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Comedian Jon Stewart and troops sickened by uranium ended a meeting Friday at the Department of Veterans Affairs angry that once again they have been told they will have to wait to see whether the VA will connect their illnesses to the toxic base where they were deployed shortly after 9/11. The denied claims were supposed to have been fixed by the PACT Act, a major veterans aid package bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2022 and said is one of his proudest accomplishments in office. For many veterans it has made access to care much easier. But the bill left out the the uranium exposure that’s still hurting some of the very first troops deployed in response to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Just weeks after the attacks, special operations forces were sent to Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, or K2, a badly contaminated former Soviet base that was a strategic location for launching operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan. But K2 was a former chemical weapons site and was littered with yellow powdered uranium that was kicked up in the dust and moved throughout the base when the military pushed up a protective earth berm. The radiation levels were as much as 40,000 times higher than what would have been found naturally, according to a nuclear fusion expert who has reviewed the data. Two decades later, troops who served there are still fighting to get radiation-exposure illnesses recognized by the VA. Many have died young. That the VA continues to tell the K2 veterans it has not decided yet whether to cover their illnesses has infuriated Stewart, who is a vocal advocate for all of the 9/11 first responders. Stewart and the veterans were at the VA this spring to press their case, and were told the VA was working with the Pentagon to identify what radiation was at the base. Friday’s meeting was with VA Secretary Denis McDonough, which had raised hopes for a resolution. But they heard something else. “The secretary today said he has the authority statutorily to make the change, to make sure the K2 veterans are covered presumptively,” Stewart said. But McDonough instead told them they were still waiting for additional information. “I believe punting is the correct term for what happened.” In a statement VA spokesman Terrence Hayes said there are more than 300 conditions covered already by the PACT Act and that the agency is working on the specific K2 illnesses and radiation exposure. “We continue to urgently consider every option to further assist these veterans and survivors, and we will keep them apprised every step of the way,” Hayes said. “It felt like groundhog day,” said Kim Brooks, whose late husband was one of the first troops who served at K2 to die. Lt. Col. Tim Brooks was one of the first soldiers to deploy to K2 in 2001 and served with the 10th Mountain Division during Operation Anaconda against the Taliban in early 2002. When his unit returned to Fort Drum, New York, in the spring of 2002, Brooks wasn’t himself. He was suffering debilitating headaches and became unexpectedly irritable, his wife said. Then his unit was called into a briefing, to sign paperwork about the toxins they were exposed to, she said. “He came home from that briefing and told me about it in our kitchen,” said Kim Brooks, who joined Stewart at the VA meeting. “He was incredibly upset and worried and then became more and more exhausted and did not feel or look well leading up to his collapse.” Kim Brooks has tried to obtain the form her husband signed from his military records, but has not been successful and thinks it might have been removed. Other K2 veterans who were in the special operations forces have also struggled to get documents from their medical records because their missions and roles were classified. In 2003 Tim Brooks collapsed during a Fort Drum ceremony as his unit was preparing to go to Iraq. Doctors diagnosed brain cancer, and he died a year later at age 36. Having still to fight to get the Pentagon and VA to recognize uranium exposure at the base has left Kim Brooks “angry and dismayed and sad,” she said. “Denial in 2003 and denial in 2024. When will they own it and take care of these men and women?” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was serving as the commanding general of Fort Drum’s 10th Mountain Division in 2004 when Brooks died there. Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement Friday that the Defense Department is aware of the health issues of the veterans who served at K2. She said Austin “believes strongly in our nation’s obligation to care for veterans and their families.” The presence of uranium on the base has been known since November 2001 — just a month after troops arrived there — and is documented on multiple Army maps, in memos and VA briefings. But it was labeled in different ways — as enriched, low-level processed or depleted uranium. The base and the radiation and other contaminants there was the subject of congressional hearings in 2020. The confusion about what kind of uranium was there has been one of the holdups to veterans getting care. But radiation levels documented at K2 in November 2001 were so elevated — as much as 40,000 times what would have registered if the uranium was just naturally occurring — that the specific type does not matter because exposure would have been harmful, said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear fusion specialist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who reviewed the K2 radiation data. Radiation exposure from uranium can damage kidneys, create a risk for bone cancer and also affect pregnancies because it crosses the placenta, among other harmful effects, said Makhijani, who previously worked with “atomic veterans” who were sickened by radiation after working at the Bikini Atoll during nuclear weapons tests in the 1940s. More than 15,000 troops were deployed at K2 from 2001 to 2005. While the VA does not have statistics on how many are sick, the veterans’ grassroots organization has contacted about 5,000 of them and more than 1,500 are reporting serious medical conditions, including cancers, kidney and bone problems, reproductive issues and birth defects. Getting the VA to recognize their radiation-related illnesses is about more than medical coverage, said former Army Staff Sgt. Mark Jackson, a K2 veteran who has sought treatment for severe osteoporosis, had to have a testicle removed and had his entire thyroid removed — none of which has been covered by the VA. “It’s the recognition of the exposure,” Jackson said. Austin was the Combined Joint Task Force commander for Afghanistan when Jackson was deployed to K2. His unit would use K2 to go in and out of Afghanistan on missions. It’s not lost on either Jackson or Kim Brooks that Austin now leads the agency they need finally to recognize the radiation exposure at K2. “He was there when I was there,” Jackson said. “Hell, Austin signed my Bronze Star. I look at his signature almost everyday.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

RALEIGH. N.C. (AP) — North Carolina state regulators now declare a nonprofit run by the wife of North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson must repay over $132,000 for what they call disallowed expenses while carrying out a federally funded child care meal program. The state Department of Health and Human Services revealed a larger amount in a Friday letter to Yolanda Hill following a compliance review of Balanced Nutrition Inc., for which Hill is listed as owner and chief financial officer. Robinson, who is also the Republican nominee for governor this fall, worked in the nonprofit years ago before running for elected office, according to his memoir. Hill previously announced she was shutting down the nonprofit’s enterprise and withdrawing from the Child and Adult Care Food Program on April 30. But state officials had already announced in March that the annual review of Balance Nutrition would begin April 15. The review’s findings, released Wednesday, cited new and repeat problems, including lax paperwork and the failure to file valid claims on behalf of child care operators or to report expenses accurately. The program told Hill and other leaders to soon take corrective action on the “serious deficiencies” or regulators would propose they be disqualified from future program participation. The state health department said on Thursday that the Greensboro nonprofit also owed the state $24,400 in unverified expenses reimbursed to several child care providers or homes examined by regulators in the review. But Friday’s letter counted another $107,719 in ineligible claims or expenses that the state said was generated while Balanced Nutrition performed administrative and operating activities as a program sponsor during the first three months of the year. Forms signed by regulators attributed over $80,000 of these disallowed costs to “administrative labor” or “operating labor.” The records don’t provide details about the labor costs. This week’s compliance review did say that Balanced Nutrition should have disclosed and received approval from the program that Hill’s daughter was working for the nonprofit. The owed amounts and proposed program disqualification can be appealed. A lawyer representing Balanced Nutrition and Hill did not immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment. The lawyer, Tyler Brooks, has previously questioned the review’s timing, alleging Balanced Nutrition was being targeted because Hill is Robinson’s wife and that “political bias” tainted the compliance review process. Program leaders, meanwhile, have described in written correspondence difficulties in obtaining documents and meeting with Balanced Nutrition leaders. The health department is run by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration. He was term-limited from seeking reelection. Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein is running against Robinson for governor. Balanced Nutrition helped child care centers and homes qualify to participate in the free- and reduced-meal program, filed claims for centers to get reimbursed for meals for enrollees and ensured the centers remained in compliance with program requirements. The nonprofit received a portion of a center’s reimbursement for its services. Balanced Nutrition, funded by taxpayers, has collected roughly $7 million in government funding since 2017, while paying out at least $830,000 in salaries to Hill, Robinson and other members of their family, tax filings and state documents show. Robinson described in his memoir how the operation brought fiscal stability to his family, giving him the ability to quit a furniture manufacturing job in 2018 and begin a career in politics. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City is turning to AI-powered scanners in a new bid to keep guns out of its subway system, but the pilot program launched Friday is already being met with skepticism from riders and the threat of a lawsuit from civil liberties advocates who say the searches are unconstitutional. The Evolv scanner — a sleek-looking weapons detector using artificial intelligence to search riders for guns and knives — was on display at a lower Manhattan subway station where Mayor Eric Adams announced the 30-day trial. “This is good technology,” Adams said at Fulton Center near the World Trade Center. “Would I rather that we don’t have to be scanned? Yes,” he added. “But if you would speak to the average subway rider, they would state that they don’t want guns on their subway system, and if it means using scanners, then bring the scanners on.” Adams, a self-described “tech geek,” has stressed that the scanners are still in the experimental phase. The machines, already in use at baseball stadiums and other venues, will be deployed to a small number of stations and only a fraction of riders will be asked to step through them. The city has not entered into a contract with Evolv, and Adams said other companies were welcomed to pitch their own gun-detection innovations. The scanners, about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall, feature the logo of the city’s police department and a multicolor light display. When a weapon is detected, an alert is sent to a tablet monitored by a pair of NYPD officers. The system is not supposed to alert everyday items, such as phones and laptops — though a reporter’s iPad case set it off Friday. The scanners drew immediate protest from civil liberties advocates. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society said they would sue the city if the technology is rolled out widely, alleging the searches violated the constitutional rights of riders. “City officials have admitted that these scanners are primarily to combat some riders’ ‘perceptions’ that they are unsafe on the subway — this is not a justifiable basis to violate the Constitution,” said NYCLU attorney Daniel Lambright. The scanners also spurred concerns from riders who said it isn’t practical or plausible to subject millions of commuters to security screenings. “It’s not going to work,” said Dre Thomas, 25, shaking his head at the device. “It’d have to be at every point in the subway. I don’t see how that’s possible. It seems to me like another way to waste taxpayer money.” Wyatt Hotis, 29, said he thought the scanners were a good idea but “not the root of the issue” when people getting pushed onto the tracks were a bigger safety concern. Hotis instead suggested adding guardrails and barriers to the platforms, along with more officers to patrol them. Margaret Bortner, among the first riders to go through the scanner, described the 30-second process as painless — but didn’t see the need to have them at every station. “There are more important things officers should be doing,” she said. Though there have been high-profile incidents, like a 2022 shooting on a Brooklyn train that left 10 people wounded, crime in the New York City subway system has fallen in recent years. Overall, violent crime in the system is rare, with train cars and stations being generally as safe as any other public place. So far this year, subway crime is down 8% through July 21 compared with the same period in 2023, according to police data. Last year, there were five killings in the subway, down from 10 the year prior, according to police. Adams has long discussed the possibility of adding weapons detectors to the subway system. He suggested this week that “eventually, every turnstile is going to be able to identify if someone is carrying a gun,” but doing so could require the city to deploy thousands of police officers to respond to gun alerts. Experts have also expressed doubts about the feasibility of adding the technology to the city’s sprawling subway system, which includes 472 stations with multiple ways in and out. Fulton Center, the subway hub where the mayor spoke, illustrates the challenges of deploying the detectors in a system designed to be as accessible as possible. There are multiple entrances spread out over several blocks, with dozens of turnstiles used by as many as 300,000 riders a day. During rush hour, they are often sprinting to catch a train. Anyone who wanted to bring a gun in without passing through a scanner could simply walk to another entrance or a nearby station. The CEO of Evolv, Peter George, has himself acknowledged that subways are “not a great use-case” for the scanners, according to the Daily News. Evolv has said that its scanning system uses artificial intelligence to screen up to 3,600 people per hour, quickly detecting the “signatures” of guns, knives and explosives while not alerting cell phones and other metal devices. The company has faced a spate of lawsuits in recent years, along with federal probes into its marketing practices. Evolv told investors last year that it was contacted by the Federal Trade Commission and in February said it had been contacted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a “fact finding inquiry.” Earlier this year, investors filed a class-action lawsuit, accusing company executives of overstating the devices’ capabilities and claiming that “Evolv does not reliably detect knives or guns.” The company has claimed that it is being targeted by a misinformation campaign by those “incentivized to discredit the company.” New York City has experimented with a variety of security measures to ensure the protection of its vast subway system. In 2005, the NYPD ran a pilot project aimed at examining the feasibility of using explosive detection technology in the subways. Then, the department began doing random searches of people’s bags as they entered the subway system. That effort was also rolled out with much fanfare, but such bag checks — while not completely abandoned — are rare today. __ Associated Press reporter Karen Matthews contributed to this report. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two weeks after Donald Trump’s near assassination, the FBI confirmed Friday that it was indeed a bullet that struck the former president’s ear, moving to clear up conflicting accounts about what caused the former president’s injuries after a gunman opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally. “What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle,” the agency said in a statement. The statement from the FBI marked the most definitive law enforcement account of Trump’s injuries and followed ambiguous comments earlier in the week from Director Christopher Wray that appeared to cast doubt on whether Trump had actually been hit by a bullet. The comment drew fury from Trump and his allies and further stoked conspiracy theories that have flourished on both sides of the political aisle amid a dearth of information following the July 13 attack. Up until now, federal law enforcement agents involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had repeatedly refused to provide information about what caused Trump’s injuries. Trump’s campaign has also declined to release medical records from the hospital where he was first treated or to make the doctors there available for questions. Updates have instead come either from Trump himself or from Trump’s former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson, a staunch ally who who now represents Texas in Congress. Though Jackson has been treating Trump since the night of the attack, he has come under considerable scrutiny and is not Trump’s primary care physician. The FBI’s apparent reluctance to immediately vouch for the former president’s version of events — along with the ire he and some supporters have directed at the bureau in the shooting’s aftermath — has also raised fresh tension between the Republican nominee and the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency, which he could soon exert control over once again. Trump and his supporters have repeatedly accused federal law enforcement of being weaponized against him. Questions about the extent and nature of Trump’s wound began immediately after the attack, as his campaign and law enforcement officials declined to answer questions about his condition or the treatment he received after Trump narrowly escaped death in an attempted assassination by a gunman with a high-powered rifle. Those questions have persisted despite photos showing the trace of a projectile speeding past Trump’s head, photographs that show Trump’s teleprompter glass intact after the shooting, and the account Trump himself gave in a Truth Social post within hours of the shooting saying he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” he wrote. Days later, in a speech accepting the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump described the horrific scene in detail, while wearing a large, white, gauze bandage over his right ear. “I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard, on my right ear. I said to myself, ‘Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet,’” he said. “If I had not moved my head at that very last instant,” Trump said, “the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark, and I would not be here tonight.” But the first medical account of Trump’s condition didn’t come until a full week after the shooting, when Jackson released his first letter last Saturday evening. In that letter, he said the bullet that struck Trump had “produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.” He also revealed that Trump had received a CT scan at the hospital. But federal law enforcement involved in the investigation, including the FBI and Secret Service, had declined to confirm that account. And Wray’s testimony offered apparently conflicting answers on the issue. “There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified, before he seemed to suggest it was indeed a bullet. “I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else,” he said. The following day, the FBI sought to clarify matters with a statement affirming that the shooting was an “attempted assassination of former President Trump which resulted in his injury, as well as the death of a heroic father and the injuries of several other victims.” The FBI also said Thursday that its Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine bullet fragments and other evidence from the scene. Jackson, who has been treating the former president since the night of the July 13 shooting, told The Associated Press on Thursday that any suggestion Trump’s ear was bloodied by anything other than a bullet was reckless. “It was a bullet wound,” said Jackson. “You can’t make statements like that. It leads to all these conspiracy theories.” In his letter Friday, Jackson insisted “there is absolutely no evidence” Trump was struck by anything other than a bullet and said it was “wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.” He wrote that at Butler Memorial Hospital, where the GOP nominee was rushed after the shooting, he was evaluated and treated for a “Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.” “Having served as an Emergency Medicine physician for over 20 years in the United States Navy, including as a combat physician on the battlefield in Iraq,” he wrote, “I have treated many gunshot wounds in my career. Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors at nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.” The FBI declined to comment on the Jackson letters. Asked if the campaign would release those hospital records, or allow the doctors who treated him there to speak, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the media for asking. “The media has no shame in engaging in disgusting conspiracy theories,” he said. “The facts are the facts, and to question an abhorrent assassination attempt that ultimately cost a life and injured two others is beyond the pale.” In emails last week, he told the AP that “medical readouts” had already been provided. “It’s sad some people still don’t believe a shooting happened,” Cheung said, “even after one person was killed and others were injured.” Anyone who believes the conspiracies, he added, “is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close Trump ally, also urged Wray to correct his testimony in a letter Friday to the FBI director, saying the fact Trump had been hit by a bullet “was made clear in briefings my office received and should not be a point of contention.” “As head of the FBI, you should not be creating confusion about such matters, as it further undercuts the agency’s credibility with millions of Americans,” he wrote. Trump also lashed out at Wray in a post on his Truth Social network, saying it was “No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!” “No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,” he wrote. On Friday, he called Wray’s comments “so damaging to the Great People that work in the FBI.” Jackson has faced significant scrutiny over the years. After administering a physical to Trump in 2018, he drew headlines for suggesting that “if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old.” He was reportedly demoted by the Navy after the Department of Defense inspector general released a scathing report on his conduct as a top White House physician that found Jackson had made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinates and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted worries from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care. Trump appointed Wray in 2017 to replace the fired James Comey as director of the FBI. But the then-president swiftly soured on his hire as the bureau continued its investigation into the Russian election interference. Trump flirted openly with the idea of firing Wray as his term drew to a close, and he lashed out anew after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to recover boxes of classified documents from his presidency. ___ Colvin reported from New York. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two former FBI officials settled lawsuits with the Justice Department on Friday, resolving claims that their privacy was violated when the department leaked to the news media text messages that they had sent one another that disparaged former President Donald Trump. Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence agent who played a crucial role in the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016, settled his case for $1.2 million. Attorneys for Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who exchanged text messages with Strzok, also confirmed that she had settled but did not disclose an amount. The two had sued the Justice Department over a 2017 episode in which officials shared copies with reporters of text messages they had sent each other, including ones that described Trump as an “idiot” and a ”loathsome human” and that called the prospect of a Trump victory “terrifying.” Strzok, who also investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, was fired after the text messages came to light. Page resigned. “This outcome is a critical step forward in addressing the government’s unfair and highly politicized treatment of Pete,” Strzok’s lawyer, Aitan Goelman, said in a statement Friday announcing the settlement. “As important as it is for him, it also vindicates the privacy interests of all government employees. We will continue to litigate Pete’s constitutional claims to ensure that, in the future, public servants are protected from adverse employment actions motivated by partisan politics,” he added. A spokesman for the Justice Department did not have an immediate comment Friday, Strzok also sued the department over his termination, alleging that the FBI caved to “unrelenting pressure” from Trump when it fired him and that his First Amendment rights were violated. Those constitutional claims have not been resolved by the tentative settlement. “While I have been vindicated by this result, my fervent hope remains that our institutions of justice will never again play politics with the lives of their employees,” Page said in a statement. Her attorneys said that “the evidence was overwhelming that the release of text messages to the press in December 2017 was for partisan political purposes and was against the law. ” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com