Voters in Arizona and Nebraska will face competing ballot measures. What happens if they both pass?

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated Sunday as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.

The former defense minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in front of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries. Banners and billboards to welcome the new president filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities including speeches and musical performances along the city’s major throughfare.

Subianto was a longtime rival of the immensely popular President Joko Widodo, who ran against him for the presidency twice and refused to accept his defeat on both occasions, in 2014 and 2019.

But Widodo appointed Subianto as defense chief after his reelection, paving the way for an alliance despite their rival political parties. During the campaign, Subianto ran as the popular outgoing president’s heir, vowing to continue signature policies like the construction of a multibillion-dollar new capital city and limits on exporting raw materials intended to boost domestic industry.

Backed by Widodo, Subianto swept to a landslide victory in February’s direct presidential election on promises of policy continuity.

Subianto was sworn in with his new vice president, 37-year-old Surakarta ex-Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka. He chose Raka, who is Widodo’s son, as his running mate, with Widodo favoring Subianto over the candidate of his own former party. The former rivals became tacit allies, even though Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates.

But how he’ll govern the biggest economy in Southeast Asia — where nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslims — remains uncertain after a campaign in which he made few concrete promises besides continuity with the popular former president.

Subianto, who comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families, is a sharp contrast to Widodo, the first Indonesian president to emerge from outside the political and military elite who came from a humble background and as president often mingled with working-class crowds.

Subianto was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses. He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.

Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein was expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony, but canceled at the last minute because of escalating Middle East tensions, instead deciding to send Foreign Affairs Minister Nancy Namrouqa as his special envoy. Subianto and Abdullah met in person in June for talks in Amman on humanitarian assistance to people affected by the war in Gaza.

Subianto, who has never held elective office, will lead a massive, diverse archipelago nation whose economy has boomed amid strong global demand for its natural resources. But he’ll have to contend with global economic distress and regional tensions in Asia, where territorial conflicts and the United States-China rivalry loom large.

Leaders and senior officials from more than 30 countries flew in to attend the ceremony, including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and leaders of Southeast Asia countries. U.S. President Joe Biden sent Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the U.S. Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, was also among the American delegation.

Army troops and police, along with armored vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances, were deployed across the capital, and major roads were closed to secure the swearing-in.

The election outcome capped a long comeback for Subianto, who was banned for years from traveling to the United States and Australia.

He has vowed to continue Widodo’s modernization efforts, which have boosted Indonesia’s economic growth by building infrastructure and leveraging the country’s abundant resources. A signature policy required nickel, a major Indonesian export and a key component of electric car batteries, to be processed in local factories rather than exported raw.

He has also promised to push through Widodo’s most ambitious and controversial project: the construction of a new capital on Borneo, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away from congested Jakarta.

Before February’s presidential election, he also promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 78.5 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country, aiming to reduce malnutrition and stunted growth among children.

Indonesia is a bastion of democracy in Southeast Asia, a diverse and economically bustling region of authoritarian governments, police states and nascent democracies. After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, the country was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition as the world’s third-largest democracy, and is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.

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Associated Press journalists Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko contributed to this report.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Crystal chandeliers that once glimmered above a swanky lounge, bright blue costume feathers that cloaked shimmying showgirls, and fake palm trees that evoked a desert oasis are just some the artifacts making their way from the latest casino graveyards of Las Vegas into Sin City history.

The kitsch comes from the Tropicana, which was demolished in a spectacular implosion Oct. 9 to make room for a new baseball stadium; and from The Mirage, the Strip’s first megaresort, which dealt its last cards in July and is set to reopen as a new casino nearly 40 years after it originally debuted.

As the neon lights dimmed and the final chips were cashed in, a different kind of spectacle unfolded behind the casino doors. Millions of items big and small were meticulously sorted and sold, donated and discarded.

“You take this hotel-casino and you turn it upside down, shake everything out of it until it’s empty,” said Frank Long, whose family business, International Content Liquidations, led the effort to unload the Tropicana’s merchandise before its implosion.

Long, 70, a third-generation auctioneer, likes to say he’s in the business of “going, going, gone.” He jokes that his Ohio home is “decorated in early hotel,” having helped clear out dozens of them as well as casinos across the country. In Las Vegas, that includes the Dunes, Aladdin and Landmark.

“Vegas buyers are special,” Long said. “This is their community, and they want a piece of it.”

Trolling for a piece of history

On a hot day in June, two months after the Tropicana shut its doors, Long welcomed buyers onto the casino floor.

The whirring slot machines were long gone, transferred to other casinos. In their place sat an odd collection of things: desks and chairs, rattan night stands, table lamps, pillows and sofas. Piled high in what was once the high-limit gambling room were mattresses and box springs. Small crystal chandeliers going for $1,000 hung suspended from old luggage carts.

“Fill up your entire truck for 100 bucks,” Long told shoppers, grinning.

Buyers of all ages filled wagons and luggage carts with arm chairs priced at $25, mirrors at $6, floor lamps at $28. Behind red velvet ropes where guests used to check in, customers waiting to pay stood in line with 43-inch flatscreen televisions. One man hugged a mattress and box spring, trying to keep them from toppling over.

In the Tropicana’s vast conference hall, piles of large vintage spotlights labeled “FOLIES” sat in waist-high bins marked for donation. They were off-limits to buyers, destined for the Las Vegas Showgirl Museum.

The Tropicana was home to the city’s longest-running show, “Folies Bergere,” a topless revue imported from Paris. Its nearly 50-year run helped make the feathered showgirl one of the most recognizable Las Vegas icons.

Elvis’ image among the forgotten treasures

One of Long’s favorite parts about the job is sifting through forgotten corners of casinos.

Inside the Tropicana, his team rescued black-and-white photographs of stars who wined, dined and headlined there. His favorite was a candid photo of Elvis Presley found in an unused office.

In its heyday, the casino played host to A-list stars including Elizabeth Taylor and Debbie Reynolds, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

Long said his people have fun with the job, too. The tedium of collecting several thousand pillows from the Tropicana’s two hotel towers turned into “the world’s biggest pillow fight.”

When Sarah Quigley learned the Tropicana was closing, she knew she needed to act fast if she wanted some of the casino’s historical records for the Special Collections and Archives at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Quigley, director of the special collections, wasn’t the first to call.

But after a meeting with the Tropicana’s management team, UNLV’s special collections acquired five boxes of records from 1956 to 2024, including vintage 1970s ads for the Tropicana’s showroom, old restaurant menus, architectural blueprints and original film reels of the dancing “Folies” showgirls rehearsing in the mid-1970s.

Salvaging the neon Vegas is famed for

The Neon Museum, which rescues iconic Las Vegas signs, got the Tropicana’s red one and The Mirage’s original archway that welcomed guests for 35 years. In a herculean effort, the 30-foot sign was placed on a flatbed truck in August. A chunk of the Strip closed so the piece could be slowly driven to its new home at the museum.

The Mirage opened with a Polynesian theme in 1989, spurring a building boom on the Strip that stretched through the 1990s. Its volcano fountain was one of the first sidewalk attractions, and tourists flocked to the casino to see Cirque du Soleil set to The Beatles or Siegfried and Roy taming white tigers.

In just a few years, the Strip’s skyline will look different. The Mirage will become the Hard Rock Las Vegas in 2027, with a hotel tower shaped like a guitar. The following year, the new baseball stadium is expected to open on the former site of the Tropicana.

While the last of the Tropicana’s buildings came tumbling down in 22 seconds, pieces of the Las Vegas landmark have found a new life in nearby museums, curated collections and homes.

“There’s history here,” said Aaron Berger, executive director of the Neon Museum. “You just have to look past the glitter to find it.”

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Associated Press video journalist Ty O’Neil in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — When Robert Roberson’s execution was abruptly halted in Texas, it was due to a subpoena ordering him to testify over a legal backstop that both Republicans and Democrats say should had saved him long ago: Texas’ junk science law.

The 2013 law allows a person convicted of a crime to seek relief if the evidence used against them is no longer credible. At the time, it was hailed by the Legislature as a uniquely future-proof solution to wrongful convictions based on faulty science. But Roberson’s supporters say his case points to faults in the judicial system where the law has been weakened by deliberate misinterpretation from the state’s highest criminal court.

On Monday, Roberson is scheduled to testify to members of a state House committee, four days after he had been scheduled to die by lethal injection.

“He’s seen how the prosecution has really stood in the way of bringing new science forward,” Democratic state Rep. John Bucy told The Associated Press. “I think his first hand account will be helpful for that.”

Roberson, 57, was convicted of murder the 2002 death of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in Palestine, Texas. Prosecutors alleged that he violently shook his daughter back and forth, causing fatal head trauma. A bipartisan group of lawmakers, medical experts and the former lead prosecutor on the case have thrown their support behind Roberson, stating that his conviction is based on flawed science.

In his clemency petition to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, several medical professionals wrote that Roberson’s conviction is based on outdated scientific evidence and that Curtis likely died from complications with severe pneumonia.

Shaken baby syndrome — now referred to as abusive head trauma — was a popular misdiagnosis at the time that has largely been debunked, according to Roberson’s attorneys.

Courts have rejected numerous attempts by his attorneys to hear new evidence in the case, and Texas’ parole board voted to not recommend Roberson clemency, a necessary step for Abbott to stay the execution. The governor has not commented on Roberson’s case.

No one facing execution has had their sentence overturned since the junk science law was enacted in 2013, according to a report by civil rights group Texas Defender Service.

In the last 10 years, 74 applications have been filed and ruled on under the junk science law. A third of applications were submitted by people facing the death penalty. All of them were unsuccessful.

Of the applications that led to relief, nearly three-quarters were for convictions related to DNA evidence despite making up less than half of all applications.

Legal experts suggest the reason for this is the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals misinterpreting the law and assessing applicants based on their innocence rather than the evidence.

“In practice, the CCA is applying a much higher standard than what the legislators wrote,” said Burke Butler, executive director for Texas Defender Service. “It (proving innocence) is a virtually impossible bar for anyone to meet,” she said, adding that DNA claims are likely more successful because the court can point to another perpetrator.

A House committee is set to discuss how the junk science law has failed to work as intended. In their subpoena to block the court’s execution warrant, lawmakers argued that Roberson’s testimony is vital to understanding its ineffectiveness.

Prosecutors have stated that the evidence in Roberson’s case has not changed significantly since his conviction. The Anderson County District Attorney Office did not respond to phone calls and voice messages Friday from The Associated Press.

Texas’ junk science law was the first of its kind in 2013 and a model for other states across the country, according to legal experts. California, Connecticut, Michigan, Nevada and Wyoming have similar “junk science” statutes, but it has not been studied how successful they are at overturning death penalty convictions.

There are many instances when prosecutors rely on inconsistent or faulty evidence during trial, and junk science laws can be a necessary tool to combat wrongful convictions, according to University of Oklahoma law professor Jim Hilbert.

“The Roberson case is a classic case that the Texas law was meant to address,” Hilbert, who has written about discredited science used in criminal trials, said.

“It has had a positive impact, but in such a limited way. There is so much more it can do.”

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