AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

Montana latest to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana became the latest state to ban or restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender kids Friday when its Republican governor signed legislation that exiled transgender lawmaker Zooey Zephyr told fellow lawmakers would leave “blood” on their hands.

Montana is one of at least 15 states with laws to ban such care despite protests from the families of transgender youth that the care is essential.

Debate over Montana’s bill drew national attention after Republicans punished Zephyr for her remarks, saying her words were personally offensive. House Speaker Matt Regier refused to let Zephyr speak on the House floor until she apologized. She has not.

Zephyr decried the bill’s signing, saying “it is unconscionable to deprive Montanans of the care that we need.”

“I know that this is an unconstitutional bill. It is as cruel as it is unconstitutional. And it will go down in the courts,” Zephyr said. To trans youth she added: “There’s an understandable inclination towards despair in these moments, but know that we are going to win and until then, lean on community, because we will have one another’s backs.”

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New report blames airlines for most flight cancellations

Congressional investigators said in a report Friday that an increase in flight cancellations as travel recovered from the pandemic was due mostly to factors that airlines controlled, including cancellations for maintenance issues or lack of a crew.

The Government Accountability Office also said airlines are taking longer to recover from disruptions such as storms. Surges in cancellations in late 2021 and early 2022 lasted longer than they did before the pandemic, the GAO said.

Much of the increase in airline-caused cancellations has occurred at budget airlines, but the largest carriers have also made more unforced errors, according to government data.

Airlines have clashed with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg over blame for high rates of canceled and delayed flights in the past two years. Airlines argue that the government is at fault for not having enough air traffic controllers, while Buttigieg has blamed the carriers.

The GAO report was requested by Republican leaders of the House Transportation Committee. The GAO said it examined flight data from January 2018 through April 2022 to understand why travelers suffered more delays and cancellations as travel began to recover from the pandemic.

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Abortion bans fail in conservative South Carolina, Nebraska

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Abortion bans in Nebraska and South Carolina fell short of advancing in close votes amid heated debates among Republicans, confounding conservatives who have dominated both legislatures and further exposing the chasm on the issue of abortion within the GOP.

In Nebraska, where abortion is banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy, an effort to ban abortion at about the sixth week of pregnancy fell one vote short of breaking a filibuster. Cheers erupted outside the legislative chamber as the last vote was cast, with opponents of the bill waving signs and chanting, “Whose house? Our house!”

In South Carolina, lawmakers voted 22-21 to shelve a near-total abortion ban for the rest of the year. Republican Sen. Sandy Senn criticized Majority Leader Shane Massey for repeatedly “taking us off a cliff on abortion.”

“The only thing that we can do when you all, you men in the chamber, metaphorically keep slapping women by raising abortion again and again and again, is for us to slap you back with our words,” she said.

The Nebraska proposal, backed by Republican Gov. Jim Pillen, is unlikely to move forward this year. And in South Carolina, where abortion remains legal through 22 weeks of pregnancy, the vote marked the third time a near-total abortion ban has failed in the Republican-led Senate chamber since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade last summer.

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N. Carolina justices hand GOP big wins with election rulings

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — In massive victories for Republicans, the newly GOP-controlled North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday threw out a previous ruling against gerrymandered voting maps and upheld a photo voter identification law that colleagues had struck down as racially biased.

The partisan gerrymandering ruling should make it significantly easier for the Republican-dominated legislature to help the GOP gain seats in the narrowly divided U.S. House when state lawmakers redraw congressional boundaries for the 2024 elections. Under the current map, Democrats won seven of the state’s 14 congressional seats last November.

The court, which became a Republican majority this year following the election of two GOP justices, ruled after taking the unusual step of revisiting redistricting and voter ID opinions made in December by the court’s previous iteration, when Democrats held a 4-3 seat advantage. The court held rehearings in March.

Friday’s 5-2 rulings also mean that state lawmakers should have greater latitude in drawing General Assembly seat boundaries for elections next year and the rest of the decade, and that the voter ID law approved by the legislature in late 2018 could be carried out soon.

In another court decision Friday along party lines, the state justices overturned a trial court decision on when the voting rights of people convicted of felonies are restored. That means tens of thousands of people will have to complete their probation or parole and pay any fines to qualify to vote again.

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2023 NFL Draft | Second round ends with seven trades

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — It’s Day 2 of the NFL draft! Will Levis has finally come off the board after being picked in the second round by the Tennessee Titans. The standout Kentucky quarterback was the biggest name on the board when the second round kicked off from Kansas City’s Union Station.

There were seven trades in the second round, including the Titans moving up eight spots to select Levis.

Bryce Young went first overall to the Carolina Panthers followed by C.J. Stroud to the Houston Texans for a 1-2 quarterback combo at the top of the draft Thursday. The second round can be viewed on NFL Network and ESPN. Follow for live updates from Associated Press reporters across the country (all times EST).

QB HENDON HOOKER SELECTED IN THIRD ROUND

Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker had an outside chance of going in the first round, but the second round appeared the likely destination.

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Conflict over transgender rights simmers across the US

As transgender people have increasingly gained acceptance and visibility, conservative lawmakers have zeroed in on restricting their rights: keeping transgender children off girls’ sports teams and out of certain bathrooms, and blocking them from receiving gender-affirming medical care.

In response, a growing number of Democratic-controlled states have moved to protect such rights, especially access to gender-affirming care.

In developments this week, one governor is telling lawmakers they’ll have to return for a special session if they fail to pass some restrictions, two others signed protections into law and a transgender lawmaker was barred from a Statehouse floor amid a standoff with colleagues.

THE BIG PICTURE

The push by conservatives has mushroomed over the last few years and become, alongside abortion, a major theme running through legislative sessions across the country in 2023.

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Greener pastures? 2,500 hopeful sheep cross Idaho highway

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Why did 2,500 sheep cross the road? Because the grass was greener on the other side.

In Idaho, it’s not unusual to see ranchers moving a bleating herd of sheep up to higher elevation at this time of year. But the sight of 2,500 wooly beasts trotting across a highway earlier this week brought a crowd about 300 people.

It was the largest turnout that Steve Stuebner, spokesperson for the Idaho Rangeland Resources Commission, has seen in 15 years.

“It’s a novelty. Maybe they’ve never seen anything like that before, but it’s real typical in Idaho,” he told KTVB-TV. “When you’re out in rural parts of Idaho in the spring and summer, or fall, you could run into a cattle drive or a sheep drive.”

Curious onlookers lined the road as the animals sheepishly entered the highway, guided by ranchers and steered by sheepdogs. They traveled up the road a little ways, the fluffy white herd obscuring the yellow-painted centerline amid a chorus of “baas” and the lead ewe’s jangling bell.

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Fed faults Silicon Valley Bank execs, itself in bank failure

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve blamed last month’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on poor management, watered-down regulations and lax oversight by its own staffers, and said the industry needs stricter policing on multiple fronts to prevent future bank failures.

The Fed was highly critical of its own role in the bank’s failure in a report compiled by Michael Barr, the Fed’s chief regulator, and released Friday. As Silicon Valley Bank grew rapidly beginning in 2018, banking supervisors were slow to recognize problems that eventually contributed to the bank’s downfall, including an increasing amount of uninsured deposits and inadequate safeguards against a sudden change in interest rates. Once those problems were identified, supervisors appeared unwilling to press the bank’s management to address the issues, the report said.

The passive approach stemmed from actions taken by Congress and the Fed in 2018 and 2019 that lightened rules and regulations for banks with less than $250 billion in assets, the report concluded. Both Silicon Valley Bank and New York-based Signature Bank, which also failed last month, had assets below that level.

The changes increased the burden on regulators to justify the need for supervisory action, the report said. “In some cases, the changes also led to slower action by supervisory staff and a reluctance to escalate issues.”

A separate report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said the failure of Signature Bank was likely fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The FDIC also found its own regulatory deficiencies, notably insufficient staffing to adequately supervise Signature Bank, which was based in New York. The agency also took a light-handed approach to regulation, the report found.

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Army grounds aviators for training after fatal crashes

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Army has grounded aviation units for training after 12 soldiers died within the last month in helicopter crashes in Alaska and Kentucky, the military branch announced Friday.

The suspension of air operations was effective immediately, with units grounded until they complete the training, said Lt. Col. Terence Kelley, an Army spokesperson. For active-duty units, the training is to take place between May 1 and 5. Army National Guard and Reserve units will have until May 31 to complete the training.

“The move grounds all Army aviators, except those participating in critical missions, until they complete the required training,” the Army said in a statement.

On Thursday, two Army helicopters collided near Healy, Alaska, killing three soldiers and injuring a fourth. The aircraft from the 1st Attack Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment at Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks, were returning from training at the time of the crash, according to the Army. The unit is part of the 11th Airborne Division, which is nicknamed the “Arctic Angels.”

Military investigators were making their way to Alaska’s interior, with a team from Fort Novosel, Alabama, expected to arrive at the crash site by Saturday, said John Pennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Alaska. Little new information about the crash was released Friday.

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Summer Movies: Indy, Barbie, ‘Fast X’ zooming to theaters

The stakes are always high in the summer movie season.

But even in a schedule that has heavyweights like Indiana Jones, Ariel, Ethan Hunt and Dominic Toretto vying for box office supremacy, the biggest, funniest showdown is happening on July 21. On that fateful Friday, cinephiles will be faced with a difficult choice: Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” or Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”?

The “Barbieheimer” showdown is, naturally, a bit silly. First, it’s entirely possible to see two new movies in one weekend. Second, while opening weekends are important, they’re also not everything. In 2008, “The Dark Knight” debuted on the same weekend as “Mamma Mia!” and both went on to be major successes.

But it has inspired the kind of feverish, half-serious, half-joking discourse online that no marketing can buy, with memes, jokes, bets and Highlander references galore every time either film drops a new advertisement. There were even a few hours in April when the internet panicked that the beach-off was canceled (it wasn’t). And before you go googling, the Highlander jokes are not about that film’s disastrous 1986 box office run, but instead the enduring “there can only be one” line.

The summer movie season always begins before actual summer. This year it kicks off on May 5 with the release of Disney and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and runs through Labor Day. Since “Jaws,” the summer season has been the most important for the moviemaking industry and typically accounts for around 40% of a year’s domestic box office, according to data from Comscore. Pre-pandemic, that usually meant more than $4 billion in ticket sales. Last year hit $3.4 billion.