AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT

Trump says top tech firms have signed accord to ‘self-police’ AI development

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he and a large group of leaders of artificial intelligence companies had signed a voluntary accord that will include internal and external reviews during a meeting at the White House aimed at addressing Americans’ fears about the technology.

“I think I’m seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu press conference outside the West Wing.

Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson met leading executives from top tech firms that are spending hundreds of billions of dollars to build out AI infrastructure, including data centers in communities across the country that have sparked grassroots, bipartisan opposition. The group included CEOs who have called for a slowdown in the development of the technology after several high-profile incidents where AI agents have gone rogue.

The accord, which Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social late Tuesday, opened the door to future regulation but focused on four voluntary steps for the companies to take.

The accord said the companies would implement “robust internal controls,” partner with an “independent external auditor” to assess whether the controls were working, and set up a committee among each company’s board of directors to evaluate reports from internal and external auditors.

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Supreme Court lets quick deportations to third countries resume for now while it weighs Trump policy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday let President Donald Trump’s administration continue swiftly deporting people to countries other than their own for now, while the justices consider whether the policy is legal.

The apparent 6-3 order temporarily lifts lower court requirements for migrants to get a chance to object before being sent to countries to which they have no ties.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have kept the lower court order in place.

The Trump administration said last week the lower court order forced the cancellation of a deportation flight carrying about 70 people bound for three countries.

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Ex-Trump prosecutor Smith forcefully defends investigations as Republicans assail his team’s tactics

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former special counsel Jack Smith forcefully defended his prosecutions of President Donald Trump and his investigative tactics, pushing back against repeated Republican efforts to paint him and his team as partisan political operators during a Senate hearing Tuesday that divided along familiar party lines.

The hearing came as Republicans have pushed for Smith to himself be prosecuted, and offered a forum for them to assail him anew for what they contend were politicized prosecutions that unfolded during the 2024 presidential race. Democrats rallied to Smith’s defense, eliciting testimony about the legal and factual basis for the criminal cases against the-then candidate and decrying the Trump administration’s firing of prosecutors involved in the investigations.

Smith, for his part, defended his work in an hours-long Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — the latest congressional effort to revisit federal cases that accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 race and of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Both were abandoned after Trump’s 2024 election win.

“Anybody who has worked with me and knows me during the course of my career knows that I would not let politics play a role. And I would just add that if you knew the people I worked with, they would not either,” Smith said. He lamented what he called an unprecedented assault on the rule of law by the Trump administration, along with terminations of his team that he said had deprived the government of crucial expertise and made the country less safe.

“That has never happened in my career. I have never seen anything remotely like it in any Republican or Democratic administration,” he said.

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Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer now questions whether there is proof she killed her 3 children

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer argued Tuesday that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove she killed her three children, a striking turn after a lengthy trial that focused more on her mental state than on whether she took their lives.

“This entire case is based on speculation,” attorney Kevin Reddington said during the first hearing since Clancy’s trial ended Sept. 4 with a deadlocked jury. They were split 11 to 1 in her favor.

During that trial, Reddington didn’t dispute that Clancy killed the children at the family’s home in 2023. Instead, the defense sought to persuade the jury that the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse was not criminally responsible because of mental disease, a rare condition called postpartum psychosis.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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Trump touts America.gov, but its government-sourced AI answers undercut many of his statements

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has lauded its revamped website America.gov as a way to simplify Americans’ access to information and services scattered across a plethora of agency sites, but President Donald Trump probably won’t like some of the answers his new site says are sourced from government information.

Asking the site — which says it’s sourced via artificial intelligence from “official government sources” — questions about who won the 2020 election or about the name of the federal department that operates out of the Pentagon yields answers contrary to those Trump himself frequently proclaims.

As Trump was still speaking at Tuesday’s launch event, however, the site began modifying its answers. Asked again about the 2020 election, it replied that it couldn’t answer “political questions,” a response it also gave to inquiries about whether Trump had been impeached or convicted of felony charges.

The Associated Press asked about:

“Official federal sources do not show that widespread fraud changed the 2020 presidential election outcome. Isolated election crimes did occur and have been prosecuted.”

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Former ‘American Idol’ singer Caleb Flynn convicted of fatally shooting his wife

A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on “American Idol” was convicted of murder Tuesday in the killing of his wife while he was having an affair.

Prosecutors said Caleb Flynn, 40, staged a home invasion in February after shooting his wife, Ashley Flynn, a 37-year-old schoolteacher and volleyball coach.

Flynn, who claimed his wife was killed by a burglar, could get up to life in prison without the chance of parole when he’s sentenced on Monday.

Flynn closed his eyes, shook his head to the side and fought to maintain his composure as the judge read the guilty verdicts on charges of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence. He began sobbing while the judge dismissed the jury. His attorney called the verdicts “disappointing” and said he expects to file an appeal.

Flynn appeared on “American Idol” in 2013, telling TV viewers about how his wife had encouraged him to chase his dreams on the singing competition. He sang before judges Mariah Carey, Randy Jackson and Nicki Minaj but did not advance to the main competition in Hollywood.

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From motorcycles to booze, US ban on $1 billion worth of Canadian imports goes into effect

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S.-Canada relations, already tense, are likely to deteriorate further after the United States went ahead early Tuesday with a decision to ban nearly $1 billion worth of Canadian imports, including alcoholic beverages, dairy products and motorcycles.

The ban amounts to barely a ripple in $880 billion worth of annual two-way trade between the two northern neighbors. But it marks another ratcheting up of President Donald Trump’s second-term trade war with America’s longtime ally and trading partner.

The import ban “certainly won’t do anything to help the trade tensions between the United States and Canada,” said trade attorney Patrick Childress, a partner at Holland & Knight and a former U.S. trade official.

The latest sparring began over the summer when Trump reached back to a Great Depression law to impose 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, charging that Canada discriminates against U.S. dairy, auto and alcoholic beverage producers. Canada promptly counterpunched with tariffs of 15%, 25% or 50%, matching U.S. imports dollar for dollar.

To punish Canada for retaliating against his tariffs, Trump decided to ban a list of Canadian products, effective 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Tuesday.

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Hurricane Polo makes landfall in Mexico as heavy rains bring floods to US Southwest

PUERTO SAN CARLOS, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Polo pummeled the Mexican state of Baja California Sur with powerful winds and rain as it made landfall Tuesday, leaving coastal areas flooded and streets littered with fallen trees.

The Category 2 hurricane struck land just south of Las Barrancas, Mexico, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Cabo San Lazaro with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph).

About 700 people remained in shelters Tuesday. But they were expected to return to their homes, and no serious damage or deaths were immediately reported, according to authorities.

By mid-day Tuesday, Polo made a second landfall and weakened to become a tropical storm as it moved inland through the Mexican state of Sonora after crossing the Gulf of California.

Remnants of the storm were expected to track northeastward, adding to heavy rains already bringing floods to parts of the U.S. Southwest.

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Federal prosecutors charge Venezuelan man shot by ICE agent in Texas with assaulting an officer

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced an assault charge against a Venezuelan delivery driver who was shot in his car by a federal immigration agent in Texas, accusing the man of striking an officer with his side mirror while trying to drive away.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was charged with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer, according to a criminal complaint. Garces Perez, whose attorney has said still has a bullet lodged in his back from the Sept. 20 shooting, made an initial court appearance in an Austin federal court on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Texas.

A nine-page affidavit from a Department of Homeland Security agent amounts to the government’s fullest public account to date of the shooting in the Texas capital, which has set off protests and outrage from Democrats over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The document includes photos taken from body-worn cameras but no video was released, and the complaint did not say whether the agent allegedly struck by the side mirror sustained any injuries.

The accusations against Garces Perez are reminiscent of previous claims made by immigration agents after high-profile shootings, in which officers have similarly accused drivers of weaponizing their vehicles. In a handful of cases, those allegations have been undermined or walked back after the release of body-worn camera footage, and have renewed scrutiny about the DHS’s reliance on vehicular stops to execute arrests.

Garces Perez was in the custody of U.S. Marshals after being removed from a federal detention center in South Texas, according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors. Separately, Garces Perez’s attorneys have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop his removal from the U.S.

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Woman accused of shooting at Rihanna’s home is mentally fit for trial, judge says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman accused of spraying bullets at Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s home, hitting a trailer the celebrity couple was inside and a nursery their kids were in, was found mentally competent by a judge on Tuesday to stand trial.

Ivanna Lisette Ortiz, 36, of Orlando, Florida, has pleaded not guilty to trying to murder Rihanna and to more than a dozen other felony charges stemming from the shooting in March. No one was injured, but bullets tore through an Airstream trailer that the singing superstar and A$AP Rocky were in. Shots also struck the wall of a nursery where their small children were at the time.

“Criminal proceedings are reinstated,” Judge Maria Cavalluzzi said at a very brief hearing in Los Angeles County court after months of psychiatric evaluations.

Ortiz appeared behind glass in a custody area of the courtroom, wearing yellow jail clothes and handcuffs. She didn’t speak during the hearing. She could get life in prison if convicted of all the charges.

There was no direct discussion of the mental evaluations in court, and case documents that include such details have been sealed. Ortiz has been returned to the regular criminal court process, which had been suspended shortly after it began. She was ordered to appear at a hearing Wednesday.