WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law Monday, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that first lady Melania Trump helped usher through Congress. He had her sign it, too, despite what sounded like a mild objection on her part.

“C’mon, sign it anyway,” the president told her. “She deserves to sign it.”

After she added her symbolic signature, the president showed the document bearing both of their names to the audience at the signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

In March, Melania Trump used her first public appearance as first lady again to go to Capitol Hill to lobby House members to pass the bill following its approval by the Senate.

At the signing ceremony, she called the new law a “national victory” that will help protect children from online exploitation, including the use of artificial intelligence to make fake images.

“AI and social media are the digital candy for the next generation, sweet addictive and engineered to have an impact on the cognitive development of our children,” she said. “But unlike sugar, these new technologies can be weaponized, shape beliefs and, sadly, affect emotions and even be deadly.”

The president said the proliferation of images made using AI means that “countless women have been harassed with deepfakes and other explicit images distributed against their will.” He said what’s happening is “just so horribly wrong.”

“Today, we’re making it totally illegal,” Trump said.

The bill makes it a federal crime to “knowingly publish” or threaten to publish intimate images without a person’s consent, including AI-created deepfakes. Websites and social media companies will be required to remove such material within 48 hours of a victim requesting it. The platforms must also take steps to delete duplicate content.

Many states have already banned the dissemination of sexually explicit deepfakes or revenge porn, but the Take It Down Act is a rare example of federal regulators imposing limits on internet companies.

Free-speech advocates and digital rights groups say the bill is too broad and could lead to censorship of legitimate images, including legal pornography and LGBTQ content. Others say it could allow the government to monitor private communications and undermine due process.

Combs trial: Singer Dawn Richard told jurors at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial Monday that the hip-hop mogul threatened to kill her if she told anyone she saw him physically abusing his longtime girlfriend.

Richard testified that Combs made the threat the day after she witnessed the Bad Boy Records founder punch and kick Casandra “Cassie” Ventura after taking a swing at her with a skillet. Richard said he told her and another woman who saw the attack that “we could go missing” if they didn’t stay quiet.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitzi Steiner asked Richard what she took “we could go missing” to mean.

“That we could die,” Richard responded, saying she was shocked because all of this happened just as she was beginning to record with Diddy — Dirty Money, a musical trio with Combs and another R&B singer.

Richard disclosed the alleged threat as she returned to the witness stand to kick off the second week of testimony in Combs’ sex trafficking and racketeering trial in Manhattan federal court.

Combs, 55, is accused of exploiting his entertainment powerbroker status to abuse women, including Cassie, through threats and violence for two decades, from 2004 until his arrest in September. He has pleaded not guilty.

Defense lawyer Nicole Westmoreland suggested that Richard was testifying because she was angry at Combs for ending Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, and because she has a lawsuit against him.

“You felt that Mr. Combs ruined your career not once, but twice?” Westmoreland asked.

“Yes,” Richard answered.

Mexican navy ship: The Mexican navy tall ship that struck the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night had departed less than 5 minutes before its masts crashed into the historic span, according to a timeline laid out by investigators Monday.

Less than a minute before the Cuauhtemoc training vessel sped backward into the bridge, a radio call went out asking for help from any additional tugboats in the area.

The call asking for assistance was made about 45 seconds before the crash. Officials didn’t say where the call asking for assistance from other boats came from.

It also remains unclear whether a mechanical problem, weather or any other issues played a role. NTSB officials said they have not been granted permission to board the ship and they have not interviewed the captain or the tugboat and harbor pilots on the scene.