Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia will not run for reelection in 2024, the moderate Democrat announced on social media Thursday.

“I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together,” Manchin said in a message posted on social media.

The Democratic Caucus controls the chamber with a narrow 51-49 margin, and Manchin’s decision not to run again in such a deeply red state puts Democrats in a tough spot, as they’ll be defending seats in other competitive states.

Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, released a statement minutes after Manchin’s announcement, saying, “We like our odds in West Virginia.”

It’s unclear what specifically Manchin will do after leaving Capitol Hill. Earlier this year, he stoked speculation of a third-party presidential campaign, when he spoke at a No Labels forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.

“I’ve never been in any race I’ve ever spoiled. I’ve been in races to win,” Manchin said at the time in July. “And if I get in a race, I’m going to win.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Smith, the first player to win 100 open beach volleyball tournaments, has been suspended since May 31 and may not participate or attend USA Volleyball sanctioned events, according to USA Volleyball’s suspended list.

The reason for the suspension is listed by USA Volleyball as “U.S. Center for SafeSport administrative hold.”

When asked if the listing of Smith suspension was accurate and what was the reason for the suspension, Liani Reyna, USA Volleyball manager for SafeSport, said: “I have no comment.”

USA Volleyball communications manager B.J. Hoeptner-Evans also declined to comment.

Smith, in a series of telephone interviews and text messages since October 10, said he has “no idea why” he has been suspended by USA Volleyball.

Smith said he was unaware of the suspension until he was informed of it by SCNG more than four months after it went into effect.

“I’m not sure why you are hell bent on trying to mess with me?” Smith said in a text Thursday in response to a question about when he was last a member of USA Volleyball. “I think it is time to stop trying to find a way to tarnish my career. You must have better things to do?”

Smith on October 12 said he spoke with Reyna “who knows nothing.”

Smith said he is no longer a member of USA Volleyball. Nineteen persons on USA Volleyball’s suspended members list have “U.S. Center for SafeSport administrative hold” cited as the rule or code violation for their suspension. All 19 were suspended after their USA Volleyball membership had lapsed.

Smith said he does not remember when he was last a member of USA Volleyball.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Haven’t kept track.”

On Oct. 12, Smith also said he spoke to an official at the U.S. Center for SafeSport after speaking with Reyna. Smith said he did not recall the name of the U.S. Center for SafeSport official he spoke to.

The SafeSport official told Smith “they have no reason to investigate because I am not a USAV member,” Smith wrote in an Oct. 12 text. “She said USAV had no reason to post my name on their suspended list as I am not a member (of USA Volleyball). There is no suspension of non members. If I was trying to become a member, then they could open an investigation. I don’t have a reason to become a member.

“If for some reason there was a serious offense reporter, I am sure I would have heard something from other sources (of course there is not).

“If I decide to become a member of the USAV, I may find out what the issue is but like I said, no reason to do so at this time. Still, my curiosity is peaked!

“The gal at safe sport said there is a range of potential offenses that could be reported including verbal abuse all the way to much worse stuff which I think is listed on their site.”

Smith said the SafeSport official encouraged him to check back with USA Volleyball to see if they would remove his name from the suspended list. More than three weeks ago he said he contacted USA Volleyball again about the suspension. Smith said on Monday he still had not heard back from USA Volleyball.

A U.S. Center for SafeSport spokesman declined to comment on Smith’s status as suspended.

Hoeptner-Evans, USA Volleyball’s communications manager, initially declined to comment on the Smith suspension in early October. On Wednesday SCNG contacted Hoeptner-Evans again detailing Smith’s comments and asking for the reason for the suspension and if the national governing body would confirm that the suspension is still in place. Hoeptner-Evans said she would relay the questions to her bosses at USA Volleyball. In an email Thursday, Hoeptner-Evans wrote, “we do not have a response for your article.”

Smith, 66, has been involved in coaching and putting on clinics since retiring as a player in 2001. He coaches the Sinjin Beach Club, an age-group program based out of Santa Monica, adjacent to the Annenberg Beach House.

“Beach volleyball isn’t just a sport, it’s a lifestyle,” reads the Sinjin Beach Club website. “Our club embodies this by giving our players the tools to compete at the highest level and to have fun while doing so. We achieve this by offering elite coaches and drills that have been tested and proven by King of the Beach, Sinjin Smith. The most important thing to us is growing the sport and bringing it back to what it used to be.”

Smith has also run camps for the past 21 years. This past summer, Sinjin Smith’s Beach Volleyball Camps (BVC) operated camps in nine Los Angeles County communities.

Smith is the third current or former U.S. Olympic volleyball team member to be suspended by USA Volleyball in recent years.

Scott Touzinsky, a 2008 Olympic gold medalist with the United States volleyball team, was suspended by USA Volleyball in July 2018 in response to allegations of sexual misconduct involving an underage female athlete at a camp or clinic in Canada, according to U.S. Center for SafeSport and USA Volleyball documents obtained by the Southern California News Group.  

Beach player Taylor Crabb was suspended by USA Volleyball in 2017 for misconduct involving a minor-aged girl, according to USA Volleyball documents obtained by SCNG. USA Volleyball’s board of directors voted unanimously in May 2019 to extend the suspension through Sept. 28, 2021, after Crabb breached a settlement agreement for the first suspension by coaching at a camp for junior girls.

The decision was made with the clear realization that it would prevent Crabb from competing in the Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for 2020. An arbitrator later reduced Crabb’s suspension, clearing the way for him to compete in the 2021 Olympic Games. Crabb, however, missed the Tokyo Games after contracting COVID just days before the Olympics. He most recently teamed with Taylor Sander to win his first Manhattan Beach Open on Aug. 20.

Smith, a 1996 Olympian, led UCLA to NCAA titles in 1978 and 1979 and was a member of the U.S national team indoors from 1979 to 1982 before focusing on the beach game.

Smith won AVP International titles in parts of three decades. He was so dominant that the International Volleyball Hall of Fame called him the “King of the Beach” when he was inducted into the hall in 2003.

Smith even inspired an Electronic Arts video game fittingly called “King of the Beach.”

Smith was also influential off the beach, playing a leading role in the creation of the AVP, eventually serving as president and on the board of directors for the group. He was also a driving force behind the creation FIVB World Tour. Smith also served as president of the Beach Volleyball World Council.

PARIS — Western and Arab nations, international agencies and nongovernmental groups stressed the urgent need for aid for Gaza civilians at a Paris conference Thursday, held as the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory worsens amid Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against Hamas.

The gathering ended a few hours before the White House said Israel has agreed to put in place four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in Gaza, starting on Thursday.

The French presidency said the participants’ overall pledges topped 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) in funding, though that included some funds already announced earlier, and stressed that the global amount still remains to be finalized.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the conference with an appeal for Israel to protect civilians, saying that “all lives have equal worth” and urging for pauses in the fighting to allow deliveries of desperately needed aid.

“In the immediate term, we need to work on protecting civilians,” he said. “To do that, we need a humanitarian pause very quickly and we must work towards a cease-fire.”

The conference brought together officials from over 50 countries, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations as the Gaza Strip is being pounded by Israel in its war against Hamas, sparked by the militants deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel.

Israeli authorities were not invited but have been informed of the talks, Macron’s office said. There was no immediate comment from Israel on the conference.

More than 1.5 million people — or about 70% of Gaza’s population — have fled their homes, and an estimated $1.2 billion is needed to respond to the crisis in Palestinian areas.

Macron said that since the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas “shouldered the responsibility for exposing Palestinians to terrible consequences,” and again defended Israel’s right to defend itself.

“Fighting terrorism can never be carried out without rules. Israel knows that. The trap of terrorism is for all of us the same: giving in to violence and renouncing our values,” he added.

Longer term, Macron said diplomatic work must resume on bringing peace to the Middle East, with a two-state solution. “We must learn from our errors and no longer accept that peace … always be pushed back to later.”

Several European countries, the United States and regional powers such as Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf Arab countries attended the conference, as did Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, who urged the international community to “put an end to the war.”

“How many Palestinians have to be killed for the war to end?” Shtayyeh asked. “What Israel is doing is not a war against Hamas, it’s a war against the whole Palestinian people.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed that Israel had only allowed limited quantities of humanitarian aid through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza and urged “the entire international community, and donor countries in particular, to continue supporting the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

“The aid that has already entered Gaza is not enough to meet the needs of the entire population, and the voluntary and deliberate complications imposed by Israel on the delivery of aid only lead to a further deterioration of the situation,” Shoukry said.

Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides outlined his plan for a humanitarian sea corridor to Gaza “to provide continued rapid, safe and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid” and said the plan is being discussed “with all parties concerned, including Israel.” The plan provides options for the short, medium and longer term, with aid shipments possibly from the Cyprus port of Larnaca, 370 km (230 miles) from Gaza, he said.

The initiative includes the collection, inspection and storage of humanitarian aid in Cyprus, it’s later transfer by ship possibly from Larnaca port and finally it’s offloading and distribution in Gaza.

French officials said they are also considering evacuating the wounded to hospital ships in the Mediterranean Sea off the Gaza coast. Paris sent a helicopter carrier, now off Cyprus, and is preparing another with medical capacities on board.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said his country sent a hospital ship that is en route to Cyprus before deploying as close as possible to the conflict zone.

Thursday’s discussions also included financial support for Gaza’s civilians.

Macron announced France will provide an additional 80 million euros ($85 million) in humanitarian aid for Gaza civilians, bringing France’s funding to a total of 100 million euros ($107 million) this year.

On Tuesday, the German government said it will provide 20 million euros ($21 million) in new funding, in addition to releasing 71 million euros ($76 million) already earmarked for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

Denmark has decided to increase its humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza by 75 million kroner ($10.7 million), to be channeled via U.N. agencies and the International Red Cross.

European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also attended the conference. The 27-nation bloc is the world’s top aid supplier to the Palestinians. “We have quadrupled the humanitarian support for Gaza and the West Bank, but it’s mostly for Gaza, to 100 million euros ($107 million),” von der Leyen said.

At a news conference following the conference, rights and aid groups urged for an immediate cease-fire, which they said is crucial for them to be able to work in Gaza.

“We’re determined to do everything we can, but if the only thing we get is a day or two without fighting … that won’t be enough,” said Isabelle Defourny, president of Doctors Without Borders France.

Jean-François Corty, vice president of Doctors of the World, said the main challenge “is not so much to mobilize aid as to get it” into Gaza.

“What’s happening in Gaza is a litany of violations of international law … not seen since World War II,” said Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, and denounced “indiscriminate, disproportionate, deliberate attacks.”

Associated Press writers John Leicester in Le Pecq, France; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Colleen Barry in Milan and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, contributed to this report.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli troops have pushed into Gaza City along a key coastal road on the Mediterranean Sea as part of their war on Hamas, according to satellite images from earlier this week analyzed on Thursday by The Associated Press.

Monday’s images from Planet Labs PBC show a moonscape of impact craters from missile strikes and smoke rising over the northern reaches of Gaza City, the besieged territory’s largest urban zone. The images also show previous positions of Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers on one of three axes of attack used to cut the city off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.

The city has seen hundreds of thousands of people flee it after a month of war since Hamas’ unprecedented Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed some 1,400 people.

That assault sparked a punishing campaign of airstrikes and the Israeli military offensive into the Gaza Strip that has so far killed over 10,500 people — two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.

Planet Labs has begun delaying the release of imagery from Israel and the Palestinian territories amid the war, as it acknowledged concerns about “the potential for misuse and abuse” of its pictures, said Will Marshall, a co-founder and the CEO of the San Francisco-based firm.

“Planet is continuing to make Earth observation data of Gaza available to clients, including media and humanitarian organizations, consistent with our commitment to transparency and accountability,” Marshall said in responses to questions from the AP ahead of the release of Monday’s images. “Planet does not modify imagery, and we have not received requests to censor imagery.”

The AP has a subscription to access Planet Labs imagery to aid its reporting worldwide and distributes those photos to its subscribers and members.

Monday’s images show Israeli forces just about a kilometer (over half a mile) north of the Shati refugee camp, a dense neighborhood adjacent to Gaza City’s center. Shati houses Palestinian families who fled from or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its establishment.

Their position corresponds with what witnesses in Gaza City have told the AP, whose reporters continue to work in the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, one witness told the AP he saw Israeli soldiers fighting Hamas close to Shifa Hospital, which is some 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) from the position Israeli forces held on Monday.

Footage released this week by Hamas of its militants engaged in street-to-street fighting with Israeli forces corresponded to features of the northern reaches of the Gaza Strip. Footage released by the Israeli military did the same.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP regarding the satellite images.

After ordering civilians out of Gaza City, Israeli soldiers have moved on Gaza City from three positions.

They cut across the southern edge of the city all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. Meanwhile, two other forces have pushed in from the north, with forces around Beit Hanoun to the east and forces seen in the satellite images along the Mediterranean, to the west, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

Such “clearing operations frequently take weeks and sometimes months to complete,” the Institute said.

The satellite photos show over half a dozen Israeli tanks and armored vehicles moving on Monday down Ahmed Orabi Street, a coastal road on the Mediterranean also home to a strip of hotels and restaurants. A streetside mosque is seen in ruins.

Some 20 other vehicles just to the north at a site likely serve as a forward-operating base for the Israeli forces, the photos show. A few hundred meters (yards) away, over three dozen impact craters can be seen, likely the result of an earlier intense barrage of fire by Israel to clear the area for its troops.

Burning fires and destroyed buildings can be seen throughout Gaza City.

With journalists outside the city unable to enter, gathering independent information about what’s going on remains difficult. Apart from videos and images on social media, the growing supply of satellite imagery from commercial companies has become increasingly valuable for reporting on closed-off areas and countries.

Those companies can shoot highly detailed images that rival those that were once only the domain of a few countries. Airbus and Colorado-based Maxar Technologies have provided images to reporters during the Israel-Hamas war as well. Both firms did not respond to a request for comment.

Previously, a 1996 U.S. law known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment barred American firms releasing high-resolution satellite imagery of Israel beyond what was commercially available abroad. But as commercial firms put higher-resolution satellites into space, those images became more widely available.

These newly available images have been used in reporting on Israel before. The AP, relying on such imagery, reported in 2021 that a secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program was undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades. That work appears to be continuing to this day.

The district estimates that 30 people or more die from suicide at the bridge each year and that hundreds more are stopped from harming themselves through law enforcement and public intervention.

On its website, the district says “jumping into the (net) will result in significant bruises, sprains and possibly broken bones.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with feelings of depression or suicidal thoughts, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers free, round-the-clock support, information and resources for help. Reach the lifeline at 800-273-8255 or see the SuicidePreventionLifeline.org website.

Wars in the Mideast and Ukraine, along with demands to ban the TikTok video-sharing app, dominated the third Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, with candidates mostly stressing substance over personal attacks.

Each of the 2024 hopefuls — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie — was more willing to take on former President Donald Trump than in previous forums. The moderators focused their first questions on the absent GOP frontrunner, who held his own rally 11 miles away.

The candidates in Miami sparred over the U.S. role in world affairs in the wake of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza. Some vitriol did still manage to creep in: Ramaswamy took swipes at Haley, calling her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels” and accusing her daughter of using TikTok. Haley called Ramaswamy “scum” in response.

Here are the key takeaways:

In Israel’s corner

The candidates sought to outflank each other with full-throated support for Israel’s goal to eradicate Hamas, which the U.S. and the European Union have designated a terrorist organization, and raised the possibility of U.S. military force against Iran.

DeSantis said he would advise Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish the job once and for all with these butchers.”

Haley said she told Netanyahu right after the attack to wipe out Hamas.

“The first thing I said to him when it happened was I said finish them, finish them,” she said.

Fed overhaul floated

DeSantis called for an overhaul of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s role, saying he would “rein in” the politically independent central bank over what he said was a failure to combat inflation.

He didn’t specify what changes he’d make. The Fed is charged with adjusting interest rates to keep unemployment low and prices stable.

“They have helped create with their reckless monetary policy what we have faced since the COVID-19 pandemic. They botched it,” DeSantis said.

TikTok ban

The aspirants spoke in favor of banning TikTok, a position that’s unlikely to earn them friends among young voters.

The video-based social network, owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., “is not only spyware, it’s polluting the minds of American young people” Christie said.

In addition to military and economic strategies for countering China, DeSantis said it was also necessary to address “their role in our culture.”

The federal government has already banned the app on government devices, but prohibiting it for all Americans would likely draw backlash, particularly among young people, who are voracious users of the platform.

Trump targeted

In one of his sharpest critiques of Trump, DeSantis blamed the former president for a string of electoral losses — most recently on Tuesday when Democrats outperformed the GOP in off-year elections with an abortion rights constitutional amendment in Ohio and a Democratic sweep of the Virginia General Assembly.

“He said Republicans were going to get tired of winning,” DeSantis said, referencing an oft-repeated Trump campaign promise. “Well, we saw last night, I’m sick of Republicans losing.”

“We’ve become a party of losers,” Ramaswamy added.

Abortion stance

After voters in Republican Ohio enshrined abortion rights Tuesday, Haley highlighted her nuanced position on access to the procedure.

“I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” Haley said. “There are some states that are going more on the pro-choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case but the people decided.”

Haley’s position has earned her praise from women and moderates — whose support could be pivotal if she were to beat Trump for the nomination — but could work against her in the primary.

Battling antisemitism

The candidates cited protests on college campuses over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian civilians in Gaza as evidence of what they said was a permissive culture that’s allowing antisemitism to fester.

“You’ve got kids’ dorm rooms who are being set on fire because they have something related to Israel on their doors,” Haley said. “If the KKK were doing this, every college president would be up in arms.”

“Antisemitism is just as awful as racism,” she added.

Scott said public universities could lose federal funding if he were president.

Split on Ukraine aid

Ukraine funding was the most divisive issue, pitting Christie, Haley and Scott — who back continued aid to fend off the Russian invasion — against Ramaswamy and DeSantis, who urged less U.S. involvement.

Ramaswamy and DeSantis said they would instead focus resources on sending U.S. military troops to reinforce the Mexico border.

“We are not going to send your sons and daughters to Ukraine. I am going to send troops to our southern border,” DeSantis said.

Scott said he backed continuing aid to Kyiv, but only after a system of greater “accountability” and a review of “the overall Russian military.”

©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — This summer, Sophia Machado packed her bags and left her home in Oregon to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where her sister lived and where, Machado had heard, residents were friendlier to their transgender neighbors and gender-affirming health care was easier to get.

Machado, 36, is transgender and has good health insurance through her job. Within weeks, she was able to get into a small primary care clinic, where her sister was already a patient and where the doctor was willing to refill her estrogen prescription and refer her to an endocrinologist.

She felt fortunate. “I know that a lot of the larger medical institutions here are pretty slammed,” she said.

Other patients seeking gender-affirming health care in New Mexico, where access is protected by law, haven’t been as lucky.

After her primary care doctor retired in 2020, Anne Withrow, a 73-year-old trans woman who has lived in Albuquerque for over 50 years, sought care at Truman Health Services, a clinic specializing in transgender health care at the University of New Mexico. “They said, ‘We have a waiting list.’ A year later they still had a waiting list. A year later, before I managed to go back, I got a call,” she said.

But instead of the clinic, the caller was a provider from a local community-based health center who had gotten her name and was able to see her. Meanwhile, the state’s premier clinic for transgender health is still at capacity, as of October, and unable to accept new patients. Officials said they have stopped trying to maintain a waitlist and instead refer patients elsewhere.

Over the past two years, as nearly half of states passed legislation restricting gender-affirming health care, many transgender people began relocating to states that protect access. But not all those states have had the resources to serve everyone. Cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., have large LGBTQ+ health centers, but the high cost of living keeps many people from settling there. Instead, many have chosen to move to New Mexico, which has prohibited restrictions on gender-affirming care, alongside states like Minnesota, Colorado, Vermont, and Washington.

But those new arrivals have found that trans-friendly laws don’t necessarily equate to easy access. Instead, they find themselves added to ever-growing waitlists for care in a small state with a long-running physician shortage.

“With the influx of gender-refugees, wait times have increased to the point that my doctor and I have planned on bi-yearly exams,” Felix Wallace, a 30-year-old trans man, said in an email.

When T. Michael Trimm started working at the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico in late 2020, he said, the center fielded two or three calls a month from people thinking about moving to the state. “Since then, it has steadily increased to a pace of one or two a week,” he said. “We’ve had folks from as far away as Florida and Kentucky and West Virginia.” That’s not to mention families in Texas “looking to commute here for care, which is a whole other can of worms, trying to access care that’s legal here, but illegal where they live.”

In its 2023 legislative session, New Mexico passed several laws protecting LGBTQ+ rights, including one that prohibits public bodies from restricting gender-affirming care.

“I feel really excited and proud to be here in New Mexico, where it’s such a strong stance and such a strong refuge state,” said Molly McClain, a family medicine physician and medical director of the Deseo clinic, which serves transgender youth at the University of New Mexico Hospital. “And I also don’t think that that translates to having a lot more care available.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has designated part or all of 32 of New Mexico’s 33 counties as health professional shortage areas. A 2022 report found the state had lost 30% of its physicians in the previous four years. The state is on track to have the second-largest physician shortage in the country by 2030, and it already has the oldest physician workforce. The majority of providers offering gender-affirming care are near Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but 60% of the state’s population live in rural regions.

Even in Albuquerque, waitlists to see any doctor are long, which can be difficult for patients desperate for care. McClain noted that the rates of self-harm and suicidal ideation can be very high for transgender people who are not yet able to fully express their identity.

That said, Trimm adds that “trans folks can be very resilient.”

Some trans people have to wait many years to receive transition-related medical care, even “when they’ve known this all their lives,” he said. Although waiting for care can be painful, he hopes a waitlist is easier to endure “than the idea that you maybe could never get the care.”

New Mexico had already become a haven for patients seeking abortion care, which was criminalized in many surrounding states over the past two years. But McClain noted that providing gender-affirming care requires more long-term considerations, because patients will need to be seen regularly the rest of their lives. We’re “working really hard to make sure that it is sustainable,” she said.

As part of that work, McClain and others at the University of New Mexico, in partnership with the Transgender Resource Center, have started a gender-affirming care workshop to train providers statewide. They especially want to reach those in rural areas. The program began in June and has had about 90 participants at each of its biweekly sessions. McClain estimates about half have been from rural areas.

“It’s long been my mantra that this is part of primary care,” McClain said. As New Mexico has protected access to care, she’s seen more primary care providers motivated to offer puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and other services to their trans patients. “The point really is to enable people to feel comfortable and confident providing gender care wherever they are.”

There are still significant logistical challenges to providing gender-affirming care in New Mexico, said Anjali Taneja, a family medicine physician and executive director of Casa de Salud, an Albuquerque primary care clinic serving uninsured and Medicaid patients.

“There are companies that are outright refusing to provide [malpractice] insurance coverage for clinics doing gender-affirming care,” she said. Casa de Salud has long offered gender-affirming care, but, Taneja said, it was only this year that the clinic found malpractice insurance that would allow it to treat trans youth.

Meanwhile, reproductive health organizations and providers are trying to open a clinic — one that will also offer gender-affirming care — in southern New Mexico, with $10 million from the state legislature. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains will be part of that effort, and, although the organization does not yet offer gender-affirming care in New Mexico, spokesperson Kayla Herring said, it plans to do so.

Machado said the vitriol and hatred directed at the trans community in recent years is frightening. But if anything good has come of it, it’s the attention the uproar has brought to trans stories and health care “so that these conversations are happening, rather than it being something where you have to explain to your doctor,” she said. “I feel very lucky that I was able to come here because I feel way safer here than I did in other places.”

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This article was supported by the Journalism and Women Symposium Health Journalism Fellowship, with the support of The Commonwealth Fund.

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Power grids that supply more than half of the U.S. population may run short of electricity during an extended cold snap or severe storm over the coming winter, according to industry regulators.

Regional system operators in a vast swath of the country stretching from Texas to New England are “at risk of insufficient electricity supplies during peak winter conditions,” the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said Wednesday in its winter reliability assessment, which also showed the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Saskatchewan facing the threat of power shortfalls.

The outlook is even more dire than last year’s report, which said a quarter of Americans were at risk of cold-weather power emergencies. It includes for the first time some of the most densely populated areas on the East Coast, a region that relies heavily on natural gas as it transitions to renewable energy. Gas generators there widely failed during a brief but fierce winter storm last December because they broke down or couldn’t get fuel.

The grid’s vulnerabilities have been revealed during storms in recent years, notably a 2021 deep freeze in Texas that left more than 200 people dead. While utilities and power generators have made efforts to weather-proof equipment, the NERC report determined that many are still at risk. Gas and coal deliveries can both be hampered during extreme weather and plants can be forced offline, just as cold temperatures drive up power consumption.

“Prolonged, wide-area cold snaps threaten the reliable performance” of the power grid, “and the availability of fuel supplies,” NERC said.

In Texas, the state grid operator has warned that there is an “unacceptable” risk of an emergency in a powerful winter storm.

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(Bloomberg staff writer Naureen S. Malik contributed to this story.)

©2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jon and Carie Hallford were arrested Wednesday in Wagoner, Oklahoma, on charges of abuse of a corpse, forgery, theft and money laundering, the attorney’s office said in a news release. The probable cause affidavit for the arrests is sealed, 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael J. Allen said in the news conference.

Their bonds are set at $2 million.

“I am relieved that criminal charges have been brought against the funeral home owner and a criminal investigation is proceeding,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement after the arrests. “I know this will not bring peace to the families impacted by this heart-wrenching incident but we hope the individuals responsible are held fully accountable in a court of law.”

Jon Hallford owns Return to Nature Funeral Home in Penrose in Fremont County, which specializes in green burials and cremations. The company, Hallfordhomes LLC, is based in Colorado Springs, Allen said.

The remains were found Oct. 4 by authorities responding to a report of an “abhorrent smell” inside the company’s decrepit Penrose building.

Officials initially estimated there were about 115 bodies inside, but the number later increased to 189 after they finished removing all the remains in mid-October; Fremont County Coroner Randy Keller in a news conference after the arrests Wednesday said the number of bodies found is now 190.

Of those found, authorities have identified 110 bodies through fingerprints, dental records and medical hardware; 80 bodies are still unidentified. Keller said they will move on to using DNA to identify the remaining bodies.

The bodies of about 25 people have been released to loved ones, Keller said, and they have been in contact with about 137 families involved with the funeral home.

It’s not clear why the Hallfords were in Oklahoma at the time of their arrest.

Allen in the news conference declined to give any information on why the couple was in Oklahoma or what agency arrested them, but the Tulsa World reported that Jon Hallford is from Oklahoma and previously worked as the funeral director at his family’s funeral home there.

Jon Hallford apparently worked at Foster-Petering Funeral Home in Muskogee, which does not appear to be in operation anymore, and a funeral home in Tulsa, according to online court records from a 2006 civil debt relief suit. Jon Hallford had wages garnished from both funeral homes, as well as from Walgreens and a health care services company.

His apprentice-level license with the Oklahoma Funeral Board expired in 2004 upon his graduation, according to the funeral board’s website. No license after that appears on the state’s website.

A man who answered the phone at the Muskogee County jail in Oklahoma confirmed Wednesday morning to The Denver Post that Jon Hallford is being held there but later said there was an FBI hold, so he couldn’t give any more information about him or if Carie Hallford was at the jail as well.

The Hallfords couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday. Neither has a listed personal phone number and the Penrose funeral home’s number no longer works, the Associated Press reported.

After the odor was reported, Hallford acknowledged to state regulators that he had a “problem” at the Penrose property, according to an Oct. 5 license suspension order, and claimed to practice taxidermy at the location. He then “attempted to conceal the improper storage of human remains.”

The funeral home had already been the subject of several legal troubles before the discovery of the bodies.

On Oct. 1, the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office declared the business license delinquent for failure to file a routine reporting form; an El Paso County judge in June ruled Hallford and his company owed more than $21,000 to a funeral services company; and in 2019, a couple sued Hallford and his wife for failure to pay rent.

The Associated Press reported they were evicted from one of their properties and were sued for unpaid bills by a crematory that quit doing business with them almost a year ago, according to public records and interviews with people who worked with them.

The discovery also shined a spotlight on the state’s lax oversight of funeral homes and crematories. Colorado remains the only state in the country that doesn’t license funeral directors or require some certification.

State officials don’t regularly inspect funeral homes and only devote one-quarter of one full-time position to regulate 220 funeral homes and 77 crematories.

There’s no indication state regulators visited Penrose or contacted Hallford until more than 10 months after the Penrose funeral home’s registration expired in November 2022, according to AP.

Colorado lawmakers and the Colorado Funeral Directors Association said it’s long past time to close loopholes in Colorado’s regulatory framework.

Since the discovery of the bodies, a lawsuit has been filed against the Hallfords and Hallfordhomes LLC. A second lawsuit was filed Thursday, according to online court records.

Authorities in the case are asking anyone who has worked with the funeral home since September 2019 to use the FBI’s victim information form, bit.ly/47mjWmO, to contact them.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans issued subpoenas Wednesday to members of President Joe Biden’s family, taking their most aggressive step yet in an impeachment inquiry bitterly opposed by Democrats that is testing the reach of congressional oversight powers.

The long-awaited move by Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, to subpoena the president’s son Hunter and his brother James comes as Republicans look to gain ground in their nearly yearlong investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover evidence directly implicating the president in any wrongdoing.

But Republicans say the evidence trail they have uncovered paints a troubling picture of “influence peddling” by Biden’s family in their business dealings, particularly with clients overseas.

“Now, the House Oversight Committee is going to bring in members of the Biden family and their associates to question them on this record of evidence,” Comer, of Kentucky, said in a statement.

The stakes are exceedingly high, as the inquiry could result in Republicans bringing impeachment charges against Biden, the ultimate penalty for what the U.S. Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

The subpoenas demand that Hunter Biden and James Biden as well as former business associate Rob Walker appear before the Oversight Committee for a deposition by mid-December. Lawmakers also requested that James Biden’s wife, Sara Biden, and Hallie Biden, the wife of the president’s deceased son Beau, appear voluntarily for transcribed interviews.

Requests for comment from Hunter Biden and James Biden were not immediately returned.

Both the White House and the Biden family’s personal lawyers have dismissed the investigation as a political ploy aimed at hurting the Democratic president. They say the probe is a blatant attempt to help former President Donald Trump, the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, as he runs again for the White House.

Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said the investigation has been full of “worn-out, false, baseless, or debunked claims.”

“This is a yet another political stunt aimed at distracting from the glaring failure of Rep. Comer and his MAGA allies to prove a single one of their wild and now discredited conspiracies about the Biden family,” Lowell said in a statement, referencing the acronym for Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. “Nevertheless, Hunter is eager to have the opportunity, in a public forum and at the right time, to discuss these matters with the Committee.”

In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday morning, Lowell urged the new speaker to rein in the “partisan political games.”

The impeachment inquiry slowed down in early October after Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker by a handful of fellow Republicans, stalling much of the legislative business and congressional investigations as the conference spent exhaustive weeks deliberating his replacement before electing Johnson late last month.

Now settling into the speakership, Johnson, of Louisiana, has given his blessing to the inquiry and has hinted that a decision could come soon on whether to pursue articles of impeachment against Biden.

“I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads,” Johnson told Fox News Channel recently. He also said in a separate Fox interview that he would support Comer’s decision to subpoena the president’s son, saying “desperate times call for desperate measures, and that perhaps is overdue.”

Since January, Republicans have been investigating the Biden family for what they claim is a pattern of “influence peddling” spanning back to when Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president. Comer claims the committee had “uncovered a mountain of evidence” that he said would show how Biden abused his power and repeatedly lied about a “wall” between his political position and his son’s private business dealings.

Over the summer, Republicans expanded their investigation to include oversight of the ongoing Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden and allegations that the case was plagued with interference.

One focus of the congressional inquiry has been whether the now-special counsel overseeing the case, David Weiss, had full authority to bring charges against the president’s younger son. In an unprecedented interview on Tuesday, Weiss told lawmakers that he was the “decision-maker” in a yearslong case into Hunter Biden’s taxes and gun use.

No one at the Justice Department, including U.S. attorneys or the tax division, blocked or prevented him from pursuing charges or taking other necessary steps in the investigation, Weiss said.

The five-year investigation into Hunter Biden had been expected to end with a plea deal this summer, but it imploded during a July plea hearing. Weiss has now charged the president’s son with three firearms felonies related to the 2018 purchase of a gun during a period Hunter Biden has acknowledged being addicted to drugs. No new tax charges have been filed.

Associated Press writers Lindsay Whitehurst and Eric Tucker contributed to this report.