WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. airstrike in Syria in May 2023 that was targeting an al-Qaida leader killed an innocent civilian instead, U.S. Central Command said Thursday, confirming early reports from residents and family members shortly after the attack.

U.S. Central Command said an investigation into the May 3 strike concluded that U.S. forces misidentified the intended al-Qaida target “and that a civilian, Mr. Lufti Hasan Masto, was struck and killed.”

Shortly after the drone strike, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said it had hit a chicken farm near the town of Harem, killing one person. And just days later, relatives and neighbors told The Associated Press that the person killed was a farmer who raised sheep, chickens and cattle and had no involvement with armed groups.

Masto’s brother, Mohamed Masto, said reports that his brother, 60, was involved with al-Qaida were “absolute lies” and his killing was “an injustice and an aggression.” Instead, Masto was simply tending his sheep when the strike hit.

Central Command said the investigation into the strike was completed last November — but it wasn’t released publicly until Thursday.

In a statement, Central Command said much of the investigation and findings are classified but acknowledged it revealed “several issues that could be improved.”

“What we can share is the investigation concluded the strike was conducted in compliance with the law of armed conflict as well as Department of Defense and CENTCOM policies,” the statement said. “We are committed to learning from this incident and improving our targeting processes to mitigate potential civilian harm.”

The Defense Department has come under fire over the course of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria for killing civilians in airstrikes. It set up a detailed investigation and review process for strikes when there are allegations of innocent people being killed.

The U.S. also continues to target al-Qaida and Islamic State leaders in Syria, including the 2017 airstrike that killed Abu al-Kheir al-Masri, a former aide to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida’s second in command in Syria.

By Tom Polansek and Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Bird flu likely circulated in U.S. dairy cows on a limited basis for about four months before federal officials confirmed the disease that has now spread to nine states, according to a new federally funded research paper.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported the first-ever H5N1 virus infection in a dairy cow in Texas on March 25, following reports of decreased milk yields in multiple states.

The USDA has said it believes wild birds, which can carry the virus, introduced H5N1 to cattle. The outbreak then expanded as cows were shipped to other states, according to the paper released on Wednesday that was funded by USDA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Data support a single introduction event from wild bird origin virus into cattle, likely followed by limited local circulation for approximately four months prior to confirmation by USDA,” the paper said.

A team of academic scientists led by University of Arizona evolutionary biologist Michael Worobey pieced together raw genetic sequences released by USDA on April 21 without dates or locations and concluded a week ago that a single transmission event occurred in late 2023.

Scientists have criticized USDA for not releasing details of the data that would allow academic researchers around the world to trace the evolution of the virus.

One person, a Texas farm worker, has tested positive for H5N1 in the current outbreak, though the only symptom was conjunctivitis, believed to be caused by contact with cow milk. The CDC has said the general public faces a low risk for infection.

Bird flu has long been on the list of viruses with pandemic potential, and any expansion to a new mammal species is concerning to scientists.

Carol Cardona, a bird flu expert at the University of Minnesota, said the virus was able to spread during the four months it was undetected.

“By the time it was recognized, we were beyond our ability to contain the outbreak,” she said.

Veterinarians observed dairy cattle displaying unexplained reductions in milk production and changes in milk quality, along with reduced feed consumption, starting in January, according to the paper. It was published an open-access preprint

server for the biological sciences called bioRxivon.

Members of USDA’s network of laboratories that monitors for diseases identified influenza A virus, which includes bird flu, in milk and nasal swabs from cows at a Texas dairy, the paper said, without specifying a date.

They forwarded samples to USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories, which respond to animal-health emergencies, for testing as epidemiologic investigations continued elsewhere, the paper said.

USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Overall, it’s wonderful that these data have been shared,” virologist Angela Rasmussen of the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, who worked on sequencing the virus with Worobey, said in a post on X.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The state of Maryland said on Thursday it estimates it will cost $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion to rebuild a collapsed Baltimore bridge and anticipates it will be completed by fall 2028.

The Maryland Department of Transportation said the state’s “planning level cost estimate is between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion” and said it “is in line with similar projects of this scale and complexity.”

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chris Reese)

Russian state-affiliated accounts have boosted their use of TikTok and are getting more engagement on the short-form video platform ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to a study published Thursday by the nonprofit Brookings Institution.

The report states that Russia is increasingly leveraging TikTok to disseminate Kremlin messages in both English and Spanish, with state-linked accounts posting far more frequently on the platform than they did two years ago.

Such accounts are also active on other social media platforms and have a larger presence on Telegram and X than on TikTok. However, the report says user engagement — such as likes, views and shares — on their posts has been much higher on TikTok than on either Telegram or X.

“The use of TikTok highlights a growing, but still not fully realized, avenue for Russia’s state-backed information apparatus to reach new, young audiences,” reads the report, which drew data from 70 different state-affiliated accounts and was authored by Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings fellow in foreign policy and its artificial intelligence initiative.

The study notes that most posts do not focus on U.S. politics but other issues, like the war in Ukraine and NATO. However, those that do tend to feature more divisive topics like U.S. policy on Israel and Russia, and questions around President Joe Biden’s age, the Brookings report says.

A TikTok spokesperson said the company has removed covert influence operations in the past and eliminated accounts, including 13 networks operating from Russia.

The spokesperson said TikTok also labels state-controlled media accounts and will expand that policy in the coming weeks “to further address accounts that attempt to reach communities outside their home country on current global events and affairs.”

The Brookings report comes after Biden last month signed legislation forcing TikTok’s parent company — China-based ByteDance — to sell the platform or face a ban in the U.S. The potential ban is expected to face legal challenges.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal appeals court heard arguments on Thursday over a decades-old Tennessee policy that does not allow transgender people to change the sex designation on their birth certificates.

The lawsuit was first filed in federal court in Nashville in 2019 by transgender Tennesseans who say Tennessee’s prohibition serves no legitimate government interest while it subjects transgender people to discrimination, harassment and even violence when they have to produce a birth certificate for identification that clashes with their gender identity. They say the policy is unconstitutional.

Last year, a federal judge dismissed the case, ruling that while there are varying definitions of “sex,” the term has a very narrow and specific meaning for the purpose of birth certificates in Tennessee: “external genitalia at the time of birth.”

Attorney Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, with Lambda Legal, argued the case for the transgender plaintiffs before a three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday.

Birth certificates “are not mere records of historical facts or observations,” he said. “Birth certificates are critical and foundational identity documents.” And in the case of transgender people, those identity documents are incorrect, he argued. He noted that Tennessee does allow changes to birth certificates in cases where the sex is listed as “unknown” at the time of birth.

Proposing a hypothetical, Judge Jeffrey Sutton asked whether it would be constitutional for a state to allow changes to the sex on a driver’s license but not a birth certificate since the license could be used for identification instead.

Gonzalez-Pagan said there are cases in which birth certificates are required for identification, like getting a passport.

Sutton also asked if self-identification as transgender should be the only thing needed to change a birth certificate.

“The states are all over the map on how they treat this,” he noted. “Some ask for proof of a sex change. Others will ask for proof of treatment, others, just a doctor’s note, and others self-designation.”

Gonzalez-Pagan did not directly answer at first, but after being pressured by the judge to do so, he said that self-identification is what should be required.

The plaintiffs — four transgender women born in Tennessee — argue in court filings that sex is properly determined not by external genitalia but by gender identity, which they define in their brief as “a person’s core internal sense of their own gender.” However, they are not asking the appeals court to determine what sex is but rather to send the case back to U.S. District Judge Eli Richardson by ruling that his dismissal of the case without a trial was improper.

Associate Solicitor General Matt Rice, representing the state of Tennessee, argued that Richardson ruled correctly.

“The Constitution does not require states to amend their birth certificates to include a person’s gender identity,” he said. “Tennessee does not somehow discriminate against transgender persons by merely maintaining a record of a person’s sex based off of external genitalia at birth.”

Moreover, he said the sex designation is protected government speech. The transgender plaintiffs are not actually arguing that they are treated differently from anyone else, Rice said, “they just want us to convey a different message.”

Sutton asked about a separate case in state court where a transgender woman sued the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security last week after officials refused to change the sex on her driver’s license. Tennessee had previously allowed those changes, but the legislature passed a law last year defining “sex” throughout Tennessee code as a person’s “immutable biological sex as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”

It made sense, Sutton said, that the birth certificate was a record of the sex at birth while the driver’s license was a current identity document.

“It really seemed to lower the stakes, and it also suggested that the state did not have any animus against transgender people,” Sutton said.

Rice argued that the legislature’s actions in 2023 cannot show that the birth certificate policy, in place for more than half a century, was enacted with animus.

Tennessee is one of five states currently that do not allow transgender citizens to change the sex on their birth certificates, according to data collected by the nonprofit Movement Advancement Project, but many laws and policies regarding identification documents for transgender people are in flux across the United States.

Just this week, transgender, intersex and nonbinary Arkansas residents sued the state over its decision to no longer allow “X” instead of male or female on state-issued driver’s licenses or identification cards.

HOUSTON (AP) — The start of the first civil trial stemming from the 2021 Astroworld festival, at which 10 people were killed in a crowd surge, has been delayed.

Jury selection had been set to begin next Tuesday in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed the family of Madison Dubiski, a 23-year-old Houston resident who was killed during the crowd crush at the Nov. 5, 2021, concert by rap superstar Travis Scott.

But Apple Inc., one of the more than 20 defendants going to trial next week, filed an appeal this week, automatically delaying the start of jury selection.

“Unless I hear differently, the trial is stayed,” state District Judge Kristen Hawkins said during a court hearing Thursday.

Apple, which livestreamed Scott’s concert, is appealing a ruling by Hawkins that denied the company’s motion to be dismissed from the case. Apple has argued that under Texas law, it can appeal Hawkins’ ruling because its defense claims are being made in part as a member of the electronic media.

Apple is arguing that in livestreaming Scott’s concert, it was acting as a member of the electronic media and its actions merit free speech protection.

“It remains our position that our conduct is protected by the First Amendment,” Kent Rutter, one of Apple’s attorneys, told Hawkins during a court hearing Thursday.

Hawkins said she hopes to hear from the appeals court by Monday, but there is no timetable for a decision.

Lawyers for Dubiski’s family have alleged that her death was caused by negligent planning and a lack of concern over capacity at the event. Her lawyers allege that how Apple placed its cameras around the concert site affected the placement of barriers and reduced available crowd space by the main stage.

Rutter argued that it was broadcasting an event “with significant public interest” and that by doing so, it was acting as a member of the media and gathering news.

But Jason Itkin, one of the attorneys for Dubiski’s family, said that Apple has described itself in business records as a company that makes smartphones and computers but doesn’t mention of news or news reporting. Itkin added that the company’s Apple News app is a subscription service that aggregates the stories of other news organizations.

“This is not a free speech case. They know that,” Itkin said.

During the hearing, Hawkins appeared skeptical about Apple’s claims about being a member of the electronic media, asking Rutter that if a livestream were set up in a zoo to watch animals, would that be news.

“Yes, it would be,” Rutter said.

Over 4,000 plaintiffs filed hundreds of lawsuits following the concert. Dubiski’s case had been chosen by attorneys in the litigation to be the first to go to trial. More than 20 defendants, including Scott, Apple and Live Nation, the festival’s promoter, had been set to go on trial Tuesday.

Following a police investigation, a grand jury last year declined to indict Scott, along with five others connected to the festival.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

(Reuters) – Pro-Palestinian protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israel have spread across U.S. universities in the two weeks since Columbia University administrators called in police to dismantle an encampment on their New York City campus.

Below is a timeline of significant events in the biggest wave of U.S. student activism since the anti-racism protests of 2020.

APRIL 17 – Columbia University students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on their Manhattan campus the same day the university’s president tells the U.S. Congress she will protect Jewish students from a “moral crisis” of antisemitism.

APRIL 18 – Over 100 pro-Palestinian protesters are arrested at Columbia after university president Minouche Shafik asks New York police to clear the encampment.

APRIL 22- Police arrest hundreds of people at pro-Palestinian protests at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan after Columbia University canceled classes in response to its encampment.

APRIL 24 – Riot police are deployed against pro-Palestinian protesters at University of Texas, Austin with 57 arrests for criminal trespass. The level of force, until then unprecedented, is later seen at other campuses. All charges were later dropped for lack of probable cause.

APRIL 25 – In comments at Columbia University, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson portrays the campus as out of control and suggests U.S. military reserve forces should be brought in to restore order.

APRIL 27 – Arrest numbers swell over 1,000 on campuses as administrators call in police to break up encampments at universities from Massachusetts to Arizona.

APRIL 28 – Pro-Palestinian protesters tussle with pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA after an Israeli American advocacy group holds a counter demonstration near an encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters.

APRIL 29 – Clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests erupt at UCLA after Jewish student activist records himself being blocked from areas of campus by pro-Palestinian protesters and UCLA authorities declare the protest encampment unlawful. Columbia begins suspending pro-Palestinian student activists at encampment.

APRIL 30 – Brown University students agree to remove camp in return for vote by university trustees on divestment from firms supporting Israel, marking first such deal for protest movement. Pro-Israeli protesters attack UCLA Gaza solidarity camp, four UCLA student journalists among injured. Police arrest dozens of people at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt as they clear buildings occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters

MAY 1 – New York City police arrest dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupying an academic building on Columbia University campus and remove protest encampment.

MAY 2 – Police clear pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA.

(Reporting By Andrew Hay; editing by Diane Craft)

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina’s ban on abortions after roughly six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant, returned to court Thursday with Planned Parenthood and the state arguing over what could be two different ways to define a heartbeat in the law.

Even the state Supreme Court justices who upheld the new law in August noted there appeared to be two definitions of “fetal heartbeat” ending the window in which someone could seek an abortion. They wrote that question would be “for another day.”

That day arrived Thursday, as Circuit Judge Daniel Coble considered Planned Parenthood’s request to block the new law until courts could decide in their suit over the definitions and the state’s request to throw out the lawsuit. He said he will try to rule in a few weeks. No matter what Coble decides, his ruling will face months, if not years, of appeals.

Planned Parenthood said in court papers that in the first five months of the new law, three-quarters of women seeking abortions were turned away because their pregnancies were too far along, and 86% of those three-quarters could have had the procedure if the law allowed abortions up to nine weeks.

The state contends fetal heartbeat is the moment when an ultrasound detects cardiac activity, usually around six weeks after conception. But the law also mentions when the major parts of the heart come together and “repetitive rhythmic contraction” begins, which is often around nine weeks.

Lawyers for the state are turning Planned Parenthood’s argument on its head by arguing that the organization said over 300 times that the law bans abortions after six weeks, during a successful challenge that caused the General Assembly to alter the law and led to the second unsuccessful challenge. They said the group changed its thoughts only after losing the second time.

Grayson Lambert, a lawyer for South Carolina’s governor, said established law in the state has long said if there are disagreements with interpreting the law, judges need to give the most weight to the intent of lawmakers. All that was discussed during the General Assembly’s abortion debate, he said, was six weeks.

“The electrical impulses that make that familiar whoosh sound on the ultrasound — that’s what the General Assembly is talking about,” Lambert said.

But Planned Parenthood lawyer Kyla Eastling said criminal penalties meant the organization had to interpret the new law as conservatively as possible to protect doctors from criminal penalties.

“Doctors aren’t the ones making the law,” Eastling said. “They are just trying to understand it.”

South Carolina’s law is written slightly differently from any other state’s with a similarly timed ban, and minor differences in punctuation are what means the ban doesn’t kick in until the chambers and valves of the heart come together, Eastling argued.

“To put it simply, you can’t have a heartbeat before you have a heart,” Eastling said.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending a nationwide right to abortion, most Republican-controlled states have started enforcing new bans or restrictions, and most Democrat-dominated ones have sought to protect abortion access.

Currently, 14 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and South Carolina and two others have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy. This week, Arizona put into law a bill repealing a Civil War-era ban of nearly all abortions.

In the South Carolina courtroom Thursday was Taylor Shelton, the woman who filed the lawsuit along with Planned Parenthood. She said her gynecologist responded dismissively when she first approached the office about options to end her unplanned pregnancy in September. Facing as much as two years’ imprisonment for violating the ban, health care providers were treading carefully.

Shelton’s body had bent her intrauterine device, causing pain, and she was stunned to find out two days after missing her period, which she tracked regularly, that she was pregnant.

Because doctors in South Carolina were unsure how to define a heartbeat, she ended up in North Carolina, driving for hours to two appointments to get an abortion.

“The lack of clarity in this law leaves people like me scrambling to navigate a convoluted system that fails to prioritize our well-being and autonomy,” Shelton said, reading a statement outside of court as her hands slightly trembled.

Shelton said she had only about 12 days or so to meet the deadline in the South Carolina law, even though she almost immediately realized she might be pregnant. She also had the means and time to seek out help out of the state.

“Today I stand before you angry — angry at a system that seeks to control our bodies and dictate our choices,” Shelton said. “But I also stand determined, fueled by the conviction that no one should endure what I went through. We deserve better. We deserve clear, unequivocal laws.”

Tiger Woods accepted a special exemption for the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, the first time the three-time champion has needed an exemption to play.

Woods has been exempt for every U.S. Open since he first played in 1995 as the reigning U.S. Amateur champion. His five-year exemption from winning the 2019 Masters expired last year.

The exemption was expected and likely to be the first of many. The USGA is particular about who is exempt from qualifying, last awarding one in 2021 to Phil Mickelson.

Jack Nicklaus, with four U.S. Open titles among his 18 professional majors, received a record eight special exemptions, including five in a row until he stopped playing the U.S. Open after 2000 at Pebble Beach.

Arnold Palmer received five U.S. Open exemptions, the last one in 1994 when he returned to Oakmont near his hometown for a tearful farewell.

Woods won the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots, a record margin of victory for any major champion. He added another title in 2002 at Bethpage Black in New York, and he famously won his third U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in 2008 just a week before he had reconstructive surgery on his left knee.

“The U.S. Open, our national championship, is a truly special event for our game and one that has helped define my career,” Woods said in a statement. “I’m honored to receive this exemption and could not be more excited for the opportunity to compete in this year’s U.S. Open, especially at Pinehurst, a venue that means so much to the game.”

The U.S. Open is June 13-16 at Pinehurst No. 2, which is staging the Open for the fourth time. Woods tied for third, two shots behind the late Payne Stewart, in 1999. He was runner-up at Pinehurst in 2005 to Michael Campbell. He missed the most recent Open at Pinehurst in 2014 while recovering from the first of what would be four back surgeries.

Woods has a long history with the USGA as the only player to win the U.S. Junior Amateur three straight times, followed by the U.S. Amateur three straight times. His nine USGA championships are matched only by amateur great Bobby Jones.

Woods earlier this year was selected to receive the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor from the USGA.

“The story of the U.S. Open could not be written without Tiger Woods,” said John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s chief championships officer. ”From his 15-stroke victory at Pebble Beach in 2000 to his inspiring win on a broken leg at Torrey Pines in 2008, this championship is simply better when Tiger is in the field, and his accomplishments in the game undoubtedly made this an easy decision for our special exemption committee.”

It will be the first time Woods competes in the U.S. Open since Winged Foot in 2020, held in September before no fans because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He crashed his car in Los Angeles and badly injured his right leg and ankle in February 2021, causing him to miss the U.S. Open’s return to Torrey Pines. While he returned to competition a year later, the U.S. Open at Brookline in 2022 was the only major he didn’t play. A year ago, Woods had surgery to fuse his right ankle after the Masters and did not play the rest of the year, missing the U.S. Open’s debut at Los Angeles Country Club.

Woods last contended at the U.S. Open in 2010 at Pebble Beach, where he shot 66 in the third round but then closed with a 75 and tied for fourth.

He is expected to play in the PGA Championship in two weeks at Valhalla, where he won in 2000 on his way to capturing all four majors consecutively. Woods said during a round of appearances on NBC shows earlier this week to promote his clothing line that his plan was to play the remaining three majors.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Georgia business owner who bragged that he “fed” a police officer to a mob of rioters storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his repeated attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection.

Jack Wade Whitton struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Whitton later boasted in a text message that he “fed him to the people.”

Roughly 20 minutes later, Whitton tried to pull a second officer into the crowd, prosecutors say. He also kicked at, threatened and threw a construction pylon at officers trying to hold off the mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters.

“You’re gonna die tonight!” he shouted at police after striking an officer’s riot shield.

Whitton, of Locust Grove, Georgia, expressed remorse for his “horrible” actions on Jan. 6 before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison. The 33-year-old will get credit for the three years that he has been jailed since his arrest.

“I tell you with confidence: I have changed,” Whitton told the judge.

Whitton, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge last year, told the judge that he has never been a “political person.”

“I’ve never been a troublemaker. I’ve always been a hard worker and a law-abiding citizen,” he said.

The judge said the videos of Whitton attacking police are “gruesome.”

“You really were out of control,” the judge told him.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of eight years and one month for Whitton, who owned and operated his own fence building company before his April 2021 arrest.

“Whitton looked for opportunities to attack: In his three documented assaults, he was either a leader or a solitary actor,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Videos show that contemporaneous attacks on police by Whitton and a co-defendant, Justin Jersey, “ignited the rageful onslaught of violence that followed” on the Lower West Terrace, prosecutors said.

“As Whitton and Jersey commenced their assaults, the tenor of the crowd audibly changed,” they wrote. “Other rioters surged towards the Archway and joined the attack, throwing objects at the officers and striking at them with makeshift weapons such as a hockey stick, a pieces of wood, a flagpole, and a police riot shield.”

Whitton was among nine defendants charged in the same attack. Two co-defendants, Logan Barnhart and Jeffrey Sabol, helped Whitton drag an officer into the crowd before other rioters beat the officer with a flagpole and a stolen police baton.

That evening, Whitton texted somebody images of his bloodied hands.

“This is from a bad cop,” he wrote. “Yea I fed him to the people. (I don’t know) his status. And don’t care (to be honest).”

Defense attorney Komron Jon Maknoon said Whitton traveled to Washington to support his girlfriend because she wanted to “witness an historic event” on Jan. 6, when Trump, a Republican, held a rally as Congress was about to certify his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden, a Democrat.

“While his motives were not politically driven, he does possess a genuine love for his country and shares the desire for a free and fair election, much like any other citizen,” Maknoon wrote.

The judge previously sentenced seven of Whitton’s co-defendants to prison terms ranging from two years and six months to five years and 10 months.

More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 850 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from a few days to 22 years.

Also on Thursday, a case was unsealed against a Virginia man charged with attacking police officers and an Associated Press photographer during the riot. David A. Marshall Jr., 57, of Alexandria was arrested Wednesday on assault charges.

Marshall also helped rioters take a ladder, stole an officer’s baton and bag and used zip ties to close the Capitol’s Memorial Doors, preventing police from opening them, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Capitol insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.