The military released a rendering of the new look that matches an airplane model that has been seen in the Oval Office for meetings with foreign leaders.

A model of Air Force One sits on a table as President Donald Trump meets with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, April 17, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Boeing is in the process of modifying two of its 747-800 aircraft that are slated to replace the existing fleet of two aging Boeing 747-200 aircraft that the president currently uses and that take on the Air Force One call sign when the president is aboard.

In 2018, Trump directed that those new jets would ditch the iconic Kennedy-era blue-and-white design for a white-and-navy color scheme. Instead, the top half of the plane would have been white, while the bottom, including the belly, would have been dark blue. A streak of dark red would have run from the cockpit to the tail. The coloring was almost identical to the exterior of Trump’s personal plane.

An Air Force review had suggested the darker colors would increase costs and delay delivery of the new jumbo jets, and President Joe Biden reversed the decision in March 2023.

Trump told reporters last month that “we want power blue, not baby blue,” referring to the current color of the aircraft.

“Everything has its time and place. We’ll be changing the colors,” Trump added.

The Air Force’s statement says a third 747-8i Boeing jet will be painted in the same colors.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jet from Qatar last May for use as Air Force One despite questions about the ethics and legality of taking the expensive gift from a foreign nation.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told lawmakers last June that the security modifications to the jet would cost less than $400 million but provided no details.

Environmental advocates and residents who live near proposed data centers called for a moratorium on new hyper-scale data centers and other restrictions at a Wednesday rally at the state Capitol in St. Paul.

The call for a pause in construction across the state comes as several projects — including in Becker, North Mankato and Hampton — have halted as developers cite strenuous permitting processes in Minnesota and other states making it easier for new development. On Tuesday, in what’s believed to be a first in Minnesota, the Eagan City Council approved a one-year moratorium on new projects. And in Farmington, the mayor recently resigned following a heated public debate about a proposal there.

Some projects are still on track. A 280-acre development in Rosemount for Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is under construction. Hermantown city officials recently rejected citizens’ requests for further environmental scrutiny of a 200-acre site for a data center proposal, though a lawsuit is ongoing.

As of this fall, at least 13 hyper-scale data centers had been proposed across the state — most not yet under development, and some canceled. Eleanor Dolan with “Stop the Hermantown Data Center Group” estimated that there may be up to 23 now.

“In our community, we have seen how politicians signing non-disclosure agreements, how insufficient environmental reviews and powerful corporations pushing through unwanted projects on our residents causes harm,” she said.

In the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers passed a standalone “data center bill” as part of a budget deal that repealed an electricity tax exemption for data centers. The bill also upgraded existing state tax exemptions on hardware and software to until 2042 or for 35 years, whichever comes “later” — instead of until 2042 or for 20 years, whichever comes earlier.

Republican lawmakers last year tried to push pro-data center legislation, such as permitting reform, but they didn’t make it out of committee.

Sen. Jennifer McEwen, DFL-Duluth, said Wednesday she will be introducing a moratorium on new data center construction that would be in place until a comprehensive study and regulatory framework on data centers is enacted.

“It is alarming to see how these giant corporations are influencing data center-related discussions and legislation in committee, but are not showing up often in person to answer our questions,” she said.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said she will be introducing legislation to prohibit the use of non-disclosure agreements for data centers. She said she’s also looking to end tax exemptions for big tech.

“The emergence and quick integration of AI against our will into our everyday lives is deeply problematic, and it’s deeply unpopular, and it is why these big tech corporations have to use NDAs to get their data centers, because if people knew they were happening … they would stop them,” she said.

Kathy Johnson, a resident of Farmington, spoke to the lack of transparency her city has seen on data centers.

“These companies see opportunity in small towns. They see limited state regulation. They see local governments without the technical resources to fully evaluate the utility-scale industrial projects,” she said.

Johnson said information about scale, noise, light, fuel storage, water consumption and more only emerged after the permitting process was well underway.

“That is not transparency, that is a predatory strategy at its best,” she said.

Johnson said Farmington residents have turned to legal action because “citizens are ignored, dismissed, overridden, and the democratic process has failed.”

Residents from other areas where data centers have been proposed joined the rally on Wednesday.

Rebecca Gilbertson, of Hermantown, said 17 resident parcels were rezoned as a result of the project there. Aubree Derksen, from Pine Island, said “Project Skyway” is projected to be a 482-acre project with a 3 million-square-foot data center.

Data centers, which support artificial intelligence, social media, online commerce and other digital applications, require large quantities of electricity and water to keep the systems running and cool.

There are few comprehensive studies on the environmental impact, but a 2024 report released by the Department of Energy found that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to consume approximately 6.7 to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028.

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