SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A representative for the estate of actor Gene Hackman is seeking to block the public release of autopsy and investigative reports — especially photographs and police body-camera video — related to the recent deaths of Hackman and wife Betsy Arakawa after their partially mummified bodies were discovered at their New Mexico home last month.

Authorities last week announced that Hackman died at age 95 of heart disease with complications from Alzheimer’s disease as much as a week after a rare, rodent-borne disease — hantavirus pulmonary syndrome — took the life of his 65-year-old wife.

Hackman’s pacemaker last showed signs of activity on Feb. 18, indicating an abnormal heart rhythm on the day he likely died. The couple’s bodies weren’t discovered until Feb. 26 when maintenance and security workers showed up at the Santa Fe home and alerted police — leaving a mystery for law enforcement and medical investigators to unravel.

Julia Peters, a representative for the estate of Hackman and Arakawa, urged a state district court in Santa Fe to seal records in the cases to protect the family’s right to privacy in grief under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — emphasizing the possibly shocking nature of photographs and video in the investigation and potential for their dissemination by media.

The request, file Tuesday, also described the couple’s discrete lifestyle in Santa Fe since Hackman’s retirement. The state capital city is known as a refuge for celebrities, artists and authors.

The couple “lived an exemplary private life for over thirty years in Santa Fe, New Mexico and did not showcase their lifestyle,” said the petition.

New Mexico’s open records law blocks public access to sensitive images, including depictions of people who are deceased, said Amanda Lavin, legal director at the nonprofit New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. Some medical information also is not considered public record under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

At the same time, the bulk of death investigations by law enforcement and autopsy reports by medical investigators are typically considered public records under state law in the spirit of ensuring government transparency and accountability, she said.

“I do think it does infringe on transparency if the court were to prohibit release of all the investigation records, including the autopsies,” Lavin said Thursday. “The whole idea of those records being available is to ensure accountability in the way those investigations are done.”

“There is also a public health concern given that hantavirus was involved,” Lavin said.

She said the preemptive request to prevent the release of government records on constitutional grounds is unusual.

Hackman, a Hollywood icon, won two Oscars during a storied career in films including “The French Connection,” “Hoosiers” and “Superman” from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.

Arakawa, born in Hawaii, studied as a concert pianist, attended the University of Southern California and met Hackman in the mid-1980s while working at a California gym.

President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office Thursday, downplayed an upcoming nuclear summit in Beijing between Iran, Russia, and China, three chief adversaries of the U.S.

The discussions, first confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry Thursday and which come just days after Iran rebuffed Trump’s push to engage in nuclear negotiations, will coincide with a United Nations Security Council meeting regarding Tehran’s expansion of near-weapons-grade uranium. 

Trump suggested perhaps Beijing, Moscow and Tehran will be having their own discussions on “de-escalation.”

“Well, maybe they’re going to talk about non-nuclear problems. Maybe they’re going to be talking about the de-escalation of nuclear weapons,” Trump told reporters.

TRUMP ‘HOPES’ PUTIN AGREES TO CEASEFIRE AS MOSCOW SIGNALS NO TRUCE YET

Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin once engaged in “strong” talks about nuclear weapons and said he believes, had he won the 2016 election, further Russian denuclearization would have been on the table. 

“I think I would have made a deal with Putin on de-escalation, denuclearization,” Trump said. “But we would have de-escalated nuclear weapons because the power of nuclear weapons is so great and so devastating.”

The president also claimed that China would “catch us in five years” because of its rapid development of its nuclear stockpiles, though this would be far sooner than other experts have warned. 

The Pentagon in 2024 assessed that China is believed to have 600 nuclear weapons, up from the low 200s in 2020. But, in a report Wednesday, experts with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said claims that China will be a “peer” or “near peer” with the U.S. in the near future were a “gross exaggeration.” 

POLAND CALLS ON US TO PLACE NUKES WITHIN ITS BORDERS AMID RUSSIA THREAT

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House March 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

“There is no evidence that China’s ongoing nuclear expansion will result in parity with the U.S. arsenal,” the report said. “Even the worst-case 2023 projection of 1,500 warheads by 2035 amounts to less than half of the current U.S. nuclear stockpile.”

Russia is believed to have 5,580 nuclear weapons, and the U.S. is reported to have 5,225, while China comes in at a distant third, according to the Arms Control Association. 

Concerns over North Korea’s largely unchecked nuclear program have also continued to mount in recent years, particularly after Pyongyang formed closer ties with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number,” Trump said. 

“You don’t need them to that extent,” he added, noting the immense destruction even one nuclear weapon could inflict. 

North Korea is estimated to have 50 nuclear weapons, which Trump noted is “a lot.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, supervises artillery firing drills in North Korea March 7, 2024.  (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

But he also pointed to the positive relationship he had with Kim Jong Un during his first presidency and suggested that relationship could extend during his second term. Trump appeared to suggest there could be room for nuclear negotiations. 

“I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters. “But certainly he’s a nuclear power.”

Portugal will hold an early general election on May 18, the country’s president announced Thursday, two days after a minority government lost a confidence vote in parliament and stood down.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has no executive power but can dissolve parliament and call elections, described the government’s collapse as a shock that was neither “expected nor wanted.”

In a televised address to the nation, he urged voters to participate actively in the European Union country’s third general election in three years, saying the continent faces stiff challenges to its security and economy that require political stability.

The centre-right government’s fall on Tuesday amid questions about the prime minister’s conduct brought the worst bout of political instability since Portugal adopted a democratic system more than 50 years ago in the wake of the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ended a four-decade dictatorship.

Portugal, which has a population of around 10.6 million people, has had a series of minority governments in recent years as the traditional rivals for power, the centre-right Social Democratic Party and the centre-left Socialists, lost votes to growing smaller parties.

The minority governments have been unable to build compromises that might ensure an administration completes its constitutional four-year term without opposition parties teaming up to block its policy proposals and bring it down.

The ballot deepens political uncertainty just as Portugal is in the process of investing more than €22 billion in EU development funds.

Voter discontent with a return to the polls could bring dividends for the right-wing populist party Chega (Enough), which has fed off frustration with the two mainstream parties.

Portugal has been caught up in the rising tide of European populism, with Chega surging into third place in last year’s election.

The government, led by the Social Democrats in an alliance with a smaller party, fell amid a controversy that has revolved around potential conflicts of interest in the business dealings of outgoing Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s family law firm.

Montenegro, who says he’ll stand for re-election, has denied any wrongdoing. He said he placed control of the firm in the hands of his wife and children when he became Social Democratic leader in 2022 and has not been involved in its running.

It recently emerged that the firm is receiving monthly payments from a company that has a major gambling concession granted by the government, among other sources of revenue.

The Socialists demanded a parliamentary inquiry into Montenegro’s conduct.

The Social Democrats are hoping that economic growth estimated at 1.9% last year, compared with the EU’s 0.8% average, and a jobless rate of 6.4%, roughly the EU average, will hold their support steady.