Today in history:

On Sept. 10, 1991, the Senate Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. The proceedings would become a watershed moment in the discussion of sexual harassment when Anita Hill, a law professor who had previously worked under Thomas, came forward with allegations against him.

Also on this date:

In 1608, John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.

In 1960, running barefoot, Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia won the Olympic marathon in Rome, becoming the first Black African to win Olympic gold.

In 1960, Hurricane Donna, a dangerous Category 4 storm blamed for 364 deaths, struck the Florida Keys.

In 1963, 20 Black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between federal authorities and Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace.

In 1979, four Puerto Rican nationalists imprisoned for a 1954 attack on the U.S. House of Representatives and a 1950 attempted killing of President Harry S. Truman were freed from prison after being granted clemency by President Jimmy Carter.

In 1987, Pope John Paul II arrived in Miami, where he was welcomed by President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan as he began a 10-day tour of the United States.

In 2005, teams of forensic workers and cadaver dogs fanned out across New Orleans to collect the corpses left behind by Hurricane Katrina.

In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) was powered up for the first time, successfully firing the first beam of protons through its 17-mile-long (27-kilometer-long) underground ring tunnel.

In 2022, King Charles III was officially proclaimed Britain’s monarch in a pomp-filled ceremony two days after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Scientist-author Jared Diamond is 87.
• Jazz/funk musician Roy Ayers is 84.
• Singer José Feliciano is 79.
• Former Canadian first lady Margaret Trudeau is 76.
• Political commentator Bill O’Reilly is 75.
• Rock musician Joe Perry (Aerosmith) is 74.
• Actor Amy Irving is 71.
• Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., is 70.
• Actor-director Clark Johnson is 70.
• Actor Kate Burton is 67.
• Film director Chris Columbus is 66.
• Actor Colin Firth is 64.
• Cartoonist Alison Bechdel is 64.
• Baseball Hall of Famer Randy Johnson is 61.
• Actor Raymond Cruz is 60.
• Rapper Big Daddy Kane is 56.
• Film director Guy Ritchie is 56.
• Actor Ryan Phillippe (FIHL’-ih-pee) is 50.
• Ballerina Misty Copeland is 42.
• Former MLB All-Star Joey Votto is 41.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the first time in almost 8,000 episodes, “Wheel of Fortune” did not open with a hello from longtime host Pat Sajak.

Ryan Seacrest stepped into Sajak’s shoes after his 41-year tenure as host of the famed game show, joining co-host and letter turner Vanna White. Seacrest, a familiar television and radio presence known for hosting “American Idol,” New Year’s Eve programming and a long-running radio show, debuted as the series’ new host Monday night.

“I still can’t believe my luck being here with you tonight to continue this legacy of this incredible show with all of you, and, of course, my good friend Vanna White,” Seacrest said as he opened the show. “Thank you for the very warm welcome.”

In a brief opening monologue before the gameplay began, Seacrest acknowledged Sajak’s impact as host and his retirement at the end of the 41st season. Sajak won his fourth Emmy Award for best game show host for his final season Saturday at the Creative Arts Emmys.

“Hosting ‘Wheel of Fortune’ is a dream job. I’ve been a fan of this show since I was a kid watching it in Atlanta with my family, and I know how special it is that ‘Wheel’ has been in your living rooms for the past 40 years,” he said. “I’m just so grateful to be invited in. I also know I’ve got some very big shoes to fill, so let’s play ‘Wheel of Fortune.’”

In his first episode, Seacrest brought an energetic spirit and his classic good-humored nature. In a departure from his predecessor, he did not use cue cards to speak with contestants Corina, Terry and Cindy about their backgrounds.

Beyond the obvious change of Seacrest taking over for Sajak, the premiere of the 42nd season also showcased some aesthetic adjustments.

The colorful wheel and the iconic puzzle board remain largely the same, although White did get upgraded to a motion sensor board in 2022 to celebrate the 40th season. The stage has been updated and now features golden wheels and spokes in a more modern, sleek design.

Seacrest asked White how she liked the new stage during the hallmark banter the host and letter turner share to close the show. White said there were “a lot of lights, a lot of action,” and Seacrest quipped that he hoped it would continue working through his first week.

Seacrest told The Associated Press in a recent interview “the scale of the set was pretty impressive” to him when he first stepped on set.

The shooting schedule is still as fast-paced as ever, with Seacrest saying that while it may be busy to shoot multiple episodes per day, it makes it convenient for his packed schedule of other hosting duties.

Many of the familiar elements of the show are just as they were when Sajak left the series. White still wears a formal gown, Seacrest sported a suit and tie like Sajak did, the recognizable sound effects and “devices” contestants use to play are the same. The culture behind the scenes also seems to have remained as genial as the 30-minute episodes.

“I’ve also have been impressed with how close the family is that works on ’Wheel of Fortune,’ the production team that puts it together. It’s a lot of people,” Seacrest said in an interview at an event with White promoting the new season. “They’re really a family and they have a lot of respect for every single person, what they do on the show, and that’s special.”

White added that one staff member who started on the show when she was 18 now has kids who are graduating from college. “We’ve been together a long time,” she said.

___

Producer Liam McEwan contributed to this report.

Here are all the biggest announcements from Apple’s “Glowtime” event.

Apple Intelligence

Apple’s core artificial intelligence offerings are being packaged and billed as Apple Intelligence — first revealed at the company’s developers conference in June.

These features include the ability to search for images in your library by describing them, creating custom emojis, summarizing emails and prioritizing notifications. Apple Intelligence will also upgrade Apple’s virtual assistant Siri to get it to better understand requests and give it some awareness of on-screen actions taking place on the phone, hopefully making it more useful.

What sets Apple apart from what’s being offered by rivals Samsung and Google? It is trying to preserve its longtime commitment to privacy by tailoring its AI so that most of its functions are processed on the device itself instead of at remote data centers. When a task requires a connection to a data center, Apple promises it will be done in a tightly controlled way that ensures no personal data is stored remotely.

Most of Apple’s AI functions will roll out as part of a free software update to iOS 18, the operating system that will power the iPhone 16 rolling out from October through December. U.S. English will be the featured language at launch but an update enabling other languages will come out next year, according to Apple.

iPhone 16 and the camera button

The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will offer slightly bigger displays and feature variants of the powerful A18 chip, which gives Apple the computing power its devices need to run AI functions on its devices.

The iPhone 16 “has been designed for Apple Intelligence from the ground up,” CEO Tim Cook said during Monday’s event.

On the other end of the spectrum, the biggest physical change to the iPhone 16 lineup comes in the form of a dedicated camera-control button. The button responds to clicks and gestures, allowing users to quickly snap pictures, preview a shot or start video recording.

The button also allows owners to use something called Visual Intelligence, which will tell the iPhone 16 to automatically search on things you take photos of.

The phones will start shipping Sept. 20. The iPhone 16 will retail for $799, with the Plus model going for $899. The iPhone 16 Pro will cost $999, while the Pro Max will sell for $1,199.

Apple Watch upgrades

The Apple Watch Series 10 features a larger, and brighter, wide-angle OLED display that will allow users to better view the watch at an angle. But Apple focused much of its presentation on the device’s ability to detect signs of sleep apnea.

The new device is also being offered in a titanium finish for the first time, joining a longtime trend in the watch industry of offering a tougher, more lightweight, and perceived higher-quality, alternative to traditional materials.

The Series 10 watch starts at $399 and will be available on Sept. 20.

Airpods lean toward being a listening device

The new AirPods 4 series will come with an upgraded chip for better audio quality, and will feature more active noise cancellation.

If you frequently lose your ear buds, the new AirPods will also play a sound when you locate them through the Find My app.

In a medically focused update to the AirPods Pro 2, Apple said it will upgrade the devices so they can act as an over-the-counter hearing aid. A free software update will provide the upgrade and also include options to help protect hearing and the ability to administer a clinical-grade hearing test.

The AirPod 4 model costs $129, while the version with active noise cancelling will cost $179. They both ship on Sept. 20.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA on Monday approved next month’s launch to Jupiter’s moon Europa after reviewing the spacecraft’s ability to withstand the intense radiation there.

Questions about the reliability of the transistors on the Europa Clipper spacecraft arose earlier this year after similar problems cropped up elsewhere. With the tight launch window looming, NASA rushed to conduct tests to verify that the electronic parts could survive the $5 billion mission to determine whether the suspected ocean beneath Europa’s icy crust might be suitable for life.

Liftoff remains scheduled for Oct. 10 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA has three weeks to launch the spacecraft before standing down for more than a year to await another proper planetary alignment; the spacecraft needs to swing past Mars and then Earth for gravity assists.

Project manager Jordan Evans said the transistors — located in circuits across the entire spacecraft — are expected to degrade when Europa Clipper is exposed to the worst of the radiation during the 49 flybys of the moon. But they should recover during the three weeks between each encounter, said Evans of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Teams from labs across the country came to that conclusion following round-the-clock testing over the past four months.

The project has “high confidence we can complete the original mission for exploring Europa as planned,” Evans said. “We are ready for Jupiter.”

It will take six years for Europa Clipper to reach Jupiter, where it will orbit the gas giant every three weeks. Dozens of flybys are planned of Europa as close as 16 miles (25 kilometers), allowing cameras and other instruments — including ice-penetrating radar — to map virtually the entire moon.

Europa Clipper is the biggest spacecraft ever built by NASA to investigate another planet, spanning more than 100 feet (30 meters) with its solar panels unfurled.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NEW YORK (AP) — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.

His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York’s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama (“As the World Turns”) and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of “The Gin Game” having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.

“The need to storytell has always been with us,” he told The Associated Press then. “I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”

Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in “Field of Dreams,” the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit “The Great White Hope,” the writer Alex Haley in “Roots: The Next Generation” and a South African minister in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (“No, I am your father,” commonly misremembered as “Luke, I am your father”), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in both the 1994 and 2019 versions of Disney’s “The Lion King” and announcing “This is CNN” during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the “Great American Documents” audiobook.

“If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the pavement in these streets looking for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,” Samuel L. Jackson once said.

Some of his other films include “Dr. Strangelove,” “The Greatest” (with Muhammad Ali), “Conan the Barbarian,” “Three Fugitives” and playing an admiral in three blockbuster Tom Clancy adaptations — “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” In a rare romantic comedy, “Claudine,” Jones had an onscreen love affair with Diahann Carroll.

LeVar Burton, who starred alongside Jones in the TV movie “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones,” paid tribute on X, writing, “There will never be another of his particular combination of graces.”

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958’s “Sunrise At Campobello” and would win his two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” (1969) and “Fences” (1987). He also was nominated for “On Golden Pond” (2005) and “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and Athol Fugard alike. More recent Broadway appearances include “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

As a rising stage and television actor, he performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in “Othello,” “Macbeth” and “King Lear” and in off-Broadway plays.

Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.

When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, “Voices and Silences.” “The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”

Too embarrassed to speak, he remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and fellow students with handwritten notes. A sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that the boy wrote poetry, and demanded that Jones read one of his poems aloud in class. He did so faultlessly.

Teacher and student worked together to restore the boy’s normal speech. “I could not get enough of speaking, debating, orating — acting,” he recalled in his book.

At the University of Michigan, he failed a pre-med exam and switched to drama, also playing four seasons of basketball. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.

In New York, he moved in with his father and enrolled with the American Theater Wing program for young actors. Father and son waxed floors to support themselves while looking for acting jobs.

True stardom came suddenly in 1970 with “The Great White Hope.” Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America. In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.

Jones’ two wives were also actors. He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967. After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama “Paris,” in 1982. (She died in 2016.) They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.

In 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed after Jones, with a ceremony that included Norm Lewis singing “Go the Distance,” Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “Make Them Hear You” and words from Mayor Eric Adams, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.

“You can’t think of an artist that has served America more,” director Kenny Leon told the AP. “It’s like it seems like a small act, but it’s a huge action. It’s something we can look up and see that’s tangible.”

Citing his stutter as one of the reasons he wasn’t a political activist, Jones nonetheless hoped his art could change minds.

“I realized early on, from people like Athol Fugard, that you cannot change anybody’s mind, no matter what you do,” he told the AP. “As a preacher, as a scholar, you cannot change their mind. But you can change the way they feel.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

NEW YORK (AP) — Jailed ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein underwent emergency heart surgery at a New York City hospital on Monday, his representatives said.

Weinstein, 72, was taken to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan from the Rikers Island jail complex late Sunday “due to severe medical conditions,” his publicist Juda Engelmayer and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld said.

“We can confirm that Mr. Weinstein had a procedure and surgery on his heart today,” they said, declining further comment on his condition.

News of Weinstein’s hospitalization was first reported by ABC News.

Weinstein has been in an out of Bellevue Hospital since returning to Rikers Island from state prison in April after an appeals court overturned his 2020 rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial.

In July, he was hospitalized for treatment for a variety of health problems including COVID-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said.

The state’s Court of Appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose claims against Weinstein weren’t part of the case.

Last week, prosecutors disclosed that they’ve begun taking steps to potentially charge him with up to three additional sex assaults.

They said they’ve started presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three previously uncharged allegations against Weinstein -– two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.

A vote on a potential new indictment is expected soon.

At the same time, British prosecutors said last week they were dropping two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in 2022 because there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’’

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone. He remains in custody in New York while awaiting a retrial in Manhattan that’s tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12. He is due back in court for a pretrial hearing Sept. 12.

Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which took root in 2017 when women began to go public with accounts of his behavior.

At the original trial, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013. Those allegations will be part of his retrial. Weinstein’s acquittals on charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape still stand.

After the retrial, Weinstein is due to start serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein, the co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company film studios, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, producing such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — It could be a well-rehearsed zinger, a too-loud sigh — or a full performance befuddled enough to shockingly end a sitting president’s reelection bid.

Notable moments from past presidential debates demonstrate how the candidates’ words and body language can make them look especially relatable or hopelessly out-of-touch — showcasing if a candidate is at the top of their policy game or out to sea. Will past be prologue when Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday?

“Being live television events, without a script, without any way of knowing how they are going to evolve — anything can happen,” said Alan Schroeder, author of “Presidential Debates: 50 years of High-Risk TV.”

Here’s a look at some highs, lows and curveballs from presidential debates past.

Biden blows it

Though it’s still fresh in the nation’s mind, the June debate in Atlanta pitting President Joe Biden against Trump may go down as the most impactful political faceoff in history.

Biden, 81, shuffled onto the stage, frequently cleared his throat, said $15 when he meant that his administration helped cut the price of insulin to $35 per month on his first answer and inexplicably gave Trump an early chance to pounce on the chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. It got even worse for the president 12 minutes in, when Biden appeared lose his train of thought entirely.

“The, uh — excuse me, with the COVID, um, dealing with, everything we had to do with, uh … if … Look …” Biden stammered before concluding ”we finally beat Medicare.” He meant that his administration had successfully taken on “big pharma,” some of the nation’s top prescription drug companies.

Biden at first blamed having a cold, then suggested he’d overprepared. Later, he pointed to jetlag after pre-debate travel overseas.

In the frantic hours immediately after the debate, a Biden campaign spokesperson said, “ Of course, he’s not dropping out.” That was correct until 28 days later, when the president did just that, bowing out and endorsing Harris on July 21.

The age question

Biden was asked in Atlanta about his age and got into an argument with Trump over golf. It was the opposite of knowing a sensitive question was coming and still making the answer sound spontaneous — a feat President Ronald Reagan pulled off while landing a line for the ages during 1984’s second presidential debate.

Reagan was 73 and facing 56-year-old Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. In the first debate, Reagan struggled to remember facts and occasionally looked confused. An adviser suggested afterward that aides “filled his head with so many facts and figures that he lost his spontaneity.”

So Reagan’s team took a more hands-off approach toward the second debate. When Reagan got a question about his mental and physical stamina that he had to know was coming, he was ready enough to make the response feel unplanned.

Asked whether his age might hinder his handling of major challenges, Raegan responded, “Not at all,” before smoothly continuing: “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The audience, and even Mondale, cracked up.

Then, capitalizing on years of Hollywood-honed comedic training, the president took a sip of water, giving the crowd more time to laugh. Finally, he grinned and left little doubt that he’d rehearsed, adding, “It was Seneca, or it was Cicero, I don’t know which, that said, ‘If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.’”

Years later, Mondale conceded, “That was really the end of my campaign that night.”

Reagan is further remembered for using a light touch to neutralize criticisms from Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a 1980 debate. When Carter accused him of wanting to cut Medicare, Reagan scolded, “There you go again.”

The line worked so well that he turned it into something of a trademark rejoinder going forward.

Gaffes galore

In 1976, Republican President Gerald Ford had a notable moment in a debate against Carter — and not in a good way. The president declared that there is “no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration.”

With Moscow controlling much of that part of the world, the surprised moderator asked if he’d understood correctly. Ford stood by his answer, then spent days on the campaign trail trying to explain it away. He lost that November.

Another awkward moment came in 2012, when Republican nominee Mitt Romney got a debate question about gender pay equality and recalled soliciting women’s groups’ help to find qualified female applicants for state posts: “They brought us whole binders full of women.”

Aaron Kall, director of the University of Michigan’s debate program, said key lines affect not just who a debate’s perceived winner is but also fundraising and media coverage for days, or even weeks, afterward.

“The closer the election, the more zingers and important debate lines can matter,” Kall said.

Not all slips have a devastating impact, though.

Then-Sen. Barack Obama, in a 2008 Democratic presidential primary debate, dismissively told Hillary Clinton, “You’re likable enough, Hillary.” That drew backlash, but Obama recovered.

The same couldn’t be said for the short-lived 2012 Republican primary White House bid of then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Despite repeated attempts and excruciatingly long pauses, Perry could not remember the third of the three federal agencies he’d promised to shutter if elected.

Finally, he sheepishly muttered, “Oops.”

The Energy Department, which he later ran during the Trump administration, is what slipped his mind.

Getting personal

Another damaging moment opened a 1988 presidential debate, when Democrat Michael Dukakis was pressed about his opposition to capital punishment in a question that evoked his wife.

“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” CNN anchor Bernard Shaw asked. Dukakis showed little emotion, responding, “I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent.”

Dukakis later said he wished he’d said that his wife “is the most precious thing, she and my family, that I have in this world.”

That year’s vice presidential debate featured one of the best-remembered, pre-planned one-liners.

When Republican Dan Quayle compared himself to John F. Kennedy while debating Lloyd Bentsen, the Democrat was ready. He’d studied Quayle’s campaigning and seen him invoke Kennedy in the past.

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy,” Bentsen began slowly and deliberately, drawing out the moment. “Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

The audience erupted in applause and laughter. Quayle was left to stare straight ahead.

Wordless blunders

Quayle and George H.W. Bush still easily won the 1988 election. But they lost in 1992 after then-President Bush was caught on camera looking at his watch while Democrat Bill Clinton talked to an audience member during a town hall debate. Some thought it made Bush look bored and aloof.

In another instance of a nonverbal debate miscue, then-Democratic Vice President Al Gore was criticized for a subpar opening 2000 debate performance with Republican George W. Bush in which he repeatedly and very audibly sighed.

During their second, town hall-style debate, Gore moved so close to Bush while the Republican answered one question that Bush finally looked over and offered a confident nod, drawing laughter from the audience.

A similar moment occurred in 2016, as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton faced the audience to answer questions during a debate with Trump. Trump moved in close behind her, narrowed his eyes and glowered.

Clinton later wrote of the incident: “He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”

That didn’t stop Trump from claiming the presidency a few weeks later.

Demoralized by the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinian American Samia Assed found in Vice President Kamala Harris’ ascension — and her running mate pick — “a little ray of hope.”

That hope, she said, shattered during last month’s Democratic National Convention, where a request for a Palestinian American speaker was denied and listening to Harris left her feeling like the Democratic presidential nominee will continue the U.S. policies that have outraged many in the anti-war camp.

“I couldn’t breathe because I felt unseen and erased,” said Assed, a community organizer in New Mexico.

Under different circumstances, Assed would have reveled in the groundbreaking rise of a woman of color as her party’s nominee. Instead, she agonizes over her ballot box options.

For months, many Palestinian Americans have been contending with the double whammy of the rising Palestinian death toll and suffering in Gaza and their own government’s support for Israel in the war. Alongside pro-Palestinian allies, they’ve grieved, organized, lobbied and protested as the killings and destruction unfolded on their screens or touched their own families. Now, they also wrestle with tough, deeply personal voting decisions, including in battleground states.

“It’s a very hard time for Palestinian youth and Palestinian Americans,” Assed said. “There’s a lot of pain.”

Without a meaningful change, voting for Harris would feel for her “like a jab in the heart,” she said. At the same time, Assed, a lifelong Democrat and feminist, would like to help block another Donald Trump presidency and remain engaged with the Democrats “to hold them liable,” she said.

“It’s really a difficult place to be in.”

She’s not alone.

In Georgia, the Gaza bloodshed has been haunting Ghada Elnajjar. She said the war claimed the lives of more than 100 members of her extended family in Gaza, where her parents were born.

She saw missed opportunities at the DNC to connect with voters like her. Besides the rejection of the request for a Palestinian speaker, Elnajjar found a disconnect between U.S. policies and Harris’ assertion that she and President Joe Biden were working to accomplish a cease-fire and hostage deal.

“Without stopping U.S. financial support and military support to Israel, this will not stop,” said Elnajjar who in 2020 campaigned for Biden. “I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m a taxpayer … and I feel betrayed and neglected.”

She’ll keep looking for policy changes, but, if necessary, remain “uncommitted,” potentially leaving the top of the ticket blank. Harris must earn her vote, she said.

Harris, in her DNC speech, said she and Biden were working to end the war such that “Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.”

She said she “will always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself,” while describing the suffering in Gaza as “heartbreaking.”

While her recent rhetoric on Palestinian suffering has been viewed as empathetic by some who had soured on Biden over the war, the lack of a concrete policy shift appears to have increasingly frustrated many of those who want the war to end. Activists demanding a permanent cease-fire have urged an embargo on U.S. weapons to Israel, whose military campaign in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

The war was sparked by an Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Layla Elabed, a Palestinian American and co-director of the Uncommitted National Movement, said the demand for a policy shift remains. Nationally, “uncommitted” has garnered hundreds of thousands of votes in Democratic primaries.

Elabed said Harris and her team have been invited to meet before Sept. 15 with “uncommitted” movement leaders from key swing states and with Palestinian families with relatives killed in Gaza. After that date, she said, “we will need to make the decision if we can actually mobilize our base” to vote for Harris.

Without a policy change, “we can’t do an endorsement,” and will, instead, continue talking about the “dangers” of a Trump presidency, leaving voters to vote their conscience, she added.

Some other anti-war activists are taking it further, advocating for withholding votes from Harris in the absence of a change.

“There’s pressure to punish the Democratic Party,” Elabed said. “Our position is continue taking up space within the Democratic Party,” and push for change from the inside.

Some of the tensions surfaced at an August rally in Michigan when anti-war protesters interrupted Harris. Initially, Harris said everybody’s voice matters. As the shouting continued, with demonstrators chanting that they “won’t vote for genocide,” she took a sharper tone.

“If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that,” she said.

Nada Al-Hanooti, national deputy organizing director with the Muslim American advocacy group Emgage Action, rejects as unfair the argument by some that traditionally Democratic voters who withhold votes from Harris are in effect helping Trump. She said the burden should be on Harris and her party.

“Right now, it’s a struggle being a Palestinian American,” she said. “I don’t want a Trump presidency, but, at the same time, the Democratic Party needs to win our vote.”

Though dismayed that no Palestinian speaker was allowed on the DNC stage, Al-Hanooti said she felt inspired by how “uncommitted” activists made Palestinians part of the conversation at the convention. Activists were given space there to hold a forum discussing the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.

“We in the community still need to continue to push Harris on conditioning aid, on a cease-fire,” she said. “The fight is not over.”

She said she’s never known grief like that she has experienced over the past year. In the girls of Gaza, she sees her late grandmother who, at 10, was displaced from her home during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and lived in a Syrian refugee camp, dreaming of returning home.

“It just completely tears me apart,” Al-Hanooti said.

She tries to channel her pain into putting pressure on elected officials and encouraging community members to vote, despite encountering what she said was increased apathy, with many feeling that their vote won’t matter. “Our job at Emgage is simply right now to get our Muslim community to vote because our power is in the collective.”

In 2020, Emgage — whose political action committee then endorsed Biden — and other groups worked to maximize Muslim American turnout, especially in battleground states. Muslims make up a small percentage of Americans overall, but activists hope that in states with notable Muslim populations, such as Michigan, energizing more of them makes a difference in close races — and demonstrates the community’s political power.

Some voters want to send a message.

“Our community has given our votes away cheaply,” argued Omar Abuattieh, a pharmacy major at Rutgers University in New Jersey. “Once we can start to understand our votes as a bargaining tool, we’ll have more power.”

For Abuattieh, whose mother was born in Gaza, that means planning to vote third party “to demonstrate the power in numbers of a newly activated community that deserves future consultation.”

A Pew Research Center survey in February found that U.S. Muslims are more sympathetic to the Palestinian people than many other Americans are and that only 6% of Muslim American adults believe the U.S. is striking the right balance between the Israelis and Palestinians. Nearly two-thirds of Muslim registered voters identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, according to the survey.

But U.S. Muslims, who are racially and ethnically diverse, are not monolithic in their political behavior; some have publicly supported Harris in this election cycle. In 2020, among Muslim voters, 64% supported Biden and 35% supported Trump, according to AP VoteCast.

The Harris campaign said it has appointed two people for Muslim and Arab outreach.

Harris “will continue to meet with leaders from Palestinian, Muslim, Israeli and Jewish communities, as she has throughout her vice presidency,” the campaign said in response to questions, without specifically commenting on the uncommitted movement’s request for a meeting before Sept. 15.

Harris is being scrutinized by those who say the Biden-Harris administration hasn’t done enough to pressure Israel to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said Trump “will once again deliver peace through strength to rebuild and expand the peace coalition he built in his first term to create long-term safety and security for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.”

Many Arab and Muslim Americans were angered by Trump’s ban, while in office, that affected travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, which Biden rescinded.

In Michigan, Ali Ramlawi, who owns a restaurant in Ann Arbor, said Harris’ nomination initially gave him relief on various domestic issues, but the DNC left him disappointed on the Palestinian question.

Before the convention, he expected to vote Democratic, but now says he’s considering backing the Green Party for the top of the ticket or leaving that blank.

“Our vote shouldn’t be taken for granted,” he said. “I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

NEW YORK (AP) — He claimed she would raise taxes and accused her of supporting open border policies that would allow an influx of unvetted migrants into the country. He blamed her for a litany of the current administration’s failures and cast her potential presidency as four more years of the same.

Donald Trump wasn’t facing Vice President Kamala Harris. It was Hillary Clinton on the debate stage.

As Trump and Harris prepare to debate for the first — and potentially only — time Tuesday, his three meetings with Clinton in 2016 illustrate the challenges facing both candidates in what is again shaping up to be an extremely close election.

Harris will face a skilled and experienced debater who excels at rattling his rivals with a barrage of insults and interruptions, while projecting unflappable confidence and conviction. And Trump will be up against a longtime prosecutor known for landing pointed punches. He again faces a woman who would become the country’s first female president, and must contend with the underlying gender dynamics at play.

Trump started out on good behavior

During their first 2016 debate in late September, moderated by NBC’s Lester Holt, Trump began on his best behavior. He and Clinton warmly shook hands after taking the stage and Trump, in his first answer, said he agreed with his rival when it came to the importance of affordable child care.

After referring to the former first lady, senator, and secretary of state as “Secretary Clinton,” he checked to make sure she approved.

“Yes? Is that ok? Good. I want you to be very happy. It’s very important to me,” he said, drawing laughs from the audience and Clinton herself. (In later debates, he called her “Hillary,” while she consistently used “Donald.”)

It was Clinton who took the first digs of the night when she criticized the then-reality TV star and real estate developer for supporting “Trumped-up trickle-down” economics and said their different perspectives were borne from the fact that Trump had received millions of dollars from his wealthy father, while hers had worked hard printing draperies.

In the audience, she said, was a worker who accused Trump of stiffing him on bills.

As the debate wore on, Trump became more combative as he pressed Clinton on why she hadn’t done the things she was proposing as a candidate for president during her decades of public life.

“Typical politician: All talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn’t work. Never gonna happen,” he said.

Clinton’s strategy: laugh it off

Clinton’s strategy in responding to Trump’s attacks was clear from the beginning: Don’t get rattled. Laugh it off.

She never appeared flustered and instead smiled widely as she dismissively brushed off what she at one point cast as Trump “saying more crazy things.”

“No wonder you’ve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life,” Trump quipped at one point as he tried to cast Clinton as an “all talk, no action” politician, of the group that formed in 2013.

“I have a feeling that by the end of this evening, I’m going to be blamed for everything that’s ever happened,” Clinton responded with a smile.

“Why not?” Trump answered.

Trump, meanwhile, sought to turn the arguments she made against him back onto her.

“I have much better judgment than she has…. I also have a much better temperament than she has,” he declared. “I think my strongest asset — maybe by far – is my temperament. I have a winning temperament.”

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself’

The second debate between Trump and Clinton was far more combative. The town hall came just two days after the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women.

With his campaign in freefall and top Republicans urging him to leave the race, Trump invited women who had accused former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton’s husband, of sexual misconduct, creating a spectacle as the women sat in the audience in the debate hall and spoke at a press conference beforehand.

There was no handshake this time, and the debate quickly devolved into accusations as Trump insisted what former president Clinton had done was “far worse” than his self-described “locker room talk.”

“Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously,” he said. “I think it’s disgraceful, and I think she should be ashamed of herself.”

Later, Trump zeroed in on the thousands of hacked emails that Wikileaks had begun to publish the day of the tape’s release, as well as Clinton’s use of a personal email server during her time as secretary of state.

As Clinton sat on her stool, Trump approached her, and said that, if he won, he would instruct his attorney general to hire a special prosecutor to investigate her conduct.

“There has never been so many lies, so much deception,” he said. “There has never been anything like this. … Lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5th of what you’ve done, and it’s a disgrace.”

Clinton, again refusing to be flustered, directed viewers to her website where she said her campaign had fact-checked his false allegations.

“It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” she said.

“Because you’d be in jail,” Trump responded to cheers from the audience.

Trump lurked behind Clinton

Beyond encapsulating the sheer nastiness of the race, the debate, which was co-moderated by ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper, also underscored the gender dynamics at play. Trump, who is physically far larger, lurked behind Clinton at times.

As she apologized for using a private email server, Trump loomed ominously behind Clinton.

During a subsequent question on the Affordable Care Act and rising healthcare costs, Trump stood right behind Clinton as she stepped forward to respond to the audience member who had asked the question. The scene was immortalized in endless memes and parodies and has often been cited as a cautionary tale for male candidates debating women.

“’This is not okay,′ I thought,” Clinton later wrote in a memoir recounting the episode. She said that, on the small stage, “no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable. He was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”

“It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching: ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling, and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up, you creep, get away from me, I know you love to intimidate women but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.”

“I chose option A,” she said, “aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.”

“I wonder, though,” she went on, “whether I have chosen option B. It certainly would have been better TV.”

‘No puppet. You’re the puppet’

By the third debate, which was moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, allegations of Russian election interference were dominating the news.

“We’ve never had a foreign government trying to interfere in our election,” Clinton said, expressing outrage that Trump had encouraged espionage against Americans and accusing him of touting the line of Russian President Vladimir Putin in exchange for assistance.

“She has no idea whether it’s Russia, China or anybody else. She has no idea,” Trump retorted, contradicting the conclusions of a long list of American intelligence agencies. He insisted he didn’t know Putin, whom he derisively said had no respect for Clinton.

“Well that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States,” Clinton responded.

“No puppet, no puppet. You’re the puppet,” Trump shot back.

(Trump later said he condemned election interference “by Russia or anybody else.”)

Clinton, in an interview with The New York Times, referenced the “puppet” moment as an example of what she hoped Harris would do on stage Tuesday night.

“She just should not be baited. She should bait him. He can be rattled. He doesn’t know how to respond to substantive, direct attacks,” she told the outlet. “I mean, when I said he was a Russian puppet and he just sputtered onstage, I think that’s an example of how you get out a fact about him that really unnerves him.”

Taking advantage of the split screen

But the debate also provided a clear illustration of why Trump is such an effective debater. While Clinton tried to remain above the fray and laugh off attacks, Trump appeared in control, frequently interrupting with quips and commentary.

He also took advantage of the split-screen that kept the camera on both of the candidates’ faces through much of the debate, often looking straight ahead, projecting strength, and visibly reacting.

When Clinton at one point spoke about her experience, he interjected: “Give me a break.”

“Wrong,” he retorted, after she accused him of having mimicked a disabled reporter.

“Wrong,” he said again after she noted his past support for the invasion of Iraq.

Repeatedly, he tried to direct the proceedings, complementing Wallace or offering direction. After being asked about allegations of sexual assault by a long list of women, Trump insisted the stories were nothing but “lies” and “fiction” and then tried to deflect by pivoting to Clinton’s emails.

“What isn’t fictionalized is her emails,” he said. “That’s really what you should be talking about. Not fiction.”

Later, Clinton took a swipe at Trump as she discussed her plan to raise taxes on the rich to keep Social Security solvent.

“My Social Security payroll contribution will go up, as will Donald’s, assuming he can’t figure out how to get out of it,” she said.

“Such a nasty woman,” he said, shaking his head.

Time is a flat circle

The debates also demonstrated how little has changed over the last eight years.

During the third debate, Trump was asked for a second time about his efforts to sow doubts about the integrity of the election and claims that it was being rigged. Would he commit to accepting the results, he was asked?

“I will look at it at the time,” he said, complaining that a dishonest media was working to “poison the minds of the voters” and claiming, falsely, that millions of people were registered to vote who shouldn’t have been.

He also took issue with Clinton’s candidacy, as he has with Harris after she replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee.

“She shouldn’t be allowed to run. She’s guilty of a very, very serious crime,” he said.

He was asked again whether he would commit to a peaceful transition of power.

“What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time,” he responded. “I’ll keep you in suspense.”

Clinton called his answer “horrifying” and noted that anytime anything is not going in Trump’s favor — from that year’s Iowa caucuses to losing at the Emmy Awards — he alleges it is rigged.

“Should have gotten it,” Trump said, drawing laughs.

“That is not the way our democracy works,” Clinton insisted.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The judge overseeing the trial of the man charged in the fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students has agreed to move it out of the small city where the shocking crimes occurred, citing concerns about finding impartial jurors and whether the courthouse could accommodate the proceedings.

In an order dated Friday, Idaho Second District Judge John C. Judge said extensive media coverage of the case, the spreading of misinformation on social media and statements by public officials suggesting defendant Bryan Kohberger’s guilt made it doubtful he could receive a fair trial in Moscow, a university town of about 26,000 in northern Idaho.

He did not specify where the trial would be moved. Instead, the Idaho Supreme Court will assign the venue — and possibly a new judge as well.

The trial is set for June 2025 and is expected to last three months. Kohberger faces four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves, and prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty if he is in convicted.

“It is undisputed that there has been significant media coverage in this case throughout the State and nationally,” Judge wrote. “While some of the coverage has been neutral reporting of the Court proceedings, much of the coverage has been sensationalized and prejudicial to Kohberger.”

But even if enough impartial jurors could be selected to hear the case, the Latah County courthouse wouldn’t be able to handle it, Judge said. It’s too small to accommodate the needs of the lawyers and doesn’t have enough clerks to oversee the selection of a jury from an expanded pool of some 6,000 residents.

Further, the county doesn’t have enough sheriff’s deputies to ensure security in a small courthouse where the only way in for sensitive witnesses would be through public hallways and entrances, he said.

Kohberger’s defense team sought the change of venue, saying strong emotions in the close-knit community and constant news coverage would make it impossible to find an impartial jury in the small university town where the killings occurred.

Prosecutors argued that any problems with potential bias could be resolved by simply calling a larger pool of potential jurors and questioning them carefully. They noted the inconvenience of forcing attorneys, witnesses and others to travel to a different city.

In deciding whether to grant such requests, judges must weigh a community’s interest in seeing justice done for crimes in its own back yard with a defendant’s constitutional right to a fair trial.

“Paramount is the concern for the right to a fair trial by jury, by an impartial jury,” said Mary D. Fan, a criminal law professor at the University of Washington.

Often, victims’ family members will want to attend every day of a trial as a way to signal support for the victim, or because they want to see for themselves if justice is being done. Prosecutors often consult with survivors and victims’ families, and may give their concerns heavy consideration when crafting arguments against moving a trial, Fan said.

“There are a number of potential adverse impacts, depending on where the change of venue occurs. Certainly it may be more of an inconvenience to witnesses, to family members who might want to attend every day of the trial,” said Fan.

It is rare to move trials, but in some high-profile cases, when judges do not believe other precautions will protect a defendant’s rights, they have done so.

Among them: the trials of the Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney King; of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; of the officers who fatally shot Amadou Diallo in New York; and of OJ Simpson.

By contrast, the judge overseeing the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the 2020 murder of George Floyd, which sparked Black Lives Matter protests around the world, refused to move the trial. The judge pointed out that coverage of Floyd’s death had been so thorough that it would have been impossible to find another courthouse in the state with jurors less exposed to pretrial media coverage.

Under Idaho court rules, judges who grant motions to move trials can indicate if they want to remain on the case. Judge did not do so in his order Friday, instead granting the motion under a rule that provides for a new judge to be assigned.

It was not immediately clear when the Idaho Supreme Court might assign a new venue or a new judge, or whether that would force a delay of the trial date.

“Change of venue often may result in a reassignment to a new judge simply because of the fact that the judge currently has cases in their own venue that they have to handle. So going to a totally different jurisdiction can just lead to inconvenience — not just to the parties in one case, but to many cases,” Fan said. “So, oftentimes you do see a change of judge simply for practical purposes.”

Neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys immediately returned messages seeking comment. A strict gag order issued by Judge largely prevents them from discussing the case with reporters.

Kohberger, a former criminal justice student at Washington State University, which is across the state line in Pullman, faces four counts of murder in the deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves.

The four University of Idaho students were killed sometime in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022, in a rental house near the campus.

Authorities have said that cellphone data or surveillance video shows that Kohberger visited the victims’ neighborhood at least a dozen times before the killings; that he traveled in the region that night, returning to Pullman along a roundabout route; and that his DNA was found at the crime scene.

His lawyers said in a court filing he was merely out for a drive that night, “as he often did to hike and run and/or see the moon and stars.”

Police arrested Kohberger six weeks after the killings at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania, where he was spending winter break.

___

Johnson reported from Seattle.