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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden picked up the endorsement of North America’s Building Trades Unions at a Wednesday event where the president and his allies set out to dismantle Republican Donald Trump’s reputation as a successful real estate developer. “Donald Trump is incapable of running anything,” said Sean McGarvey, the organization’s president. “God help us if he gets anywhere near the White House in the future.” The event, held in a Washington hotel ballroom with a boisterous crowd of union members, was another salvo in the battle for votes from blue collar workers. Trump has tried to chip away at Democrats’ traditional advantage with organized labor, while Biden has been adding to his roster of endorsements and trying to fend off his predecessor’s comeback bid. Biden said unions would help him make Trump a “loser again,” and he mocked Trump’s inability to pass infrastructure legislation when he was president, saying “he never built a damn thing.” The Democratic president repeatedly torched his likely Republican opponent as a callous businessman who turned firing people into entertainment as part of his long-running reality show “The Apprentice.” “He looks down on us. I’m not joking. Think about it,” Biden said. “Think about the guys you grew up with that you’d like to get in the corner and just give him a straight left. I’m not suggesting you hit the president. But we all know those guys growing up.” Biden recently campaigned in his childhood hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he’s increasingly used economic arguments to portray Trump as out of touch with workers’ concerns. In this election, Biden said, “it’s either Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values.” The endorsement adds to Biden’s considerable union support. The United Auto Workers backed him in January, and the United Steelworkers Union followed suit in March. A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Trump has also sought support from organized labor, including meeting with the Teamsters earlier this year. “Usually a Republican wouldn’t get that endorsement,” Trump said. “But in my case it’s different because I’ve employed thousands of Teamsters and I thought we should come over and pay our respects.” Trump’s popularity with white working class voters has been a challenge for Democrats who puzzle over his appeal. McGarvey promised “an unprecedented field program in key battleground states” to help defeat Trump this year. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr., of New Jersey, died Wednesday after a heart attack this month that left him hospitalized, officials said. He was 65. In a statement, Gov. Phil Murphy called his fellow Democrat a “steadfast champion for the people of New Jersey.” “With his signature bowtie, big heart, and tenacious spirit, Donald embodied the very best of public service,” Murphy said in a statement. “As a former union worker and toll collector, he deeply understood the struggles our working families face, and he fought valiantly to serve their needs, every single day.” Payne had previously served as president of Newark City Council in New Jersey’s largest city, and on the Essex County Board of Commissioners. Payne’s office had said his heart attack was connected to complications from diabetes. Payne’s father, Donald Milford Payne, held the congressional seat before him. When the elder Payne died in 2012, the younger ran successfully in a special election to succeed him. He had won reelection six times since. The district covers parts of Newark and its heavily populated suburbs. A New Jersey colleague, Democratic U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, called Payne a “truly great public servant” who liked to call him “Uncle Frank” and had fought to raise awareness for diabetes and colorectal cancer prevention and to replace lead pipes in Newark. Payne’s survivors include his wife, Beatrice, and their three children, Murphy said. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Arizona doctors could give their patients abortions in California under a proposal announced Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to circumvent a ban on nearly all abortions in that state. It would apply only to doctors licensed in good standing in Arizona and their patients, and last only through the end of November. Arizona’s 1864 law banning nearly all abortions except if the mother’s life is in jeopardy takes effect June 8. “Arizona Republicans continue to put women in danger—embracing a draconian law passed when Arizona was a territory, not even a state,” Newsom said in a statement. “California will not sit idly by.” Besides Arizona, 14 other states have banned abortion at all stages of pregnancy. While abortion access in California has never been under serious threat, Newsom — widely seen as a potential presidential candidate beyond 2024 — has made defending that access a priority of his administration. Newsom pushed for abortion access to be enshrined into the California Constitution. He approved $20 million of taxpayer money to help pay for women in other states to come to California for abortions. He signed dozens of laws aimed at making it harder for other states to investigate women for coming to California for abortions, including banning social media companies from complying with subpoenas or warrants. His actions have endeared him to the Democratic Party’s core constituencies despite some of the state’s other problems — including homelessness, wildfire insurance and a pair of multibillion-dollar budget deficits. In 2022, months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, California launched a publicly-funded website to promote the state’s abortion services, including information about financial help for travel expenses and letting teenagers in other states know that California does not require them to have their parents’ permission to get an abortion in the state. It’s also become a chief talking point in Newsom’s role as a top surrogate of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Using money left over from his 2022 reelection campaign, Newsom started a political action committee he calls the “ Campaign for Democracy ” that has paid for billboards and TV ads in Republican-led states to criticize their leaders’ attempts to outlaw or restrict access to abortions. In February, he launched ads in multiple states to criticize proposals there that aimed to prohibit out-of-state travel for abortions. When an Alabama lawmaker introduced a bill to make it a crime to help someone under 18 get an abortion without telling their parents or guardians, Newsom paid for an ad depicting a young woman trying to leave the state only to be stopped by a police officer who demands that she take a pregnancy test. ___ Associated Press writer Adam Beam contributed to this report. ___ Sophie Austin reported from Sacramento. Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: @sophieadanna Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge Wednesday sentenced a longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to four years in prison for leaking DEA intelligence to defense lawyers in a $100,000 bribery scheme that prosecutors said jeopardized drug cases and the lives of confidential informants. John Costanzo Jr. was found guilty last year of bribery and honest-services wire fraud, joining a growing list of DEA agents convicted of federal crimes. Another former DEA supervisor, Manny Recio, is scheduled to be sentenced next month in the same case. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken, in handing down his sentence, noted that the 49-year-old Costanzo was “especially culpable” as a supervisor because he “knew what he was doing was wrong.” Costanzo, addressing the judge before sentencing, expressed regret for his actions. “This is my cross to bear,” he said. “I will try to find a silver lining in all of this.” Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence Costanzo to at least seven years behind bars, saying he abused the tradecraft he mastered as a narcotics investigator steeped in the world of money laundering. He worked in supervisory roles in Miami and later at DEA headquarters outside Washington, D.C. “Costanzo acted purely out of greed,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. “He used his network, connections and skills to hold himself above the law and make money for leaking law enforcement secrets, undermining everything he purported to stand for.” Much of the case turned on text messages and wiretapped phone calls between Costanzo and Recio, who remained close after Recio retired from DEA in 2018 and began working as a private investigator for Miami defense lawyers. Prosecutors allege that attorneys David Macey and Luis Guerra bankrolled the bribery scheme and used the leaked information to approach new clients facing federal drug charges. Macey and Guerra have not been charged but prosecutors in January asked the court for permission to access normally privileged communications between Recio and the attorneys as part of what they described as an “ongoing” investigation. The DEA did not respond to a request for comment. Costanzo’s sentencing came less than two weeks after a federal jury in Buffalo, New York, convicted another veteran DEA agent of obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in a sprawling corruption case. Over the course of a year, Recio repeatedly asked Costanzo to query names in a confidential DEA database to keep abreast of federal investigations that would interest his new employers. The two also discussed the timing of high-profile arrests and the exact date in 2019 when prosecutors planned to bring charges against businessman Alex Saab, a top criminal target in Venezuela and suspected bag man for the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro. In exchange, prosecutors said, Recio secretly funneled bribes to Costanzo, including plane tickets and a $50,000 down payment on a condo in suburban Coral Gables. The conspiracy relied on middlemen, including Costanzo’s father, himself a retired and decorated DEA agent who prosecutors said lied to the FBI. Prosecutors said Costanzo and Recio also used sham invoices and a company listing its address as a UPS store to disguise the bribe payments while deleting hundreds of messages and calls to a burner phone. In requesting a sentence of probation, Costanzo obtained letters of support from several former colleagues, including three current DEA agents and supervisors who described him as a dedicated public servant, generous friend and expert in illicit finance. Costanzo’s attorney said his client’s only ambition was to follow in the footsteps of his father, John Costanzo Sr., a retired DEA agent who served for years in Italy and who is now battling pancreatic cancer. “Not being present for his hero’s waning days and final months would break John forever,” defense lawyer Marc Mukasey argued in a pre-sentencing memo. “That is a punishment he does not deserve.” Prosecutors, however, painted a less charitable view of the father-son relationship, pointing to the elder Costanzo’s role as a conduit for a $50,000 bribe payment that was used to purchase a Miami townhouse. “Let this be a message to all public officials who are tempted to profit illegally from their service — there will be serious consequences,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. ___ Mustian reported from Natchitoches, Louisiana, Goodman from Miami. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday. Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the U.S. last October. One of the officials said the U.S. is providing more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in February, and then in March the U.S. included a “significant” number of them in a $300 million aid package announced, one official said. The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion. Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range. Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others in recent days have been demanding that the U.S. send the weapons — not knowing they were already in Ukraine. For months, the U.S. resisted sending Ukraine the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration sent the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (roughly 100 miles), in October instead. Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now. He told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. Grady declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be.” Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. The administration is continuing to make clear that the weapons cannot be used to hit targets in Russia — only those inside Ukrainian territory, according to one of the U.S. officials. “I think the time is right, and the boss (Biden) made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well considered decision, and we really wrung it out — but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change — into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.” Ukrainian officials haven’t publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on the social platform X that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace.” One of the U.S. officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv. Russia got some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, said the official, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles. The U.S. had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles were given to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kyiv leaders approved the public release. One official said the weapons were used early last week to strike the airfield in Dzhankoi, a city in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk. Videos on social media last week showed the explosions at the military airfield, but officials at the time would not confirm it was the ATACMS. Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval of a $95 billion foreign aid package for months, including funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing acute shortages of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as U.S. funding was delayed. With the war now in its third year, Russia used the delay in U.S. weapons deliveries and its own edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition. The mid-range missiles provided last year, and some of the long-range ones sent more recently, carry cluster munitions that open in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. Others sent recently have a single warhead. One critical factor in the March decision to send the weapons was the U.S. Army’s ability to begin replacing the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to provide to Ukraine, the official said. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com