The U.S. government’s automobile safety ratings will get a major update starting with the 2026 model year when regulators add new driver-assistance technologies and tests for protecting pedestrians.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Monday that it has finalized the changes, which were required by Congress under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

In addition to the five-star ratings for crash tests, the agency will add four new technologies including pedestrian automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, blind spot warning, and intervention if a driver tries to move toward a vehicle in a blind spot.

The new rule also strengthens test procedures and performance standards for technology that’s already included in the ratings such as automatic emergency braking.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose department includes NHTSA, said the previous ratings, which went into effect in 1978, have helped the industry rise to higher safety standards. The new requirements make sure “that the evaluation of these cars includes not just the safety of people inside vehicles during a crash, but how the design of a vehicle could prevent a crash or make it less fatal for someone outside the vehicle,” Buttigieg said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The agency said that the five-star crash test ratings, which most vehicles now get, would not change under the new system. But consumers would also see green check marks if vehicles they’re shopping for have the safety features and can be assured that they meet standards set by the government, Buttigieg said.

Early on, the features will get a pass or fail grade, but later will get scores so buyers can compare vehicles, he said.

45 activists sentenced in Hong Kong trial

A Hong Kong court on Tuesday sentenced 45 former politicians and activists in a mass trial that has decimated the city’s once vibrant pro-democracy opposition and served as a warning that resistance to Beijing can be costly.

The landmark trial is the most forceful use of a national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020 in response to months of large protests against Chinese rule. The prosecution of the activists, the vanguard of Hong Kong’s opposition, has delivered what experts described as a knockout blow to hopes for democracy in the city.

Their offense, according to the authorities: holding or taking part in an unofficial primary election.

In one fell swoop in 2021, authorities arrested Benny Tai, 60, a legal scholar and opposition strategist; Joshua Wong, 28, a prominent pro-democracy activist; and dozens of others, including veteran former lawmakers and younger politicians who called for self-determination for Hong Kong.

Pa. justices put some ballot counts on hold

Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.

The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions. The Democratic-majority high court’s order reiterates the position it took previously that the ballots shouldn’t be counted in the election, a decision that three Democratic-controlled counties nevertheless have challenged.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.

Wyoming judge strikes down abortion ban

A state judge on Monday struck down Wyoming’s overall ban on abortion and its first-in-the-nation explicit prohibition on the use of medication to end pregnancy in line with voters in yet more states voicing support for abortion rights.

Since 2022, Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens has ruled consistently three times to block the laws while they were disputed in court.

The decision marks another victory for abortion rights advocates after voters in seven states passed measures in support of access.

One Wyoming law that Owens said violated women’s rights under the state constitution bans abortion except to protect to a pregnant woman’s life or in cases involving rape and incest.

The other made Wyoming the only state to explicitly ban abortion pills, though other states have instituted de facto bans on the medication by broadly prohibiting abortion.

Bannon ‘wall’ trial pushed to February

Steve Bannon’s trial on charges of duping conservatives into donating for a “border wall” project has been pushed back to February.

Bannon, 70, had been set to stand trial beginning Dec. 9, but Manhattan Supreme Court Justice April Newbauer moved the date to Feb. 25 in a hearing Monday morning.

The case against Bannon began in late 2020, when federal investigators accused him and three associates of fraud and money laundering. Bannon and his partners set up a charity called We Build The Wall, Inc. and encouraged conservatives and Donald Trump supporters to donate and help complete Trump’s promise of a border wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The group raised more than $25 million with a promise that “all the money” would go to a border wall, investigators said. But a lot of the money instead landed in the pockets of Bannon and his co-conspirators, according to authorities.

Trump, 78, pardoned Bannon in the final hours of his first term as president. However, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought state charges against Bannon in September 2022. Trump will not be able to pardon Bannon a second time because it is not a federal case.

Bannon has pleaded not guilty

Former soldier in Jan. 6 case gets 4 years

A former U.S. Army soldier who was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of an Iraqi civilian in 2004 was sentenced Monday to more than four years in prison for assaulting police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Edward Richmond Jr., 41, of Geismar, La., was sentenced to 51 months for attacking officers who were trying to defend the Capitol during the 2020 vote certification process, the Justice Department said. Richmond will be on supervised release for three years after his prison term ends.

Richmond was arrested in January on several federal charges, including civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon; and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, prosecutors said at the time. He pleaded guilty to the assault charge in August. His lawyer, John S. McLindon, said his sentence includes nine months that he had already served.

— From news services