His office told NBC News and Reuters that Bush also won’t reveal how he or wife Laura will vote this November.

“President Bush retired from presidential politics years ago,” his office told NBC News.

A couple of days ago, Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, announced he would cross party lines and support Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Cheney called the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, a “threat to our republic.”

“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a statement. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again.”

Cheney, who joined his daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, in advocating for Harris over Trump, said he was putting “country above partisanship.”

As for Bush, People magazine reported in 2021 that he didn’t vote for either Trump or President Joe Biden in the last election. Bush wrote in former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s name instead, according to the interview with People.

Bush won’t be endorsing Harris, but some of his former staffers have done just that.

Over 200 Republicans who worked for the last two Republican presidents, before Trump, and the last two Republican presidential nominees signed onto an open letter endorsing Harris to be president.

The Republicans signing onto a letter lending their support to Harris included people who worked for Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush as well as those who worked for the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney, the GOP nominees in 2008 and 2012.

The Republicans in the letter noted that many of them also spoke out in 2020 against reelecting Trump.

“We made those announcements months before lies about a stolen election became everyday talking points and six months before Trump incited an insurrection, cheering on a mob of sore losers and sycophants as they tried to use force to overturn the will of the American public. We reunite today, joined by new George H.W. Bush alumni, to reinforce our 2020 statements and, for the first time, jointly declare that we’re voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz this November,” part of the letter reads. “Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”

And multiple Republicans joined Democrats on stage at their convention in August to endorse Harris.

One of them, former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, told the DNC crowd that she was throwing her support behind Harris “because I love my country more than my party.”

Meanwhile, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have endorsed Trump.

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The high court ruled in 2023 that colleges and universities could no longer take race into account when conducting admissions. That practice, known as affirmative action, had previously been enforced to ensure a diverse student body.

Brown on Friday released the racial diversity profile of its incoming freshman class. The data revealed Asian students make up 33% of the student body, compared to 29% the year prior.

Students who identify as white, Black and Hispanic each saw a decrease in their share of the incoming class.

The class is also the school’s most globally diverse group, with 14% being international students, according to the data. Brown noted, however, that the makeup of the class saw a decline from 27% to 18% in “groups historically underrepresented in higher education.”

Associate Provost for Enrollment and Dean of Undergraduate Admission Logan Powell attributed these shifts to the SCOTUS decision.

“Even with a significant number of measures in place to ensure a diverse, talented applicant pool and enrolled class, we recognized the likelihood that declines in the number of students of color at Brown and other selective universities were widely anticipated across the country,” Powell said. “We’re pleased to welcome an academically excellent class of students and one that remains diverse, although to a lesser degree than previously.”

He also noted the school’s “commitment to a diverse campus community in every sense remains unchanged.” Powell said Brown would continue to encourage “talented students of every background [to] apply.”

The findings follow a similar shift at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where enrollment of Asian students rose 6% this fall. The number of African American students enrolled saw a sharp decline, however, falling from 13% to just 5%, according to MIT data. Hispanic and Latino enrollment also fell from 15% to just 5%.

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NEW YORK (AP) — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.

His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York’s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama (“As the World Turns”) and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of “The Gin Game” having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work.

“The need to storytell has always been with us,” he told The Associated Press then. “I think it first happened around campfires when the man came home and told his family he got the bear, the bear didn’t get him.”

Jones created such memorable film roles as the reclusive writer coaxed back into the spotlight in “Field of Dreams,” the boxer Jack Johnson in the stage and screen hit “The Great White Hope,” the writer Alex Haley in “Roots: The Next Generation” and a South African minister in “Cry, the Beloved Country.”

He was also a sought-after voice actor, expressing the villainy of Darth Vader (“No, I am your father,” commonly misremembered as “Luke, I am your father”), as well as the benign dignity of King Mufasa in both the 1994 and 2019 versions of Disney’s “The Lion King” and announcing “This is CNN” during station breaks. He won a 1977 Grammy for his performance on the “Great American Documents” audiobook.

“If you were an actor or aspired to be an actor, if you pounded the pavement in these streets looking for jobs, one of the standards we always had was to be a James Earl Jones,” Samuel L. Jackson once said.

Some of his other films include “Dr. Strangelove,” “The Greatest” (with Muhammad Ali), “Conan the Barbarian,” “Three Fugitives” and playing an admiral in three blockbuster Tom Clancy adaptations — “The Hunt for Red October,” “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.” In a rare romantic comedy, “Claudine,” Jones had an onscreen love affair with Diahann Carroll.

LeVar Burton, who starred alongside Jones in the TV movie “Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones,” paid tribute on X, writing, “There will never be another of his particular combination of graces.”

Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958’s “Sunrise At Campobello” and would win his two Tony Awards for “The Great White Hope” (1969) and “Fences” (1987). He also was nominated for “On Golden Pond” (2005) and “Gore Vidal’s The Best Man” (2012). He was celebrated for his command of Shakespeare and Athol Fugard alike. More recent Broadway appearances include “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “The Iceman Cometh,” and “You Can’t Take It With You.”

As a rising stage and television actor, he performed with the New York Shakespeare Festival Theater in “Othello,” “Macbeth” and “King Lear” and in off-Broadway plays.

Jones was born by the light of an oil lamp in a shack in Arkabutla, Mississippi, on Jan. 17, 1931. His father, Robert Earl Jones, had deserted his wife before the baby’s arrival to pursue life as a boxer and, later, an actor.

When Jones was 6, his mother took him to her parents’ farm near Manistee, Michigan. His grandparents adopted the boy and raised him.

“A world ended for me, the safe world of childhood,” Jones wrote in his autobiography, “Voices and Silences.” “The move from Mississippi to Michigan was supposed to be a glorious event. For me it was a heartbreak, and not long after, I began to stutter.”

Too embarrassed to speak, he remained virtually mute for years, communicating with teachers and fellow students with handwritten notes. A sympathetic high school teacher, Donald Crouch, learned that the boy wrote poetry, and demanded that Jones read one of his poems aloud in class. He did so faultlessly.

Teacher and student worked together to restore the boy’s normal speech. “I could not get enough of speaking, debating, orating — acting,” he recalled in his book.

At the University of Michigan, he failed a pre-med exam and switched to drama, also playing four seasons of basketball. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955.

In New York, he moved in with his father and enrolled with the American Theater Wing program for young actors. Father and son waxed floors to support themselves while looking for acting jobs.

True stardom came suddenly in 1970 with “The Great White Hope.” Howard Sackler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play depicted the struggles of Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, amid the racism of early 20th-century America. In 1972, Jones repeated his role in the movie version and was nominated for an Academy Award as best actor.

Jones’ two wives were also actors. He married Julienne Marie Hendricks in 1967. After their divorce, he married Cecilia Hart, best known for her role as Stacey Erickson in the CBS police drama “Paris,” in 1982. (She died in 2016.) They had a son, Flynn Earl, born in 1983.

In 2022, the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed after Jones, with a ceremony that included Norm Lewis singing “Go the Distance,” Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “Make Them Hear You” and words from Mayor Eric Adams, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.

“You can’t think of an artist that has served America more,” director Kenny Leon told the AP. “It’s like it seems like a small act, but it’s a huge action. It’s something we can look up and see that’s tangible.”

Citing his stutter as one of the reasons he wasn’t a political activist, Jones nonetheless hoped his art could change minds.

“I realized early on, from people like Athol Fugard, that you cannot change anybody’s mind, no matter what you do,” he told the AP. “As a preacher, as a scholar, you cannot change their mind. But you can change the way they feel.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Jorge Luis Castro-Alvarado entered the U.S. at an unknown date and time. He was not examined or admitted by Border Patrol, according to federal officials.

Castro-Alvarado was arrested in February in Lynn, Massachusetts, for assault and battery on a family or household member. Boston Enforcement and Removal Operations, a division of ICE, filed an immigration detainer against him.

Castro-Alvarado was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 18 months in prison. The court suspended all but 6 months of the sentence.

In April, Castro-Alvarado was arraigned in Essex County Superior Court on two counts of rape and indecent assault and battery on a person over 14. He was released without bail despite ERO’s detainer request.

ERO officers arrested Castro-Alvarado in August and served him a notice to appear before an immigration judge.

“Jorge Luis Castro-Alvarado unlawfully entered the United States before making his way to Massachusetts and allegedly victimizing a resident here,” ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons said. “Castro posed a significant threat to the members of our community. ERO Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by apprehending and removing noncitizen threats to our New England neighborhoods.”

Earlier this month, ICE announced the arrest of a member of the international crime gang MS-13 who hails from El Salvador. The individual was deported from the U.S. via a chartered flight from Louisiana to El Salvador last month. He was turned over to Salvadoran authorities upon his return.

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Ron Howard, 70, said during an interview with Deadline at the Toronto International Film Festival that politics wasn’t discussed that often while the move was being made.

“Well, we didn’t talk a lot of politics when we were making the movie because I was interested in his upbringing and that survival tale. That’s what we mostly focused on,” Howard said, adding “based on the conversations that we had during that time, I just have to say I’m very surprised and disappointed by much of the rhetoric that I’m reading and hearing. People do change, and I assume that’s the case. Well, it’s on record.

Howard said at that time, in 2020, Vance “was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested. So that was then. I think the important thing is to recognize what’s going on today and to vote.”

One year later, Vance ran for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat vacated by Rob Portman. After being endorsed by Donald Trump, he went on to win the 2022 election, defeating Tim Ryan.

In another interview with Variety in Toronto, Howard added he’s “been surprised and concerned by a lot of the rhetoric” from the Trump-Vance campaign.

“There’s no version of me voting for Donald Trump to be president again, whoever the vice president was,” he said.

Glenn Close who starred in the movie as Vance’s grandmother spoke to Variety last month during the premiere of her movie “The Deliverance” and slammed Vance for flip-flopping on Trump.

“You only hope that people in our government have a moral backbone and that they don’t say one thing and then say something that’s 150 degrees different,” she said.

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Kinzinger noted to Deadline he would “certainly” serve if Harris asked him. The remark came as he promoted a documentary at the Toronto Film Festival about his opposition to former President Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

“There’s no greater honor than serving in an administration. And obviously, I’ve supported Kamala, I’m endorsing her,” Kinzinger said before Deadline added that he also spoke at the Democratic National Convention.

The former congressman at times supported cutting taxes during his congressional terms but claimed in the Deadline interview he doesn’t care what the rates or “other policies” are.

To me, it’s the preservation of democracy and good governance. That’s what I care about,” Kinzinger said.

Kinzinger often sided with Republicans on votes before opposing objections in 2021 to the electoral counts for Pennsylvania and Arizona, two states that President Joe Biden won in the 2020 election.

“To me, you know, one of the things that’s interesting is when I had the job of a congressman, obviously, you have to vote on these issues. And so, you have partisan viewpoints and stuff because you have to,” Kinzinger said. “Like now, my only thing that I’m concerned about is the preservation of democracy.”

Kinzinger has criticized Trump since the former president urged his supporters to protest the certification of the 2020 election results. The former congressman in his interview referred to Trump as a “cancer” in the Republican Party, adding that Harris’s supporters should be “careful” when analyzing her chances at winning.

“It’s literally a coin toss. I think, you know, if you asked me two months ago, unfortunately, I would have said 90% chance it’s Donald Trump,” he said. “I think it’s a coin toss. I would, if I had to bet all my money on one side, agonistically I would say it’s gonna be Kamala. And I think that would obviously be great for the country.”

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Timothy J. Carpenter, of Indiana, had hundreds of images and dozens of videos of children being exploited, including some recorded in a shower.

The sentencing comes after Indiana State Police were made aware of Carpenter in 2022. Police learned that Carpenter used software to receive and distribute child sexual abuse material on the internet through his cellphone.

Carpenter admitted to police investigators that he used his phone to access the material. When police investigators examined his phone, they found multiple videos depicting a prepubescent child fully nude in a shower.

Carpenter was seen in videos concealing a camera in multiple locations near the shower to capture video of the child’s genitals.

The child predator was sentenced to over 17 years in prison for possessing and creating images of child sexual abuse.

A judge also ordered Carpenter to register as a sex offender where he resides, where he is an employee and where he is a student.

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The “Countering Threats and Attacks On Our Judges Act” passed the Senate back in June.

It comes as the number of threats and attacks on judges has soared in recent years, including on Judge Julie Kocurek in 2015. “In November of 2015, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on my life,” she said.

Nine years ago, Kocurek was shot in her own driveway.

On Thursday, the judge and her son, Will Kocurek, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, recounted those terrifying moments.

“I was face to face with the masked gunman, and I started yelling at him and tried to block him from my mom,” Will Kocurek said. “I remember her looking at me kind of like, you know, putting her hands up trying to figure out what was going on. Then the gunman shot her through the driver’s side window four times from just four feet away.”

Cornyn is the sponsor of the bill. “We can’t have judges and court personnel living in fear, and as you heard, not just fear for themselves, but fear for the safety of their families as well,” he told reporters.

The U.S. Marshals Service says in 2021, there were more than 4,500 threats to federal judges and other court personnel. “400% higher than in 2015 — the year Kocurek was shot — and it does not include judges at the state and local levels,” the service reported.

“There’s a lot of division in society right now, and we know that there’s a lot of distrust of institutions,” Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht said.

In Kocurek’s case, her attacker had been a defendant in her courtroom on other charges, and she says he was trying to avoid justice.

“I soon realized that although my attack seemed very personal, it was not about me. This was an attack on our justice system and on the rule of law,” she said.

Cornyn says Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was working on the bill in the House before she died this year, and he hopes her colleagues will take it up soon.

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Central Oregon Fire Information reported dozens of new fire starts, ranging in size from a quarter acre to 800 acres, on Wednesday and Thursday.

The Pacific Northwest was moved to “Preparedness Level 5,” the highest level, on Friday.

“At this Preparedness Level [PL] there is significant wildfire activity throughout the U.S. creating a shortage of wildland fire fighting personnel and resources. Pacific NW incident management teams are fully committed to large fires and incident management teams from other parts of the U.S. are needed to manage ongoing and anticipated wildfires in the Pacific NW Region,” the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center wrote. “As hot, dry, windy conditions persist, new large fires continue to emerge. Stay alert, follow fire restrictions, and report any smoke or fire immediately.”

Several new fires have been reported in the Willamette National Forest on the west side of the Cascades. Crews and aircraft have been deployed to try to knock down these wildfires.

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According to Seattle-based real estate company Redfin, teachers nationwide can afford about 48% of rentals near their schools. That’s up from 41% last year.

“I’m optimistic this could be a trend instead of just a blip because Seattle has been moving in the right direction when it comes to adding housing supply to the market,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist, said.

The bad news is this is still significantly below pre-coronavirus pandemic levels, which were closer to 58%.

Redfin looked at 33 cities and found that new leases are sluggish because there are many units on the market.

Teacher salaries are also up almost 4% from last year. The numbers are even better in Seattle.

“In Seattle in particular, there was an 8% rise in median teacher salaries, so that also adds to teacher buying power when it comes to a rental,” Fairweather said.

In Portland, Oregon, teachers can afford 91% of rentals within commuting distance from their school.

In Miami, it’s less than 1%.

The news isn’t so great for teachers who want to buy homes.

Nationwide, teachers can only afford about 14% of homes near their schools. That number hasn’t changed since last year, but it’s down from 39% in 2019.

More teachers may be able to break into the housing market if interest rates start to drop.

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