By ASHRAF KHALIL

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Joe Manchin’s reluctance to endorse the Biden administration’s expanded child tax credit program is rippling through his home state of West Virginia.

Manchin, a moderate Democrat, is one of the last holdouts delaying passage of President Joe Biden’s massive social and environmental package, dubbed the Build Back Better Act. The West Virginia senator has expressed concerns over multiple aspects of the roughly $2 trillion package, including the continuation of the expanded Child Tax Credit program.

The expansion, passed earlier this year as part of pandemic relief legislation, boosted the monthly payments for parents and greatly expanded the scope of those eligible. In West Virginia, one of the country’s poorest states, the effect was immediate, advocates say.

“There is no state that’s more impacted by the CTC,” said Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy. “West Virginia, frankly, wasn’t doing great before the pandemic. So this is absolutely needed now and in the long term.”

On Dec. 15, CTC payments went out to 181,000 West Virginia families, according to Treasury Department figures. The payments averaged $446 and reached 305,000 children. Those payments could end this month, if the Biden package doesn’t pass in the next few days.

A coalition of West Virginia groups has been lobbying Manchin from the local end, emphasizing the ground-level stories of families who benefitted from the expansion.

“We’re hearing it from every corner of the state,” said Jim McKay of TEAM for West Virginia Children. “This program is really having a profound impact in a positive way.”

Allen warned that 50,000 children in the state are in danger of slipping into poverty if the payments lapse, or the negotiations drag on so long that the Jan. 15 payment doesn’t happen. One in five West Virginia children is estimated to live in poverty and 93% of children in the state are eligible for the CTC payments, tied for the highest rates in the country.

“Households across the state would have trouble meeting their basic needs,” Allen said. “There is real urgency right now to make sure families don’t get left short.”

Faced with unified Republican opposition, Biden is trying to pass the package with Democrats alone, which the House has already done. But the path in the evenly split 50-50 Senate is more difficult, with no room for dissent. Biden has been in talks with Manchin, who appears to be the final obstacle for Democrats trying to pass the big bill by Christmas.

The rocky status of the Biden-Manchin talks was described Wednesday by a person who spoke only on condition of anonymity. The person said Manchin was pushing to eliminate the bill’s renewal of expanded benefits under the child tax credit, a keystone of Democratic efforts to reduce child poverty.

Manchin told reporters Wednesday that assertions he wants to strip the child tax credit improvements were “a lot of bad rumors.” Asked if he backed eliminating one of the bill’s child tax credit improvements — monthly checks sent to millions of families — he said, “I’m not negotiating with any of you.”

Last month, a group of West Virginians gathered outside Manchin’s office in the state capital, Charleston, to present the senator with a quilt covered in personal testimonials from CTC recipients describing how the payments had improved their lives.

“It’s a life-changer,” said Rick Wilson of the American Friends Service Committee who participated in the demonstration. ”People are saying they paid off debt, kept the lights on, or bought or repaired their car so they could go to work.”

Studies suggest the child tax credit expansions are expected to cut child poverty by 40% — with 9 of 10 American children benefiting. All told, some 4.1 million children are on track to be lifted above the poverty line, according to analysis from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

In West Virginia, recipients spent 52% of their CTC money on food, with 39% going toward clothing and other essentials for their children, according to a study by Washington University in St. Louis’ Social Policy Institute.

Allen, of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, said the CTC money doesn’t just benefit the recipient families. With few in a position to save the funds, the cash gets immediately spent in the community. She estimated that more than $530 million in CTC funds had flowed into the West Virginia economy.

“When families get money in their pockets, they’re spending it in grocery stores, clothing stores and child care centers,” she said. “Households know what they need and they’re spending it in a way that most folks would think is responsible.”

___

Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro and Alan Fram contributed to this report.

By SEAN MURPHY and BRUCE SCHREINER

DAWSON SPRINGS, Ky. (AP) — Tight-knit communities still digging out from the deadly tornadoes that killed dozens of people across eight states in the South and Midwest are turning to another heavy-hearted task: honoring and burying their dead.

The storms that began Friday night destroyed lives and property from Arkansas to Illinois and in parts of neighboring states, carving a more than 200-mile (320-kilometer) path through Kentucky alone. The National Weather Service recorded at least 41 tornadoes, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky.

Along the violent storm path, a funeral home in western Kentucky prepared to welcome the families of those who lost loved ones while grieving losses of its own.

Beshear Funeral Home in Dawson Springs was preparing for at least four services in coming days for storm victims and has to catch up on funerals delayed by the massive storm, said funeral home owner Jenny Beshear Sewell, a cousin of Kentucky’s governor.

The storm-related deaths include those of two sisters who had worked at the funeral home, the only one in the small western Kentucky town.

Eighty-year-old Carole Grisham and 72-year-old Marsha Hall decided to “ride it out” in their home as the tornado barreled down in the dark of night, Sewell said by phone Wednesday. The home, which lacked a basement, was demolished.

Hall, a fixture at the funeral home, had a hard day’s work Friday, hours before she died in the storm, Sewell said. As she left work, Hall’s parting words were: ”’Well, I’ll see you.”

As the tornado approached, Sewell texted Hall with an update on the storm’s path and urged the sisters to shelter in the funeral home’s basement or a church basement. Hall replied “OK” to a text — the last she heard from the longtime employee she considered a member of the family.

But the business of laying the dead to rest won’t wait. A service at the funeral home was being planned for Friday for a woman whose funeral was delayed since last Saturday, the day after the storm hit. If the building’s natural gas hasn’t been restored once services resume, “everybody will just need to bundle up. But that’s the best we can do,” Sewell said.

Arrangements were still pending for Grisham and Hall, but a double funeral is expected, Sewell said.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has pledged $5,000 payments to each of the victims’ families to help with burial expenses. The state was the hardest hit with 74 deaths reported so far.

In the western Kentucky town of Madisonville, family and friends on Wednesday mourned a couple killed when the twister ripped through nearby Dawson Springs.

Jeffrey Eckert, 70, was remembered as “mysterious and cool” by his nephew, Mike Eckert, who recalled his uncle playing in various bands, always owning a boat and buzzing his home after he’d earned his pilot’s license to let the family know it was time to meet him at the airport.

Many of the mourners wore animal prints in honor of Jeffrey Eckert’s wife, Jennifer Eckert, 69, who loved to wear them and was remembered by her niece, Kathy Moore, for her chocolate merengue pies and the love of her grandchildren.

Moore said her grief was tempered by the memories and the relationships Jennifer Eckert left behind.

“When it’s all said and done, relationships are all that matters,” Moore said. “Life has to end. Love does not.”

The grieving, meanwhile, has extended beyond the states hardest hit and into Florida, the home of a father and son killed while staying at a west Tennessee resort.

Steve Gunn and his 12-year-old son Grayson were staying at the Cypress Point Resort, a popular destination for hunters and anglers. They will be buried in Florida this weekend.

“You couldn’t go to Walmart with him without a hundred people stopping him,” said his sister, Sandy Gunn. “His son was the kid you grew up dreaming to have.”

Her brother-in-law, Jamie Hall, also was part of the hunting group and remains missing.

“Our world has been shattered,” she said. “I’m terrified each time I hear the phone ring. My brother in law was the kindest and most gentle man you would have ever known.”

In Mayfield, a vigil was held earlier this week for the victims of a Kentucky candle factory flattened by a tornado. A deputy jailer, Robert Daniel, who was escorting a group of inmates working at the factory, was one of the eight victims. He will be buried Saturday.

Across town at the heavily damaged courthouse in downtown Mayfield, Makayla Wadkins, 24, helped set up a makeshift memorial. Flyers with color photographs and the names of victims were taped to the fence surrounding the building.

“We’re just going to allow the families to have a place to come where they can grieve and see their loved ones surrounded with flowers and beauty,” said Wadkins, from neighboring Kirksey.

___

Associated Press writer Kim Kruesi contributed to this story from Nashville, Tennessee.

By AMY FORLITI

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges of violating George Floyd’s civil rights, averting a trial but likely extending the time he is already spending behind bars on a state conviction.

Chauvin, who is white, was convicted this spring of state murder and manslaughter charges for pinning his knee against Floyd’s neck during a May 25, 2020, arrest as the Black man said he couldn’t breathe Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in that case.

The federal charges included two counts alleging that Chauvin deprived Floyd of his rights by kneeling on his neck as he was handcuffed and not resisting, and then failing to provide medical care.

Chauvin appeared in person Wednesday for the change of plea hearing in an orange short-sleeve prison shirt. He said “Guilty, your honor” to confirm his pleas.

Federal prosecutors recommended up to 300 months, or 25 years, in prison. A judge will determine his sentence later, but a 25-year federal sentence would likely extend Chauvin’s time behind bars by about six years if he earns credit for good behavior.

Judge Paul Magnuson didn’t set a date for sentencing.

Three other former officers — Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao — were indicted on federal charges alongside Chauvin earlier this year. They are still on course for trial early next year on those charges, with a state trial still to come.

Floyd’s arrest and death, which a bystander captured on cellphone video, sparked mass protests nationwide calling for an end to racial inequality and police mistreatment of Black people.

In Minnesota, defendants with good behavior serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison, and the remaining one-third on supervised release, also known as parole. Under that formula, he’s expected to serve 15 years in prison on the state charges, and 7 1/2 years on parole.

Under sentencing guidelines, Chauvin could get a federal penalty ranging from 27 years to more than 33 years in prison, with credit for taking responsibility, said Mark Osler, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. But the guidelines are not mandatory, and Osler estimated Chauvin would be sentenced toward the lower end of the range.

As part of the plea deal, Chauvin also pleaded guilty to violating the rights of a then-14-year-old boy during a 2017 arrest in which he held the boy by the throat, hit him in the head with a flashlight and held his knee on the boy’s neck and upper back while he was prone, handcuffed and not resisting.

Floyd’s arrest and death, which a bystander captured on cellphone video, sparked mass protests nationwide that called for an end to racial inequality and police mistreatment of Black people.

To bring federal charges in deaths involving police, prosecutors must believe an officer acted under the “color of law,” or government authority, and willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. That’s a high legal standard. An accident, bad judgment or simple negligence on the officer’s part isn’t enough to support federal charges. Prosecutors have to prove the officer knew what he was doing was wrong in that moment but did it anyway.

According to evidence in the state case against Chauvin, Kueng and Lane helped restrain the 46-year-old Floyd as he was on the ground — Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back and Lane held down Floyd’s legs. Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening during the 9 1/2-minute restraint.

All four former officers were charged broadly in federal court with depriving Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority, but the federal indictment broke down the counts even further. The first count against Chauvin alleges he violated Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and unreasonable force by a police officer when he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck, even after Floyd was unresponsive.

The second count alleges Chauvin willfully deprived Floyd of liberty without due process, including the right to be free from “deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs.”

In the 2017 case involving the then-14-year-old boy, Chauvin is charged with depriving the boy, who was handcuffed and not resisting, of his right to be free of unreasonable force when he held him by the throat, hit him in the head with a flashlight and held his knee on the boy’s neck and upper back while he was in a prone position.

According to a police report from that 2017 encounter, Chauvin wrote that the teen resisted arrest and after the teen, whom he described as 6-foot-2 and about 240 pounds, was handcuffed, Chauvin “used body weight to pin” him to the floor. The boy was bleeding from the ear and needed two stitches.

That encounter was one of several mentioned in state court filings that prosecutors said showed Chauvin had used neck or head and upper body restraints seven times before dating back to 2014, including four times state prosecutors said he went too far and held the restraints “beyond the point when such force was needed under the circumstances.”

The other three former officers are still expected to go to trial on federal charges in January, and they face state trial on aiding and abetting counts in March.

___

Find AP’s full coverage of the death of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd