By DAVID KLEPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that his administration will take over policing the nation’s capital city in what the Republican said is an effort to bring down rising crime rates in Washington, D.C.

But Trump exaggerated or misstated many of the facts surrounding public safety in Washington, where the crime rate has fallen in recent years, while leaving out much of the context.

Here’s a closer look at the facts:

Statistics rebut Trump’s claims about violence crime in Washington

TRUMP: “It’s getting worse, not getting better. It’s getting worse.”

THE FACTS: Statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police contradict the president and show violent crime has dropped in Washington since a post-Pandemic peak in 2023.

According to the data, homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

A recent Department of Justice report shows that violent crime is down 35% since 2023, returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime that puts the district’s violent crime rate at its lowest in 30 years.

That report shows that when compared to 2023 numbers, homicides are down 32%, armed carjackings are down 53% and assaults with a dangerous weapon are down 27%.

The city’s statistics have come into question, however, after authorities opened an investigation into allegations that officials altered some of the data to make it look better. But Mayor Muriel Bowser stands by the data and said Trump’s portrait of lawlessness is inaccurate.

“We are not experiencing a spike in crime,” Bowser said on MSNBC Sunday. “In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”

Murders in 2023 in Washington were high, but not the highest ever

TRUMP: “Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate, probably ever. They say 25 years, but they don’t know what that means because it just goes back 25 years.”

THE FACTS: In 2023, the District of Columbia recorded 274 murders in a city of about 700,000, its highest number in 20 years. But the city’s own crime statistics from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when the population was smaller, show much higher numbers of homicides.

In 1990, for instance, the city reported 498 homicides. The next year saw 509, and 460 in 1992.

Decades of statistics on crime in the city is available online.

Washington murder rate compared to international capitals

TRUMP: “The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City. Some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth, much higher. This is much higher.”

THE FACTS: It’s true, but Trump isn’t telling the whole story. Washington does have a higher homicide rate than many other global cities, including some that have historically been considered unsafe by many Americans. But Trump is leaving out important context: the U.S. in general sees higher violent crime rates than many other countries.

While Washington is one of America’s most dangerous big cities, others have higher crime rates.

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Trump blames cashless bail for crime without evidence

TRUMP : “This dire public safety crisis stems from a public safety crisis that is directly from the abject failures of the city’s local leadership. The radical left City Council adopted no cash bail. By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster.”

THE FACTS: Data has not determined the impact of cashless bail on crime rates. Studies, many of which focus on recidivism of defendants rather than crime rates, have shown mixed results.

A 2024 report published by the Brennan Center for Justice saw “no statistically significant relationship” between bail reform and crime rates. The nonprofit looked at crime rate data from 2015 through 2021 for 33 cities across the U.S., 22 of which had instituted some type of bail reform. Researchers used a statistical method to determine if crime rates had diverged in those with reforms and those without.

Ames Grawert, the report’s co-author and senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Justice Program, said this conclusion “holds true for trends in crime overall or specifically violent crime.”

Similarly, a 2023 paper published in the American Economic Journal found no evidence that cash bail helps ensure defendants will show up in court or prevents crime among those who are released while awaiting trial.

“I don’t know of any valid studies corroborating the President’s claim and would love to know what the Administration offers in support,” Kellen Funk, a professor at Columbia Law School who studies pretrial procedure and bail bonding, told The Associated Press in a July 25 fact check. “In my professional judgment I’d call the claim demonstrably false and inflammatory.”

The Trump administration has cited a 2022 report from the district attorney’s office in Yolo County, California, that looked at how a temporary cashless bail system implemented across the state to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks in courts and jails impacted recidivism. It found that out of 595 individuals released between April 2020 and May 2021 under this system, 70.6% were arrested again after they were released.

Funk, contacted Monday, noted that Washington D.C. reformed its cash bail system in the 1990s.

“What the President is declaring to be an ‘emergency’ is a system that has functioned much better than cash-based bail systems for nearly thirty years now, including during the recent historic lows in reported crime in the District,” he said, adding that “the D.C. bail system has served as a model for bipartisan bail reform efforts in New Jersey and New Mexico over the past decade.”

Associated Press writer Melissa Goldin in New York contributed reporting.

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — AOL’s dial-up internet is finally taking its last bow.

Yes, while perhaps a dinosaur by today’s digital standards, dial-up is still around. But AOL says it’s officially pulling the plug for its service on Sept. 30.

“AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet,” AOL wrote in a brief update on its support site — noting that dial-up and associated software “optimized for older operating systems” will soon be unavailable on AOL plans.

AOL, formerly America Online, introduced many households to the world wide web for the first time when its dial-up service launched decades ago, rising to prominence particularly in the 90s and early 2000s. The creaky door to the internet was characterized by a once-ubiquitous series of beeps and buzzes heard over the phone used to connect your computer online — along with frustrations of being kicked off the web if anyone else at home needed the landline for another call, and an endless bombardment of CDs mailed out by AOL to advertise free trials.

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Eventually, broadband and wireless offerings emerged and rose to dominance, doing away with dial-up’s quirks for most people accessing the internet today.

Still, a handful of consumers have continued to rely on internet services connected over telephone lines. In the U.S., according to Census Bureau data, an estimated 163,401 households were using dial-up alone to get online in 2023, representing just over 0.13% of all homes with internet subscriptions nationwide.

AOL was the largest dial-up internet provider for some time, but not the only one to emerge over the years. Some smaller internet providers continue to offer dial-up today. Regardless, the decline of dial-up has been a long time coming. And AOL shutting down its service arrives as other relics of the internet’s earlier days continue to disappear.

Microsoft retired video calling service Skype just earlier this year, for example — as well as Internet Explorer back in 2022. And in 2017, AOL discontinued its Instant Messenger — a chat platform that was once lauded as the biggest trend in online communication since email when it was founded in 1997, but later struggled to ward off rivals.

AOL itself is far from the dominant internet player it was decades ago — when, beyond dial-up and IMs, the company also became known for its “You’ve got mail” catchphrase that greeted users who checked their inboxes, as famously displayed in the 1998 film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan by the same name.

Before it was America Online, AOL was founded as Quantum Computer Services in 1985. It soon rebranded and hit the public market in 1991. Near the height of the dot-com boom, AOL’s market value reached nearly $164 billion in 2000. But tumultuous years followed, and that valuation plummeted as the once-tech pioneer bounced between multiple owners. After a disastrous merger with Time Warner Inc., Verizon acquired AOL — which later sold AOL, along with Yahoo, to a private equity firm.

By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law will result in less income for the poorest Americans while sending money to the richest, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported Monday.

The CBO estimates that the 10% of poorest Americans will lose roughly $1,200 a year as they experience restrictions on government programs like Medicaid and food assistance, while the richest 10% of Americans will see their income increase by $13,600 from tax cuts. Overall, American households will see more income from the tax cuts in the legislation, including middle income households, but the largest benefit will go to the top 10% of earners.

The CBO’s report comes as lawmakers are away from Washington, many taking their messages about the bill to voters. Republicans muscled the legislation — deemed “the big, beautiful bill” by Trump — through Congress in July. Democrats all vehemently opposed the legislation, warning that its tax cuts and spending priorities would come at the expense of vital government aid programs and a ballooning national debt.

“This really is a big, beautiful bill for billionaires, but for the poor and the working class in this country, you are actually poorer,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, in an MSNBC interview on Monday.

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Changes to eligibility for government food assistance under the law will impact millions of Americans, the CBO found. Roughly 2.4 million people won’t be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program under new work requirements for many recipients. Low-income Americans could also see their income reduced through further restrictions on food aid and other types of assistance included in the law.

Already, more than 10 million Americans are expected to be without health insurance by 2034 due to changes to Medicaid under the law.

Republicans were eager to sell the upsides of the legislation — arguing that the tax cuts will spur economic growth — while they are on a monthlong summer break from Washington. But those who have held townhalls in their home districts have often been greeted by an earful from voters and activists.

“Tax the rich,” the crowd in Lincoln, Neb. chanted last week as Republican Rep. Michael Flood attempted to defend the bill.

Still, Trump has been undeterred.

“President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is putting America First like never before, delivering huge savings for hardworking families, boosting our economy, and securing our borders,” said White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson in a statement last week.

Eighteen months after the historic Lutsen Lodge went up in flames in February 2024, the public still has no answers about the fire.

State Fire Marshal Daniel Krier recently said the investigation is slow and methodical to ensure accuracy.

“I can very much appreciate and understand the public’s desire for answers and kind of getting anxious and really wanting those answers, and we do, too,” Krier said. “We want to make sure that when we give those answers, we are giving confident, accurate answers. It’s a very slow, methodical process to examine that fire scene. And then you add to it that fire, by its nature, is a destructive force. And so, unlike a homicide investigation or other crimes, where the evidence might be more readily accessible and available, we have evidence that can be destroyed.”

Firefighters battle an overnight blaze that destroyed the Lutsen Lodge on the North Shore of Lake Superior, early Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, in Lutsen, Minn. (Edward Vanegas via AP)

Lutsen is Krier’s first major fire investigation since taking the helm at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety State Fire Marshal division in September 2023. His prior post was fire marshal for Brooklyn Park.

As to why the investigation is complex, “We have a number of factors that really, really make it difficult to give a quick answer,” Krier said.

First, the building is a total loss, meaning it takes longer to comb through the sheer amount of physical evidence, he said. Second, there are a lot of people associated with the lodge, from employees and owners to visitors and even contractors. And, third, high public interest.

“So that can also increase the amount of time, because a lot of people want to share information,” Krier said. “Maybe the best way to put it is that we spend an equal amount of time trying to prove what didn’t start the fire.”

Flames from a hot spot after a fire that destroyed Historic Lutsen Lodge on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Dan Williamson / Duluth Media Group via Forum News Service)

Chain of evidence

The fire marshal’s office looks at burn patterns, evidentiary samples and examines equipment and appliances, even light switches. Krier said lab samples are processed by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s trace analysis lab, which has a dedicated forensic scientist just for fire debris analysis. However, it can take six to nine months to turn that evidence around.

“I think the challenge can be the overwhelming workload … ” he said. “And those aren’t as simple as draw a sample and put it into a machine.”

Each sample can take several days to process, he said.

“Alongside that, we continue to conduct interviews as well as reviewing any electronic footage from security cameras, doorbell cameras, cellphone data and other digital records,” he said.

Interview process

While he hasn’t directly been involved in interviews related to Lutsen Lodge, Krier said the fire marshal’s office really wants to talk to the last person in the room or area where the fire started, or the point of origin.

“What did they see? What do they remember seeing? We’re then going to talk to people who have familiarity with that building, with that room. Was there any work going on? Do you have any contractors hired? What’s the scope of that work?” he said.

That includes people who’ve stayed at the Lodge, staff, ownership, managers and anyone who’s done renovations on the building.

“And then we also talk to first responders. What did you see when you first arrived? How did you see this fire grow or change? As you did your operations, how did that impact the fire? Because those can be factors that help us identify where the fire started, a little bit as to what was burning, and then we can continue to proceed with the investigation after that,” Krier said.

Taking the case to court

Often, interviews are conducted jointly by law enforcement and the fire investigator, he noted.

The fire marshal’s role extends to the point of identifying the area of origin and cause of a fire. If they find the fire was set intentionally, law enforcement digs into potential motives and suspects. Ultimately, investigators hand over their findings to a county attorney.

Should the attorney bring charges against a suspect, fire investigators become expert witnesses and can testify in court.

However, getting arson charges to stick can be difficult, again because fire inherently is “a destructive force. There may not always be strong enough evidence to prove that there was an intentionally set fire by an individual,” Krier said.

The fire marshal’s office has more time on its side now. During the last legislative session, lawmakers approved extending the statute of limitations for first-degree arson from five years to 10.

Krier says anyone with information can call the State Fire Marshal’s arson hotline at 800-723-2020, and there is a reward of up to $5,000 should that information lead to identifying a suspect.

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