NEW YORK (AP) — The leader of an Eastern European neo-Nazi group who tried to recruit an undercover federal agent to dress as Santa Claus and hand out poisoned candy to Jewish children and racial minorities has pleaded guilty to soliciting hate crimes.
Federal prosecutors said they would seek a sentence of up to 18 years for Michail Chkhikvishvili, a 22-year-old from the Republic of Georgia who also goes by “Commander Butcher.” He pleaded guilty Monday before a federal judge in Brooklyn to soliciting violent felonies and distributing information about making bombs and ricin.
Prosecutors described Chkhikvishvili as the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, an international extremist group that adheres to a “neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems ‘undesirables.’”
They said the group’s violent solicitations — promoted through Telegram channels and outlined a manifesto called the “Hater’s Handbook” — appear to have inspired multiple real-life killings, including a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this year that left a 16-year-old student dead.
Mayor says federal immigration agents will expand enforcement action in North Carolina to Raleigh
Honda recalls 256,600 Accord Hybrids due to software error that may lead to loss of drive power
Wall Street drops again as Nvidia, bitcoin and other stars keep swinging
LA County sheriff investigating new sex battery claim against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
Cloudflare outage impacts thousands, disrupts transit systems, ChatGPT, X and more
Since 2022, Chkhikvishvili has traveled on multiple occasions to Brooklyn, where he bragged about beating up an elderly Jewish man and instructed others, primarily through text messages, to commit violent acts on behalf of the Maniac Murder Cult, according to court papers.
When he was approached by an undercover FBI agent in 2023, Chkhikvishvili recruited the official to a scheme that “involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn,” according to the Justice Department.
He later suggested narrowing the focus to “dead Jewish kids,” prosecutors said, after noting that “Jews are literally everywhere” in Brooklyn.
Describing his desire to carry out a mass casualty attack, Chkhikvishvili said he saw the United States as “big potential because accessibility to firearms,” adding that the undercover should consider targeting homeless people because the government wouldn’t care “even if they die,” according to court papers.
BELEM, Brazil (AP) — At the U.N. climate talks in Brazil, artificial intelligence is being cast as both a hero worthy of praise and a villain that needs policing.
Related Articles
EPA moves to limit scope of clean water law to reduce amount of wetlands it covers
Nations hit by natural disasters tell ministers at climate talks to act
Twin Cities hit 72 degrees Friday, the warmest temperature on record so late in the season
Business groups ask Supreme Court to pause California climate reporting laws in emergency appeal
Preliminary findings show a fatigue crack caused a Keystone Pipeline oil spill in North Dakota
Tech companies and a handful of countries at the conference known as COP30 are promoting ways AI can help solve global warming, which is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. They say the technology has the potential to do many things, from increasing the efficiency of electrical grids and helping farmers predict weather patterns to tracking deep-sea migratory species and designing infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather.
Climate groups, however, are sounding the alarm about AI’s growing environmental impact, with its surging needs for electricity and water for powering searches and data centers. They say an AI boom without guardrails will only push the world farther off track from goals set by 2015 Paris Agreement to slow global warming.
“AI right now is a completely unregulated beast around the world,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
On the other hand, Adam Elman, director of sustainability at Google, sees AI as “a real enabler” and one that’s already making an impact.
If both sides agree on anything, it’s that AI is here to stay.
Michal Nachmany, founder of Climate Policy Radar, which runs AI tools that track issues like national climate plans and funds to help developing countries transition to green energies like solar and wind, said there is “unbelievable interest” in AI at COP30.
“Everyone is also a little bit scared,” Nachmany said. “The potential is huge and the risks are huge as well.”
Attendees walk past boxes made to look like the Eiffel Tower with a sign that reads “1.5 degrees Celsius under threat” talking about the Paris Agreement during the COP30 U.N. Climate Summit, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Many sessions on AI
The rise of AI is becoming a more common topic at the United Nations compared to a few years ago, according to Nitin Arora, who leads the Global Innovation Hub for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the framework for international climate negotiations.
The hub was launched at COP26 in Glasgow to promote ideas and solutions that can be deployed at scale, he said. So far, Arora said, those ideas have been dominated by AI.
The Associated Press counted at least 24 sessions related to AI during the Brazil conference’s first week. They included AI helping neighboring cities share energy, AI-backed forest crime location predictions and a ceremony for the first AI for Climate Action Award — given to an AI project on water scarcity and climate variability in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos.
Johannes Jacob, a data scientist with the German delegation, said a prototype app he is designing, called NegotiateCOP, can help countries with smaller delegations — like El Salvador, South Africa, Ivory Coast and a few in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — process hundreds of official COP documents.
The result is “leveling the playing field in the negotiations,” he said.
In a panel discussion, representatives from AI giants like Google and Nvidia spoke about how AI can solve issues facing the power sector. Elman with Google stressed the “need to do it responsibly” but declined to comment further.
Nvidia’s head of sustainability, Josh Parker, called AI the “best resource any of us can have.”
“AI is so democratizing,” Parker said. “If you think about climate tech, climate change and all the sustainability challenges we’re trying to solve here at COP, which one of those challenges would not be solved better and faster, with more intelligence.”
Princess Abze Djigma from Burkina Faso called AI a “breakthrough in digitalization” that she believes will be even more critical in the future.
Bjorn-Soren Gigler, a senior digital and green transformation specialist with the European Commission, agreed but noted AI is “often seen as a double-edge sword” with both huge opportunities and ethical and environmental concerns.
Booming AI use raises concerns
The training and deploying of AI models rely on power-hungry data centers that contribute to emissions because of the electricity needed. The International Energy Agency has tracked a boom in energy consumption and demand from data centers, especially in the U.S.
Data centers accounted for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption in 2024, according to the IEA, which found that their electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption.
The environmental impact from AI, specifically the operations of data centers, also includes the consumption of large amounts of water in water-stressed states, according to Su with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has studied how the data center boom threatens U.S. climate goals.
She said these operations will increase the national emissions of the U.S., historically the world’s largest polluter.
Environmental groups at COP30 are pushing for regulations to soften AI’s environmental footprint, such as mandating public interest tests for proposed data centers and 100% on-site renewable energy at them.
“COP can not only view AI as some type of techno solution, it has to understand the deep climate consequences,” Su said.
Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein in Belem, Brazil, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org
This story was produced as part of the 2025 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.
For technology adopters looking for the next big thing, “agentic AI” is the future. At least, that’s what the marketing pitches and tech industry T-shirts say.
What makes an artificial intelligence product “agentic” depends on who’s selling it. But the promise is usually that it’s a step beyond today’s generative AI chatbots.
Chatbots, however useful, are all talk and no action. They can answer questions, retrieve and summarize information, write papers and generate images, music, video and lines of code. AI agents, by contrast, are supposed to be able to take actions autonomously on a person’s behalf.
But if you’re confused, you’re not alone. Google searches for “agentic” have skyrocketed from near obscurity a year ago to a peak earlier this fall.
A new report Tuesday by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Boston Consulting Group, who surveyed more than 2,000 business executives around the world, describes agentic AI as a “new class of systems” that “can plan, act, and learn on their own.”
“They are not just tools to be operated or assistants waiting for instructions,” says the MIT Sloan Management Review report. “Increasingly, they behave like autonomous teammates, capable of executing multistep processes and adapting as they go.”
How to know if it’s an AI agent or just a fancy chatbot
AI chatbots — such as the original ChatGPT that debuted three years ago this month — rely on systems called large language models that predict the next word in a sentence based on the huge trove of human writings they’ve been trained on. They can sound remarkably human, especially when given a voice, but are effectively performing a kind of word completion.
That’s different from what AI developers — including ChatGPT’s maker, OpenAI, and tech giants like Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce — have in mind for AI agents.
“A generative AI-based chatbot will say, ‘Here are the great ideas’ … and then be done,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Agentic AI at Amazon Web Services, in an interview this week. “It’s useful, but what makes things agentic is that it goes beyond what a chatbot does.”
Related Articles
Honda recalls 256,600 Accord Hybrids due to software error that may lead to loss of drive power
A global sell-off for stocks whips back around to Wall Street as Nvidia and other stars keep falling
Will the price be right? What shoppers can expect for the holiday season
Mixed quarter at Home Depot with less storm damage to homes and a more anxious shopper
MI5 warns lawmakers that Chinese spies are trying to reach them via LinkedIn
Sivasubramanian, a longtime Amazon employee, took on his new role helping to lead work on AI agents in Amazon’s cloud computing division earlier this year. He sees great promise in AI systems that can be given a “high-level goal” and break it down into a series of steps and act upon them. “I truly believe agentic AI is going to be one of the biggest transformations since the beginning of the cloud,” he said.
At its most basic level, an AI agent works like a traditional, human-crafted computer program that executes a job, like launching an application. Combined with an AI large language model, however, it can search for knowledge that enables it to complete tasks without explicit, step-by-step instructions. That means, instead of just helping you draft the language of an email, it can theoretically handle the whole process — receiving a message from your coworker, figuring out what you might want to say, and firing off the response on its own.
For most consumers, the first encounters with AI agents could be in realms like online shopping. Set a budget and some preferences and AI agents can buy things or arrange travel bookings using your credit card. In the longer run, the hope is that they can do more complex tasks with access to your computer and a set of guidelines to follow.
“I’d love an agent that just looked at all my medical bills and explanations of benefits and figured out how to pay them,” or another one that worked like a “personal shield” fighting off email spam and phishing attempts, said Thomas Dietterich, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University who has worked on developing AI assistants for decades.
Dietterich has some quibbles with companies using “agentic” to describe “any action a computer might do, including just looking things up on the web,” but is enthused about the possibilities of AI systems given the “freedom and responsibility” to refine goals and respond to changing conditions as they work on people’s behalf. They can even orchestrate a team of “subagents.”
“We can imagine a world in which there are thousands or millions of agents operating and they can form coalitions,” Dietterich said. “Can they form cartels? Would there be law enforcement (AI) agents?”
‘Agentic’ is a trendy buzzword based on an older idea
Milind Tambe has been researching AI agents that work together for three decades, since the first International Conference on Multi-Agent Systems gathered in San Francisco in 1995. Tambe said he’s been “amused” by the sudden popularity of “agentic” as an adjective. Previously, the word describing something that has agency was mostly found in other academic fields, such as psychology or chemistry.
But computer scientists have been debating what an agent is for as long as Tambe has been studying them.
In the 1990s, “people agreed that some software appeared more like an agent, and some felt less like an agent, and there was not a perfect dividing line,” said Tambe, a professor at Harvard University. “Nonetheless, it seemed useful to use the word ‘agent’ to describe software or robotic entities acting autonomously in an environment, sensing the environment, reacting to it, planning, thinking.”
The prominent AI researcher Andrew Ng, co-founder of online learning company Coursera, helped advocate for popularizing the adjective “agentic” more than a year ago to encompass a broader spectrum of AI tasks. At the time, he also appreciated that mainly “technical people” were describing it that way.
“When I see an article that talks about ‘agentic’ workflows, I’m more likely to read it, since it’s less likely to be marketing fluff and more likely to have been written by someone who understands the technology,” Ng wrote in a June 2024 blog post.
Ng didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether he still thinks that.
By ERIK VERDUZCO, TIM SULLIVAN and GARY D. ROBERTSON, Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Federal immigration authorities will expand their enforcement action in North Carolina to Raleigh as soon as Tuesday, the mayor of the state’s capital city said, while Customs and Border Protection agents continue operating in Charlotte following a weekend that saw arrests of more than 130 people in that city.
Mayor Janet Cowell said Monday that she didn’t know how large the operation would be or how long agents would be present. Immigration authorities haven’t spoken about it. The Democrat said in a statement that crime was lower in Raleigh this year compared to last and that public safety was a priority for her and the city council.
“I ask Raleigh to remember our values and maintain peace and respect through any upcoming challenges,” Cowell said in a statement.
U.S. immigration agents arrested more than 130 people over the weekend in a sweep through Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city, a federal official said Monday.
The movements in North Carolina come after the Trump administration launched immigration crackdowns in Los Angeles and Chicago. Both of those are deep blue cities in deep blue states run by nationally prominent officials who make no secret of their anger at the White House. The political reasoning there seemed obvious.
But why North Carolina and why was Charlotte the first target there?
Sure the mayor is a Democrat, as is the governor, but neither is known for wading into national political battles. In a state where divided government has become the norm, Gov. Josh Stein in particular has tried hard to get along with the GOP-controlled state legislature. The state’s two U.S. senators are both Republican and President Donald Trump won the state in the last three presidential elections.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on North Carolina because of so-called sanctuary policies, which limit cooperation between local authorities and immigration agents.
But maybe focusing on a place where politics is less outwardly bloody was part of the equation, some observers say.
The White House “can have enough opposition (to its crackdown), but it’s a weaker version” than what it faced in places like Chicago, said Rick Su, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law who studies local government, immigration and federalism.
“They’re not interested in just deporting people. They’re interested in the show,” he said.
Shana Blake sits in a cage dressed as the Statue of Liberty to protest federal law enforcement presence in Charlotte, N.C. Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
Manuel ‘Manolo’ Betancur sits outside of his bakery which is closed amidst federal law enforcement presence, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
A sign of support is posted outside of Manolo’s bakery which is closed amidst federal law enforcement presence, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
Protesters set up outside of Manolo’s Bakery amidst federal law enforcement, Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
1 of 4
Shana Blake sits in a cage dressed as the Statue of Liberty to protest federal law enforcement presence in Charlotte, N.C. Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley)
The Trump administration has made Charlotte, a Democratic city of about 950,000 people, its latest focus for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime — despite local opposition and declining crime rates. Residents reported encounters with immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that Border Patrol officers had arrested “over 130 illegal aliens who have all broken” immigration laws. The agency said the records of those arrested included gang membership, aggravated assault, shoplifting and other crimes, but it did not say how many cases had resulted in convictions, how many people had been facing charges or any other details.
The crackdown set off fierce objections from area leaders.
“We’ve seen masked, heavily armed agents in paramilitary garb driving unmarked cars, targeting American citizens based on their skin color,” Stein said in a video statement late Sunday. “This is not making us safer. It’s stoking fear and dividing our community.”
Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles said Monday she was “deeply concerned” about videos she’s seen of the crackdown but also said she appreciates protesters’ peacefulness.
“To everyone in Charlotte who is feeling anxious or fearful: You are not alone. Your city stands with you,” she said in a statement.
The debate over crime and immigration
Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County have both found themselves part of America’s debates over crime and immigration, two of the most important issues to the White House.
The most prominent was the fatal stabbing this summer of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light-rail train, an attack captured on video. While the suspect was from the U.S., the Trump administration repeatedly highlighted that he had been arrested previously more than a dozen times.
Charlotte, which had a Republican mayor as recently as 2009, is now a city dominated by Democrats, with a growing population brought by a booming economy. The racially diverse city includes more than 150,000 foreign-born residents, officials say.
Related Articles
Neo-Nazi leader admits plot to give poisoned candy to Jewish kids in New York City
Honda recalls 256,600 Accord Hybrids due to software error that may lead to loss of drive power
Wall Street drops again as Nvidia, bitcoin and other stars keep swinging
LA County sheriff investigating new sex battery claim against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
Cloudflare outage impacts thousands, disrupts transit systems, ChatGPT, X and more
Lyles easily won a fifth term as mayor earlier this month, defeating her Republican rival by 45 percentage points even as GOP critics blasted city and state leaders for what they call rising incidents of crime. Following the Nov. 4 election, Democrats are poised to hold 10 of the other 11 seats on the city council.
While the Department of Homeland Security has said it is focusing on the state because of sanctuary policies, North Carolina county jails have long honored “detainers,” or requests from federal officials to hold an arrested immigrant for a limited time so agents can take custody of them. Nevertheless, some common, noncooperation policies have existed in a handful of places, including Charlotte, where the police do not help with immigration enforcement.
In Mecklenburg County, the jail did not honor detainer requests for several years, until after state law effectively made it mandatory starting last year.
DHS said about 1,400 detainers across North Carolina had not been honored since October 2020, putting the public at risk.
For years, Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden pushed back against efforts by the Republican-controlled state legislature to force him and a handful of sheriffs from other urban counties to accept U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers.
Republicans ultimately overrode a veto by then-Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper late last year to enact the bill into law.
While McFadden has said his office is complying with the law’s requirement, he continued a public feud with ICE leaders in early 2025 that led to a new state law toughening those rules. Stein vetoed that measure, but the veto was overridden.
Republican House Speaker Destin Hall said in a Monday post on X that immigration agents are in Charlotte because of McFadden’s past inaction: “They’re stepping in to clean up his mess and restore safety to the city.”
Last month, McFadden said he’d had a productive meeting with an ICE representative.
“I made it clear that I do not want to stop ICE from doing their job, but I do want them to do it safely, responsibly, and with proper coordination by notifying our agency ahead of time,” McFadden said in a statement.
But such talk doesn’t calm the political waters.
“Democrats at all levels are choosing to protect criminal illegals over North Carolina citizens,” state GOP Chairman Jason Simmons said Monday.
Sullivan reported from Minneapolis and Robertson from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed to this report.
