By BERNARD CONDON

NEW YORK (AP) — The car company run by Elon Musk asked a federal court Friday to dismiss massive damages awarded to victims of a deadly crash, arguing that their lawyers had misled the jury by improperly bringing up the billionaire during the trial.

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The filing in Miami federal court seeks to overturn the $243 million award after a 22-year old student out stargazing was flung through the air to her death by a runaway Tesla equipped with Autopilot features that Musk had talked up for years. A jury earlier this month found that the speeding Tesla driver was mostly to blame but Tesla was also responsible because of faulty technology.

The case has been watched closely by carmakers racing to develop fully self-driving features. They fear it could portend massive liability risks should future juries reviewing accidents decide carmakers are also to blame even when drivers act recklessly.

“If the verdict is allowed to stand, it will chill innovation, harm road safety and invite future juries to punish manufacturers who bring new safety features to market,” the company said in the filing.

Tesla is also arguing that opposing lawyers “led the jury astray” by introducing “highly prejudicial but irrelevant evidence” suggesting Tesla had hid or lost video and data that, after it was dug up by the opposing side, helped recreate what went wrong moments before the crash. Tesla had said that it made a mistake in not offering up the evidence earlier and did not do that deliberately.

Musk had taken a big chance by allowing the case to go to trial at a pivotal moment for his electric car company. He is trying to convince Americans that his self-driving technology, improved since the 2019 crash, can be trusted amid ambitious plans to roll out driverless Tesla robotaxis around the country.

Many similar cases against Tesla had either been dismissed or been settled by the company before going to trial.

The plaintiff lawyers revealed in a court filing last week that they had told Tesla that they were willing to accept $60 million to settle. But Tesla refused. In the end, the jury decided on compensatory and punitive damages for the family of the killed Naibel Benavides and her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, amounting to four times that amount.

The filing by Tesla on Friday asked the judge to grant it a new trial, throw out the award or at least vastly reduce it.

The jury held that Tesla bore significant responsibility because its technology failed even though the driver had admitted he was wrong to be distracted by his cellphone. The driver had settled separately with the Benavides family and Angulo. Tesla has said the technology had nothing to do with the crash.

The plaintiff lawyers also said Tesla’s decision to even use the term Autopilot showed it was willing to mislead people and take big risks with their lives because the system only helps drivers with lane changes, slowing a car and other tasks, falling far short of driving the car itself.

They said other automakers use terms like “driver assist” and “copilot” to make sure drivers don’t rely too much on the technology.

European regulators have complained about Tesla word choices for its driver assistance software, and have raised questions about whether it misleads drivers, too. Musk had told investors last year that it expected to get approval from those regulators for a more advanced version of Autopilot in March, but it’s still waiting for the go-ahead.

That advanced driver assistance feature, which Musk calls Full-Self Driving, has also drawn scrutiny in U.S. for possibly misleading drivers. An administrative judge in California is hearing a case in which the state motor vehicles department is seeking to withdraw Tesla’s license to sell cars partly because of what it says are misleading names.

“I trusted the technology too much,” the driver in the Florida crash, George McGee, said in his testimony. “I believed that if the car saw something in front of it, it would provide a warning and apply the brakes.”

The lead defense lawyer in the Miami case, Joel Smith, countered that Tesla warns drivers that they must keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel yet McGee chose not to do that while he looked for a dropped cellphone, adding to the danger by speeding.

Tesla stock fell nearly 3.5% Friday, after a drop a day earlier when sales figures out of Europe showed car buyers there are still avoiding Tesla. The company had been hit with boycotts and protest earlier his year after Musk embraced extreme right wing politicians there.

By MARTHA BELLISLE

SEATTLE (AP) — Lawyers are demanding the release of a longtime Oregon resident arrested by Border Patrol while fighting a Washington state wildfire, saying Friday that the firefighter was already on track for legal status after helping federal investigators solve a crime against his family.

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His arrest was illegal, the lawyers said, and violated Department of Homeland Security polices that say immigration enforcement must not be conducted at locations where emergency responses are happening.

He is one of two firefighters arrested this week while working the Bear Gulch Fire in the Olympic National Forest, which as of Friday had burned about 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) and was only 13% contained, forcing evacuations.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement Thursday that it had been helping the Bureau of Land Management with a criminal investigation into two contractors working at the fire when it discovered two firefighters who they said were in the country without permanent legal status.

The firefighter, whose name has not been made public, has lived in the U.S. for 19 years after arriving with his family at age 4. He received a U-Visa certification from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon in 2017 and submitted his U-Visa application with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services the following year.

The map above shows the perimeter of the Bear Gulch wildfire in Mason County, Wash. (AP Digital Embed)

The U-Visa program was established by Congress to protect victims of serious crimes who assist federal investigators, and the man has been waiting since 2018 for the immigration agency to decide on his application, according to Stephen Manning, a lawyer with Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based nonprofit that’s representing the firefighter.

Another Homeland Security policy says agents can’t detain people who are receiving or have applied for victim-based immigration benefits, his lawyer said. Charging the man with an immigration violation was “an illegal after-the-fact justification” given his U-Visa status.

His lawyers said Friday that they located him in the immigration detention system and were able to make contact. They were still processing information and are demanding his immediate release, they told the AP in an email.

A senior DHS official said in a statement to the AP on Friday that the two men apprehended were not firefighters and were not actively fighting the fire. Officials said they were providing a supporting role by cutting logs into firewood.

“The firefighting response remained uninterrupted the entire time,” the statement said. “No active firefighters were even questioned, and U.S. Border Patrol’s actions did not prevent or interfere with any personnel actively engaged in firefighting efforts.”

FILE – A wildland fire crew looks on after setting a fire line on Harlow Ridge above the Lick Creek Fire, July 12, 2021, south of Asotin, Wash. (Pete Caster/Lewiston Tribune via AP, File)

When the Bureau of Land Management was asked to provide information about why its contracts with two companies were terminated and 42 firefighters were escorted away from the state’s largest wildfire, it declined. It would only say it cooperates with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

“These law enforcement professionals contribute to broader federal enforcement efforts by maintaining public safety, protecting natural resources, and collaborating with the agencies, such as the Border Patrol,” Department of Interior spokesperson Alyse Sharpe told The Associated Press in an email.

Manning said in a letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, that the arrest violated Homeland Security policy.

Wyden was critical of the Border Patrol’s operation, saying President Donald Trump’s administration is more concerned about conducting raids on fire crews than protecting communities from catastrophic fires. Firefighters put their lives on the line, Wyden emphasized, such as the Oregon firefighter who died Sunday while battling a wildfire in southwestern Montana.

“The last thing that wildland firefighter crews need is to be worried about masked individuals trampling their due process rights,” Wyden said in an email to the AP.

Meanwhile, wildfire officials were still trying to get control of the Bear Gulch Fire. The number of personnel working on the blaze was listed at 303 on Friday, down from 349 on Thursday.

By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

HONOLULU (AP) — A lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Hawaii imposing a tourist tax to deal with consequences of climate change seeks to stop officials from enforcing the new law on cruise ship passengers.

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In the nation’s first such levy to help cope with a warming planet, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green signed legislation in May that raises tax revenue to deal with eroding shorelines, wildfires and other climate problems. Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100 million annually.

The levy increases rates on hotel room and vacation rental stays but also imposes a new 11% tax on the gross fares paid by a cruise ship’s passengers, starting next year, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. court in Honolulu this week, notes the law authorizes counties to collect an additional 3% surcharge, bringing the total to 14% of prorated fares.

“No other State imposes comparable fees — and for good reason: It has been a fundamental principle since the Founding that the navigable waters of the United States are a common resource, not one to be commandeered by individual States for their own parochial revenue-raising interests,” attorneys representing the Cruise Lines International Association wrote in a motion asking a judge to prevent the state and counties from collecting the tax on cruise ships while the lawsuit is pending.

A Honolulu company that provides supplies and provisions to cruise ships, and tour businesses out of Kauai and Big Island that rely on cruise ship passengers joined the cruise ship association in the lawsuit.

The defendants are various state tax and county finance officials.

The Hawaii attorney general’s office declined to comment Friday on the lawsuit until it had been reviewed.

Hawaii County spokesperson Tom Callis said they don’t comment on pending litigation. County representatives on Oahu, Maui and Kauai didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

According to the lawsuit, the cruise ship industry draws nearly 300,000 annual visitors to Hawaii, supporting thousands of jobs throughout the state and contributing more than $600 million a year to the economy.

The tax would make Hawaii cruises too expensive, and potential visitors will choose to vacation elsewhere, the lawsuit said.

The plaintiffs, in a motion seeking a preliminary injunction to declare the law’s cruise-related provisions unconstitutional and bar its enforcement, urges a judge to act swiftly because cruise-ship passengers typically make travel plans well in advance.

The impending surcharge “will begin to skew the market even before they take effect,” causing families who would have purchased Hawaii cruise tickets in 2026 to make other vacation plans, the motion said.

The new law adds 0.75% to the existing 10.25% tax on daily hotel and vacation room stays for a 11% total. Hawaii’s counties each add their own 3% surcharge, and the state and counties impose a combined 4.712% general excise tax on goods and services including hotel rooms. Together, that will make for a hotel and vacation rental tax rate of nearly 19%.

As he answered questions from reporters in the Twin Cities for the first time this week, new backup quarterback Carson Wentz couldn’t help but think of how the younger version of himself would feel.

“I grew up cheering for the Vikings,” Wentz said. “It’s kind of surreal.”

Though he had a bunch of different jerseys as a kid, Wentz remembers being a rising star at Century High School in Bismarck, N.D. when legendary quarterback Brett Favre shockingly joined the Vikings and led them to the 2009 NFC championship game

“That was pretty special,” Wentz said. “That was right around the time I was all in.”

After signing with the Vikings as a free agent this week, Wentz is all in once again. He spent the past few months waiting around for the right opportunity to present itself and found it roughly 400 miles from his hometown.

“It beats sitting on the couch,” Wentz said. “I was pretty excited to get the call.”

There was never a doubt in Wentz’s mind that he was going to sign somewhere. That’s why he continued to work out on his own. He wanted to make sure he was ready whenever his phone rang.

“Honestly I didn’t think I’d be waiting this long,” Wentz said. “Just kind of the way it unfolded.”

As competitive as he is at his core, Wentz understands that task at hand. He hasn’t been brought in to compete for the job. He has been brought in to help mentor young quarterback J.J. McCarthy more than anything else.

“He seems great,” Wentz said. “He’s still a kid. He’s 22 years old. I think when I was 22 years old I was gearing up to play for the Bison.”

After starring at North Dakota State in Fargo in college, Wentz was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2016 draft. He knows what it’s like to be a face of the franchise. There aren’t many people on the planet that understand what that feels like.

“I’m excited to help him however I can,” Wentz said. “I’ve been in his shoes.”

How exactly does Wentz plan to help McCarthy?

“It comes with feeling out his personality and figuring out what he needs,” Wentz said. “He’s very receptive to ideas. We’re going to work together on that and try to help him get settled in. I think he’ll do a great job.”

Naturally, Wentz is also focused on doing a great job, albeit in a different role than he had early in his career.

“Just willingness to put the team first,” Wentz said. “Whatever that looks like both on the field and off the field.”

As for his fandom for the Vikings, that went out the window as soon as he was selected by the Eagles, and it remained dormant as he bounced around from the Indianapolis Colts to the Washington Commanders to the Los Angeles Rams to the Kansas Chiefs Chiefs.

Now that he’s with the Vikings?

“All of those things are rushing back here this week,” Wentz said. “I’ve got family members and friends back home, and everybody is stoked.”

Minnesota Vikings cornerback Xavier Rhodes (29) and Philadelphia quarterback Carson Wentz (11) talk after the Vikings beat Philadelphia, 38-20 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

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