By REBECCA BOONE

Researchers say seven seal pups have tested positive for an avian flu virus at California’s Año Nuevo State Park and several more are showing signs of the illness. The outbreak has prompted park officials to cancel the park’s popular seal-watching tours for the remainder of the seal breeding season.

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Researchers with University of California-Santa Cruz and University of California-Davis made the announcement Wednesday, calling it the first detected outbreak of the virus among marine mammals in California.

The worldwide bird flu outbreak that began in 2020 has led to the deaths of millions of domesticated birds and spread to wildlife around the world, and seals and sea lions appear to be particularly vulnerable to the disease. The virus has led to the deaths of thousands of sea lions in Chile and Peru, thousands of elephant seals in Argentina, and hundreds of seals in New England in recent years.

The virus is considered to be a low risk to humans, but officials said people should avoid approaching the seals and keep pets away from the animals.

Thousands of elephant seals come to Año Nuevo State Park, about 90 minutes south of San Francisco, every winter to fight, mate and give birth. The annual spectacle draws tourists and wildlife watchers eager to see the largest seals on the planet, some watching from public viewing areas and others signing up for docent-led guided walks through the breeding grounds, known as rookeries.

But for now, the viewing area is closed, and tours at Año Nuevo have been canceled “out of an abundance of caution,” said Jordan Burgess, the deputy district superintendent of the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Officials hope the move will help prevent any spread of the disease that might be caused by people tracking through the areas where the elephant seals are living, she said.

“We’re definitely not panicking about human exposure at this point,” but rather trying to ensure the health of the seals and people in general, Burgess said.

Christine Johnson, the director of the Institute for Pandemic Insights at UC Davis’ Weill School of Veterinary Medicine, said the outbreak was spotted quickly because researchers have been on high alert in recent years, watching for any sign of the arrival of the disease. After sick and dead animals were spotted on Feb. 19 and 20, researchers collected samples for testing at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System. The screening showed the animals were infected with HPAI H5N1 virus.

Tests on samples from about 30 more animals are still pending, Johnson said.

The university researchers are working with state and federal wildlife managers and The West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network to monitor the animals.

By ERIC TUCKER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was looking into whether it improperly withheld documents from the Jeffrey Epstein files after several news organizations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against President Donald Trump were not among those released to the public.

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The announcement followed news reports saying that a massive tranche of records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of interviews that the FBI conducted with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein’s 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.

“Several individuals and news outlets have recently flagged files related to documents produced to Ghislaine Maxwell in discovery of her criminal case that they claim appear to be missing,” the Justice Department said in a post on X. “As with all documents that have been flagged by the public, the Department is currently reviewing files within that category of the production.” Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, is serving a 20-year prison sentence on a sex trafficking conviction.

It said that if any document is found to have been improperly withheld and is responsive to the federally enacted law mandating the files’ release, “the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law.”

At issue is a series of interviews said to have been conducted in 2019 with a woman who made an allegation against Trump, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. News reports from recent days say the accuser was interviewed four times but a summary of only one of those interviews was included in the publicly released files.

The missing records were earlier reported by the journalist Roger Sollenberger on Substack and NPR, and have since been documented by other news organizations, including The New York Times, MS Now and CNN.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement that his panel would investigate the withheld records. He said he had reviewed unredacted evidence logs and “can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews” with the accuser.

The Justice Department last month said it was releasing more than 3 million pages of records related to Epstein, who took his own life in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The department said at the time that, though it was attempting to be transparent, it was also entitled to withhold records that exposed potential abuse victims, were duplicates or protected by legal privileges, or related to an ongoing criminal investigation.

“Some of the documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election. To be clear, the claims are unfounded and false, and if they have a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the department said in a statement last month as it released the records.

The redaction process was quickly revealed to have been flawed, with the department withdrawing some materials identified by victims or their lawyers, along with a “substantial number” of documents identified independently by the government.

Lawyers for Epstein accusers told a New York judge last month that the lives of nearly 100 victims had been “turned upside down” by sloppy redactions in the government’s latest release of records. The exposed materials include nude photos showing the faces of potential victims as well as names, email addresses and other identifying information that was either unredacted or not fully obscured.

Other uncorroborated claims against Trump and other public figures were included in the publicly available files. The department did not say in its social media post Wednesday why records related to this specific accusation might have been withheld.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota wants to know why her State of the Union guest was arrested.

Omar said Aliya Rahman of Minneapolis briefly stood in silence during Trump’s speech, along with other guests, but was forcibly removed, despite warning officers about injured shoulders. Rahman was taken to the hospital for treatment and later charged with unlawful conduct, disruption of Congress.

“The heavy-handed response to a peaceful guest sends a chilling message about the state of our democracy,” Omar said in a statement.

In a guest announcement, Omar described Rahman as a Bangladeshi-American software engineer and a disabled person with autism and a traumatic brain injury, who was driving to a doctor’s appointment on Jan. 13 when she was forcibly removed from her vehicle by Homeland Security agents.

Omar’s office said Rahman experienced severe medical neglect and violence at the hands of ICE agents, requiring hospitalization.

Capitol Police said State of the Union tickets explain that demonstrating is prohibited.

“The guest was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders,” police said.

By JOE REEDY

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking public comments on the ongoing shift of live sports from broadcast channels to streaming services.

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FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the request for comment Wednesday. The comment period runs through March 27 and replies to the comments are due April 13.

“For decades, Americans enjoyed turning on their TV & quickly finding the game they wanted to see. Yet watching your favorite team play isn’t as easy these day. Many games are still on broadcast, but an increasing number are on a range of different online platforms,” Carr posted. “Today, the FCC asks for comment on sports rights and broadcasting. We want to understand the marketplace today, the experience of consumers, and how the changes impact the ability of broadcast TV stations to continue delivering local news, information, and other programming.”

Last year, the House Judiciary Committee requested briefings from the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB on whether antitrust exemptions should still be granted for coordinating their broadcast television rights.

The Sports Broadcasting Act exemption passed in 1961 applies only to broadcast television. Courts have ruled in the past that it does not apply to other mediums, including cable, satellite and streaming.

The Sports Broadcasting Act includes a rule allowing blackouts of local games, which still applies to out-of-market packages sold by the leagues. The NFL ended local TV blackouts, which applied to games within 75 miles of a team’s market if they did not sell out 72 hours before kickoff, after the 2014 season.

The public notice Wednesday said NFL games aired on “10 different services, which, according to some estimates, could cost a consumer over $1,500 to watch all games.”

The NFL aired games last season on CBS, NBC, ABC/ESPN/ESPN+, Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and YouTube TV.

Forbes estimated the cost of watching every NFL game via streaming last season at $765.

The NFL also offers most of its games on broadcast television, including options for all local games on cable or streaming.

“The NFL has the most accessible, fan-friendly distribution model across all of sports and entertainment, with over 87% of our games shown on free broadcast television in addition to numerous, popular digital platforms,” the league said in a statement to AP.

All four of the major North American professional sports leagues have deals with streaming platforms.

The NBA is in the first season of an 11-year deal where games on Monday nights are shown on Peacock, while Amazon Prime Video also has games, mostly on Thursday and Friday nights.

MLB agreed to three-year deals with Netflix and Peacock that begin this season.

The NHL is in the fifth season of its seven-year rights deal where some games appear on ESPN+ and Hulu.

The FCC is asking the public to answer a wide range of questions, including:

With respect to the sports media marketplace, how have recent developments in the marketplace affected the ability of broadcasters to obtain media rights to sports programming?
How have changes in the marketplace affected viewers’ ability to watch nationally televised live sports, as well as their local team(s), on broadcast TV?
How prevalent are sports media rights deals between local TV broadcasters and local sports teams and what are their terms and conditions?
How have changes in the marketplace impacted costs to consumers?

The last two questions are becoming increasingly significant due to the demise of regional sports networks.

Diamond Sports Group was the largest owner of regional sports networks when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2023.

At the time of the filing, Diamond operated 19 networks under the Bally Sports banner and had the rights to 42 professional teams (14 baseball, 16 NBA and 12 NHL).

The networks emerged from bankruptcy last March under Main Street Sports Group, with their networks rebranded as FanDuel Sports Network. However, they are on the verge of insolvency and could go out of business if a new majority owner or investors are not found.

MLB will handle production and distribution for 15 of its 30 teams this season after Main Street Sports Group failed to make scheduled rights payments to seven teams.

Main Street currently has 15 owned-and-operated networks under the FanDuel banner, with rights to 20 pro teams: 13 NBA and seven NHL. It has committed to airing games for its remaining teams through the end of the regular season but is likely to go out of business after that.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports