AUSTIN, Texas — Former Republican U.S. Rep. Mayra Flores is recovering after being hospitalized Tuesday shortly after announcing that she will run for a U.S. House seat in 2026, according to her campaign.

In a statement posted on X, the campaign said “Mayra Flores faced a sudden health scare, but thanks to the incredible care she received and the support of her loved ones, she is now fully recovering and feeling stronger than ever.”

Flores, who is from Texas, launched a bid Tuesday to unseat Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar. Her campaign announced just hours later on social media that she had been hospitalized with no further details.

Flores was the first Mexican-born congresswoman in the U.S. House after winning a 2022 special election in another Texas border district. She served about six months in Congress but lost her bid for a full term.

Her campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about why she was hospitalized.

Flores’ challenge highlights Republicans’ growing confidence in making gains in South Texas, a region that was once a stronghold for Democrats where the GOP has slowly chipped away at support for the party in recent elections.

President Donald Trump flipped several counties near the border — including the two most populous, Hidalgo and Cameron — in November. Starr County, with a predominately Hispanic and working-class population, broke generations of precedent when it flipped for Trump in 2024.

Cuellar, who has represented Texas’ 28th Congressional District for two decades, won reelection last year against a Republican newcomer who had little outside support. It was a test of Cuellar’s resiliency after he and his wife were indicted in 2024 on bribery charges. Prosecutors allege the couple accepted nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijan-controlled energy company and a bank in Mexico. Cuellar has said that he and his wife are innocent, and the case remains ongoing.

“Rep. Cuellar remains fully focused on his work in Congress and steadfast in his commitment to serving the people of TX-28,” his campaign said in a statement.

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Nadia Lathan is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

NEW YORK — Five years after Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and hauled to jail in handcuffs, the former movie mogul returns to a Manhattan courthouse Tuesday for a new trial covering the very same allegations — plus one that hasn’t been tried before.

It isn’t double jeopardy, but rather a legal redo after a New York appeals court overturned the landmark #MeToo verdict a year ago.

The state’s Court of Appeals threw out Weinstein’s convictions and 23-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial after finding that the original one was tilted by “egregious” judicial rulings and prejudicial testimony.

Jury selection could take a few days. Opening statements and the start of testimony are expected next week. Judge Curtis Farber said that in addition to 12 jurors, six alternates will be picked. Prosecutors expect the retrial to last a month.

Here’s what you need to know about Weinstein’s retrial:

In some ways, the new trial will be two trials spliced into one.

Weinstein, 73, faces charges involving two women from his original trial in 2020, Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley, and he’s being tried for the first time on an allegation from a woman who wasn’t in the first case.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone. Prosecutors are not allowed to retry Weinstein on certain counts that he was acquitted of during his first trial, including charges of predatory sexual assault and one count of first-degree rape.

The judicial reboot will play out in a different climate than Weinstein’s first trial, which drew intense media attention and saw protesters chanting “rapist” outside the courthouse.

The #MeToo movement, spawned by scores of allegations in 2017 against the ex-studio boss, has evolved and ebbed over time, and Weinstein has since been convicted in a separate rape case in Los Angeles — a verdict he is also appealing.

While some stars are still facing a legal reckoning for alleged sexual misconduct – like Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is set to go to trial next month – the drumbeat of allegations against powerful figures has abated from #MeToo’s early days.

Weinstein is being retried on two charges from his original trial: one count of criminal sex act for allegedly forcibly performing oral sex on a movie and TV production assistant in 2006 and one count of third-degree rape for allegedly assaulting an aspiring actor in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.

Haley, a former production assistant on the Weinstein-produced “Project Runway,” testified at the 2020 trial that he pushed her onto a bed at his Manhattan apartment in June 2006 and forced oral sex on her, undeterred by her kicks and pleas of, “No, please don’t do this, I don’t want it.”

Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, acknowledged that she kept in touch with Weinstein, exchanged warm messages with him, and accepted an invitation to his hotel room two weeks after the alleged assault, where he pulled her into bed for sex. Under New York law applicable at the time, Weinstein has not being charged with rape in connection with Haley’s allegations.

Mann, who said she saw Weinstein as a “pseudo father” figure as she pursued an acting career after a rough upbringing, testified at the 2020 trial that he trapped her in a hotel room in March 2013, ordered her to undress as he loomed over her, and then raped her. She alleges that Weinstein raped her again eight months later at a Beverly Hills hotel, where she worked as a hairdresser.

Mann also kept in touch with Weinstein after the alleged assault, testifying that she sent him flattering emails, because “his ego was so fragile,” she said, and it “made me feel safe, worshipping him in this sense.”

In addition to Haley and Mann, Weinstein is also charged with one count of criminal sex act for allegedly forcing oral sex on a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.

That woman, who was not part of Weinstein’s first trial, has not been named publicly. The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann have done.

Prosecutors said that the woman came forward to them just days before the start of Weinstein’s first trial but was not part of that case. They said they did not pursue the women’s allegations after Weinstein’s conviction, but revisited them and secured a new indictment after the first verdict was thrown out.

Weinstein’s lawyers contend that prosecutors shouldn’t have waited nearly five years to bring the additional charge.

New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, threw out Weinstein’s conviction in April 2024.

In a 4-3 decision, the court said then-Judge James Burke had denied Weinstein a fully fair trial by letting three women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case and his decision to let prosecutors confront Weinstein, if he had testified, over his history of brutish behavior.

The court labeled the allegations against Weinstein “appalling, shameful, repulsive conduct” but warned that “destroying a defendant’s character under the guise of prosecutorial need” did not justify some trial evidence and testimony. Burke’s term expired at the end of 2022, and he is no longer a judge.

In a dissenting opinion, Court of Appeals Judge Madeline Singas wrote that her colleagues in the majority were continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

The ruling came at “the expense and safety of women,” she wrote.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators who were arrested at Stanford University last year after they occupied and allegedly caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to a campus building are now facing charges.

The twelve people, current and former Stanford students, have been charged with felony vandalism and felony conspiracy to trespass, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday in a news release.

Those charged range in age from 19 to 32, the DA’s office said. They will be arraigned later this month at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.

A student journalist, who was arrested with the protesters but was not accused of participating in the vandalism, was not charged.

The Stanford takeover began around dawn on June 5, 2024, the last day of spring classes at the university in California’s Silicon Valley. Some protesters barricaded themselves inside the building, which houses the university president’s office. Others linked arms outside, The Stanford Daily reported at the time. The group chanted “Palestine will be free, we will free Palestine.”

The takeover ended three hours later.

Prosecutors accuse the demonstrators of spray-painting on the building, breaking windows and furniture, disabling security cameras and splattering a red liquid described as fake blood on items throughout the building. Damages were estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors.

Cellphones belonging to those arrested showed communications about the planning of the operation, including a “do-it-yourself occupation guide,” prosecutors said.

The AP recorded at least 86 incidents last spring in which arrests were made at college or university campus protests against the war in Gaza across the U.S.

AUSTIN, Texas — AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is gearing up for a potential U.S. Senate run while no longer shadowed by a federal corruption investigation that hung over his rising profile in the Republican Party.

That durability would be tested against Republican Sen. John Cornyn should Paxton embark on what would likely be one of the country’s most contentious 2026 primary battles.

Paxton, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has hinted at challenging Cornyn for more than a year but has not said when he will make a decision.

In the final weeks of the Biden administration, the Justice Department decided not to pursue its investigation into Paxton over bribery allegations, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Though the date of the decision was not immediately clear, it was made in the final weeks of the President Joe Biden’s presidency, one of the people said.

The accusations were arguably the most serious of multiple legal troubles Paxton has faced since becoming attorney general in 2015, including felony securities fraud charges that hovered over him for nearly a decade before he agreed to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution fees. The attorney general also faced an investigation by the Texas State Bar for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Paxton characterized the investigation as a “bogus witch hunt” in a social media post on X responding to the news Thursday. He also tacked on a fresh barb toward Cornyn.

“Care to comment now, John?” Paxton posted.

Paxton declined an interview request through a spokesperson Thursday.

Spokespeople for Cornyn did not immediately respond to phone and email requests seeking comment.

The quiet dismissal underscores Paxton’s political resiliency and ascendency among his party’s hard-right in recent years while also potentially giving his opponents less fodder for political attacks.

“There are no more clouds over him,” said Bill Miller, a longtime Texas lobbyist and friend of Paxton.

Paxton has targeted Cornyn since the senator became one of few prominent Republicans to criticize him. Cornyn, who helped push a bipartisan gun control bill after the 2022 mass shooting at an Uvalde elementary school, also previously came under criticism from conservative activists who have driven the party’s agenda farther to the right.

Cornyn, who also served as Texas attorney general, has served in the Senate since 2002 and is a popular member of the GOP conference. But Cornyn lost to South Dakota Sen. John Thune in a close bid to become Senate majority leader. If Paxton enters the race, it will likely be the senator’s most competitive primary campaign to date.

In 2020, eight of Paxton’s closest aides accused him of using his office to benefit a Texas real estate developer who employed a woman Paxton was having an extramarital affair with. He was impeached and acquitted in the Texas Senate in 2023.

Nate Paul, the real estate developer, pleaded guilty in January to federal charges for lying to banks to receive millions of dollars in loans.

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Associated Press reporters Alanna Durkin Richer and Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington, D.C. Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday said he will pull out of the city’s Democratic primary and instead run for reelection as an independent candidate, arguing that his federal bribery charges had made it impossible to mount a primary campaign.

In a video, Adams, whose criminal case was dismissed Wednesday, said he will not run in the Democratic primary in June because the case “dragged on too long” while the “false accusations were held over me.”

“I firmly believe that this city is better served by truly independent leadership, not leaders pulled at by the extremists at the far left or the far right, but instead those rooted in the common middle, the place where the vast majority of New Yorkers are firmly planted,” Adams said.

The decision came after intense speculation over whether Adams would remain in the Democratic primary, which has attracted a several serious opponents, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Adams’ announcement was first reported by Politico.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A 13-year-old boy has been charged with murder in a fatal hit-and-run of a bicyclist in Albuquerque that was captured on video from inside the boy’s stolen car, law enforcement said Monday.

The teenager, who is believed to be the driver, and a 15-year-old have been charged with an open count of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, leaving the scene of an accident involving great bodily harm or death and unlawful possession of a handgun by a person, the Albuquerque Police Department said in a statement.

An 11-year-old, who police say was also involved, is too young to be charged with murder.

“APD detectives are working with the DA’s Office and CYFD to determine what charges he may face and whether he can be held on those charges,” according to the statement.

The 13-year-old is expected to be booked into the Juvenile Detention Center. Detectives are searching for the 15 and 11-year-olds.

Scott Dwight Habermehl, 63, was riding to his job at Sandia National Laboratory early in the morning in May when he was hit by a car after it swerved into the bike lane, according to police.

The crash was filmed from inside the car and circulated on social media. In the recording, a voice believed to be the 13-year-old can be heard saying he is about to hit the bicyclist, according to law enforcement. The car appears to accelerate and a voice believed to be the 15-year-old says, “Just bump him, brah.”

The driver asks, “Like bump him?”

A passenger says, “Yeah, just bump him. Go like…15…20.”

Loud sounds can then be heard in the recording, including “metal flexing,” according to law enforcement.

The video was posted on social media and reported to police. A middle school principal also reported the video to police after a student flagged it.

The Associated Press doesn’t typically name people under 18 accused of a crime.

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Court records say a passenger on a small regional flight to Miami attacked a flight attendant, kicked and punched the seat of the person in front of him and swallowed rosary beads as pilots returned to the airport in Savannah, Georgia.

The passenger was traveling with his sister, who said her brother told her before the violent outburst to “close her eyes and pray because Satan’s disciple(s) had followed them onto the plane,” according to an FBI agent’s affidavit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

No one was seriously hurt on the Monday night flight operated by Envoy Air, a regional carrier for American Airlines. The 31-year-old passenger was jailed on charges including misdemeanor battery, misdemeanor obstruction of police and a felony count of criminal property damage.

FBI Agent Savannah Solomon described the violent episode in her affidavit, saying there was probable cause to charge the man with a federal crime of interfering with a flight crew.

Solomon wrote that eight passengers were on the plane and flight attendants became concerned immediately after takeoff when they noticed one of them appearing to have a “fit of epilepsy” that included “stomping, incoherent yelling, and shaking.”

When a flight attendant approached the man, he turned in his seat and kicked the attendant in the chest, sending the worker flying into a window across the aisle, the agent wrote. The passenger then started kicking and punching the seat of the person in front of him, who moved before the back of the seat collapsed.

The pilots returned to the Savannah airport. After the plane landed, the man who had kicked the flight attendant charged toward the exit and threw punches at another flight attendant before being subdued by other passengers, the affidavit says.

He was apprehended by airport police and taken to a local hospital for “ingestion of rosary beads,” the affidavit says. Then the passenger was booked into the Chatham County jail.

Federal court records and online jail records did not list an attorney for the arrested passenger.

His sister told the FBI agent that they were traveling to Haiti “to flee religious attacks of a spiritual nature.” According to the affidavit, the woman said her brother had “swallowed the rosary beads because they are a weapon of strength in the spiritual warfare.”

The woman told the agent her brother was not suffering from mental health problems or medical issues.

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man who allegedly expressed admiration for the truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people has been accused of trying to join the Islamic State group, federal prosecutors announced Friday.

Abdisatar Ahmed Hassan, 22, made his first court appearance on a charge of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was ordered held without bail until a detention hearing March 5.

The chief federal defender for Minnesota, Katherian Roe, said her office will represent him but declined to comment on the case.

The criminal complaint against Hassan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, alleges that he tried twice in December to travel from Minnesota to Somalia to join the group but did not succeed. It says he claimed he was going to visit family but had none there.

Prosecutors said the FBI’s investigation established that Hassan expressed public support for the group in multiple posts on social media and also praised Shamsud-Din Jabbar on TikTok over the New Orleans attack.

Investigators say Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native and U.S. Army veteran, posted videos professing allegiance to the Islamic State group and an intent to harm others before he plowed a pickup through a crowd of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street on Jan. 1. Police fatally shot him during an exchange of gunfire at the scene.

Hassan also allegedly posted a video last week, of himself driving while holding an Islamic State group flag inside his vehicle. The FBI said it also observed him driving with the flag Wednesday. He was arrested on Thursday.

The charging documents also say police in New York notified the FBI last May that Hassan had made social media posts in support of the Somali group al-Shabab. An affidavit from an agent says investigators spotted al-Shabab and Islamic State group propaganda videos on his TikTok and Facebook accounts. It also alleges that he exchanged messages with a Facebook account that encourages Somali-speaking individuals to travel and fight on behalf of the Islamic State group.

FBI agents were watching when Hassan went to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Dec. 13, authorities say. He allegedly tried to check in for a flight to Somalia but left after an airline employee told him he lacked required travel documents.

He allegedly tried again Dec. 29. Agents saw him board a flight to Chicago, where Customs and Border Protection officers interviewed him extensively before his scheduled flight to Ethiopia but did not detain him. He missed the flight and returned to Minneapolis, the affidavit says.

Hassan is the latest of several Minnesotans suspected of leaving or trying to leave the U.S. to join the Islamic State group in recent years, along with thousands of fighters from other countries. In 2016 nine Minnesota men were sentenced on federal charges of conspiring to join the group, and a Minnesotan who actually fought for the group in Iraq was sentenced last June to 10 years in prison.

Joliet, Ill. — The trial of a suburban Chicago landlord accused of murder, attempted murder and a hate crime in a 2023 attack on a Palestinian American woman and her young son is set to start Tuesday.

Joseph Czuba, 73, is charged in the fatal stabbing of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of Hanan Shaheen on Oct. 14, 2023. Authorities said the family was targeted because of their Islamic faith and as a response to the war between Israel and Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7, 2023 with a Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Opening statements start Tuesday morning in a trial that is expected to last about a week.

Czuba has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and other charges. His defense attorney, George Lenard, declined to comment before the end of the trial.

The attack on the family in Plainfield, nearly 40 miles (65 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, has renewed fears of anti-Muslim discrimination in the Chicago area’s large and established Palestinian community. The proceedings also come amid rising hostility against Muslims and Palestinians in the U.S. since Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.

“We firmly pray and hope that Mr. Czuba will be locked up for the rest of his life, so we can send a message that hate crimes against anyone on the basis of their religion and national origin are not tolerated,” Joe Milburn, a staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told reporters Monday ahead of jury selection.

Prosecutors allege Czuba became increasing paranoid about the war because of listening to commentary on conservative talk radio. Shaheen told police that Czuba was upset over the war and attacked them after she had urged him to “pray for peace.”

The boy — whose name was initially spelled Wadea Al-Fayoume by authorities — was stabbed 26 times. Shaheen had more than a dozen stab wounds and it took her weeks to recover.

The murder charge in the indictment against Czuba describes the boy’s death as the result of “exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior.” Czuba remained detained with prosecutors arguing that Czuba was a danger to Shaheen and others.

Hundreds attended the boy’s janazah, or funeral service, where the boy was remembered as kind and into sports and Legos.

Separately, the father of the boy, who is divorced from Shaheen and did not live at the home, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

CUMBERLAND, Md. — A Maryland court on Tuesday ordered a blogger known as Ziz who leads a cultlike group connected to six killings held without bail.

The blogger, Jack LaSota, 34, of Berkeley, California, was arrested Sunday along with Michelle Zajko, 32, of Media, Pennsylvania, and Daniel Blank, 26, of Sacramento, California. They face charges including trespassing, obstructing and hindering and possession of a handgun in a vehicle.

The Zizians have been tied to the killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland near the Canadian border in January and five other killings in three states.

LaSota, Zajko and Blank were arrested in Frostburg, Maryland, on Sunday afternoon.

The judge in the case ordered LaSota held without bail citing concerns about her being a flight risk and a danger to public safety. Prosecutors said LaSota “appears to be the leader of an extremist group known as Zizians” that has been linked to killings.

The three were expected to appear remotely for a bail hearing Tuesday at Allegany District Court in Cumberland, Maryland, court officials said.

The Zizians have been tied to the death of a woman during an attack on a California landlord in November 2022, the landlord’s subsequent slaying in January, the December 2022 deaths of Zajko’s parents in Pennsylvania and a highway shootout last month in Vermont that left U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland and a car passenger dead.

A Frostburg resident told police he wanted three “suspicious” people off his property after they’d parked two box trucks there and asked to camp for a month, according to police documents.

They were dressed in black and two wore gun belts holding ammunition, according to police. Officers found a rifle in the back of one truck and a handgun on the front floorboard. Zajko, who refused to put her hands behind her back and was taken to the ground, also was carrying a handgun, police said.

Maland, 44, was killed in a Jan. 20 shootout following a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, a small town about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Canadian border. Felix Bauckholt, a passenger in the car, also died, and the driver, Teresa Youngblut, has pleaded not guilty to federal firearms charges.

Officials have said the guns they were carrying were bought by a person of interest in the Dec. 31, 2022, deaths of Richard and Rita Zajko in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, and that Youngblut had been in close contact with a person of interest in a homicide in Vallejo, California.

Maximilian Snyder, who applied for a marriage license with Youngblut in November, is charged with the Jan. 17 stabbing death of Curtis Lind, a Vallejo landlord who had survived an earlier attack by members of the Zizian group and was set to testify against them.

Officials have offered few details of the cross-country investigation, but Associated Press interviews and a review of court records and online postings tell the story of how a group of young, highly intelligent computer scientists, most of them in their 20s and 30s, met online, shared anarchist beliefs, and became increasingly violent.

Their goals aren’t clear, but online writings included topics such as radical veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence.

At the middle of it all is “Ziz,” the leader of the strange group whose members are sometimes called “Zizians” in online forums.

LaSota published a dark and sometimes violent blog under the name Ziz and, in one section, described her theory that the two hemispheres of the brain could hold separate values and genders and “often desire to kill each other.”

LaSota, who used she/her pronouns, and in her writings says she is a transgender woman, railed against perceived enemies, including so-called rationalist groups, which operate mostly online and seek to understand human cognition through reason and knowledge. Some are concerned with the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

LaSota has not responded to emails from the AP in recent weeks, and her attorney Daniel McGarrigle declined to comment on whether she is connected to any of the deaths. She’s wanted for arrest in two states for missing court appearances.

McGarrigle would only confirm Monday that he has represented LaSota and wouldn’t confirm her arrest or any details of the latest case. Attempts to reach attorneys for Zajko and Blank were not successful.

Pennsylvania state police records describe Daniel Blank as Michelle Zajko’s housemate in Vermont. In January 2023, police investigating the shooting deaths of Zajko’s parents detained both LaSota and Blank at a hotel where Zajko was staying. Blank was not charged. LaSota was charged with obstructing law enforcement and disorderly conduct.

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Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this story.