AP News in Brief at 11:09 p.m. EDT

Sweeping new vaccine mandates for 100 million Americans

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his most forceful pandemic actions and words, President Joe Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as health care workers and federal contractors — in an all-out effort to curb the surging COVID-19 delta variant.

Speaking at the White House, Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.

“We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

Republican leaders — and some union chiefs, too — said Biden was going too far in trying to muscle private companies and workers, a certain sign of legal challenges to come.

Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said in a statement that “Biden and the radical Democrats (have) thumbed their noses at the Constitution,” while American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley insisted that “changes like this should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate.”

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Justice Dept. sues Texas over state’s new abortion law

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Justice Department on Thursday sued Texas over a new state law that bans most abortions, arguing that it was enacted “in open defiance of the Constitution.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, asks a federal judge to declare that the law is invalid, “to enjoin its enforcement, and to protect the rights that Texas has violated.”

“The act is clearly unconstitutional under long-standing Supreme Court precedent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference announcing the suit.

The Justice Department argues the law unlawfully infringes on the constitutional rights of women and violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which says federal law supersedes state law. Federal officials are also concerned other states could enact similar laws that would “deprive their citizens of their constitutional rights,” he said.

“It is settled constitutional law that ‘a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability,’” the lawsuit reads. “But Texas has done just that.”

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Biden calls Xi as US-China relationship grows more fraught

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden spoke with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday amid growing frustration on the American side that high-level engagement between the two leaders’ top advisers has been largely unfruitful in the early going of the Biden presidency.

Biden initiated the call with Xi, the second between the two leaders since Biden took office. It comes at a moment when there is no shortage of thorny issues between the two nations, including cybersecurity breaches originating from China, Beijing’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and what the White House has labeled as “coercive and unfair” trade practices by the Chinese.

But Biden’s aim with his call was less focused on any of those hot-button issues and instead centered on discussing the way ahead for the U.S.-China relationship after it got off to a decidedly rocky start in his tenure.

The White House said in a statement the “two leaders had a broad, strategic discussion in which they discussed areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge.”

The White House is hopeful the two sides can work together on issues of mutual concern —including climate change and preventing a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula — despite growing differences.

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From election to COVID, 9/11 conspiracies cast a long shadow

Korey Rowe served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned to the U.S. in 2004 traumatized and disillusioned. His experiences overseas and nagging questions about Sept. 11, 2001 convinced him America’s leaders were lying about what happened that day and the wars that followed.

The result was “Loose Change,” a 2005 documentary produced by Rowe and written and directed by his childhood friend, Dylan Avery, that popularized the theory that the U.S. government was behind 9/11. One of the first viral hits of the still-young internet, it encouraged millions to question what they were told.

While the attacks united many Americans in grief and anger, “Loose Change” spoke to the disaffected.

“It was the lightning rod that caught the lightning,” Rowe recalls. He had hoped the film would prompt a sober reassessment of the attacks. Rowe, who lives in Oneonta, New York, doesn’t regret the film, and still questions the events of 9/11, but says he’s deeply troubled by what 9/11 conspiracy theories revealed about the corrosive nature of misinformation on the internet.

Twenty years on, the skepticism and suspicion first revealed by 9/11 conspiracy theories has metastasized, spread by the internet and nurtured by pundits and politicians like Donald Trump. One hoax after another has emerged, each more bizarre than the last: birtherism. Pizzagate. QAnon.

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Flight takes about 200, including Americans, out of Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An estimated 200 foreigners, including Americans, left Afghanistan on a commercial flight out of Kabul on Thursday with the cooperation of the Taliban — the first such large-scale departure since U.S. forces completed their frantic withdrawal over a week ago.

The Qatar Airways flight to Doha marked a breakthrough in the bumpy coordination between the U.S. and Afghanistan’s new rulers. A dayslong standoff over charter planes at another airport has left hundreds of mostly Afghan people stranded, waiting for Taliban permission to leave.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media, said the Taliban’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister helped facilitate the flight. Americans, U.S. green card holders and other nationalities, including Germans, Hungarians and Canadians, were aboard, the official said.

Qatari envoy Mutlaq bin Majed al-Qahtani said another 200 passengers will leave Afghanistan on Friday.

Ten U.S. citizens and 11 green-card holders made Thursday’s flight, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Americans organizing charter evacuation flights said they knew of more U.S. passport and green-card holders in Mazar-e-Sharif and elsewhere awaiting flights out.

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Witness says R. Kelly kept her locked up before sex assault

NEW YORK (AP) — She was an unsuspecting radio station intern in 2003 when she pursued what she thought would be a career-making interview with a R&B superstar — R. Kelly.

Instead, she had a horrific experience while locked in a darkened room for days, she’s now testified years later in lurid detail. She said she still lives with a strong belief she was drugged and violated by Kelly while she was unconscious.

“I was sexually assaulted,” the woman told jurors on Thursday at Kelly’s sex-trafficking trial.“It wasn’t something I invited.”

The witness, who testified without using her real name, became the latest in a string of accusers to take the witness stand against Kelly since the trial began in New York City on Aug. 18.

Kelly, 54, has repeatedly denied accusations that he led a criminal enterprise that sexually exploited women, girls and even boys during a 30-year career highlighted by his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly.” His lawyers have portrayed his accusers as groupies who are lying about their relationships with him.

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NFL opens to full stadiums as COVID-19 surges

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Tom Brady calmly ran out from a smoke-filled tunnel, leading the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers onto the field Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys in front of a full stadium for the first time since COVID-19 upended the world and changed the way sports were viewed.

The NFL kicked off its biggest season — teams are playing a 17-game schedule — with no capacity limitations as the league follows the NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA and others in opening its doors to soldout stadiums.

While there were no restrictions in the preseason, stadiums weren’t completely filled as many fans skip exhibition games.

That wasn’t the case at Raymond James Stadium with more than 65,000 fans coming out to see the Buccaneers celebrate their championship before beginning defense of their crown.

“Seven months ago, we made NFL history,” owner Bryan Glazer told the screaming fans during a brief pre-game ceremony. “There was one thing missing: All of you. Welcome back to Raymond James Stadium.”

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FACT FOCUS: AZ canvass report draws nonsensical conclusions

A report released this week in Arizona’s largest county falsely claims to have uncovered some 173,000 “lost” votes and 96,000 “ghost votes” in a private door-to-door canvassing effort, supposedly rendering the 2020 election in Maricopa County “uncertifiable.”

But its conclusions aren’t supported by any evidence, according to county election officials and outside election experts, who called the report’s methods “quasi-science” and its findings inaccurate.

Still, the 11-page document ?— which is separate from an ongoing partisan audit in the county ?— has been shared widely in conservative media and by Republican politicians, including state Rep. Mark Finchem, who is campaigning to be Arizona’s secretary of state — the state’s top election official.

Report author Liz Harris, an unsuccessful Republican legislative candidate and a real estate agent in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, declined to respond to specific questions but said a more comprehensive version of the report would be released soon.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

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Beatings, buried videos a pattern at Louisiana State Police

MONROE, La. (AP) — The most violent videos languished for years, lost or ignored in a digital vault. Louisiana State Police troopers and top brass alike would often look the other way, even as officers took to official messaging channels to banter about their brutality.

In one video, white troopers can be seen slamming a Black man against a police cruiser after finding marijuana in his car, throwing him to the ground and repeatedly punching him — all while he is handcuffed.

In another, a white trooper pummels a Black man at a traffic stop 18 times with a flashlight, leaving him with a broken jaw, broken ribs and a gash to his head. That footage was mislabeled and it took 536 days and a lawsuit for police to look into it.

And yet another video shows a white trooper coldcocking a Hispanic drug trafficking suspect as he stood calmly by a highway, an unprovoked attack never mentioned in any report and only investigated when the footage was discovered by an outraged federal judge.

As the Louisiana State Police reel from the fallout of the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene — a case blown open this year by long-withheld video of troopers stunning, punching and dragging the Black motorist — an Associated Press investigation has revealed it is part of a pattern of violence kept shrouded in secrecy.

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Oil-soaked birds found near oil spill at refinery after Ida

WASHINGTON (AP) — Louisiana wildlife officials say they have documented more than 100 oil-soaked birds after crude oil spilled from a refinery flooded during Hurricane Ida.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said Thursday that a growing number of oiled birds had been observed within heavy pockets of oil throughout the Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, as well as nearby flooded fields and retention ponds along the Mississippi River.

Jon Wiebe, a biologist running the state restoration program, said 10 oiled birds have been captured and transported to a rehabilitation location for cleaning. Five additional dead birds were recovered and bagged as evidence, he said.

Wiebe said efforts to capture and save more birds are ongoing. The affected species include black-bellied whistling ducks, blue-winged teal and a variety of egrets. Other animals were also seen covered in oil, include alligators, nutria and river otters.

A summary issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency said it had received 43 notifications of significant inland oil spills and chemical releases in its jurisdiction after Ida. The agency’s compliance arm has issued 10 requests to facility operators seeking information to determine whether federal environmental laws were violated during the storm, potentially triggering penalties and fines.