NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors in Donald Trump’s hush money trial are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday after receiving instructions from the judge on the law and the factors they may consider as they strive to reach a verdict in the first criminal case against a former American president.

The deliberations follow a marathon day of closing arguments in which a Manhattan prosecutor accused Trump of trying to “hoodwink” voters in the 2016 presidential election by participating in a hush money scheme meant to stifle embarrassing stories he feared would torpedo his campaign.

“This case, at its core, is about a conspiracy and a cover-up,” prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during summations that stretched from early afternoon into the evening.

Trump’s lawyer, by contrast, branded the star prosecution witness as the “greatest liar of all time” as he proclaimed his client innocent of all charges and pressed the panel for an across-the-board acquittal.

The lawyers’ dueling accounts, wildly divergent in their assessments of witness credibility, Trump’s culpability and the strength of evidence, offered both sides one final chance to score points with the jury as it prepares to embark upon the momentous and historically unprecedented task of deciding whether to convict the presumptive Republican presidential nominee ahead of the November election.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, charges punishable by up to four years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. It’s unclear whether prosecutors would seek imprisonment in the event of a conviction, or if the judge would impose that punishment.

Jurors will have the option of convicting Trump of all counts, acquitting him of all counts, or delivering a mixed verdict in which he is found guilty of some charges and not others. If they deadlock after several days of deliberations and are unable to reach a unanimous verdict, Judge Juan M. Merchan may declare a mistrial.

The trial featured allegations that Trump and his allies conspired to stifle potentially embarrassing stories during the 2016 presidential campaign through hush money payments , including to a porn actor who alleged that she and Trump had sex a decade earlier. His lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors that neither the actor, Stormy Daniels, nor the Trump attorney who paid her, Michael Cohen, can be trusted.

“President Trump is innocent. He did not commit any crimes, and the district attorney has not met their burden of proof, period,” Blanche said.

Steinglass sought to defray potential juror concerns about witness credibility. Trump, for instance, has said he and Daniels never had sex and has repeatedly attacked Cohen as a liar.

The prosecutor acknowledged that Daniels’ account about the alleged 2006 encounter in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite, which Trump has denied, was at times “cringeworthy” but he said the details she offered — including about decor and what she said she saw when she snooped in Trump’s toiletry kit — were full of touchstones “that kind of ring true.”

And, he said, the story matters because it “reinforces (Trump’s) incentive to buy her silence.”

“Her story is messy. It makes people uncomfortable to hear. It probably makes some of you uncomfortable to hear. But that’s kind of the point,” Steinglass said. He told jurors: “In the simplest terms, Stormy Daniels is the motive.”

The payoff unfolded against the backdrop of the disclosure of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump could be heard bragging about grabbing women sexually without their permission. Had the Daniels story emerged in the aftermath of the recording, it would have undermined his strategy of spinning away his words, Steinglass said.

“It’s critical to appreciate this,” Steinglass said. At the same time he was dismissing his words on the tape as “locker room talk,” Trump “was negotiating to muzzle a porn star,” the prosecutor said.

Blanche, who spoke first, sought to downplay the fallout by saying the “Access Hollywood” tape was not a “doomsday event.”

Steinglass also tried to reassure jurors that the prosecution’s case did not rest solely on Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer who paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal charges for his role in the hush money payments, as well as to lying to Congress. He went to prison and was disbarred, but his direct involvement in the transactions made him a key witness at trial.

“It’s not about whether you like Michael Cohen. It’s not about whether you want to go into business with Michael Cohen. It’s whether he has useful, reliable information to give you about what went down in this case, and the truth is that he was in the best position to know,” Steinglass said.

Though the case featured sometimes seamy discussion of sex and tabloid industry practices, the actual charges concern something decidedly less flashy: reimbursements Trump signed for Cohen for the payments.

The reimbursements were recorded as being for legal expenses, which prosecutors say was a fraudulent label designed to conceal the purpose of the hush money transaction and to illicitly interfere in the 2016 election. Defense lawyers say Cohen actually did substantive legal work for Trump and his family.

In his own hourslong address to the jury, with sweeping denials echoing Trump’s “deny everything” approach, Blanche castigated the entire foundation of the case.

He said Cohen, not Trump, created the invoices that were submitted to the Trump Organization for reimbursement and rejected the prosecution’s caricature of a details-oriented manager, suggesting instead that Trump was preoccupied by the presidency and not the checks he was signing. And he rejected the idea that the alleged hush money scheme amounted to election interference.

“Every campaign in this country is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people who are working together to help somebody win,” Blanche said.

As expected, he reserved his most animated attack for Cohen, with whom he tangled during a lengthy cross-examination.

Mimicking the term “GOAT,” used primarily in sports as an acronym for “greatest of all time,” Blanche labeled Cohen the “GLOAT” — greatest liar of all time — and also called Cohen “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt.” That language was intentional because, to convict Trump, jurors must believe that prosecutors proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

“He lied to you repeatedly. He lied many, many times before you even met him. His financial and personal well-being depend on this case. He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that is not true,” Blanche said, a reference to Cohen’s relentless and often bitingly personal social media attacks on Trump and the lucrative income he has derived from books and podcasts about Trump.

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Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of former President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declined to halt the upcoming execution of an Alabama man convicted in the beating deaths of an elderly couple during a 2004 robbery.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied two separate requests for an execution stay for Jamie Ray Mills, 50. Mills is scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening in Alabama.

Mills was convicted of capital murder for the 2004 slaying of Floyd and Vera Hill in Guin, a small city located about 82 miles (132 kilometers) northwest of Birmingham. Prosecutors said Mills and his wife went to the couple’s home where he used a ball-peen hammer, tire tool and machete to beat and stab the couple before stealing $140 and prescription medications.

The three-judge panel denied stay requests in two different cases. One case argued that newly discovered evidence proved prosecutors concealed a plea deal with Mills’ wife to get her to testify against her husband. The other challenged aspects of the state’s lethal injection protocol.

Angie Setzer, a senior attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative, which is representing Mills, said they are disappointed in the decisions and will appeal. Setzer said the cases show the “state’s deceit and concealment both at Mr. Mills’ trial and with regards to executions.”

Attorneys with the initiative in April asked a federal judge to reopen the case, arguing newly discovered evidence proved prosecutors lied about having a plea deal with Mills’ wife who provided key trial testimony against him. The defense lawyer for JoAnn Mills signed an affidavit saying the district attorney agreed that “he would not pursue the capital charge and would agree to a plea of murder” if she testified at her husband’s trial. After testifying, JoAnn Mills pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

The state maintains there was no plea deal and submitted its own affidavits from the district attorney and his investigator.

U.S. District Judge Scott Coogler ruled that Mill’s argument was raised too late and did not prove that the conviction was obtained by fraud or misconduct.

Mills’ attorneys sought a “certificate of appealability” to get the 11th Circuit to take up the issue. Chief Judge William Pryor, in ruling for the state, wrote that they did not meet the required legal threshold because “no reasonable jurist could conclude that the district court abused its discretion.” The appellate court then denied the stay request.

Circuit Judge Nancy G. Abudu concurred in the decision but wrote that she was concerned about the rigid interpretation of rules in death penalty cases preventing further exploration of the issue.

“Unfortunately, even when a petitioner’s life hangs in the balance, our case law does not extend sufficient procedural and substantive due process protection,” Abudu wrote.

Floyd Hill, 87, died from blunt and sharp-force wounds to his head and neck, and Vera Hill, 72, died from complications of head trauma about 12 weeks after the crime, the attorney general’s office wrote in a court filing. A jury voted 11-1 to recommend a death sentenced for Jamie Mills, which a judge imposed.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A staff member with an Oregon medical care nonprofit was killed when the team he was traveling with in a convoy was fired upon in Ethiopia, officials said Monday.

Mustefa Alkisim was a Medical Teams International driver traveling in the insecure Amhara region of Ethiopia Friday when men fired at the group, organization spokesperson Karen Kartes Piatt said in an email. Alkisim was killed and other staff members were injured, she said.

“As we mourn the loss of our colleague, we honor his memory and dedication to his work,” a post on the organization’s Facebook page said.

At this time, the faith-based organization said it does not believe the shooting was an intentional, targeted attack on the staff or the organization, which was founded in 1979 and provides medical care for people in crisis, such as survivors of natural disasters and refugees.

“We are closely reviewing and addressing the circumstances surrounding this tragic loss and determining next steps as an organization,” a news release from the organization said.

Medical Teams adheres to the humanitarian principle of neutrality, never taking sides in conflicts, according to the news release.

“Yet increasingly, armed actors fail to adhere to International Humanitarian Law, outlined in the Geneva Conventions, which requires them to take steps to ensure protection of humanitarian workers,” the news release said.

Last year, 260 aid workers worldwide were killed, a 120% increase over the previous year, the nonprofit said, adding that this “disturbing” trend has continued into 2024.

Medical Teams began providing medical services in Ethiopia in April 2021, and is currently serving refugees, internally displaced persons, and conflict-affected communities in five regions of the country.

Federal forces in Ethiopia are engaging in fighting with several rebel groups in its regions as well as ethnic-related insurgencies, which have led to deaths and the displacement of people. Rebel groups are based in Amhara.

VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) — A European-Japanese climate research satellite designed to study Earth’s temperature balance was launched into orbit from California on Tuesday.

The EarthCARE satellite lifted off from coastal Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 3:20 p.m. The satellite was successfully deployed about 10 minutes later, SpaceX said on the launch webcast.

The name EarthCARE is short for Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer.

The satellite is equipped with four instruments to study the role of clouds and aerosols — particles suspended in the atmosphere — in reflecting solar radiation back into space and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface.

The research is a cooperative project between the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

After stage separation, the reusable Falcon 9 first stage booster landed back at Vandenberg, completing its seventh flight.

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — A former California water official has pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal water in a deal with federal prosecutors in the state’s crop-rich Central Valley.

The Los Angeles Times reports Tuesday that 78-year-old Dennis Falaschi, who used to head the Panoche Water District, entered the plea in federal court in Fresno. He also pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return.

Falaschi was accused in a case that alleged that more than $25 million in water was stolen over two decades when it was siphoned from a federal irrigation canal through a secret pipe and sold to farmers and other water districts. The Panoche Water District supplies irrigation for farmland in Fresno and Merced counties — much of it from the federal Delta-Mendota canal.

Authorities said in court documents that Falaschi wasn’t the only one taking water, but did not specify who else was involved. They estimated Falaschi stole less than $3.5 million in water, a small portion of what they initially alleged had been stolen.

The case comes as California has embarked on a yearslong effort to conserve water use by passing a groundbreaking law to regulate groundwater pumping, encouraging urban users to replace thirsty lawns with more drought-friendly landscaping and ramping up water storage efforts to help the state navigate expected dry years ahead.

The state moved to reduce groundwater use after overpumping led farmers to drill deeper for water and some rural wells to grow dry. The prospect of pumping limits has worried California farmers who grow much of the country’s fresh produce.

Falaschi, who has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in any additional investigations, is scheduled to be sentenced in September. He declined to speak with the newspaper after Tuesday’s hearing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Barton also declined to comment.

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors were presenting their bribery case against New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez drip-by-drip on Tuesday, showing jurors a steady stream of documents, emails and phone records that they’ll explain more thoroughly later in the trial.

The evidence was being shown to Manhattan federal court jurors through the testimony of an FBI agent as the government slowly presents its case against the Democratic lawmaker.

Menendez, 70, is on trial with two New Jersey businessmen who prosecutors say paid him bribes, including gold bars and cash, over the last seven years so that he’d use his power as a senator to help them out.

All three have pleaded not guilty. The trial, in its third week, resumed for the first time in a week.

Some evidence being presented without commentary probably seemed familiar to jurors based on earlier testimony and opening statements.

For instance, prosecutors had asserted that the senator aided the Egyptian government by giving it sensitive information, including the number of Americans and Egyptians who worked at the U.S. embassy.

Jurors were shown a progression of text messages, emails and phone records that showed that Menendez requested that information in early May 2018 and then passed it along to his then-girlfriend, Nadine Arslanian.

She relayed that information to Wael Hana, a businessman who prosecutors said parlayed his connections to Egyptian officials and friendship with Arslanian and the senator into a deal that enabled his company to monopolize the certification of all meat exported from the U.S. to Egypt as adhering to Islamic dietary requirements.

Hana, one of two businessmen on trial with Menendez, then relayed the facts to an Egyptian official, according to the evidence shown to jurors.

Earlier in the trial, a U.S. diplomat formerly based in Egypt testified that the cost of certifying the meat rose dramatically after Hana’s company gained control of a certification process that had previously been handled by four companies.

Defense lawyers, though, say the details about the makeup of staff at the U.S. embassy already was in public documents and was not sensitive information.

Menendez, who began dating Arslanian in 2018, married her in 2020. Now known as Nadine Menendez, she is charged in the case as well, but her trial was postponed until at least July after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and needed immediate treatment. She too has pleaded not guilty.

The trial resumes Wednesday.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reaffirmed the importance of properly cooking wild game after six people became sick from a parasite traced to undercooked bear meat that was served at a family reunion in South Dakota.

The six — one in South Dakota, four in Minnesota and one in Arizona — became infected when bear meat that was served rare turned out to be contaminated with roundworms that cause trichinellosis, also known as trichinosis. Two of the people ate only the vegetables that were grilled with the meat. While the meat had been frozen for 45 days, the trichinella worms were from a freeze-resistant species.

“Persons who consume meat from wild game animals should be aware that that adequate cooking is the only reliable way to kill Trichinella parasites and that infected meat can cross-contaminate other food,” the CDC said in its report on the outbreak last week.

The first case turned up after the 2022 reunion in a 29-year-old Minnesota man who had been hospitalized twice with fever, muscle aches and pain and swelling around his eyes, among other abnormalities. A sample of the meat, from a black bear harvested in Saskatchewan, tested positive. Three of the victims were hospitalized in all. All six, ranging in age from 12 to 62, eventually recovered.

Trichinellosis has become rare in the U.S. While it was once commonly associated with undercooked pork, most U.S. cases nowadays are attributed to consumption of wild game. From 2016 to 2022, seven outbreaks, including 35 probable and confirmed cases, were reported to the CDC. Bear meat was the suspected or confirmed source in most of those outbreaks.

The larvae can settle into intestinal, muscle, heart and brain tissues, according to the National Institutes of Health. Most patients fully recover within two to six months.

The CDC recommends cooking wild game to at least 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius), as verified with a meat thermometer. Meat color is not a good indicator. The family members ate some of the meat before realizing it was undercooked and recooking it, the report said. Raw and undercooked meat and their juices should be kept separate from other foods.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A military fighter jet on its way to an Air Force base in California crashed Tuesday near the international airport in New Mexico’s largest city, sending up a large plume of smoke and injuring the pilot.

The pilot, the only person on board, was able to escape after crashing around 2 p.m. on a hillside on the south side of Albuquerque’s airport and was taken to a hospital with serious injuries, according to the city’s fire department.

U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin identified the downed plane as an F-35 that left Fort Worth, Texas, earlier Tuesday and was headed to Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles. A spokesperson for Lockheed said in an email to The Associated Press that the fighter jet crashed after the pilot stopped to refuel at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

Neither of the Air Force bases immediately responded to requests for more information.

Located on the southern edge of Albuquerque, Kirtland is home to the 377th Air Base Wing, which conducts nuclear operations and trains and equips expeditionary forces. It’s also home to the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Patrick White, who was driving in the area at the time of the crash, told AP that he saw the aircraft trailing low to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and dust. He said it briefly disappeared from his line of sight, and then he saw “an enormous plume of black smoke.”

When he drove past the crash, he said he saw a piece of the fighter jet in the middle of the road.

It marks the second crash of a military plane in New Mexico in the past month. In April, an F-16 Fighting Falcon went down in a remote area near Holloman Air Force Base in the southern part of the state, leaving that pilot with minor injuries after he ejected from the aircraft.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A Reno police officer accidentally shot an unarmed suspect in 2020 when he flinched and pulled the trigger on his service revolver in an inadvertent response to being stuck by a Taser fired by another officer, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks cleared Officer Richard Jager of any criminal wrongdoing with the release of a report on the investigation of the non-fatal, officer-involved shooting. The neighboring Sparks Police Department led the investigation.

The suspect, Christopher Sheahan, was treated at a hospital and survived the single gunshot wound to the shoulder. He was found guilty of one count of resisting a public officer in February 2022 and ultimately sentenced to one day in jail, Hicks said.

Jager, who was in his second week on the job after recently graduating from the law enforcement academy, was treated at a local hospital where the Taser probe was removed from his knee. No one else was hurt.

The shooting occurred on July 26, 2020, when several officers surrounded Sheahan, who was failing to comply with their commands in a parking lot following a traffic incident. Sheahan told the initial responding officer he had some mental issues, and he exhibited erratic behavior, including removing clothing during the confrontation, according to the investigative report.

Eventually, Washoe County sheriff’s deputy George Cholico, a 15-year veteran of the force, “reasonably” concluded the only way to gain Sheahan’s compliance was to utilize his Taser, Hicks wrote in the report.

“Unfortunately, Deputy Cholico’s Taser partially missed its target, with a single Taser probe striking Officer Jager in the right knee. The embedding of the Taser probe into Officer Jager’s knee caused him to flinch and inadvertently pull the trigger of his firearm resulting in a single bullet strike to Sheahan’s right shoulder,” Hicks said.

“The evidence from the entirety of the investigation demonstrates that Officer Jager’s discharge of his firearm was not willful, but accidental. In other words, Officer Jager lacked the willful intent to shoot Sheahan,” he wrote.

Hicks said the investigation of the shooting and subsequent evaluation of whether any criminal charges were warranted included the review of hundreds of pages of reports and documents, interviews with police and witnesses, as well as photographs, 911 calls, video recordings and an examination of the shooting scene.

Hicks said that Sheahan told investigators during an interview while he was recovering at the hospital that he failed to follow the officers’ commands multiple times. He said he was trying to let officers know he did not have any weapons by emptying his pockets.

“Sheahan acknowledged that `I should have just listened to the officer’s orders and not gotten out of my car and freaked out like I did,'” Hicks wrote. He also apologized and expressed “his gratitude to the officers administering first aid and `saving my life.’”

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan State Police trooper who drove his unmarked SUV into a 25-year-old Kentwood man that was fleeing from police has been charged with second-degree murder.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced the charges against Detective Sergeant Brian Keely on Tuesday after Michigan State Police earlier this month concluded their investigation into the April 17 death of Samuel Sterling and released body camera footage showing the collision.

“Detective Sergeant Keely’s actions that day were legally, grossly negligent and created a very high risk of death or great bodily harm, which could have otherwise been prevented,” Nessel said in a video statement announcing the charges.

The death of Sterling, a Black man, has reignited anger in a community still recovering from the death of Patrick Lyoya just over two years ago. Lyoya, also Black, died after a Grand Rapids police officer shot him in the back of the head during a traffic stop. The shooting, captured on a bystander’s phone, sparked protests. The former Officer Christopher Schurr has been charged with second-degree murder in that case and has pleaded not guilty

In Sterling’s case, police say he fled from officers on foot on April 17 after they approached him at a Kentwood gas station — located just outside Grand Rapids — and attempted to take him into custody on multiple outstanding warrants.

A 15-minute video of the incident released May 10, which includes body and dash camera footage from three separate police agencies, shows police chasing Sterling as they instruct him to stop and put his hands in the air. As Sterling runs past a Burger King, he is struck by an unmarked car and pinned against the building’s wall.

Sterling can be heard moaning in pain as police call for an ambulance. He died later that day in the hospital.

Nessel filed a second-degree murder charge with an alternative involuntary manslaughter charge. No arraignment date has been set, Nessel said.

Marc Curtis, an attorney representing Keely, said in a statement that Nessel “has chosen to ignore the facts of this incident and rely on political pressure.” He said that while the loss of Sterling’s life “is tragic and can never be replaced,” it could have been avoided if Sterling had “simply complied with the commands of the detectives.”

Ven Johnson, an attorney for Sterling’s family, said they support Nessel’s decision.

Keely — who was not identified until charges were announced — “was not wearing a body-worn camera due to his assignment on a federal task force, and the unmarked vehicle he was driving was not equipped with an in-car camera,” according to a May 10 statement. Keely was suspended, said Col. James F. Grady II, director of the Michigan State Police, in an April 18 statement.

Police have said Sterling was “wanted on multiple warrants” but have not expanded on what the warrants were.

Michigan Department of Correction records show Sterling had violated the terms of his probation in June 2022 after he was convicted off carrying a concealed weapon, being a felon in possession of a firearm and stealing a financial transaction device.

Top state lawmakers swiftly denounced the officer’s actions after the footage was released. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called Sterling’s death “unacceptable” and a “departure” from normal protocols. She has said she expects the state to “take steps to terminate the trooper’s employment if criminal charges are issued.”

COLYUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Federal officials have notified Ohio’s former House speaker that they have closed their investigation of him and he will not face any charges.

Cliff Rosenberger, a Republican from Wilmington, had resigned the post in 2018 after it went public that he was the target of a federal probe into his travel and spending practices in public office. He has long maintained that he did not commit any wrongdoing.

Kenneth Parker, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, sent a letter to Rosenberg’s lawyers last week stating that “extremely unique facts and circumstances” led him to determine that Rosenberger is no longer the subject or target of an investigation. Parker did not elaborate on the decision.

“I cannot express my gratitude to all of my family and friends that stood by me over the last six years,” Rosenberger said in a statement. “It feels so good to finally be vindicated of all charges.”

Rosenberger was elected Ohio House speaker in 2015. He resigned three years later after federal investigators seized state records documenting his out-of-state travel.

FESTUS, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman went to a police station Tuesday and told officers that she fatally shot one of her children and drowned the other, authorities said.

Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak said at a news conference that authorities believe both children were killed Tuesday morning.

A 9-year-old girl was found dead inside the mother’s car, which was parked outside the Festus police station, where the mother turned herself in. Marshak said the other child had been drowned elsewhere. A 2-year-old boy was found dead in a fountain outside a resort near Festus, a suburb of St. Louis.

Marshak said officers searched for a third child who has been found safe.

The mother, who was from the Festus area, was arrested and the deaths are being investigated as homicides. Their identities have not been released, and authorities have not disclosed a possible motive.

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This story has been corrected to show that a second child was found drowned.

CENTERVILLE, S.D. (AP) — Three people were shot to death in a small South Dakota town, and a former law officer who once served as the town’s mayor is charged in the killings.

Jay Ostrem, 64, was jailed on $1 million cash-only bond on three counts of first-degree murder, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said Tuesday in a news release. It wasn’t immediately clear if Ostrem had an attorney. Calls to a phone listing for Ostrem went unanswered.

A probable cause affidavit identified the victims as two brothers, ages 26 and 21, and a 35-year-old man.

Ostrem worked in law enforcement for more than two decades in Wyoming and South Dakota, media reports said. He served as mayor of Centerville about a decade-and-a-half ago, but the exact dates weren’t immediately available.

The probable cause document said a man in Centerville called police at 9:44 p.m. Monday to report that his brother had been shot by “a guy from across the street” and that the shooter had gone back home. The caller was still on the phone with a dispatcher when he said that he had been shot, too. He then stopped talking, the document said.

The document didn’t specify any connection between the third victim and the brothers.

Ostrem was arrested a short time later. An AR-style rifle was on the ground near him, and he had a handgun in his pocket, the document stated.

Officers then went to the home where the call originated and found all three victims.

Ostrem’s wife told police that a neighbor named Paul had sexually assaulted her on Thursday, and she told Ostrem about the assault Monday night, the document stated. She said Ostrem “got up and went raging out of the house,” according to the document.

Centerville is about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Sioux Falls.

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This story has been corrected to show the town is spelled Centerville, not Centreville.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — An unusual weather phenomenon called a “gustnado,” which looks like a small tornado but is actually a type of whirlwind kicked up by thunderstorm winds, brought some dramatic moments to a western Michigan lake over the weekend.

Video posted on social media shows the gustnado churning across Gun Lake south of Grand Rapids on Sunday, the clouds rolling rapidly as objects fly and people scream.

The National Weather Service included screen shots from that video on its Grand Rapids Facebook page explaining the ominous, swirling winds and clouds.

Meteorologist Nathan Jeruzal said that unlike tornadoes, which begin aloft in the atmosphere’s mid-levels then descend to the ground, gustnadoes form as small but turbulent pockets of wind produced by a thunderstorm’s downdrafts and outflow, creating a swirl at or near the ground.

NOAA describes a gustnado as “a small whirlwind which forms as an eddy in thunderstorm outflows.” Jeruzal said they typically don’t cause any damage.

“They’re kind of like cousins to whirlwinds. They form in a very short time frame and they last only briefly,” he said.

The weather service said several gustnadoes formed Sunday in western Michigan during a thunderstorm “along portions of the leading edge of the storm’s gust front.”

Jeruzal said the only gustnado images the agency had seen are the ones from Gun Lake, located about 19 miles (30 kilometers) south of Grand Rapids. He said the weather service was not aware of that one causing any damage.

Gustnadoes, like the one seen on Gun Lake, typically have winds of from 30 mph to 50 mph (50 kph to 80 kph), placing them below an EF-0 tornado — the weakest of twisters — which begin with winds of 65 mph (105 kph), Jeruzal said.

“They’re just smaller and weaker and not as dangerous as a tornado,” he said.

A prosecutor declined to file charges Tuesday against a police officer who struck and killed a western Michigan teenager while the boy was running from a stolen vehicle.

Kent County prosecutor Chris Becker played a video for reporters and said he found no evidence of intentional deadly force. He instead charged the driver, another teen, with causing death while fleeing from police.

Riley Doggett, 17, was hit by a patrol car driven by a sheriff’s deputy at the end of a high-speed chase in Kent and Ottawa counties on April 8. He died from head injuries on May 9.

Doggett and another teenager were fleeing on foot from a stolen Range Rover after the vehicle crashed into parked cars in a business area.

Becker said the deputy believed Doggett was dangerous and pursued him, though the teen was holding a phone, not a gun.

“He’s trying to cut him off,” the prosecutor said. “He didn’t do it appropriately and hit him, maybe cut it too close, and obviously there are tragic results.”

One of Doggett’s shoes came off and there were black marks on his lower leg, Becker noted.

Before speaking to reporters, Becker met with Doggett’s family and showed them dashcam video.

“They clearly thought the deputy should be charged. I wasn’t expecting them to agree,” he said.

Ven Johnson, an attorney for the family, had publicly urged authorities last week to release video and other details. He said the family had been in the dark for too long.

Even if the teen had done “something stupid,” he didn’t deserve to be a victim of “illegal, unnecessary, deadly force,” Johnson said Friday, a few hours before a memorial service for Doggett.

Doggett’s mother, Becky Wilbert, said he was a “good kid,” regardless of the circumstances that preceded his death.

“He was funny. He was smart. He excelled in school,” Wilbert said. “He always was cracking jokes, making everybody laugh. He was the piece of our family that held everybody together.”

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Follow Ed White on X at https://twitter.com/edwritez

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. built temporary pier that had been used to deliver additional humanitarian aid into Gaza was damaged by rough seas and has temporarily suspended operations. That’s according to three U.S. officials who spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Joint Logistics Over The Shore, or JLOTS, pier only began operations last week and had provided an additional way to get critically needed food to Gaza.

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — A northern Virginia tech company is paying $38,500 to settle claims that it discriminated by posting a job listing seeking white, U.S.-born candidates for an opening as a business analyst.

The Justice Department announced Thursday that it had reached a settlement agreement with Arthur Grand Technologies, an information technology firm in Ashburn, Virginia.

The company listed the business analyst job online in March 2023, specifically seeking “Only Born US Citizens (White) who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX (Don’t share with candidates).”

“It is shameful that in the 21st century, we continue to see employers using ‘whites only’ and ‘only US born’ job postings to lock out otherwise eligible job candidates of color” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s civil rights division in a statement. “I share the public’s outrage at Arthur Grand’s appalling and discriminatory ban on job candidates based on citizenship status, national origin, color and race.”

In the settlement agreement, the company said the ad was “generated by a disgruntled recruiter in India and was intended to embarrass the company,” and that it never intended to dissuade non-citizens from applying.

Arthur Grand did not return a call and email Tuesday seeking comment.

The settlement includes a $7,500 penalty to settle a Justice Department investigation and $31,000 as part of a settlement with the Labor Department to compensate individuals who filed complaints alleging they were discriminated against by the advertisement.

The agreement also requires Arthur Grand to train its personnel on the requirements of the federal hiring and discrimination laws and revise its employment policies.

In 2019, another northern Virginia tech firm, Cynet Systems, apologized after posting an online ad seeking “preferably Caucasian” applicants for an account manager job in Florida.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bette Nash, who was once named the world’s longest-serving flight attendant, has died. She was 88.

American Airlines, Nash’s employer, announced her passing on social media Saturday. The carrier noted that Nash spent nearly 70 years warmly caring for customers in the air.

“Bette was a legend at American and throughout the industry, inspiring generations of flight attendants,” American wrote on Facebook. “Fly high, Bette. We’ll miss you.”

According to the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which also shared a tribute to Nash online, Nash began her flight attendant career with Eastern Airlines back in 1957. The union noted she was based out of the Washington, D.C. area.

Nash’s position at Eastern eventually brought her to American, which bought out many of Eastern’s routes in 1990.

The Associated Press reached out to American and APFA for further information about Nash’s death on Tuesday. ABC News reported that Nash died on May 17 while in hospice care following a recent breast cancer diagnosis. She never officially retired from American Airlines, the outlet added.

According to Guinness World Records, Nash was born on December 31, 1935 and began her flight attendant career at the age of 21. In 2022, Guinness named Nash the world’s longest-serving flight attendant — officially surpassing the previous record one year earlier, with 63 years and 61 days of service as of January 4, 2021.

“I wanted to be a flight attendant from the time I got on the first airplane — I was 16 years old, I was sitting with my mother on a green leather couch at Washington (Reagan National Airport),” Nash told CNN in a 2016 interview, recalling the awe she felt upon seeing a flight crew walk by.

Nash told CNN that she applied for the in-air job after graduating from college, “and the rest is history.”

DUNWOODY, Ga. (AP) — A profile of Hilbert Margol, of Dunwoody, Georgia, one of a dwindling number of veterans took part in the Allies’ European war effort that led to the defeat of Nazi Germany.

PFC HILBERT MARGOL

BORN: Feb. 22, 1924, Jacksonville, Florida.

SERVICE: Army, Battery B, 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, 42nd Infantry Division. Was part of a unit, also including his twin brother, Howard Margol, that liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29, 1945.

“OUTLIVE THE OFFSPRING OF THE DENIERS”

Victory over Germany was in sight for the Allies on April 29, 1945, as the 42nd Infantry Division stormed toward Munich. Hilbert Margol and his twin brother Howard, now deceased, were part of an artillery convoy heading for the city on a two-lane road through the woods. As Margol remembers it, the convoy was stopped and the Howard brothers were permitted by their sergeant to investigate the source of a stench wafting over the area. After a short walk through the woods they spotted boxcars.

A human leg dangled from one of them.

“So we looked and inside the box car were all deceased bodies, just packed inside the box car,” Margol said.

The 42nd Infantry is among those credited with liberating the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. The Margol brothers were among the first Americans to discover the lingering horrors at the camp, which was established in 1933 and became a symbol of Nazi atrocities. More than 200,000 people from across Europe were held there and over 40,000 prisoners died there in horrendous conditions.

Hilbert Margol remembers seeing “stacks of dead bodies like cordwood” once they went in the gates. “We couldn’t understand what what was going on. It was almost like a Hollywood movie set.”

The brothers had entered military life together in 1942, joining an ROTC program at the University of Florida — figuring that after Pearl Harbor they would wind up in the military at some point. They joined an Army Reserve unit later, after being told that might enable them to finish college, but they were called to active duty in 1943, Margol said,

They were separated for a while, in training for different missions. But Howard eventually was able to transfer to where his brother was serving with an artillery unit in Oklahoma. Eventually, they deployed to Europe in the aftermath of D-Day.

After seeing combat, death and destruction, Margol came home to find success in business.

“One of the promises I made to myself in combat, that if I was fortunate enough to make it back home, I was going to buy every creature comfort that I could afford,” Margol told the AP.

But success and comfort weren’t the only things driving him. He has spoken at programs about the Holocaust, noting what was found at Dachau.

“I hope and pray that everyone who hears my voice, and their offspring, outlive the offspring of the deniers that say the Holocaust never happened.”