But when he arrived Tuesday at a mobile clinic in the West Bank village of Iktaba, pulling the tattered prescription from his pocket, a local aid group finally gave him the medication he needs.

Musleh, who has a pacemaker, is one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians struggling to get healthcare in the West Bank, where a report released Thursday by Physicians for Human Rights Israel warns that Israeli policies have pushed the territory's health system to the brink of collapse.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began nearly three years ago, Israel has withheld billions of dollars of tax and customs revenues collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the government body that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Without those funds, the PA has struggled to pay health workers, buy medications and support public hospitals, pharmacies and clinics, 75% of which have reduced operations and are functioning just once or twice a week.

At the same time, Israeli military raids and a surge in new checkpoints are also impeding the ability of Palestinians to get adequate medical care, with life-threatening consequences.

“If this continues, it is patients — not institutions — who will pay the price,” said Milena Ansari, PHRI's director of the Occupied Palestinian Territory Department, who wrote the report.

Israel has withheld at least $2.5 billion in revenues from the West Bank

Because Palestinians don't control their own borders, the PA relies on Israel to collect taxes on goods that enter the West Bank through Israeli ports. But rights groups for decades have accused Israel of weaponizing the funds as a means of political pressure.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stopped sending monthly clearance revenues to the PA last year and, as of June, Israel had cumulatively withheld at least $2.5 billion from the PA since 2023, according to the International Crisis Group.

Smotrich's office and the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to repeated requests for comment from The Associated Press.

In an interview with the AP, Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan said that unpaid staff aren't showing up to work, creating a backlog of cases and delaying routine surgeries. Earlier this year, Palestinian doctors went on strike and some primary healthcare centers closed.

Some of the most impacted are those with cancer, kidney and heart problems, older people and those who have been displaced, health officials said.

At PHRI's mobile clinic in Iktaba, hundreds of people streamed in seeking treatment.

Mohammed Sarris said it's been weeks since he's been able to get the eye drops he needs for irritation caused by his diabetes.

The 64-year-old has been relying on the mobile clinic since he was forced from his home last year in the Nur Shams refugee camp, where he had easier access to healthcare provided by UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees.

A retired government worker, he earns a meager pension, often rationing medicine so he can afford food.

"It's degrading. ... All of this has affected us a lot,” he said.

The UN and other aid agencies say more patients are coming to their clinics

Physicians for Human Rights Israel said the number of patients at its mobile clinics has doubled in the last two years, from about 250 a day to around 500.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA's West Bank director, said there's been a marked increase in patients at its health centers across the territory. The agency is trying to bridge the gap, but lacks funds to scale up health services and faces Israeli restrictions on imports of medications, he said.

Earlier this year, Israel revoked the licenses of more than three dozen humanitarian organizations, among them Doctors Without Borders, known by its French acronym MSF.

Last year, MSF had 12 mobile clinics operating in the South Hebron Hills. But because they could no longer coordinate their movements with the Israeli military, the group reduced the number of clinics it runs by half, impacting more than 40,000 people, said Joan Tubau, head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

More Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks prevent Palestinians from accessing care

The lack of medicine, staff shortages and reduced services are being compounded by harsher Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement in the West Bank.

In recent years, the military has erected new barriers, checkpoints and roadblocks, closing off towns and cities, sometimes with little warning.

In July, at least two women gave birth in ambulances because checkpoints were closed, said Aseel Baidoun, deputy director of advocacy and campaigns for Medical Aid for Palestinians, or MAP, an international organization. One of the babies was stillborn.

She said three others also died trying to get to hospitals this year, including two more infants and a 30-year-old woman who died of a heart attack after an ambulance was stopped at a checkpoint near Sinjil, outside Ramallah.

The Israeli military has denied that it prevents medical treatment for civilians and said there is no intention to delay treatment or medical evacuations.

In response to questions about the stillborn infant, who was delivered in an ambulance near Nablus, the army said the emergency vehicle hadn’t completed “required coordination” prior to arriving at the checkpoint. It said the military conducted a security check, which only lasted a few minutes.

Dr. Leen Ibrahim, who works with MAP, said one of the consequences of this crisis is the impact on mental health.

“People here feel suffocated by everything they’re going through," she said.

At the clinic Tuesday, some Palestinians broke down waiting for hours to be seen.

“The line is so long,” said Asala Wawi, 65, wiping tears from her face as she got her eyes checked. “I'm tired."

———-

Associated Press journalists Jalal Bwaitel in Ramallah, West Bank, and Koral Saeed in Herzliya, Israel, contributed.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila said it has received the U.S. government request for Apollo Carreon Quiboloy's extradition and endorsed it to the Department of Justice. That confirmed earlier separate statements to The Associated Press by two high-ranking Philippine officials, who said the U.S. request was transmitted in July.

The request needs the approval of two Philippine courts, which have been trying the detained former televangelist for human trafficking and child abuse charges, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issues.

The U.S. Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment.

Criminal suspects in the Philippines must finish their trials and serve their sentences if convicted prior to extradition. Philippine justice officials, however, can ask a domestic court to allow the temporary surrender of a suspect to a foreign court to face trial prior to the resolution of their Philippine cases under the 1994 extradition treaty of Washington and Manila.

Quiboloy, 76, leads the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, which was founded in 1985 in southern Davao city and claims to have a wide following in the Philippines and abroad, including in the U.S.

In his heyday, Quiboloy was one of the most influential religious leaders in the Philippines and regarded as a political kingmaker. He served as spiritual adviser to the equally controversial Duterte, who took office in June 2016.

Duterte was arrested in Manila last year under a warrant from the International Criminal Court and has since been detained in the Netherlands, where he will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity. The charges stem from the killings of large numbers of mostly poor drug suspects under his anti-drugs crackdowns, which alarmed Western governments and rights groups.

Quiboloy claims to be “the appointed son of God” and has made outrageous claims that sparked questions about his character but endeared him to his followers. He once claimed to have stopped a major earthquake from hitting the southern Philippines.

In 2024, Quiboloy went into hiding after a Philippine court ordered his arrest along with several others for alleged child and sexual abuse and human trafficking, police said. The Philippine Senate separately ordered Quiboloy’s arrest at the time for refusing to appear in public hearings about his alleged crimes.

The preacher denied the allegations, saying they were fabricated by critics and former members who were removed from his religious group.

Quiboloy and four others facing accusations surrendered in September 2024 after about 2,000 police raided a 30-hectare (75-acre) compound of his religious group, which included a cathedral, stadium, hangar and taxiway leading to Davao's international airport. He has been jailed since then.

U.S. federal prosecutors in 2021 separately announced an indictment of Quiboloy for allegedly having sex with women and underage girls who faced threats of abuse and “eternal damnation” unless they catered to the self-proclaimed “son of God.”

Quiboloy was among nine people named in a superseding indictment returned by a U.S. federal grand jury and unsealed in November 2021. It contained a raft of charges including conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.

After that indictment he was placed on the list of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives.

Ada Saenz, president and CEO of Catholic Charities, said the organization has helped more than 1,700 families in Kerrville and Uvalde as residents continue to navigate the aftermath.

“These families immediately needed food. They needed shelter. They needed clothing,” Saenz said. “All of their belongings, all of their possessions, their homes were destroyed. And so they literally had nothing.”

The organization is also asking the community to continue donating supplies. Items can be dropped off at Catholic Charities’ location on 202 W. French Place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Current needs include cleaning supplies for flood-damaged homes and basic hygiene items.

“Catholic Charities serves all,” Saenz explained. “We would never turn anybody away if they’re not a certain religion or for any other reason.”

Saenz said donations have been slower this year compared with last year.

“Thank God there weren’t as many lives lost this year as there were last year,” Saenz said. “So that might be some of the reason why there’s not as much of an awareness of the need in the aftermath.”

For families in Uvalde and Real counties, Catholic Charities is offering financial assistance of up to $1,500 per household. Families can scan the QR code below.

“Or they can come in person and fill out the forms with us, with our iPads and our laptops,” said Saenz. “So there is an assessment; they do have to provide proof that they do live, they are residents of those counties, and we can help them with all of that.”

Saenz said families approved for assistance can receive funds within a week. Needed items include:

• Shampoo and conditioner
• Body soap
• Lotion
• Toilet paper and paper towels
• Feminine pads
• Toothpaste and toothbrushes
• Deodorant
• Laundry detergent
• Bottled water
• Household bleach
• Disinfectant spray or wipes
• Mold or mildew removal spray
• Multi-purpose cleaners
• Sponges
• Rubber cleaning gloves
• Heavy-duty work gloves

More July 2026 flood coverage on KSAT:

• Texas extends SNAP replacement benefits deadline for those affected by July 2026 floods
• ‘He was my soulmate’: Kerrville woman shares heartbreak, hope after losing husband in floods

Durian lovers prize the Malaysian premium varieties such as Musang King and Black Thorn, but their growers face a harsher reality. Climate change, caused by the burning of oil, gas and coal, is making it costlier for growers like Chow to produce quality durians, adding pressure as they compete with Thailand and Vietnam, which dominate a booming export market to China.

Extreme weather has dealt repeated blows to Chow’s orchard, which is in Karak, a small town about an hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. In 2021, heavy rainfall triggered flooding that damaged about 100 of his durian trees and his machinery. Over the following three years, persistent rain during flowering season caused pollination failure, cutting into his yield. And now, Chow is facing other challenges.

“Breaking even would already be very good. Most likely there’ll be a loss this year,” Chow said.

Between February and April, afternoon temperatures hit 33 to 35 degrees Celsius (91 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit), and rain fell mostly at night, he said. Such weather favored flowering, and Chow responded by pruning to prevent deformed or small fruit while stepping up watering and fertilization because of the heat. A rise in fuel and fertilizer prices because of the Iran war, however, meant those extra efforts came at a higher cost.

An oversupply of durians in Malaysia — driven by hot and dry weather and more orchards reaching maturity — also pushed prices down. Grade A Musang King durians from his orchard sold for the equivalent of $8.6 per kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) in local currency in early July, about half compared to the same period last year and roughly one-third of the peak price in 2024.

China's love for durians fueled boom

Durians' overpowering smell is fragrant to those who love it and foul to those who don't. Beneath a spiky shell, their flesh offers a rich, creamy texture with varying flavors. Some taste like sweet custard with fruity flourishes, others carry a hint of bitterness, an alcohol tinge or even a peanut butter-like flavor.

Official data showed Malaysia's durian crop covered 92,100 hectares (227,600 acres) in 2024, up almost 40% from 2016, a size even larger than the total land area of Singapore, the city-state island just south of Malaysia. During that period, Malaysia's production grew nearly 90% to 568,800 tonnes.

The boom was fueled by China beginning to import whole frozen Malaysian durians in 2019. Fresh durians followed in 2024, as Beijing expanded what has been dubbed “durian diplomacy” by welcoming more Southeast Asian countries to export the fruit.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said China procured about 95% of global durian exports between 2020 and 2022. It imported 1.87 million tonnes of fresh durians worth $7.5 billion in 2025, with the volume jumping six times in the past decade, according to China's customs data.

Consumers there can find the fruit in supermarkets, grocery stores and durian specialty shops. Shanghai resident Song Xiaohua, in her 30s, said she would eat durians once a week instead of once a month if it weren’t for the high calorie count. To her, durians taste creamy and are like both fruit and dessert.

“It feels like celebrating Lunar New Year every time I have a durian,” Song said.

Malaysia lags far behind Thailand and Vietnam in exports to China. But the Malaysian industry touts its durians as higher quality. Unlike their counterparts, Malaysian growers typically do not harvest early, instead collecting only naturally ripened fruit.

Delivering quality durians requires resilience

As global average temperatures rise, extreme weather events like heat waves, floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and intense worldwide, often forcing farmers to scramble to adapt.

Peninsular Malaysia recorded a significant jump in average temperature from 1969 to 2025, with an increase of 0.24 degrees Celsius (about 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, according to the country's meteorological department.

Ooi Teik Hock, whose orchard in Perak state is near the border with Thailand, said there were fewer fruit quality problems when temperatures were lower two decades ago. Concerned about the heat, he moved his orchard from the plains to the highlands about 10 years ago, where nights are cooler and air is more humid.

Still, global warming remains a threat, fueling the proliferation of once-rare pests and forcing Ooi to use pesticides more frequently, which he said have jumped some 30% in price from three years ago.

For the first time, Ooi didn't see fruit bats, a main pollinator, at his orchard during this year's flowering season. He said it could be a result of extreme heat or the widespread use of pesticides for pest and disease control.

The weather changes also affect overall quality, especially for the Musang King variety, which is sensitive to weather conditions, said Lim Chin Khee, an adviser to the Durian Academy, which trains durian growers in Malaysia.

Too much rain during the fruit's rapid development period can cause white and grayish patches on golden yellow flesh, while water shortages during that time can cause some black spots around the flesh, he said.

Some growers turn to technology

With expectations that El Nino, a periodic warming of Pacific Ocean that leads to warmer temperatures, could bring Malaysia record-high temperatures between March and May, Lim advised farmers to expand water reservoirs or prepare to install tube wells as a backup if their ponds dried up.

He said producing good fruit depends equally on the weather and the farmer’s effort. Extreme weather events would reduce supply while simultaneously driving up prices, he said.

“So for those farmers (who) are well prepared, actually when any disaster strikes, that is an opportunity,” he said.

Grower Kie Kim Hwa learned how to farm durians from his grandfather at a young age. When he took charge of the orchard in Penang Island off Malaysia's western coast, he chose to do things slightly differently than previous generations.

He installed sensors and instruments to track rainfall, humidity and wind speed, among other data, which was sent to a cloud drive for him to review anywhere and keep a record. Some were placed among the trees and grass, and others deep in the soil. Not everything required high technology: he also checked the surface of a bucket of water for insects to gauge pest levels.

The data allowed Kie to intervene early before problems arose and ultimately control fruit quality and quantity to match market demand.

“We live and die by the weather,” he said. “But we can still prepare.”

___

Associated Press writer Fu Ting in Washington contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The shot, named mFlusiva, is intended for adults age 50 or older. Other brands of flu shots already have begun arriving in pharmacies ahead of fall vaccination season, and Moderna said late Wednesday that it expects some of its new version to be available soon at select retailers.

While there already are multiple flu vaccine options in the U.S., including three specifically recommended for people age 65 or older, tens of thousands of Americans die from influenza every year and older adults are among the most vulnerable.

Flu vaccines must be updated annually to best match circulating strains of the virus. Vaccines made with the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology are faster to manufacturer than other types, and experts say this additional option might help if the shape-shifting flu virus mutates in a way that requires suddenly brewing new doses.

Moderna said the FDA granted full approval for mFlusiva’s use in people ages 50 to 64, based on a study of 40,000 people that found 27% fewer flu cases among people who got the new shot compared with those who got a different common flu vaccine brand. For people 65 or older, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based manufacturer said the FDA granted what’s called accelerated approval for the shot -- based on a smaller study showing it generated a strong immune response compared with an existing high-dose vaccine for seniors – while it conducts an additional study.

Moderna’s data showed no major safety issues although the shot did cause some temporary reactions including injection site pain, fever, headache, tiredness and aches that occurred somewhat more than with today’s flu shots.

The FDA action comes after a highly unusual public dispute over mFlusiva earlier this year. A then-top FDA official blocked the company’s application, a sign of the agency’s heightened vaccine scrutiny under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Days later, the agency changed course after Moderna publicly challenged the ruling — and in June a panel of independent advisers to the FDA unanimously recommended the vaccine's approval.

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Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at https://apnews.com/hub/us-food-and-drug-administration.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The S&P 500 rose 0.2% and is hovering around the record it set on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:53 a.m. Eastern time, and is also hovering around its record. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%.

Wall Street opened the week soaring higher and notching records, but has calmed over the last two days. Companies from a mix of sectors reported their latest financial results, adding to an already busy round of corporate earnings reports.

Keurig Dr Pepper rose 1% after reporting earnings and revenue that came in ahead of what investors were expecting. Molson Coors rose 1% after also reporting encouraging financial results.

On the losing end, Honeywell Aerospace fell 21% after turning in results that fell well short of forecasts. AppLovin slumped 19.6% after the digital ad company reported mixed financial results for its most recent quarter.

Outside of earnings SpaceX rose 0.6%. More than 911 million SpaceX shares held by early investors and employees become eligible for sale on Thursday as a lockup period for the stock expires. That is more than double the shares that were initially offered to the public for sale during the initial public offering for Elon Musk’s company. SpaceX initially soared above the share’s $150 asking price, making Musk the world’s first trillionaire. They have since tumbled about 25%, and were trading around $110.

Oil prices gained ground as uncertainty remains over the U.S. war with Iran that has stifled the global flow of oil. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1.7% to $80.78.

Iran has said that it is close to a deal with Oman to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. President Donald Trump has also previously said a deal is close, but the conflict has had many starts and stops over the last five months.

The increase in oil prices has added more heat to inflation by raising the price of gasoline and raising costs for shipping.

Treasury yields rose in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.64% from 4.63% late Wednesday.

European markets were higher, and Asian markets closed mostly lower overnight.

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Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report.

Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the federally funded preschool program, said the proposed changes would encourage more local decision-making. Early childhood policy experts argue the deregulation could undermine Head Start's position as the gold standard in early education.

The Associated Press previously reported on the overhaul proposal, which became public Thursday when it was posted online. The public will have 60 days to weigh in on it before it goes into effect.

Head Start centers serve around 700,000 of the nation’s most vulnerable children, including those who are homeless, in foster care or disabled. That wouldn't change under the overhaul.

But Alex J. Adams, an assistant secretary at Health and Human Services, said the department is hoping to give Head Start centers the flexibility to change the way they operate. That means eliminating most of Head Start's regulations, such as standards for low staff-to-student ratios or requirements to provide services to preschoolers' families.

"Federal mandates can certainly hinder local decision-making, drive up costs and limit the program’s reach,” Adams said on a call with reporters. He highlighted a decade-long decline in Head Start enrollment. “If we get this proposed rule right, we will grow the number of Head Start slots.”

On a call previewing the proposed changes, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy spoke reverently about Head Start, which was started by his uncle Sargent Shriver during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.

“It’s a program that works for the most vulnerable of the poorest kids in our society, and it’s really important we protect it,” Kennedy said.

But the changes would undermine many of the things that make Head Start distinct from other early education programs, policy experts say.

“The model was created with intentionality,” said Khari Garvin, who oversaw Head Start under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. It was designed, he said, “as part of a strategy to move families out of poverty.”

What makes Head Start different

Head Start, which began in the 1960s as part of Johnson's War on Poverty, is currently governed by more than 100 pages of regulations. Those regulations require centers to have low staff-to-student ratios and a research-backed curriculum, among other things, and they ensure centers are providing wraparound services that are critical to children in poverty, including medical and dental screenings and parent coaching.

The proposal would toss out nearly all of that rule book. Instead, Head Start’s 1,600 operators — which include nonprofits and school districts — would look to state and local childcare licensing requirements for guidance on many aspects of the program.

Once the proposed regulations are published online, the public will have 60 days to weigh in. The final rules could face legal scrutiny, further delaying their implementation.

While the proposed rules largely loosen requirements, Adams emphasized that centers have the option to continue to operate as they had in the past. He estimated the new rules could generate more than $2 billion in savings and potentially allow Head Start to serve more children.

The proposal adds in at least two new requirements, officials said. It includes a 5% cap on administrative expenses, down from 15% under current rules, and new nutrition provisions championed by Kennedy.

State rules are more lenient

Overall, experts emphasize, state childcare licensing requirements are far more lax than Head Start's current regulations. State rules are largely focused on ensuring children are healthy and safe. Generally speaking, they do not require centers to provide things like medical or dental screenings, they don't specify ways to engage with parents, and they don't speak to what — if anything — should be taught in childcare settings.

Shantel Meek, who heads the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University, co-authored an analysis that compared state licensing requirements with Head Start standards and found massive gaps.

“Whereas licensing is, like, the bare minimum to keep kids safe, Head Start includes keeping kids safe but also ensuring that kids are developing, growing, learning well,” Meek said. “It’s a totally different purpose.”

Critically, states allow adults to care for far more children than is allowed under Head Start standards. In Mississippi, for example, one Head Start teacher is only allowed to teach up to four 2-year-olds. State childcare regulations would permit up to a dozen 2-year-olds to be supervised by one adult.

Head Start, which operates in all 50 states, has long had support from both Democrats and Republicans. But it has faced repeated threats under the Trump administration, whose budget chief, Russell Vought, had previously called for it to be eliminated. Not long after Trump, a Republican, took office again in early 2025, some Head Start programs had to briefly shutter because they had problems accessing their federal money. Later, a budget draft eliminated Head Start's funding, but it was restored after widespread backlash.

In a call with reporters, Kennedy said he believes Head Start is effective. He cited research showing its graduates have fewer law enforcement encounters, do better in school and have better jobs than their peers. He added that he tried to shield Head Start from many of the cuts that hit the rest of his agency.

Still, the Trump administration succeeded last year in laying off much of Head Start's support staff and closing half of its regional offices.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Officers responded to the crash around 4:50 p.m. Wednesday at the intersection of West Woodlawn Avenue and Ripley Avenue.

According to a preliminary report, a patrol officer noticed the man traveling “erratically” at a high rate of speed and attempted a traffic stop.

An SAPD lieutenant at the scene told KSAT that the man was traveling at speeds that possibly surpassed 100 mph on Broadway before the traffic stop was attempted.

Officers later stopped pursuing the vehicle. However, shortly after, the report said SAPD received multiple calls for the crash.

The man had driven through construction zone barricades and struck a parked vehicle, which then hit a nearby telephone pole, police said.

The collision caused a power outage in the area, officers said.

SAPD said the man suffered minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

At this time, it’s unclear what charges the driver faces, though police said he was taken into custody.

Read also:

• Man hospitalized with burns after West Side house fire, SAFD says
• 70-year-old woman pulled from San Marcos River dies at hospital, city says

Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times at the hearing.

Also, Iran said Wednesday it's in the “final stage” of drafting an agreement with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. President Donald Trump has said a deal could be announced this week. The agreement is likely to be contingent on the U.S. lifting its blockade on Iran’s ports.

Here's the latest:

Kennedy Center board to vote on closure next week

The board for the performing arts venue will meet Aug. 13 to consider whether to move forward with a two-year closure to allow for renovations, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting hasn’t been made public.

A federal judge blocked a closure that was slated to take effect July 5, saying the board vote authorizing it was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained.” The judge also ruled that President Trump’s name was illegally added to the building, ordering its removal.

As the board, which is largely composed of Trump allies, moves toward another vote, management is expected to provide several options for consideration. They include a complete closure, a partial closure with the resumption of some programming or “phased closures” that would allow the full return of programming.

— Steven Sloan

Trump to welcome Winter Olympians to the White House

The president is hosting dozens of Winter Olympians and Paralympians for a Rose Garden reception later Thursday to honor their accomplishments in the 2026 Milano Cortina games.

Nearly half of the Team USA athletes who competed in Italy earlier this year will be at the reception, according to the White House, along with coaches, staff and other representatives.

Three hundred U.S. athletes participated in the Winter Olympics and Paralympics this year, winning 57 medals in all.

“President Trump will proudly celebrate Team USA’s historic achievements at the Winter Olympics with a special reception at the People’s House,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said. “Our patriotic athletes showed the world American excellence, and their extraordinary performances united us all in our love of country.”

Trump administration moves forward with Head Start overhaul, proposing to eliminate regulations

President Donald Trump’s administration said it plans to overhaul Head Start, tossing out many of the regulations that are the hallmark of the early education program for the nation’s poorest children.

Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the federally funded preschool program, said the proposed changes would encourage more local decision-making. Early childhood policy experts argue the deregulation could undermine Head Start’s position as the gold standard in early education.

Head Start centers serve around 700,000 of the nation’s most vulnerable children, including those who are homeless, in foster care or disabled. That wouldn’t change under the overhaul.

But Alex J. Adams, an assistant secretary at Health and Human Service, said the department is hoping to give Head Start centers the flexibility to change the way they operate. That means eliminating most of Head Start’s regulations, such as standards for low staff-to-student ratios or requirements to provide services to preschoolers’ families.

▶ Read more

Pirro’s office is the next stop for Fauci’s contempt charge

The Senate has typically considered contempt charges even when they originate with a committee. But Paul is sending the matter directly to the Justice Department, bypassing the full Senate in a move Democrats decried as illegitimate.

That means the referral will land in the office of Washington’s U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

That’s notable given how Pirro has drawn fire recently from President Donald Trump over her effectively disputing the president’s false claims that vandals damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Pirro dropped charges against a man accused of damaging the pool’s new lining, saying it was instead the result of shoddy contractor work.

So, now, Pirro could end up deciding whether to prosecute Fauci.

Senate committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress

The Senate committee on Thursday voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the vote one week after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the panel.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the committee chairman, has said that constitutional protection did not apply since Fauci last year received a pardon from Democratic President Joe Biden and thus did not have to worry about the threat of prosecution. Fauci and Democrats who opposed the contempt resolution say he had a well-founded fear of self-incrimination given a public desire by Republicans to seek his prosecution.

▶ Read more

Senators joust over Fifth Amendment right

Republicans and Democrats are digging in on differing interpretations of Fifth Amendment rights a person can invoke when questioned by authorities.

Republicans keep pointing to a presidential pardon for Fauci, suggesting that gave him cover from any prosecution related to his Senate testimony. And they’ve insisted the Supreme Court is on their side with a late 19th century case.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri noted that he purposefully asked Fauci the color of his tie and other basic questions to test the “good faith” of Fauci using the Fifth Amendment. Hawley was incredulous that Fauci would not answer those questions.

Democrats maintain that if the law it’s clear, it’s in Fauci’s favor. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said the committee should delay a contempt vote and instead consider giving Fauci clear immunity from any perjury charge in exchange for answering questions.

Republicans voted that pitch down 8-7.

Democrats’ delay tactics get voted down on party lines

Democrats called for the first votes with proposals to delay the resolution against Fauci.

Those moves failed along party lines, with the eight Republicans prevailing over seven Democrats.

That includes Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma voting with his fellow Republicans. During Fauci’s appearance, Lankford told Fauci multiple times that he recognized his right to invoke the Fifth Amendment. Other Republicans followed Paul’s lead and excoriated Fauci for his choice.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania also stuck with his party after deviating in tone during Fauci’s appearance. Fetterman wasn’t critical of Fauci but he did not, as many Democrats did, blast Paul and the GOP majority’s approach.

Paul defends the committee’s role as ‘constitutional obligation’

The chairman firmly pushed back at Democrats’ assertions that he’s playing partisan politics.

“Oversight is not a courtesy this committee extends or a favor a former official grants us,” Paul said. “A subpoena is not an invitation. A subpoena with no consequence is not a subpoena. It’s a suggestion. Seeking the truth is not a witch hunt.”

Paul said he wasn’t trying to entrap Fauci.

“He had no liability if he told the truth,” he said.

Top Democrat questions Paul’s pursuit of a contempt vote

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking Democrat on the Senate panel, said the process to subpoena Fauci and now to hold him in contempt accomplish nothing to advance public health.

He called Sen. Paul’s work “a one-sided investigation and a rushed process ... that could harm our ability to conduct future investigations.”

Peters also expressed concerns that Paul could send a criminal contempt referral directly to federal prosecutors rather than allow a full Senate vote. Peters maintained that would violate Senate traditions on how to handle contempt.

Paul says the vote isn’t about Fauci’s policy but his refusal to testify

The Kentucky senator used his opening statement as chairman to insist that the contempt vote isn’t about Fauci’s policy decisions during the pandemic, though Paul got in plenty of digs over mask and vaccine mandates and U.S. investments in Chinese research the senator believes could be responsible for the virus.

Paul, a Republican, said the vote is simply about whether a person who gets a Senate subpoena can plead the Fifth Amendment, as Fauci did more than 100 times.

The chairman emphasized that Fauci already has a federal pardon from former President Joe Biden. In the senator’s view, that effectively leaves Fauci with no Fifth Amendment privileges. Some Democrats and Fauci advocates have argued that the 85-year-old immunologist still could face perjury charges given Paul’s and other Republicans’ repeated statements that he should be jailed.

Rand Paul’s Senate committee begins meeting for Anthony Fauci contempt vote

The Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has begun its meeting to consider holding Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt because he previously refused to answer the panel’s questions about how he handled the COVID-19 pandemic in his role as one of the federal government’s top public health officials.

Republicans hold a one-vote majority on the committee.

The resolution would refer Fauci to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which is led by Jeanine Pirro.

Iran says a deal with Oman is close

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, has said an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, which lies on the other side of the waterway, is in the “final stage” of drafting. Speaking Wednesday, he said a joint statement will be issued “if certain parties do not obstruct this process,” apparently referring to the U.S.

The agreement is likely to be contingent on the U.S. lifting its blockade on Iran’s ports.

The strait is crucial to global shipping and energy supplies. Before the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February, around one fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passed through the waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

On Thursday, all eyes were on the U.S. for the next development.

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Senate panel to vote on holding Fauci in contempt for refusing to answer questions

The Senate committee is set to vote Thursday on whether to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the Republican committee chairman, has said that constitutional protection didn’t apply since Fauci last year received a pardon from President Joe Biden and thus did not have to worry about the threat of prosecution.

But Fauci, in a statement issued before the hearing, said he had good reason to fear the possibility of criminal charges given what he said was Paul’s determination “to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote.”

▶ Read more

The repeated strikes have caused fuel shortages and rattled Russians. Ukrainians, meanwhile, are enduring regular barrages that Kyiv's depleted air defenses are struggling to counter amid Moscow's 4-year-old full-scale invasion.

The Kyiv region observed an official day of mourning Thursday after a Russian missile and drone blitz killed 17 people the previous day, prompting an increasingly urgent scramble by Ukraine and its partner countries to find new air defense supplies.

In the first six months of this year, 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 injured in Ukraine, the United Nations office in Kyiv said Wednesday. That was a 37% increase from the same period last year and a 114% jump over 2024, it said, attributing the rise to more long-range aerial attacks by Russia.

Zelenskyy said he met with senior officials on how to accelerate the development of Ukraine’s own ballistic weaponry, similar to its swift wartime innovation in drone technology.

"Developing one’s own ballistic capabilities and creating a new anti-ballistic system is a task that only a tiny minority of countries worldwide have managed to accomplish,” he said in a social media post. “Ukraine has this capability.”

Zelenskyy said he expects the program to produce results this year and next after it overcomes “key challenges,” including procuring critical components, technological cooperation with partner countries, and choosing where to build the armaments.

Ukraine says it hit Russian refineries and vessels at sea

Ukrainian forces hit a refinery in Russia's Bashkortostan region, more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the front line, as well as a refinery in the Yaroslavl region, almost 700 kilometers (400 miles) from the border, Zelenskyy said on social media.

Yaroslavl Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev confirmed an attack on a refinery, saying in a Telegram post that drone debris hit the facility’s oil reservoirs, sparking a fire. Three private houses also caught fire, and several residential buildings were damaged, he added.

Ukrainian forces hit two Russian military patrol boats in the Black Sea, Zelenskyy said, along with vessels belonging to Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, which Russia uses to evade Western restrictions on its oil exports. He did not give any details.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight shot down 605 Ukrainian drones over its territory.

Ukraine seeks more interceptor missiles to bolster air defenses

Drone and glide bomb attacks across Ukraine overnight killed at least three civilians and wounded 22 others, authorities said Thursday, as countries helping Kyiv resist the invasion scrambled to find more vital air defenses for its fight.

Moscow’s forces have in recent weeks pummeled Ukraine with ballistic missiles that Kyiv officials say only the U.S.-made Patriot air defense system can stop. But the Iran war has drained stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving Ukraine at the mercy of Russian bombardments that seek to exploit the weakened air defenses.

“We are working as hard as possible with all partners who can assist with the supply of interceptor missiles to protect against such insane Russian strikes targeting life, people, and civilian facilities,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Wednesday.

He said he had spoken to NATO chief Mark Rutte and Finnish President Alexander Stubb about urgently procuring interceptors from stockpiles. Zelenskyy said he and Rutte “coordinated our efforts regarding countries that have the necessary missiles and the capacity to help.”

Rutte said on X that he was discussing with allies "how we can continue to get Ukraine the air defenses they urgently need.”

Russian glide bombs wound 12 in Sumy region

Russia appears determined to exhaust Ukraine through sheer weight of numbers in terms of soldiers, armor and weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes time is on his side, that Western support will fade and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure, Western analysts and officials say.

Ukraine's air force said Russia fired four missiles and 101 long-range strike drones overnight, with air defenses shooting down or jamming 66 drones.

Three people were killed in Balakliia in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, said Vitalii Karabanov, head of the city’s military administration.

In the neighboring Sumy region, Russian glide bombs wounded 12 people, the National Police said. Apartment buildings and infrastructure were damaged, with hundreds of windows shattered, said regional military administration chief Oleh Hryhorov.

In the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, a Russian drone struck a bus carrying farmworkers, injuring six people, regional authorities said.

A Russian drone also struck a residential area in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, injuring four, said regional administration head Ivan Fedorov.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

What do the labels “clean,” “green,” “organic,” and “fragrance-free” actually mean in terms of ingredients, standards, and safety? Simply Tiff’s gives us the label breakdown & why some things might not be as good for you as you may think.

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The crash happened around 6:11 a.m. Thursday on the Interstate 35 main lanes near West Southcross Boulevard.

According to police, an unidentified driver was traveling southbound and drifted over to the right shoulder before crashing into a parked 18-wheeler.

The person was pronounced dead at the scene, SAPD said.

At this time, it’s unclear whether the 18-wheeler driver, 56, suffered any injuries in the collision.

This is a developing story. KSAT will update the article once more information becomes available.

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And fire and climate scientists said Trump, who has talked about punishing Canada for poor fire management and sending days of choking smoke across the border, should look more in the mirror than up north when it comes to blame. They point to the United States' huge historical emissions of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

The fire weather conditions in the Northwest Territories and northwestern Ontario, while unusual but not that rare, were still made twice as likely by global warming, said Thursday's study by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who examine extreme weather conditions to see if there are climate change fingerprints. It's about the same as the team found for summer fires in France, but not nearly as clear a climate fingerprint as they calculated in Spanish fires, which the scientists said were 20 times more likely because of climate change.

The study, which was done so quickly it has not been peer reviewed yet, looked at the weather conditions that are connected to large wildfires and the Canadian index for those conditions, which are heat, lack of rain, humidity and wind. The researchers found the doubling of frequency when — using scientifically accepted techniques to search for climate fingerprints — they compared current conditions to a world without the 2.5 degrees (1.4 degrees Celsius) of warming that's occurred since the industrial age and burning of fossil fuels started. The weeklong weather conditions that led to the fires in Ontario are now the type that can happen every six years or so, the report said.

“In a pre-industrial climate this would have been much less likely to occur, maybe once in a lifespan. So climate change has made those events more likely,” said study co-author Jonathan Boucher, a fire scientist at Canada's Forest Service.

Hotter, drier conditions connected to burning

Outside climate and fire scientists said the flash study made sense and reflects a world where hotter and drier conditions are making fires burn more often and more intensely.

“Mother Nature's been burning. Now she's on amphetamines and she burns more and more,” said Thompson Rivers University fire scientist Mike Flannigan, a Canadian expert who wasn't part of the study.

Hazardous smoke spread across both the United States and Canada, choking large cities such as New York.

By burning more and more fossil fuels, “we're putting nails in our coffins,” Flannigan said.

In the larger and remote Northwest Territories fires, where more than 5,000 square miles (12,950 square kilometers) burned, it's clear the spark was from lightning but it was the climate conditions that took that initial ignition and made the fire burn intensely and spread too fast to control, said Boucher and report lead author Theodore Keeping, a climate scientist at Imperial College in London.

While people start about half of Canada's wildfires — accidentally or on purpose — fires sparked by lightning are responsible for more than 90% of the land area burned in Canada, Flannigan said.

“What we're facing here is more of a climate related problem than a forest management problem,” Boucher said.

That's not how Trump sees it.

Trump blames mismanagement, but scientists point to carbon

“A lot of damage has been done. They’re not managing their forests properly,” Trump said July 21. “And the wind has a tendency to blow right over New York City, right over, you saw Detroit, they had to close the whole place. Michigan was really affected. They had to close businesses for four days. It’s very serious what they’re doing, and they don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. If they managed their forests, they wouldn’t have the fires.”

When asked Sunday about punishing Canada, Trump on Air Force One told reporters he has decided on a punishment, adding “you'll find out about it soon.”

Canadian climate and fire scientists said Trump doesn't understand the root causes.

“Smoke does not carry a passport, but carbon pollution does have a history. That history shows that the United States contributed more than any other country,” said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver. “President Trump is pointing at the smoke while ignoring America's fingerprints on the climate conditions behind it.”

Study co-author Friederike Otto, an Imperial College London climate scientist, said, “if you care about anyone but the super rich, you have to stop burning fossil fuels because the impacts are here and they’re now and have huge consequences.”

Canada has warmed 65% more than the United States in recent decades. In the past 30 years, the amount of land annually burned by Canadian wildfires has gone up by about 50% while the amount in the United States has more than doubled.

A big problem that Trump doesn't appear to understand is that much of Canada's forests are remote, northerly and full of spruce and pine that burns hard and fast, all making it difficult to get a handle on, Boucher and Flannigan said.

“In Canada, when things are extreme, you have about a 30-minute window to put that fire out,” Flannigan said. “If you don't get there in 30 minutes, you're out of luck. And many of the fires that start in Canada are northern remote areas that are more than 30 minutes away from an airport. So even with perfect detection systems, we would get there too late and these fires are going to burn.''

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The party-line vote approving the contempt resolution came a week after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the committee chairman, said that constitutional protection did not apply since Fauci last year received a pardon from Democratic President Joe Biden and thus did not have to worry about the threat of prosecution. Fauci and Democrats who opposed the contempt resolution said he had a well-founded fear of self-incrimination given a public desire by Republicans to seek his prosecution.

“Dr. Fauci faced no risk of federal prosecution," Paul said at the outset of a hearing. "All he had to do was tell the truth.”

Paul noted that the vote had nothing to do with Fauci's policies, opinions or anything he has said in previous congressional appearances.

Instead, the senator said, “We are voting on whether a witness who has received the benefit of a sweeping pardon can be ordered by this committee to answer questions and then defy that order without consequence.”

Fauci, in a statement explaining his decision to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights, said he had good reason to fear the possibility of criminal charges given what he said was Paul's determination “to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote."

The pardon from Biden covered acts from 2014 through the January 2025 day it was issued. It does not shield Fauci from state-level prosecutions or from investigations into any testimony that he did give that lawmakers thought was false.

The referral goes to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, which will decide whether or not to investigate or potentially attempt to prosecute the doctor for contempt.

Paul, who has previously sent referrals on Fauci on his own, acknowledged on Wednesday that contempt resolutions have often gone through the full Senate but said he did not “want to waste time” with that route. The resolution there would be unlikely to muster the required 60 votes needed to advance.

No matter the outcome, the episode raises fresh and complicated questions about lawmakers' ability to compel testimony from previously pardoned witnesses — and the outcome could resonate beyond Fauci given the possibility that Trump may also grant clemency to his own aides before leaving the White House.

___

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

U.S. filings for jobless aid in the week ending August 1 rose by 1,000 to 199,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week’s figure was revised up by 1,000 to 198,000.

Weekly filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the U.S. job market.

Last week, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric, PCE, came in at 3.7% for June, still well above the U.S. central bank’s 2% target. If inflation remains elevated, Fed officials say they are ready to raise interest rates to combat higher prices, raising costs for businesses and making them less likely to hire.

Last month, the government reported that employers pulled back on hiring in June, adding only 57,000 jobs. That’s less than half the previous month’s total and a sign that companies remain cautious about adding to their head counts. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% from 4.3% in May, though that decline is mostly because many out-of-work people gave up looking for jobs and were no longer counted as unemployed.

June’s tepid hiring comes after a relative surge in job gains the previous three months, countering concerns that the conflict in Iran could trip up an already wobbly labor market. The government’s July jobs report is due out Friday.

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, his purge of the federal workforce and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.

Among the companies that have trimmed their workforce recently are Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney, Starbucks, Walmart and Microsoft.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday also showed that the four-week moving average of weekly jobless claims, which balances out some of the weekly volatility, fell by 4,500 to 198,750.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending July 25 was 1.8 million, an increase of 24,000 from the week before.

The school board accepted the resignation of Superintendent Dr. Jeanette Ball in a recent meeting. Deputy Superintendent Brandon Crisp was named interim superintendent.

Crisp has been with the district for 17 years, according to a district news release. Since joining Southwest ISD in 2009 as a teacher and coach, he has served in a variety of leadership roles.

“I am honored to serve Southwest ISD in this capacity,” Crisp said in a news release. “Our priority remains creating an excellent learning environment and supporting our educators, staff, and families. I look forward to working closely with the Board and our leadership team to maintain our positive momentum.”

Ball leaves behind a notable legacy, including $250 million in campus improvements, a new elementary school and a district academic rating that climbed from a “C” to a “B” in recent years.

The school board is now searching for a permanent superintendent. Classes at Southwest ISD are set to begin Aug. 24.

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Four other soldiers were seriously wounded, the military said. An Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with the army's policy, said that “an explosion was detonated” when the soldiers entered a site in the village of Majdal Zoun and that the nature of the explosive was under review.

Israeli media reported the two deaths a day earlier.

The Israeli army launched strikes Wednesday in southern Lebanon in response to what it described as Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire and called on residents of the village of Mansouri to flee — the first such warning Israel has issued in Lebanon for weeks.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said one person was killed and 12 wounded in an Israeli strike in the town of Tebnine Wednesday and another eight wounded in overnight strikes on the village of Burj al-Shemali. Artillery shelling also targeted the areas of Mansouri and Majdal Zoun, the state-run National News Agency said.

There was no statement from the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired rockets across the border two days after the U.S. and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. More than 4,000 people have been killed by Israeli strikes in Lebanon since then, including hundreds of civilians. About 40 soldiers and three civilians — including a military contractor — have been killed on the Israeli side.

A precarious truce between Israel and Hezbollah has largely held since June 20, but Israeli forces have continued to occupy swaths of southern Lebanon and to carry out periodic airstrikes and shelling.

The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon known as UNIFIL said it had recorded 113 projectiles launched by the Israeli military on Wednesday, the highest number recorded since June 21.

The latest escalation came as Lebanese and Israeli negotiators met in Rome to discuss implementation of a June 26 deal reached between Israel and the Lebanese government under which Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw from areas they occupy in southern Lebanon and allow the Lebanese army to take control, in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Hezbollah has refused to disarm and opposed the direct Lebanon-Israel talks. It was not a party to the deal. The group has accused the Lebanese government of making too many concessions without guaranteeing an Israeli withdrawal.

Wednesday’s talks ended early due to the escalation on the ground, but resumed on Thursday.

The talks in Rome have focused on implementation of “pilot zones” where Israeli forces would withdraw and the Lebanese army would take control. Implementation began last month with an initial pilot zone in an area that wasn’t occupied by Israeli forces but had previously sustained Israeli fire.

The Lebanese army entered the town of Zawtar al-Gharbieh and some civilians returned, although many came only to find their homes destroyed and left again.

A diplomat familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly said earlier this week that Lebanon had asked for the next pilot zone to be either in the town of Khiam or Bint Jbeil. Both areas saw heavy fighting in the latest Israel-Hezbollah war and are currently occupied by Israeli forces.

But U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa suggested ahead of the three-day talks that no new pilot zones would be immediately implemented, saying that “moving too quickly risks jeopardizing the very civilians this process is meant to protect.”

___

Saeed reported from Herzliya, Israel. Associated Press writer Maria Grazia Murru in Rome contributed to this report.

The launch from North Korea's eastern coastal Wonsan area was detected around 5 p.m., South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, adding that South Korea's military has bolstered its surveillance posture and is closely coordinating with the U.S. and Japan.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters the missile landed in the waters off North Korea's east coast and that there were no reports that the weapon reached Japanese territory.

Koizumi said North Korea's repeated missile launches pose a threat to Japan and the region and that Tokyo lodged a protest to Pyongyang through their embassies in Beijing. South Korea's presidential national security council called the North Korean ballistic launch “a provocation” that violates U.N. Security Council resolutions and urged the North to stop it.

It was North Korea's first ballistic missile launch since late June, when it tested a tactical ballistic missile with a “special mission” warhead and other weapons. After watching the testing activities, leader Kim Jong Un said at the time that the military needed to bolster its “deadly and destructive offensive posture.”

Thursday's launch came ahead of large-scale, annual exercises to be conducted by the U.S. and South Korean militaries later this month. U.S. and South Korean officials say the training is defensive in nature, but North Korea says the maneuvers are a practice invasion and often responds with missile tests.

South Korean and U.S. officials haven't yet released details about this year's joint exercise, but the drills are typically held in the latter half of August.

Kim has been focusing on enlarging his country's nuclear arsenal since his high-stakes diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Experts say Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so that he can demand the lifting of international economic sanctions on North Korea.

U.N. Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from launches involving its huge stockpile of ballistic missiles. Tests of other weapons including cruise missiles and artillery systems are not banned, but experts say they still pose a security challenge to South Korea and the U.S.

In early July, Kim supervised tests of a nuclear-capable cruise missile aboard a destroyer. After years of prioritizing ballistic missile development, Kim has increasingly turned his focus to naval capabilities, including the construction of a nuclear-powered submarine.

In recent years, Kim has boosted his diplomatic credentials by expanding cooperation with Russia. North Korea has supplied conventional weapons and troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.

Kim also has pushed to deepen cooperation with China, the North's economic pipeline. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the North Korean capital Pyongyang in June for the first time in seven years.

In response to Trump’s repeated outreach to restart diplomacy, Kim has suggested talks can resume if the U.S. drops its demand for North Korean denuclearization as a precondition.

___

Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

But the 74-year-old retired nurse from Tucson said she feels the heat has been impacting more of her day-to-day: summer plans with family members across the region, meetups with friends, road trips and her daily morning walk routine.

"I’ve noticed at least a 10 degree difference in the weather," Bracamonte said. “Every summer, it seems to be getting hotter and hotter.”

Like Bracamonte, Americans are increasingly feeling a personal impact from extreme heat, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

According to the survey, U.S. adults are more likely to say extreme heat has had either a “major impact” or “minor impact” on their travel or vacation plans, electricity bills, their sleep, their family’s outdoor activities and more parts of their day-to-day life than in July 2024.

Much of that shift was among people who live in the West or Midwest.

Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to say that extreme heat has had a “major” impact on each item asked about.

Warming has endangered the globe especially in recent years; scientists calculated that Earth’s average temperature in 2025 hovered among one of the three hottest on record, along with 2024 and 2023. The U.S. has sweltered under dangerous heat domes over the past few years, and unusually high temperatures even early in the year.

The recent scorching weather has played a role in thousands of heat-related deaths — killing more people every year than all other weather-related events. It impacts wildfire risk, strains public infrastructure, devastates agriculture and wreaks havoc on gatherings such as sporting events.

Now, the poll shows how extreme heat is reshaping Americans' daily lives.

“I have to get up at 5 in the morning to walk before 6, because by 7 it’s already in the 80s ... I lose a couple hours of sleep because I’m having to wake up earlier,” added Bracamonte, who said she identifies as a very liberal Democrat. “You can’t stay outside without being sick unless you’re guzzling water the whole time — it’s just so, so hot.”

Electricity bills going up

About 8 in 10 Americans say their electricity bills have seen a “major” or “minor” impact from extreme heat over the last year, compared with 69% in July 2024, according to the survey.

Just under half of Americans living in the Midwest, 44%, say extreme heat has had a “major” impact on their electricity bills, up from 29% two years ago.

Rising household electricity prices have turned into an increasingly prominent political issue over the past few years. Extreme weather is just one factor that affects electricity bills, but it means that people are using more energy for air conditioning — or in the colder months, heat.

“I feel like my utility costs probably doubled in the last three or four years,” said Daemien Williams, a 50-year-old bridge inspector living in Cahokia Heights, Illinois, who identifies as a Democrat. “I do look at my bills pretty in detail and see that the kilowatts and the usage is actually up, not just the price that they’re charging for it."

Travel and vacation plans impacted, along with family outdoor activities

Extreme heat is affecting Americans' lives in other ways, the survey found.

Around 4 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has had either a major impact or a minor impact on their travel or vacation plans, up from about one-quarter in 2024.

“It has affected my entire family because we usually get together a lot during the summer," Bracamonte said. "We have family in Texas and we have family in upper Arizona. And we’ve seen that there’s been a lot more fires, a lot of more flooding, all that. So that kind of inhibits our plans to travel.”

Extreme heat waves increase wildfire risk, and a warmer world supercharges storms that could ultimately send more rainfall.

Around 7 in 10 Americans say extreme heat has had either a major impact or a minor impact on their family's outdoor activities, compared with about 6 in 10 in 2024.

Sean Conway, a 41-year-old direct marketer in North Shore, Massachusetts, said his kids' soccer practice might either be postponed or canceled due to extreme temperatures, for example.

But to Conway, who considers himself a moderate independent, leaning Republican, this is minor. “Sometimes, you’ve got to just be out in the bad weather.”

It’s not surprising many Americans say they are feeling the impacts, said Jennifer Francis, a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center who was not involved with the polling.

“Brutal, life-threatening heat waves have become more frequent, more intense, and more persistent in many parts of the globe, including our Western and Midwestern states," Francis said. "Extreme heat compounded with long dry spells have affected our health directly, along with indirect effects on our wallets.”

Climate change belief remains largely stable

Even as more Americans say they feel a personal impact from extreme heat, that does not mean an increasing number believe in climate change.

About two-thirds, 66%, of Americans believe climate change is happening, a slight decline from 73% in September 2025. About 17% say they are not sure if climate change is happening, and about 15% say it is not happening.

Williams, the Illinois resident, attributes his belief in climate change in part to extreme shifts in weather including very high and very cold temperatures.

“My biggest indicator of the change in the climate is just the flooding is a lot more often," Williams said, noting that he believes in both natural and human causes.

John Hazel, a 33-year-old in Waco, Texas, says he’s noticed changes from when he was younger.

“When I was a kid, that seemed like a very rare thing when it did hit 100, everybody was like, whoa. And now it’s just every day,” said Hazel, a crime scene investigator. “Seasons felt a little more balanced. Now it feels like summer’s a bit lingering, it starts earlier and lasts longer.”

Hazel, who identifies as a conservative Republican and believes in climate change, said he plans around the heat.

“As soon as you walk outside, you’re already sweating even if you’re not doing much of anything. I’ve definitely noticed you’re having to take breaks from being outside, you have to bathe, shower more often,” Hazel said. “It’s definitely a bigger consideration.”

___

The poll of 1,165 adults was conducted July 23-27, 2026, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

___

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The influencer, César Gastélum, was killed on Tuesday night in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan, officials said. Mexican authorities implied the killing of the young man was linked to cartel violence but did not blame any particular group.

A video of the moment of his death, which was viewed by The Associated Press, shows him laughing with two other men in the parking lot of a Kentucky Fried Chicken when two men pull up on a motorcycle. One is seen pulling out a gun and shooting Gastélum. The attackers then flee the scene.

The attack was carried out just blocks away from the local prosecutor’s office during rush hour.

Mexico’s Security Cabinet and local prosecutors said an investigation was ongoing, and that it appeared Gastélum had released some videos in which he “alluded to a faction of a criminal group.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told journalists during her morning news conference on Wednesday that the “perpetrators must be arrested.”

“We must find out why this deplorable homicide occurred,” she said.

Gastélum had more than 650,000 followers on TikTok, and more on Instagram and other social media platforms and would regularly post comedy videos and content layered over Mexican regional music. He at times referred to himself in his videos as “bélico,” a term often used in subcultures in Mexico to imply a connection to cartel culture.

Messages of “rest in peace” were posted on Gastélum’s social media accounts on Wednesday.

Sinaloa has in recent years been ravaged by warring between two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. At the height of the fighting, dead bodies would be left across the city marked with a faction’s signature. One of them, Los Chapitos, would regularly leave a pizza or a pizza box on a dead body. The other, Los Mayos, would leave behind a sombrero, and it soon became dangerous to wear the hats in Culiacan as it could signify allegiance to one group.

On Tuesday night, Gastélum was filmed wearing a white sombrero.

On Wednesday, candles were lit on the pavement where he was killed. It was the second time in little more than a year that a content creator was fatally shot by gunmen on a live stream.

In May 2025, 23-year-old beauty influencer Valeria Márquez was shot and killed while doing a TikTok livestream at a beauty salon in the central Mexican state of Jalisco.

The killing comes at a time when Mexico’s government is under mounting pressure by the Trump administration to crack down on cartel violence.

Gastélum’s death is part of a larger trend by criminal groups targeting influencers, especially in regions like Sinaloa and Jalisco dominated by organized crime.

Mexican security analyst David Saucedo said influencers are killed or threatened for a wide range of reasons. In some cases, the targeted influencers may have had ties to one criminal faction in a disputed region, producing social media content for them or having romantic relationships with cartel members. In others, influencers launder money for cartels or disseminate information similar to a journalist.

“Cartels are interested in dictating and controlling … the regions where they operate,” Saucedo said. The aim is to turn them “into channels for disseminating criminal messages.”

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Associated Press journalist Aarón Ibarra in Culiacan, Mexico, contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

The Houston doctor is among an estimated 1 million Americans who have Lynch syndrome, a faulty gene passed from a parent that puts them at extremely high risk of colorectal cancer and more vulnerable to certain other cancers, too. They’re often urged to get yearly colonoscopies — far more often than usual — that can spot and remove precancerous growths called polyps.

Now scientists are creating vaccines that aim to go further, teaching the immune system to intercept this type of brewing colon cancer before it turns into a full-fledged tumor. At least three potential Lynch syndrome vaccines are in development, including two in early clinical trials in the U.S. and a third beginning in Britain.

The shot that Norton helped test appears promising enough that its lead researcher, Dr. Eduardo Vilar-Sanchez of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, expects a larger study to begin early next year.

“It gives me hope,” said Norton, 59, of Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital. She had already survived a different Lynch-caused cancer and has two children in their 20s who inherited her mutation. If a vaccine pans out, “perhaps they won’t have to have a colonoscopy every single year for the rest of their lives.”

Lynch syndrome is caused by an inherited genetic mutation

Everyone has what are called mismatch-repair genes, which are essentially spellcheckers to help fix DNA mistakes that can occur when our cells multiply. With Lynch syndrome, one of those genes can’t do its job properly, making it harder for the body to stop a buildup of abnormalities that can lead to tumors, often before age 50.

Colorectal cancer is the most common consequence. The average person has a 5% risk of developing it during their lifetime. A Lynch carrier’s risk can reach as high as 80% depending on which faulty gene they inherit, Vilar-Sanchez said.

Another big risk is endometrial, or uterine, cancer. Lynch carriers also are more likely to get other cancers including pancreatic, stomach, ovarian and certain skin cancers — and a kind of brain tumor that killed Norton’s sister at age 25.

Norton knew some of her mother’s relatives had also experienced colon cancer, but she was in her 40s before a gene test confirmed she has Lynch syndrome. She switched from every-so-often to yearly colonoscopies. As an obstetrician/gynecologist familiar with other Lynch risks, Norton also decided to have a precautionary hysterectomy. Surgeons discovered early-stage cancer in her removed uterus.

Possible vaccines to stop gene-caused cancer

Today there are two cancer-preventing vaccines, the HPV and hepatitis B shots that block infection from those tumor-causing viruses. But developing vaccines to prevent gene-caused cancer is more challenging than alerting the body to foreign intruders like a virus.

Lynch-fueled growths “tend to accumulate hundreds of mutations that are going to generate proteins that are novel, not made by our normal cells,” Vilar-Sanchez said. “You can train the immune system to recognize those proteins.”

In a first-step study, Norton and 44 other Lynch carriers tested a vaccine made by Swiss biotech Nouscom that teaches the immune system to spot 209 of those abnormalities in Lynch-caused precancers. That revved up tumor-eliminating T cells and a year later, colonoscopies showed fewer precancerous growths and no advanced polyps, the MD Anderson team reported in Nature Medicine.

“Can we even further stimulate the immune system” to keep up with Lynch syndrome-spurred tumor formation, asked Dr. John Marshall, a Georgetown University oncologist and adviser to the Colorectal Cancer Alliance who wasn’t involved with the study. “This early paper suggests that yeah, maybe we can.”

For the first time since 2014, Norton’s own colonoscopies one and two years after vaccination were polyp-free. She’s also part of a subset of study participants given a booster shot a year later; more data on that is expected this fall.

Oxford University researchers are beginning initial testing of a similar approach to attack Lynch-spurred precancers, a vaccine made by Massachusetts-based Moderna using the mRNA technology behind its COVID-19 shot.

And scientists are awaiting results from a slightly larger study comparing California-based ImmunityBio’s Tri-Ad5 vaccine, which flags some different cancer markers, to a placebo.

Is Lynch syndrome tied to the rise in young adult colon cancer?

About 158,000 people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer in the U.S. each year, most of them over 50. Cases in younger adults are increasing, though it isn't clear why.

Lynch syndrome affects about 1 in 279 people. While most don’t know it, more may be learning they have the inherited disorder, Vilar-Sanchez said, as genetic testing is increasingly discussed with people with Lynch-related cancer in the family or who get certain tumors at young ages. That in turn can show if close relatives might also be at risk.

For the average person, U.S. guidelines call for routine colorectal cancer screening — with a colonoscopy or other kinds of tests — to begin at age 45. But at any age, get a checkup for symptoms such as blood in stool or rectal bleeding; changes in bowel habits such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of stool that lasts more than a few days; unintended weight loss; and cramps or abdominal pain.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The incident happened around 11:40 p.m. in the 100 block of Motel Drive, which is located near Midland Street.

SAPD said the man had left his own home after a disturbance with a roommate or family members and expressed intent to harm himself.

The man eventually entered his truck and drove around until crashing into the home, police said.

A girl — whose age remains unclear — was inside the house at the time of the crash. Officers said some debris may have hit her.

No injuries were reported. At this time, it’s unclear whether officers ever found the man.

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health or thoughts of suicide, call 988 or text TALK to 741-741.

You can also reach out to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) or the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) at 210-223-7233 (SAFE) or 800-316-9241. You can also text NAMI to 741-741.

Read also:

• 4 injured in Southeast Side apartment fire, SAFD says

Crews responded to the fire around 10 p.m. Wednesday at the Pecan Valley Golf Club Apartments in the 4900 block of Pecan Grove Boulevard, near East Southcross.

When firefighters arrived, the fire was coming from the upper floors and roof, SAFD said.

One resident jumped from the second floor and was taken to a hospital with fall injuries, SAFD said. Another resident on the first floor was hospitalized for smoke inhalation. Both had minor injuries.

Details on the other two injuries are unclear.

SAFD said a police officer is also being treated on scene for smoke inhalation.

The fire was under control in about 30 minutes, according to SAFD. Four units were impacted by the fire. Of those, only two units were occupied, and more than half of the building was vacant.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Read also:

• Man hospitalized with burns after West Side house fire, SAFD says

Irfan Arshad Khan, president of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said the remains of the climbers killed in the July 31 avalanche were being transferred to a military hospital in the northern city of Skardu.

Three bodies were brought off the mountain on Aug. 1. Thursday's airlift raised the number of recovered bodies to eight, including renowned British-Nepali climber Nirmal Purja. Two climbers remain missing and the search is ongoing following what the Alpine Club described as one of Pakistan’s deadliest mountaineering disasters.

The bodies of Purja, Chinese climber Zhong Wang, Nepali climbers Nima Sherpa, Gyalu Sherpa and Kilu Sherpa were flown from the base camp of Broad Peak to the air base in Skardu before being transported to the hospital, regional authorities said.

The international team of climbers came from Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, China, Britain and the United States. The bodies will be flown to Pakistan's capital Islamabad after coordination with the embassies of the climbers’ home countries, officials said.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar this week expressed condolences to the victims’ families, saying he was deeply saddened by the tragedy and that Pakistan remained committed to the recovery operation in coordination with the Nepal, Oman, U.K. and U.S. embassies.

Mountaineering accidents are common in northern Pakistan, where climbers face hazards including avalanches, falling ice and rock, extreme altitude and rapidly changing weather.

A Chinese climber died last year after being struck by falling rocks while descending K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.

The bodies of foreign climbers who die attempting to summit Pakistan’s mountains are typically recovered only at the request of their families and governments. If relatives decline recovery efforts, the remains are usually left on the mountain where the climbers died.

On Wednesday, the Alpine Club thanked the Pakistani and Nepali recovery teams, including Pakistani mountaineers Sirbaz Khan, Abid Beg and Sherzad and Nepali climbers Dipen Gurung and Pemba Chhewang Sherpa for their roles in the difficult recovery operation.

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Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Professor Jason Arday, who was 37 when he became a Cambridge professor in 2023, announced his decision late Wednesday following weeks of allegations about plagiarism in his academic work and questions surrounding claims about his athletic and fundraising accomplishments.

“While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement,” Arday said in a statement. “The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love.”

The statement was distributed by the Good Law Project, a campaign group that has supported Arday since the criticism spilled into the media last month. An earlier letter circulated by the group and signed by more than two dozen academics and politicians described the plagiarism allegations as a “smear campaign” designed to undermine Arday and other Black people who hold “positions of influence.”

Arday’s appointment at Cambridge highlighted his personal story of overcoming dyslexia, developmental delays and autism that he said left him non-verbal until the age of 11 and illiterate until his late teens.

Questions about his qualifications were raised publicly last month by Nathan Cofnas, a one-time Cambridge philosophy researcher who left the university after his critique of diversity, equity and inclusion programs sparked widespread protests.

On July 24, the Times of London published an analysis of Arday’s 2015 Ph.D. thesis highlighting what it said were multiple examples of passages that were “identical or near-identical” to an earlier paper written by another researcher.

The British media also raised questions about Arday’s claims that he had raised 5.5 million pounds ($7.4 million) for charity through feats such as running 30 marathons in 35 days and 600 miles in six days.

Arday told the Guardian news website that the money was raised with the help of others over a 20-year period. He said non-disclosure agreements prevented him from naming the others.

Cambridge initially stood by Arday, saying that the plagiarism allegations had been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday’s doctorate.

That changed Wednesday when Cambridge opened its inquiry.

“The University of Cambridge has begun an investigation following new information about Professor Arday’s qualifications and honorary appointments,” the university said in a statement. “In order to ensure a fair process, we will not comment further until this has concluded.”

The Times of London said Cambridge decided to investigate after it presented new evidence that some of Arday’s research was “fabricated” and contained “impossible” evidence.

In an interview with the newspaper published last week, Arday denied plagiarism but admitted to some mistakes that he said were partly due to a lack of supervision when he was working on his doctorate.

Arday continued to defend himself in his resignation statement, saying his decision “should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship.”

“Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me’” he said. “It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.”

Thursday, Aug. 6

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Here’s a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Thursday. Full coverage can be found here.

Iran says a deal with Oman is close

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, has said an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz with Oman, which lies on the other side of the waterway, is in the “final stage” of drafting. Speaking Wednesday, he said a joint statement will be issued “if certain parties do not obstruct this process,” apparently referring to the U.S.

The agreement is likely to be contingent on the U.S. lifting its blockade on Iran’s ports.

The strait is crucial to global shipping and energy supplies. Before the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February, around one fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passed through the waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

On Thursday, all eyes were on the U.S. for the next development.

Ships struck over the past week in the Strait of Hormuz

At least two Greek-controlled ships were hit in the Strait of Hormuz in the past week, while several others reported near misses or warnings from entities claiming to represent Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, according to maritime data company Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

The company added that Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels continued to claim attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The claims could not be independently verified.

Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz increased to 84 transits during the week of July 27 to Aug. 2, up from 45 the previous week. But traffic is still far below the more than 700 transits seen in a typical week before the crisis, Lloyd's List said.

“This is one data point. It’s not indicative that owners are more confident in the situation,” said Bridget Diakun, Maritime Intelligence & Research Director at Lloyd’s List Intelligence

Traffic by ships not linked to Iran also increased, rising from 28 transits to 52, driven mainly by the return of gas carriers and container ships, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon as negotiators meet in Rome

Two Israeli soldiers were killed and another four were seriously wounded in an explosion in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military said Thursday. The deaths are Israel's first since a shaky truce was implemented in June between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The Israeli army launched strikes Wednesday in southern Lebanon in response to what it described as Hezbollah’s violation of the ceasefire and issued a call for residents of another village to flee — the first such warning Israel has issued in Lebanon for weeks.

The escalation came as Lebanese and Israeli negotiators met in Rome to discuss implementation of the June deal under which Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw from areas they occupy in southern Lebanon, in exchange for Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Israeli settler charged in West Bank killing of Palestinian activist

Israeli prosecutors have charged a settler with the killing of a Palestinian community leader last year in the occupied West Bank.

In an indictment filed in district court, prosecutors accuse Yinon Levi of reckless manslaughter in the death of prominent Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in July 2025. The charge holds a lesser punishment than murder under Israeli law.

The indictment also charges Levi, who lives in the south of the West Bank, with armed trespassing and malicious property damage.

It is extremely rare for Israel to charge settlers with violence against Palestinians. Israeli rights group B’Tselem said the charges against Levi mark the first time since Oct. 7, 2023, that an Israeli has been indicted for the death of a Palestinian in the West Bank.

In that time, the group said, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed at least 1,100 Palestinians in the territory.

Iraq moves to crack down on armed militia groups

A body of Iraq’s top leadership said Thursday that any armed activity outside of state authority after Sept. 30 will be prosecuted under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Law, the latest move in a push to bring all weapons under government control.

The statement by the State Administration Coalition comes as several powerful, Iran-backed armed factions, including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba, have rejected calls to surrender weapons or dissolve their organizations, saying they remain committed to the “option of resistance.”

Saudi Arabia and the U.S. launched strikes on Iraq last week after Riyadh accused Iraqi militias of using drones to attack its oil facilities.

The retaliatory strikes in Iraq hit bases of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a collection of armed groups close to Iran that are officially part of Iraq’s security forces but often operate outside of state control.

UNESCO World Heritage site in Sudan threatened by war and sand

The war in Sudan is threatening the ancient Meroe pyramids, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its unique and angular architecture, as preservation efforts have completely halted.

Sudan’s deadly conflict, which erupted in April 2023, has destroyed many of the country’s historical sites and museums. UNESCO warned in April that cultural and historical sites are under growing threat.

Located about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital Khartoum, Meroe comprises over 200 pyramids built between 800 B.C. and 350 A.D. as royal tombs for the Kingdom of Kush. Archaeologist Mahmoud Suleiman warned that collapses are possible at the site.

When a roadside bomb struck his Humvee convoy months later, the explosion’s shock wave swept through his body before headaches and sleeplessness set in for days.

“As long as you got back up and could go back on patrol, that’s kind of what you did,” he said.

Shearer, 40, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, links both events in 2005 to traumatic brain injuries, which were only recently diagnosed. He's still plagued with symptoms ranging from dizziness and migraines to forgetting daily tasks and responsibilities to his wife and children.

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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

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The lasting effects of traumatic brain injuries are raising fresh concerns about the toll of the Iran war on American troops who are suffering those wounds during a conflict without a clear end. Nearly 700 U.S. service members have been wounded by drone and missile attacks on bases in the Middle East and other fighting. Most have experienced traumatic brain injuries and returned to duty, according to public statements from military officials.

The Pentagon's chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, last month called the vast majority of injuries over a two-week period "minor concussions.”

Doctors can't predict who may have lasting effects from a TBI

Concussions often are termed “mild” TBIs, and many people recover within weeks. But sometimes those with seemingly mild initial symptoms go on to have problems persisting for months or years, such as headaches, dizziness or difficulties with memory or attention that's sometimes called “brain fog.”

Doctors have no way to predict who will suffer lasting problems, a vexing enough question that there’s medical debate over whether to retire the term “mild TBI.” Repeated blows are known to increase the chances of lasting problems, including a degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It has gained attention for links to deaths in the National Football League and other sports.

It’s imperative that people recover from a concussion before doing activities that put them at increased risk of another, said Dr. David Okonkwo, a University of Pittsburgh brain trauma specialist.

Doctors also are still learning how explosive blasts injure the brain versus a physical blow.

“The blast wave itself can be injurious,” said Dr. James Kelly, an emeritus professor of neurology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and chief medical scientist at the Invisible Wounds Foundation, which is focused on military brain injuries. “It’s a different cellular injury. Blast is a different thing than a blunt injury to the head.”

Troops have been facing a new type of warfare with Iran in which drones may explode closer to their heads, as opposed to the ground-level roadside bombs and improvised explosives that were more common in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Democratic lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the care that wounded troops received following an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait that killed six U.S. soldiers early in the war. Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin pressed the military in a letter on Wednesday to release the findings of its investigation into the March 1 attack.

“I spoke directly with Wisconsinites who sustained traumatic brain injuries from (President Donald) Trump’s war in Iran and went weeks without so much as a screening, let alone specialized care, for their injuries,” Baldwin said in a statement.

Defense Health Agency spokesman Peter Graves said in an email that “it is policy that service members are screened for TBI.”

Experts say the military has made strides in screening and treating TBIs, a signature injury in Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 500,000 service members were diagnosed between 2000 and 2025, with 82% of cases considered mild and not all of them related to combat. But advocates say the injuries could still be undercounted because symptoms often overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

A TBI diagnosis can emerge years later

Neither of the two blasts Shearer experienced in Iraq produced obvious injuries, and medics prioritized Marines who were more badly hurt.

“You don’t want to be the guy who goes to sick call or says, ‘Oh, I’m hurt,’ because you’re away from your team,” Shearer said. “There’s this culture of you don’t want to be seen as lesser or weak, so you hide injuries inherently.”

When he came home at age 19, he denied he had PTSD and didn't know what a TBI was. Plagued by nightmares, sleeplessness and headaches, he initially turned to drugs to self-medicate and considered suicide.

Shearer eventually got help for PTSD, but it took years for him to consider that he suffered traumatic brain injuries. He was working for the Wounded Warrior Project and screening fellow vets for TBIs when he realized he checked many of the same boxes.

He's since been diagnosed and received treatment. But challenges remain, including vertigo and light sensitivity. He also forgets important conversations with his family.

“I know that some of that stuff is stereotypical, but for me, it's got a different ring to it,” Shearer said. “There will be no memory of the conversation happening.”

The brain can adapt with treatments and therapies

Memory loss is something Army veteran Frank Sonntag also experienced following a TBI from a mortar blast in Iraq in 2004.

He was in his 50s and training reservists when he felt a blast of wind against his ear from an explosion 70 feet (21 meters) away. He didn’t know he was hurt and didn't seek treatment for two years, ignoring intensifying headaches and brain fog.

It got to the point where it took 30 minutes to write an email, while colleagues told him he spoke one word every 10 seconds. He considered suicide and was diagnosed only after he got lost driving home. Neurologists prescribed medication for his migraines, among other treatments.

“Speech therapy was one of the greatest things I had,” added Sonntag, 75, of Queen Creek, Arizona. “They taught me how to practice the words I was speaking and how to put sentences together again.”

Kelly Parker, director of independent services at the Wounded Warrior Project, said it's hard to predict an injury's trajectory.

“If you've seen one TBI, you've seen one TBI," she said.

Screening, early treatment and support can be crucial to returning to a more normal life. Physical, speech and art therapies can lead to improvements, she said.

“There’s still so much we don’t know about the brain, but one thing that we do know is it can heal itself,” Parker said. “We know that new neural pathways can be created, and we absolutely believe that the brain can adapt. We've seen it happen.”

Army veteran Spencer Milo said some people struggle to understand why he's still dealing with migraines, seizures and forgetfulness after so many years out of uniform.

His first TBI occurred in Iraq in 2008, when his Humvee smashed into a wall to evade fire. His second came from the blast of a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2011.

“I’ve had fellow service members that were even with me on those days, and they’re like, ‘Dude, why can’t you just kick it?’” said Milo, 41, of Parker, Colorado. “I really wish it was that simple. It’s tough because when you can’t see something, it’s hard to believe that it’s really there.”

In the document, prosecutors accuse Yinon Levi, who lives in the south of the West Bank, of reckless manslaughter in the death of prominent Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in July 2025. The charge holds a lesser punishment than murder under Israeli law. The indictment also charges Levi with armed trespassing and malicious property damage.

It is extremely rare for Israel to charge settlers with violence against Palestinians. Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that the charges against Levi mark the first time since Oct. 7, 2023, that an Israeli has been indicted for the death of a Palestinian in the West Bank. In that time, the group said, Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed at least 1,100 Palestinians in the territory.

A lawyer for Levi, Avichay Hajbi, did not confirm whether an indictment was handed down, but told The Associated Press that the prosecution had made a “mistaken decision.” He said the defense would respond to the accusations in court.

Levi was shown in video footage shooting at crowds of Palestinians in Hathaleen’s village, Umm al-Khair, on the day the activist was killed. Witnesses said one of the shots Levi fired struck Hathaleen, who was standing meters away.

One video showed Levi firing two shots, while another, which family members say was taken by Hathaleen himself, showed Levi firing toward the person holding the camera. The footage cuts, but the person can still be heard moaning in pain.

Hathaleen was a prominent voice advocating against settler violence and was involved in the 2025 Oscar-winning film “No Other Land,” which chronicled the fight by Palestinian residents to protect their homes and villages. A teacher and father of three, he often hosted international activists and dignitaries in his home.

His public profile and the videos capturing the moment of the alleged shooting ignited global calls for Levi’s prosecution.

Levi was among the Israeli settlers sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries over allegations of violence toward Palestinians in 2024. U.S. President Donald Trump lifted the U.S. sanctions after taking office the following year.

The primaries were upended just three months before the vote when the Republican-led Legislature redrew congressional districts following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that weakened federal Voting Rights Act protection for minorities. President Donald Trump cheered the redistricting as part of a national plan to try to help Republicans hold on to their slim House majority.

Trump has endorsed state Sen. Brent Taylor in the four-person Republican primary for the significantly reshaped 9th Congressional District, which now stretches about 200 miles (320 kilometers) east from Memphis before reaching north toward the Nashville area. The district, which previously favored Democrats, now tilts toward Republicans, and some Memphis voters have raised concerns that their representation has been diminished.

After the redistricting, longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen announced that he would no longer seek reelection in the 9th District. Cohen's primary challenger, Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson, then was joined by state Sen. London Lamar in what became a four-person contest.

Pearson gained national attention in 2023 when he was expelled by the Republican-led state House for protesting in support of gun control measures following a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Memphis voters later reelected him.

Republicans currently hold eight of the state's nine congressional seats.

Memphis voters voice dismay over redistricting

For decades Memphis, the most populous city in Shelby County, formed the base of its own congressional district. Now the county is split among three districts that extend outward like spokes into rural areas.

Lonzo Taylor, a retired postal worker and military veteran, said Black voters like himself have had their voices diluted.

“We only had one district in the whole state of Tennessee, and you don’t even want that to be fair? It’s just terrible,” said Taylor, 72. “I love this state, but I am very disappointed in our governor,” who called lawmakers into a special session for the redistricting.

Milla Meiman, 23, who voted early in the Democratic primary, said she did not realize the congressional map had changed until receiving a letter about it in the mail.

“It’s a drastic change to have your district sort of switched around like that,” said Meiman, who works part time at an ice cream shop and public library. Meiman added: “I think it’s a voter suppression tactic.”

Terrice Thomas, 45, an educator who votes for Democrats, had to learn a lot more about the candidates when she got switched from District 9 to District 8. She is concerned Memphis constituents could get overlooked.

“Is everybody going to have an equal say on what’s happening in their communities or even the people that you’re voting for?” Thomas said. “Are they going to really take into account the different areas and what makes us unique?”

Congressman Ogles facing a GOP challenger in the 5th District

The cracking apart of Memphis sent ripples throughout the state, also significantly reshaping the 5th Congressional District held by Republican Rep. Andy Ogles, a conservative Freedom Caucus member who is seeking reelection and was endorsed by Trump.

He faces a primary challenge from Charlie Hatcher, a former state agriculture commissioner under Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who has endorsed Hatcher for Congress.

Previously centered on Nashville and central Tennessee, the district now extends to the northwest corner of the state before snaking south along the Mississippi River to Memphis. Along the way it touches the borders of Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Ogles has faced controversy. His cellphone was seized by the FBI in 2024 as part of an investigation into his campaign finance reporting. But the Justice Department recently agreed to return the device, signaling that it was abandoning the probe, which began under the Biden administration.

On the Democratic side, the five-way primary features Columbia Mayor Chaz Molder, who has continued to run in the reshaped district despite being drawn out of it.

Candidates vie for an open Republican House seat in the 6th District

Republican U.S. Rep. John Rose is forgoing reelection in the 6th District to run for governor instead. That created a contentious primary for the Republican-leaning district, which stretches east from Nashville.

The four Republican candidates include state Rep. Johnny Garrett and Rose’s recent chief of staff, former U.S. Rep. Van Hilleary, who served eight years in Congress before losing a gubernatorial bid in 2002. Five Democrats also are seeking the seat.

Voters also pick candidates for governor and Senate

Rose and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn are among three Republicans and five Democrats running to succeed Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who is barred by term limits from seeking reelection. Blackburn, who won her second six-year Senate term in 2024, would have to give the seat up if elected.

Republicans have held the governor's office since 2011 and won every U.S. Senate election since 1994. Sen. Bill Hagerty is unopposed in this year's Republican primary, though numerous Democrats and independents are battling for the chance to challenge him.

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The story has been updated to correct the day of the primary election to Thursday, from Tuesday.

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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

Confirmed cases in the outbreak, meanwhile, reached 3,973, including 1,801 deaths, according to the government data as of Tuesday published on Thursday. It is the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record, behind the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak that recorded more than 28,000 cases, including over 11,000 deaths.

The health workers are protesting at the governor’s office in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, which accounts for nearly 90% of the Ebola cases in the country. They are the latest group to walk off their jobs since protests over pay issues began weeks ago.

The health workers, including nurses providing critical care to Ebola patients, said they haven't received wages and bonuses for their work fighting Ebola since the outbreak was declared in mid-May in one of Congo’s most remote and vulnerable areas ravaged by rebel conflict.

“With this way of managing things, Ebola will not end in this province. We ask the authorities to get involved at all levels so that a solution is found quickly,” said Edouige Makosi, one of the protesters.

Officials have in the past blamed logistical issues for the payment delays. Congolese authorities did not immediately respond to an inquiry for comments on Thursday.

Poor welfare for frontline workers has been a key source of concern in the outbreak. Apart from the payment issues, many health workers and facilities have been attacked by rebels and angry mobs.

During his visit to Congo on Wednesday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged authorities to prioritize care and support for the responders.

The medical charity Doctors Without Borders said this week that the outbreak is still “spreading at an alarming and unprecedented rate” and that the response which has been expanding with more steps “is still not reaching communities quickly enough to break transmission chains.”

Government data shows 674 patients are currently in isolation, most of them in Ituri.

At least 75% of contacts being traced after their exposure to patients, the data showed. A bigger concern, though, according to officials, is that 60-70% of the new cases are coming from outside of those contacts, and are mostly from remote localities where rebel conflict and mining-related movements are limiting access.

The federal agent said he shot Sanchez Barbosa in self defense amid a fight that broke out when agents tried to make an arrest — and as the migrants were trying to retreat across the border.

More than eight months later, the fatal shooting remains under investigation by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Office of Professional Responsibility for Customs and Border Protection, the agency overseeing Border Patrol. Citing those ongoing probes, both agencies have repeatedly declined to release information and refused to immediately provide whatever body and dash camera footage may exist, as well as radio communications and incident reports.

Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez told The Texas Tribune that a grand jury in June declined to indict the Border Patrol agent.

“From my office’s perspective, the criminal investigation is closed,” he said. 

The Tribune identified Sanchez Barbosa and the Border Patrol agent, Armando Flores, from court records released this week in the case, including the autopsy, the grand jury’s finding and a 8-month-old search warrant that the lead investigator never filed with the court until the Tribune inquired about its existence. (A DPS spokesperson blamed a “clerical error,” although county officials said the mistake was on the Texas Ranger.)

Despite rising scrutiny and criticism of federal immigration agents over their deadly use of force under President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda, Sanchez Barbosa’s case has received little media attention and generated no public outcry.

The shooting in the Rio Grande Valley predates other high-profile killings by federal immigration agents this year that have roiled the nation, including that of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston by officers also claiming self defense. The construction worker, who had lived in Texas for more than three decades and had no prior deportation order or criminal record, was shot and killed last month during what experts said was an alarming move by two unmarked vehicles to box in his white van. 

Federal officials said Salgado Araujo “weaponized” his van against them. As has been the case in many other such shootings, the unnamed federal agents were not wearing body cameras and the agency said dash cam footage was not available. 

The little-known Starr County case boosts the tally of known fatal shootings by immigration agents in Texas to at least three since Trump returned to the White House. 

In March 2025, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez, a U.S. citizen, was in South Padre Island when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers fatally shot him during a traffic stop in which they also accused Martinez, who had no criminal record, of having used his car as a “weapon.” That case wasn’t made public until this spring when details of the shooting emerged in an unrelated records lawsuit.

A Cameron County grand jury declined to indict the federal agent involved. But in that case, DPS, which investigated Martinez’s death, quickly released body camera footage and other records after the grand jury’s decision not to criminally charge the officer.

Ericka Miller, a DPS spokesperson, said in an email that the Texas Rangers investigation in the Starr County case remains open for “administrative reasons,” but did not elaborate.

Major Carlos Delgado, a spokesperson for the Starr County Sheriff’s Office, similarly did not answer questions, pointing to the ongoing DPS investigation. The county judge, Eloy Vera, did not respond to emails, calls or texts to his cellphone. 

Sanchez Barbosa’s family could not be reached. Officials with the Mexican Consulate, who repatriated his body, did not respond to questions, and neither did officials with the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Mexico.

According to a Border Patrol statement posted on the agency’s website, agents were in the area conducting “targeted enforcement.” The notice of the death, which is required by Congress, was quietly posted Dec. 17, six days after the shooting. It alleged that agents spotted people “in camouflage.” At about 4 p.m. on Dec. 11, an unknown number of Border Patrol officers approached the group, who then “attempted to abscond to Mexico,” according to the statement. 

One agent tried to arrest Sanchez Barbosa, who along with the officer who fired the shots was not named in the report. 

Within four minutes of officers approaching the group, an agent radioed in reporting a fight had erupted and that he needed help, according to CBP’s statement. Less than an hour later, doctors at a local hospital declared Sanchez Barbosa dead from three gunshot wounds.

Sanchez Barbosa had no known criminal history or family in the U.S., had never previously come here, and was from a largely rural and impoverished area in southern Mexico, according to an official familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Policing experts say that the Starr County case raises questions about the deadly use of force in a situation where migrants were trying to go back to Mexico. 

“The goal, most of the time, of Border Patrol or other immigration authorities, is to keep undocumented people who don’t have a legal right to be in this country, out,” said Chris Magnus, a veteran police chief who served as CBP commissioner under the Biden administration. “So if these particular individuals are headed back to Mexico, I’m trying to figure out here if they have any reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause, to believe that they are, for example, in possession of guns or that they’ve been engaged in some other illegal activity.”

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., said the details of the case sparked his interest after the fatal shooting of Renee Good, an American citizen and 37-year-old mother of three who immigrant agents killed after she was leaving a Minneapolis protest in her car earlier this year. Video footage calls into question the Department of Homeland Security’s accounts that Good tried to run over the agent. 

“After months of having DHS tell clear falsehoods about shootings caught on video, I doubted its account here where no film had surfaced,” said Bier, who first obtained some records in Sanchez Barbosa’s death. “This case had all the hallmarks of those later cases: An apparently unarmed victim who was retreating, a quick DHS statement exonerating the agent and very few other details.”

It is unclear if the Border Patrol agents involved were wearing body cameras, although other officers who responded to the emergency call did have them on, according to Starr County dispatch records. 

The Texas Ranger investigating the shooting, Bryan Rodriguez, sought a search warrant in December so that he could scour a private ranch where the shooting occurred. The location, he wrote in the document released to the Tribune this week, possibly contained evidence of an attempted “assault on a public servant,” including “bludgeons, clubs, club-like instruments, and blunt-like instruments or devices capable of use as a weapon,” as well as perhaps guns and knives, he alleged. 

Ramirez, the district attorney, said no weapons were found from that search. 

The dispatch logs show that at least one Border Patrol agent, Jawuan Wallace, was fingerprinted at 11:25 p.m. that day. An unnamed CBP spokesperson wrote in a statement to the Tribune that Wallace was not the agent who fired the fatal shots, but declined to identify the agent who did or why Wallace was fingerprinted.

He is the only listed Border Patrol agent to go through that procedure, according to the available logs. 

CBP did not respond to questions about Flores, the agent named as the shooter in the grand jury documents, and whether he was fingerprinted, what training he had before the deadly shooting as well as if he gave an interview to the Texas Rangers and his current employment status. 

Officials with a local funeral home transported Sanchez Barbosa to McAllen for an autopsy, which wasn’t made public until the district attorney provided a copy to the Tribune this week.

According to that document, Sanchez Barbosa suffered a “close range gunshot” wound to his right and left chest, as well as his right forearm. It fractured his left rib, tearing apart his right and left lungs. He was wearing a green, torn blood-stained long-sleeve shirt, black underwear and black tennis shoes, according to the report. 

The district attorney said he did not speak to Sanchez Barbosa’s family and CBP and DPS spokespeople did not answer questions about whether their officers did.

Magnus, the former CBP commissioner who now serves on the Honolulu Policing Commission, questioned why deadly force was necessary in this case. 

According to DHS’ 2018 policy, “deadly force shall not be used solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject.” But it states that it could be authorized if the officer has a “reasonable belief” that a person poses a “significant threat of death or serious physical harm to the (law enforcement officer) or others.” It is unclear if this policy remains in effect as DHS and CBP spokespeople did not respond to questions about it. 

Most other state and local law enforcement agencies generally prohibit or discourage the use of force for people who are fleeing unless they pose a significant risk to the broader public, according to experts.

“There’s just really nothing about this that sounds on the level,” Magnus said. “Was there any attempt made to avoid the use of force? Maybe most importantly, is this use of force proportional to the situation? Somebody is trying to run from you back to Mexico, how would deadly force be a proportional response to that type of a situation?”

That so many questions remain months later is “stunning,” said Bier of the Cato Institute.

He questioned whether investigating authorities sought statements from other witnesses, including the migrants in the group with Sanchez Barbosa, and if law enforcement officials independently interviewed Flores, the agent who fired the shots. 

Bier noted that the initial statement CBP issued did not state that the officer used force to prevent serious injury, either to himself or the public. 

“So why was it justified?” Bier asked. “An administration that has repeatedly lost the confidence of the public should be open and transparent about the evidence that it used to conclude that this shooting was justified.”

• RINSE & REPEAT: Highs in the upper-90s today, heat index 102-105
• SMALL RAIN CHANCE: Friday through Monday, “best” chance Sunday
• TROPICS EERILY QUIET: No development expected, another plume of dust

FORECAST

CONTINUED HOT & HUMID

South Texas is in the throes of summer and it shows. Expect hot, humid, and dry conditions today. Highs will be in the upper-90s, while the heat index will peak in the low-100s.

SMALL RAIN CHANCE

Any real trigger for rainfall remains non-existent, but a few airmass, pop-up showers are possible Friday through Monday. Sunday may present a slightly better shot at rainfall, mainly for those east of I-35.

TROPICS: DUSTY AND DRY

The Atlantic remains very quiet, with hardly any tropical activity. Wind shear and a significant plume of dust should keep it that way through mid-August. August is a month in which tropical activity usually picks up, however, this season is expected to be below-average.

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President Min Aung Hlaing's two-day visit with members of his Cabinet included meetings with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and other officials at Government House, where several memorandums of understanding were signed covering Myanmar migrant workers, water quality management in rivers shared by the two countries and space technology for Earth observation.

At the meeting with Anutin, Min Aung Hlaing sought to reassure Thailand that his government was restoring stability and steering Myanmar toward democracy.

“Myanmar has now reestablished itself on the path to democracy and is moving toward a better future,” Min Aung Hlaing said. “As the new government, we have now begun working on national stability, peace, and national reconciliation.”

Following the meetings, the two leaders delivered speeches at a Thailand-Myanmar Business Forum.

Anutin said Thailand and Myanmar are ready to “step into the new chapter of economic cooperation that is built upon mutual trust and benefit for the people of the two countries.”

Min Aung Hlaing told attendees they could “invest with confidence” in Myanmar’s energy, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, technology and other sectors

The visit has drawn criticism from activist groups such as Justice For Myanmar, which stated that the trip lends “false legitimacy” to Min Aung Hlaing and the ruling generals.

Min Aung Hlaing took a significant step toward would-be political rehabilitation in April when he was sworn in as president following an election held in phases in December and January. Critics dismissed the polls as a sham designed to consolidate the military’s grip on power while ostensibly restoring civilian rule.

The diplomatic outreach is the latest in a series of moves to reengage with countries in the region and the international community after relations became frayed or frosty following Min Aung Hlaing's ousting of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021 while serving as army chief.

Western nations have shunned Myanmar's ruling generals

Western governments have shunned and sanctioned Min Aung Hlaing and his associates for overthrowing Suu Kyi's government. Subsequent serious rights violations followed a deadly military crackdown on protests, which subsequently triggered a nationwide armed resistance movement and a bloody civil war.

The visit is among Min Aung Hlaing’s most significant diplomatic engagements and the latest in a series of trips to neighboring countries, including China, India and Laos, as he seeks to strengthen regional ties since assuming the presidency in April. Despite visits to those countries and close relations with Russia, he has remained largely isolated internationally.

While he attempts to refurbish his image, Myanmar's military continues to wage a brutal war across much of the country against pro-democracy resistance fighters and armed ethnic minority groups seeking greater autonomy.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an independent organization that keeps detailed tallies of arrests and casualties linked to the civil war, more than 8,200 civilians have been killed and 31,645 arrested by Myanmar's security forces as of Wednesday.

Chit Seng, a senior human rights specialist at Fortify Rights, argued last month that changing from a military uniform into a “presidential robe” after fake elections does not alter the fundamental nature of the military government. She described it as a “brutal regime” that kills its own people and should not be legitimized.

Only about a dozen people turned up for a protest of the visit outside the U.N.’s regional headquarters in Bangkok, where they chanted in support of the resistance forces in Myanmar and to wish for Min Aung Hlaing’s downfall.

Ousted leader Suu Kyi was allowed a rare visitor

In another effort to placate critics, the regime allowed a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit 81-year-old Suu Kyi this week, the first known contact with an outside international independent humanitarian organization since her detention. The ICRC confirmed the visit but disclosed no details about her health or the contents of the meeting.

She was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison in late 2022, on what her supporters and rights groups said were bogus charges intended to prevent her return to politics.

On April 30, she was moved from prison to house arrest and her sentence was reduced to 18 years, with more than 13 years left to serve. The United Nations, Western governments and international human rights organizations have repeatedly called for her immediate release.

Min Aung Hlaing's visit to Thailand is part of a broader series of trips to neighboring countries as the 70-year-old Min Aung Hlaing seeks to restore his standing within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He faced years of diplomatic isolation following his 2021 takeover and was barred from top-level ASEAN meetings for failing to comply with a peace plan agreed upon in April 2021.

Thai leader says stable Myanmar is crucial for region

Bangkok has maintained close ties with Myanmar’s military leadership and has emerged as the strongest advocate within ASEAN for renewed engagement with Naypyitaw.

Although the visit officially concerns bilateral relations, Anutin declared during a visit to Indonesia on Tuesday that a peaceful and stable Myanmar is essential to ASEAN unity and regional stability. He acknowledged Thailand has advocated for a “calibrated re-engagement approach” that keeps dialogue open and responds to “realities on the ground,” and suggested that the recent ICRC visit to Suu Kyi validated this position.

Thanida Piyachot, another human rights specialist at Fortify Rights, disagreed, saying that recognizing Min Aung Hlaing as a legitimate leader and “shaking the bloodied hands of a war criminal” sends the wrong message to civilians suffering under an “illegitimate military dictatorship.”

She urged Thailand and ASEAN to stop hiding behind non-interference policies and to take proactive roles in promoting human rights in Myanmar.

World soccer's governing body attempted to present a unified front amid the turbulence caused by Infantino's controversial plans, with calls for him to step down.

In a statement, FIFA said Secretary-General Mattias Grafström and members of the management board in attendance in Rabat had given their support to the embattled president.

Referring to the plans to sell profits in the World Cup through a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE), the statement said “mistakes made were acknowledged” and that the “process should have been handled differently."

FIFA said a letter had been sent to FIFA Council and member associations apologizing for errors and committed to “ensure they do not happen again.”

Grafström’s stated support was notable after he distanced himself from Infantino’s now abandoned plans in an email to all FIFA staff calling the last week a “sad and reproachable series of events.”

FIFA said Infantino had also reaffirmed his support for his secretary general.

World soccer’s governing body said the FFE proposal was “now off the table.”

“There are always lessons to be learned, and FIFA will continue to improve its processes in light of this experience,” it said.

‘Serious questions’

Earlier Wednesday, the association of European soccer leagues — including the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A — called for governance reform of FIFA. It described the FFE proposal as “dangerous” and said it pointed to deeper concerns about how the governing body operates.

It said it raised “serious questions about FIFA’s governance, internal culture and decision-making.”

“Now more than ever, FIFA requires governance reform that ensures that all relevant stakeholders have a formal role in decisions that shape the future of our game.”

In the statement, European Leagues hit out at the possibility of further expanding the World Cup to 64 teams and said “FIFA must not be allowed to continue taking unilaterally disruptive decisions.”

It said that until there was reform it would reject the “expansion or creation” of FIFA competitions.

Portugal and Real Madrid great Luis Figo also called for Infantino to step down, saying he had “debased the office.”

FIFA denied a British media report suggesting Infantino, in seeking support for his presidency, had offered Morocco the hosting of the final at the 2030 World Cup. Spain, Portugal and Morocco are the main co-hosts for the 2030 edition. Morocco hopes to host the final at the planned 115,000-seat King Hassan II Stadium near Casablanca; Spain has at least two contenders — the home stadiums of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

A FIFA spokesperson said it’s “false and misleading to claim the FIFA president has made any promise in relation to hosting the FIFA World Cup 2030 final. A decision will be made by FIFA in due course.”

Canada’s Carney raises concerns

Also Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he no longer has confidence in Infantino. He said the FIFA president committed a “fatal” governance failure by not consulting senior advisers.

“Certainly I don’t have confidence in Mr. Infantino,” said Carney, who had appeared alongside Infantino at several events during the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States.

A tumultuous week have raised questions about Infantino’s presidency of FIFA ahead of elections in March.

European soccer’s governing body UEFA has applied the most intense pressure by voting to boycott the World Cup if Infantino pressed ahead with FFE.

Even after Infantino’s climbdown UEFA said it had lost confidence in FIFA’s leadership — possibly paving the way for a challenge to his presidency. The governing body for North and Central American and Caribbean soccer (CONCACAF) also said FIFA leadership had “stopped putting football first.”

There have also been signs of division within the organization with chief of global football development Arsène Wenger distancing himself from the FFE plans. Infantino’s senior adviser Carlos Cordeiro resigned last week and chief operating officer Kevin Lamour said staff were “deceived” by the president’s lack of openness.

Infantino is aiming to win a fourth and final term in office at the March elections.

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James Robson is at https://x.com/jamesalanrobson

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

A rare chord change on Wednesday — from seven notes to eight — represented the completion of about 4% of the 639-year endeavor of the John Cage Organ Project Halberstadt.

It was a historic moment inside the medieval Burchardi Church, in Halberstadt, Germany, that reflected the past, present and future of the project, as well as those who are following its — albeit very slow — progression.

“As fast as our world is developing, I think it’s a wonderful place to be and to come to yourself and just to be touched by this ‘being there,’"said Anneli Borgmann, chairwoman of the John Cage Organ Project Halberstadt’s board of trustees.

While the project commenced in 2000, the performance began Sept. 5, 2001 — Cage’s 89th birthday — with a silent pause that lasted until Feb. 5, 2003, when the first chords could actually be heard.

The composition — called “ORGAN²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)” — is scheduled to finish on Sept. 4, 2640.

An electric-powered blower system sends wind into the organ to create a continuous sound. A chord change, done manually, means that the sound of the organ pipes changes either because new sounds are added or existing sounds end.

More than 150 people squeezed inside the church Wednesday to witness what was the piece’s 17th chord change, with dozens more watching a livestream outside.

For three minutes, the crowd listened to the “old” chord with its seven pipes. Then, an eighth pipe was slotted into the small organ, bringing with it a new sound that reverberated throughout the church. The spectators listened for another three minutes — some filming with cellphones, others taking it all in with their eyes closed and heads bowed — before breaking out into applause and cries of “bravo!”

“It’s a very subtle difference,” said Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the John Cage Trust in New York. “There’s a higher sound that’s a little more prominent.”

Cage’s music inspires after his death

Cage, an American avant-garde composer, was born in Los Angeles in 1912 and died in New York in 1992. He was also a renowned music theorist, artist and philosopher whose only direction for this piece was to play it as slowly and as softly as possible. He initially composed it for the piano in 1985 and updated it for the organ in 1987. It was reimagined into the 639-year project after his death.

The interpretation of the composition in Halberstadt has resulted in the smallest unit being one month long. Other units — as well as silences — can last years.

The project has transformed the Burchardi Church, which was left largely in ruins before money was raised for a new roof and other fixes to make the piece a reality. The sound there envelopes visitors throughout the church and gives them new experiences to hear as they move through the empty space.

“I think it really is the organ playing the church and not the other way around,” Lependorf said. “You move two inches in any direction and it sounds not subtly different — very different.”

Generations of stewards ensure organ’s future

The piece will last 639 years, from 2001 to 2640. The time frame was chosen to be a tribute to a historic organ in Halberstadt that dates back to 1361, or 639 years before the project was initiated in 2000, according to Borgmann.

The time frame allows the project’s stewards and visitors to contemplate not only Cage’s legacy but their own as guardians of an organ that will outlive them as each chord change depends upon a new generation of musicians, volunteers and craftspeople to keep the piece going.

Cage fan Michael Barnett, 55, from Glasgow, in Scotland, said attending the chord change was a bucket list item.

“This is just one of those things, one of those unique things in the world of music,” he said. “It comes up and you think ‘I just want to do this thing once.’”

Barnett and other enthusiasts also debate what the world will look like by the end of the piece.

“You just wonder what will be left here in 600-odd years time,” Barnett said. “Who will come to the last performance? Will the building still be here? Will the organ still work? What will the world be like?”

The organ, at least, is built to last.

Organ builder Johannes Hüfken said the pipes he’s crafted for this will last at least another 500 years.

“This John Cage project is a good example of thinking ahead for the next generation — thinking outside the box, beyond the completely normal and traditional,” he said.

The next chord change will take place on Oct. 5, 2027, when the overall sound will be reduced by releasing the E4 pipe.

Inheritable “final tickets” for the Sept. 4, 2640, finale are already being sold for 2,640 euros ($3,045).

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Markus Schreiber contributed to this report.

It's dangerous to look directly at the sun without proper eye protection. But researchers were able to peek at its scorching surface with the help of the National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Scientists originally took the images for a different reason: to fine-tune and test the limits of the telescope. But when they looked at the results, they realized they'd photographed the sun's bright outer shell at higher resolution than ever before.

What's more, they saw strange feathery patterns rippling across the surface.

“That reminds me of famous paintings, like the swirling skies in Van Gogh's Starry Night,” said solar physicist Ruizhu Chen with Stanford University, who was not involved with the new research.

Researchers saw ripples of instability on the sun's surface caused by bits of magnetized plasma moving past each other at different speeds — similar to waves that stir when a gust of wind blows over water. It's a well-known phenomenon that guides how fluids move.

This has been glimpsed on Earth and other planets like Jupiter and Saturn, but “it has not been observed ever at that level on the solar surface,” according to study co-author Friedrich Wöger with the National Solar Observatory.

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Scientists are curious about the sun's inner workings to better track massive bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections that can hurl toward Earth. When they hit, they can trigger solar storms, potentially scrambling GPS communications and producing colorful auroras.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Officials reported Wednesday that firefighters had established containment lines around the perimeters of all three fires affecting Spokane and that they were focused on reinforcing those lines. Temperatures were expected to climb from the 80s the past two days into the upper 90s (36-37 degrees Celsius), with less humidity, late this week.

The fires — one of which authorities say was deliberately set by a man who was arrested and charged with arson — have destroyed about 850 buildings and forced the evacuation of around 67,000 people since they erupted last weekend. Damage assessment crews have yet to tally exactly how many houses have been lost or damaged. No deaths have been reported.

The other two fires were also started by people, though not necessarily deliberately, investigators have said. They remain under investigation. Those fires, the Autumn Lane and Fairview fires, started independently of the arson-caused Old Trails Fire, they said.

Unclear how long evacuations will last

Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels said during a Wednesday news conference that the evacuation zones will remain in place due to incoming weather and fire danger.

“We are not going to be downgrading these zones in any large way for many, many more days to come," he said. “If we let people back in and we don’t have a high degree of certainty the fire lines will hold, we will put people in danger.”

Many evacuees remained in a shelter set up in a Spokane convention center, at hotels or rentals, or at the homes of friends or relatives, with no idea of how soon they might go back — if they have a house to return to.

“We figured it would be a day or two, not four or five. It’s not the best situation,” said Debra Curran, who has been staying at the convention center since Saturday with her husband, who has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Their house survived, but her husband would need to be transported by ambulance, which officials won't do until the fire risk in their neighborhood drops.

Among those under evacuation orders are patients and staff from the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane. When the fire approached on Saturday, the staff moved 27 patients to local hospitals and temporary shelters, said Bret Bowers, a spokesperson for the center. The medical center was not burned in the fire but several staff lost their homes.

Adam Wilson, a communications officer at the Washington State Auditor's Office, fled Saturday with his wife and three children, ages 9, 14 and 16. They had moved into their Spokane home a little over a month earlier and were still unpacking, he said.

Since then, they've stayed at a hotel 90 minutes to the south and with his father in Idaho. This weekend, they'll move again, to a rental home in Spokane that their insurance is covering.

Their house is fine, Wilson said, despite flames that leveled an entire cul-de-sac just two blocks away, leaving only chimneys standing in some cases. The neighborhood remains under an evacuation order. Even if they could return, there's no power and no internet service, and no information about how soon either will be restored.

“What you really want to hear, nobody can tell you,” Wilson said. “It is oddly emotional and disorienting. We did not lose any property. From the outside it looks like a family trip — ‘Hey, kids, we’re going to go visit Papa for a week, pack your bags.' ... And yet you feel like something isn't right.”

Bad fire season strains resources

The fires were among dozens across the Western U.S. that have stretched the ability of federal, state and local agencies to fight them. In Washington, there are 16 uncontained wildfires burning more than 672 square miles (1,740 square km) and being fought by more than 7,000 fire personnel, said Thomas Kyle-Milward, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Natural Resources.

“We’re looking down the barrel at one of the worst fire seasons in state history,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said Wednesday that senators had received a briefing from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Wildland Fire Service Director Brian Fennessy, who assured them that keeping firefighting assets, including ground crews and aircraft, in the Northwest is a priority.

“We are still at the highest risk in the nation and appreciate being the highest resourced,” Cantwell said in a written statement.

The man charged with starting the Old Trails Fire, Aaron F. Farinacci, 37, of Spokane, was expected to be arraigned Thursday. According to court documents, he was arrested after a resident reported him being in the area where the fire began. He denied having started it when questioned by deputies.

Authorities said they previously contacted him during two fire investigations last year, including one in a state park that prompted evacuation notices, though he wasn’t charged in either.

In California, authorities said Wednesday that they arrested a 65-year-old man on suspicion of sparking a major wildfire by recklessly operating equipment without complying with state fire prevention requirements. Prosecutors will determine whether to file criminal charges. The blaze that erupted Monday had scorched nearly 15 square miles (39 square kilometers) of forest in Calaveras County southeast of Sacramento.

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This story has been corrected to show that the last name of the VA medical center spokesperson is Bowers, not Bower.

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Johnson and Bellisle reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Ed White contributed from Detroit.

Investigators searched the Starbucks headquarters in southern Seoul on Tuesday, police said Wednesday.

Police gave no further details, but South Korean media reported investigators also were sent to the residences of Starbucks executives.

The coffee chain triggered a public uproar when it attempted to promote a series of stainless-steel tumblers it called “SS Tank” by declaring May 18 to be “Tank Day.” The date marks the anniversary of a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southern city of Gwangju that was brutally oppressed by South Korea's then military-backed rulers.

The campaign also used the slogan “Thwack it on the table!” which many read as a reference to a notorious 1987 police statement that attempted to cover up the torture death of student activist Park Jong-chol. Authorities had falsely said Park died after investigators “hit the desk with a thwack.”

The public outrage prompted Shinsegae Group, which owns a 67.5% stake in Starbucks Korea, to cancel the campaign within hours. It also fired the chief executive of Starbucks Korea. Shinsegae Chairman Chung Yong-jin later issued a televised apology. Starbucks Korea closed all of its stores nationwide early on June 22 for mandatory history and social sensitivity training.

The police investigation was launched following complaints from relatives of the victims of the Gwangju crackdown, which official records say left about 200 people dead.

South Korea achieved a genuine democracy in 1987 when then authoritarian President Chun Doo-hwan, who led the Gwangju crackdown, was forced to accept a constitutional revision introducing direct presidential elections in the face of massive pro-democracy demonstrations.

It was an emphatic celebration for the 29-year-old left-hander after striking out the first batter he faced in his major league debut during the Mets' 6-5 win in Cleveland on Wednesday night.

“Honestly, I was really excited. I was also a little nervous,” Yan said through a translator.

Yan's viral moment came after pinch-hitter Angel Martínez took an 88.7 mph slider for a called third strike to open the Guardians sixth. After the leap and slap, Yan stood straight up with his feet together and lifted both arms over his head.

“Once I had him with two strikes I said, you know what, I'm going to throw that slider,” he said. “And if I freeze him, which is exactly what I did, I celebrated accordingly.”

That was already a signature celebration for Yan, who did the same after striking out a batter in a Mets spring training game earlier this year.

After Martínez struck out, the Guardians loaded the bases on two singles and a walk. But Yan escaped without giving up a run with his second strikeout and an inning-ending grounder.

“Once I was able to get out of the inning, I said, you know, I can finally breathe right here," he said.

Mets interim manager Andy Green added: “It’s real stuff. It’s really impressive. To get out of a bases-loaded jam, get your first punchout, just excited for him. He deserves that.”

Yan bounded off the mound, slapping his hand against his glove several times, after the inning ended. Cleveland fans booed as Yan went to the dugout with the Mets ahead 4-3.

“If they want to yell at me, if they want to boo me, they can do whatever they want,” Yan said. “I’m in my zone. And yeah, I’m going to enjoy my game any way that I want to.”

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Nearly three months into the outbreak, new cases are doubling in some hot spots, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X after meeting with officials in the capital, Kinshasa. It was the second visit by the WHO director-general to the Central African country since the outbreak was declared in mid-May.

“We all agree that we must urgently and massively scale up all our efforts across all pillars of the response and by all partners,” Tedros said.

The outbreak has accounted for 3,874 confirmed cases, including 1,751 deaths, as of Monday, according to the latest data from Congo’s Ministry of Health.

In Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, families said many front line workers have gone on strike, worsening access to healthcare that was already challenged by rebel conflict in one of Congo's most remote and vulnerable areas, its east near the borders of South Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda.

While some workers say they have started receiving payment in the last week for work done since the outbreak began, they are demanding improved wages.

Anicet Baluku, a resident of Bunia, the capital of Ituri, blamed the death of his two brothers from Ebola on the strike. “We urge the authorities to quickly find a solution to prevent other families from experiencing the same tragedy,” he told The Associated Press.

The U.S. Department of State said on Wednesday that it will provide an additional $242 million in funding for immediate Ebola response and preparedness efforts in the region and for humanitarian assistance related to the outbreak. Such funding, it said in a statement, has now exceeded $512 million in direct assistance.

The outbreak has eclipsed all previous Ebola outbreaks in its speed of transmission and is the second-largest outbreak on record, behind the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak that recorded more than 28,000 cases, including over 11,000 deaths.

The Bundibugyo virus that is causing this outbreak has no approved treatment or vaccine, and local officials believe it began in a remote area long before it was declared on May 15.

The outbreak is still “spreading at an alarming and unprecedented rate,” the medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday, adding: “The response is expanding but is still not reaching communities quickly enough to break transmission chains.”

Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centers for Disease and Control, said on Tuesday during a visit to Bunia that contact tracing isn't working, with at least 60% to 70% of new cases coming outside of those being monitored after exposure to patients.

Late detection of cases has been a key contributor to the 45% fatality rate, officials say. Of the 77 most-recent cases reported during a 24-hour period, 44 were fatal, according to the health ministry. At least 717 patients are in isolation while 749 patients have recovered.

Kaseya, who met with Tedros on Wednesday, said Africa CDC is aligning its efforts with responders “around earlier detection, stronger contact tracing, rapid access to quality care and deeper engagement with communities.”

Tedros called for action to reach all affected localities, strengthen coordination under the government’s leadership and protect health workers.

“Above all, communities must be at the center of and have ownership of the response,” he said. “We cannot stop Ebola without their trust, leadership and partnership.”

The pup was one of hundreds of pets and wild animals rescued by volunteers this week during the blaze, which prompted multiple evacuations.

The fire — at one point burning on five fronts — torched dozens of homes and more than 100 square kilometers (39 square miles) of land. It was the latest scene of destruction during Europe’s searing summer, where massive fires — including in countries accustomed to cooler summers — have worried animal welfare groups.

In the town of Megara, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Athens, rescue organizer Elena Dede said the local volunteer effort saved more than 280 animals, mostly dogs, during scorching heat and high winds.

Sasa and others were housed on an indoor sports court inside a collapsible wire cage with a rubber ball to play with and a metal water bowl.

“There was so much heat and the fire was so aggressive. It was changing directions all the time,” Dede said.

Richard Parr, director of the U.K.-based Center for Wild Animal Welfare, described these animal rescue efforts by firefighters and local charities as “heroic” but argued that hotter summers are increasing the risk facing millions of animals.

“At the moment, all too often, it is ad hoc, and it falls on the shoulders of private individuals, small charities,” he said. “The scale of the challenges they’re facing in terms of the number of animals affected and the areas of fire is gigantic and completely out of step.”

The organization is campaigning for a dedicated European Union animal rescue service and funding to address the problem.

“There’s just a massive mismatch between the huge scale of this problem and the resources and the capacity that are available to respond to it,” Parr said.

He also urged governments to consider setting up “fire refuges” for animals, such as ponds and rock piles that could offer shelter.

In Greece, the blaze has left rescuers with a logistical headache: where to return displaced animals like Sasa. Dede said local authorities were helping match missing-animal notices with rescued animals and find temporary homes until the process was completed.

However, she said she was mindful that the dogs at the stadium were among the fortunate.

“It was really hard for every volunteer and every person involved to survive the smoke and the stress,” she said.

“I will never forget the animals that we knew were left behind. I’m just hoping they were saved and ran free."

___

Petros Giannakouris in Megara, Greece contributed.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the brothers as Maliki Perales, 11, and Drayven Quiroz, 20.

Perales died from a gunshot wound to the head and torso, the medical examiner’s office said. His death was ruled a homicide.

Quiroz’s cause and manner of death are still pending.

Salazar identified the suspect as Daniel Antonio Perez, 40.

Perez is facing the following charges, according to jail records:

• Capital murder of a person between 10-15 years old
• Aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury (second-degree felony)
• Four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (second-degree felony)

Records show Perez’s combined bond on all six charges is $2.3 million.

Salazar said Perez will also face a second capital murder charge.

Watch the entire Wednesday morning news conference below:

Deputies responded to the shooting around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 9800 block of Acadian Drive, near Kriewald Road.

During a news conference shortly after the shooting, Salazar said an 11-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were backing the family car into their driveway when Perez crossed the street from his home and shot at the vehicle multiple times.

Salazar said Perez shot at other young family members near the door as well.

“Thankfully, (Perez) missed them,” Salazar said.

The boys’ father, Andrew Perales, said he had asked Quiroz to back the car in and believed his younger brother must have followed him out.

He said Quiroz called them and said, “This guy’s just looking at us messed up.”

Andrew Perales said his wife looked at the camera while he was ordering food.

“I hear pops. My wife starts screaming. I got my gun, came down,” he said in an interview at his front door. “My son was right here. I tripped over him. The guy was across the street reloading, started to shoot again.”

Andrew Perales scrubbed through home security video of the shooting without sound to show reporters but declined to share a copy.

The video shows a man coming from across the street to the driver side window of a car in the driveway and appearing to shoot into it. He then heads toward the front door of the home where Andrew Perales said he found his younger son.

The man then goes away from the house before circling back to the vehicle in the driveway, appearing to aim the gun toward the house at least once as he does. After appearing to fire again into the driver’s side of the car, the shooter leaves.

Two women can be seen running toward the shooter from the other side of the street in an apparent attempt to stop him. Perales can also be seen coming out to the driveway.

How deputies caught Perez

According to Salazar, Perez ran about a quarter mile away from the victims’ home following the shooting.

Before he was taken into custody, the sheriff said Perez called 911.

“In the meantime, (Perez) was actually calling 911 and speaking to dispatch personnel, letting them know what had happened and that he had shot some folks,” Salazar said.

Some of Perez’s relatives have since told investigators Perez went “through mental health crises before,” Salazar said Wednesday.

“Unbeknownst to (the victims’ family), they had what I would categorize as a ticking time bomb right across the street from them,” Salazar said. “And really had no warning whatsoever — is my understanding.”

The gun allegedly used in the shooting was found “several houses away from where (Perez) was discovered,” according to Salazar.

“The only reason we found him is because we were able to utilize his cellphone signal to ping where he was,” Salazar said. “It’s not like he confessed and told us and laid down. Deputies still had to confront him and give him orders at gunpoint to surrender himself.”

“While, you know, clearly there’s some sort of a mental health crisis going on. In my mind, though, he still had the presence of mind and the culpable mental state to go conceal the weapon somewhere and then go conceal himself somewhere else,” Salazar said.

Court records show Perez’s next court appearance is tentatively set for Nov. 3.

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• Remains found at South Side park identified as missing 7-month-old girl, SAPD says

That's why Miller said she is voting in Tuesday's gubernatorial primary for David Crowley, the Milwaukee County executive endorsed by two-term Gov. Tony Evers. He faces democratic socialist Francesca Hong in a contest that will be the latest test nationally of how far Democrats are willing to swing to the political left.

Wisconsin's primary comes a week after progressive Abdul El-Sayed narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s U.S. Senate primary, setting up a crucial test for progressives in November in a key battleground state. Also on Tuesday, voters in Minnesota will decide another U.S. Senate contest featuring a centrist and a progressive.

In a year where voters upset with the Democratic Party mainstream have propelled outsider candidates to victory across the country, Crowley is hoping to buck the trend in Wisconsin. He's banking on the support of Evers, one of the state's most popular elected officials, to make up ground in the waning days of the chaotic primary.

Crowley said that El-Sayed’s slim margin of victory “does give me a little bit of hope.”

“We’re going to focus on those undecided voters,” Crowley said.

Wisconsin Democratic voters grapple with electability, chaotic primary

“The divide is real,” Miller, 49, said of the struggle between progressives and more mainstream Democrats. But her focus remains on November, when the winner of the primary will face Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the most conservative members of Congress.

Miller, who described herself as a progressive, called Hong a “very, very weak candidate" and described her popularity as “a little bit of a mirage.”

“I don't think she can win,” Miller said at a Crowley campaign stop a week before election day at a winery in the rolling hills of New Glarus.

Crowley is banking on more voters feeling that way. A Marquette University Law School poll of Wisconsin Democratic primary voters conducted in late July, before former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out, showed Hong with a significant lead over the other candidates. More than 112,000 absentee ballots had already been returned by the day the poll was released.

Complicating the path for Crowley is the fact that he withdrew from the race on July 8 and only got back in 10 days later, with the backing of Evers, after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez ended her candidacy. Then, 12 days later, Barnes also ended his campaign amid allegations of inappropriate behavior.

Barnes and Rodriguez, who were both seen as potential front-runners, remain on the ballot and votes already cast for them can't be undone.

“We've created a mess,” said Michael Gebben, a 64-year-old Democrat who voted absentee for Rodriguez before she dropped out. “Hopefully we can get out of it.”

Hong bats down controversies as Crowley makes a final sprint

As Crowley sprinted across the state to capture undecided voters, Hong was batting down controversies.

Hong, a single mom and former restaurant cook, faced questions about past social media posts where she called for canceling Thanksgiving because “we should stop celebrating colonialism,” disparaged Valentine’s Day as “another day capitalism tells you how to show love” and repeatedly called for defunding the police.

She has backtracked or clarified many of those past statements in recent days, now saying that she does not support abolishing the police.

Tiffany pointed to Hong’s comments on Thanksgiving and said she wants “to destroy the traditions and culture that unite us.” Tiffany, who had 10-times more cash on hand than either Hong or Crowley did entering August, has portrayed the race as a contest between chaos and common sense.

“Wisconsinites can’t afford for November to come down to the most extreme things Tom Tiffany and Francesca Hong have said online,” Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said this week in a social media post explaining why the governor endorsed Crowley.

Crowley's mention of the Evers endorsement drew a round of applause at both of his campaign stops in New Glarus and Madison this week, but similar votes of confidence haven't always been decisive in other primaries. In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer endorsed the moderate Stevens who came up short.

Even with Evers' backing, Crowley insists he is not an establishment Democrat despite having served more than three years in the Legislature and as the top elected official in Milwaukee County, the state's largest, since 2020.

“When people try to call me the establishment, I look at that as a slur, particularly as an African American candidate,” said Crowley, who is looking to become Wisconsin's first Black governor. “I have never run for office to protect the establishment. I’ve always been here to protect people.”

Voters say message from progressive candidates resonates

Hong supporter Chris Vestin has heard the concerns about electability before.

To him, the fears about Hong's chances against Tiffany in November sound like a repeat of those who pushed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race. Sanders defeated Clinton in the Wisconsin primary by 13 points that year, before losing the presidency to Trump. Trump carried Wisconsin in 2016, lost it in 2020 and then won it again in 2024.

“It frustrates me when they say that person is unelectable,” Vestin said of Hong, who is vying to become Wisconsin’s first woman governor and first Asian American governor. “A lot of times it’s racist, it’s sexist.”

Vestin, 54, called Evers' endorsement of Crowley “counterproductive.”

“Establishment Democrats want to take the choice away,” Vestin said.

On Tuesday in Minnesota, voters will choose between moderate U.S. Rep. Angie Craig and progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate that's playing out in the aftermath of Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement surge in the state.

But the stakes are even higher in Wisconsin.

Democrats are trying to hold onto the governor's office and flip both chambers of the Legislature to have full control for the first time since 2010.

Republicans transformed Wisconsin by enacting a wide array of conservative priorities, including effectively doing away with public worker collective bargaining, when they had full control from 2011 to 2018.

“We need a trifecta,” Crowley told his supporters at the New Glarus rally. “And who is at the top of the ticket matters."

Crowley supporter Lindsey Lee, 61, of Madison said before the rally there that he believed previously undecided Democrats were coalescing around Crowley.

“It’s like the last 50 yards of a horse race," Lee said. "Hong is obviously in the lead but Crowley is coming up on a side lane. I think it will be a photo finish.”

Carrie Squyres, director of academic technology for NISD, said 215 high school students from different campuses will power on the program on Monday, the first day of the 2026-27 school year.

“We are taking a very conservative approach this first year, so we limited our enrollment to grades nine through 11,” Squyres said.

To meet the district’s target launch date, she said NISD is operating its virtual academy as a program, which means virtual students will still be enrolled at their home campus for this academic year, and Graduation Alliance, a third-party vendor, will run the academy this first year.

“They’re providing the curriculum, they’re providing the teaching staff,” Squyres said. ”They have hired an executive director, a dedicated counselor and two academic coaches that will support the students through this next year.”

Graduation Alliance is an organization that partners with educators, government outlets and school districts to provide online education models and essentials, according to its website.

After vetting multiple vendors, Squyres said the district chose to move forward with a virtual learning plan with them.

For more than half a year, she and an interdepartmental team worked with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to meet requirements and deadlines.

The agency signed off on the academy, but Squyres said TEA officials made it clear that despite using a third-party vendor, the district is responsible for virtual students’ success.

“We’re essentially setting up systems right now, where we work with the executive director and some key staff at Graduation Alliance to meet regularly, to share data, to monitor student progress, to make plans for intervention and advancement as necessary,” Squyres said.

Enrollment for NISD’s virtual academy was capped at 215 for its inaugural year, so enrollment is closed.

Squyres said it closed early to set deadlines for course schedules and to give Graduation Alliance a working student head count of how much staff their team needed to hire in a timely window. She also explained the process of how students were selected.

“Our registration is done online. So parents registered as if they were registering for their campus anyway, and there was a box to check that read, ‘I want to do virtual academy’,” she said.

Forms where the box was checked were noted, and Squyres said the district began contacting those families.

Squyres said a counselor was brought in to help staff review transcripts, have discussions with families and draft course plans.

Virtual students will be following the district’s academic calendar and grade reporting deadlines, are required to make daily attendance checks, and must be scheduled for 240 minutes of instruction per day.

“Graduation Alliance is helping us ... (track ) student engagement in their learning management system on that side,” she said. ”We are tracking the attendance that they attend on site for a course.”

Squyres assured that students and parents are getting the same type of documentation as in-person students and families.

Students in the virtual academy are not required to go to a campus except for state-mandated testing.

Since the students are still enrolled within the district, they will still be issued an ID badge that will have virtual academy on it, and they can take part in and attend extracurricular activities.

“It will get them onto their home campus and into other district facilities,” Squyres said.

Next year, she said officials are still working with TEA to eventually complete its partnership with Graduation Alliance and establish its own district-standalone virtual academy.

In addition, they are also working toward expanding the virtual academy to include seniors and recruit students outside of NISD boundaries, including those attending another online school, a charter school or using a homeschool option.

Squyres said the district is excited about this new opportunity to offer a new flexible environment for students with commitments that can affect the amount of time they are actually in the classroom.

“A student can work during the day or can help take care of a family member or travel across Texas with an athletic team and then still log in from anywhere to complete their work. Yeah, it’s exciting,” Squyres said.

District officials are hoping the virtual learning option will allow the district to grow the academy, remain competitive and help retain current students.

Read also:

• East Central ISD prepares to open 2 new schools as enrollment surges

The shooting was reported Wednesday evening in the 7400 block of Kitty Hawk Road.

Upon arrival, BCSO said deputies found the man, who is in his 20s, with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The sheriff’s office said there was some sort of family disturbance between the man and a woman inside a mobile home.

When the woman attempted to leave and make her way to a second mobile home nearby, BCSO said the man began to shoot at her. She was not hit.

A second man who was inside the mobile home the woman was trying to reach then came out and returned fire, striking the initial shooter, BCSO said.

The second shooter fled the scene, and deputies are still working to locate him.

Deputies have a man detained but said they have not confirmed whether he is the second shooter or a witness.

The investigation is ongoing.

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• Suspect charged with capital murder of brothers in connection with far West Side shooting, BCSO says

Morris, hired in November to replace Cowboys legend Mike Gundy, has added 88 new players since then, including 21 players he coached at North Texas State.

“Our guys have meshed,” Morris told The Associated Press outside the team’s training facility. “We spent a lot of time together this offseason because I thought building relationships was such an important thing."

Oklahoma State returns just 25 players from last season's team, which finished 1-11 and hasn't won a Big 12 Conference game since Nov. 25, 2023.

“We just have so many new people that don't know each each other and I think that was something that we've done a good job of," Morris said. "Now we've got to bring 'em all together, teach them how to play football and get them to execute on Saturdays.”

Execution is something that eluded Oklahoma State in 2024 and 2025, when Gundy was fired after the team's third game. The team's star quarterback in the late 1980s, Gundy posted winning records every season from 2006 to 2023 and had a career record of 170-90.

Morris, who has a reputation for helping quarterbacks — including North Texas transfer Drew Mestemaker — was hired to revive the program Gundy brought to prominence.

Mestemaker threw for 4,379 yards and 34 touchdowns last season as a redshirt freshman.

“I just want to see these guys compete,” Morris said. “Luckily, I’ve been in the majority of the Big 12 stadiums. I’ve coached in them, so it's not like a thing where I'm anxious to see the crowd or whatever. But I do think it will be a ton of fun for me and a great personal experience to walkout into Boone Pickens (Stadium) for the first time."

The NCAA does not keep records for most newcomers on a roster, but Colorado documented 87 on its 2023 roster, Deion Sanders' first as coach.

“We've broken a lot of records in our time,” Morris said. “Time will tell if this is one I'm proud of or not proud of. I think I'll be able to answer that question after you look at our wins and losses this year."

___

AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Jones issued a memo last Friday calling for a new ballot measure on the $489 million city investment in the arena project. That move would require approval from at least six of the 11 council members — including the mayor — to make the November ballot.

Alderete Gavito said the votes simply aren’t there.

“Right now, a lot of us are frustrated because there’s a lot of misinformation being told to residents,” she said. “They have already voted, they were fully educated on the vote, and we need to move forward with this.”

The councilwoman also addressed the city’s $158 million budget deficit, which Jones has cited as part of her rationale for revisiting the project. Alderete Gavito said the arena funding cannot be redirected to close that gap.

“That is restricted funds,” she said. “It cannot go to police officers. It cannot go to sidewalks. It cannot go to senior centers. It has to go — it is restricted by the state to go to conventions and arenas and stadiums downtown.”

She added if San Antonio does not use the funds, the money would revert to the state.

Watch the full interview in the video player above.

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• KSAT Q&A: Mayor Jones renews call to put city’s contribution to new Spurs arena up for citywide vote

However, the National Coordinator for Disaster Reduction, or CONRED, urged the population to remain cautious because rainfall from a tropical wave from the east could trigger potentially deadly volcanic mudflows known as lahars.

CONRED also confirmed that some people who were evacuated between Monday and Tuesday returned voluntarily to their homes.

“But the eruptive activity continues, and it is recommended to follow the authorities’ instructions regarding preventive evacuation,” the agency said.

Approximately 1,700 people have been evacuated from at least 18 communities on the slopes of Fuego, or the Volcano of Fire, after the eruption that began on Monday. No deaths or damage have been reported.

Live broadcasts of the volcano’s activity show periods of complete clarity interspersed with ash emissions. Early Tuesday morning, the volcano spewed lava that reached a height of about 300 meters (984 feet), triggering red alerts, evacuations, a highway’s closure, and the suspension of classes in three departments.

Fuego volcano, one of Guatemala’s most active, has an elevation of 3,768 meters (12,300 feet) and is considered a stratovolcano: a tall, cone-shaped volcano formed by layers of hard lava, ash and rock. It is located between the departments of Escuintla, Chimaltenango and Sacatepéquez in the southern and central regions of the country and is 53 kilometers (33 miles) from Guatemala’s capital.

A volcanic eruption on Sunday, June 3, 2018, killed hundreds of people, wiped out an entire community and impacted up to 1.7 million people. Another eruption last year spurred preventive evacuations.

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Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

“We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis,” Talarico said during a nearly 30-minute speech to an audience of 1,300 people in Arlington. “For too many of our neighbors — for too many Texans — the American dream has become an American nightmare.”

Throughout his campaign, Talarico has stuck to a populist economic message that links rising costs to billionaire political influence and an economy he says is tilted in favor of the ultrawealthy over working people. Wednesday’s address kicked off a monthlong tour to promote his first detailed rollout of his proposals to reverse course, under the banner of what he is calling the “New American Dream.”

“It’s time for us to come together across these manufactured divisions, to take on the people at the top who have been screwing us over for far too long,” Talarico said. “That is the movement that we are building here in Texas. This is not a politics of fear. This is not a politics of division. This is a politics of unity, a politics of friendship, a politics of love. This new kind of politics can change our state. It can change our country.”

Affordability and cost-of-living concerns have consistently topped voters’ list of priorities in public polling. Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s Republican opponent, unveiled his own economic agenda last week, dubbed “Protecting the Texas Promise” and centered on tax deductions.

Both candidates have sought to claim the mantle of reviving the American dream in their economic rollouts. But while Paxton cast Washington, the Biden administration and regulations as the culprit for high prices, Talarico took aim at an economy corrupted by “billionaire megadonors and their puppet politicians” as the root cause.

“Republicans and some Democrats sold the false Gospel of trickle-down economics: that the best way to grow the economy is to let the rich get richer and forget about everybody else,” he said. “Trickle-down economics isn’t a theory. It’s theft.”

Talarico said his proposals, taken together, aim to recreate a “new American dream” for people “working hard and playing by the rules. He defined it as “being able to afford a house big enough to raise a family in, a quality education for yourself and your kids, a retirement that is comfortable and secure and most importantly — time doing what you love with the people you love.”

The key tenets of Talarico’s agenda include:

• raising the minimum wage and expanding overtime pay;
• repealing tax breaks in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill for the top 1% of earners and directing the money to a “cost-of-living tax cut;”
• canceling medical debt;
• cutting the national deficit by “closing billionaire tax loopholes, cracking down on tax cheats and ending forever wars in the Middle East;”
• passing universal childcare and paid family leave;
• permanently expanding the child tax credit;
• providing down payment assistance to first-time homebuyers;
• slashing regulations to allow new homes to be built faster;
• investing in renewable energy and working to “partner” with the oil and gas industry” in an “all-of-the-above” energy approach;
• providing grants to entrepreneurs who “don’t know any big investors;”
• and establishing an “AI dividend” that would give every U.S. citizen a stake in American AI companies.

If elected, Talarico has also vowed to pursue an anti-corruption package to ban super PACs, corporate PACs, partisan gerrymandering and congressional stock trading.

“I will fight to unrig this economy,” Talarico said. “I will fight to lower your costs and raise your pay. And unlike Ken Paxton, I will fight to put your hard-earned money where it belongs: in your pocket.

Paxton’s economic plan, meanwhile, is centered around a series of tax deductions for healthcare, housing and family-related expenses. Those include a $25,000 deduction for out-of-pocket medical expenses, a $50,000 deduction for first-time homebuyers and an additional $50,000 tax break on down payments for people moving into a new primary residence.

The attorney general has pitched his agenda as a solution to affordability woes created by Washington — an anti-establishment message echoing that of Talarico and other Democrats running against the Republican-controlled federal government. Paxton, who is campaigning with Trump’s endorsement, blamed high prices on the White House’s prior occupant.

“We know that the cost of housing under the Biden administration skyrocketed,” Paxton said Tuesday at the first stop of his own weeklong tour promoting his economic agenda. “The cost of building it, and then interest rates have made it very difficult for many of our citizens to afford housing. And so we are going to make it easier for people to buy houses.”

Paxton opened his tour in Allen in a display of post-primary GOP unity. He was introduced by hometown state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican who helped oversee the Texas House’s 2023 impeachment against the attorney general and who was sharply critical of him during the primary.

But on Tuesday night, Leach told hundreds of attendees that the stakes were too high to sit out November and that he would vote for Paxton.

“We either fight and we vote to protect and safeguard the great state of Texas, or we stay home, we stay quiet, we don’t mobilize and we allow the radical liberal progressives, who’ve ruined California and New York, to take root and to take leadership here in the great Lone Star State,” he said.

At the opening stops of his economic tour, Paxton also weaved in his usual stump speech attacking Talarico on culture war issues, including over his vote against a bill to require K-12 students to play on sports teams corresponding with their biological sex.

“He did everything he could to create an environment where we trans kids, and of course, now he says he’s not for that,” Paxton said. “He’s also voted for boys in girls’ sports. I know that Texans don’t like that.”

Talarico has largely ignored the attacks and continued to do so Wednesday, focusing beyond the policy details on stories of working Texans he met on the campaign trail. Among them was an airport worker in Houston, named Augusta, who Talarico said spends 10-hour shifts cleaning planes without air conditioning but struggles to afford her everyday needs.

“Augusta is working hard, she is taking responsibility, she is caring for those around her. What kind of country are we if we let a woman like that go down?” Talarico said. “In the U.S. Senate, we’re going to have Augusta’s back.”

El-Sayed will face Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November in a race that will help determine control of the Senate. His first challenge will be unifying Democratic factions after a bitter primary that offered divergent visions for a party desperate for a path back to power.

The margin was extraordinarily close. El-Sayed walked off the stage at his Tuesday night election party without declaring victory, and the race was not called until early Wednesday, after nearly all ballots statewide had been counted. At the time The Associated Press declared him the winner, El-Sayed led Stevens by 14,893 votes — just under 1 percentage point — out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted, the most in recent state history.

The political significance of the result, however, extends well beyond the slim margin.

“Abdul’s victory was, in my opinion, the most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a leader of the progressive movement who was an early supporter of El-Sayed’s candidacy.

El-Sayed, 41, has never held elected office and entered the race seven years after losing Michigan’s Democratic gubernatorial primary by more than 20 percentage points. This time, running on an unapologetically progressive agenda, he overcame more than $60 million in outside spending and an opponent backed by many of Michigan’s top Democrats, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and outgoing Sen. Gary Peters, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

“In the words of Muhammad Ali, we shook up the world,” El-Sayed said early Wednesday, standing before The Spirit of Detroit, a landmark bronze statue in the city’s downtown.

El-Sayed went from political wilderness to progressive breakthrough

El-Sayed was joined Wednesday by state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, a former opponent in the Senate primary, and Curtis Hertel, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. It was an initial step toward a unified front after a bitter primary, and it reflected El-Sayed’s extraordinary political trajectory in less than a decade.

After losing the 2018 Democratic primary for governor to Whitmer, El-Sayed retreated into the political wilderness. He started a podcast, wrote a book and became a regular presence on YouTube and television, slowly building a following while waiting for a political opening he did not know would come.

It arrived when Peters made the surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection, creating an open Senate seat in one of the country’s most competitive states.

El-Sayed launched his campaign in April 2025 with a staff of four. In his victory speech Wednesday, he recalled the small rooms that defined its early months.

“Back in April, I remember talking to a room of five people,” he said. “It was an opportunity for us to share a honest conversation about pain and about purpose. And I’ve been able to have 500 more of those discussions over the past 15 months.”

El-Sayed said he visited 110 cities and hosted more than 500 events. His volunteer network grew alongside the campaign, eventually reaching 12,000 people, according to his campaign.

Julie Brink, a 29-year-old volunteer from the Detroit area, said the campaign still felt like an “underdog” when she joined in February. From there, she said, it was “gaining momentum really consistently.”

“It was a lot of little things along the way,” Brink said.

The campaign also embraced a media strategy that reflected El-Sayed’s years outside elected office, aggressively pursuing attention across traditional outlets, podcasts and online platforms. Some appearances, including multiple interviews with controversial streamer Hasan Piker, drew swift backlash.

A turning point came when an opponent dropped out

On July 5, McMorrow ended her campaign, leaving a two-person race between El-Sayed and Stevens. Soon after, El-Sayed stood before door-knocking volunteers in a Grand Rapids park and declared that “we have a chance of winning this election.”

“More importantly, we have a chance at winning our politics,” El-Sayed said. “What we’re doing is building a movement of the many against the money.”

In the final days, El-Sayed leaned even further into the strategy that had helped build his campaign. He marched through downtown Detroit alongside social media influencers, then attended a private pool party with content creators, including Piker.

On Election Day, El-Sayed did three interviews with content creators at Detroit’s Eastern Market before doing three more with traditional news organizations, including The Associated Press and MS NOW.

Hours later, the campaign that had once struggled to fill small rooms packed Detroit’s Majestic Theatre for an election night party.

Progressives see a test of their movement

El-Sayed’s victory gave progressives something they have been seeking — evidence that their politics could prevail not just in deep-blue cities and congressional districts, but in a Democratic primary in one of the nation’s premier swing states.

“Abdul El-Sayed is now the tip of the spear for the theory that shake-up-the-system economic fighters can win in swing states,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who campaigned alongside El-Sayed in the final days.

The November race against Rogers, Green added, is “put up or shut up time” for the movement.

El-Sayed campaigned on “Medicare for All,” ending military aid to Israel and campaign finance reform. He had support from progressive leaders including Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who framed the race as both a grassroots movement and a broader fight against the establishment and big-money spending.

Outside groups backing Stevens ultimately spent more than $60 million, including more than $30 million from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its affiliates.

“We took on a machine,” El-Sayed said Wednesday.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, another progressive leader who endorsed El-Sayed, said the victory “should be a wake-up call to the Washington Democratic establishment.”

The harder test comes in November

El-Sayed now has three months to prove the movement that carried him through the primary can win a general election. Failure could be a dramatic setback for progressives, who have insisted for years that their approach could be more successful in a political era defined by President Donald Trump.

The Senate Republican campaign arm has already reserved $45 million in Michigan advertising to support Rogers, a number likely to grow as Republicans make clear they prefer their chances against El-Sayed.

AIPAC, which spent more money on Michigan's primary than any other race, also signaled Wednesday that its involvement would not end, saying it would oppose El-Sayed and “his radical anti-Israel agenda” in November.

The narrowness of El-Sayed’s victory also complicates any sweeping conclusions about what the result says about the Democratic Party. Nearly half of Tuesday’s primary voters backed Stevens, who argued throughout the campaign that her more moderate approach and history of winning competitive races made her better positioned to defeat Rogers.

Stevens called El-Sayed early Wednesday to concede the race, with El-Sayed describing it as a “great conversation.” She pledged her support for him, and Michigan Democrats are expected to gather for a unity breakfast Thursday before a public rally Friday.

Hertel, the state Democratic chair, said the primary’s ideological fight was not itself a problem, arguing that voters — rather than party leaders — should determine their direction.

“I don’t think that having a robust discussion is a bad thing,” Hertel said Wednesday. “What I think is important is that we are united afterwards.”

“We will unite together, and we will win this race,” Hertel added, “because we have to.”

—

Associated Press reporter Jacqueline GaNun contributed to this report in Detroit.

Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday they were investigating what happened when a commercial jet took off just as Marine One left the White House for Andrews Air Force Base with the president aboard for the first leg of a West Coast trip.

The FAA decided after 67 people died on Jan. 29, 2025, when an airliner collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter that all takeoffs and landings at the Washington, D.C., airport would be halted anytime a helicopter passes by on a conflicting route. The airspace near the White House and Reagan is heavily congested with military and commercial aircraft.

The airplane that took off Tuesday was climbing above Marine One as the helicopter approached, so the two aircraft were not on a collision course.

The FAA said in a statement that a preliminary investigation showed “there was a momentary loss of separation after which the aircraft continued to move away from one another.”

“The air traffic controller was in contact with both the commercial pilot and Marine One pilot during the loss of separation,” the FAA said.

The White House emphasized that Trump was never in danger.

“Marine One flights are piloted by some of the best aviators in the world, and at no point was the President in harm’s way,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.

The Marine Corps defended the actions of their helicopter pilots.

“There were no ‘close calls’ with the routine Marine One movement,” Marine Corps spokesperson Capt. Jacob Sugg said in an email. “Washington National Tower did not delay the helicopter crew, ask them to hold, or otherwise alter their flight profile.”

Tower audio appears to show confusion over Marine One's plan

Audio recorded by Air Traffic Control shows the Marine One pilot calling the tower ahead of time: “Tower, just want to make sure you copy. Marine One, three minutes to lift.”

The air traffic controller didn't acknowledge that transmission and after the pilot tried again, the controller said the message was broken and unreadable. So when Marine One's pilot announced the helicopter was proceeding as briefed, the controller seemed surprised.

“Uh, Marine One, you said, uh, you're proceeding as briefed?” the controller asked before giving the helicopter directions and commenting, “OK, no three minutes, roger, proceed as briefed.”

After the controller warned the helicopter about the plane taking off, the Marine One pilot said he saw the traffic and declared, “We'll be doing a momentary delay.”

The Wall Street Journal first reported the incident.

Last year's midair collision highlighted communication problems

Poor communication between the military and the civilian air traffic controllers at Reagan has been an issue in the past. It came out last spring after one of the hearings on the midair collision that a hotline connecting the Pentagon to the tower at Reagan hadn't been working for more than three years, and the FAA hadn't even realized it.

The FAA took steps to ensure that helicopters and airplanes would no longer share the same airspace around the airport shortly after the investigation into last year's collision began. The rules also require air traffic controllers to use radar — and not rely on pilots' eyes — to maintain separation and require all military aircraft to broadcast their locations.

The main group of family members of the victims of last year's crash questioned why the government hasn't done more to prevent collisions in the crowded airspace around Reagan in a post Wednesday on the social platform X. The family members have been urging Congress to reach a compromise and pass the package of aviation safety reforms that the NTSB recommended after the midair collision.

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

While the U.S. Embassy did not specify the nature of the threat in its security alert, Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla said on social media that the temporary halt to inspections was intended to safeguard workers following recent arrests linked to extortion. The inspections are necessary for avocados to be shipped to the United States and their suspension could disrupt exports.

The western state of Michoacan is the leading exporter of avocados to the U.S. and has a high level of organized crime activity with at least four cartels — designated as terrorist organizations by the Trump administration — operating in the region. Besides trafficking drugs, cartels also make money through extortion, including of the avocado industry.

Michoacan State Security Secretary Antonio Cruz told The Associated Press that one of the arrests mentioned by the governor was of “El Poncho,” the alias of Alfonso Fernández Magallón, leader of a local cartel operating in the avocado-growing region around Los Reyes.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson welcomed the arrest, which came over the weekend. The U.S. government had offered a $5 million reward for Fernández Magallón’s arrest.

Cruz said his department was unaware of any direct incidents involving the avocado inspectors. Nevertheless, 300 security personnel were deployed to the Los Reyes area as a preventive measure.

The governor said the priority was to “ensure the security conditions necessary for these operations to resume normally,” as has happened in the past.

Mexico supplies approximately 80% of U.S. avocado imports - a product known in the region as “green gold.” Its cultivation generates around 200,000 jobs in Michoacán alone.

In 2025, Mexico sold $3.65 billion worth of avocados to the United States, and in the first four months of this year, those exports rose by 35% compared to the same period in the previous year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture sends inspectors in Mexico to monitor plantations and packing houses to ensure that exported produce is free of pests. Threats and violence against the inspectors have caused the U.S. to suspend inspections in the past.

The shooting happened around 7:30 p.m. in the 9800 block of Acadian Drive, near Kriewald Road.

Drayven Quiroz, 20, was inside a vehicle trying to park in their driveway. His father, Andrew Perales, said he had asked Quiroz to re-park the car in the driveway, and he believes Quiroz’s younger brother, Maliki Perales, 11, followed his brother outside.

Andrew Perales said one of his sons called their mother, concerned about a man looking at them “messed up” from across the street.

Watch the full interview with Andrew Perales below:

“I hear pops, my wife starts screaming. I got my gun, came down,” Andrew Perales said.

As Andrew Perales walked outside, he said his sons had already been shot.

Daniel Antonio Perez, 40, crossed the street from his home and shot the brothers, according to Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, in an apparently unprovoked attack.

Andrew Perales said he had to carry his youngest son to get him to the ambulance.

Maliki Perales died later that evening, just before 8:50 p.m., according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. He died from a gunshot wound to the head and torso, the medical examiner’s office said, and his death was ruled a homicide.

Quiroz died roughly 12 hours later. His cause and manner of death are still pending.

According to the sheriff, investigators learned Perez also “shot at two other siblings of this family that were at or near the front door of the residence.”

“Thankfully, (Perez) missed them,” Salazar said.

Perez was taken into custody and faces multiple capital murder and aggravated assault charges, records show.

Andrew Perales said he scrubbed through home security video of the shooting without sound to show reporters but declined to share a copy.

The video shows a man coming from across the street to the driver side window of a car in the driveway and appearing to shoot into it. He then heads toward the front door of the home where Andrew Perales said he found his younger son.

The man then goes away from the house before circling back to the vehicle in the driveway, appearing to aim the gun toward the house at least once as he does. After appearing to fire again into the driver’s side of the car, the shooter leaves.

Two women can be seen running toward the shooter from the other side of the street in an apparent attempt to stop him. Andrew Perales can also be seen coming out to the driveway.

‘I love my boys’

Quiroz was just a normal kid trying to get his life together, his father said. He was recovering from multiple surgeries stemming from a recent diabetic ketoacidosis and pancreatitis diagnosis.

“We almost lost him in January,” Andrew Perales said.

During his recovery process, Quiroz still attempted to help his father with handyman work alongside his brother.

“For those who knew who my boys, knew exactly who they were,” Andrew Perales said. “They know their capabilities, where their heart was, generosity, their work ethics.”

Maliki Perales will be remembered as a hugger, his father said.

“He was known for it,” Andrew Perales said. “He was a soldier. A strong, loving, caring, beautiful heart.”

Andrew Perales described his children as beasts with good morals rooted in helping each other and those in need.

“I’m so proud of them,” Andrew Perales said, wiping tears from his eyes. “I love them. I love my boys.”

Read also:

• Suspect charged with capital murder of brothers in connection with far West Side shooting, BCSO says
• BCSO: Suspect in custody after shooting neighbors, including 11-year-old, on far West Side

The 35-year-old Donald participated in a hosted workout with the Rams, according to the league's official transactions wire, which records such workouts with free agents before their possible signings to NFL rosters. Defensive line coach Giff Smith attended the workout at the Rams' complex in Woodland Hills, defensive coordinator Chris Shula said at training camp.

“I heard it was good,” Shula said with a smile. “It was more (about) how he felt. ... Obviously, we'd be really excited about that. You're getting one of the best players of all time. I have a great history with him. We know what a great guy he is, what a hard worker he is and what he would mean to this defense. We're going to coach the guys that are here, and if he decides to come back, that would be great.”

Donald has been working out at the Rams' Woodland Hills facility and at home for several weeks in his attempt to return to NFL shape. While the Rams have emphasized their willingness to wait indefinitely for Donald to decide, coach Sean McVay has expressed cautious optimism in the past week about the prospect of lining up Donald and Myles Garrett together this season on a remarkable defensive line.

Garrett returned to practice with the Rams on Monday after sitting out the previous four workouts with lower-body soreness. The reigning AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year said he still hasn't spoken to Donald about the comeback bid, but that might change soon.

“Hopefully we'll link up here soon and I'll see where his head is at, and just break bread with him as well,” Garrett said. “I don't know how he's feeling. I don't know where he is in this process, but it is a process, coming back from so much time off. I'm not going to push him either way. Just get a feel of it.”

While McVay has indicated increasing optimism about Donald's return as camp progresses, the head coach said last week that the Rams didn't expect a decision until after they wrap up training camp at Loyola Marymount University this week. The Rams are planning to reconvene in Woodland Hills on Saturday for their first post-camp practice, followed by four more practices in Woodland Hills next week ahead of their preseason opener at Kansas City.

Donald retired somewhat abruptly in March 2024 following a decorated 10-year career spent entirely with the Rams. He won the AP's Defensive Player of the Year award three times while earning eight All-Pro selections, 10 Pro Bowl selections and a Super Bowl championship ring.

Donald apparently began to entertain the idea of a comeback early last month after the Rams traded for Garrett, one of Donald's few contemporary peers. The 30-year-old Garrett won two of the last three Defensive Player of the Year awards in Cleveland, where he received five All-Pro nods and seven Pro Bowl selections, along with setting the NFL's single-season sacks record last year.

Garrett entered the NFL in 2017, the same season in which Donald won his first Defensive Player of the Year trophy. While Garrett and Donald have decidedly different roles on a defense, Garrett said he has admired Donald for his entire career.

“Just the way he practiced his craft,” Garrett said. “You've seen the videos in which he's going 100 percent. His footwork is impeccable, but he also has get-off that's similar to an end. ... He just has an outstanding feel for the game as well as being a freak athletically.”

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

The contract to the Houston-based Burke Law Group comes as the Trump administration ramps up its mass deportation campaign across the country and after the administration last week let a key contract with a network of legal groups working with immigrant children around the country expire with no replacement. The providers have increasingly raised worries that children won't have the experienced legal help they need at a time when the administration is intensifying efforts to remove people from the country.

Michael Lukens, who heads the Amica Center, called the idea that the administration had given the sole-source contract to the Texas firm “upsetting and shocking."

“It really does forebode a situation where children are going to get no meaningful due process, no meaningful day in court. We cannot have a random law firm entrusted to take care of children,” Lukens said.

The groups said the contract announced Tuesday only applies to the children currently held in government-run shelters and that the government would need to issue another contract covering services for migrant children outside the shelter system. Lukens said that there are currently about 1,800 children living in shelters, and roughly 22,000 living outside with sponsors, such as family members.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the government agency responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children, did not respond to requests for comment.

Contract goes to firm with Trump administration ties

The Trump administration announced late Tuesday that they were hiring the Houston-based Burke to provide legal services to unaccompanied children. The year-long contract starts August 15.

Only two of the 25 lawyers listed on the firm’s website on Wednesday morning claim relevant experience in immigration law in their biographies.

Many of the others at the firm are corporate lawyers with ties to conservative causes and to President Trump. The firm’s founder, Marcella Burke, served in Trump’s first administration as a lawyer in the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior.

Others on its roster include Justin Shubow, the leading supporter of Trump’s efforts to require federal buildings to adhere to classical and traditional architectural styles, and a former Trump appointee to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Prominent conservative legal scholar Ilya Shapiro is listed as a “senior counsel.”

The firm and the founder didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

The notice says Burke’s contract is a “single source cooperative agreement,” which means the administration picked the firm without a competitive bidding process. It did not offer a justification for bypassing standard bidding rules.

Government required to facilitate legal representation

Migrant children alone are viewed as especially vulnerable because of their age and are usually entrusted to U.S. government care. There are various legal protections that apply to them once they’re in the U.S., including the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008, which requires the government to facilitate legal representation for children put into deportation proceedings.

That representation, until recently, was carried out by a network of nearly 100 legal aid providers across the country that provided know-your-rights trainings to children in shelters and directly represented them in court proceedings.

But last Friday marked the last day of that contract and, until late Tuesday, it wasn't clear if a new contract would be put in place and, if it was, who would do the work.

On top of the contract uncertainty, the legal aid providers say they've been struggling to get repaid for work they have already done since last November. The groups say the administration is asking for detailed information about their clients that they say they're not ethically able to provide.

Legal advocates say they've seen other trends that worry them. Since April, the courts started to call dozens of cases at once in so-called “rocket dockets" and immigrant children have had their hearings moved up and given less time to prepare.

Emails to providers, multiple lawyers at courts cause confusion

Other recent occurrences have raised questions about the administration’s intentions regarding the children’s legal representation and caused confusion.

The Associated Press obtained emails sent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the federal agency responsible for overseeing unaccompanied migrant children, to lawyers representing migrant children in federal custody. The emails, sent late Tuesday, asked for their clients’ personal identification numbers and requested the lawyers respond within four hours confirming they would be appearing to represent their clients in upcoming hearings.

It was not immediately clear why the administration was making such requests of the children’s lawyers.

Separately, attorneys in courtrooms across the country said their hearings were interrupted by lawyers claiming they had been asked by the Trump administration to take over the children’s cases, without having given prior notice.

At a hearing in Chicago Wednesday morning for unaccompanied detained immigrant children, an attorney who did not represent any of the children suddenly appeared via video stream, in an exchange witnessed by an Associated Press reporter.

The attorney said she was with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a legal aid group, and that the organization had been contacted by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to “appear on behalf” of children without legal representation due to a “gap in legal services.” She said her organization had received the children’s private information, including their names and identifying numbers, from the federal government.

The judge said that since all the children already had lawyers, he wasn’t going to allow anyone to watch on the video stream, and the outside attorney dropped off.

Laura Smith, an attorney representing some of the children, expressed confusion about why the person was there: “It sounds like this is a person who has my client’s information.”

The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants referred questions from The Associated Press to HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Alexa Sendukas, the managing attorney at the Galveston Houston Immigrant Representation Project, said one of her organization’s attorneys witnessed a similar confusion play out in court Wednesday morning in Houston and that her organization had heard of similar situations in other courtrooms across the country.

__

Santana reported from Sacramento, Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas, and Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa.

“Oh, I’ll be back this season. I don’t know why I wouldn’t be,” the three-time AL MVP said Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. “That was always the plan to come back — sooner than later, definitely. But I never had a thought of not playing this year.”

Judge was on the field in baseball gear Wednesday afternoon, stretching, jogging and doing shuffle slides with a resistance band. He was given the green light to take a step forward in his recovery progression after undergoing his latest scan Tuesday.

“Better news. Healing up. So, you get a chance to progress a little bit, do some running, do some more upper-body stuff, and kind of progress towards getting back out on the field and swinging it,” he said. “I wish it was completely healed and the fracture was gone and start playing tomorrow, but that’s not the case. But, great step forward.”

It will still be a while before Judge is back in the lineup. He must first advance to taking swings, and it remains unclear when that could occur.

“I think that’s going to be the ultimate test, is hitting,” Judge said. “That’s the most violent of it all, I think, more than running or lifting and stuff like that. So, once we keep progressing, everything’s feeling great, then we take another scan, see where it’s at and hopefully add in hitting and throwing and all that down the road.”

Neither he nor Yankees manager Aaron Boone offered a target date for the outfielder's return.

“I’ve got nothing for you on that yet. I just got the scan yesterday and the minute they said all right, we’re going to start running, I said, ‘OK, I’ll see you outside.’ So, I kind of forced them on that one,” Judge said.

“But, no, hopefully whenever we get a game plan, you guys will be somewhere on the list,” the slugger added, drawing laughs from reporters. “Not the top.”

The 34-year-old Judge said he's been telling the medical staff he’s “feeling great” and wants to “kind of get this thing moving.”

Boone, however, said the eight-time All-Star is keeping the big picture in mind, too.

“I think he understands what’s at stake and his obviously importance to this club and wanting to get back out there — but he’s got to be whole, too," Boone said. "So, I think he certainly wants to push the envelope as much as he possibly can, but also understands that healing needs to happen with this.

“We're at that portion of the show now where he gets to start progressing,” the manager explained. "It's good to see him with his pinstripes on, in cleats, and heading out onto the field in the afternoon.”

Judge is on the 60-day injured list with a stress fracture of his right rib. He is hitting .248 with 17 home runs, 38 RBIs and a .907 OPS this year, but he had just one homer in his last 18 games before going on the IL.

“It was great being on the field, great being back out there,” he said. “I’ve been with the guys as much as I can, especially on the road or here in the dugout. But to actually feel like a little bit of a player felt great.”

Going into Wednesday night's series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees (64-50) were 28-27 since Judge last played on May 31 — although their offense has been one of the worst in the majors during that stretch.

New York also has been without designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton since April 25 because of a right calf strain and All-Star left fielder Cody Bellinger since July 26 due to a left hamstring strain. Bellinger, expected to miss four to six weeks, took batting practice on the field Wednesday.

Looking to boost their lineup, the Yankees acquired first baseman Luis García Jr. and outfielder Heliot Ramos ahead of Monday's trade deadline. They entered Wednesday night trailing first-place Tampa Bay by four games in the AL East and holding the league's top wild card.

“I’ve got a broken rib, so you’re going to feel it. But it’s healing up. So that’s the progress we want to see so we can start doing some more and kind of testing and see where we’re at,” Judge said. “Because we’re running out of days. I know we’ve got 52 days left, 53 days left, so, got to get back out there.”

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

“Our energy costs have been going up by the year. My last bill right at this time last year was $280, and this one was $326, so that’s almost a $50 increase,” said CPS Energy customer Carl Duelm.

Duelm hosted Abbott at his Northeast Side home Tuesday to discuss energy costs.

He supports Abbott’s plan to pass a law, dismantling so-called energy monopolies in cities like San Antonio and Austin, which own the local energy utilities.

“All consumers in the City of San Antonio would be able to do what other people in Texas are able to do, is do a Google search for retail electric provider and find a lower rate than currently provided by CPS (Energy). That in turn would make CPS (Energy) be competitive on a price point,” Abbott said.

Abbott said cheaper energy is available in cities like Dallas and Houston, which have more energy provider options.

Duelm said his friends in other cities pay less.

“He told me he was paying as much for the small apartment he lived in San Antonio as he was for his 1,500-square-foot house in Houston,” Duelm said.

“Right now, the average cost for energy in San Antonio is 12 cents per kilowatt hour. In Houston it is available as low as six cents per kilowatt hour,” Abbott said in Tuesday’s press conference.

KSAT checked those numbers, and the website www.ElectricChoice.com said the lowest rate in Houston is around six cents per kilowatt hour, but the average rate is still about 12 cents. Some rates were as high as 19 cents.

That is something San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones talked about on air with KSAT after Abbott’s announcement, showing a slide of prices across the state.

“San Antonio and Castroville that are both municipally owned utilities actually have the cheapest utility cost when it comes to electricity and gas. So this idea that we’re sort of being frivolous and not managing this well is not correct,” Jones said.

The Texas Public Power Association also sent KSAT a statement, saying:

“Municipally-owned utilities (MOUs) have provided affordable and reliable utility services to local communities, some for more than 125 years. Our 72 member cities, serving more than five million Texans in both large urban and small rural cities, understand that affordability is a critical issue for every one of our customers.

MOUs are not-for-profit, and their electric rates are consistently below the state average. Rate comparisons regularly confirm that rates charged by MOUs are lower than or on par with the rates charged in the deregulated areas of the state.

MOUs are locally governed and directly accountable to our communities. Utility employees live, work, shop, and raise their families in the communities they serve. When our customers have questions or concerns, they talk directly with their neighbor.

Unfortunately, the Governor’s proposal could actually increase Texans’ bills, while reducing the level of customer service they currently receive. TPPA firmly agrees that Texans deserve reliable electricity service that they can afford, and we look forward to working with the Governor’s office to accomplish real reforms in the electricity market that benefit customers across the state."

The Texas Public Power Association

KSAT asked viewers for their opinions as well. The poll asked, “Do you believe choosing your own energy provider could lower your monthly bill?”

Responses came in from 158 viewers — of those, 36% said “yes” and 64% said “no.”

Read also:

• Gov. Abbott announces plan to break energy monopolies in cities like San Antonio, Austin

The law targets synthetic forms of THC commonly sold at hemp shops, including delta-8, delta-10, THCP and THCA flower.

Criminal defense attorney Bobby Barrera said some products such as gummies and vapes are now treated as Schedule I controlled substances under state law.

“Your gummies now have the same criminal liability as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, LSD, all of those that we consider dangerous drugs,” Barrera said.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the San Antonio Police Department told KSAT they plan to enforce the law like any other. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said it will do the same, but added it does not plan large-scale enforcement efforts and will continue focusing on violent crime.

Barrera said enforcement can be complicated because it may be difficult for officers to tell the difference between legal hemp products and illegal synthetic THC products without lab testing.

“That’s always been an issue with those cases, which is why many jurisdictions don’t bother prosecuting marijuana cases, because they have to lab it,” Barrera said.

Barrera expects arrests could increase, especially in situations where someone is searched during another enforcement action, such as a traffic stop. He also said he believes demand will continue despite the ban.

“It was like prohibition,” Barrera said. ”You can’t take it away from these people. They’re going to continue to use it. Only now it’s a felony.”

Barrera advises residents to check product labels, know what they have, and understand that possession could lead to a felony charge and jail time.

Read also:

• Texas cracks down on synthetic THC products, hemp shops adjust

An SAPD spokesperson initially told KSAT on Wednesday morning that Isaiah Marquis Lopez was arrested in connection with Ozana Cisneros’ death.

However, later Wednesday, that spokesperson backtracked the previous statements, saying Lopez was arrested on unrelated charges. The SAPD spokesperson did not explain the discrepancy.

Records with the Bexar County Jail show Lopez was arrested on July 10.

A federal arrest affidavit obtained by KSAT states SAPD was conducting surveillance at a home in the 200 block of Parview Drive for Lopez, who had an active arrest warrant out of Bexar County for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The affidavit states Lopez was “wanted for questioning in relation to the disappearance of his girlfriend and her child.” The document does not identify the girlfriend and her child.

When police tried to arrest Lopez after he left the home, he ran off but was eventually detained and caught with a pistol, ammunition and what appeared to be meth, the document states.

Records show he was arrested on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, unlawful possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance and evading arrest.

What we know about Ozana’s death

On Tuesday, SAPD confirmed Ozana’s identity as the remains found at Concepción Park last month.

The girl and her mother, Maximina Cisneros, 19, were the subject of a July 9 AMBER Alert issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The alert initially said Maximina Cisneros was wanted in connection with her daughter’s abduction.

On July 10, Maximina Cisneros was found near the 200 block of Parkview Drive.

Hours later, investigators discovered skeletal remains at Concepción Park, which is approximately one-half mile away from where Maximina Cisneros was found.

Her cause and manner of death remain under investigation. No arrests have been announced in connection with Ozana’s death.

More coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Remains found at South Side park identified as missing 7-month-old girl, SAPD says
• Questions remain in San Antonio missing baby case
• ‘Just a little baby’: Community gathers at vigil for 7-month-old Ozana Cisneros amid ongoing investigation

The lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the department and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stonewalled New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s criminal investigation into Epstein and others, taking action that “harms victims and undermines the public interest.”

The lawsuit sought judicial intervention to force the federal government to turn over materials to New Mexico's investigators. It was filed the same day that the New Mexico House of Representatives released a report saying “those directly responsible for protecting New Mexicans relied on others to do their job,” including federal prosecutors in New York.

Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in New York City in August 2019 after he was denied bail on sex trafficking charges lodged against him when he was arrested a month earlier.

Epstein's former girlfriend and close associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges in New York. Witness testimony at Maxwell's trial alleged she and Epstein had sexually abused women at his New Mexico ranch.

Justice Department says it’s following court orders to protect victims

According to New Mexico's lawsuit, state prosecutors “have faced sustained resistance” to the kind of information-sharing common between state and federal investigators.

The Justice Department said in a statement it was not releasing some information the state requested because of federal court orders that ban disclosing victim-identifying information.

"New Mexico has provided no lawful basis to justify such sweeping disclosures,” the agency said. It said protecting victim privacy remains a top priority and the Justice Department "remains available to assist New Mexico’s investigation consistent with the law and binding court orders.”

The lawsuit claims the Justice Department and Blanche were hiding information about Epstein and his co-conspirators when the state is one of the few jurisdictions that may still be able to hold Epstein's associates accountable or “provide some sense of justice to survivors.”

New Mexico's attorney general said his office made 10 requests for key information that were ignored or denied.

“We have heard repeatedly they will cooperate and what our team has experienced is anything but cooperation,” Torrez told reporters in a video call.

State calls on Blanche to fix things with ‘a stroke of the pen’

“Todd Blanche today with a stroke of a pen could grant us the access that he claimed,” Torrez said. “Instead they have decided to stonewall, to obstruct and to frankly conceal for whatever reason.”

The interim report released by the New Mexico Survivors' Truth Commission in part blamed federal prosecutors in Manhattan for a dearth of information about Epstein's activities in New Mexico. The commission, established in February by state lawmakers, said federal officials focused on Epstein’s misdeeds in New York, Palm Beach, Florida, and the Virgin Islands, while leaving his offenses in New Mexico unexamined.

But the commission also cited evidence gathered by federal prosecutors in New York to describe women who recounted suffering sexual abuse from Epstein at his Zorro Ranch.

At Maxwell's trial, Annie Farmer, now a psychologist, testified she was 16 when she agreed to go to the ranch, where Maxwell touched her breast during a massage and Epstein unexpectedly crawled into bed and pressed himself against her.

A spokesperson for federal prosecutors in New York sent along the Justice Department statement on Epstein in response to a request for comment.

Coinciding with the release of the report, about 50 members of the media and the public gathered in a legislative hearing room at the New Mexico state capitol on Wednesday to hear about the commission’s preliminary findings.

Epstein accuser tells commission about abuse

Rachel Benavidez, the lone speaker in the “survivor testimony” portion of the meeting, alleged that Epstein sexually abused her at Zorro Ranch. Benavidez said Epstein’s connections with powerful people in the state allowed him to “roam free here in New Mexico unchecked” after he was convicted of sex crimes elsewhere.

“We don’t need more paper files sitting as artifacts,” Benavidez said, urging the commission to question “co-conspirators” who helped Epstein evade accountability in the state.

Benavidez has said in interviews that she was brought to the ranch to work as a massage therapist beginning in the late 1990s. She said Wednesday that Epstein exploited “the one thing that meant everything to me at that time, my hard earned career.”

A group of Epstein victims and victims' family members accused Blanche in a statement of “continuing to protect abusers” by withholding the information sought by New Mexico.

“The DOJ’s argument that it won’t hand over files in order to protect survivors’ identities is laughable when the DOJ has already revealed their names and personal information,” they said.

Epstein purchased his expansive property in Stanley, New Mexico, a sparsely populated ranching community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Santa Fe, in 1993 from former Democratic Gov. Bruce King and built a hilltop mansion with a private airstrip and helipad.

Epstein's ranch has been renamed ‘San Rafael Ranch’

The property was sold by Epstein’s estate in 2023 to the family of Don Huffines, a Republican recently appointed Texas' state comptroller. In a February social media post, Huffines said the property has been renamed San Rafael Ranch after a saint associated with healing and that his family plans to operate a Christian retreat there.

The Justice Department in December started releasing investigative records pertaining to Epstein and Maxwell in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the transparency act quickly complained about shoddy redactions and too many sealed materials. Records that were released, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records and other documents, were either already public or heavily blacked out, and many lacked necessary context.

___

Associated Press writers Larry Neumeister in New York and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

The move Tuesday closes the book on the Jan. 6 cases that were wiped out with Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping pardons and commutations last year, freeing people convicted of violent assaults on police and other crimes from prison.

The Department of Justice in April acted to vacate the convictions of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and others in the seditious conspiracy case, who had their sentences commuted but did not receive pardons. It was a stunning reversal from the Democratic Biden administration, which hailed the guilty verdicts in one of the most serious cases stemming from the Capitol attack.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw the Oath Keepers' trials, criticized the department's move, writing in his ruling that the government "asks to absolve these Defendants of crimes against the United States itself." But Mehta wrote that he had no choice but to grant the administration's request.

“This is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of Jan. 6. That book is now closed,” wrote Mehta, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.

“Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — to buckle. The court cannot write a different ending,” he wrote.

Juries in the nation's capital convicted Oath Keepers leaders and members of another group, the Proud Boys, of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Biden. Rhodes was released from prison in January 2025 after Trump commuted his 18-year sentence.

Rhodes, who did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, has denied any wrongdoing and described himself at his 2023 sentencing as a “political prisoner.” James Lee Bright, an attorney who represented Rhodes at trial, wrote in a text message that he was “disappointed in the tenor" of Mehta's order, adding that it was “not necessary to inject his personal opinions in such a fashion.”

Trump has argued that the Jan. 6 defendants were treated unfairly by the justice system, saying the pardons were intended to end “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people” and begin “a process of national reconciliation.”

More than 1,200 people across the United States were convicted of Jan. 6 crimes, including roughly 200 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement.

Most of the Jan. 6 defendants were granted “full, complete and unconditional” pardons, while Rhodes and other defendants in the seditious conspiracy cases only had their sentences commuted. Trump also ordered the attorney general to seek the dismissal of roughly 450 cases that were pending before judges stemming from the largest investigation in Justice Department history.

The request would extend a yearslong legal battle that could have broader implications for cellphone privacy and search warrant requirements.

Erik Rodriguez, a former 14-year veteran of the San Antonio Police Department, was arrested in January 2021 and later indicted on charges including bribery and possession of child sex abuse material. He pleaded not guilty.

The latest appeal centers not on Rodriguez’s guilt or innocence, but on whether investigators lawfully obtained evidence from his cellphone.

In 2022, a Bexar County district judge ruled that San Antonio police investigators made critical mistakes when obtaining warrants to seize and search Rodriguez’s cellphone.

The judge, who suppressed the evidence, found that investigators failed to comply with Texas law governing cellphone search warrants.

Prosecutors appealed the ruling. The Fourth Court of Appeals later reversed the decision, which allowed the cellphone evidence to be used in the criminal case.

Rodriguez’s attorneys have now announced they will seek review by the nation’s highest court.

Legal experts said the dispute highlights an issue that extends beyond Rodriguez’s case. Cellphones contain vast amounts of personal information — including text messages, emails, photos and location history.

Making search warrant requirements could be a significant constitutional issue.

“The same legal standards that apply in this case apply to anyone whose cellphone is searched by law enforcement,” defense attorney John Hunter told KSAT.

The Supreme Court accepts only a small percentage of the cases it is asked to review. If the court declines to hear Rodriguez’s appeal, the criminal case would move forward in Bexar County with the cellphone evidence remaining admissible.

If the court agrees to hear the case, the legal fight over the evidence could continue and further delay the proceedings.

The case cannot move toward trial until the pending appeals process is resolved.

More recent coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Child porn, bribery cases against ex-SAPD officer in peril after warrants tossed out

It was quite a day in an increasingly compelling race for the NL MVP award.

Crow-Armstrong homered twice and drove in four runs to help the Chicago Cubs beat Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-6 on Wednesday for a sweep of their three-game series. But Ohtani also went deep twice and finished with three hits.

“I do think they were going toe to toe,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You know, obviously, there’s a lot of talk about those two guys being the front-runner for the MVP. They both showed up, and you can see that they hear what's being said about them, and that was fun for the fans certainly.”

Crow-Armstrong, 24, is Chicago's regular center fielder, but he served as the designated hitter for the series finale against LA. That gave him an opportunity to take a closer look at Ohtani's brilliance at the plate.

“I just enjoy watching him play baseball,” Crow-Armstrong said. “So I guess today for me what was cool was just getting to watch him from a different angle and not worrying about going and trying to catch balls that are hit at 1,000 miles an hour.”

Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong exchanged leadoff shots in the first inning. It was Ohtani's 11th leadoff homer this season and No. 35 for his career. It was Crow-Armstrong's fourth career leadoff drive — all this season.

Crow-Armstrong added an RBI double in the second and a two-run shot in the fourth, a 405-foot laser that went off the videoboard in right field. It was the 31st homer to hit that videoboard since it was installed in 2015.

Ohtani capped the Dodgers' five-run eighth inning with a two-run drive to left-center. It was his first multihomer game of the season and No. 24 for his career.

“That’s two great players,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “Yeah, they were kind of doing everything offensively for their teams, for sure. Pretty impressive.”

Ohtani won his second straight NL MVP award in 2025, smacking 55 homers and recording a 2.87 ERA in 14 starts on the mound for the Dodgers. He is 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 starts this year, but he hasn't been able to pitch since July 3 because of left knee soreness and a right biceps injury.

While Ohtani has been limited to DH duties of late, Crow-Armstrong has become an offensive force while playing his usual stellar defense in center. The two-time All-Star is batting .288 with 26 homers, 28 steals and 69 RBIs in 115 games. He went 6 for 13 in the series against LA with two homers and five RBIs.

At the very least, he has turned the NL MVP race into an intriguing competition.

“He’s a great player but I’m really focused on myself right now on the hitting side of things and I’m really working towards hopefully getting back on the mound and just working on that side of the side of game as well,” Ohtani said through a translator.

Ohtani, 32, said his knee is feeling better, but it's hard to tell what the schedule is going to look like in terms of returning to pitching. Asked if the Dodgers' trade for Tarik Skubal affects his urgency level for getting back on the mound, he said he lets the front office decide the tempo of his progression.

“But at the same time it’s really nice to see Tarik on our side and being able to see him pitch live,” Ohtani said.

Ohtani, a four-time MVP and six-time All-Star, certainly isn't having any trouble at the plate. He is batting .457 (16 for 35) with four homers and nine RBIs during a nine-game hitting streak. He is hitting .297 with 26 homers, 70 RBIs and a .953 OPS in 109 games on the year.

“I think if you guys want to talk about all this back and forth, I really should go get in the lab and start pitching,” Crow-Armstrong cracked. “I really should."

Crow-Armstrong said he is more focused on the team's success than the MVP race, but he was honored to be mentioned alongside Ohtani.

“Simply put, just having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as he feels, it’s awesome and it’s a nice nod,” he said.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

He is seeking to shore up support for Republicans ahead of the November elections, which will determine which party controls Congress.

Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, defeating U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in a massive victory for the party’s progressive wing in a battleground state. The real test will now come in a November matchup against Republican Mike Rogers for the seat, which is pivotal to Democrats’ chances of flipping the Senate.

The AP declared El-Sayed the winner after confirming Wednesday morning that there were simply not enough votes left to count that would allow Stevens to catch up. El-Sayed’s victory was so narrow that his victory wasn’t assured until almost all statewide ballots were counted. At the time AP declared him the winner, El-Sayed led Stevens by 14,893 votes — a margin of just under 1 percentage point — out of more than 1.5 million ballots counted. See full results.

Here is the latest:

Vance says Trump suggested he take parental leave — for one day

Vice President JD Vance said in an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox News Channel that Trump called him last month the day his newest son was born and suggested he take some time off.

“And I said, ‘Well, Mr. President, I’ve got a meeting with you tomorrow.’ And he said, ’Yeah, take some time off. Like today,” Vance said with a laugh.

Celebrities make appearances at Trump’s Vegas speech

Retired boxing champ Mike Tyson made an appearance at Trump’s speech, sitting with Rick Harrison of television show “Pawn Stars” and Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Trump gave a shout out to Tyson from the stage, saying he saw his Broadway show called “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.”

“I’ve seen a lot of Broadway shows, and he was fantastic,” Trump said.

Trump revives little-mentioned health care plan

The president toward the end of his remarks in Las Vegas said that with the help of a Republican-controlled Congress, “We will pass the Great Healthcare Plan. It’s called the Great Healthcare Plan.”

Trump announced the outlines of the plan in January, but he has spent little time speaking about it since then.

The centerpiece of his proposal is to send money directly to Americans for health savings accounts to pay for insurance and health costs.

Trump says ‘we may have to’ send oil prices higher

As he often does, the president predicted that oil prices will fall once the war in Iran is over – something he has been saying for weeks, but which has yet to fully come to fruition.

Trump, however, added a new wrinkle in his Las Vegas speech. He noted that the price of oil has stabilized somewhat recently, “And we may have to send it up again.”

“We may have to — you know what happens when we send it up. But we hope we don’t have to,” the president said.

He didn’t clarify what he meant by that. But oil prices have typically risen as the war in Iran continues — despite Trump’s repeated assurances that the conflict will soon be over.

Trump jogs to stop toddler from running off stage

The president invited up a Las Vegas couple who work as a police officer and casino waitress, along with their two very young children, to talk about the tax breaks on overtime and tips in Trump’s sweeping legislation signed last year.

As Trump stepped aside to let them speak, their young toddler began quickly wandering off toward the edge of the stage.

Trump quickly moved to intercept the youngster, and then cracked a joke about his predecessor Joe Biden that was not quite audible.

Schumer says he spoke with El-Sayed

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he’s spoken with Abdul El-Sayed after the Democrat won his party’s nomination for Senate in Michigan.

El-Sayed defeated Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who Schumer had backed, and ran on an anti-establishment platform.

In an interview after the call, Schumer said that El-Sayed “is a very good candidate” and that Michigan is a “very important path” to winning the Senate.

“He’s brought in some real strengths” and new voters, Schumer said.

“We’re going to work together and our mission is of course to win Michigan and take back the Senate,” Schumer said.

Trump says he’d ‘like to fire’ Supreme Court justices appointed by Democrats

The president complained that the high court’s “Republican judges, or justices, don’t stick together.”

He said that the court’s three liberal judges “never veer” and that “I respect that.”

But Trump added, “It’s too bad they’re on” the court, and that “a couple of them just don’t belong.”

“I’d like to fire them,” Trump said, before suggesting that he was simply responding to Democratic calls to add justices to the court as a way of offsetting the three conservative judges Trump himself appointed.

Trump lashes out at Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee

The president called Abdul El-Sayed a communist and predicted that the Democrat would lose to Republican nominee Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in November’s general election.

Trump made particularly charged comments about El-Sayed’s views on Israel. The Democrat has called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel.

“He doesn’t love Jewish people. He hates them,” Trump said. “He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart and there’s not a fricking thing he can do about it.”

El-Sayed, who would be the first Muslim senator, has rejected accusations of antisemitism.

“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment to the safety of my own daughters,” he said Wednesday morning.

Trump again insists that his White House ballroom is a ‘military complex’

The president told the Las Vegas crowd, “I’m building this big military complex” and that it includes “a lot of different things, and some of the things I can’t even talk about.”

Later, though, he said the project will still be a ballroom.

Trump originally said the ballroom that he demolished the White House’s East Wing to build would be paid for himself and some friendly donors. But costs have ballooned and Senate Republicans eventually tried to advance $1 billion in funding for White House security and military improvements as part of the new complex.

That proposal has since stalled. But Trump continues to say the ballroom will have strategic value, saying it will include things like drone ports.

After insulting Canadians, Trump promotes a mining project in Nevada by a Canadian firm

Trump in his speech brought up the development of one of the world’s largest lithium mines in northern America, the Thacker Pass project.

The U.S. government last year announced it was taking a minority stake in Vancouver-based Lithium Americas, which is jointly developing the mine with General Motors. The U.S. also took a 5% stake in the mine itself.

Trump told the crowd in Las Vegas, more than 500 miles away on the other end of the state, that “Many people in this audience are going to be working there, and you are working there.”

He didn’t mention that the U.S. government was taking a stake in the project, but shortly after that in his speech, he began warning about the dangers of communism.

Trump says US exports are ‘totally on fire in a positive way’

The president is trying to convince Americans that his policies have led the rest of the world to buy American goods, but his claims lack context.

“Just yesterday, it was announced that American exports are totally on fire in a positive way,” Trump said. “They’ve skyrocketed exports to the highest level in American history.”

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Tuesday that American exports in June fell 0.9% to $314.7 billion. On a three-month moving average, exports are also down.

However, exports have increased 11.7% so far this year, largely because of increased exports of gold, oil and other energy products. Energy prices have increased this year because of the Iran war.

Trump at start of Nevada address honors fallen Las Vegas police officer

Officer Austin Abdelnabi, 30, a U.S. Marine veteran, was killed in the line of duty on Tuesday while responding to a report of a person with a gun acting erratically and waving a firearm in the air at a business, according to police.

“Austin died a hero, and he will never be forgotten, never going to be forgotten,” Trump said. “So to every law enforcement officer here today, we thank you for your service. And we say, God bless the men and women of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. And frankly, all of law enforcement.”

Trump’s comments came after a man in the crowd loudly booed Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo when he referenced Abdelnabi before the president took the stage.

“No. We’re not booing him. He’s the officer that passed away here recently,” Lombardo replied.

Trump insults Canadians as he takes the stage in Las Vegas

Trump was expounding on the tariffs he’s imposed that’s touched off a contentious trade war with Canada and told the crowd that, “Canada’s nasty. They are. They’re nasty.”

“I love the people, but they’re nasty,” Trump added.

Las Vegas’ tourism-dependent economy has been hit by a slump in visits from tourists and the city’s mayor has said visits from Canada — Nevada’s largest international market — has dried up in the wake of Trump’s trade policies and insults to its northern neighbor.

Nevada governor urges Republicans to vote in November’s election

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo faces Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford in what is considered one of the most competitive governor’s races in the country.

“You have a choice to get up off the couch,” he told a crowd of hundreds waiting to hear Trump speak. “You have a choice to walk to the ballot and cast your vote.”

Nevada residents also have an opportunity to vote for a state ballot initiative on voter ID in November, he said. It passed by a significant margin in 2024 but needs a second vote to take effect.

Lombardo highlighted his partnership with Trump, the first Republican presidential candidate to win the Silver State in 20 years. He said a federal decision had threatened Nevada’s solar industry, so he spoke to Trump about it and Trump fixed it.

“He’s always taken my phone call,” the governor said.

Trump will be talking about the economy at a Las Vegas casino

Hundreds of people waited in a long line wrapped around slot machines at the Red Rock Casino Resort and Spa to get in to see the president.

Tom Port, a professional driver, said he is saving money with Trump’s move to cut tax from tips.

“That’s about the best thing he could have possibly done for me, considering a large portion of my income comes directly from tips,” said Port, 36.

Terilyn Taylor, 60, a teacher in Las Vegas, said she likes Trump, but also thinks home prices, interest rates and gas prices are too high.

“I don’t think it’s all Trump’s fault,” she said. But she would like to see the Iran war end.

“I thought the gas prices would be temporary, so I’m really ready for the Iran thing to be resolved,” she said.

Temporary status officially ends for 350,000 Haitians

U.S. District judge Ana Reyes on Wednesday was forced to lift her stay that had blocked the Trump administration from terminate Temporary Protected Status for about 350,000 Haitians who had been living and working legally in the United States since 2010.

She issued the order after a Supreme Court ruling on June 25 that sided with the administration’s decision to end the program.

As part of its crackdown on immigration, the Trump administration terminated TPS for about 1 million people from more than a dozen countries, including Haitians.

“As a result of today’s order implementing the Supreme Court’s decision, Haitian TPS holders — all of them noncriminals — can no longer legally work, and many are subject to removal to Haiti,” Geoff Pipoly, the lead counsel for the Haitians, said.

Brazil’s president calls the Trump administration’s decision to revoke ambassador’s visa ‘irresponsible’

The United States’ decision followed Brazil’s denial of visas last month for two American diplomats who sought to visit ahead of upcoming elections as well as what the U.S. said was Brazil’s stalling on approving Trump’s nominee to be ambassador in Brasilia.

While Brazil’s ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti is not being expelled from the United States, if she leaves she would have to reapply for a visa, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview Wednesday.

“I think it’s an irresponsible, ill-considered course of action for a country with 203 years of diplomacy and diplomatic relations,” Lula said.

Plane took off as Trump’s helicopter approached Reagan airport

The FAA is investigating because it appears to be a violation of safety procedures put in place after last year’s midair collision between an airliner and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport.

A commercial jet took off Tuesday from the busy Washington, D.C., airport at the same time that Marine One left the White House for Andrews Air Force Base with the president aboard. The jet was climbing above Marine One as the helicopter approached, so the two aircraft were not on a collision course.

After a January 2025 collision that killed 67 people, the FAA decided all takeoffs and landings at Reagan would be halted anytime a helicopter passes by the airport.

▶ Read more

Bernie Sanders praises El-Sayed’s primary win as historic sign of ‘unstoppable’ change for Democrats

“Abdul’s victory was, in my opinion, the most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics,” said Vermont independent Sen. Sanders during a call with reporters.

Sanders also congratulated two progressive candidates who won U.S. House primaries in the state and commended Rep. Haley Stevens for conceding a “tough” race.

Sanders said El-Sayed “took on” the Democratic establishment and outside spending from groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He said the result was a sign of further change.

“The new Democratic Party is going to be broad-based. It’s going to be open and encouraging the participation of working-class people, of young people, of lower-income people. Democracy is messy, and I’m not going to sit here and tell you that everything is going to go 100% smoothly and there’s not going to be differences of opinion. That’s called democracy. I happen to believe in that. But that is the direction in which we are heading, and I think that is unstoppable.”

Sanders dismisses concerns about El-Sayed’s electability

Asked about progressive Abdul El-Sayed’s ability to turn out core Democratic constituencies including Black and Jewish voters, Sanders said that El-Sayed’s economic message had broad appeal.

“I think his economic message will resonate across Democratic constituencies, and I think there’ll be working-class Republicans who will support that,” Sanders told reporters.

He argued that El-Sayed “has the capability of expanding the voter turnout universe, and much many of those new voters will be voting for him.”

Sanders dismissed concerns that El-Sayed’s criticism of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza will alienate Jewish voters.

“To be critical of the right-wing extremist government of Netanyahu and his horrific policies in Gaza does not make you antisemitic,” said Sanders, who is Jewish.

Democratic turnout in Michigan primary one of the highest in state history

The Democratic U.S. Senate contest in Michigan has surpassed turnout for previous Senate and gubernatorial primaries and almost every presidential primary going back to at least 1978, according to Michigan Secretary of State records.

As of noon ET Wednesday, a total of 1,528,280 votes had been counted. The total could end up being higher as ballots continue to be processed.

But it already surpasses the roughly 1,181,000 votes counted in the 2020 U.S. Senate Democratic primary, and the approximately 1,131,000 votes counted in the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary.

The 2026 turnout total so far trails the nearly 1,588,000 votes counted in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. About 1,117,000 votes were counted in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

North Carolina Rep. Chuck Edwards quits reelection bid after committee finds inappropriate conduct

The House Ethics Committee recommended the Republican be censured for unprofessional and inappropriate conduct toward two young female aides in his office. Edwards denied intending any of his conduct to be a sexual or romantic advance, but the committee said his behavior would “lead a reasonable observer to interpret it as such.”

State law requires Edwards to submit his Wednesday withdrawal in writing to the state Board of Elections before ballots are mailed to overseas voters and the military. Since the primaries were months ago, the Republican executive committee in his district will name a replacement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is already juggling other disruptions as he tries to retain the GOP House majority, including in Ohio where Rep. Max Miller is under pressure to resign over his own ethics investigation.

The seat Edwards will be vacating includes progressive Asheville, and farmer Jamie Ager, the Democratic nominee, is hoping to flip it.

▶ Read more

US removes Fly Baghdad from sanctions list

The U.S. removed sanctions on three Iran-linked companies, including Fly Baghdad Airlines, which was sanctioned in January 2024 for allegedly providing assistance to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian proxy groups in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. Also removed from the sanctions is Fly Baghdad’s CEO and two aircraft.

In addition to lifting sanctions on Fly Baghdad, the U.S. on Wednesday lifted sanctions on Iraq Express and another Fly Baghdad-linked company. A Treasury official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the sanctions said the decision to remove Fly Baghdad from the designations list was not indicative of any shift in U.S. policy toward Iran’s government.

— By Fatima Hussein

El-Sayed said he condemns antisemitism, wants to address ‘everybody’s pain’

El-Sayed said he wants to unify people rather than divide them, and that people should focus on ending wars and corporate influence in politics. He has previously faced criticism for calling Israel’s military campaign in Gaza a “genocide.”

El-Sayed said “we can be talking about everybody’s pain.”

“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as I’ve got a commitment to my own kids,” he added. “That’s the highest commitment I can offer.”

On Wednesday, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two as Maliki Perales, 11, and Drayven Quiroz, 20.

The two brothers were backing the family car out of their driveway around 7:30 p.m. in the 9800 block of Acadian Drive, near Kriewald Road, when the suspect, Daniel Antonio Perez, crossed the street from his home and opened fire on the vehicle, Salazar said.

Perales and Quiroz were rushed to a hospital in critical condition. During a Wednesday news conference, Salazar said Maliki died Tuesday night, and Quiroz was pronounced dead Wednesday morning, moments before the start of the conference.

Perales died from a gunshot wound to the head and torso, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday. His death was ruled a homicide.

Quiroz’s cause and manner of death are still pending.

“Unbeknownst to them, they had what I would categorize as a ticking time bomb right across the street from them,” Salazar said. “And really had no warning whatsoever — is my understanding.”

After shooting the two brothers, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said Perez turned his attention to two other siblings who were standing near the front door of the family’s home — a 14-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl.

“Thankfully, he missed them,” Salazar said.

Perez, 40, faces two counts of capital murder, one count of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to court records. His next court appearance is tentatively set for Nov. 3.

After the shooting, Perez fled on foot, BCSO said. Ring doorbell footage from a nearby home captured Perez frantically knocking on a neighbor’s door, claiming he didn’t want to be killed, appearing to suggest self-defense.

Investigators said the evidence tells a different story.

Perez called 911 while on the run, telling dispatchers he had shot his neighbors, but he didn’t tell them where he was.

“The only reason we found him is because we were able to utilize his cellphone signal to ping where he was,” Salazar said. “It’s not like he confessed and told us and laid down. Deputies still had to confront him and give him orders at gunpoint to surrender himself.”

Deputies located Perez about a quarter mile from the scene, hiding in a stranger’s backyard. The gun was recovered several houses away in a nearby drainage culvert.

Salazar said Perez’s family told BCSO he had gone through mental health crises before, including depression and episodes of seeing things that were not there.

A BCSO spokesperson told KSAT when deputies made contact with Perez, his speech and movements were noticeably off.

However, the sheriff was clear — a mental health crisis does not erase criminal responsibility.

“While clearly there’s some sort of a mental health crisis going on, he still had the presence of mind and the culpable mental state to go conceal the weapon somewhere and then go conceal himself somewhere else,” Salazar said.

Perez does not appear to have a prior criminal record, according to investigators. He is currently being held at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center.

Neighbors described the victims’ family as warm and welcoming.

“These folks fed the neighborhood,” Salazar said.

Read also:

• BCSO: Suspect in custody after shooting neighbors, including 11-year-old, on far West Side

The proposal is split into two items on the ballot.

Proposition A would provide nearly $540 million for safety and security upgrades, repairs at existing campuses, new elementary schools near the Interstate 35 corridor and replacement buses equipped with seat belts.

Proposition B would provide about $27 million for classroom technology. That includes replacing student laptops and upgrading the district’s network.

Comal ISD says both propositions can be financed within the district’s current tax rate. However, the district notes that individual property tax bills can still change depending on appraised property values.

“Our community continues to grow, and that growth affects schools throughout the district,” Superintendent Dr. John Chapman said in a press release. “This proposal reflects the work of community members who carefully reviewed our needs and helped identify priorities related to safety, existing facilities, student capacity and technology. Our responsibility now is to make sure voters have clear, factual information about each proposition before the election.”

Voters will decide whether to approve one, both or neither proposition when the bond package appears on the November ballot. Election Day is Nov. 3.

The fire was reported just after 5 p.m. Wednesday in the 2000 block of Delgado Street, near Northwest 24th Street.

Upon arrival, SAFD said police were in the process of pulling the man from the home.

The man was taken to a local hospital with possible inhalation burns, SAFD said.

Fire crews determined the fire was contained to a back bedroom and didn’t spread. The fire department said the home sustained significant damage.

While the cause remains under investigation, SAFD said “cigarette-smoking materials” possibly caused the fire.

Read also:

• Father tearfully remembers his two sons after they were shot, killed outside west Bexar County home

While those surgeries were canceled, the cases made headlines several years ago, prompting a spike in people around the country revoking their organ donor registrations.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the nonprofit Network for Hope “a bad apple” and accused it of “persistent safety failures” in announcing the government was starting the process to decertify it.

Network for Hope is one of about 55 organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, that coordinate the recovery of organs from deceased donors and help match them to patients on the nation’s transplant list. In a statement, Network for Hope said it “strongly disagrees” with Kennedy’s decision and will appeal.

Among the allegations is that in 2021, Network for Hope’s predecessor organization pressured a local hospital to proceed with plans to withdraw life support and retrieve organs from a man despite signs that he was waking up from a drug overdose. The man survived and his sister joined Kennedy at a press briefing Wednesday, thanking him.

OPOs cannot declare if someone is dead — only a doctor at the hospital treating the person can do that. Only after that declaration can a donor agency assume responsibility for the deceased, looking for potential recipients and scheduling surgeons to come in to retrieve the organs. Most donations come from people declared brain-dead. But sometimes doctors say a patient has a nonsurvivable injury and the family decides to withdraw life support — and in certain circumstances, that also can allow for donation.

In its statement, Network for Hope said it complies with all federal organ policies. It said that over a year ago it implemented a “first-of-its-kind” new safeguard allowing anyone — including health professionals or family members — to call a pause in donation planning if there’s any concern the patient won’t be appropriate.

Kentucky recently passed a law mandating that pause and the federal Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network is working on new rules that also would require all the nation’s OPOs to implement it.

More than 100,000 people are on the U.S. transplant list, the vast majority seeking a kidney, and thousands will die waiting for a new organ. There were more than 49,000 transplants last year, a record despite a small drop in donations from the deceased — the first such dip in a decade.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

None of the three appear to know Wells, his family or the boating group, or be part of the investigation. The threats came amid rampant speculation and scrutiny of the investigation, deepened in part by uncertainty surrounding Wells' final hours, distrust of law enforcement and the state's long history of racist violence.

The teenager, who was Black, had traveled to the uninhabited island with a group of friends from high school, all of whom were white. He did not return with his friends to the mainland that evening. His body was found two days later off the island’s coast.

Authorities have not made any arrests or named any suspects. An independent autopsy commissioned by Wells’ family found the 18-year-old’s cause of death to be “undetermined” pending further investigation.

Attempts to reach the defendants for comment were unsuccessful. Phone numbers listed for some of the defendants in affidavits weren't active and a call to another number went unanswered. Emails sent to addresses listed in an affidavit for one of the defendants went unanswered. It is unclear if they have attorneys.

One of the defendants, Edward James Porter of Illinois, allegedly called an unnamed witness on July 31 and threatened to kill them and their family, according to an affidavit. Porter also allegedly told another person in Mississippi in a phone call that he would cut them up and put them “into a suitcase.” Porter was charged on July 31 in federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi for the threat.

Porter threatened two members of the family of Bart Edminston Jr., a 21-year-old who knew Wells and provided aid to the boat the group used on July Fourth, said family attorney Russell Latino. Latino said that one of the family members who Porter threatened is a witness in the investigation into Wells’ death.

An Ohio woman was also charged with allegedly placing bomb threats at the George County Chancery Clerk's Office and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office on July 23. The woman, Michelle Francine Edwards, allegedly called the clerk's office 21 times and said, “the clock is ticking,” according to an affidavit.

A California man, Joseph Alfredo Vasquez Dumarce, was charged on July 14 for allegedly sending a threatening Facebook message to a Jackson County Chancery Court judge with ties to the Wells investigation. According to an affidavit, a Facebook user believed to be Dumarce sent a message to the judge's account that constituted a “threat that a bomb would be mailed to the judge's office."

Judge Ashlee Cole posted a screenshot of Dumarce's threatening message on Facebook on July 9. Cole wrote in an earlier Facebook post that her son last saw Wells on July Fourth around 3 p.m. and decided to “stay on the island and return inland later with another group of friends.” Cole wrote that she deactivated her Facebook and that she fears for the safety of her children.

“No one in our family is trying in any way to impede with the investigation by law enforcement or to otherwise hamper the family and law enforcement’s quest for answers,” Cole wrote, adding that her son “cooperated fully” with the sheriff's investigation. ___ Kelety reported from Phoenix. Associated Press journalist Sophie Bates in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed.

An AMBER Alert was issued across Texas after Martinez was reported missing Sunday evening. On Tuesday, the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD) told KSAT the case is classified as an “Endangered Missing Person” investigation.

KSAT reached out to both SAPD and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) seeking clarification on why different classifications were used and how the decision to issue a statewide alert is made.

In the meantime, KSAT read through DPS’ overview and SAPD’s General Manual Procedures to better understand the purpose and criteria for each alert, in any case that is issued to the public.

What is an AMBER Alert?

According to DPS, an AMBER Alert is designed to quickly notify the public about serious child abduction cases in hopes of generating tips that help law enforcement locate the child.

Under DPS guidelines and SAPD policy, an AMBER Alert generally requires:

• The child is 17 years old or younger whose whereabouts are unknown, or a child 13 years old or younger who was taken without permission under certain circumstances
• Law enforcement determines that the child faces a credible threat of death, serious bodily injury or sexual assault
• A preliminary investigation has verified an abduction and ruled out other explanations for the child’s disappearance
• Investigators have enough information to help the public identify the child, a suspect or a vehicle connected with the case
• SAPD’s Missing Persons General Manual states that requests for an AMBER Alert must meet the criteria established by DPS before the department requests activation of the statewide alert

What is an Endangered Missing Person Alert?

The Endangered Missing Person Alert is a separate statewide alert administered by DPS.

According to DPS and SAPD policy, the alert was created after Texas expanded its alert system to include missing people of any age who have a documented intellectual disability or developmental disorder whose disappearance poses a credible threat to their health or safety.

To qualify for an Endangered Missing Person Alert, the following criteria generally must be met:

• The missing person has a documented intellectual disability or developmental disorder, such as autism spectrum disorder or another qualifying diagnosis
• Law enforcement determines the disappearance poses a credible threat to the person’s health or safety after investigating the circumstances
• The alert request is made within 72 hours of the person’s disappearance
• There is enough descriptive information available to assist the public in locating the missing person

Unlike an AMBER Alert, an Endangered Missing Person Alert is not based solely on age. Instead, it is intended for qualifying missing individuals of any age who meet the other provided criteria established by DPS.

The club made the move following a nightmarish stretch in which the three-time All-Star could never seem to get on track.

The Pirates, who entered Wednesday 3 1/2 games behind Arizona for the third NL wild-card spot, promoted outfielder Ronny Simon from Triple-A Indianapolis to take Ozuna’s roster spot.

Pittsburgh signed Ozuna to a one-year deal worth $12 million in February, a rare free agency splurge for the budget-conscious club. The team hoped the right-handed Ozuna would help balance out a left-handed-heavy lineup.

Instead, Ozuna started slowly and never found the form that helped him hit 296 homers during previous stints with Miami, Atlanta and St. Louis.

Ozuna hit just .203 with eight home runs and 29 RBIs in 70 games with Pittsburgh and had seen his playing opportunities cut significantly in recent weeks thanks to the emergence of rookie Esmerlyn Valdez.

“Didn’t have a season that he would like,” manager Don Kelly said Wednesday in Milwaukee before the Pirates faced the Brewers. “Just got to a point where we felt like we needed to make a move and open up the DH spot to be able to rotate.”

Ozuna has a $10.5 million salary this year. He had a mutual option of $16 million in 2027 with a $1.5 million buyout.

The decision comes on the heels of a trade deadline in which Pittsburgh, seeking to end a decade-long playoff drought, fortified its leaky bullpen with a series of moves, including acquiring reliever Luke Weaver from the New York Mets.

Kelly and general manager Ben Cherington defended Ozuna repeatedly, with Cherington expressing confidence the underlying metrics showed Ozuna was close to turning it around and Kelly praising Ozuna’s influence on the club’s Latin American players. But with a chance to play meaningful baseball into September on the line, the team opted to move on.

“It’s a tough spot, and hate to go through it,” Kelly said.

Pittsburgh also activated left-handed reliever Evan Sisk off the injured list and optioned reliever Wilber Dotel to Triple-A Indianapolis on Wednesday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

• HEAT INDEX: 102-105 around SA, higher along coastal plain
• SEA BREEZE: May generate a shower or two in the days ahead
• BACK-TO-SCHOOL: Monday & next week will generally be quiet

FORECAST

SEA BREEZE

As high pressure shifts west, the sea breeze may be enough to stir up some brief showers Thursday through Monday. The sea breeze is a boundary created by temperature differences between Gulf waters and land temperatures. Southeasterly winds push the boundary inland and occasionally it can kick up some weak showers.

BACK-TO-SCHOOL

Monday is the first day of school for some in San Antonio. Know that not much changes from what we are seeing now. It’ll be hot & humid, while rain chances stay very low. After-school, outdoor practices will require lots of hydration!

QUICK WEATHER LINKS

• WATCH LIVE: Doppler Radar
• Hourly and 10-Day Forecast
• Download FREE KSAT Weather Authority App: Up-to-date forecast information and livestreams from trusted local meteorologists.
• KSAT Connect: Share your weather photos.

Nico Hoerner added three hits as Chicago won for the fourth time in five games. The Cubs also improved to 32-15 since June 11, strengthening their hold on the top spot in the NL wild-card standings.

Los Angeles was swept for the second straight series. The two-time defending World Series champions have dropped six in a row for the first time since a seven-game skid in July 2025.

Ohtani went deep twice for the NL West-leading Dodgers, and Max Muncy connected for a three-run homer in a five-run eighth inning. Mookie Betts had four hits after he batted just .167 (15 for 90) in his previous 25 games.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman was replaced in the fifth after a pitch hit the side of his right hand on a foul ball. X-rays were negative, and Freeman said he was OK.

Ohtani and Crow-Armstrong exchanged leadoff homers in the first, continuing what has become a two-man race for NL MVP.

Chicago added two more in the second on RBI doubles by Dansby Swanson and Crow-Armstrong off Eric Lauer (6-6). Crow-Armstrong made it 5-1 with a two-run shot in the fourth that went off the videoboard in right field, his 26th of the season.

Chicago left-hander Shota Imanaga (8-9) scattered eight hits while working five innings of one-run ball. He struck out six and walked none.

Los Angeles rallied in the eighth. Ohtani's two-run homer off Ryan Zeferjahn, his 26th, trimmed Chicago's lead to one. The Dodgers had a runner on second when Kiké Hernández struck out swinging, ending the inning.

Jacob Webb worked a perfect ninth for his sixth save.

Up next

Dodgers: RHP Roki Sasaki (5-5, 4.64 ERA) starts Friday night in the opener of a series at Arizona.

Cubs: LHP David Peterson (6-7, 5.52 ERA) starts on Thursday against Toronto in the makeup of a June 21 rainout. RHP Dylan Cease (7-5, 2.41) takes the mound for the Blue Jays.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Although no one observed the actual 5,400-mph (8,700-kph) collision, a telescope in Chile spotted what astronomers have identified as the debris plume resulting from the crash. Space tracking experts said it was inevitable that the leftover rocket segment plowed into the moon.

It’s the latest instance of lunar litter, a problem that many fear could worsen as the U.S. and China race to put astronauts on the moon. In 2022, a Chinese rocket unintentionally hit the moon following a lunar mission, and many more stray rocket pieces likely struck the moon in decades past without scientists' knowledge.

SpaceX's Julianna Scheiman said this week that the company is working with NASA to avoid future wrecks, stressing that this projected crash was not deliberate. A combination of solar activity and gravity accidentally put it on a collision course with the moon, she said.

Boston University's Carl Schmidt said he is “100% certain” that his team's observations revealed signs of the lunar crash. The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope detected a stream of sodium and lithium stretching for miles (tens of kilometers) into space for at least five to 10 minutes following the impact, he added.

“We don’t have images of the impact" but there's telescope evidence, Schmidt said in an email.

Even before signs of the debris plume were spotted by the telescope in Chile, retired astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell noted that observations of the dead 4-ton upper stage on Tuesday night showed it heading straight for the moon. The anticipated crash site was a dusty, barren patch near Einstein Crater on the moon’s sunlit western limb — near the edge of the near and far sides, which is especially difficult to observe from Earth.

“There's no doubt in my mind" that the rocket “is now in teeny, little pieces scattered over the moon near Einstein Crater,” McDowell told The Associated Press.

“As a physicist, I know that what goes up must come down,” he added.

Stargazers knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, from the ground to see the plume of dust and rock ejected from the resulting crater, let alone the flash of light from the impact. Orbiting spacecraft had the best chance of witnessing anything — or at least observing the crater after the fact.

Dutch scientist Marco Langbroek was among those aiming his telescope at the moon at the appointed time, but he came up empty.

"We knew this would be a long shot,” Langbroek said.

Like McDowell, Langbroek said he had “no doubt” the rocket met its doom.

Visual confirmation, McDowell noted, will have to wait for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to fly over the crash scene and send back photos of the impact crater. The space agency doesn't expect that to happen until next week.

The Falcon rocket's upper stage — a fat cylinder more than 40 feet (12 meters) long — hoisted two private lunar landers from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, 2025. It ended up adrift after putting Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience on course for the moon. Resilience wrecked, but Blue Ghost aced its touchdown, becoming the first private spacecraft to do so.

The moon is the new go-to destination in space, with NASA envisioning a stampede of robotic craft over the next several years to form the foundation for a sustainable lunar base. Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will provide the lunar landers for NASA's Artemis astronauts.

Musk's Starship is making steady progress in test flights from Texas. Bezos' Blue Moon lander has yet to launch. One or both landers will take part in next year's Artemis III, a docking rehearsal in orbit around Earth. A lunar touchdown by astronauts — the first since NASA's Apollo moonshots — could follow as soon as 2028.

“Things are going to get a lot busier near the moon,” McDowell said. “At that point an impact like this on the lunar surface plowing up huge amounts of dust going for hundreds of miles around is not going to be acceptable.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

But the nanny never worried the Massachusetts mother might be a danger to her children or to herself.

“I observed a wonderful mom who loved her kids,” Elaine Rossi told the jury on the seventh day of the trial in Plymouth. “She was concerned about their safety, and Callan eating and sleeping. She was a wonderful mother.”

Clancy’s defense says she was a loving mother who was overmastered by postpartum psychosis, a dangerous psychiatric condition that afflicts a small proportion of women after childbirth and affects their hold on reality.

Prosecutors contend that she acted intentionally on Jan. 24, 2023, and should be held criminally responsible for the deaths of Callan, Dawson and Cora Clancy, who ranged in age from 8 months to 5 years.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

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Rossi was hired in September 2022, a few months after Callan was born. She was let go in December after Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, decided not to return to work. Rossi said she wasn’t told why Clancy chose to remain at home.

She testified Wednesday about her time with the family, describing Cora as a “girly-girl” who loved arts and crafts. Three-year-old Dawson was “full of energy, rambunctious, funny, silly.” Callan was the “sweetest, happiest baby.”

The defense sought to portray Clancy, 35, as a doting mother who acknowledged her mental health difficulties. Prosecutors likely hope the jury will see a mom who wasn't impaired by her mental health.

Rossi testified that she saw prescription medicine bottles in the house, and that Clancy "shared with me she had postpartum and couldn’t sleep,” and had taken to sleeping in the basement.

In her journals during that time, Clancy indicated she was struggling with anxiety and feeling overwhelmed by motherhood.

Both the prosecution and defense read excerpts from her diary to the jury Monday, where she catalogued an ever-shifting lineup of psychiatric prescriptions, as well as thoughts of suicide. Clancy remains paralyzed from the waist down after jumping from her home's second-story window on the night of the killings.

Clancy wrote about her struggles to get newborn Callan to sleep, and constant worries of his being sick. She also expressed concerns about going back to work, not being able to breastfeed, and feeling disconnected from her children and her then-husband.

“I’m so desperate to get a mental break from taking care of everyone that my mind is trying to find something physically wrong with me,” she wrote in a Nov. 18, 2022, entry.

“I have crazy brain fog. I feel like I can’t make a plan,” she wrote in another, undated entry. “I live moment to moment waiting for the next nap time.”

Clancy’s lawyers don’t dispute that she killed the children. But in the criminal trial and a medical malpractice lawsuit, her attorneys say she had bipolar disorder that wasn’t fully diagnosed until after the killings. Her attorneys say her condition seemed to worsen on the psychiatric medications, some of them problematic for bipolar patients.

Several officials with the state police crime lab testified this week that Clancy had multiple prescription medications in her blood after the killings, including antipsychotics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines.

If convicted of murder, Lindsay Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.

Around 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, the city’s police and fire departments were dispatched to Rio Vista Park for a water rescue.

The woman, who was from Austin, was underwater diving in the river, according to the city. She was taken to a hospital in San Marcos where she later died.

The city did not identify the woman. Additional information was not immediately available.

Read also:

• Caldwell County environmental crimes investigator drowns in Nueces River, constable’s office says

Cyclospora cases have been reported in at least 47 states this year, and investigators have continued to probe how many could be linked to a common contaminated source.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number of states tied to the deadly outbreak had grown from nine to 15. Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire and North Carolina were added to a list that previously included Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Investigators initially narrowed in on lettuce served at Taco Bell. Federal officials subsequently said they are focused on Taylor Farms as the source of the lettuce in the outbreak, and the company has recalled iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico.

There are several reasons cyclospora outbreaks can be hard to investigate and contain, said Dr. Juan Luis Marquez, medical director of the Washtenaw County and Livingston County health departments in Michigan.

It can take weeks between when someone is exposed to the parasite and when they come down with symptoms; it's harder to analyze the parasite in laboratories; and it's a lot of work to interview everyone who is sick and clearly identify common exposures, said Marquez, an adjunct public health professor at the University of Michigan.

Also, “there have been staffing cuts at all levels of public health — federal, local, state — so there are less resources and capacity generally available,” Marquez said in a statement.

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is less common than foodborne illnesses caused by other germs, including salmonella and E. coli. Many cyclospora cases are never linked to a specific food or other source.

The worst year in the U.S. for infections was 2019, when about 4,700 illnesses were reported nationally. This year has far surpassed that. Michigan alone has reported more than 12,000 — including two deaths. Adding in the other states that have reported cases, the national total stands at over 25,000.

The FDA says it is tracking five separate ongoing cyclospora outbreaks. The 15-state outbreak is by far the largest. No products have been linked to the other outbreaks, including one that has sickened 115 people.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The order comes as crews across the southern border race to complete one of President Donald Trump's highest domestic priorities — barriers that span four states and received over $46 billion in federal funding. Controversies have sprouted up in Texas and California, with border-town residents and environmentalists reporting a wide variety of issues with construction.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees border wall construction, has said water is needed to make concrete for roads, wall construction and dust suppression. Cattle ranchers in the area say the drought has already forced them to reduce their herd size.

“It would put us in an immediate catastrophe and having to do something with our livestock. I mean, it could potentially put some people out of business, us included,” said Russell Johnson, a cattle rancher whose property runs along the border.

Johnson raised the issue at a public meeting in July after noticing an industrial well, which drilling crews told him would pump 300 gallons a minute, on land he leases for grazing. Johnson has roughly 12 wells across his ranch, which pump between three and seven gallons a minute.

A spokesperson for CBP said on Monday that border wall contractors in New Mexico have been instructed to stop drilling new wells, but did not comment on whether the wells already drilled could be pumped. The agency said they would collaborate with New Mexico and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop a groundwater strategy.

“CBP is committed to working collaboratively with local landowners to ensure that construction activities do not adversely impact their water needs,” read the statement.

The federal contractors building the wall in New Mexico — Caddell Construction Co. and Fisher Industries — did not respond to emails or phone calls seeking comment. Messages left with receptionists for Barnard Construction and Spencer Construction Co., the contractors building near Johnson's ranch, were not immediately returned.

State agency that monitors wells said contractors drilled illegally

The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, which monitors and approves wells across the state, said staff have counted eight wells drilled without the office’s permission along the southern border, but cautioned there could be more. Staff visited two wells in July and reported they were pumping 200 gallons per minute.

“All non-tribal wells in New Mexico, whether they are drilled on state or federal land, must have permits from the state engineer before they can be drilled or water can be pumped from them,” the Office of the State Engineer said in a statement.

The wells for border construction were all drilled on a federally owned strip of land 18 miles (29 kilometers) wide that extends just north of the border called the Roosevelt Reservation. CBP did not respond to follow up questions about whether the federal government has a right to pump groundwater on federal land without state oversight.

Cattle ranchers report culling herds due to water scarcity

Tom Patterson, president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, says water is the No. 1 concern for ranchers and that if wells start to go dry, it’s already too late. During wall construction in Trump's first term, Patterson said, contractors bought water from farms, ranches, or municipalities in the area, which meant the amount of water being pumped from nearby basins didn’t increase during construction.

“Why do they need all this water?” said Patterson. “And why can’t they buy it as they have in the past from farmers, ranchers, or even from Luna County?”

Johnson said the moratorium on future well drilling is a step in the right direction, but he’s still worried after a contractor told him the well near his ranch could eventually be pumped if crews ended up needing the water. Though beef prices are up, Johnson has been forced to reduce his herd to one third its original capacity. He cites the drought, which has left less grass for cattle to graze on, as the main reason for the drop.

Before the first border wall went up, Johnson remembers seeing at least one truck of people crossing his ranch every week. Now, he says illegal crossing hardly ever happens on his ranch. As a former Border Patrol agent, he supports the border wall but doesn’t believe it should cost him his livelihood.

So far, half a mile of secondary wall has gone up near Johnson’s property.

“They need to stop pumping all of these wells because they were all drilled illegally,” Johnson said.

New Mexico politicians scramble to claim credit for deal

Both candidates in the race for a congressional seat that represents this area in New Mexico claimed credit for the moratorium.

Congressional candidate Greg Cunningham, a Republican, said he advocated for the agreement between CBP and border wall contractors and was the first to announce the news over social media on Friday.

“Ranchers, families and local officials brought us their concerns. I raised it with the Trump Administration. They listened. They acted fast,” Cunningham said in a post on X.

Congressman Gabe Vasquez, who faces Cunningham in November's midterm elections, spoke about the issue on the House floor earlier this month.

“This illegal drilling by this administration should never have happened, but when it did, I heard our ranchers’ concerns loud and clear and immediately raised hell in Washington to get the job done and protect New Mexicans’ water rights.”

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Schuettler is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

—-

This story was first published on Aug. 3, 2026. It was updated on Aug. 5, 2026 to correct the distance of the wells from the border. The wells were drilled on a federally-owned strip of land 18 miles wide that extends just north of the border, not 60 miles north of the border.

The uncertain trading on Wall Street followed two days of big gains that gave the week and August a strong start. Several big technology companies slumped, though, ultimately weighing down the market.

The S&P 500 fell 12.97 points, or 0.2%, to close at 7,723.55. The index spent most of the day higher after surging to a record on Tuesday.

“The coiled spring investors have been waiting for has finally released, with the S&P 500 Index surging to record highs for the first time in two months,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide, in a report.

The Dow Jones industrial Average rose 263.24 points, or 0.5%, to 54,349.12, reaching another record.

The Nasdaq fell 221.55 points, or 0.8%, to 26,363.44. The index was weighed down by big technology companies losing ground, including a 4% drop for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, and a 1.1% drop for Microsoft.

The market has been generally rising as companies head into the closing stretch of their latest round of earnings reports with sharp overall gains. Three-quarters of the companies within the S&P 500 have reported results so far, and Wall Street expects profit growth of 50% when they are all finished.

The Walt Disney Co. rose 3.6% after easily beating Wall Street’s profit forecasts, helped by a $1 billion box office haul from “Toy Story 5” and theme park revenue.

Booking Holdings jumped 6.6% after reporting that strong travel demand drove profit and revenue growth during its most recent quarter.

Elon Musk's SpaceX fell 13.6% following the release late Tuesday of its first quarterly report as a public company, which showed that it sharply boosted spending on artificial intelligence. The company did help give semiconductor giant Nvidia a 3.4% boost after announcing it would exclusively use that company’s chips for its artificial intelligence technology.

That announcement weighed on Advanced Micro Devices, which fell 7%. Musk had previously said that SpaceX and his electric vehicle company, Tesla, would use chips from both Advanced Micro Devices and Nvidia.

Treasury yields slipped in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.61% from 4.63% from late Tuesday.

European markets were mixed.

Strong corporate profits and expectations for more growth ahead have been steering stocks higher. Wall Street has also been worried about stock prices becoming unjustifiably high, especially within the technology sector and for companies focused on artificial intelligence. Profit growth, especially for some of the big chipmakers, like Nvidia, could help justify some of the big investments those companies are making in AI.

AI-focused companies, with their big market values, have been behind many of the big market swings and most of Wall Street’s gains.

“The market appears to be moving from rewarding companies for AI spending to assessing the revenue and earnings that these investments can generate,” said Brian Therien, analyst, investment strategy, at Edward Jones, in a report.

Uncertainty about the direction of the U.S. war with Iran continues hanging over the market. President Donald Trump said a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday. But there have been many stops and starts during the five-month old conflict that has stifled the global supply of oil and rattled energy markets.

The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.1% to $79.45 a barrel. Oil prices have been swinging for months and were as high as $102 per barrel at one point during the conflict, jolting already stubbornly high inflation. Higher oil prices pushed gasoline prices higher and increased shipping costs for a wide range of products.

Inflation concerns have been hanging over markets and the Federal Reserve. The central bank has been holding its key benchmark rate steady as it monitors the costs and the impact on the economy. Wall Street expects the central bank to raise rates at least once before the end of 2026. Household spending remains resilient, despite the stress from higher costs on everything from gas to groceries.

The jobs market has been one of the stronger areas of the economy, though growth has been slowing. Wall Street will get another update on Friday with the monthly employment report for July.

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Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.

Several of the events are on a first-come, first-served basis, so arriving early is recommended.

Check out this list of where you can find free resources in the San Antonio area:

• Alamo City Barber College: The college will offer free back-to-school haircuts from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Aug. 8 at 8910 Bandera Road.
• Bexar County Department of Military and Veterans Services: The sixth annual Military and Veterans Health & Wellness Fair, dedicated to support local military members, veterans and their families, will take place from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug. 6 at the Wonderland of the Americas. The fair will feature a backpack giveaway, veteran resources and a mobile health clinic.
• CentroMed: Parents who schedule a well-child appointment at CentroMed will receive a free backpack with school supplies for their child while supplies last. The offer runs through Aug. 14. Click here for more details.
• District 1 Back to School Bash: The annual event will feature school supplies, resources, immunization services and more from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Edison High School, 701 Santa Monica St. More information can be found here.
• District 4 Back to School Resource Fair: Councilman Edward Mungia and CentroMed will host the fair from 9 a.m. to noon on Aug. 8 at 5439 Ray Ellison Boulevard. Backpacks and school supplies will be provided to children while supplies last.
• San Antonio Parks and Recreation: The Back to School event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Aug. 8 at Miller’s Pond Community Center & Park, 6176 Pearsall Road. The event will feature free backpacks and school supplies, a community resource fair and more. Click here for more information.
• Second Baptist Church Community Center: The back to school giveaway will take place from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 7 at 3310 East Commerce St. The giveaway will feature free haircuts, school supplies and a special appearance by the Spurs Coyote.

This list will be updated as more places announce back to school giveaways.

Read also:

• San Antonio mother praises new one-stop shop workforce institute at Alamo Colleges
• How 15 new parks help Uvalde heal four years after Robb Elementary School shooting

Jeanine John Taele, 38, was due in court Wednesday on a federal weapons charge but the hearing was cancelled. He is being held at a downtown LA jail on state charges, according to booking records and not yet in federal custody, said a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office.

Taele was arrested Sunday at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, two days before Trump visited for a fundraising dinner.

Taele was first seen on the property Friday, walking throughout the course wearing an earpiece and taking photos and videos of federal agents' activities as they conducted a security assessment, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Taele drove away but then returned to the course Sunday. He approached federal agents and said he was employed by the State Department and was there for a security detail. Taele said he had a loaded weapon in his vehicle and was arrested after it was searched, according to federal officials. Authorities also found a 16-round magazine with ammunition in his pocket.

He already appeared in court on state weapons charges and a second-degree robbery charge for an unrelated incident.

Taele is charged federally with possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle that was found at this home, authorities said. The complaint alleges the firearm is an illegally modified AR-style rifle with a barrel that was cut down to 10 inches (25 centimeters) from 14 inches (35 centimeters).

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said a search of his pickup truck in the club parking lot turned up a loaded 9mm pistol, binoculars and a badge that read “security protection agent," according to federal prosecutors.

Law enforcement searched his home in the nearby city of Downey on Monday and found a rifle and other firearms, magazines and ammunition, body armor and notebooks with “concerning statements," federal authorities said. No details about the statements were released.

“Mr. Taele’s troubling behavior at the President’s public golf course merely days before the President was expected to arrive raised serious red flags for law enforcement,” Patrick Grandy, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in a statement. “There is no room for error, particularly in light of previous attempts on President Trump’s life.”

In brief remarks about Taele's arrest to Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said “only consequential presidents” are targeted, “and I am definitely consequential," which he said brought him “a little solace.”

Taele was a corporal in the U.S. Marines who was deployed to Iraq in 2008 and Afghanistan in 2010 and worked as a warehouse clerk, according to the U.S. Marine Corps. He earned numerous commendations, including an award for good conduct, during his service from 2008 to 2016.

State records show Taele is a licensed security guard, with his most recent license issued in February of this year and expiring in 2028. Records also show several cancelled or suspended permits to carry a firearm as a security guard. State officials did not immediately respond to a request for more details about those permits.

The Los Angeles County public defender's office, which is representing Taele in the state criminal case, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Wednesday. Family members could not immediately be reached for comment.

Last year a jury found a man guilty of trying to assassinate Trump at the president’s Florida country club. And while a candidate in 2024, Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by a shooter on a roof at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Schwartz was confirmed in a 51-44 vote. The 54-year-old becomes the 22nd leader of the Atlanta-based CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats, and the agency's first confirmed director in nearly a year. Her resume includes medical and law degrees, a stint as deputy surgeon general, and a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard.

Schwartz's nomination appeared to be on shaky ground after a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee last month. The chairman, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and others questioned whether she would be willing to stand up to Republican President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if he ordered CDC to do something unsupported by science and good public health practice.

But weeks later, Cassidy said he had spoken with Schwartz after that hearing and with others who knew her, and said he had gained confidence in her.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials did not immediately respond to questions about when Schwartz will start the job or her salary.

The CDC has been in turmoil since Trump returned to office last year.

Largely due to layoffs and resignations, the agency has lost 3,000-plus employees, more than one-quarter of its workforce. Morale has plummeted as a succession of mostly temporary leaders has come and gone. The front office has been staffed by political appointees with little or no training in medicine or public health.

“Now, Dr. Schwartz needs to prove that her leadership will serve science and not the whims of politicians. CDC needs a Director who will protect public health workers, defend evidence-based guidance, and refuse any directive that would undermine public safety,” said the National Public Health Coalition, an organization of former and current CDC workers, in a statement Wednesday.

When Schwartz was nominated in April, public health experts were cautiously optimistic, citing her background. They also noted that Schwartz was the choice of Trump and not Kennedy, who is a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before he was tapped to oversee the CDC and other federal health agencies.

Schwartz was the third Trump nominee for CDC director in the past 18 months.

The first was a former Florida congressman, Dr. David Weldon. His Senate hearing in March 2025 was canceled an hour before it was to begin. Weldon said at the time that he had been told not enough senators were willing to vote for him.

The White House then moved on to Susan Monarez, who had been serving as the CDC’s acting director. Monarez was confirmed by the Senate, but ousted from the job in less than a month. Trump administration officials said she was not aligned with the president’s agenda, so they terminated her.

Since then, there have been a series of HHS officials as acting CDC directors.

“With all the turmoil of the past two years, the CDC desperately needs stability, experienced leadership and a steadfast commitment to science,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association, in a statement Wednesday.

The CDC position was one of several leadership vacancies among federal health agencies, including the U.S. surgeon general and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.

Here's a look at the latest developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East on Wednesday. Full coverage can be found here.

Israel tells residents to leave village in southern Lebanon

For the first time in weeks, Israel's military told residents of an area of Lebanon to evacuate. The military said the warning for the village of Mansouri was in response to what it described as “a blatant violation of the ceasefire” by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group.

The military later said it was conducting “precise strikes” in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said one person was killed and 12 wounded in an Israeli strike in the town of Tebnine.

The escalation came as Lebanese and Israeli negotiators met in Rome for a second day to discuss implementation of a deal under which Israeli forces are supposed to withdraw from areas they occupy in southern Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah's disarmament.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy, said the second day of talks ended early “due to events on the ground” but could continue on Thursday.

A shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has largely held since June 20. The fighting erupted two days after the Iran war began when Hezbollah fired at Israel.

— Matthew Lee in Washington

Iran and the US say a deal on the Strait of Hormuz is close

Iran said Wednesday it's in the “final stage” of drafting an agreement with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump said on Tuesday night that a deal could be announced this week. That could potentially reopen the critical waterway, ease pressure on the world economy and help bring an end to the war.

But the agreement is likely to be contingent on the United States lifting its blockade on Iran’s ports. The Trump administration has previously ruled out any deal that would cement Iran’s grip over the strait, which would amount to a major loss for the U.S. and a break with global norms.

Iran has insisted on some measure of control over the strait, saying it will not go back to being an open international waterway, as it was before the war.

Yemen's Houthis claim 2 attacks on Saudi oil tankers

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they fired ballistic missiles at two Saudi oil tankers, one in the Red Sea and the other further east, in the Gulf of Aden. They did not provide evidence and there was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia.

A vessel sailing off Yemen in the Gulf of Aden reported a loud explosion nearby, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said, adding that the crew was safe.

In July, the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi shipping, putting at risk another key world trade route running through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, which links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

Saudi Arabia has diverted millions of barrels of oil exports to the Red Sea since the Iran war choked off the Strait of Hormuz, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.

The US lifts sanctions on 3 Iran-linked companies

The U.S. has lifted sanctions on three Iran-linked companies. A Treasury official said it came after an appeal and was not indicative of any shift in U.S. policy toward the Islamic Republic. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the sanctions.

One company is Fly Baghdad Airlines, sanctioned in January 2024 for allegedly providing assistance to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Sanctions also were lifted on Iraq Express and another Fly Baghdad-linked firm.

— Fatima Hussein in Washington

The Commanders agreed with Diggs on a contract for this season, according to a person familiar with the agreement. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the deal had not been announced.

Diggs, a native of nearby Gaithersburg, Maryland, joins Washington for a 12th year in the league and reportedly can make up to $12 million. He spent last season with New England, making 99 catches for 1,123 yards and five touchdowns in 21 games, including the Patriots’ playoff run to the Super Bowl.

New England released him in March, and the 32-year-old went unsigned in free agency while facing strangulation and other criminal charges in connection with a dispute with his former private chef. Diggs was found not guilty in May, and the NFL said in June that he wouldn't face any discipline after a review determined there was not enough evidence to punish him under its personal conduct policy.

The Commanders had a hole at the position, and they are banking on Diggs filling it. The in-house options of Treylon Burks and Luke McCaffrey would have put Daniels in a tough spot and likely made No. 1 receiver McLaurin deal with plenty of double teams this coming season.

Signing Diggs could rule out going after Brandon Aiyuk, a friend of Daniels' who is still under contract with San Francisco. Aiyuk said on social media in June that he would join Washington immediately if the 49ers released him.

Aiyuk remains on the reserve/left squad list out West, while Diggs is now in an NFC East that features receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens with Dallas, DeVonta Smith with Philadelphia and Malik Nabers with the New York Giants.

Diggs previously played for Minnesota, Buffalo and Houston during a career that included him being an All-Pro selection in 2020, when he led all players with 127 catches and 1,535 yards. Since making his debut in 2015 after the Vikings took him in the fifth round of the draft that year, Diggs has 1,025 catches for 12,523 yards and 79 TDs in the regular season and playoffs combined.

That included the “Minneapolis Miracle” catch for Minnesota in the divisional round in January 2018. With 10 seconds left, Diggs leapt and evaded a tackle to score a 61-yard touchdown and beat New Orleans 29-24.

Off the field, it has been a more tumultuous ride, including getting fined more than $200,000 by the Vikings during his final season with them in 2019 for unexcused practice absences. Diggs was traded to Buffalo in March 2020.

Diggs led the Bills in receiving four seasons in a row, but sideline outbursts and cryptic social media messages were also part of his tenure before being traded to Houston in April 2024. A torn ACL ended his time with the Texans, and skipping a voluntary offseason workout got him off to a bumpy start with the Patriots before he turned out to be a reliable option for QB Drake Maye.

Cut in part because he was owed $20.6 million, Diggs now is teaming up with Daniels, who was taken one spot ahead of Maye when they went Nos. 2 and 3 in the 2024 draft.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

“I didn’t get home until after midnight, and I’m old,” he said Wednesday. “I’m 73 years old and I’m tired, but the show must go on.”

Burnam was booked on a charge of disrupting a meeting or procession, according to Tarrant County Jail records. The offense is a Class B misdemeanor with a maximum of 180 days in jail, a fine of up to $2,000, or both.

The Tarrant County district attorney’s office prosecutes this type of misdemeanor. A spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that no case regarding Burnam had been submitted to the office for review as of 11:30 a.m. 

In a statement, the sheriff’s office said: “As an agency we have procedures requiring us to file charges within 5 days for a misdemeanor and 10 days for a felony. A charge will be filed and the case assigned to a Detective within that timeframe.”

Beyond the criminal case, Burnam also told the Tribune that he was in the “very early stages” of consulting with lawyers about a potential lawsuit against Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare over his arrest. O’Hare’s office didn’t immediately respond to a comment request. 

Burnam’s arrest came hours into the North Texas county commissioners’ meeting to consider the removal of nearly half of the voting sites available for Election Day on Nov. 3, as well as several early voting locations. Proponents said the goal is to cut costs, while critics like Democratic Commissioner Alisa Simons — who is challenging O’Hare in November — said “this is the GOP’s plan to hold on to their seats.”

This plan also followed recent changes that affect Black and Latino representation in the largest purple county in Texas, including last year’s controversial mid-decade congressional redistricting push as well as the redrawing of the county commission’s district map. And while many elected positions are held by Republicans, Democrat Taylor Rehmet pulled off a major upset in a special election earlier this year to take a Texas Senate seat.

At the Tuesday meeting, the proposal drew dozens of people who opposed the closures as a voter suppression tactic that lacked transparency. Burnam, who represented part of the county in the Texas House from 1997 to 2015 and now frequently speaks at county meetings, was among them.

“I was a big fan of all the legislation that Lyndon Johnson signed into law, and they’ve been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act,” he told the Tribune Wednesday. “This was just something that I had to act on.”

Wearing a pin that says “Protect Voter Rights” and a black shirt that references the 1960 nonviolent sit-in movement to desegregate lunch counters, Burnam spoke out against the proposed cuts. While speaking, he also picked up the microphone in support of a previous speaker, Base Mego, who was removed for doing the same thing. Mego told The Dallas Morning News that he has autism and had previously gotten an accommodation to lift the mic.

“Set the microphone down,” O’Hare said from the dais.

Burnam ignored him while continuing to speak.

“Please remove him,” O’Hare said. “We will go into recess because you’re disrupting the meeting again.”

Burnam then refused to leave, prompting four sheriff deputies to haul him off the floor and out of the room by his arms and legs.

After hours of testimony, county commissioners delayed a vote on the closure plan to September, with O’Hare saying that the proposed cut was “too large.”

Meanwhile, Burnam said he was already planning to attend the Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ quarterly meeting on Thursday to speak about the Tarrant County Jail, which has faced heightened scrutiny due to reports of medical neglect as well as dozens of in-custody deaths over the past few years.

“Ironically, I was going to talk about jail conditions,” he said, “and now I know more on a personal basis.”

The New England-based plaintiffs sued the Monterey Bay Aquarium for defamation after the aquarium's Seafood Watch conservation program placed American and Canadian lobster on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is deciding whether the lawsuit can go forward.

One of the appellate judges, Judge Seth Aframe, said during oral arguments on July 27 that it doesn't strike him as a defamation claim and that he finds the case troubling “from a First Amendment perspective.”

“The more you broaden the class of people that fall within this, the more it feels like everybody can sue,” Aframe said.

Seafood Watch placed lobster on its list of seafood to avoid because of the threat posed to rare whales, such as the North Atlantic right whale, by potential entanglement in fishing gear.

The lobster fishing industry, based mostly in Maine, has pushed back, saying the claim inaccurately portrays it as a threat to whales and constitutes defamation that has caused economic harm. It claims that the whales face greater threats from other fishing industries, including the Canadian snow crab fishery.

Conservation groups have long made the case that lobster and crab fisheries are both dangerous to the whales, and government agencies have acknowledged that entanglement in fishing gear is a critical threat to the giant animals.

The industry is sticking to that claim despite the judges' comments during oral arguments, Kevin Lipson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday.

“Monterey Bay Aquarium in their Seafood Watch report didn't disclose any of the countervailing evidence. In fact, they hid that evidence,” Lipson said.

Seafood Watch is one of the most cited sustainability reports about seafood, and many restaurants and stores use it to inform which products to carry. Some major retailers, including Whole Foods, announced they were pulling Gulf of Maine lobster after the red listing.

A representative for Monterey Bay Aquarium declined to comment Wednesday. During oral arguments, Amy Saharia, an attorney for the aquarium, said that Seafood Watch didn't single out any of the plaintiffs with a direct reference.

The case has lingered because of ongoing legal maneuvers. A lower level federal court ruled last year that the lawsuit could proceed after the aquarium had requested it be tossed.

Maine fishermen caught more than 78 million pounds (35 million kilograms) of lobster last year — a down year by the industry's recent standards. The crustaceans were worth more than $460 million at the docks and are a key piece of the economy and culture in the state.

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This story was corrected to reflect that oral arguments took place July 27, not July 26.

The progressive candidate narrowly defeated Rep. Haley Stevens to set up a November matchup with former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers. El-Sayed has little time to celebrate before pivoting to patching up divisions in the party after a bruising primary.

During much of the Trump era, Democratic primary voters have often followed the urging of party leaders and favored moderate candidates like Stevens. But this year, they've veered toward outsiders like El-Sayed, who tapped into widespread discontent with the Democratic establishment and the status quo in Washington.

Democrats need to rack up as many wins as possible to take back the U.S. Senate, so the party has little room for error against Rogers.

More primaries unfolded in Kansas, Missouri, Virginia and Washington. The contests will solidify November matchups, particularly in Virginia, where Democrats failed to redraw the state's congressional map earlier this year.

Here are some takeaways from Tuesday's elections:

Democrats aim to bury their differences now

El-Sayed and Democrats moved quickly Wednesday to stress their unity after the contentious primary. El-Sayed called for mending fences, and Stevens offered her support, saying it was more important to keep Rogers from winning.

“There is so much more that unites us now,” El-Sayed said during a victory speech on Wednesday morning.

Mallory McMorrow, who dropped out of the Senate primary earlier this year, stood alongside El-Sayed.

“What is most important now is that we recognize that for all of the differences that we may have had in this primary, that those differences pale in comparison to the contrast that we face in November,” she said.

The seat is open because Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is retiring, and Democrats are under pressure to defend it to preserve their chance of winning control of the chamber.

The campaigns took sharp aim at one another. Sanders, one of El-Sayed’s most prominent supporters, called Stevens “nothing more than an employee” of billionaires. El-Sayed has been a pointed critic of Israel and called the military campaign in Gaza a “genocide,” an accusation rejected by the Israeli and U.S. governments.

Stevens has criticized El-Sayed’s style, comparing him unfavorably to a celebrity who is always “running at the first mic or camera.” She has also suggested he’s not electable in the fall, saying Republicans have been propping him up because they think El-Sayed will be easier to beat.

Trump’s endorsement overpowers self-funded candidate for governor

Republican voters picked their nominee for Michigan governor on Tuesday as well, going with Trump's endorsed candidate, Rep. John James.

The president’s backing typically carries significant weight in Republican politics, but businessman Perry Johnson had lent his campaign more than $30 million, according to Michigan campaign finance records.

Trump's endorsement hasn't always overcome big spending. In Georgia’s race for governor, Rick Jackson spent $100 million, largely of his own money, to defeat Trump-backed Burt Jones in a runoff.

On the Democratic side in Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson defeated Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson.

AIPAC continues to be a lightning rod

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has long been an influential force in U.S. politics, but it's been under pressure as Democratic support for Israel erodes over the war in Gaza.

The organization has suffered a series of losses in Democratic primaries that saw a surge of progressive candidates. Victors range from Rep. Analilia Mejia, who won a special election to Congress in suburban New Jersey, to Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who captured the Democratic nomination for a U.S. House seat in Illinois.

AIPAC's biggest investment has been in Michigan, where it and its affiliates have spent more than $30 million supporting Stevens, a stalwart backer of Israel. El-Sayed and his backers have seized on the group's intervention as an example of the problems of big money in politics.

After El-Sayed won, AIPAC said it would work to defeat him and “his radical anti-Israel agenda.” El-Sayed was defiant, issuing his own challenge to AIPAC — “You want more pain?”

AIPAC had some success Tuesday. In Missouri, former Rep. Cori Bush fell short in her rematch against Rep. Wesley Bell, who defeated her two years ago.

Bush had blamed her previous loss on AIPAC, even vowing revenge on the organization in her concession speech. "AIPAC, I'm coming to tear your kingdom down!” she pledged.

However, she was quickly defeated as voters in the St. Louis-area district decided to stick with Bell.

Virginia is on Democrats' minds

One of Democrats' most bitter defeats this cycle took place in Virginia, where that state's supreme court in May overturned a voter-approved initiative to redraw the state's House map to make four more seats easier for the party to win.

The failed effort was part of Democrats' attempt to match Republicans' own redistricting campaign, which was spurred by Trump last year in hopes of making it easier for his party to hold control of the House.

Democrats are optimistic they can recover at least a couple of those Virginia seats the old-fashioned way. On Tuesday, they got what they wanted in the state's two swing seats, with former Rep. Elaine Luria winning the nomination to compete for the 1st District in Virginia Beach and prosecutor Shannon Taylor getting the nod to run in the Richmond-area 2nd District.

The longer shot comes in the heavily rural 5th District in central Virginia, where Tom Perriello, who briefly represented the region in President Barack Obama's first term, won the Democratic nomination to try to win a now even more conservative-leaning seat.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland Jockey Club announced the decision Wednesday. No Triple Crown race has ever taken place on a Sunday in the century-plus-old history of the series.

The shift marks a major change on the horse racing calendar, following significant debate and speculation. Except for 2020 during the pandemic, the Preakness has been on the third Saturday in May, two weeks after the Kentucky Derby, since 1950.

Maryland Jockey Club CEO Bill Knauf acknowledged the tradition while also calling this the time to move the Preakness back.

"It’s been discussed for a very long time (and) we recognized the different trends and training methods recently," Knauf told The Associated Press. “We entered the discussion maybe even saying, 'Hey, is two weeks the right amount? I think the week was the right placement. It still gives an incredible test for a horse and a champion to go through that, even at three weeks.”

The aim is to get more Derby horses to participate in the second leg of the Triple Crown. For decades, it was normalcy but has become increasingly rare in recent years.

Two consecutive and three of the past five Derby winners have bypassed the Preakness to aim for the final jewel, the Belmont Stakes in June. Of the 95 horses who ran in the Derby dating to 2022, just 13 have gone to the Preakness (13.7%) with just one winner in that group.

“We are going to move it back to be able to ensure that the winner of the Kentucky Derby will then be prepared to compete in the second leg of the Triple Crown,” Moore said at a news conference in Annapolis. “By moving the day, you’re then providing additional time and space for our horses and the people who compete in the Derby to be able to then now compete to be able to be part of that Triple Crown.”

For at least next year, it has the chance to produce the opposite effect, with the Belmont scheduled for June 5, as announced Monday. Going from a three-week to a 13-day gap between the Preakness and Belmont could force owners and trainers to choose between them, given that modern 3-year-old thoroughbreds typically get significantly more time off.

Knauf said it was a decision made for the long-term future of the Preakness.

Hall of Famer Bob Baffert, who with American Pharoah in 2015 and Justify in 2018 is the only trainer to win the Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978, said in a social media post Monday that if he has the right horse from the Kentucky Derby, he will continue to go to the Preakness annually. That was in response to the unveiling of a new championship series of races at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Belmont Park on Long Island and Saratoga Race Course in upstate New York and does not — for now — include the Preakness.

Future changes to the schedule are always possible beyond 2027. The shift does put the Preakness on the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend beginning in 2028 and running through '31.

“We believe this creates tremendous excitement for our local economy and businesses,” Knauf said. "Baltimore will become the place to be on Memorial Day weekends, as the spotlight of the racing world descends on Pimlico.”

The change comes with an extension of the media rights agreement with NBC Sports through 2032. The Preakness — as well as the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for fillies on the third Saturday in May — will air on NBC and Peacock for the next six years.

NBC Sports President of Acquisitions of Partnerships Jon Miller said at the news conference that the network as far back as 10 years ago broached the idea of pushing the Preakness back at least a week, but previous ownership was not interested.

“It’s a success factor for everybody by moving it to the eight days later,” Miller said. “The idea of doing it Saturday-Sunday, quite honestly, was to create a weekend celebration and not just have it be a one-day event in the middle of a Triple Crown series.”

Moving the Preakness coincides with its return to Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore as part of a $500 million reconstruction project, after a one-time stop at Laurel Park. Next year, there is expected to be limited capacity, with the full, new Pimlico scheduled to be completed by the spring of 2028.

“It’s something business has been a huge champion of,” Greater Baltimore Committee President and CEO Mark Anthony Thomas told the AP. “And so people are very enthusiastic around the state’s investments.”

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AP horse racing: https://apnews.com/hub/horse-racing

Debra Seward, who is a minister and works as the community engagement coordinator of the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum, had her world turned upside down July 15, 2018 when her daughter, Grace, was killed.

According to SAPD, Grace, 24, and a friend were at a night club when they ended up in an altercation with two other people.

Police believe Grace Seward and her friend left, but they were followed to a East Side home in the 100 block of Gorman Street. Investigators said two people got out of a vehicle and fired multiple shots, hitting Grace and her friend.

Her friend survived, but Grace Seward died at the scene.

“I have a friend who lost her child tell me something I think about today,” Debra Seward said. “When a child that loses a parent, they are called an orphan. If you lose a spouse you are a widow or widower. What are you called when you lose your child? There are no words.”

Debra Seward remained faithful even though the weight of not knowing her daughter’s killers weighs heavy.

“It is heavy to know this is where my child took her last breath,” Debra Seward said as she stood exactly where the shooting took place eight years ago. “It is hard to relive this, but I have to continue to talk about what happened especially as we continue to seek justice.”

Despite the pain, Debra Seward said she finds things to smile about in her daughter’s memory.

“She was such a goofball,” Debra Seward said with a laugh. “When I see butterflies, it makes me think about her because, when she passed, I was surrounded by butterflies and I thought, ‘She is still with us.”

In honor of Grace Seward being a phenomenal student-athlete, her mother started the Grace Seward Foundation.

“This foundation has a mission of raising awareness about the dangers of gun violence,” Debra Seward said. “You don’t have to solve altercations with violence.”

The foundation raised thousands of dollars to fund scholarships that go toward student-athletes and students who are college-bound.

“I loved Grace,” Debra Seward said. “To be able to put my arms around her again, I would give anything to do that.”

To this day, Grace Seward’s case remains cold. Crime Stoppers will reward people who have any information that could lead to an arrest.

To submit information, the public is urged to contact (210) 224-7867.

“My faith tells me she is resting with God and one day we will see each other again,” Debra Seward said. “If I could say something to the people who did this, I would tell them, ‘I forgive you.’ I forgive them because God forgave me.”

Read also:

• ‘She had a good heart’: La Vernia community remembers 16-year-old killed in crash

“So many of them came because this was a good opportunity for them to make some money, and this second bite at the apple is equity instead of cash,” O'Neil said at a news conference at Trump Bedminster, site of this week's LIV Golf New York event.

O'Neil was short on details, starting with the identity of the investor and how much money was involved. He said the lead investor “has signed a term sheet approved by our board, which will carry and fund LIV going forward.”

“It's very good news for all of us,” O'Neil said.

O'Neil said LIV is getting “strong interest” from more than a dozen other parties who would be minority investors as the league tries to survive.

“We don’t need them, but we have the opportunity to do it,” he said of other investors.

LIV Golf New York is the penultimate individual event in a season that has been marked by upheaval, particularly the stunning announcement in March that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia — the financial muscle of LIV since it began — is withdrawing funding after 2026.

One tournament in New Orleans already has been scrapped, and there are serious doubts the season-ending team event in Michigan on Aug. 27-30 will be played, particularly after reports the tournament has not even started preparing for it.

“We have not made any final formal decisions and hope to in the coming weeks,” O'Neil said.

LIV Golf, which launched in 2022, has spent more than $5 billion on the league. That includes some of the nine-figure bonuses to lure top players like Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Phil Mickelson.

Prize funds were $20 million, with an additional $5 million for the team component.

But it all began to fall apart earlier this year. Koepka was let out of his contract and returned to the PGA Tour, and Patrick Reed chose not to renew his deal. He is leading the European tour points list and will be eligible to return to the PGA Tour next year.

Lucas Herbert, who has won twice on LIV Golf this year, said Tuesday his management has been in touch with PGA Tour officials.

“If LIV were to go away and you’ve got nowhere to play, I think ultimately you need somewhere to play as a professional golfer. So we’re just doing due diligence,” Herbert said.

O’Neil met with team captains on Tuesday, and DeChambeau led a player-only meeting later in the afternoon, though none of the players shared details.

O'Neil said he expected to finalize terms with the lead investor in the next few weeks with the goal of getting it done in September. The plan for what is being referred to as “LIV Golf 2.0” is for 10 team events each year, five of them in the United States and five others around the world.

It also wants to stage events leading into the majors and having a schedule that allows its player to compete on other circuits. Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton already play on the European tour. The PGA Tour still has a one-year ban on anyone competing on LIV.

The $20 million prize money — now matched by the PGA Tour at its signature events — will have to be substantially less going forward. Even with a lead investor, questions remain whether the biggest names will stick around.

“I think we have enough support from enough players, and we have such an interesting format and global format, I think we’ll do quite well in getting the right stars for this game," O'Neil said.

Among speculation is whether LIV would file for bankruptcy as it sought a new structure.

“When you’re in a situation that is a bit fluid, where there’s a bit of uncertainty, where there’s some challenges and maybe some surprises here or there around the corner, we want to make sure that we are giving ourselves the best opportunity to do what’s best for this organization to carry forward,” O'Neil said. “We’ll consider the best options at that time. That’s not a decision we have to make, and we’ll continue to do what’s best.”

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — a fierce defender and decades-long friend — openly refuted Trump’s claims of vandalism regarding one of his treasured construction projects in the nation's capital, admitting in court filings that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was due to shoddy workmanship.

The moment comes as the Republican president is struggling to convince Americans that they should believe what he is telling them about the economy, his agenda and his war on Iran before pivotal midterm elections in the fall — and reveals the inherent challenges for his team in delivering hard truths he does not want to hear. Trump has historically engaged in exaggeration, but this was a moment in which he wanted a U.S. citizen, Olympic canoeist David Hearn, to be indicted, tried and possibly imprisoned for the act of touching a chunk of sealant in the already damaged pool.

The White House said that Trump was not aware ahead of time that Pirro’s office would drop the charges.

Trump says he told Pirro he was “not happy” about her decision and that a video backed him up even though it is not clear from the footage shot at a distance that any property destruction occurred. “Well I just think she was totally wrong,” Trump told reporters Tuesday night. “And everybody saw the vandalism.”

By publicly rebuking Pirro, Trump sent a message to other administration officials that he is not to be contradicted, regardless of what the facts show.

“He just blows it up like a keg of dynamite — it’s a form of intimidating employees to be in group-think,” said Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian. “'If you work for me, you triple down.' Never disagree with the boss, even in a small fractional way.”

Some Republicans have blamed Trump's choices on ‘bad advice’ from staff

Trump has faced withering criticism for launching the war with Iran without fully laying out the rationale for the public or considering that country’s ability to withstand intense bombing. Trump snubbed a housing bill to address the affordability problems that voters say are their biggest concern, letting it become law without his signature.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested that Trump is being sheltered from facts or chalk up his choices to poor staff work. During Trump’s second term, Republican senators including Ted Cruz of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have said Trump was receiving “bad advice,” a subtle critique of the president that shifts blame onto the aides who are supposed to be providing him with credible information.

The latest blow-up "reflects a president who is struggling to shape the narrative as his national approval ratings remain extremely low,” said Julian Zelizer, a political history professor at Princeton University. “The more controversy that he faces — over Iran, the Epstein files, inflation and more — the less control he has and the stronger the chances that he will be forced to confront reality.”

The president continues to dwell on the 2020 election that he falsely claims to have won. He likes to boast that America is booming with an unverifiable $19.2 trillion in investments from foreign countries, even as economic growth has been meager over the prior three months. He posted a Jesus-like picture of himself on social media and said after a backlash that he thought it depicted him as a medical doctor.

The White House did not respond to questions about how aides brief the president and whether officials feel comfortable providing information that could contradict his public statements.

Pirro had been faithful to Trump's wishes, until now

Until now, Pirro, a former judge in Westchester County, New York, and TV show host, has largely been faithful to Trump's wishes. Her office sent a subpoena in January to the Federal Reserve regarding the congressional testimony by the central bank's then-chair, Jerome Powell, about a $2.5 billion renovation of its headquarters.

Pirro defended her decision to threaten Powell, who said the threat of a criminal indictment was really a pretext to pressure the Fed into slashing its benchmark interest rates in accordance with Trump's wishes.

“This office makes decisions based on the merits, nothing more and nothing less,” Pirro posted on X. “We agree with the chairman of the Federal Reserve that no one is above the law, and that is why we expect his full cooperation.”

Her actions temporarily slowed efforts in the Senate to confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair. The Department of Justice dropped the investigation in April, roughly a month after a federal prosecutor said in a closed-door court hearing that the government had not found any evidence of a crime.

On the reflecting pool, Pirro pursued the investigation despite what defense lawyers say was abundant evidence from the outset that the damage at the pool was the result of preexisting problems that had nothing to do with Hearn. A new court filing from Hearn’s team disputes the department’s contention that it only recently learned its case was flawed and urges a judge to not only dismiss it but to foreclose the possibility of ever resurrecting it.

“From day one, the case against Mr. Hearn was motivated by political considerations and devoid of adequate factual support,” defense lawyers wrote. “Those political pressures have not dissipated in the mere four weeks since the government saw fit to obtain the indictment.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to discuss internal Justice Department conversations related to the case.

He deflected on the question of whether or not he supported the decision, acknowledging on one hand that Trump has “every right to be extraordinarily frustrated with damage done to our national monuments in this city and elsewhere” while simultaneously praising Pirro for what he asserted was “an unprecedented effort” to improve safety in the nation’s capital.

“When you look at the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s body of work over the past year and a half and where we are in this city compared to where we were, they are doing a phenomenal job,” Blanche said. “Now does that mean that every case goes exactly the way that President Trump wants or I want or U.S. Attorney Pirro wants? Of course not, it doesn’t.”

Pirro blamed others for giving Trump bad advice

What makes the reflecting pool incident different was that the administration contradicted claims of property damage made repeatedly by the president.

On Friday, the government moved to dismiss the criminal case and said any damage to the pool was caused by the bungled work of the contractor and “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has supported Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool. That suggests that the conflict around this issue could continue to simmer.

While Trump and many of his supporters are able to exist within their own information bubble, the administration had basically declared in court that the president was wrong. That was different from a judicial ruling or news report fact-checking him, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It’s difficult to discredit that by saying these are anti-Trump forces,” she said.

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Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Darlene Superville in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., contributed to this report.

A bridal shower and yard-sale barbecue were canceled. So were English-language classes. Roosevelt Toussaint, the senior pastor of the nondenominational congregation in Salisbury, said attendance at Sunday’s service dropped by more than half. Normally, more than 500 people would have heard his sermon, titled “What to do in a time of crisis.”

The reason for empty seats, Toussaint said, is that many community members are unwilling to venture from their homes, fearing arrests and deportation since the Trump administration moved to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 1 million people from numerous countries. Among those affected: roughly 350,000 Haitians who have been living and working legally in the U.S. for years.

In Salisbury, the Eastern Shore's biggest city, about 10% of the 33,000 residents are Haitian, many of them employed under TPS as farmworkers, caregivers and in the poultry plants that are the region’s economic backbone.

Like other Haitians losing TPS, they face an agonizing choice: try to stay in the U.S. and find underground work, constantly fearful of being caught by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Or return to a nation so overwhelmed by gang violence and poverty that some feel deportation is tantamount to a death sentence.

Pastor has a message for the president

Toussaint, the Word of Life Center's pastor since 1995, said he had a message for President Donald Trump.

“We’re expecting you to have compassion for our people. They haven't done anything wrong,” Toussaint said. “All they came to this country to do is to work, to make a difference in our economy. … There’s no security at home. If you really send us over there, you send us to die.”

At Sunday's service, the first since TPS protections expired, Toussaint exhorted his congregants to persevere.

“I’m praying this afternoon that God can make you invisible to the enemy,” Toussaint told them in Haitian Creole. “They put a lot of terror in your heart. But God has come to tell you: Do not be afraid!”

Some of the congregants who are U.S. citizens said they attended the service in solidarity with those losing TPS. Among them was Marjorie Estimé, who wore a Haitian flag draped around her neck.

“I want to tell the president of the United States to stop the ICE program, so that the people can work, so ICE can stop shooting them, persecuting them, and we can go back to normal,” Estimé said of the administration's crackdown on immigration.

ICE has pressed ahead, according to advocates and attorneys who say the agency is calling Haitians in for ankle bracelets and telling them not to travel more than 75 miles (121 kilometers) from their home address.

“Instead of them heavily descending on communities, they are using tactics to bring those people into their offices to either detain them or fit them with an ankle monitor, and telling them that if they don’t self-deport, they will be called back to report within a month,” said Guerline Jozef, president of the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

Court rulings fueled confusion

The TPS termination affecting Haitians was challenged in district courts. On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court  sided with the government, allowing TPS to end and triggering weeks of confusion around enforcement timelines.

On Wednesday, the Haitians who had been shielded from deportation officially lost their protection. U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes was forced to lift her stay that had blocked the administration from terminating TPS for those who had obtained it.

“It’s just like a hurricane at Category 5 — that’s how bad it is,” said Samson Orneus, a member of Toussaint's church. He helps the pastor lead the local Haitian Development Center of Delmarva and runs WOLC Immigration Services, an immigrant assistance business in Salisbury.

Throughout last week, news spread on social media about arrests by immigration authorities at gas stations and outside supermarkets.

“We had a population living legally, raising their kids, paying their bills, and with the decision (to end TPS), they were left in limbo,” said Marie D. Fouché, founder and executive director of Safe Harbor Circles. It provides support to immigrant communities across the Eastern Shore and recorded more than a dozen arrests of immigrants recently, including some with TPS.

“They have left their kids at home,” she said. “They went to the grocery, shopping at Walmart to cook for them and feed their family. But they got arrested in the parking lot, and they’ll never go back.”

Asked about ICE enforcement activities in Salisbury, the Department of Homeland Security said via email that it “does not discuss ongoing or future operations.”

“Temporary Protected Status is exactly that — temporary,” the email said. “For too long, TPS has been allowed to function as a de facto amnesty program despite Congress never intending it to be permanent.”

At a nearly empty barber shop in Salisbury, a Haitian with TPS ventured in for a haircut. Like others, he asked to remain anonymous for fear of deportation.

“They’re not going after the people committing crimes,” said the 39-year-old man, who has been a caregiver at a nursing home since moving to Salisbury in 2020. “When I go out to the street, I’m in fear.”

TPS protections for Haitians date back to 2010

The United States initially gave TPS to Haitians following a devastating 2010 earthquake and extended it several times since.

The Trump administration pushed to end that status, saying conditions in Haiti improved. Yet almost 1.5 million people have been  displaced because of gang violence, and most Haitians need humanitarian aid.

“What this administration is doing hurts me so much because it’s inhumane,” said Leila Borrero Krouse, an immigration specialist with CATA, a nonprofit supporting Eastern Shore farmworkers.

“In all of these years that I’ve been working with immigrants, I’ve never met a criminal, a rapist, an abuser,” she said. “Most come to take jobs that others don’t want. And it’s heartbreaking to see how they’re suffering.”

The immigration crackdown has upended the life of Patricia Grace Louis-Jacques, a nursing student at Salisbury University with family members and friends affected by the end of TPS. Last week, her best friend asked her to take care of her infant child if she got detained.

“From that moment, I knew things got bad,” Louis-Jacques said at a nearly empty Caribbean Creole Cafe under a painting of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a leader of the Haitian Revolution. “Their lives have tremendously changed.”

Not far from the church, near a Perdue Farms poultry plant, a Honduran woman spoke from the home she has rarely left since the Trump administration ended TPS for nearly 80,000 Hondurans and Nicaraguans.

She said she worked at Perdue for more than two decades, repetitively cutting chickens with scissors on a fast-paced line, before losing her job last year after her TPS expired.

Her 25-year-old son, who was born in the U.S., worries that she will be detained. He often calls, reminding her to keep her living room curtains closed and avoid answering the door. Sometimes, she said, she hides by locking herself in a bathroom, where she keeps a Bible.

She used to attend church and volunteer at events advocating for immigrants' rights. These days, she only takes her two dogs to the yard and then returns indoors.

“It’s terrible to live in this anxiety,” she said. “It isn’t fair to those of us who came to this country not to cause harm, but to try to have a better life.”

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Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon in Miami contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Photos captured by The Associated Press on Wednesday show construction workers using a jackhammer on the helipad, which no longer carries the dark gray trim of a presidential seal that was visible last week. It was unclear why the seal was being removed.

The White House said it's continuing to make improvements as part of efforts to best match the needs of the building and its grounds. Trump has said the helipad is needed because new helicopters in the fleet used for Marine One are so powerful they rip out the South Lawn grass.

“For years, the White House has desperately needed a proper helipad on White House grounds that will allow the president to land safely and also protect the beautiful South Lawn grass from the fierce exhaust fumes of the incredible Marine One," White House spokesman Davis Ingle said on Wednesday. "Thanks to President Trump, the White House has never looked better, and it will only continue to get better under his leadership.”

The helipad is part of a long list of renovations that Trump has undertaken in his second term. His projects include a 90,000-square-foot (8,360-square-meter) ballroom; a Rose Garden paved over with stone; a new marbled interior in the Palm Room, a lobby-like room that leads out to the West Colonnade and Rose Garden; and an Oval Office that continues to add gilded decorations.

Trump described the helipad at length during an Oval Office appearance last month, saying it would be made of carved granite and calling it a “beautiful thing.” The president also said Sikorsky Aircraft, a subsidiary of defense contracting giant Lockheed Martin, would be paying for the project, which he estimated would cost up to $6 million. Lockheed referred comment on the helipad construction to the White House.

The new helicopters used for Marine One are manufactured by Sikorsky and made their debut under then-President Joe Biden in 2024. But their use has been limited because their exhaust vents aim heat downward, posing a risk to the South Lawn grass.

Trump has said that using granite rather than concrete for the helipad was his suggestion. He has also noted that the landing pad could be used for other White House events, such as press conferences.

The removal of the seal was first reported by The Washington Post.

The barrage, which lasted about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian missile strikes that have become almost routine this summer. Moscow is exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the U.S.-made Patriot systems, the sole air defense weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy has pleaded with other countries, especially the U.S., to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war. Failing that, he wants to make Patriot ammunition in Ukraine or win permission from Elon Musk to use his Starlink satellite communications system to guide strikes inside Russia that can hit its missile launchers.

It's unclear how many interceptors Ukraine has left. Zelenskyy said after a Russian attack Friday night that air defenses shot down only one ballistic missile “solely because there are no missiles for the Patriots.” Supplies of defensive missiles for Ukraine in the first half of this year fell to one-third of the 2025 level, Zelenskyy said.

“Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today,” Zelenskyy said Wednesday on social media. “It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”

The targets hit in the barrage included a brewery, a warehouse for construction material, and a mail sorting office that had nothing to do with the war, Zelenskyy said. But Russia's Defense Ministry said the businesses had military ties.

Thursday was set as an official day of mourning for the 17 people killed, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's regional military administration. In addition to the dead, at least 44 people were injured.

Ukraine retaliates with long-range drones

With U.S.-led peace efforts apparently stalled, Ukraine has stepped up its deep strikes on key Russian targets such as oil refineries to try to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate. Zelenskyy has accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump but Putin has refused.

In its latest attack on facilities for Russia’s biggest online retailer Wildberries, Ukrainian drones hit a warehouse in the Tula region south of Moscow, the company and the region’s governor said.

Ukraine has struck over a dozen Wildberries facilities in under three weeks, saying the company provides goods that can be used by the military. Kyiv is also keen to unsettle the Russian public with high-profile attacks.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces downed 475 Ukrainian drones overnight over 16 Russian regions, as well as in illegally annexed Crimea and the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Russia says it struck war-related targets

Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles, four other missiles identified as either hypersonic Zircon or supersonic Onik cruise missiles, and 115 drones, many of them jet-powered and harder to stop due to their speed, Ukrainian authorities said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it struck transport, logistics and distribution centers involved in war-related activity, four of which were in Kyiv.

“The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately — retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses,” Zelenskyy adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, said on Facebook.

It was not immediately possible to independently reconcile the different Russian and Ukrainian accounts of the military value of the targets.

Kyiv warehouse worker Mykhailo Hukov said an air raid warning that included a ballistic missile threat sounded just after midnight.

“So everyone started running,” he told The Associated Press. “I turned everyone around so they wouldn’t go back inside for their backpacks.”

In an underground shelter minutes later, they heard “very loud explosions.”

Ukraine’s largest private postal operator, Nova Poshta, said a Russian cluster munition destroyed one of its sorting centers in Kyiv.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the center was “storing and distributing dual-use goods, including those used in the production of long- and medium-range uncrewed aerial vehicles, as well as robotic systems and electronic warfare systems.” It claimed that two other logistics centers in the Kyiv region stored drones or components for drones.

Separately, Russia said its forces hit three bulk carriers on the Black Sea south of Odesa that it claimed were transporting Ukrainian weapons and military equipment. Ukrainian officials didn't comment on that claim.

Truck drivers make a narrow escape

Ivan Braga, a 46-year-old truck driver from Moldova who was in Kyiv during the attack, said he and a colleague ran from their vehicle when it was struck by shrapnel in a blast wave.

“We didn’t even have time to grab our documents or anything else,” Braga told AP. “I couldn’t believe it. I’d already been in Kyiv and had heard explosions before, but nothing like today.”

One of the companies that came under heavy fire was Epicentr, one of Ukraine’s largest retail and construction chains. It said in a statement on Facebook that “in minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had built over decades.” One employee was killed and three others were wounded.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Epicenter logistics center handled order processing, sorting, storing, and delivery of dual-use goods and components for drone production.

Russian drone factory chief badly hurt in a car blast

The director of a factory that makes drones for the Russian military was seriously injured when his car exploded in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, news reports said Wednesday.

Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalized after the explosion late Tuesday just outside the city 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow, the state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said.

His factory, Uraldronzavod, manufactured the Upyr, a cheap and simple drone that was popular with troops for the protection it offers against jamming.

Russian officials made no comment, but authorities previously have blamed Ukraine for a string of bombings and other attacks targeting military officials.

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AP reporters Illia Novikov, Volodymyr Yurchuk and Dan Bashakov in Kyiv contributed.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

KEY POINTS:

• 2026 has been our rainiest year to date since 2015
• Summer 2026 has been rainier and cooler than recent summers
• Summer weather doesn’t impact fall and winter, but El Niño may...
• A rainier fall/winter is favored because of El Niño

Summer 2026 hasn’t been *too* hot

Summer 2026 has featured a pretty rainy June and July. June recorded 6.5 inches of rain at the San Antonio International Airport. That’s almost 3.5 inches of rain above average.

Of course, we all remember mid-July, with record rain falling in Uvalde County and across the Hill Country. Kerr County residents along the Guadalupe River had to deal with another major flood, just a year after the devastating July 4, 2025 flood.

Terrible flooding aside, a byproduct of all of the rain has been lower temperatures. San Antonio’s first (and only, so far) triple-digit day just occurred in late July after the rain ended. This is in stark contrast to 2022 and 2023, which featured a staggering 58 and 75 triple-digit days, respectively.

And while we still have most of August left to go this summer, it doesn’t look like we’re going to see exceptionally hot weather.

So with a somewhat mild summer for San Antonio, does this mean anything for our fall and winter months?

Summer weather doesn’t impact fall and winter, but El Niño May...

There is no correlation between a mild summer and winter weather. But if there is one factor that may impact our winter weather, it’s the fact that we are expected to be in a strong El Niño by the end of the year.

Just a quick refresher: El Niño is the naturally occurring warming of the Pacific waters off the western coast of South America.

This warming of the ocean typically brings cooler, rainier weather to Texas in the fall and winter months. Although that is not a slam-dunk guarantee. There have been exceptions to the rule.

That being said, this winter’s El Niño is expected to be very strong. You may have even heard it being referred to as a “Super El Niño.”

So, odds are even more in our favor for more rain. In fact, here’s a look at the last four winter seasons during strong or very strong El Niños since 1990. The totals have varied, but each winter has had significantly more rain than the average 1.90″ of precipitation. IMPORTANT: Snow was not observed during these winters.

What about cold? We expect cooler, mild temperatures because of above-average precipitation, not necessarily very intense cold snaps. So don’t get your hopes up for a white Christmas 😉.

The bottom line: History shows us that a rainier Fall/Winter is favored to end 2026. Not because of our mild summer, but because of a strong El Niño!

Regardless of what happens this winter, you can count on Your Weather Authority to keep you updated daily.

• Read more from the meteorologists on the Whatever the Weather page
• Download KSAT’s weather app for customized, accurate forecasts in San Antonio, South Texas or wherever you are
• Find the latest forecasts, radar and alerts on the KSAT Weather Authority page

Walker was carted off the field at training camp on Tuesday after going down following a pass-rush play. The injury was quickly feared to be an ACL tear, as the second-year pass rusher was unable to put any weight on his left leg.

The Falcons selected Walker with the No. 15 pick in the 2025 draft after an outstanding career at neighboring University of Georgia. He immediately bolstered the Falcons' pass rush, recording 36 tackles, 5.5 sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery in a strong rookie campaign.

Walker's efforts helped bring the Falcons from the bottom of the sack leaderboard in 2024 to the second-most sacks (57) in the NFL this past season, behind only the Denver Broncos (68).

The future of the Falcons' pass rush this season is murky, as Walker's counterpart, James Pearce Jr., could be awaiting a suspension following an offseason arrest. Police referred to the Feb. 7 incident as a domestic dispute with WNBA player and ex-girlfriend Rickea Jackson.

Walker expressed his excitement about the upcoming season after the Falcons' first day of training camp. He said he stayed local during the offseason, splitting his training between the Falcons practice facility and the University of Georgia.

“I've been itching at the bit just to get back in the building and get on the grass,” Walker said. “Enjoyed the time off, but it's time to start to roll and get the ball moving.”

The Falcons will now turn to a group of edge rushers consisting of Samson Ebukam, Azeez Ojulari, Cameron Thomas, Bralen Trice and Keshawn Banks. DeAngelo Malone was placed on the reserve/PUP list on Tuesday.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

The shooting happened just before 3 a.m. on June 1, 2025, in the 3000 block of Rigsby Avenue.

Authorities said Kiante Nakia Ageous, 33, was being followed by a maroon or burgundy sedan from Vibes Sports Bar and Grill, located at 2603 Rigsby Ave.

The vehicle was parked near the bar, and the driver waited for Ageous to leave, police said.

Ageous was parked at a gas pump when two people exited the vehicle and fired gunshots at her and another woman, San Antonio police said.

Ageous was shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene. The other woman was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after being shot in the leg.

Crime Stoppers may pay up to $5,000 for tips that lead to an arrest.

Anyone with information on this case is urged to call Crime Stoppers at 210-224-7867 (STOP). To text a tip, text “Tip 127 plus your tip” to CRIMES (274637).

Tips can also be left on the P3 Tips app, which can be downloaded from the App Store or Google Play. Tips can also be submitted on the Crime Stoppers website.

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