He will be running as a Democrat in Florida’s 27th Congressional District, joining an already crowded race of Democrats seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban American who is in her third congressional term.

“I’ve spent years speaking out, exposing corruption, and warning about the dangers facing our democracy. Now it’s time to take that fight directly where it belongs — to Congress,” Parnas wrote in a post on X announcing his entry into the race.

Parnas, a Jewish Ukrainian-American businessman, rose to national prominence during the impeachment proceedings against Trump in 2019, when he turned on the president after helping him and Giuliani try to find damaging information in Ukraine about former President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. (The Senate acquitted Trump the following year.)

Parnas and his business partner, Igor Fruman, also cultivated ties with several Jewish figures and organizations, including the prominent Ukrainian rabbi Moshe Azman, who met with Giuliani in 2019. Parnas and Fruman met with Trump during the White House Hanukkah party in 2018.

“I’m running for Congress because we must stand up to Donald Trump and his lackeys like Maria Salazar,” Parnas’ campaign website reads. “I’ve seen the swamp from the inside. They know me in Washington, and I’m the last person they want with a seat in Congress and the power to call them before the people.”

Parnas is not the only Jewish figure from the former Soviet Union who played a role in the impeachment to be mounting a Democratic bid for national office in Florida. Alex Vindman, who testified before Congress as a National Security Council staffer and later left the military after facing alleged bullying from Trump and his allies, is running for Senate. His brother Eugene Vindman, who had been an ethics specialist at the White House, was elected to Congress in Virginia last year.

“I stepped up when my country needed a soldier, I reported corruption at the highest levels of government, and now I’m stepping up again to fight for Floridians,” wrote Alex Vindman in his campaign announcement in January.

In 2021, Parnas was convicted of federal campaign finance violations tied to a scheme to trade political contributions for support for a cannabis company and was sentenced to 20 months in prison. (Felons are barred from voting in Florida but not from running for office.)

His campaign did acknowledge his criminal past, saying it “included both professional successes and highly public challenges, including his appearance in a widely viewed documentary and a period of federal custody connected to past legal issues.”

Since finishing his term on home confinement in September 2023, Parnas has rebranded himself as a vocal critic of Trump on his podcast and in media appearances. His son, Aaron, is a Gen Z influencer who burst onto TikTok in 2022 as a pro-Ukraine voice and now commands an audience as a liberal news commentator.

In a campaign announcement on March 5, Parnas said he was running for Congress “with a focus on cleaning up Washington’s corruption, holding the powerful to account, strengthening affordability, expanding support for seniors, and improving our desperately broken immigration system.”

The Democratic primary for Parnas’ district will take place on Aug. 18. The general election will be held on Nov. 3.

For more info, go to JTA.org. 

LAS VEGAS (AP) — When his parents were about his age, they bought their first home. But for 27-year-old Brian Torres Suazo, that milestone feels like a distant dream, despite a secure job with union wages and down payment assistance.

Torres Suazo expects to continue sharing an apartment with roommates for the foreseeable future, kept on the sidelines of homeownership by stubbornly high costs, even in cities once known for their affordability, such as his native Las Vegas.

He’s not alone. In a restless electorate frustrated by high prices, the cost of housing stands out. Democrats are pushing to channel this anger into support for their quest to chip away at Republicans’ unified control of Washington, maintaining their focus on economic concerns even when war with Iran dominates the news.

Their path cuts through Nevada, a perennial swing state won by Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and now home to closely contested U.S. House races.

“I would be paying more — a lot more — in mortgage than I am for rent right now,” said Torres Suazo, a food runner on the Las Vegas Strip. Sometimes he feels like politicians aren’t listening to people like him. “It’d be nice if more people that knew what it’s like to work for a living could be in those rooms to make decisions,” he added.

Housing affordability isn’t just a coastal concern

In all directions from the Strip, tract homes with sharp-angled roofs and earthy paint schemes sprout from the desert by the dozen. Streets to nowhere snake through the dirt, ready for future homes. Wooden signs dot roadsides advertising homes from the $300,000s for a townhome to over $1 million for big houses in the most desirable suburban neighborhoods.

Housing costs have long been a potent political issue in pricey metropolitan areas like New York and San Francisco, but now the issue is popping up virtually everywhere.

During the coronavirus pandemic, white-collar workers newly empowered to work remotely cashed out their equity in high-priced cities and bid up prices across Sun Belt cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. At the same time, near-zero interest rates drove a wave of refinancing that gave existing homeowners mortgage payments that now seem impossibly low.

Almost 40 million people visited Las Vegas last year, and gamblers wagered $14 billion at Clark County casinos, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The steady flow of people and cash attracts dreamers and strivers with the promise of a good job and an affordable home.

The population of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, grew 17% to 2.4 million between 2014 and 2024. The country as a whole grew 6% over that period.

“If you ask locals who grew up here, some of them feel that housing is out of reach for them,” said Las Vegas real estate agent Tony Clifford. “You talk to somebody from out of state – Northwest, West, California – we’re still so cheap compared to them.”

Home prices and mortgage rates have ticked down from historic highs in much of the country, and real estate agents say Las Vegas is now considered a buyer’s market. Houses are staying on the market longer, and more sellers are accepting discounted offers or offering concessions, such as covering closing costs. But monthly mortgage payments are still much higher than they were before the pandemic.

In Las Vegas, resale home prices rose 53% between December 2019 and the same month last year, according to the Case-Shiller index. The index tracks homes that have previously sold, excluding new construction, which makes up more than a quarter of the Las Vegas market.

In Las Vegas, the median home sale price rose 65% between the first quarter of 2020 and the same period last year, reaching $393,000, according to Federal Reserve data. It ticked down to $379,000 during the fourth quarter last year.

Nationally, 30-year mortgage rates followed a similar trend, bottoming out at 2.65% nationally in 2021 before peaking in 2023 at nearly 8%. They’ve settled around 6% this quarter.

Still, even with rates and prices stabilizing, they remain higher than they were before the pandemic. The median resale house at the prevailing interest rates with 20% down would cost $2,300 per month in December 2025, double the figure from December 2019.

Big investors are buying up houses

Large investors own about 11% of single-family home rentals in Las Vegas, according to the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, compared with about 3% nationally.

They’re increasingly becoming bipartisan targets as they buy and rent out single-family homes, though economists generally discount the benefits of constraining them. Trump and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, are both among a growing cadre of officials calling for limits on corporate homeownership.

“People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social media post in January, calling for Congress to ban large institutional investors from buying houses. He’s also pressured the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and proposed extending mortgage terms to 50 years, privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and allowing homebuyers to tap retirement or Education Savings Accounts for a down payment.

Ford’s housing plan, released last month, also calls for banning algorithmic pricing of rents, tackling regulatory barriers that block or slow new construction and seeking to unlock federal land for homebuilding. The federal government owns 84% of the land in Nevada.

Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is one of the most vulnerable incumbent state leaders in the country, has tried to address the problem, announcing last month that his administration has approved $64 million to boost a dozen housing development projects, mostly in the Las Vegas and Reno areas, along with assistance for homebuyers.

The midterms may hinge on affordability

Democrats are making affordability the central plank of their pitch to voters in November, arguing that Trump has failed in his campaign promise to bring prices back down despite Republican control of Congress. They believe anxiety over the cost of living has been a major factor in their victories in a series of off-year elections, including the races for governor of New Jersey and Virginia as well as special elections down the ballot.

Many Americans say Trump is focusing on the wrong priorities, according to multiple surveys, including a January AP-NORC poll, and they largely think Trump is neglecting the issue of costs at home.

Trump was reelected in large part because of economic concerns, but recent polling shows that the bulk of Americans aren’t seeing benefits from his policies yet, and most don’t think he’s paying enough attention to the issue.

A large share of registered voters see the economy as one of the top issues facing the country, and a recent New York Times poll found that about half of registered voters say Trump’s policies have made life for most Americans “less affordable.”

The issue will remain salient in November even as the Iran war raises interest in foreign policy, said Democratic strategist Paul Begala, one of the architects of Bill Clinton’s 1992 strategy that emphasized domestic economic concerns during a time of global upheaval from the first Gulf War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

“Trump’s refusal to raise the minimum wage, and his willingness to raise the cost of health care, electricity, hamburger, and now gas, is a two-edged sword that will cut down a large number of congressional Republicans,” Begala said.

Housing is a thorny political issue. Rooted homeowners like high prices that inflate their net worth, at least on paper, a reality that Trump has nodded to repeatedly this year, assuring homeowners he wants to keep their values high.

But those prices become handcuffs if they want to move on but are priced out of the bigger homes or better neighborhoods they’re eying.

Michele Niemeyer feels trapped in the condo she bought for more than $500,000 just off the Strip. The homeowners association fee just went up to $686 a month, straining her budget, and the value of her unit has plummeted. But the neighborhoods that were in her budget when she bought the condo are now out of reach.

“I want to move,” Niemeyer said. “I just don’t know where.”

World leaders have tried and failed to curb climate change by appealing to nations to act for the common good. Now, the Iran war and its costly energy crunch have some experts wondering if selfishness and nationalism may be a more likely way to save the planet, by boosting support for homegrown renewables over imported fossil fuels.

Bombed refineries, disrupted shipping channels for oil and liquefied natural gas and skyrocketing fuel prices should point even the most reluctant leaders to a cleaner fossil free future, hope some experts.

But others are dismissive, noting the same speculation emerged, and then quickly flopped, as recently as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That prompted some European nations to replace gas with even dirtier coal.

“Just wishful thinking,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson, who tracks global emissions of carbon dioxide.

The head of the United Nations will argue otherwise on Monday.

“The turmoil we are witnessing today in the Middle East makes it evident that we are facing a global energy system largely tied to fossil fuels — where supply is concentrated in a few regions and every conflict risks sending shock waves through the global economy,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an email to The Associated Press. “In past oil shocks, countries had little choice but to absorb the pain. Now they have an exit ramp.

“Homegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible, or more scalable,” Guterres said. “The resources of the clean energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponized.”

Going alone versus together

Annual U.N. climate conferences aimed at global cooperation have accomplished little. The most recent meeting in Brazil, known as COP30, ended with a statement that didn’t even mention the words “fossil fuels,” much less include a timeline to reduce their use. Guterres said then that he “cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed.” Under President Donald Trump, whose attack on Iran has sparked new energy concerns, the U.S. didn’t even participate in the Brazil meeting.

Even though renewable energy use and new installations are soaring globally, outpacing fossil fuel growth, the world continues to increase its fossil fuel use every year with emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane rising to new highs year after. That’s driving atmospheric warming that increases costly and deadly extreme weather, including dangerous heat, around the world.

“The bottom line is that for at least another five years and maybe longer, emissions reduction will in fact be dealt with largely unilaterally,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton climate and international affairs professor. “If countries see the Israel-U.S.-Iran war as a further reason to head for the exits on fossil fuels by loosening domestic opposition to the necessary policies, that will be accomplished unilaterally at the domestic level.”

A moment of opportunity may be here

Caroline Baxter, director of the Converging Risks Lab at the Council on Strategic Risks in Washington, said there has already been a “dramatic slowdown” in the movement of fossil fuels to various ports due to the conflict. And for countries like Japan or South Korea that depend on tankers arriving in their ports to deliver energy, this is a really big deal, she said.

Baxter said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if some shift to green energy because of the conflict, if only because renewable energy offers more stability than fossil fuels do.

“I think there is an opportunity, rightly or wrongly, for countries to really turn inward and try to power themselves in a way that cuts off their dependence on other nations for that source,” said Baxter, who was U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training from 2021 to 2024 under the Biden administration.

Baxter said if she’s right and if “everyone does it in their backyard,” it will limit future climate change “without the thorny diplomatic negotiations and the glad-handing and the machinations behind closed doors” of international climate conferences.

The war will lead to more solar panels and heat pumps installed in coming months, said energy analyst Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, of IEEFA Europe.

A reality check from Ukraine: ‘Exactly the wrong lesson’

More skeptical analysts point to the Russian invasion of Ukraine a few years ago, which put a massive kink in Europe’s natural gas supply, yet didn’t change the world’s fossil fuel dependence. Politicians often pivot to other fossil fuels to address war-oriented energy insecurity, such as coal, which releases even higher amounts of heat-trapping gases.

“We have seen this at the European level where actors post-2022 slowly wanted to move away from the energy transition which is exactly the wrong lesson,” said war studies lecturer Pauline Heinrichs at King’s College in the United Kingdom.

Just as Europe did then, many countries, like China and India — already the world’s No. 1 and No. 3 carbon-emitting countries — could turn to more coal use, said Ohio University’s Geoff Dabelko, an expert on climate and conflict, and University of St. Andrews’ Neta Crawford, author of “The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions.”

War and militaries pollute the air

Whatever happens with nations’ energy choices, the war itself will spike emissions.

Even before it began, reports showed that the world’s militaries are responsible for 5.5% of Earth’s heat-trapping emissions each year, more than any country except China, the United States and India.

Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, said fighter jets consuming vast quantities of fuel, releasing carbon dioxide and other pollutants, is just one example.

“The consequences of war on emissions will far exceed any incremental offset in emissions due to increased enthusiasm for a green transition,” she said.

Borenstein reported from Washington and McDermott from Providence, Rhode Island.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Congress responds to President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran, lawmakers who served on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan are making their voices heard in a war debate that has taken on intensely personal meaning.

Many admit mixed feelings, taking satisfaction in seeing vengeance taken on the leadership of an Iranian regime that has targeted U.S. service members for decades, yet fearful that another generation of soldiers could soon face the same combat experiences that they did.

“Do I take gratification? You know there’s the Marine side of me: Yeah, of course,” said Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, whose company suffered some of the heaviest losses on the U.S. side during the Iraq War. “I know they killed a lot of American soldiers, American Marines. But do I also understand that I have a responsibility not to let my lust for revenge drive my country into another war?”

Experiences in the post 9/11 wars are also coloring the decisions of the Trump administration, given that top officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were once deployed to Iraq.

Gallego, like others on Capitol Hill, leaned heavily on his firsthand experience of fighting in the wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as he assessed the Iran conflict. Lawmakers wore bracelets etched with the names of friends killed in battle, told stories of coming under attack from Iran-backed militant groups and reflected on their own life-changing injuries suffered during combat.

Veteran lawmakers are wary of war

While the initial votes on Iran saw Congress divide mostly along party lines, with Republicans backing Trump’s actions and Democrats warning of an extended conflict, veterans in both parties share deep reservations about entering the conflict.

“As somebody who knows a lot of friends that didn’t come home and a lot of Gold Star families, that’s why the week before the attack, I was actually one of the ones that was talking about caution and why we needed to avoid at all costs getting into another long, drawn-out Middle Eastern war,” said Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a former Navy SEAL who left college to enlist the week after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Crane said his concerns were partially assuaged by briefings from the Trump administration that indicated to him the president is not planning a drawn-out war. He voted against a war powers resolution that would have halted attacks on Iran unless Trump got congressional approval.

But Crane said wars are never straightforward. “I’ve been on military operations that did not go to plan many times, and so I understand the nature,” he said, adding that he was calling for the Trump administration to approach the conflict with “humility and caution.”

Gallego and other Democrats worried that it was too late for that approach. They paid tribute to the six U.S. military members who were killed in a drone strike in Kuwait and worried that there could soon be more American casualties.

“War is dirty, and mistakes happen,” Gallego said. The longer the conflict drags on, he added, the more chance there will be for U.S. military members to be killed. He said he saw that in Iraq when friends would be killed by seemingly random shots from enemy combatants.

Still, many Republicans argued that it was necessary to attack Iran to stop a regime that for decades has helped train and arm militant groups throughout the Middle East. Republican Rep. Brian Mast, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led the debate on the House floor against the war powers resolution.

Mast, who served as an Army bomb disposal expert, now uses prosthetic legs after receiving catastrophic injuries from an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan. “Me especially, many of my other colleagues, no one wants to see our military go into combat or war,” he said.

Then he added, “But Iran’s terror, which has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans, it has to stop.”

Trying to push soldiers to forefront of war debate

Important questions loom for Congress as the conflict with Iran unfolds and spreads to other parts of the Middle East. The price for the operation is already likely running into the billions of dollars, likely forcing the Trump administration to soon seek billions in funding from Congress. The outbreak of war has also scrambled global alliances and the future of U.S. foreign policy.

Shadowing it all is the potential of another drawn-out conflict. Lawmakers said they owe it to their fallen comrades to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“To me, it’s to speak out. It’s to say another generation should not go fight in an open-ended, ill-conceived regime change war in the Middle East,” said Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, his hand moving to a bracelet etched with the names of friends who were killed during his two Army combat tours in Iraq.

Others remembered how frustrated they became with Washington during their service, especially as soldiers tried to fight with insufficiently armored vehicles and not enough troops.

“I know what it was like to be on the very end of the receiving line of the decisions made in Washington,” said Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who entered the Army as a private before being promoted to a captain and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crow said that front-line soldiers often suffered “because people stopped asking tough questions. People stopped being held accountable. Congress stopped voting on it.”

Another veteran, Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, said that was one of the reasons she sought a congressional seat in the first place. As a Blackhawk helicopter pilot with the Illinois National Guard, Duckworth lost her legs when her helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq.

“I ran for Congress so that when the drums of war started beating once again, I’d be in a position to make sure that our elected officials fully considered the true cost of the war,” she said. “Not just in dollars and cents but in human lives.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Uber launched a feature Monday to allow both women riders and drivers across the U.S. to be matched with other women for trips, expanding a pilot program aimed at addressing concerns about the safety of its riding-hailing platform.

The new feature is being rolled out nationwide despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against the policy in California, filed by Uber drivers who argue that it is discriminatory against men. Rival ride-hailing company Lyft is also facing a discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it introduced nationwide in 2024.

The feature, announced in a blog post, allows women to request a female driver through an option on the app called “Women Drivers.” Passengers can opt for another ride if the wait for a woman is too long, and they can also reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance. A third option allows female users to set a preference for a woman driver in their app settings, which would increase the chances of being matched with a female driver, though it would not guarantee it. Uber is also allowing its teen account users to request women drivers.

Uber’s women drivers can set the app’s preferences to request trips with female riders, and they can turn off that preference at anytime.

Uber, based in San Francisco, says about one-fifth of its drivers in the U.S. are women, thought the ratio varies by city.

Two California Uber drivers filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber in November, arguing that its Women Preferences feature violates California’s Unruh Act, which prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises. The lawsuit charges that the feature gives its minority female drivers access to the entire pool of passengers, while leaving its majority male drivers to compete for a smaller pool of passengers. The lawsuit also argues that Uber’s policy “reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.”

Uber filed a motion to compel arbitration in the case, citing an agreement the plaintiffs signed when joining the app as drivers. In the motion, Uber disputed that its new feature violates the Unruh Act, saying it “serves a strong and recognized public policy interest in enhancing safety.”

“This feature is a common sense solution to a long-standing request from both women Drivers and Riders who told Uber they would feel more comfortable and safer if they could choose to ride with another woman,” the company said in the court filing.

Two Lyft drivers have filed a similar lawsuit against that company against its “Women+Connect” feature, which allows women and nonbinary riders to match with drivers of the same identification.

Uber piloted the “Women Preferences” feature in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Detroit last summer and expanded it to 26 U.S. cities in November. The company first launched a version of the feature in Saudi Arabia in 2019 following the country’s landmark law granting women the right to drive. It now offers similar options in 40 other countries, including Canada and Mexico.

Both Uber and Lyft have for years faced criticism over their safety records, including thousands of reports of sexual assaults from both passengers and drivers. In February, federal jury found Uber to be legally responsible in a 2023 case of sexual assault and the company was ordered to pay $8.5 million to an Arizona woman who said she was raped by one of its drivers.

Uber maintains that because its drivers are contractors and not employees, it’s not liable for their misconduct. But Uber says has taken multiple steps in efforts to improve safety, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers ousted from their ride-hailing services for complaints over sexual assault and other crimes.

Uber says sexual assault reports have decreased over the years. According to reports from Uber, 5,981 incidents of sexual assault were reported in U.S. rides between 2017 and 2018 — compared to 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the latest years with data available), which the platform says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Anthropic is suing the Trump administration, asking federal courts to reverse the Pentagon’s decision designating the artificial intelligence company a “ supply chain risk ” over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its technology.

Anthropic filed two separate lawsuits Monday, one in California federal court and another in the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., each challenging different aspects of the Pentagon’s actions against the company.

The Pentagon last week formally designated the San Francisco tech company a supply chain risk after an unusually public dispute over how its AI chatbot Claude could be used in warfare.

“These actions are unprecedented and unlawful,” Anthropic’s lawsuit says. “The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech. No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

The Defense Department declined to comment Monday, citing a policy of not commenting on matters in litigation.

Anthropic said it sought to restrict its technology from being used for two high-level usages: mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials publicly insisted the company must accept “all lawful uses” of Claude and threatened punishment if Anthropic did not comply.

Designating the company a supply chain risk cuts off Anthropic’s defense work using an authority that was designed to prevent foreign adversaries from harming national security systems. It was the first time the federal government is known to have used the designation against a U.S. company.

President Donald Trump also said he would order federal agencies to stop using Claude, though he gave the Pentagon six months to phase out a product that’s deeply embedded in classified military systems, including those used in the Iran war.

Anthropic’s lawsuit also names other federal agencies, including the departments of Treasury and State, after officials ordered employees to stop using Anthropic’s services.

Even as it fights the Pentagon’s actions, Anthropic has sought to convince businesses and other government agencies that the Trump administration’s penalty is a narrow one that only affects military contractors when they are using Claude in work for the Department of Defense.

Making that distinction clear is crucial for the privately held Anthropic because most of its projected $14 billion in revenue this year comes from businesses and government agencies that are using Claude for computer coding and other tasks. More than 500 customers are paying Anthropic at least $1 million annually for Claude, according to a recent investment announcement valued the company at $380 billion.

Anthropic said in a statement Monday that “seeking judicial review does not change our longstanding commitment to harnessing AI to protect our national security, but this is a necessary step to protect our business, our customers, and our partners.”

The district has filed a lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court, seeking $17 million for breach of contract from the underwriters of Lloyd’s of London, the district’s provider of general liability insurance.

The lawsuit, filed in Broward Circuit Court in November, alleges the insurer provided bad legal advice related to the district’s liability after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland. The company then “wrongly abandoned” the district, the suit states. The district alleges the insurer’s actions forced it to agree to settle the case in December 2021 for $26.3 million rather than continue to fight.

The district was sued by 17 families of students and staff who died, 17 students and staff who were injured, and 18 students who suffered trauma. Most of the settlements ranged from $22,800 for those with no physical injuries to $1 million for those whose family member died. An exception was a $1.25 million settlement for survivor Anthony Borges, who suffered some of the most severe injuries and is expected to have lifetime medical needs.

The lawsuit centers on whether the mass shooting should have been counted as one incident or a separate incident for each of the 52 victims and family members who sued the school district.

The underwriters for Lloyds of London concluded it was one incident, subject to the policy’s liability cap of $700,000, according to the lawsuit.

But the district argued that, based on Florida Supreme Court precedent, each gunshot injuring a victim counted as a separate occurrence. Therefore, the tragedy should be counted as 52 separate lawsuits, each subject to the $700,000 liability cap, the district argues.

The state Supreme Court ruled in Koikos v. Travelers Insurance Co. in 2003 that each of two separate gunshots fired at a restaurant “constitutes a separate occurrence,” the district’s lawsuit states.

“A main reason the Board settled at that stage of the case was because Underwriters misinformed it regarding the number of occurrences and wrongfully denied coverage beyond a single policy limit, notwithstanding the Florida Supreme Court’s controlling decision in Koikos,” the lawsuit states.

A spokesman for Lloyd’s of London told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “Lloyd’s isn’t at liberty to discuss individual policies or policyholders, nor can it comment on matters in litigation.” No responses have been filed in court papers either.

In recent months, the district has been aggressively searching for new sources of revenue, as it faces at least $80 million in cuts due to declining enrollment.

But it’s unclear why the school district is filing this lawsuit four years after agreeing to pay a $26 million settlement with Parkland families. A district spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

The school district paid the Lloyd’s underwriters an annual premium of $695,000, the lawsuit said.

Under the district’s coverage, the district would pay the first $300,000 for each occurrence, and the insurer would pay up to $700,000.

In most cases, state law limits a school district’s total liability to $200,000 per individual and $300,000 per incident for most negligence cases. Plaintiffs may try to get around that by filing a lawsuit in federal court or getting a claims bill filed in the Legislature.

A few weeks after the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting, victims and their families received a letter from Johns Eastern, which administers the district’s Lloyds of London policy, stating the $300,000 cap.

“We were so appalled and taken aback by the (adjuster’s) ridiculous quote,” Todd Michael, a lawyer who represented families of two victims, told the Sun Sentinel in April 2018.

(Article continues after document.)

School district spokeswoman Nadine Drew said at the time, “The School District is not attempting to limit damages, but it is simply stating the law of the State of Florida that has been put in place by the Legislature.”

Some Parkland families filed a challenge to the cap that went to the state Supreme Court.

In June 2019, Lyman Reynolds, a lawyer for the insurer, offered advice to Debbie Klauber, an outside lawyer for the district, on what to include in a brief for the Supreme Court appeal, according to an email included as an exhibit to the lawsuit.

“I would strongly argue positively and forcefully that the statute and case law clearly hold that there is a hard cap of $300,000.00 for all claims arising out of the single incident/event — not a ‘suggestion,'” Reynolds wrote in the email included in the lawsuit. “Finally, I would suggest avoiding the term ‘shooting’ which may be read as implying more than one occurrence in favor of the term ‘mass casualty event,’ which should be read for what it is, which is one occurrence.”

The Supreme Court upheld the $300,000 cap in 2020, ruling against Parkland families.

But that didn’t resolve the issue, the lawsuit states, since “the underlying plaintiffs were disincentivized to settle for $300,000 because the Florida legislature had the power to enact legislation to increase the liability cap in special circumstances such as the Parkland school shootings,” the suit states.

In November 2020, the insurer paid the district $700,000 and then closed the case in January 2021, months before the lawsuit was settled, the complaint states.

As the district was in final settlement negotiations in August 2021, Klauber emailed an agent for the insurer. Her email, included as an exhibit in the lawsuit, asks, “Can you, or someone, provide confirmation or clarification that there is a SINGLE LIMIT that would apply to this case for the School Board and any other assureds, as we’ve represented to the Court?”

A representative for the insurer responded that a single limit applies, the suit states. “No analysis whatsoever was provided, despite the Florida Supreme Court’s controlling decision in Koikos,” the lawsuit states.

Two months later, in November 2021, the Parkland plaintiffs amended their complaint as a civil-rights lawsuit to file it in federal court, where the $300,000 limit doesn’t apply. The district settled the cases for $26.3 million in December 2021.

The district faced “mounting litigation costs, the possibility of having to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees (which could end up being in the millions), and, potentially, punitive damages,” the lawsuit states. “The School Board feared that its worst-case total exposure could reach $100 million.”

The lawsuit doesn’t detail the unexpected way the School Board ultimately reached a settlement with the families, in which the case was treated as a civil-rights case and sent to federal court to get around the $300,000 cap, which was outlined in an attorney-client session minutes obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel in 2022.

Board members knew the families would not settle for $300,000, and they were concerned if the state Legislature got involved, the district’s expense could be much greater, according to the minutes.

“It’s the quickest way to the pathway to get money and that’s why I can be OK with it,” then-School Board member Rosalind Osgood, who is now a state senator, said during a 2021 attorney-client session. “It’s a technique to allow us to close this.”

The district would have received $15.6 million to help cover the lawsuit had the Lloyds underwriters plan treated each case as a separate incident, the new lawsuit states. The district is also seeking attorneys’ fees, interest and other costs, bringing the total demand up to $17.4 million.

One challenge the district may face is the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision to uphold the $300,000 per incident liability cap, Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie who specializes in constitutional law, told the Sun Sentinel.

In that case, the Supreme Court upheld that ‘”the mass shooting committed by (the shooter) is a single ‘incident or occurrence’ … and the cumulative liability for all claims of injury resulting from the incident may not exceed the aggregate cap … set forth in the statute.”

“Of course, an insurance policy is a private contract, whereas the Florida Constitution’s sovereign immunity provision represents the public policy of the state and is designed to protect the public fisc,” Jarvis said. “As such, the analogy is not perfect.

“But if I had to bet, I would bet that the Florida Supreme Court would apply (the 2020 ruling) to this case, reasoning that there is no reason to create a different rule absent any contrary policy language, and rule against the District,” Jarvis said.

PAPHOS, Cyprus (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday pledged to defend Cyprus, days after dispatching a warship to the east Mediterranean island nation, where a Shahed drone struck a British air base on its southern coast last week during the Iran war.

“When Cyprus is attacked, it is Europe that is attacked,” Macron said after talks with his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at Cyprus’ main air base near the southwestern town of Paphos. “We are bound to one another by strategic partnerships.”

The French president paid a visit to Cyprus to demonstrate his “full solidarity” with Cyprus, which sustained the first drone attack of the Iran war on European territory.

Macron had ordered the French frigate Languedoc to waters off Cyprus, a fellow European Union member, to bolster its anti-drone and anti-missiles defenses. The French president also sent last week ground-based anti-drone and anti-missile defenses to the island.

Greece already dispatched four F-16 fighter planes to the Paphos air base and its two state-of-the-art frigates Kimon and Psara are already patrolling offshore Cyprus, tasked with intercepting any missiles or drones.

Macron hails ‘unprecedented’ show of strength

In a show of strength, Macron said he would also deploy a total of eight warships, two helicopter carriers and the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Eastern Mediterranean and the wider Middle East region, calling the move “unprecedented.” He is due to go aboard the De Gaulle, which is currently sailing “very near” Cyprus.

Macron pointed to a French-led initiative currently in the works that will involve European and non-European nations helping to escort oil and gas tankers with the aim of gradually reopening the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible after the most intense phase of the conflict is over.”

Christodoulides said the leaders’ presence in Cyprus underscores how the EU remains “united and determined” to ensure the security of its member states.

“Our countries have the common believe that the European Union must engage more actively, more strategically and more coherently with the wider region as part of a comprehensive approach,” Christodoulides said.

Mitsotakis echoed the Cypriot president, saying that “now is the time to make clear that every inch of European territory is inviolable” but stressed that any action is purely defensive in posture.

“Our sole and exclusive aim it to strengthen the defense of a European Union member state against any threat,” said Mitsotakis. “And we’re not going to accept any part of European territory, like Cyprus, to be exposed to the slightest danger.”

EU leaders seek to contain Middle East conflict

Macron has been deeply involved in diplomatic talks in recent days to try to avoid further escalation in the Middle East. On Sunday, he spoke to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and urged him to stop strikes.

Last week, Macron ordered the De Gaulle to move from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean to help protect allied assets, citing the drone strike on Cyprus. Cyprus and France signed a new strategic partnership in December.

Despite the military buildup, the three leaders have urged against any expansion of the conflict. Christodoulides has repeatedly underscored that Cyprus won’t take part in any military operation and remains focused on its regional humanitarian role that includes a maritime corridor sending aid to Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The Shahed drone caused minor damage to a hangar at the RAF Akrotiri air base minutes after midnight on March 2. No one was injured. Another two drones were intercepted by British Typhoon and F-35 warplanes that were scrambled from the air base shortly after midday that day.

Cyprus officials confirmed last week that the Shahed originated from Lebanon and believe that it was launched by the Hezbollah militant group, Iran’s proxy in the country. Hezbollah’s arsenal notably includes exploding drones, similar to the ones used by Iran.

Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji on Sunday condemned the drone attack.

“I called on our Cypriot friends not to confuse the Lebanese state with those acting outside its authority and legal framework,” said Rajji, a staunch opponent of Hezbollah.

The Lebanese government has ordered its security agencies to crack down on non-state groups carrying out attacks.

Macron said France is expending diplomatic capital to ensure a return to calm in the country and to allow for the Lebanese armed forces to assert themselves as Israel continues to pound Hezbollah positions.

“Our goal is simple, Hezbollah must cease all strikes from Lebanese territory, because it is putting all Lebanese people in danger,” Macron said, while urging Israel to cease its strikes in Lebanon.

Menelaos Hadjicostis reported from Nicosia, Cyprus. Kareem Chehayeb contributed to this report from Beirut.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s Russia-friendly leader is urging the European Union to lift all sanctions on Russian fossil fuels to remedy spikes in energy prices caused by the war in the Middle East.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, considered the Kremlin’s closest partner in the EU, said in a video posted to social media on Monday that he’d sent a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen after “oil prices began to grow explosively.”

The Iran war, now in its second week, has ensnared places that are critical to the production and movement of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf, leading to price surges on global markets.

In the video, Orbán said that the 27-nation EU must “review and suspend all sanctions on Russian energy across Europe.” He added he had convened an emergency government meeting on Monday to assess how to prevent further spikes in gasoline and diesel prices in Hungary.

Orbán’s nationalist government has long opposed EU efforts to cut Russian energy imports, and along with neighboring Slovakia has maintained and even increased supplies of Russian oil and gas since Moscow launched all-out war on Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Both countries have received a temporary exemption from an EU policy prohibiting imports of Russian oil, and have until recently taken Russian crude supplies through the Druzhba pipeline, which crosses Ukraine.

But oil deliveries through the Druzhba have been halted since Jan. 27, leading to an escalating feud between Hungary and Ukraine. The Ukrainian government says that a Russian drone strike damaged the pipeline’s infrastructure, but Orbán has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of deliberately holding up the oil supplies.

In response, Orbán vetoed a new round of EU sanctions against Russia, and is blocking a major $106 billion EU loan for Ukraine until flows are resumed.

Orbán, lagging in most polls just a month before a critical election, has accused Zelenskyy of seeking to cause an energy crisis in Hungary, in order to influence the outcome of the vote — part of his government’s sweeping anti-Ukraine media campaign leading up to the April 12 ballot.

Further inflaming tensions, Hungary on Thursday temporarily detained seven Ukrainian state bank employees and seized two Ukrainian armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash and gold across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering.

Ukraine has insisted the cash shipment was part of regular services between state banks, and strongly denied the money laundering allegations.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A Nepali political party led by an ex-rapper is set for a landslide victory in the country’s first parliamentary election since Gen Z protests ousted the old leadership that has ruled the Himalayan nation for decades.

The Rastriya Swatantra, or National Independent Party, formed only four years ago, had already won 117 of 165 directly elected seats and led in eight other constituencies in the results published Sunday morning by Nepal’s Election Commission.

Other political parties and independent candidates had won 36 seats in total so far. Officials were still counting the votes Sunday and final results were expected later in the week.

The party’s prime ministerial candidate is rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah, who won the 2022 Kathmandu mayoral race. He emerged as a leading figure in the 2025 uprising that ousted former Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli.

In Nepal, voters directly elect 165 members to the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Parliament. The remaining 110 seats in the 275-member body are allocated through a proportional representation system, under which political parties are assigned seats based on their share of the vote. On Sunday, RSP also led that, with about 51% of the 110 seats.

The relatively new RSP has unseated the two long-dominant parties: the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), who have taken turns ruling the country.

Local papers called the sweeping win a historic moment. “RSP set for a landslide victory,” said the popular Himalayan Times. “People’s ballot revolt; shift in political paradigm,” said Annapurna Post.

RSP supporters have been celebrating the win in several constituencies, offering the winners flower garlands, bouquets, scarves and smearing them with red vermilion powder.

“The future prime minister (Shah) has clearly spoken that there will be no compromise when it comes to developing the country,” said RSP party member and volunteer Khagendra Chapagain, who was at the party headquarters in Kathmandu. “Our first agenda is to develop nation, and focus will be to work for health, education and the fight against corruption.”

The party officials, however, have asked their candidates and supporters to refrain from victory rallies or any other public celebrations out of respect for the dozens of lives lost during last year’s youth-led protests.

In Nepal, voters get two ballot papers, one to choose a candidate of their choice who is usually a political party nominee and the other to choose a party they prefer.

RSP clearly has more than half the directly elected seats and the results of the second ballot also show the party has more than 50% of the votes in its favor. They require the support of half the total number of members in the lower chamber of Parliament to form a government.

Analysts say the party would have comfortable numbers in the parliament to form a single-party government but faces challenges running the government.

“The problem or challenge with this new party would be to deliver things, given the limited resources and the limited institutional support. Because people have high expectations, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the new party can fulfill it,” said Keshab Prasad Poudel, an independent analyst.

Last year’s protests against corruption and poor governance were triggered by a social media ban before snowballing into a popular revolt against the government. Dozens were killed and hundreds wounded when protesters attacked government buildings and police opened fire on them.