BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) ' Former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a crewcut-wearing Indiana Democrat who was a leading foreign affairs voice during three decades in Congress and helped oversee investigations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, died Tuesday. He was 94.

Hamilton, who also led a congressional probe of the Reagan administrations Iran-Contra affair while representing a rural southern Indiana district, died peacefully in his home in Bloomington, Indiana, said his son Doug Hamilton, who did not cite a specific cause.

Hamilton was at the forefront of congressional opposition to the 1991 Persian Gulf War waged by President George H.W. Bush and advocated continued economic sanctions against Iraq before military action over its invasion of Kuwait.

He decided against seeking reelection in 1998 and said after leaving Congress that he believed the U.S. needed to be regarded around the world as more than a leader of military coalitions.

'The United States must be ' and must be seen as ' an optimistic and benign power,' Hamilton said in 2003. 'We must speak and act as a source of optimism, a beacon of freedom, a benign power forging a consensus approach toward a world of peace and growth and freedom. And American power must be accompanied by American generosity.'

President Barack Obama presented Hamilton with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015, saying during the ceremony that Hamilton was a man 'widely admired' on both sides of the aisle 'for his honesty, his wisdom, and consistent commitment to bipartisanship.'

9/11 investigations

Hamilton was a small-town lawyer known for his exploits as a high school basketball star when he first won election to his southern Indiana congressional seat in 1964 at the age of 33.

With his thick glasses and calm, deliberate manner, Hamilton rose to become chairman of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees and a Democratic leader on international relations before retiring from Congress in 1999.

His reputation as an evenhanded moderate had Capitol Hill leaders turn to him for some of the most tumultuous matters facing Washington. But he also faced criticism that he was not aggressive enough in pursuing allegations of wrongdoing by Republican administrations.

Hamilton was tapped in 2002 as vice chairman of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks commission. That group spent 20 months investigating the 2001 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people when 19 hijackers flew airliners into New Yorks World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside.

He presented a united front with the panels Republican chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, through its clashes with the George W. Bush White House and its lobbying efforts for changes to the U.S. intelligence system.

The commission found that both the Clinton and Bush administrations had failed to grasp the gravity of terrorist threats and took actions so feeble, they never even slowed the al-Qaida plotters.

'The fact of the matter is, we just didnt get it in this country,' Hamilton said when the commission released its report in 2004. 'We could not comprehend that people wanted to kill us, they wanted to hijack airplanes and fly them into big buildings.'

Iran-Contra committee

Hamilton gained national prominence in the mid-1980s with his selection as a co-chairman of the congressional Iran-Contra committee, which investigated the Reagan administrations diversion of profits from Iran arm sales to help Nicaraguas Contra rebels. The panels report found that President Ronald Reagan created an atmosphere at the White House in which subordinates felt free to skirt the law and Constitution.

'There was too much secrecy and deception,' Hamilton said at the time. 'Information was withheld from the Congress, other officials, friends and allies and the American people.'

Hamilton, however, was able to gain little Republican support for the committees work. then-Rep. Dick Cheney, a top Republican on the Iran-Contra committee, called the report a political document that selected only the most damaging evidence against the Reagan administration.

Hamilton was considered as a possible vice presidential running mate both for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992, but they decided against picking the nontelegenic congressman from a Republican-leaning state.

Born April 20, 1931, in Daytona Beach, Florida, the son of a Methodist minister moved with his family to Evansville, Indiana, as a child.

Hamilton went on to college at DePauw University and attended Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, before graduating from Indiana Universitys law school in 1956.

After Congress

After serving in Congress, Hamilton continued with his interests in foreign affairs and congressional reform as director of the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center. He also spent time as a faculty member at Indiana University, which in 2018 named its School of Global and International Studies after Hamilton and longtime Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, who died in 2019.

Hamilton and his wife were married for 58 years after meeting while students at DePauw. Nancy Hamilton died in 2012. He is survived by three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Volmert contributed from Lansing, Mich. Davies is a former Associated Press Writer.

LAPD first started tracking pretextual stops in April 2022, a month after revising its policy restricting what the agency calls an “investigative tool” that curbs drug crimes and violence crime.

In general, a pretextual stop is when an officer uses a minor Vehicle Code violation as a legal pretext to investigate a hunch about a more serious, unrelated crime.

However, the LAPD policy implemented in March 2022 does not allow officers to use pretextual stops based solely on a hunch. Instead, the report says, the officer must act only “upon articulable information” and explain to the driver why the vehicle was pulled over with the officer’s body-worn camera on.

Critics of pretextual stops have said they are disproportionate by race. A 2020 report by the LAPD’s Office of the Inspector General found that there were indeed disparities across a broad group of traffic stops in Los Angeles, with people police believed were Black overrepresented.

From April 1, 2022, through Nov. 30, 2025, LAPD officers stopped nearly 790,000 people, with almost 75,500 of those considered pretextual stops, the data shows.

Nearly 70% of those searches resulted in no evidence found.

Among the roughly 30% when evidence was discovered, drugs was the most common, at nearly 20% of the pretextual stops that resulted in vehicle searches. Firearms and weapons each accounted for 5% to 7%.

By the time the policy was implemented, LAPD’s total number of traffic stops had already sharply declined from 713,000 in 2019 to 331,000 three years later, which police attribute to the COVID-19 pandemic, reduced personnel and policy changes.

In 2024, the last year in the report, there were 349,000 total stops.

The report was prompted by the Los Angeles City Council, which was looking at alternatives to end pretextual stops, including a new unarmed agency that would stop drivers and write tickets to build trust with the public, NBC Los Angeles reported.

But LAPD’s report says the existing limitations on pretextual stops balances community concerns with public safety, allowing for an “effective investigative tool.”

“It has to be more than a hunch, it has to be actually informed,” Cmdr. Shannon White told the Los Angeles Police Commission this week. “The officer is making every effort that they can to be proactive in preventing crime based on the information they are receiving daily through roll calls, what they are receiving through their hot sheets, what they’re also receiving through crime analysts.”

A hot sheet is often used during daily briefings to update officers about crime trends, suspects and recent crimes.

The commission’s board members asked the LAPD for more data on pretextual stops, including breakdowns of the ethnicities of people pulled over, the evidence found by ethnic group, the time of day for the stops, and the reasons why the drivers were stopped.

“Earlier this morning, Councilman Price was with us out in the rotunda. Some folks witnessed that he fainted. The ambulance came and transported him to General Hospital, where he’s in stable condition,” Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said.

“He is in recovery and doing well, but out of abundance of caution, obviously he won’t be with us in council today,” Harris-Dawson added.

The council president said Price is getting “good care” and is doing fine.

Price previously experienced a health incident at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Los Angeles Convention Center Expansion Project in October 2025.

The 75-year-old councilman is facing public corruption charges and was ordered last week to stand trial following a multi-day preliminary hearing. Price has pleaded not guilty to a dozen felony counts, including grand theft by embezzlement of public funds, conflict of interest and perjury.

He remains free on his own recognizance and is scheduled to be arraigned March 13.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) ' An Argentine judge on Wednesday requested the extradition from the United States of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by the U.S. military last month and now faces federal charges of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine in New York.

The inquest from Argentina, whose judges have aggressively pursued human rights abuse cases beyond its borders, accuses Maduro of having committed crimes against humanity in overseeing a harsh crackdown on protesters and political opponents as president.

'The urgent translation of the international request and the documentation attached thereto is hereby ordered,' said the warrant, which was signed by Argentine federal judge Sebastián Ramos and seen by The Associated Press.

Plaintiffs include Venezuelans who suffered torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance, among other abuses, at the hands of Venezuelan security forces and intelligence agents.

The case, filed in Buenos Aires in 2023 by human rights organizations representing the victims, relies on the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal concept that allows for the prosecution in Argentina of anyone from any country who commits crimes like genocide or terrorism anywhere in the world.

Argentinas foreign ministry must now present the request to the Trump administration, which is unlikely to comply as Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores await trial in a Brooklyn jail on charges that they worked with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S over a 25-year period.

Even so, one of the organizations that filed the case hailed the request as an important milestone 'for Argentina, for justice, and above all, for Venezuelan victims who dared to speak out.'

'Beyond this specific resolution, there remains the satisfaction of having stood up to the powerful, fiercely defending human rights,' wrote the Argentine Forum for the Defense of Democracy.

In asking the U.S. to hand Maduro over to Argentina, the warrant cites the 1997 extradition treaty between the countries and acknowledges Maduros recent capture.

An Argentine court first issued an international arrest warrant for Maduro in 2024. Following the U.S. military operation that ousted Maduro on Jan. 3, Argentine federal prosecutors asked Judge Ramos to request the extradition for the crimes-against-humanity investigation.

As one of just a handful of countries whose law permits the investigation of crimes-against-humanity cases beyond its borders, Argentina has increasingly taken center stage in lawsuits ranging from the torture of dissidents under Gen. Francisco Francos dictatorship in Spain to atrocities committed by the military against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

President Javier Milei of Argentina, the regions most prominent right-wing leader and ally of President Donald Trump, has cheered the U.S. military seizure of Maduro.

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) ' The search for 'Today' show host Savannah Guthries mother still had no suspect or person of interest Wednesday, authorities said, four days after she disappeared with signs of forced entry at her home in southern Arizona.

Investigators believe Nancy Guthrie was taken against her will over the weekend and Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has said they dont have credible information indicating Guthries disappearance was targeted. Guthrie has limited mobility, and officials do not believe she left on her own. Nanos said she is of sound mind.

'Detectives continue to speak with anyone who may have had contact with Mrs. Guthrie,' the sheriffs department said in a statement on social media Wednesday. 'Detectives are working closely with the Guthrie family.'

Multiple media organizations reported receiving purported ransom notes Tuesday that they handed over to investigators. The sheriffs department has said its taking the notes and other tips seriously but declined to comment further.

The Pima County sheriff and the Tucson FBI chief urged the public to offer tips during a news conference Tuesday. Nanos has said Guthrie needs daily medication and could die without it. Asked whether officials were looking for her alive, he said, 'We hope we are.'

Authorities say Nancy Guthrie was last seen around 9:30 p.m. Saturday at her home in the Tucson area, where she lived alone, and she was reported missing midday Sunday. Someone at her church called a family member to say she was not there, leading family to search her home and then call 911.

DNA samples have been gathered and submitted for analysis as part of the investigation. 'Weve gotten some back, but nothing to indicate any suspects,' Nanos said.

There were signs of forced entry at Guthries home, evidence of a nighttime kidnapping, and several personal items were still there, including Guthries cellphone, wallet and car, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the case and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of an anonymity. Investigators were reviewing surveillance video from nearby homes and information from area license plate cameras and analyzing local cellphone towers data.

Guthries upscale Catalina Foothills neighborhood is quiet and mostly dark at night, lit mainly by car headlights and homes spaced far apart. Long driveways, front gates and desert plants provide a buffer from the winding streets. Saguaro cacti tower above her homes roofline, and wispy trees partially block the view of the front door. Decorative streetlamps and prickly pear cacti dot the grassy front yard.

Jim Mason, longtime commander of a search and rescue posse for the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office, said desert terrain can make looking for missing people difficult. Sometimes its hard to peer into areas that are dense with mesquite trees, cholla cactus and other brush, he said. His group is based 175 miles north of Tucson, and is not involved in the search for Guthrie.

On the other side of the country, Victory Church in Albany, New York, said its offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads to finding Nancy Guthrie.

'Me and my wife, we watch Savannah every single morning. Weve heard of her faith. Weve heard of her moms faith. And shes got such a sweet spirit,' Pastor Charlie Muller said.

For a third day Wednesday, 'Today' opened with Nancy Guthries disappearance, but Savannah Guthrie was not at the anchors desk. NBC Sports said Tuesday that Guthrie will not be covering the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics 'as she focuses on being with her family during this difficult time.'

The 'Today' host grew up in Tucson, graduated from the University of Arizona and previously worked as a reporter and anchor at Tucson television station KVOA. Her parents settled in Tucson in the 1970s when she was a young child. The youngest of three siblings, she credits her mom with holding their family together after her father died of a heart attack at 49, when Savannah was just 16.

Billeaud reported from Phoenix and Balsamo from Washington. Associated Press writer Michael Hill in Albany, New York, contributed.

Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study.

The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that from 2006 to 2020, long-term exposure to tiny particulates from wildfire smoke contributed to an average of 24,100 deaths a year in the lower 48 states.

'Our message is: Wildfire smoke is very dangerous. It is an increasing threat to human health,' said Yaguang Wei, a study author and assistant professor in the department of environmental medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Other scientists who have studied the death toll from wildfire smoke were not surprised by the findings.

'The estimates theyre coming up with are reasonable,' said Michael Jerrett, professor of environmental health science at the University of California, Los Angeles who was not involved in the study. 'We need more of them. Its only if were doing multiple studies with many different designs that we gain scientific confidence of our outcomes.'

‘These are real lives being lost due to wildfire smoke

The papers researchers focused on deaths linked to chronic exposure to fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 ' the main concern from wildfire smoke.

These particles can lodge deep into lungs and enter the bloodstream. Short-term exposure can trigger coughing and itchy eyes, but longer term, they can make existing health problems worse and lead to a range of chronic and deadly health issues, including respiratory illness, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, and premature death.

'Wildfire smoke PM2.5 has emerged as significant environmental hazard in the U.S., and its driven by increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires due to climate change,' said Min Zhang, a postdoctoral student at the Icahn School and a study author.

Along with decades of forest mismanagement, growing development in fire-prone areas has expanded the 'urban wildland interface,' increasing wildfire risk with real consequences for human health, said Jerrett.

'Nobodys going to have ‘wildfire death on their death certificate unless the fire actually burned them or a tree fell on them or something like that,' said Jerrett. 'But many of the people that are dying from this exposure are ones that are already more vulnerable. These are real lives that are being lost. This is not some arbitrary abstract statistical concept.'

How researchers approached the study

The studys authors analyzed the link between annual average exposure to PM2.5 from wildfire smoke and deaths by county in the lower 48. They used federal mortality data across 3,068 counties of all causes of death and several specific ones ' circulatory, neurological and respiratory diseases, as well as mental and behavioral disorders, tumors and endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases.

They also included deaths related to falls and transport accidents ' which are unlikely to be linked to wildfire smoke ' to ensure their other observations werent biased.

'We found no association for car accidents and falls, while for other diseases we found statistically significant effects,' said Wei. Deaths from neurological diseases saw the biggest increase with exposure to these particulates.

How pronounced the link was between particulate exposure and death varied by season and demographics. A stronger association appeared during cooler periods, and people in rural areas and younger communities appeared to be more vulnerable.

Researchers also found that with every 0.1 microgram per cubic meter increase of PM2.5 across all these places, about 5,594 more people died each year.

Jerrett said the study had the benefit of a large study population and that it includes most causes of deaths in the U.S. But he said the county-level data could have led to over or underestimates because wildfire smoke is very dynamic. 'It doesnt just blanket a large county all at once. There are going to be parts of the county that gets it a lot worse.'

The study also did not account for other important factors, such as whether a person smokes, he said.

Federal rollbacks on climate policy poses risks, authors say

Kai Chen, an associate professor of environmental sciences at the Yale School of Public Health who has also studied the topic, said: 'I really like that they examined both the smoke and nonsmoke PM2.5.' Various research has found that PM2.5 from wildfire smoke has bigger health impacts than pollution from other sources, such as car emissions, said Chen in an email, who was not involved in the study.

The Trump administrations rollbacks in climate change policy, even as the more destructive wildfires become more frequent in large part due to global warming, poses critical risks, the studys authors said. Quantifying the deadly threat that PM2.5 from wildfires poses to human health shows the need for effective, urgent mitigation strategies, backed by Environmental Protection Agency monitoring and regulation, they said.

'This highlights the importance of controlling wildfire sourced PM2.5, which is currently not regulated by the EPA as it is usually regarded as natural disasters,' Chen agreed.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of APs environmental coverage, visit apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

WASHINGTON (AP) ' The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed California to use a new voter-approved congressional map that is favorable to Democrats in this years elections, rejecting a last-ditch plea from state Republicans and the Trump administration.

No justices dissented from the brief order denying the appeal without explanation, as is common on the court’s emergency docket.

The justices had previously allowed Texas Republican-friendly map to be used in 2026, despite a lower-court ruling that it likely discriminates on the basis of race.

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in December that it appeared both states had adopted new maps for political advantage, which the high court has previously ruled cannot be a basis for a federal lawsuit.

Republicans, joined by the Trump administration, claimed the California map improperly relied on race, as well. But a lower court disagreed by a 2-1 vote. The Justice Department and White House did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The justices’ unsigned order keeps in place districts that are designed to flip up to five seats now held by Republicans, part of a tit-for-tat nationwide redistricting battle spurred by President Donald Trump, with control of Congress on the line in midterm elections.

Last year, at Trump’s behest, Texas Republicans redid the state’s congressional districts with an eye on gaining five seats.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is eying a 2028 presidential run, pledged to respond in kind, though he had to win over voters, not just lawmakers, to do so.

Newsom celebrated the court’s decision, saying on social media that Trump had 'started this redistricting war' and would end up losing out in the November midterms, when control of Congress is at stake.

The California Republican Party, which brought the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One longtime party strategist, Jon Fleishman, a former executive director of the California Republican Party, said in a post on X that the decision means 'this years elections will take place on the new lines shrinking the already very small Republican delegation from California.”

Filing for congressional primaries in California begins on Monday.

Associated Press writers Michael Blood in Los Angeles and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) ' A government lawyer who told a judge that her job 'sucks' during a court hearing stemming from the Trump administrations immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota has been removed from her Justice Department post, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Julie Le had been working for the Justice Department on a detail, but the U.S. attorney in Minnesota ended her assignment after her comments in court on Tuesday, the person said. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter. She had been working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before the temporary assignment.

At a hearing Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota, for several immigration cases, Le told U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell that she wishes he could hold her in contempt of court 'so that I can have a full 24 hours of sleep.'

'What do you want me to do? The system sucks. This job sucks. And I am trying every breath that I have so that I can get you what you need,' Le said, according to a transcript.

Le’s extraordinary remarks reflect the intense strain that has been placed on the federal court system since President Donald Trump returned to the White House a year ago with a promise to carry out mass deportations. ICE officials have said the surge in Minnesota has become its largest-ever immigration operation since ramping up in early January.

Several prosecutors have left the U.S. Attorneys office in Minnesota amid frustration with the immigration enforcement surge and the Justice Departments response to fatal shootings of two civilians by federal agents. Le was assigned at least 88 cases in less than a month, according to online court records.

Blackwell told Le that the volume of cases isn’t an excuse for disregarding court orders. He expressed concern that people arrested in immigration enforcement operations are routinely jailed for days after judges have ordered their release from custody.

'And I hear the concerns about all the energy that this is causing the DOJ to expend, but, with respect, some of it is of your own making by not complying with orders,' the judge told Le.

Le said she was working for the Department of Homeland Security as an ICE attorney in immigration court before she 'stupidly' volunteered to work the detail in Minnesota. Le told the judge that she wasn’t properly trained for the assignment. She said she wanted to resign from the job but couldn’t get a replacement.

“Fixing a system, a broken system, I dont have a magic button to do it. I dont have the power or the voice to do it,” she said.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Le was a probationary attorney.

'This conduct is unprofessional and unbecoming of an ICE attorney in abandoning her obligation to act with commitment, dedication, and zeal to the interests of the United States Government,' McLaughlin said in a statement.

Le and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Kira Kelley, an attorney who represented two petitioners at the hearing, said the flood of immigration petitions is necessary because 'so many people being detained without any semblance of a lawful basis.'

'And theres no indication here that any new systems or bolded e-mails or any instructions to ICE are going to fix any of this,' she added.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) ' Russian missiles and drones have pounded Ukraines energy grid in recent weeks, plunging people into frozen darkness in one of the countrys coldest winters on record.

Ukraine has accused Russia of illegally targeting power infrastructure during the war to deny civilians light, heating and running water.

'Taking advantage of the coldest days of winter to terrorize people is more important to Russia than diplomacy,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday, on the eve of a new round of talks about ending the conflict and as temperatures in Kyiv hovered around minus 20 C (minus 3 F).

Russia says its attacks are a legitimate part of its military campaign against its neighbor. Moscows invasion of Ukraine itself is widely regarded as an illegal act of aggression.

So, are attacks on energy installations allowed during war?

What international law says

Combatants can legally target a power grid if the attack 'directly affects a valid military target' ' but they cannot cause excessive civilian casualties, said David Crane, former chief prosecutor at the United Nations Special Court for Sierra Leone.

In the case of Russias attacks on Ukraine, 'the indiscriminate and widespread targeting does not come close to what is legal,' he said in an emailed response to questions from The Associated Press.

The International Committee of the Red Cross says that parts of energy systems providing essential services to civilians 'are in principle civilian objects, and as such are protected against direct attack and reprisals as well as incidental harm.'

Pretrial judges from the International Criminal Court, in fact, issued arrest warrants in 2024 for top Russian military brass and the countrys former defense minister for their alleged involvement in missile strikes targeting electricity infrastructure.

In announcing warrants for former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russias chief military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the court said that judges found 'reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged strikes were directed against civilian objects, and for those installations that may have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected incidental civilian harm and damage would have been clearly excessive to the anticipated military advantage.'

Russia is not a member of the court, rejects its jurisdiction, and refuses to extradite suspects to face justice in the ICCs courtrooms in The Hague, Netherlands.

What Russia says

The Russian military has repeatedly said that it has targeted energy facilities and other infrastructure that support Ukrainian military industries and armed forces. It has denied targeting residential areas despite daily evidence to the contrary.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Wednesday that 'our military is striking the targets that they believe are associated with the military complex of the Kyiv regime, the operation is continuing.'

What Ukraine says

Kyiv accuses Russia of seeking to wear down Ukrainians appetite for the fight by inflicting grinding hardship on civilians forced to live in dark, freezing homes.

Authorities say Russia has tried to cripple Ukraines electricity network by targeting substations, transformers, turbines and generators at power plants. Ukraines largest private power company, DTEK, said that this weeks overnight attack was the ninth major assault on the companys thermal power plants since October.

Ukraines energy sector has suffered more than $20 billion in direct war damage, according to a joint estimate by the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) ' A Hungarian court on Wednesday sentenced a German anti-fascist activist to eight years in prison for taking part in assaults against participants of a far-right rally in February 2023.

Authorities allege the 25-year-old defendant, identified only as Maja T., was one of more than a dozen people who assaulted participants in an annual far-right event in Budapest known as the 'Day of Honor' ' one of the biggest neo-Nazi rallies in Europe which marks the failed attempt by Nazi and allied Hungarian soldiers to break out of Budapest during the Red Armys siege of the city in 1945.

The defendant was accused of attempted aggravated bodily harm causing life-threatening injuries and assault committed as part of a criminal organization.

Maja T. was extradited from Germany to Hungary in December 2024. Germanys Constitutional Court ruled last year that the extradition was unlawful because it could not be guaranteed that the defendant would not be subject to inhumane or degrading treatment in Hungarian custody.

Supporters of Maja T. have criticized the conditions of detention as well as the defendants chances for a fair trial in Hungary, where the right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, last year designated antifa as a terrorist organization.

Antifa, an umbrella term for loosely affiliated far-left activists and groups that resist fascism, fascists and neo-Nazis, resembles more an ideology than an organization, though some have embraced militant tactics. Hungary designated antifa a terrorist organization after a similar move by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In comments to the courtroom after the verdict was read, Maja T. called the trial 'politically motivated.'

'But I still have a friendly smile, as well as a moral code, a universal moral code,' Maja T. said.

Maja T. has complained about the conditions of detainment. Speaking to The Associated Press outside a hearing in Budapest last year, the defendants father, Wolfram Jarosch, said Maja T. had been held in 'solitary confinement' and subjected to 'degrading conditions.'

'The rule of law in Hungary is very, very doubtful,' Jarosch said.

Wednesdays conviction can be appealed.

Another alleged assailant in the 2023 attacks, Italian anti-fascist activist Ilaria Salis, was jailed in Hungary for over a year following the assaults, resulting in a diplomatic dispute between Rome and Budapest over her treatment in detention.

Salis was released to house arrest in May 2024 and released a month later after she gained legal immunity by winning a seat in the European Parliament. Hungary continues to demand that she be returned to face trial and prosecutors have sought an 11-year sentence.