WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking a valid U.S. passport for that 2023 trip? Buckle up, wishful traveler, for a very different journey before you step anywhere near an airport.

A much-feared backup of U.S passport applications has smashed into a wall of government bureaucracy as worldwide travel rebounds&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/video/transportation-security-administration-pandemics-travel-and-tourism-us-department-of-28113d77ccab463d88bcf97c7744b8e0">toward</a>&nbsp;record pre-pandemic&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hajj-hospitality-mecca-construction-ce3c894d6f464aa70069be1a20f8ef5e">levels</a>&nbsp;— with too few humans to handle the load. The result, say aspiring travelers in the U.S. and around the world, is a maddening pre-travel purgatory defined, at best, by costly uncertainty.

With family dreams and big money on the line, passport seekers describe a slow-motion agony of waiting, worrying, holding the line, refreshing the screen, complaining to Congress, paying extra fees and following incorrect directions. Some applicants are buying additional plane tickets to snag in-process passports where they sit — in other cities — in time to make the flights they booked in the first place.

So grim is the outlook that U.S. officials aren't even denying the problem or predicting when it will ease. They're blaming the epic wait times on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/who-declares-covid-emergency-over-pandemic-8b6445735df5218b5d9d6ec32fa047ca">lingering pandemic</a>&nbsp;-related staffing shortages and a pause of online processing this year. That’s left the passport agency flooded with a record-busting 500,000 applications a week. The deluge is on-track to top last year’s 22 million passports issued, the State Department says.

Stories from applicants and interviews by The Associated Press depict a system of crisis management, in which the agencies are prioritizing urgent cases such as applicants traveling for reasons of “life or death” and those whose travel is only a few days off. For everyone else, the options are few and expensive.

So, 2023 traveler, if you still need a valid U.S. passport, prepare for an unplanned excursion into the nightmare zone.

‘PLENTY OF TIME’ TO ‘WE’LL STILL BE OK' TO BIG PROBLEMS

It was early March when Dallas-area florist Ginger Collier applied for four passports ahead of a family vacation at the end of June. The clerk, she said, estimated wait times at eight to 11 weeks. They'd have their passports a month before they needed them. "Plenty of time," Collier recalled thinking.

Then the State Department upped the wait time for a regular passport to as much as 13 weeks. “We'll still be okay,” she thought.

At T-minus two weeks to travel, this was her assessment: “I can’t sleep." This after months of calling, holding, pressing refresh on a website, trying her member of Congress — and stressing as the departure date loomed. Failure to obtain the family’s passports would mean losing $4,000, she said, as well as the chance to meet one of her sons in Italy after a study-abroad semester.

“My nerves are shot, because I may not be able to get to him,” she said. She calls the toll-free number every day, holds for as much as 90 minutes to be told — at best — that she might be able to get a required appointment at passport offices in other states.

“I can’t afford four more plane tickets anywhere in the United States to get a passport when I applied in plenty of time,” she said. “How about they just process my passports?”

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT HAS A CULPRIT: COVID

By March, concerned travelers began asking for answers and then demanding help, including from their representatives in the House and Senate, who widely reported at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJSPjuQFp0">hearings</a>&nbsp;this year that they were receiving more complaints from constituents on passport delays than any other issue.

The U.S. secretary of state had an answer, of a sort.

“With COVID, the bottom basically dropped out of the system,” Antony Blinken&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcras2-XhdE">told a House subcommittee March 23</a>. When demand for travel all but disappeared during the pandemic, he said, the government let contractors go and reassigned staff that had been dedicated to handling passports.

Around the same time, the government also halted an online renewal system "to make sure that we can fine tune it and improve it," Blinken said. He said the department is hiring agents as quickly as possible, opening more appointments and trying to address the crisis in other ways.

Passport applicants lit up social media groups, toll-free numbers and lawmakers' phone lines with questions, appeals for advice and cries for help. Facebook and WhatsApp groups bristled with reports of bewilderment and fury. Reddit published eye-watering diaries, some more than 1,000 words long, of application dates, deposits submitted, contacts made, time on hold, money spent and appeals for advice.

It was 1952 when a law required, for the first time, passports for every U.S. traveler abroad, even in peacetime. Now, passports are processed at centers around the country and printed at secure facilities in Washington, D.C. and Mississippi, according to the Government Printing Office.

But the number of Americans holding valid U.S. passports has grown at roughly 10% faster than the population over the past three decades, according to Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Boston University's Questrom School of Business.

After passport delays derailed his own plans to travel to London earlier this year, Zagorsky found that the number of U.S. passports per American has soared from about three per 100 people in 1989 to nearly 46 per 100 people in 2022. Americans, it turns out, are on the move.

“As a society gets richer," says Zagorsky, "the people in that society say, ‘I want to visit the rest of the world.'”

FOR AMERICANS AND OTHERS ABROAD, IT'S NO PICNIC EITHER

At U.S. consulates overseas, the quest for U.S. visas and passports isn't much brighter.

On a day in June, people in New Delhi could expect to wait 451 days for a visa interview, according to the website. Those in Sao Paulo could plan on waiting more than 600 days. Aspiring travelers in Mexico City were waiting about 750 days; in Bogota, Colombia, it was 801 days.

In Israel, the need is especially acute. More than 200,000 people with citizenship in both countries live in Israel. It's one appointment per person, even for newborns, who must have both parents involved in the process, before traveling to the United States.

Batsheva Gutterman started looking for three appointments immediately after she had a baby in December, with an eye toward attending a family celebration in July, in Raleigh, N.C.

Her quest for three passports stretched from January to June, days before travel. And it only resolved after Gutterman payed a small fee to join a WhatsApp group that alerted her to new appointments, which stay available for only a few seconds. She ultimately got three appointments on three consecutive days — bureaucracy embodied.

“We had to drive the entire family with three small children, an hour-and-a-half to Tel Aviv three days in a row, taking off work and school,” she said. “This makes me incredibly uneasy having a baby in Israel as an American citizen, knowing there is no way I can fly with that baby until we get lucky with an appointment.”

Recently, there appeared to be some progress. The wait for an appointment for a renewed U.S. passport stood at 360 days on June 8. On July 2, the wait was down to 90 days, according to the web site.

FRUSTRATING TALES EMERGE FROM THE TRENCHES

Back in the U.S., Marni Larsen of Holladay, Utah, stood in line in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, in hopes of snagging her son's passport. That way, she hoped, the pair could meet the rest of their family, who had already left as scheduled for Europe, for a long-planned vacation.

She'd applied for her son's passport two months earlier and spent weeks checking for updates online or through a frustrating call system. As the mid-June vacation loomed, Larsen reached out to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJSPjuQFp0">Sen. Mitt Romney</a>&nbsp;’s office, where one of four people he says is assigned full-time to passport issues were able to track down the document in New Orleans.

It was supposed to be shipped to Los Angeles, where she got an appointment to retrieve it. That meant Larsen had to buy new tickets for herself and her son to Los Angeles and reroute their trip from there to Rome. All on a bet that her son's passport was indeed shipped as promised.

“We are just waiting in this massive line of tons of people,” Larsen said. “It’s just been a nightmare.”

They succeeded. But not everyone has been so lucky.

Miranda Richter applied in person to renew passports for herself and her husband, as well as apply a new one on Feb. 9 for a trip with their neighbors to Croatia on June 6. She ended up canceling, losing more than $1,000.

Her timeline went like this: Passports for her husband and daughter arrived in 11 weeks, while Richter's photo was rejected. On May 4, she sent in a new one via priority mail. Then she paid a rush fee of $79, which was never charged to her credit card. Between May 30 and June 2, four days before travel, Richter and her husband spent more than 12 hours on the national passport line while also calling their congressman, senators and third-party couriers.

Finally, she showed up in person at the federal building in downtown Houston, 30 minutes before the passport office opened. Richter said there were at least 100 people in line.

“The security guard asked when is my appointment, and I burst out in tears,” she recalls. She couldn't get one. “It didn't work."

“I just got my passports!” Ginger Collier texts.

She ended up showing up at the passport office in Dallas with her daughter-in-law at 6:30 a.m. and being sorted into groups and lined up against walls. Finally they were called to a window, where the agent was “super nice” and pulled all four of the family's applications — paperwork that had been sitting in the office since March 17. More than seven hours later, the two left the office with directions to pick up their passports the next day.

“What a ridiculous process,” Collier says. Nevertheless, the reunion with her son in Italy was sweet. She texted last week: “It was the best hug ever!”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/7/1627262146028.jpeg" alt="passport Image by cytis from Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>passport Image by cytis from Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking a valid U.S. passport for that 2023 trip? Buckle up, wishful traveler, for a very different journey before you step anywhere near an airport.A much-feared backup of U.S passport applications has smashed into a wall of government bureaucracy as worldwide travel rebounds&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/video/transportation-security-administration-pandemics-travel-and-tourism-us-department-of-28113d77ccab463d88bcf97c7744b8e0">toward</a>&nbsp;record pre-pandemic&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hajj-hospitality-mecca-construction-ce3c894d6f464aa70069be1a20f8ef5e">levels</a>&nbsp;— with too few humans to handle the load. The result, say aspiring travelers in the U.S. and around the world, is a maddening pre-travel purgatory defined, at best, by costly uncertainty.With family dreams and big money on the line, passport seekers describe a slow-motion agony of waiting, worrying, holding the line, refreshing the screen, complaining to Congress, paying extra fees and following incorrect directions. Some applicants are buying additional plane tickets to snag in-process passports where they sit — in other cities — in time to make the flights they booked in the first place.So grim is the outlook that U.S. officials aren't even denying the problem or predicting when it will ease. They're blaming the epic wait times on&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/who-declares-covid-emergency-over-pandemic-8b6445735df5218b5d9d6ec32fa047ca">lingering pandemic</a>&nbsp;-related staffing shortages and a pause of online processing this year. That’s left the passport agency flooded with a record-busting 500,000 applications a week. The deluge is on-track to top last year’s 22 million passports issued, the State Department says.Stories from applicants and interviews by The Associated Press depict a system of crisis management, in which the agencies are prioritizing urgent cases such as applicants traveling for reasons of “life or death” and those whose travel is only a few days off. For everyone else, the options are few and expensive.So, 2023 traveler, if you still need a valid U.S. passport, prepare for an unplanned excursion into the nightmare zone.‘PLENTY OF TIME’ TO ‘WE’LL STILL BE OK' TO BIG PROBLEMSIt was early March when Dallas-area florist Ginger Collier applied for four passports ahead of a family vacation at the end of June. The clerk, she said, estimated wait times at eight to 11 weeks. They'd have their passports a month before they needed them. "Plenty of time," Collier recalled thinking.Then the State Department upped the wait time for a regular passport to as much as 13 weeks. “We'll still be okay,” she thought.At T-minus two weeks to travel, this was her assessment: “I can’t sleep." This after months of calling, holding, pressing refresh on a website, trying her member of Congress — and stressing as the departure date loomed. Failure to obtain the family’s passports would mean losing $4,000, she said, as well as the chance to meet one of her sons in Italy after a study-abroad semester.“My nerves are shot, because I may not be able to get to him,” she said. She calls the toll-free number every day, holds for as much as 90 minutes to be told — at best — that she might be able to get a required appointment at passport offices in other states.“I can’t afford four more plane tickets anywhere in the United States to get a passport when I applied in plenty of time,” she said. “How about they just process my passports?”THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT HAS A CULPRIT: COVIDBy March, concerned travelers began asking for answers and then demanding help, including from their representatives in the House and Senate, who widely reported at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJSPjuQFp0">hearings</a>&nbsp;this year that they were receiving more complaints from constituents on passport delays than any other issue.The U.S. secretary of state had an answer, of a sort.“With COVID, the bottom basically dropped out of the system,” Antony Blinken&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcras2-XhdE">told a House subcommittee March 23</a>. When demand for travel all but disappeared during the pandemic, he said, the government let contractors go and reassigned staff that had been dedicated to handling passports.Around the same time, the government also halted an online renewal system "to make sure that we can fine tune it and improve it," Blinken said. He said the department is hiring agents as quickly as possible, opening more appointments and trying to address the crisis in other ways.Passport applicants lit up social media groups, toll-free numbers and lawmakers' phone lines with questions, appeals for advice and cries for help. Facebook and WhatsApp groups bristled with reports of bewilderment and fury. Reddit published eye-watering diaries, some more than 1,000 words long, of application dates, deposits submitted, contacts made, time on hold, money spent and appeals for advice.It was 1952 when a law required, for the first time, passports for every U.S. traveler abroad, even in peacetime. Now, passports are processed at centers around the country and printed at secure facilities in Washington, D.C. and Mississippi, according to the Government Printing Office.But the number of Americans holding valid U.S. passports has grown at roughly 10% faster than the population over the past three decades, according to Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Boston University's Questrom School of Business.After passport delays derailed his own plans to travel to London earlier this year, Zagorsky found that the number of U.S. passports per American has soared from about three per 100 people in 1989 to nearly 46 per 100 people in 2022. Americans, it turns out, are on the move.“As a society gets richer," says Zagorsky, "the people in that society say, ‘I want to visit the rest of the world.'”FOR AMERICANS AND OTHERS ABROAD, IT'S NO PICNIC EITHERAt U.S. consulates overseas, the quest for U.S. visas and passports isn't much brighter.On a day in June, people in New Delhi could expect to wait 451 days for a visa interview, according to the website. Those in Sao Paulo could plan on waiting more than 600 days. Aspiring travelers in Mexico City were waiting about 750 days; in Bogota, Colombia, it was 801 days.In Israel, the need is especially acute. More than 200,000 people with citizenship in both countries live in Israel. It's one appointment per person, even for newborns, who must have both parents involved in the process, before traveling to the United States.Batsheva Gutterman started looking for three appointments immediately after she had a baby in December, with an eye toward attending a family celebration in July, in Raleigh, N.C.Her quest for three passports stretched from January to June, days before travel. And it only resolved after Gutterman payed a small fee to join a WhatsApp group that alerted her to new appointments, which stay available for only a few seconds. She ultimately got three appointments on three consecutive days — bureaucracy embodied.“We had to drive the entire family with three small children, an hour-and-a-half to Tel Aviv three days in a row, taking off work and school,” she said. “This makes me incredibly uneasy having a baby in Israel as an American citizen, knowing there is no way I can fly with that baby until we get lucky with an appointment.”Recently, there appeared to be some progress. The wait for an appointment for a renewed U.S. passport stood at 360 days on June 8. On July 2, the wait was down to 90 days, according to the web site.FRUSTRATING TALES EMERGE FROM THE TRENCHESBack in the U.S., Marni Larsen of Holladay, Utah, stood in line in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, in hopes of snagging her son's passport. That way, she hoped, the pair could meet the rest of their family, who had already left as scheduled for Europe, for a long-planned vacation.She'd applied for her son's passport two months earlier and spent weeks checking for updates online or through a frustrating call system. As the mid-June vacation loomed, Larsen reached out to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOJSPjuQFp0">Sen. Mitt Romney</a>&nbsp;’s office, where one of four people he says is assigned full-time to passport issues were able to track down the document in New Orleans.It was supposed to be shipped to Los Angeles, where she got an appointment to retrieve it. That meant Larsen had to buy new tickets for herself and her son to Los Angeles and reroute their trip from there to Rome. All on a bet that her son's passport was indeed shipped as promised.“We are just waiting in this massive line of tons of people,” Larsen said. “It’s just been a nightmare.”They succeeded. But not everyone has been so lucky.Miranda Richter applied in person to renew passports for herself and her husband, as well as apply a new one on Feb. 9 for a trip with their neighbors to Croatia on June 6. She ended up canceling, losing more than $1,000.Her timeline went like this: Passports for her husband and daughter arrived in 11 weeks, while Richter's photo was rejected. On May 4, she sent in a new one via priority mail. Then she paid a rush fee of $79, which was never charged to her credit card. Between May 30 and June 2, four days before travel, Richter and her husband spent more than 12 hours on the national passport line while also calling their congressman, senators and third-party couriers.Finally, she showed up in person at the federal building in downtown Houston, 30 minutes before the passport office opened. Richter said there were at least 100 people in line.“The security guard asked when is my appointment, and I burst out in tears,” she recalls. She couldn't get one. “It didn't work."FINALLY: A HAPPY ENDING“I just got my passports!” Ginger Collier texts.She ended up showing up at the passport office in Dallas with her daughter-in-law at 6:30 a.m. and being sorted into groups and lined up against walls. Finally they were called to a window, where the agent was “super nice” and pulled all four of the family's applications — paperwork that had been sitting in the office since March 17. More than seven hours later, the two left the office with directions to pick up their passports the next day.They did — with four days to spare.“What a ridiculous process,” Collier says. Nevertheless, the reunion with her son in Italy was sweet. She texted last week: “It was the best hug ever!”___

The wait for US passports is creating travel purgatory, snarling plans

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-protected-speech-lawsuit-injunction-148c1cd43f88a0284d5a3c53fd333727">order</a>&nbsp;by a federal judge in Louisiana has ignited a high-stakes legal battle over how the government is allowed to interact with social media platforms, raising broad questions about whether — and how — officials can fight what they deem misinformation on health or other matters.

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a conservative nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, chose Independence Day to issue an injunction&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-protected-speech-lawsuit-injunction-148c1cd43f88a0284d5a3c53fd333727">blocking multiple government agencies and administration officials.</a>&nbsp;In his words, they are forbidden to meet with or contact social media companies for the purpose of “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The order also prohibits the agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies "in any manner” to try to suppress posts, raising questions about what officials could even say in public forums.

Doughty's order blocks the administration from taking such actions pending further arguments in his court in a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana.

Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”

The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal and said it would also seek to try to stay the court’s order.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We certainly disagree with this decision.” She declined to comment further.

An administration official said there was some concern about the impact the decision would have on efforts to counter domestic extremism — deemed by the intelligence community to be a top threat to the nation — but that it would depend on how long the injunction remains in place and what steps platforms take on their own. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The lawsuit alleges that government officials used the possibility of favorable or unfavorable regulatory action to coerce social media platforms to squelch what the administration considered misinformation on a variety of topics, including COVID-19 vaccines, President Joe Biden's son Hunter, and election integrity.

The injunction — and Doughty's accompanying reasons saying the administration "seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’" — were hailed by conservatives as a victory for free speech and a blow to censorship.

Legal experts, however, expressed surprise at the breadth of the order, and questioned whether it puts too many limits on a presidential administration.

“When we were in the midst of the pandemic, but even now, the government has significantly important public health expertise,” James Speta, a law professor and expert on internet regulation at Northwestern University, said Wednesday. “The scope of the injunction limits the ability of the government to share public health expertise.”

The implications go beyond public health.

Disinformation researchers and social media watchdogs said the ruling could make social media companies less accountable to label and remove election falsehoods.

"As the U.S. gears up for the biggest election year the internet age has seen, we should be finding methods to better coordinate between governments and social media companies to increase the integrity of election news and information,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel of the digital rights advocacy group Free Press.

Social media companies routinely take down posts that violate their own standards, but they are rarely compelled to do so by the U.S. government.

Meta restricted access to 27 items that it thought violated laws in the U.S. during the first six months of 2020, most of them involving price-gouging allegations, according to its transparency report. But it reported no U.S.-specific content restrictions during 2021 or the first six months of 2022, the most recent data available.

By contrast, Meta restricted access to more than 17,000 social media posts in Mexico during the same period, most pertaining to unlawful advertising on risky cosmetic or dietary products, and more than 19,000 posts and comments in South Korea reported as violating national election rules.

Administration attorneys, in past court filings, have called the lawsuit an attempt to gag the free speech rights of administration officials themselves.

Justin Levitt, a law professor and constitutional law expert who is a former policy adviser to the Biden administration, said the order is unclear as to whether an official could even speak publicly to criticize misinformation on a social media platform.

Elizabeth Murrill, an assistant Louisiana attorney general, said Wednesday that the order doesn't infringe on such public criticism, as long as the official doesn't threaten government action against the platform.

Jennifer Grygiel, a communications professor and social media expert at Syracuse University, said Americans should resist the urge to dismiss the case as politically motivated and remain vigilant about the risks of federal encroachment on social media platforms.

“I’m more concerned that we’re lacking critique in the government’s intervention in these spaces,” Grygiel said. “We need, as a public, to be very critical of any attempts by a government, a federal actor, to censor speech through a corporate entity.”

Doughty has previously ruled against the Biden administration in other high-profile cases involving oil drilling and vaccination mandates.

In 2021 he issued a nationwide block of a Biden administration requirement that health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals trimmed the area covered by the order to 14 states that were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/11/1667963892129.png" alt="Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”-courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”-courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-protected-speech-lawsuit-injunction-148c1cd43f88a0284d5a3c53fd333727">order</a>&nbsp;by a federal judge in Louisiana has ignited a high-stakes legal battle over how the government is allowed to interact with social media platforms, raising broad questions about whether — and how — officials can fight what they deem misinformation on health or other matters.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688666322401.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a conservative nominated to the federal bench by former President Donald Trump, chose Independence Day to issue an injunction&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/social-media-protected-speech-lawsuit-injunction-148c1cd43f88a0284d5a3c53fd333727">blocking multiple government agencies and administration officials.</a>&nbsp;In his words, they are forbidden to meet with or contact social media companies for the purpose of “encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”The order also prohibits the agencies and officials from pressuring social media companies "in any manner” to try to suppress posts, raising questions about what officials could even say in public forums.Doughty's order blocks the administration from taking such actions pending further arguments in his court in a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">King George believed the Declaration of Independence was “misinformation” God bless America and God bless the First Amendment. 🇺🇸&mdash; Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) <a href="https://twitter.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/1676411167126835201?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Republican U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, who was the Missouri attorney general when the lawsuit was filed, said on Twitter that the ruling was “a huge win for the First Amendment and a blow to censorship.”The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal and said it would also seek to try to stay the court’s order.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We certainly disagree with this decision.” She declined to comment further.An administration official said there was some concern about the impact the decision would have on efforts to counter domestic extremism — deemed by the intelligence community to be a top threat to the nation — but that it would depend on how long the injunction remains in place and what steps platforms take on their own. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.The lawsuit alleges that government officials used the possibility of favorable or unfavorable regulatory action to coerce social media platforms to squelch what the administration considered misinformation on a variety of topics, including COVID-19 vaccines, President Joe Biden's son Hunter, and election integrity.The injunction — and Doughty's accompanying reasons saying the administration "seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’" — were hailed by conservatives as a victory for free speech and a blow to censorship.Legal experts, however, expressed surprise at the breadth of the order, and questioned whether it puts too many limits on a presidential administration.“When we were in the midst of the pandemic, but even now, the government has significantly important public health expertise,” James Speta, a law professor and expert on internet regulation at Northwestern University, said Wednesday. “The scope of the injunction limits the ability of the government to share public health expertise.”The implications go beyond public health.Disinformation researchers and social media watchdogs said the ruling could make social media companies less accountable to label and remove election falsehoods."As the U.S. gears up for the biggest election year the internet age has seen, we should be finding methods to better coordinate between governments and social media companies to increase the integrity of election news and information,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel of the digital rights advocacy group Free Press.Social media companies routinely take down posts that violate their own standards, but they are rarely compelled to do so by the U.S. government.Meta restricted access to 27 items that it thought violated laws in the U.S. during the first six months of 2020, most of them involving price-gouging allegations, according to its transparency report. But it reported no U.S.-specific content restrictions during 2021 or the first six months of 2022, the most recent data available.By contrast, Meta restricted access to more than 17,000 social media posts in Mexico during the same period, most pertaining to unlawful advertising on risky cosmetic or dietary products, and more than 19,000 posts and comments in South Korea reported as violating national election rules.Administration attorneys, in past court filings, have called the lawsuit an attempt to gag the free speech rights of administration officials themselves.Justin Levitt, a law professor and constitutional law expert who is a former policy adviser to the Biden administration, said the order is unclear as to whether an official could even speak publicly to criticize misinformation on a social media platform.Elizabeth Murrill, an assistant Louisiana attorney general, said Wednesday that the order doesn't infringe on such public criticism, as long as the official doesn't threaten government action against the platform.Jennifer Grygiel, a communications professor and social media expert at Syracuse University, said Americans should resist the urge to dismiss the case as politically motivated and remain vigilant about the risks of federal encroachment on social media platforms.“I’m more concerned that we’re lacking critique in the government’s intervention in these spaces,” Grygiel said. “We need, as a public, to be very critical of any attempts by a government, a federal actor, to censor speech through a corporate entity.”Doughty has previously ruled against the Biden administration in other high-profile cases involving oil drilling and vaccination mandates.In 2021 he issued a nationwide block of a Biden administration requirement that health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. A panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals trimmed the area covered by the order to 14 states that were plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Court fight: DOJ responds to ruling on interference in social media content

KANSAS CITY —Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced Friday that new criminal charges&nbsp;have been&nbsp;filed in connection with the May 21 fatal mass shootings at the&nbsp;Klymax&nbsp;Lounge in Kansas City.

Isiah D.&nbsp;Clinton, 36, faces three counts of Murder 1st&nbsp;Degree, 2 counts of Assault 1st&nbsp;Degree, and 5 counts of Armed Criminal Action.&nbsp; A security guard identified as 41-year-old  Jason McConnell, 24-year-old  Antoinette Brenson and 33-year-old  Clarence Henderson all died in the shooting.

According to court records, Kansas City police were&nbsp; early the morning of May 21, were dispatched to the shooting at the&nbsp;Klymax&nbsp;Lounge nightclub at 4242 Indiana Avenue.

 Upon arrival, officers located five shooting victims, three who were declared deceased and two who were transported to local hospitals for treatment, where they were listed in critical condition.&nbsp;&nbsp;

On May 22,&nbsp;according to court records,&nbsp;officers on routine patrol in the area of 35th and Prospect identified a vehicle that matched the description of the suspect vehicle observed in the area of the Lounge at the time of the shooting. The occupants of the vehicle, including Isiah Clinton, who was operating the vehicle with a suspended driver’s license.

Charges were filed on July 3, but were placed under seal until Clinton could be apprehended. He was arrested Thursday, and the charging documents are now being made public.&nbsp;Although charges have been filed against Clinton, Kansas City police&nbsp;continue to investigate&nbsp;additional&nbsp;suspects and charges.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/5/1684669834332.png" alt="Two of the victims died at the scene, according to Police -Photo Jackson County Sheriff Daryl Forte" />
 <figcaption>Two of the victims died at the scene, according to Police -Photo Jackson County Sheriff Daryl Forte</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY —Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced Friday that new criminal charges&nbsp;have been&nbsp;filed in connection with the May 21 fatal mass shootings at the&nbsp;Klymax&nbsp;Lounge in Kansas City.Isiah D.&nbsp;Clinton, 36, faces three counts of Murder 1st&nbsp;Degree, 2 counts of Assault 1st&nbsp;Degree, and 5 counts of Armed Criminal Action.&nbsp; A security guard identified as 41-year-old Jason McConnell, 24-year-old Antoinette Brenson and 33-year-old Clarence Henderson all died in the shooting.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688745590686.png" alt="Clinton-photo Jackson County" />
 <figcaption>Clinton-photo Jackson County</figcaption>
 </figure>According to court records, Kansas City police were&nbsp; early the morning of May 21, were dispatched to the shooting at the&nbsp;Klymax&nbsp;Lounge nightclub at 4242 Indiana Avenue. Upon arrival, officers located five shooting victims, three who were declared deceased and two who were transported to local hospitals for treatment, where they were listed in critical condition.&nbsp;&nbsp;<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/5/1684708013628.png" alt="-A security guard identified as 41-year-old Jason McConnell, 24-year-old Antoinette Brenson and 33-year-old Clarence Henderson all died in the shooting.-Google image" />
 <figcaption>-A security guard identified as 41-year-old Jason McConnell, 24-year-old Antoinette Brenson and 33-year-old Clarence Henderson all died in the shooting.-Google image</figcaption>
 </figure>On May 22,&nbsp;according to court records,&nbsp;officers on routine patrol in the area of 35th and Prospect identified a vehicle that matched the description of the suspect vehicle observed in the area of the Lounge at the time of the shooting. The occupants of the vehicle, including Isiah Clinton, who was operating the vehicle with a suspended driver’s license.Charges were filed on July 3, but were placed under seal until Clinton could be apprehended. He was arrested Thursday, and the charging documents are now being made public.&nbsp;Although charges have been filed against Clinton, Kansas City police&nbsp;continue to investigate&nbsp;additional&nbsp;suspects and charges.&nbsp;

Suspect charged in deadly mass shooting at Kansas City bar 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — County election security policies in Kansas don't appear to be strong or detailed enough, and the state doesn't appear to be giving counties enough guidance on how best to oversee voting, according to an audit released Thursday.

<a href="https://www.kslpa.org/audit-report-library/reviewing-kansass-procedures-for-election-security-part-2/">The report</a>&nbsp;from the auditing arm of the Republican-controlled Legislature is the second on election security issues this year and was initiated amid an ongoing circulation of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-politics-donald-trump-arizona-9b675ed2223da37a90e5b53cfb6cf9b8">baseless election conspiracy theories</a>&nbsp;among GOP conservatives.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kslpa.org/audit-report-library/review/">The first report,</a>&nbsp;released in February, said auditors couldn't tell whether county election workers are being adequately trained “because no one tracks this, and state law says very little about it."

Like their counterparts in other states, Kansas supporters of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-michael-pence-electoral-college-elections-health-2d9bd47a8bd3561682ac46c6b3873a10">former President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;have suggested that fraud is a major issue in the state's elections despite the lack of evidence of a significant problem. However, rather than attempt to bolster or undercut such claims, the two audits this year have focused on election procedures and whether they represent election security gaps.

For the latest report, auditors examined election security procedures in 15 of the state's 105 counties and found that none of those counties had comprehensive security policies or guidance. The audit said most of the counties had inadequate procedures for testing voting machines' accuracy after elections or for securing their voting machines from unauthorized access while they are deployed.

“We have some work to do,” said state Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican and vice chair of the legislative committee directing the auditors' work.

The audit suggested that money and personnel plays a role: The more populous counties surveyed generally were better at following best practices outlined by the federal Election Assistance Commission than the more rural ones. Yet even the auditors avoided suggesting that election procedures ought to be uniform across the state.

Asked whether the Kansas secretary of state's office might have separate sets of guidance for the most populous counties and the others, state elections director Bryan Caskey said: “To me, there's 105 ways of doing things, not two.”

Secretary of State Scott Schwab's office pushed back on auditors' suggestion that it isn't providing enough guidance on security issues to county officials. Its formal response to the audit said its training for election officials deals with security issues and the office is working on more standardized policies and forms.

Caskey said security regulations will be updated before the 2024 election and Schwab's office passes along guidance on best practices from multiple federal agencies. He noted that the agencies don't have a single, common list of practices that guarantee a secure election, making guidance “a never-ending job.”

Still, Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican and another audit committee member, said a single list of best practices for county officials “absolutely makes sense."

“I do think that it'd be overwhelming for county clerks, especially small counties, that may just recently have been elected to that position, to try to discern what are the best practices from so many different agencies or outlets,” Williams said.

Sen. Ethan Corson, a Prairie Village Democrat and audit committee member, said while lawmakers should encourage Schwab's office to provide more guidance, they shouldn't impose mandates without providing the funding to meet them, especially in rural counties.

“This is a tricky issue,” Corson said.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — County election security policies in Kansas don't appear to be strong or detailed enough, and the state doesn't appear to be giving counties enough guidance on how best to oversee voting, according to an audit released Thursday.<a href="https://www.kslpa.org/audit-report-library/reviewing-kansass-procedures-for-election-security-part-2/">The report</a>&nbsp;from the auditing arm of the Republican-controlled Legislature is the second on election security issues this year and was initiated amid an ongoing circulation of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-politics-donald-trump-arizona-9b675ed2223da37a90e5b53cfb6cf9b8">baseless election conspiracy theories</a>&nbsp;among GOP conservatives.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kslpa.org/audit-report-library/review/">The first report,</a>&nbsp;released in February, said auditors couldn't tell whether county election workers are being adequately trained “because no one tracks this, and state law says very little about it."Like their counterparts in other states, Kansas supporters of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-michael-pence-electoral-college-elections-health-2d9bd47a8bd3561682ac46c6b3873a10">former President Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;have suggested that fraud is a major issue in the state's elections despite the lack of evidence of a significant problem. However, rather than attempt to bolster or undercut such claims, the two audits this year have focused on election procedures and whether they represent election security gaps.For the latest report, auditors examined election security procedures in 15 of the state's 105 counties and found that none of those counties had comprehensive security policies or guidance. The audit said most of the counties had inadequate procedures for testing voting machines' accuracy after elections or for securing their voting machines from unauthorized access while they are deployed.“We have some work to do,” said state Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Parker Republican and vice chair of the legislative committee directing the auditors' work.The audit suggested that money and personnel plays a role: The more populous counties surveyed generally were better at following best practices outlined by the federal Election Assistance Commission than the more rural ones. Yet even the auditors avoided suggesting that election procedures ought to be uniform across the state.Asked whether the Kansas secretary of state's office might have separate sets of guidance for the most populous counties and the others, state elections director Bryan Caskey said: “To me, there's 105 ways of doing things, not two.”Secretary of State Scott Schwab's office pushed back on auditors' suggestion that it isn't providing enough guidance on security issues to county officials. Its formal response to the audit said its training for election officials deals with security issues and the office is working on more standardized policies and forms.Caskey said security regulations will be updated before the 2024 election and Schwab's office passes along guidance on best practices from multiple federal agencies. He noted that the agencies don't have a single, common list of practices that guarantee a secure election, making guidance “a never-ending job.”Still, Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican and another audit committee member, said a single list of best practices for county officials “absolutely makes sense."“I do think that it'd be overwhelming for county clerks, especially small counties, that may just recently have been elected to that position, to try to discern what are the best practices from so many different agencies or outlets,” Williams said.Sen. Ethan Corson, a Prairie Village Democrat and audit committee member, said while lawmakers should encourage Schwab's office to provide more guidance, they shouldn't impose mandates without providing the funding to meet them, especially in rural counties.“This is a tricky issue,” Corson said.

Kansas audit questions whether local election security policies are strong enough

DICKINSON COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities investigating a burglary have made an arrest.

On Thursday, Solomon High School, 400 North Pine Street in Solomon, reported the burglary and theft of&nbsp; power tools, according to Dickinson County Undersheriff Jeff Vaughan.

A deputy responded to the school and learned approximately $1393 worth of tools were missing.

Deputies applied for a search warrant for a residence in Salina. During the search, deputies recovered the tools taken in the burglary.&nbsp;

Later on Thursday, the deputy who responded to the school made contact with the suspect in the case. The deputy arrested 51-year-old Troy Dean Holcom of Salina and booked him into the Dickinson County Jail on requested charges of burglary and theft.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688738522766.png" alt="Holcom-photo Dickinson County" />
 <figcaption>Holcom-photo Dickinson County</figcaption>
 </figure>DICKINSON COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities investigating a burglary have made an arrest.On Thursday, Solomon High School, 400 North Pine Street in Solomon, reported the burglary and theft of&nbsp; power tools, according to Dickinson County Undersheriff Jeff Vaughan.A deputy responded to the school and learned approximately $1393 worth of tools were missing.Deputies applied for a search warrant for a residence in Salina. During the search, deputies recovered the tools taken in the burglary.&nbsp;Later on Thursday, the deputy who responded to the school made contact with the suspect in the case. The deputy arrested 51-year-old Troy Dean Holcom of Salina and booked him into the Dickinson County Jail on requested charges of burglary and theft.

Sheriff: Kansas man took $1300 in tools from high school

By ERIC THOMAS <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/02/17/antisemitic-messages-in-kansas-high-schools-reflect-how-jewish-people-are-treated-nationwide/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a>

Chuck Marsh could tell that something was a bit jittery about his Journalism 101 class at the University of Kansas.

Marsh was instructing the spring 2009 installment of “Media &amp; Society.” During the April 28 class, he was taking his students through the normal routine. He walked around the Budig Hall auditorium while his graduate students presented about an issue from current events. The student chatter seemed a bit amplified compared to normal, but nothing disruptive.

It was probably about then that he noticed one of his students sitting apart from most of the class with two other people in the second tier of student seats.

His student, Abigail Anderson, gave him an embarrassed smile.

But was that her father sitting with her? The man looked too old to be a student.

And was that another student rounding out the group of three? Marsh wondered.

As he began lecturing for his portion of the class period, Marsh didn’t know this would be the most extraordinary class period of the 20 semesters that he taught J101. That it would be a story that he would tell his children. That it would be a story reported in the campus and community newspaper. That it would be a story I would interview him about 14 years later.

“As soon as class was over, it was like somebody had turned on a vacuum,” Marsh said. “Everybody ran in that direction. And I turned to my graduate students, and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ They said, ‘That’s Taylor Swift.’

“So, I was the only one in the classroom who didn’t know who was sitting there.”

What does Marsh take away from the brush with fame 14 years later?&nbsp;

“Well, besides my claiming full credit for her success through a magnificent, magnificent lecture?” Marsh asked Thursday.

Anderson, an undergraduate at KU at the time, had brought her best friend Taylor to Lawrence for a visit. As the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kansan.com/news/taylor-swift-visits-university/article_8f1ec9a2-b47d-5b3c-992d-ef84dff4ac1c.html">University Daily Kansan</a>&nbsp;reported, the celebrity sighting spread through text messages,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/aug/20/best-friends-swimmer-sees-perks-pitfalls-country-s/">attracting a crowd to the standing room at the back of the auditorium and the hallways outside</a>.

Students huddled around Swift, posing for photos. One student, according to the Kansan, even worked to slip the pop star his number.

Anderson attended KU, competing on the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://kuathletics.com/roster/abigail-anderson/">school’s swim and dive team</a>. She set two school records in the backstroke and now works in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.celerocommerce.com/abigail-lucier">mergers and acquisitions for a Nashville-based company</a>.

Some benefits of being Swift’s best friend? Nearly 429,000&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/abigail_lauren/?hl=en">Instagram</a>&nbsp;followers. A write-up on your 2022 marriage in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/1347949/taylor-swifts-longtime-friend-abigail-anderson-marries-charles-berard">E! News</a>. And being the “redhead” best friend referenced in Swift’s hit song “Fifteen.”

“And soon enough you’re best friends,” Swift sings. “Laughing at the other girls, who they think they’re so cool.”

(I tried to reach Anderson with some last-minute requests for an interview this week but didn’t hear back.)

I loved hearing this anecdote about one of the most famous people in the world visiting Marsh’s class at KU. First of all, because Swift went on to give Kansas a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/taylor-swift-talks-about-some-of-her-favorite-things-video">shout-out</a>&nbsp;during an interview recorded by the Oprah Winfrey Show.

“My perfect day off would be going to visit my best friend Abigail in Lawrence, Kansas,” Swift said in the interview. “She goes to Kansas University, so basically that’s my best friend since I was 15. I love going to visit her.”

Second, because my wife was charming enough to land tickets to Saturday’s concert for the two of us.

But mostly because I will teach the same course in the same lecture hall this fall. What a mind scramble it would be to have a celebrity — or a “starlet,” as the Kansan put it — in class.

To be clear, Swift’s 2009 visit was only two albums into a discography that has now ballooned to 10 studio albums. She is doubtlessly the most successful recording artist of the past few decades — and there she was in Jayhawk Boulevard with her best friend, a KU student.

Marsh and I struggled to compare her historically to other musicians in terms of fame. I offered the closest comparison for my generation: Michael Jackson. His worldwide fame and tours created a spectacle that was only rivaled by his bizarre public controversies and accusations of child assault. Regardless of your musical tastes, you have to admire Swift’s composure and juggernaut success in the spotlight.

Marsh suggested the Beatles. However, he pointed out, they could escape from fame in a way that seems impossible for Swift.

“They were in their comparatively relentless spotlight,” Marsh said. “But they could escape to Greece or India, and no one would know they were there. I’ll bet Taylor Swift can’t do that.”

“She’s having to invent a way to do this with dignity and class,” Marsh said. “I can’t imagine. Just from the sidelines, I’d say she’s succeeding.”

There’s an irony to having Swift attend “Media &amp; Society” as a faux student. Her work has become the subject of academic study,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2023-05-28/cant-shake-itoff-university-of-kansas-class-will-explore-taylor-swifts-popularity">including a seminar class at the University of Kansas.</a>

As I plan my major themes for teaching the course starting in a few weeks, many moments in Swift’s career can be bullet points in my lecture outlines.

If I want to explain how the media, often above all, is a profit-seeking enterprise, why not mention how Swift has re-recorded many of her albums, as “Taylor’s Versions,” after&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/arts/music/taylor-swift-fearless-taylors-version.html">the master recordings of her earliest songs were sold</a>?

Or, explore how Swift recently dodged some public embarrassment (and perhaps lawsuits) when she (fortunately?) failed to come to terms with a Vitcoin exchange that almost inked a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/technology/tom-brady-crypto-ftx.html">$100 million endorsement deal</a>, before it flopped spectacularly.

As Kansas City celebrates her two shows this weekend, the Taylor Swift empire has become so much more than those KU students could have imagined back in 2009. A single bodyguard couldn’t control the crowd that Swift would attract today. Just imagine the viral tweets announcing Swift on campus. The crush of students. The cellphone cameras held up for a glimpse.

Swift is now subject to academic inquiry, has accomplished a career so extensive that it has eras, cultivated a pop star supernova capable of crashing an online ticketing service, and triggered controversies profound enough to trigger Congressional hearings.

Indeed, to be as famous as Swift means that you leave a wake behind you wherever you have been.

In the days after Swift’s two-night stand at Arrowhead Stadium, the wake of her fame will remain in Kansas City in the shape of teenage girls flaunting their branded T-shirts and middle aged dads posting photos from the concerts on their social media.

Even 14 years later, when the visit of any normal person would be forgotten, Swift’s presence still has people talking on the Lawrence campus.

“That was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve seen in all my years of teaching,” Marsh recalled Thursday. “That was how quickly students got out of their seats and up to the level where she was sitting. They were thrilled. They certainly knew who she was.”

<a target="_blank" href="https://journalism.ku.edu/eric-thomas">Eric Thomas</a>&nbsp;directs the Kansas Scholastic Press Association and teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the University of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://kansasreflector.com/submit-opinion/">here</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688731828651.png" alt="A selection of albums from onetime University of Kansas visitor Taylor Swift available for sale at Love Garden Sounds in Lawrence, Kansas. (Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>A selection of albums from onetime University of Kansas visitor Taylor Swift available for sale at Love Garden Sounds in Lawrence, Kansas. (Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>By ERIC THOMAS <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2023/02/17/antisemitic-messages-in-kansas-high-schools-reflect-how-jewish-people-are-treated-nationwide/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a> Chuck Marsh could tell that something was a bit jittery about his Journalism 101 class at the University of Kansas.Marsh was instructing the spring 2009 installment of “Media &amp; Society.” During the April 28 class, he was taking his students through the normal routine. He walked around the Budig Hall auditorium while his graduate students presented about an issue from current events. The student chatter seemed a bit amplified compared to normal, but nothing disruptive.It was probably about then that he noticed one of his students sitting apart from most of the class with two other people in the second tier of student seats.His student, Abigail Anderson, gave him an embarrassed smile.But was that her father sitting with her? The man looked too old to be a student.And was that another student rounding out the group of three? Marsh wondered.As he began lecturing for his portion of the class period, Marsh didn’t know this would be the most extraordinary class period of the 20 semesters that he taught J101. That it would be a story that he would tell his children. That it would be a story reported in the campus and community newspaper. That it would be a story I would interview him about 14 years later.“As soon as class was over, it was like somebody had turned on a vacuum,” Marsh said. “Everybody ran in that direction. And I turned to my graduate students, and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ They said, ‘That’s Taylor Swift.’“So, I was the only one in the classroom who didn’t know who was sitting there.”What does Marsh take away from the brush with fame 14 years later?&nbsp;“Well, besides my claiming full credit for her success through a magnificent, magnificent lecture?” Marsh asked Thursday.Anderson, an undergraduate at KU at the time, had brought her best friend Taylor to Lawrence for a visit. As the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kansan.com/news/taylor-swift-visits-university/article_8f1ec9a2-b47d-5b3c-992d-ef84dff4ac1c.html">University Daily Kansan</a>&nbsp;reported, the celebrity sighting spread through text messages,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2009/aug/20/best-friends-swimmer-sees-perks-pitfalls-country-s/">attracting a crowd to the standing room at the back of the auditorium and the hallways outside</a>.Students huddled around Swift, posing for photos. One student, according to the Kansan, even worked to slip the pop star his number.Anderson attended KU, competing on the&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://kuathletics.com/roster/abigail-anderson/">school’s swim and dive team</a>. She set two school records in the backstroke and now works in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.celerocommerce.com/abigail-lucier">mergers and acquisitions for a Nashville-based company</a>.Some benefits of being Swift’s best friend? Nearly 429,000&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.instagram.com/abigail_lauren/?hl=en">Instagram</a>&nbsp;followers. A write-up on your 2022 marriage in&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.eonline.com/ca/news/1347949/taylor-swifts-longtime-friend-abigail-anderson-marries-charles-berard">E! News</a>. And being the “redhead” best friend referenced in Swift’s hit song “Fifteen.”“And soon enough you’re best friends,” Swift sings. “Laughing at the other girls, who they think they’re so cool.”(I tried to reach Anderson with some last-minute requests for an interview this week but didn’t hear back.)I loved hearing this anecdote about one of the most famous people in the world visiting Marsh’s class at KU. First of all, because Swift went on to give Kansas a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/taylor-swift-talks-about-some-of-her-favorite-things-video">shout-out</a>&nbsp;during an interview recorded by the Oprah Winfrey Show.“My perfect day off would be going to visit my best friend Abigail in Lawrence, Kansas,” Swift said in the interview. “She goes to Kansas University, so basically that’s my best friend since I was 15. I love going to visit her.”Second, because my wife was charming enough to land tickets to Saturday’s concert for the two of us.But mostly because I will teach the same course in the same lecture hall this fall. What a mind scramble it would be to have a celebrity — or a “starlet,” as the Kansan put it — in class.To be clear, Swift’s 2009 visit was only two albums into a discography that has now ballooned to 10 studio albums. She is doubtlessly the most successful recording artist of the past few decades — and there she was in Jayhawk Boulevard with her best friend, a KU student.Marsh and I struggled to compare her historically to other musicians in terms of fame. I offered the closest comparison for my generation: Michael Jackson. His worldwide fame and tours created a spectacle that was only rivaled by his bizarre public controversies and accusations of child assault. Regardless of your musical tastes, you have to admire Swift’s composure and juggernaut success in the spotlight.Marsh suggested the Beatles. However, he pointed out, they could escape from fame in a way that seems impossible for Swift.“They were in their comparatively relentless spotlight,” Marsh said. “But they could escape to Greece or India, and no one would know they were there. I’ll bet Taylor Swift can’t do that.”“She’s having to invent a way to do this with dignity and class,” Marsh said. “I can’t imagine. Just from the sidelines, I’d say she’s succeeding.”There’s an irony to having Swift attend “Media &amp; Society” as a faux student. Her work has become the subject of academic study,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2023-05-28/cant-shake-itoff-university-of-kansas-class-will-explore-taylor-swifts-popularity">including a seminar class at the University of Kansas.</a>As I plan my major themes for teaching the course starting in a few weeks, many moments in Swift’s career can be bullet points in my lecture outlines.If I want to explain how the media, often above all, is a profit-seeking enterprise, why not mention how Swift has re-recorded many of her albums, as “Taylor’s Versions,” after&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/arts/music/taylor-swift-fearless-taylors-version.html">the master recordings of her earliest songs were sold</a>?Or, explore how Swift recently dodged some public embarrassment (and perhaps lawsuits) when she (fortunately?) failed to come to terms with a Vitcoin exchange that almost inked a&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/technology/tom-brady-crypto-ftx.html">$100 million endorsement deal</a>, before it flopped spectacularly.As Kansas City celebrates her two shows this weekend, the Taylor Swift empire has become so much more than those KU students could have imagined back in 2009. A single bodyguard couldn’t control the crowd that Swift would attract today. Just imagine the viral tweets announcing Swift on campus. The crush of students. The cellphone cameras held up for a glimpse.Swift is now subject to academic inquiry, has accomplished a career so extensive that it has eras, cultivated a pop star supernova capable of crashing an online ticketing service, and triggered controversies profound enough to trigger Congressional hearings.Indeed, to be as famous as Swift means that you leave a wake behind you wherever you have been.In the days after Swift’s two-night stand at Arrowhead Stadium, the wake of her fame will remain in Kansas City in the shape of teenage girls flaunting their branded T-shirts and middle aged dads posting photos from the concerts on their social media.Even 14 years later, when the visit of any normal person would be forgotten, Swift’s presence still has people talking on the Lawrence campus.“That was honestly one of the funniest things I’ve seen in all my years of teaching,” Marsh recalled Thursday. “That was how quickly students got out of their seats and up to the level where she was sitting. They were thrilled. They certainly knew who she was.”<a target="_blank" href="https://journalism.ku.edu/eric-thomas">Eric Thomas</a>&nbsp;directs the Kansas Scholastic Press Association and teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the University of Kansas. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary,&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://kansasreflector.com/submit-opinion/">here</a>.

 Rewind to when Taylor Swift attended class at KU — at least for one day

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A former bank vice president pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to embezzling at least $550,000 from the People’s Bank of Moniteau County, according to the United State's Attorney.

Angela Flippin, 51, of Jamestown, Mo., waived her right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. to a federal information that charges her with one count of embezzlement by a bank employee and one count of filing a false federal tax return.

Flippin was the vice president and chief operating officer at the People’s Bank of Moniteau County, which has locations in Jamestown and California, Mo. She was also the board secretary for many years and held that position when she was terminated.

By pleading guilty.&nbsp; Flippin admitted that she embezzled at least $550,000 from 2010 to Jan. 30, 2017. The government believes she embezzled $645,638 and will present evidence for that amount at the sentencing hearing.

In January 2017, the Missouri Division of Finance discovered improper transactions involving Flippin. From 2010 through 2017, three areas of improper activity were identified; improper disbursements; improper expense reimbursements; and improper insurance premiums. Through their analysis, auditors determined Flippin received more than $550,000 in improper comp time disbursements and more than $8,000 in improper expense reimbursements.

Flippin personally held three separate bank accounts. Analysis of these bank accounts by federal investigators found Flippin made payroll deposits in the amount of $105,750. In addition to Flippin’s payroll deposits there were other deposits which totaled $892,782. Analysis of expenditures from Flippin’s bank accounts found $338,569 in PayPal online shopping transactions and other general debit card transactions.

Flippin also admitted that she failed to report the amounts that she embezzled from People’s Bank of Moniteau County on her 2014, 2015, and 2016 federal income tax returns. During those three years, she embezzled a total of $372,745, resulting in a total tax loss to the federal government of $96,434.

Under federal statutes, Flippin is subject to a sentence of up to 33 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688731325273.png" alt="By pleading guilty. Flippin admitted that she embezzled at least $550,000 from 2010 to Jan. 30, 2017-Google image" />
 <figcaption>By pleading guilty. Flippin admitted that she embezzled at least $550,000 from 2010 to Jan. 30, 2017-Google image</figcaption>
 </figure>JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A former bank vice president pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to embezzling at least $550,000 from the People’s Bank of Moniteau County, according to the United State's Attorney.Angela Flippin, 51, of Jamestown, Mo., waived her right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. to a federal information that charges her with one count of embezzlement by a bank employee and one count of filing a false federal tax return.Flippin was the vice president and chief operating officer at the People’s Bank of Moniteau County, which has locations in Jamestown and California, Mo. She was also the board secretary for many years and held that position when she was terminated.By pleading guilty.&nbsp; Flippin admitted that she embezzled at least $550,000 from 2010 to Jan. 30, 2017. The government believes she embezzled $645,638 and will present evidence for that amount at the sentencing hearing.In January 2017, the Missouri Division of Finance discovered improper transactions involving Flippin. From 2010 through 2017, three areas of improper activity were identified; improper disbursements; improper expense reimbursements; and improper insurance premiums. Through their analysis, auditors determined Flippin received more than $550,000 in improper comp time disbursements and more than $8,000 in improper expense reimbursements.Flippin personally held three separate bank accounts. Analysis of these bank accounts by federal investigators found Flippin made payroll deposits in the amount of $105,750. In addition to Flippin’s payroll deposits there were other deposits which totaled $892,782. Analysis of expenditures from Flippin’s bank accounts found $338,569 in PayPal online shopping transactions and other general debit card transactions.Flippin also admitted that she failed to report the amounts that she embezzled from People’s Bank of Moniteau County on her 2014, 2015, and 2016 federal income tax returns. During those three years, she embezzled a total of $372,745, resulting in a total tax loss to the federal government of $96,434.Under federal statutes, Flippin is subject to a sentence of up to 33 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.

Former Missouri bank executive admits embezzling at least $550,000

KANSAS CITY —Law enforcement authorities investigating a deadly Independence Day shooting at a gas station in Kansas City have identified the man who died as 41-year-old Ronald Kendall.

Just&nbsp;after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, police were dispatched to a shooting at 8505 Woodland in Kansas City, according to Police Captain Corey Carlisle. First responders located Kendall inside the gas station unresponsive and suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Officers performed life saving measures. EMS arrived on scene and declared the him deceased. The second victim, a teenage boy, was shot and transported to an area hospital in stable condition. Police did not provide an update on the teen and have not reported any suspect details.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688564613976.png" alt="Police investigators at the scene of the investigation early Wednesday photo courtesy KMBC" />
 <figcaption>Police investigators at the scene of the investigation early Wednesday photo courtesy KMBC</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY —Law enforcement authorities investigating a deadly Independence Day shooting at a gas station in Kansas City have identified the man who died as 41-year-old Ronald Kendall.Just&nbsp;after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, police were dispatched to a shooting at 8505 Woodland in Kansas City, according to Police Captain Corey Carlisle. First responders located Kendall inside the gas station unresponsive and suffering from an apparent gunshot wound. Officers performed life saving measures. EMS arrived on scene and declared the him deceased. The second victim, a teenage boy, was shot and transported to an area hospital in stable condition. Police did not provide an update on the teen and have not reported any suspect details.

Police ID victim killed July 4, inside Kansas City gas station 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has decided to provide&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-cluster-munitions-milley-counteroffensive-54eef6f03bb5eaf09303887593831df2">cluster munitions</a>&nbsp;to Ukraine and is expected to announce on Friday that the Pentagon will send thousands as part of the latest military aid package for the war effort against Russia, according to people familiar with the decision.

The decision comes despite widespread concerns that the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-afghanistan-israel-syria-europe-4ac7b012f2b63567ffde368f65283921">controversial bombs</a>&nbsp;can cause civilian casualties. The Pentagon will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the cluster munitions would be part of about $800 million in new military assistance to Ukraine.

Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or “bomblets,” that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.

The officials and others familiar with the decision were not authorized to publicly discuss the move before the official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ukrainian officials have asked for the weapons to aid their campaign to push through lines of Russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield, U.S. officials have said.

According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/weapons/cluster-munitions">International Committee of the Red Cross</a>, some cluster munitions leave behind “bomblets’’ that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40% in some cases. U.S. officials said Thursday that the rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is less than 3% and therefore will mean fewer threats left behind to civilians.

Cluster bombs can be fired by artillery that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them.

The last large-scale American use of cluster bombs was during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But U.S. forces considered them a key weapon during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to Human Rights Watch. In the first three years of that conflict, it is estimated the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan.

Proponents of banning cluster bombs say they kill indiscriminately and endanger civilians long after their use. Groups have raised alarms about Russia’s use of the munitions in Ukraine.

A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries who agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used.

The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among the countries that have not signed on.

It is not clear how America’s NATO allies would view the U.S. providing cluster bombs to Ukraine and whether the issue might prove divisive for their largely united support of Kyiv. More than two-thirds of the 30 countries in the alliance are signatories of the 2010 convention on cluster munitions.

Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense focusing on Russia and Ukraine, recently testified to Congress that the Pentagon has assessed that such munitions would help Kyiv press through Russia’s dug-in positions.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688676274185.png" alt="Pentagon spokesman U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder speaks during a media briefing on Thursday-courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Pentagon spokesman U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder speaks during a media briefing on Thursday-courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has decided to provide&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-cluster-munitions-milley-counteroffensive-54eef6f03bb5eaf09303887593831df2">cluster munitions</a>&nbsp;to Ukraine and is expected to announce on Friday that the Pentagon will send thousands as part of the latest military aid package for the war effort against Russia, according to people familiar with the decision.The decision comes despite widespread concerns that the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-afghanistan-israel-syria-europe-4ac7b012f2b63567ffde368f65283921">controversial bombs</a>&nbsp;can cause civilian casualties. The Pentagon will provide munitions that have a reduced “dud rate,” meaning there will be far fewer unexploded rounds that can result in unintended civilian deaths.U.S. officials said Thursday that the cluster munitions would be part of about $800 million in new military assistance to Ukraine.Long sought by Ukraine, cluster bombs are weapons that open in the air, releasing submunitions, or “bomblets,” that are dispersed over a large area and are intended to wreak destruction on multiple targets at once.The officials and others familiar with the decision were not authorized to publicly discuss the move before the official announcement and spoke on condition of anonymity.Ukrainian officials have asked for the weapons to aid their campaign to push through lines of Russian troops and make gains in the ongoing counteroffensive. Russian forces are already using cluster munitions on the battlefield, U.S. officials have said.According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/weapons/cluster-munitions">International Committee of the Red Cross</a>, some cluster munitions leave behind “bomblets’’ that have a high rate of failure to explode — up to 40% in some cases. U.S. officials said Thursday that the rate of unexploded ordnance for the munitions that will be going to Ukraine is less than 3% and therefore will mean fewer threats left behind to civilians.Cluster bombs can be fired by artillery that the U.S. has provided to Ukraine, and the Pentagon has a large stockpile of them.The last large-scale American use of cluster bombs was during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to the Pentagon. But U.S. forces considered them a key weapon during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to Human Rights Watch. In the first three years of that conflict, it is estimated the U.S.-led coalition dropped more than 1,500 cluster bombs in Afghanistan.Proponents of banning cluster bombs say they kill indiscriminately and endanger civilians long after their use. Groups have raised alarms about Russia’s use of the munitions in Ukraine.A convention banning the use of cluster bombs has been joined by more than 120 countries who agreed not to use, produce, transfer or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used.The United States, Russia and Ukraine are among the countries that have not signed on.It is not clear how America’s NATO allies would view the U.S. providing cluster bombs to Ukraine and whether the issue might prove divisive for their largely united support of Kyiv. More than two-thirds of the 30 countries in the alliance are signatories of the 2010 convention on cluster munitions.Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense focusing on Russia and Ukraine, recently testified to Congress that the Pentagon has assessed that such munitions would help Kyiv press through Russia’s dug-in positions.

 $800 million in new aid: US giving cluster bombs to Ukraine

MONROE COUNTY—One person died in an accident just after 6:30p.m. Thursday in Monroe County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2000 GMC Sonoma driven by David A. Davidson, 43, Columbia, was southbound on Highway AA two and one half miles southeast of Paris.

The pickup traveled off the right side of the road and overturned. Davidson was pronounced dead at the scene and was transported to Agnew Funeral Home in Paris. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.

MONROE COUNTY—One person died in an accident just after 6:30p.m. Thursday in Monroe County.The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2000 GMC Sonoma driven by David A. Davidson, 43, Columbia, was southbound on Highway AA two and one half miles southeast of Paris.The pickup traveled off the right side of the road and overturned. Davidson was pronounced dead at the scene and was transported to Agnew Funeral Home in Paris. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.

Missouri man dies after pickup overturns

SEDGWICK COUNTY – The Wichita Police Department requested that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) issue a statewide Silver Alert for a missing Wichita man.

The whereabouts of 74-year-old George C. Smith are unknown, and the public’s assistance is requested to help locate him.

George is likely driving a black 2002 Ford F150 bearing Kansas tag 881PKK. He was last seen in the 7700 block of East Kellogg in Wichita, Friday June 30, at approximately 9:30 a.m. He may have traveled southbound on I-35 toward Oklahoma.

George is described as a black male who is 5-feet-5 inches tall and weighs around 175 pounds. He was last seen wearing a dark blue button-down shirt and blue shorts. George requires dialysis several times a week and missed his appointment. He is also diabetic and doesn't have necessary medication.

If you see George Smith or his vehicle, please call 911 immediately. If you have other information about his whereabouts, please call the Wichita Police Department at 316-268-4111.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688258232709.png" alt="George Smith -photo Wichita Police" />
 <figcaption>George Smith -photo Wichita Police</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY – The Wichita Police Department requested that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) issue a statewide Silver Alert for a missing Wichita man.The whereabouts of 74-year-old George C. Smith are unknown, and the public’s assistance is requested to help locate him.George is likely driving a black 2002 Ford F150 bearing Kansas tag 881PKK. He was last seen in the 7700 block of East Kellogg in Wichita, Friday June 30, at approximately 9:30 a.m. He may have traveled southbound on I-35 toward Oklahoma.George is described as a black male who is 5-feet-5 inches tall and weighs around 175 pounds. He was last seen wearing a dark blue button-down shirt and blue shorts. George requires dialysis several times a week and missed his appointment. He is also diabetic and doesn't have necessary medication.If you see George Smith or his vehicle, please call 911 immediately. If you have other information about his whereabouts, please call the Wichita Police Department at 316-268-4111.

KBI: Silver Alert continues for missing Kansas man

KANSAS CITY — A Kansas City-area man faces charges for business robberies in Independence in April, May and June, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.

Zachary I. Caldwell, 24, is charged with four counts of Robbery in the 1st Degree.

According to court records filed June 30, Caldwell robbed four Independence business in 2023: on April 20, at a Walgreens on South Sterling Avenue, on May 14, 2023, at a CVS on West 23rd Street, on May 20 at a Metro by T-Mobile store on East 23rd Street and on June 7, at the same Metro b T-Mobile store he robbed in May. 

Video surveillance at each business captured the robberies and allowed detectives to identify him. He remains in the Jackson County Jail, according to online court records.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/7/1688215838261.png" alt="Caldwell-photo Jackson Co." />
 <figcaption>Caldwell-photo Jackson Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY — A Kansas City-area man faces charges for business robberies in Independence in April, May and June, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker.Zachary I. Caldwell, 24, is charged with four counts of Robbery in the 1st Degree.According to court records filed June 30, Caldwell robbed four Independence business in 2023: on April 20, at a Walgreens on South Sterling Avenue, on May 14, 2023, at a CVS on West 23rd Street, on May 20 at a Metro by T-Mobile store on East 23rd Street and on June 7, at the same Metro b T-Mobile store he robbed in May. Video surveillance at each business captured the robberies and allowed detectives to identify him. He remains in the Jackson County Jail, according to online court records.&nbsp;

KC-area man accused of robberies at four business

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to several U.S. drone aircraft over Syria again Thursday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive maneuvers, the Air Force said.

It was the second time in 24 hours that Russia has harassed U.S. drones there.

“We urge Russian forces in Syria to cease this reckless behavior and adhere to the standards of behavior expected of a professional air force so we can resume our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS,” Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said in a statement.

Col. Michael Andrews, Air Forces Central Command spokesman, said “the Russian harassment, including close fly-bys, by one SU-34 and one SU-35 and deploying flares directly into the MQ-9, lasted almost an hour. So it wasn’t a quick fly-by, but much more of a sustained and unprofessional interaction.”

<a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/video/889328/russian-unprofessional-behavior-over-syria-5-july-2023">U.S. Air Forces Central</a>&nbsp;released videos of the two separate incidents that took place Wednesday and Thursday. In the first incident, which took place about 10:40 a.m. local time Wednesday in Northwest Syria, Russian SU-35 fighters closed in on a Reaper, and one of the Russian pilots moved their aircraft in front of a drone and engaged the SU-35’s afterburner, which greatly increases its speed and air pressure.

The jet blast from the afterburner can potentially damage the Reaper’s electronics, and Grynkewich said it reduced the drone operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft.

Later a number of the so-called parachute flares moved into the drone's flight path. The flares are attached to parachutes.

In the second incident, which took place over Northwest Syria around 9:30 a.m. Thursday local time, “Russian aircraft dropped flares in front of the drones and flew dangerously close, endangering the safety of all aircraft involved,” Grynkewich said.

The drones were not armed with weapons and are commonly used for reconnaissance missions.

Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that Russia's violation of ongoing efforts to clear the airspace over Syria "increases the risk of escalation or miscalculation.”

About 900 U.S. forces are deployed to Syria to work with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces battling the Islamic State militants there. No other details about the drone operation were provided.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to several U.S. drone aircraft over Syria again Thursday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive maneuvers, the Air Force said.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Regarding Russia&#39;s unprofessional behavior while reacting with U.S. aircraft over Syria, please see the video of today&#39;s encounter. For the full statement by Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, Commander, 9th AF (AFCENT) visit<a href="https://t.co/WKDYPiPT96">https://t.co/WKDYPiPT96</a><a href="https://twitter.com/CENTCOM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CENTCOM</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DeptofDefense?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DeptofDefense</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/usairforce?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@usairforce</a> <a href="https://t.co/nmSSBxUojO">pic.twitter.com/nmSSBxUojO</a>&mdash; US AFCENT (@USAFCENT) <a href="https://twitter.com/USAFCENT/status/1676712564686831619?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>It was the second time in 24 hours that Russia has harassed U.S. drones there.“We urge Russian forces in Syria to cease this reckless behavior and adhere to the standards of behavior expected of a professional air force so we can resume our focus on the enduring defeat of ISIS,” Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said in a statement.Col. Michael Andrews, Air Forces Central Command spokesman, said “the Russian harassment, including close fly-bys, by one SU-34 and one SU-35 and deploying flares directly into the MQ-9, lasted almost an hour. So it wasn’t a quick fly-by, but much more of a sustained and unprofessional interaction.”<a href="https://www.dvidshub.net/video/889328/russian-unprofessional-behavior-over-syria-5-july-2023">U.S. Air Forces Central</a>&nbsp;released videos of the two separate incidents that took place Wednesday and Thursday. In the first incident, which took place about 10:40 a.m. local time Wednesday in Northwest Syria, Russian SU-35 fighters closed in on a Reaper, and one of the Russian pilots moved their aircraft in front of a drone and engaged the SU-35’s afterburner, which greatly increases its speed and air pressure.The jet blast from the afterburner can potentially damage the Reaper’s electronics, and Grynkewich said it reduced the drone operator’s ability to safely operate the aircraft.Later a number of the so-called parachute flares moved into the drone's flight path. The flares are attached to parachutes.In the second incident, which took place over Northwest Syria around 9:30 a.m. Thursday local time, “Russian aircraft dropped flares in front of the drones and flew dangerously close, endangering the safety of all aircraft involved,” Grynkewich said.The drones were not armed with weapons and are commonly used for reconnaissance missions.Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that Russia's violation of ongoing efforts to clear the airspace over Syria "increases the risk of escalation or miscalculation.”About 900 U.S. forces are deployed to Syria to work with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces battling the Islamic State militants there. No other details about the drone operation were provided.---------