O'Rourke takes on race issues during 1st visit to S Carolina

In the first primary state where Democratic presidential hopefuls can test their mettle before a mostly black audience, Beto O'Rourke took on issues of race Friday, telling South Carolina voters that he might not know their struggles firsthand but wants to be a president who can try to fix them.

"I'm a white man who's had privilege in my life," the former Texas congressman told a crowd at South Carolina State University, a historically black school in Orangeburg, saying there are struggles he hasn't faced. "I've listened to those who have, and I'm listening to you today."

The trip is O'Rourke's first to this state, which holds the first primary in the South. It's also the first place for candidates to be tested by a Democratic primary electorate that is mostly black.

O'Rourke has talked about white privilege before, saying earlier this week in Iowa that he didn't think being a white male in a historically diverse field of candidates put him at a disadvantage because his gender and race have given him inherent advantages for years.

Before a mostly black crowd of about 200 at South Carolina State, his voice hoarse after a multitude of events across several states in recent days, O'Rourke framed many of his answers to town hall-style questions around his desire to equalize what he sees as race-based unfairness in access to health care and business capital, as well as in the criminal justice system.

"Whether it's a war on drugs, the inability to obtain capital in a capitalist economy ... all of it comes to a head, and so much of it causes people to lose their lives," O'Rourke said in answering a question about how to stop incidents of police violence against black suspects. "Yes, we need accountability for police officers."

Earlier in the day, before a primarily white audience of several hundred at the University of South Carolina's campus in Columbia, O'Rourke emphasized what he sees as inequality in the prosecution and imprisonment of minorities, also advocating for legalization of marijuana, a point he has made before .

"How can we have a system of justice so patently unjust?" O'Rourke asked. "Let's end the war on drugs, the war on people."

O'Rourke is spending Saturday morning in Charleston for a town hall hosted by state Sen. Marlon Kimpson. His South Carolina debut — and the swarm of media that has followed him through other early states including Iowa and New Hampshire — is sucking much of the political oxygen out of the atmosphere on a weekend when other members of the sprawling Democratic primary field are also visiting. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg also have several events in the state on Saturday.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.

FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)