FORECAST HIGHLIGHTS

• SATURDAY: Not a continuous rain, but rounds of storms are likely at times
• • RISKS: Street flooding, quarter sized hail, damaging gusts
  • ACTIONS: Keep KSAT Weather Authority App handy & allow notifications, especially if you have outdoor plans Saturday
• QUIETER SUNDAY & MONDAY: More sun, less storm activity. Chance is only 20% to 30%. Humid & warm.
• NEXT WEEK: Rain returns Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning

FORECAST

⚠ HEAVY RAIN POSSIBLE TODAY ⚠

Timing of the storms today will be difficult to nail down. Storms will come in rounds today, with breaks in between the action. However, wherever rain pops up, street flooding and strong storms will be possible. These storms could produce up to quarter sized hail and damaging wind gusts. The primary concern, however, is the risk for heavy downpours.

A Flood Watch has been issued for most of the area. It’s in effect tonight through Monday, however, our main concern is for street flooding will be today. Again, it will not be raining all day as this is a more scattered, pop-up type scenario. Your best bet is to stay weather aware all day, keeping the KSAT Weather Authority app and radar handy.

SUNDAY & MONDAY

For those with outdoor plans this Memorial Day weekend, we do expect quieter conditions on Sunday and Monday. Isolated activity will remain possible, but will be driven by afternoon heating. Rain chances Sunday sit at 30%, while lower odds are expected on Memorial Day.

NEXT WEEK

After a break from widespread rain Sunday & Monday, another low pressure system will move across South Central Texas. This increases storm chances again Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday morning. Then, expect a drier and warmer weather pattern to end the week.

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The Global Sumud Flotilla of 50 boats was intercepted in international waters some 250 miles (400 kilometers) off the coast of Israel, and activists along with journalists and at least one lawmaker from Italy were transferred onto military boats and brought to a larger military vessel at the Ashdod port in southern Israel, where they were held in containers, according to their accounts. They told The Associated Press they were punched and kicked, as well as dragged and pulled by their hair.

Israel's far-right security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has called for deporting political opponents and was barred from mandatory military service for his extreme views, sparked global outrage after promoting a video of himself taunting activists from a flotilla to Gaza who were detained by his police force. Foreign leaders have condemned his on-camera treatment of the detainees and several countries summoned Israeli envoys to air their concerns.

Israel denies mistreatment. The allegations were “false and entirely without factual basis,” said Zivan Freidin, a spokesperson for the Israeli Prison Service.

Some 420 activists departed for Turkey on Thursday after they were deported from Israel, many wearing gray sweatsuits and Arab kaffiyehs.

The AP spoke to some Thursday and Friday as they reached Istanbul, Athens and other European cities:

Here are their accounts:

Zeynel Abidin Ozkan, Turkish flotilla board member

He detailed being held in a container alongside other detainees shortly after the flotilla raid and he said some people were taken outside the containers where he heard them being physically assaulted.

“We faced periods where we couldn’t stand, our heads were bowed to the ground, we were dragged and pulled by our hair. The handcuffs left serious marks on us.”

After arriving at Ashdod port, Ozkan says he was denied the right to contact his lawyer, embassy officials or relatives back home. He describes being told to sign papers under duress, which he refused.

“When we refused to sign, they treated us like prisoners, creating a file, taking photos, forcibly handcuffing our hands and feet with iron shackles. And then, with the soldiers, dragged us along the ground, surrounded by dogs, releasing the dogs on us, before loading us into prison trucks.”

Christopher Boren, activist from Hawaii

“When we got to Ashdod port, I was immediately grabbed by five IDF (soldiers) or police officers. They put my head down and started beating me. One of them had gloves on with hardened plastic and he started punching my face and it swelled shut,” he said, showing his black eye.

Alessandro Mantovani, Italian journalist for the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano

“During the crossing, we were put on our knees, blindfolded, and told to make sure the blindfold didn’t move. They repositioned mine 30 times because I kept trying to look around. And there’s absolutely no possibility in this situation to say ‘I’m a member of parliament’ or ‘I’m a journalist’ — you’re dealing with machines that scream and accompany their screaming with physical gestures. They put you flat on the ground, then on your knees, with zip ties on your wrists. The blindfold, plus an additional zip tie securing your wrists down to a metal structure, just a few inches from the deck. So you’re forced to travel in an extremely uncomfortable position on rough concrete. And I had cramps in my legs the whole time, obviously.”

After they were transferred to a ship that was used for detention “the treatment became immediately more violent. We entered through this small hatch and were shoved and dragged by force with our arms twisted behind our backs, forced to kneel in front of a wall with our heads down.”

At one point, he was thrown down “flat on my stomach, hands behind my back, face pressed, head pressed against the soaking wet and dirty floor of this ship — pressed down with their feet — and then they pressed my hands behind my back.”

Once inside the container, “I was kicked in the shin. Honestly, I don’t expect it. And they say ‘Welcome to Israel.’ Then a punch to the face, one from this side, one from that side. A closed-fist punch. I moved to get up and I got kicked in the leg. A little jolt from a taser to the ribs. And then I make it out the other side of this container and reach the deck.”

Mantovani said he was also strip searched, and his eye glasses and wallet discarded. He and the activists on his ship threw their cellphones into the sea when the Israeli boats approached, and he didn’t wear a watch on this mission after his was nearly confiscated on a previous flotilla.

Yiannis Atmatzidis, Greek activist

“I was struck with a taser, beaten with punches and kicks, insulted and humiliated. On the prison ship there was a container that everyone had to pass through. You entered through one door and a group of six or seven people would beat you mercilessly until you emerged from the other side. Every single one of us went through that.”

Atmatzidis said he was being processed for identification when Ben-Gvir was touring the prison ship.

“The minister entered the room and asked me where I was from. I replied, ‘from Greece.’ He then asked why I was there, and I told him that I had come to deliver humanitarian aid to people who needed it. He responded, ‘Are you a friend of Hamas?’ I explained that our mission had no political agenda and was purely humanitarian. He was surrounded by four armed guards who aimed their weapons and laser sights at me while I sat there handcuffed behind my back.”

He added: "Whenever we told them that circulation was being cut off and our hands were going numb, they showed absolutely no mercy. I do not have the words to describe the brutality and cruelty of these people. It is something I will never forget.”

——

AP journalists Emrah Gurel in Istanbul, Andrea Rosa in Rome and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed to this report.

Authorities in the city of Novorossiysk said falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil terminal, injuring two people, without naming the facility.

Russia’s Astra news outlet said Ukrainian drones struck the Sheskharis oil terminal and depot, the terminus for Russian state-controlled pipeline company Transneft’s main oil pipelines in the region. Images posted by Astra appeared to show smoke rising above the oil terminal, but they could not be verified. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the attack.

Ukraine has expanded its mid- and long-range strike capabilities, deploying drone and missile technology that it has developed domestically to battle Russia’s 4-year-old invasion. Attacks on Russian oil assets that play a key part in funding the invasion have become almost daily occurrences.

Meanwhile, the death toll from a Ukrainian drone strike overnight into Friday on a college dormitory building in Starobilsk, a city in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, rose to 11, Moscow-installed officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday denounced the attack on the dormitory as a “crime” and ordered the military to submit its proposals for retaliation. He said there were no military or law enforcement facilities near the college.

At a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on the strike, held at the request of Russia, Ukrainian Ambassador Melnyk Andrii denied his Russian counterpart’s accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show” and asserting that the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine.”

___

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

It’s a battle that nominally began last April, but whose contours were set long before — in 2023, when Cornyn cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s electability and Paxton faced an impeachment from members of his own party; in 2022, when Cornyn negotiated a bipartisan gun safety bill and Paxton was one of just two elected officials to show up at Trump’s presidential campaign launch; or perhaps in 2020, when the attorney general led the legal charge to overturn Trump’s presidential election loss.

At stake is the soul of the Texas Republican Party, which has been caught in a tug-of-war over the past several cycles as insurgents have worked to oust the old guard. The outcome will also shape what looks to be a competitive general election, deciding who will be the GOP’s standard-bearer against Democratic nominee James Talarico.

Tuesday’s runoff will be the biggest, most consequential test of whether Texas Republican voters are willing to support an elder statesman and self-described Reagan Republican over a “MAGA warrior,” in the words of Trump, whose ethical and legal baggage have made him simultaneously a hero and pariah to different segments of the GOP.

Trump made his highly-coveted endorsement earlier this week, when he threw his weight behind the attorney general, citing Paxton’s loyalty and Cornyn’s lack thereof “when times were tough.” The decision went against the advice of Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the Republican political machine in Washington, who have spent tens of millions of dollars boosting Cornyn.

The incumbent senator finished first in the March 3 primary, at 42% to Paxton’s 40.5%. But with U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt pulling 13.5% of the vote, no candidate clinched the nomination outright, sending Cornyn and Paxton to an overtime round.

Runoff electorates tend to be smaller and more hardline, a natural advantage for Paxton. But the Cornyn camp’s strategy has been to press its significant financial advantage to bring the senator’s supporters back out and bury Paxton under a deluge of negative ads.

Numerous GOP operatives said Cornyn still has a path to victory after the endorsement, but the realities of runoff electorates and the Trump endorsement have created a powerful advantage for Paxton.

“Runoff voters as a group — independent of demographics, of region, even to a certain extent of high or low levels of vote history in primaries — the primary runoff electorate is just skewing to the right, or towards Paxton anyway … in a way that just conforms pretty strongly to the conventional wisdom,” said Ross Hunt, a GOP operative and pollster who is uninvolved in the contest.

Throughout the race, Cornyn and Paxton have maintained consistent pitches to the voters.

Cornyn has leaned into the electability argument — that he’s the best candidate to extend the Texas GOP’s three-decade statewide winning streak in what’s expected to be a difficult cycle for Republicans. In the eyes of Cornyn and his establishment allies, he is a reliable pro-Trump vote, and if Republicans reject him, they would jeopardize the Senate majority needed to pass Trump’s priorities.

“I won in 2020 by 10 points, and President Trump won that same year [in] Texas by six points,” Cornyn said in an interview with The Texas Tribune Monday. “So I think I’ve demonstrated that I can help the ticket up and down the ballot, and Paxton would be an albatross — and also divert hundreds of millions of dollars that would be spent trying to salvage this Senate seat that could be used in places like Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and New Hampshire.”

But Paxton, whose brand has long been fighting the Republican establishment, frequently derides Cornyn and his fellow Republican senators for their deference to conventions like the legislative filibuster, while promising himself to take a “sledgehammer” to such customs. His stump speech typically begins by challenging voters to name an accomplishment of Cornyn’s, contrasting the senator’s record to his own history of suing the Biden administration and left-leaning organizations.

“The MAGA agenda is dead under John Cornyn,” Paxton said on Fox Wednesday. “He kills it every time, just like the Republican Senate that he’s part of.”

Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton Tuesday was ostensibly the most consequential moment yet in a contest between two well-known, longtime partisans.

“We don’t know for a fact what will happen on election day, but any observer will acknowledge that President Trump’s endorsement makes it significantly more likely that Ken Paxton wins,” Sen. Ted Cruz, who has stayed out of the contest, said on his podcast Tuesday. “How much more likely, I don’t know.”

To that end, in interviews and on the trail since the endorsement, Paxton has begun to pivot to the general election. His campaign and the main super PAC supporting him, Lone Star Liberty PAC, have switched to airing positive ads touting the president’s endorsement. The PAC went up with an anti-Talarico spot Friday, its first that has looked beyond the GOP primary.

At a rally in Dripping Springs Thursday, a few days after receiving the president’s endorsement, Paxton appeared to be in a good mood.

He first tested nicknames for Talarico to laughs from the crowd of about 30 people. He said an aide had come up with one she was proud of, “Low-T Talarico,” and asked her to share it. Paxton said it was like “Low Energy Jeb,” Trump’s moniker for Jeb Bush during the 2016 presidential primaries. He also tested “Tofu Talarico,” knocking the state representative for a baseless claim that he’s vegan. Meanwhile, former GOP state Rep. Rick Green shouted “Talafreacko.”

Paxton’s 20-minute stump speech largely focused on his political journey, from moving to Texas to deciding to run for U.S. Senate. He struck a confident tone and encouraged people to take their friends and family with them to vote because of anticipated low turnout.

“We can win this with people, people that care about what’s happening in Texas, people that care about sending a message to Washington that it’s time to have two senators fighting,” he said, standing in front of an American and Texas flag.

Cornyn, meanwhile, has staked his chances on expanding the electorate, posting a video Thursday in which he appealed to registered voters who did not vote in either primary to turn out in the Republican runoff.

At his final get-out-the-vote event in Corpus Christi Friday, Cornyn was resolute that he could win the runoff — if a broader group of voters than those who typically vote in runoffs showed up to the polls.

Still, he acknowledged that this contest “is kind of a strange position for me to be in,” noting that he’s been through plenty of contested elections, “but in many ways I feel like there’s never been more at stake in an election than this one.”

Cornyn said his campaign’s efforts to mobilize voters had surpassed that of any of his prior races, and he predicted the runoff would end in a “similar surprise” to the primary, when he finished first.

“I think the small fraction of people who actually vote [in runoffs] are not necessarily representative of the whole state and all voters, so that’s the reason why we’re working [as] hard as we can to try to get a broader base to the electorate to make that choice,” Cornyn said. “Because I believe that character does still matter, and it is on the ballot.”

How we got here

The seeds of Tuesday’s runoff were planted long ago, as Paxton’s profile grew and Cornyn cast doubts on Trump’s electability as he was weighing a 2024 bid.

Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas Republican strategist who managed Cornyn’s 2014 reelection, said Paxton was “emboldened and empowered” after defeating an impeachment push from his own party.

“It gave him some political momentum, and he felt like the feedback from a lot of the activists in the party was in support of him — even though the House had voted to impeach him by a pretty wide margin,” Steinhauser said. “I think that he felt emboldened, and it just set all this in motion.”

When Paxton announced last April that he was joining the race, he started from a position of strength, leading Cornyn by double-digit margins in early polling.

But Cornyn, an adept fundraiser with decades-long relationships in Texas and Washington, closed the gap by majorly outspending Paxton, much of it paying for ads touting that he voted with Trump’s stated position 99% of the time and that he was the choice of the Border Patrol union and other law enforcement groups.

After finishing first in the primary, Cornyn appeared to be on the precipice of earning Trump’s endorsement. But two critical things happened that first week of March. First, news of the potential Cornyn endorsement leaked, bringing a massive wave of backlash from Paxton supporters. And then, Paxton took a political gamble that changed the course of the runoff — he offered to consider dropping out of the race if the Senate passed the SAVE America Act, a voting restrictions bill at the top of Trump’s agenda that cannot advance because it lacks the requisite number of votes to overcome a filibuster. Paxton allies and unaligned observers alike see the episode as crucial to the attorney general’s success in securing the endorsement months later.

“By floating the idea of dropping out, and essentially making himself a martyr for the cause of voter integrity, with leverage that he did not have, he showed that he would go further for Trump than most other Republicans — and at the very least, probably further than Cornyn was willing to go,” said Joshua Blank, the research director at the Texas Politics Project. “I think Paxton’s move there was really adept.”

Later in March, Cornyn dropped his longstanding support of the filibuster, expressing his openness to reform in order to pass the SAVE America Act.

But that didn’t seem to be enough, in Trump’s eyes, to match Paxton’s resolve for smashing the system. Trump backed off his endorsement pledge until this week, when he specifically cited Paxton’s support for terminating the filibuster and his championing of the bill.

“What the people of Texas want is a senator who doesn’t have to be dragged to the right during the Republican primary just to get them to do their job,” said Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Flower Mound, who endorsed Paxton in April. “And I think the president recognized that.”

During the runoff, Cornyn’s camp hit Paxton from every direction. Some ads criticized his divorce over an alleged affair. Others attacked the wealth he’s accumulated in office. Numerous spots tackled allegedly soft plea deals the attorney general’s office made in sexual abuse cases.

Paxton’s negative ads capitalized on the anti-incumbent fervor in both parties, calling out the length of Cornyn’s political career and the senator’s old comments expressing skepticism about Trump’s plan for a border wall.

While over $135 million in advertising was spent throughout the primary, operatives said both candidates are so well-defined that the race became more like a general election — where it’s difficult to persuade voters to drop their beliefs about either.

“Republican primary voters are not gullible,” Hunt said. “They don’t think that John Cornyn is a huge moderate. They also don’t — even before the Trump endorsement — they didn’t think that he was President Trump’s best friend. And both of those things are true.”

Early voting tea leaves

Most of the runoff vote has already been cast, with a week of early voting in the books — making some inferences about the runoff possible.

With opinions about both candidates relatively calcified, turnout, rather than persuasion, will drive the runoff results. Two major factors are at play — where Wesley Hunt’s voters go, and which voters from March will come back to the polls for a second go-round.

The Trump endorsement may be most meaningful for Hunt voters, who make up a sizable chunk of the dwindling stable of undecided voters. Hunt himself endorsed Paxton in quick succession after Trump and urged his supporters to vote for the attorney general.

Steinhauser said the Trump endorsement is unquestionably a boost for Paxton, but noted that the attorney general still needs to ensure it’s communicated in advertising this week and over the weekend for election day voters.

“It’s going to make an impact, but it still takes time and money to get the message out about the endorsement,” he said.

Ross Hunt, the GOP data guru, said his analysis of the early voting electorate demonstrated that “there is no big headline” — no obvious advantage for either candidate.

“[If you’re] squinting, you can see a tiny advantage for Cornyn relative to his Round One early vote distribution, but you’ve got to squint pretty hard,” Hunt said. “It’s basically just a wash.”

If Cornyn were to pull it off, Hunt said, he would need high turnout in the Austin area, selective mobilization of the precincts where he overperformed in Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth areas, and for Paxton voters to stay home — the latter of which may be unlikely because primary turnout was robust for both candidates.

Hunt also said that in his analysis of the first two days of early voting, 85% of those who turned out were voters returning from the March primary. Only 3% were new voters who had not previously voted in any primary.

— Kayla Guo and Alejandro Serrano contributed to this report.

Republicans are eyeing a seat opened by the retirement of Rep. Bobby Guerra, a Democrat from Mission who represented the area since 2013, after the president carried the district last cycle with 50.3% of the vote — a 7-point swing to the right from his 2020 performance.

Similar lurches toward Republicans played out across the Texas-Mexico border, where the Texas GOP’s yearslong efforts to make inroads with Latino voters helped Trump claim 14 of the 18 counties within 20 miles of the border, including some that had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate in more than a century.

But it is not clear those gains will hold, as polls suggest the president’s immigration crackdown and an inflation-hampered economy have cracked the support from Latinos in the state and country. As Republicans brace for political headwinds in a midterm election and Democrats try to ride anti-Trump momentum, HD-41 is shaping up to be a battleground.

Julio Salinas, a 26-year-old former legislative staffer, has pitched himself to Democratic voters as a young progressive ready to take on the Pink Dome’s establishment and fight for affordability, better infrastructure and healthcare access for district residents.

He also wants to give teachers $15,000 raises and cap prescription drug costs.

“I have a fighting track record of fighting up against MAGA Republicans,” Salinas said in a recent phone interview as he block-walked in Edinburgh. “And winning.”

Salinas’ primary opponent, McAllen City Commissioner Victor “Seby” Haddad, says he has the upper hand with seven years of experience in local government and working with small businesses — crucial ties for a representative in a district that covers the Valley’s urban core, including McAllen.

Haddad has also outspent Salinas, who received the most votes in the March 3 primary.

Despite struggling to keep up with Salinas’ fundraising, Haddad spent $164,000 between late February and last week, when he filed his latest campaign finance report. Salinas spent $76,000 in the same period. Salinas has received financial backing from a variety of people, but his biggest donation came from gun control activist David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve, which gave him $30,000.

Haddad also has another potential advantage to some in the district: Guerra’s endorsement. Meanwhile, Salinas has received endorsements from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and state Rep. Christina Morales, the Houston Democrat who Salinas worked for.

What’s resulted is a clash between a more traditional moderate Democrat and an insurgent progressive.

Salinas has knocked Haddad for his history of voting in GOP primaries and business connections, saying he’s for the grassroots and his opponent is all for the banks.

The vitriol reached a boiling point last week when Salinas blasted Haddad for a mailer that featured a photo of Haddad with Morales, the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee chair, with a caption that says she “stands with Seby in the fight for working families.”

Morales endorsed Salinas months ago, before she took on her role leading Democrats’ campaign arm. Salinas demanded an apology from Haddad, and Morales released a short video to reiterate her endorsement of her former employee.

“If they wish to make that request, they can make it directly,” Haddad said, dismissing the idea.

It’s placed Morales in an awkward position. “That race is getting very intense, and I was trying to stay out of it as much as I could,” Morales said.

In an interview, Haddad said his Republican voting history was no secret and he sees bipartisanship as a strength.

“I’m proud to say I am a moderate,” he said. “I’m a South Texas Democrat.”

Across the aisle, two GOP candidates are also vying to be on the ballot in November. Activist Gary Groves is facing criminal defense lawyer Sergio Sanchez, who previously voted in Democratic primaries.

Neither of their campaigns responded to interview requests.

Renzo Downey contributed to this report.

Leo's visit to the so-called Terra dei Fuochi, or Land of Fires, came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of Pope Francis’ big ecological encyclical Laudato Si (Praised Be), and indicates Leo’s commitment to carry on his predecessor’s environmental agenda.

“I have come first of all to gather the tears of those who have lost loved ones, killed by environmental pollution caused by unscrupulous people and organizations who for too long were able to act with impunity,” Leo said in remarks to family members and local clergy inside Acerra's cathedral.

The pontiff recalled that the area now dubbed the Land of Fires was once called “Campania felix,” Latin for blessed or fruitful countryside, "capable for enchanting for its fertility, its produce and its culture, like a hymn to life.

"And yet — here is death, of the land and of men,'' the pope said.

The European Court of Human Rights last year validated a generation of residents’ complaints that mafia dumping, burial and burning of toxic waste led to an increased rate of cancer and other ailments in the area of 90 municipalities around Caserta and Naples, encompassing a population of 2.9 million people.

The court found Italian authorities had known since 1988 about the toxic pollution, blamed on the Camorra crime syndicate that controls waste disposal, but failed to take necessary steps to protect the residents. The binding ruling gave Italy two years to set up a database about the toxic waste and verified health risks associated with living there.

Bishop says the dumping continues

Bishop Antonio Di Donna in opening remarks estimated 150 young people had died in the city of some 58,000 over the past three decades — emphasizing that the number didn't take into account adults and victims in other municipalities.

He urged the pope to admonish those who continue to pollute, noting that the dumping of tons of toxic waste was reported a day earlier near Castera. Di Donna said that Italian officials had identified dozens more human-caused contamination sites throughout the country, including the Venetian port of Marghera, and the leaching of PFAS forever chemicals into groundwater near Vicenza.

"We say to those brothers of ours ensnared in evil and seized by a mirage of fabulous earnings: Convert, change your ways, because what you are doing is not only a crime, it is a sin that cries out to God for vengeance,'' the bishop said.

The pope later greeted the mayors of the 90 communities impacted by the toxic dumping, and greeted thousands of people waving yellow flags and chanting “Papa Leone” along the route of his popemobile and in a central piazza.

Families of young victims appeal to the pope

The victims include Maria Venturato, who died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 25. Her father, Angelo, said he hopes to speak with the pope to explain their reality, “not for me … for the next generation.”

“I’d like to give these young people a future, so I’m asking for the pope’s help with this. That is, I’m making a strong appeal to him to go to those in power and say, ‘Look, let’s heal this land of fires,’" he said on the eve of the pope's visit.

Inside the cathedral, Filomena Carolla presented the pope with a book containing memories from the life of her daughter, Tina De Angelis, who died of cancer at the age of 24.

“I’m just angry at the people who poisoned the soil, because what did our children have to do with it? What did they have to do with it, so young,” Carolla told The Associated Press on Friday.

Francis' plans to visit the area in 2020 were canceled due to the pandemic.

Official news agency Xinhua said the accident at Changzhi city’s Liushenyu coal mine happened on Friday evening. Around 247 workers were on duty at the time.

Nine miners were still unaccounted for as of Saturday afternoon, Xinhua said, and more than 120 people were hospitalized.

The cause of the explosion was under investigation, Xinhua reported, and rescue work is pressing on with hundreds of rescuers and medical personnel sent to the site. Among the injured, many were hurt by toxic gas, according to state media CCTV.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an all-out effort to rescue the missing, reported Xinhua.

Xi also called for the “proper handling of the aftermath of the accident and urged a thorough investigation into its cause, with accountability pursued in accordance with the law,” the news agency said.

Xinhua later reported that the “persons responsible for the company involved in the mine accident have been placed under control,” citing the local emergency management bureau.

The coal mine, operated by the Shanxi Tongzhou Coal & Coke Group with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tons, was placed on a national list of disaster-prone coal mines by China’s National Mine Safety Administration in 2024 for having “high gas content.”

Shanxi province is known as China’s main coal mining province. With a size larger than Greece and a population of around 34 million, the province's hundreds of thousands of miners dug 1.3 billion tons of coal last year, or almost a third of China’s total.

In February 2023, 53 people were killed after a collapse at an open-pit mine in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. In November 2009, an explosion at a mine in northeastern China’s Heilongjiang province killed 108, according to state media.

Before it became the somewhat easy-to-mispronounce name of a rare type of Ebola virus, Bundibugyo is a mountainous district in western Uganda that even some locals would struggle to pinpoint on a map.

It's home to roughly 200,000 people. Many are cocoa farmers who search for whatever cultivable land they can find in the impossibly steep landscape of hills and valleys marking Uganda’s border with Congo. As an example of the classic village idyll, Bundibugyo is a beautiful place.

Yet it now trends for an unpleasant reason, making some Ugandans rue Bundibugyo's association with the current Ebola outbreak, which has infected hundreds of people in eastern Congo. There are 160 suspected Ebola deaths in two provinces.

Virus type discovered in 2007

The Ugandan district's connection to the Bundibugyo virus stems from an Ebola outbreak there nearly two decades ago that was flagged as a new species of Ebola, a viral disease that usually manifests as hemorrhagic fever.

The outbreak wasn't the Sudan virus, named for the area in present-day South Sudan where that type was first identified. It also wasn't the type known as Zaire, as present-day Congo was known when Ebola — itself the name of a Congolese river — was first discovered in 1976.

So the November 2007 outbreak in a remote part of western Uganda came to be known as Bundibugyo, one that scientists even now haven't studied as much. That is why Ebola specialists say it is particularly dangerous. Moreover, it was spreading in Congolese villages before health authorities there identified it as the cause of sickness in a growing number of people.

The 2007 outbreak in Bundibugyo killed at least 37 people but had been contained by the end of the year. A second outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, also relatively small, came in 2012 in Congo's northeast.

Initial cases in those outbreaks were identified early, allowing for a quick public health response, according to Dr. Tom Ksiazek, a University of Texas Medical Branch virologist who directed the group within the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that first identified the Bundibugyo virus.

Ugandans upset about the name

This time, while there is no Ebola in Bundibugyo, a lingering connection to the picturesque Ugandan district is hurtful, said Ugandan government spokesman Alan Kasujja, who has urged global health authorities to clarify that Uganda isn't the epicenter of the latest outbreak.

“Bundibugyo is too beautiful to be the name of a disease,” he said on X. “We need to take back its name from this madness.”

The World Health Organization is responsible for the taxonomic descriptions. As was seen with the global mpox outbreak — the disease's name was changed in 2022 from monkeypox — the United Nations agency is sensitive to the use of descriptors or tags that may expose whole communities to stigmatization.

With Ebola, however, the trend has been to name viruses for the places where they were first identified.

Ugandan health authorities have experience dealing with Ebola, one reason they are adamant there is “no Ebola” in this East African country and want WHO to be more specific in its updates on the toll of the outbreak now deemed to be of global concern.

Cases in Uganda linked to Congo

Uganda has reported five cases, all linked to the outbreak in Congo. One of them, a 59-year-old Congolese man, was admitted to a hospital in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, on May 11 and died three days later. On Saturday, Ugandan health authorities said a driver and a health worker — both Ugandans — exposed to that Congolese patient have since tested positive. The others are two Congolese women who sought medical care in Uganda before Congo declared an outbreak on May 15.

This outbreak is on “the Congo side” mainly, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said Thursday, urging local tourism authorities to fight the perception that Ebola is spreading in Uganda.

Museveni urged Ugandans to “stop shaking hands” as part of measures to avoid infection. He also ordered the postponement of an annual religious event that attracts thousands of pilgrims, from Congo and elsewhere, who converge around a Catholic basilica just outside Kampala by June 3.

Other measures announced Thursday include the suspension of all public transportation and flights between Congo and Uganda.

Contact tracing is key

The risk stemming from cross-border commerce is high, said Dr. Emmanuel Batiibwe, who led efforts to stop an Ebola outbreak in 2022 that killed at least 55 people.

Stopping the current outbreak from spreading into Uganda will require “enhanced surveillance at all points of entry,” he said.

Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed more than 200 people. There was an outbreak in Kampala last year.

All available vaccines and treatments for Ebola don’t work for Bundibugyo patients. Tracing contacts and isolating them is seen as especially key to stopping the spread of this virus, in addition to getting healthcare workers proper protective equipment.

A family of fruit bats is believed to be the natural hosts of the viruses that cause Ebola, according to WHO. Ebola is spread by contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials.

“I don’t think people had this on their bingo card,” Golden Knights defenseman Dylan Coghlan said. “We knew we could do it.”

Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev scored in a 2:07 span in the third period and the Golden Knights stunned the Avalanche 3-1 on Friday night to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Final.

Eichel tied it, then set up Barbashev for the go-ahead goal with 8:38 remaining. Barbashev added an empty-netter with 1:03 left. The comeback stunned the capacity crowd and wiped out the top-seeded Avalanche's 1-0 lead.

By winning twice at Ball Arena, the Golden Knights put the Presidents' Trophy-winning Avalanche in a huge hole. Since 1982, road teams that started 2-0 in the conference finals have a 13-0 series record.

“They understand the situation,” said Vegas coach John Tortorella, who has watched his team go 17-4-1 since he took over on March 29. “I’m not sure where the series goes. I’m not sure where Game 3 goes. But I know I’m not going to have to worry about that, because they get it."

Carter Hart had another stellar performance, stopping 29 shots. He made 36 saves in a 4-2 win on Wednesday.

Colorado was cruising after Ross Colton opened the scoring in the first period. But things unraveled for the Avalanche in the third. Eichel lined a shot past Scott Wedgewood for his first goal in 11 games to get Vegas on the board.

“I haven’t scored in a million days,” he cracked.

The Golden Knights then took advantage of a miscue — Devon Toews and Brock Nelson struggled to clear the puck along the boards in the Avalanche end — as Eichel sent a pass to Barbashev, who rang in a shot off the post.

This was the fourth third-period comeback by the Golden Knights in this postseason, the most in a single playoffs in team history, according to NHL Stats.

“Just resiliency,” Hart said. “That’s the key word for our group here — we’ve just stuck in games and just grinded it out, and just battled. Resiliency, that’s a term that describes our group really well. We’re never out of the fight, and we’re always grinding in games.”

Game 3 is Sunday night in Las Vegas. The Avalanche are hoping to have star defenseman Cale Makar back in the lineup. He has missed the last two games because of an upper-body injury.

“There's urgency to get him back since he got hurt,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “He's doing all the work he can possibly do to get back as fast as he can.”

Before the Golden Knights' rally, the Avalanche were 45-0-0 when leading after two periods in the regular season and playoffs combined.

“It stings for sure right now,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “But tomorrow we’ll wake up, have a meeting, fly to Vegas and regroup. That’s all you can do.”

Vegas struggled on the power play, going 0 of 4. The team also saw defenseman Brayden McNabb limp to the locker room in the first period soon after taking a check along the boards. He returned for the third period. The hard-checking Golden Knights finished with 32 hits and 16 blocked shots.

“We know how hard it is to win,” Eichel said. “A lot of that falls on playing hard defensively.”

Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson briefly left late in the second period after delivering a check on Barbashev and then ramming his face into the boards.

Wedgewood had 22 saves.

“We can't ride the emotional roller-coaster like fans,” Bednar said. “If you lose Game 1, you're getting swept. If you win Game 1, we're sweeping them. That's not reality. You have to deal with the task at hand and what's to come. We're not going to try and win four games the next night in Vegas. We're going to try to win one game.”

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Jared McCain had 24 points and Jaylin Williams added 18 for Oklahoma City. The Thunder were without Jalen Williams, who sat out with left hamstring soreness.

Oklahoma City’s bench outscored San Antonio’s 76-23, including 15 points by Alex Caruso.

“We just went out there and competed,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “They obviously jumped on us early. First game in their building, their crowd behind them, they were excited to play. We just wanted to make sure we competed from that point on. We obviously didn’t give our best effort to start that game, but can’t do nothing about it. It’s behind us. All we can do is focus on the next possession, and we did that.”

Victor Wembanyama had 24 points for San Antonio. Devin Vassell added 20 and De'Aaron Fox had 15 in his series debut.

The Thunder have won two straight after the Spurs' double-overtime victory in Game 1. Game 4 is Sunday.

Fox (sprained right ankle) and Dylan Harper (right adductor soreness) were cleared to play 45 minutes prior to tipoff.

Fox's return sparked a historic start.

The Spurs raced to a 15-0 lead, the longest run to open a game in the conference finals since the play-by-play era began in 1997.

Fox opened the run by wrapping in a driving layup and Wembanyama followed by crossing over Isaiah Hartenstein to drill a 3-pointer. Vassell’s 3-pointer put the Spurs up 10-0, leading to an early timeout by Thunder coach Mark Daigneault.

“Other than the first 15 points, our defense was really tight,” Daigneault said. “We got back, settled down into the halfcourt. Our offense had something to do with that. We ran good offense tonight, despite the fact that they were amped up and ready to go, the Spurs were. It’s a discipline series. We did that. We couldn’t be reckless against them, they are too good with the ball, too well coached, too talented. So you’ve got to be able to do it with discipline. I thought we really were disciplined tonight.”

Isaiah Hartenstein broke the drought with a runner over Wembanyama, but the center was immediately greeted with thunderous boos after his physical play against the Spurs in Game 2.

The Thunder went on a 13-2 run when Wembanyama went to the bench and closed the first quarter trailing 31-26.

It was a pattern the Spurs could not overcome.

“It’s my first playoffs,” Wembanyama said. “It’s the first playoffs for many of us. Of course, there was going to be hard trials. It’s to be expected, but now we’re going to see what we’re made of.”

The series continued to be chippy with emotions boiling over early in the second half. Stephon Castle hit the court on back-to-back dunk attempts. The second resulted in a flagrant 1 foul against Ajay Mitchell and technical fouls on Mitchell and Vassell after the two exchanged words following the foul.

Back-to-back 3-pointers by Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams extended Oklahoma City's first lead to 35-31.

___

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

Rubio's first official trip to India comes as Washington seeks to stabilize relations with New Delhi after ties soured over President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which raised duties on several Indian exports.

Much of Rubio’s four-day visit, however, will focus on a multi-city tour, along with a gala reception in New Delhi marking the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence.

“There’s a lot to work on with India, they’re a great ally and partner. We do a lot of good work with them so this is an important trip,” Rubio said ahead of his visit to India.

Rubio arrived in eastern city of Kolkata early Saturday where he is later scheduled to visit Mother House, the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa. In coming days, he will also visit northern cities of Agra and Jaipur, known for iconic monuments and palaces.

Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador in India, in a social media post said Rubio will call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi later Saturday in New Delhi. “Trade, Technology, Defense, QUAD, and many other items to discuss and advance over the next few days!” he said.

He is also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Sunday.

On Tuesday in New Delhi, Rubio will participate in the ministerial meeting of the Quad that has repeatedly accused China of flexing its military muscles in the South China Sea and aggressively pushing its maritime territorial claims.

Beijing maintains that its military is purely defensive to protect what it says are its sovereign rights and calls the Quad an attempt to contain its economic growth and influence.

After his inauguration in January last year, Rubio’s first formal international engagement was meeting with the foreign ministers of the other Quad countries, both jointly and in separate sessions.

“Just let it rip downrange and see what we got,” the New York Yankees ace thought to himself.

Cole allowed two hits over six shutout innings Friday night in his return from elbow ligament reconstruction surgery. He left with a 1-0 lead that the Yankees wasted in a 4-2 loss to the major league-best Tampa Bay Rays.

“It was almost like a second debut," the 35-year-old right-hander said. “It was nice to get back in the fire.”

Cole had not pitched a big league outing that counted since Game 5 of the World Series on Oct. 30, 2024. He had reconstructive surgery the following March 11, then started a rehab path that included two spring training outings this year and six minor league rehabilitation starts beginning April 17.

“Some ups and downs, for sure. A long road," Cole said. “And yet at some point tonight it was almost like I had never left.”

With a few days of stubble on his face, Cole warmed up to the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”

“Let’s go swing the rock around,” catcher Austin Wells told him. “Have fun.”

Cole averaged 96.1 mph with 35 four-seam fastballs, reaching a high of 98.6 mph in the first. He mixed in 13 sinkers, 10 sliders, eight changeups and six knuckle-curves.

“It's great to have our ace back in the mix,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He did a lot of game management things really well.”

Cole threw 50 of 72 pitches for strikes, starting 18 of 22 batters with an offering in the strike zone.

“It was lovely,” he said.

Chandler Simpson singled leading off and Junior Caminero walked but Cole retired Jonathan Aranda on a flyout, picked off a dancing Simpson at second and got Yandy Díaz to take a sinker for a called third strike.

Using his new overhead hand movement in his windup, adopted during his rehab, Cole needed just seven pitches in the third inning and four in the fourth. He retired 10 in a row during one stretch.

“He looked healthy to me,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “He’s as special as there is.”

Cole munched on a banana between innings at one point to keep up his energy. He struck out two and walked three, including Richie Palacios on four balls that followed a first-pitch strike and Taylor Walls on four straight balls.

Against the high-contact Rays, he induced just five misses among 31 swings.

“The command was good enough. It was hard to trust some off-speed pitches there early,” Cole said. “Controlled the zone well and sequenced well. Brought ourselves room inside the strike zone and beside some lapses in control kept pressure on the opposition throughout the at-bats.”

He thought there was room for improvement.

“There’s probably some opportunities to get a little further outside of the strike zone, but at the same time, knowing that that might not be as crisp as it has been before,” he said.

He joined a rotation that includes Carlos Rodón, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers, taking the spot that opened when Max Fried went on the injured list because of a bone bruise in his left elbow.

Wells backed him with his first home run since April 28, a fifth-inning drive off Nick Martinez.

José Caballero, back at shortstop after missing 10 days because of a broken finger, allowed Simpson’s one-hopper to bounce off his glove leading of the eighth. The Rays burst ahead on Aranda's RBI double, Palacios' two-run single on a comebacker off the glove of leaping reliever Tim Hill and Ryan Vilade's sacrifice fly, then held on to improve to 4-0 against New York this year.

Yankees captain Aaron Judge went 0 for 4 with a game-ending flyout to the center-field warning track with a man on against Bryan Baker. Judge is in a 1-for-24 slide that dropped his average to .245 and has gone a career-high 11 games without any RBIs.

Cole will start again next week at Kansas City. During his long rehab, he had thought about the night of his return.

“It was kind of what I imagined it would be,” he said with a smile.

___

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

• TONIGHT: Storms weakening as they approach San Antonio, quick hit of rain possible
• RAIN SATURDAY/FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT: Locally heavy rainfall at times but NOT continuously throughout the day
• QUIETER SUNDAY & MONDAY: More sun, less storm activity

FORECAST

TONIGHT

A few storms in Mexico and West Texas are weakening as they move toward San Antonio, but we could still get a quick shower.

• SPURS WATCH PARTIES: Those headed to outdoor watch parties tonight should keep an eye on the radar. We’ll keep you updated should any isolated storms pop-up

⚠ HEAVY RAIN POSSIBLE SATURDAY ⚠

An upper low will swing through on Saturday, enhancing rain chances. In this type of messy pattern, storms could pop up just about anywhere, anytime, so pinpointing where the heaviest rain may fall is a difficult task. Also, this will not be a continuous rainfall at any given location. There will be breaks and periods of sunshine.

A Flood Watch has been issued for most of the area. It’s in effect tonight through Monday, however, our main concern is for street flooding will Saturday afternoon. Again, it will not be raining all day as this is a more scattered, pop-up type scenario.

SUNDAY & MONDAY

For those with outdoor plans this Memorial Day weekend, we do expect quieter conditions on Sunday and Monday. Isolated activity will remain possible, but will be driven by afternoon heating. Rain chances Sunday sit at 30%, while lower odds are expected on Memorial Day.

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.

And everything changed in an instant, a harbinger of what was to come.

The Oklahoma City bench keeps getting better in these Western Conference finals — and, with all respect to MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the backups are the reason the Thunder are two wins away from a return the NBA Finals.

The Thunder got 50 points from their reserves in Game 1, then 57 in Game 2 — and on Friday, the bench mob struck again, scoring 76 points and keying Oklahoma City’s 123-108 win over the San Antonio Spurs for a 2-1 series lead.

The 76 bench points were the most by a team in a conference finals game since the NBA went to the 16-team playoff format in 1984. The previous mark was 69 by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1985. Only two Thunder starters scored in double figures — Gilgeous-Alexander had 26 points and Chet Holmgren had 14.

The bench more than made up for that.

Jared McCain scored 24 points for the Thunder; that’s a playoff career best. Jaylin Williams — that’s the forward, with Thunder guard Jalen Williams out with hamstring issues again — hit five 3-pointers and scored 18; that was also a playoff career high. And Alex Caruso had 15 points, giving him 63 in this series; that’s the best three-game scoring span of his career.

Oklahoma City’s bench contributed 62% of the scoring for the Thunder in Game 3 — something no team had done in a winning effort during a conference finals game in the last four decades.

Caruso was the first sub for the Thunder after the Spurs scored the game’s first 15 points. He instantly settled things down and most of that San Antonio lead was gone by the end of the first quarter.

Oklahoma City controlled the majority of things the rest of the way. After being down 15 at the start, the Thunder won by 15 at the end.

A judge handed the life sentence to Bobby Mercado on Friday.

In February 2024, police found Robert Wellington shot to death after responding to the 1100 block of W. Ridgewood Court.

Police said Wellington and a woman were sitting in a parked vehicle when Mercado approached them.

After an exchange of words, Mercado reportedly fired a shot at Wellington, killing him.

The DA’s office said investigators identified the suspects as Bobby Mercado and Cristan Villalobos.

Investigators connected Mercado to the murder through witness descriptions, surveillance video, and forensic evidence.

Mercado was apprehended at a nearby bus stop and in possession of narcotics, according to the DA’s office.

He faces a life sentence in prison for murder and a life sentence for felony firearm possession.

Read also:

• Woman found dead at Northeast Side apartment complex; Suspect detained, SAPD says
• Madison HS student injured in drive-by shooting near campus after road rage incident, officials say

Tipoff for Game 3 is set for 7:30 p.m. at the Frost Bank Center. The series is tied 1-1 after the Thunder beat the Spurs 122-113 Wednesday in Oklahoma City.

The winner of the Spurs-Thunder series will face either the New York Knicks or Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2026 NBA Finals.

More Race For Seis coverage on KSAT:

• Where to watch Spurs game tonight in San Antonio for free
• SCHEDULE: NBA sets TV broadcasts, tipoff times for Spurs-Thunder Western Conference Finals
• NBA Western Conference Finals: Spurs, Thunder clash for trip to NBA Finals

The officers who conducted a welfare check at the home of Caleb Vazquez wrote that he was “involved in suspicious behavior idolizing nazis and mass shooters,” and obtained a court order on Jan. 29, 2025, to remove 26 guns under a 2014 California law allowing the confiscation of firearms from people considered dangerous.

Vazquez's father initially denied police entry into his home when they requested to see how he was storing his weapons.

Vazquez’s parents had voluntarily removed the guns from the house and placed them in a secure storage facility days earlier, according to an affidavit signed by Marco Vazquez, the father.

Authorities have said Vazquez, 18, met Cain Clark, 17, online, where they both were radicalized. Police haven't shared more details about how they knew each other, or specified whose weapons were used in the shooting.

Cain Clark’s mother told law enforcement that weapons were missing from her home on Monday, kicking off an hourslong search for the teens before they committed the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego and then killed themselves, police said.

Court filings indicate mental health struggles

Court filings show Vazquez decided to “secure all sharp knives in the home” and removed from the house the firearms that they had previously kept in a secure gun safe into an outside storage facility. The affidavit also mentions unspecified serious allegations against their son, who was also previously committed to an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. The court filings, first reported by The New York Times, didn't say what he was admitted for.

The Vazquez family said in a statement released Thursday that Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had grown to resent parts of his identity — but didn’t specify what aspects were challenging to him.

“Coming from a diverse family that not only includes immigrants but Muslims as well, we always taught the importance of acceptance, compassion, and love for one another. We are proud of the different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, and religions within our family and community,” their statement said.

“We believe this, combined with exposure to hateful rhetoric, extremist content, and propaganda spread across parts of the internet, social media, and other online platforms, contributed to his descent into radicalized ideologies and violent beliefs,” said their statement, released through their attorney Colin Rudolph.

His family said they tried to get him help

They encouraged him to seek help and he spent time in rehabilitation centers, the statement said. Vazquez's parents did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment from The Associated Press. An attorney who represented Vazquez's parents when their guns were confiscated also didn't immediately respond to calls.

In writings by Vazquez and Clark that expressed white supremacist views, Vazquez wrote of having “some mental health issues” and being rejected by women. They suggest both teenagers idolized previous shooters who have died while carrying out mass shootings. The writings expressed hatred toward Jewish people, Muslims, Black people and a range of other groups.

Vazquez left the San Diego Unified School District in June 2018 after attending Washington Elementary up until the 5th grade, district spokesperson James Canning told The Associated Press. It’s unclear where he went to school after that.

Clark was enrolled in a virtual high school in the district, Canning said.

Police began searching for the teens on Monday after Clark's mother called to say her son was suicidal and ran away. She told them he was dressed in camouflage, had taken multiple weapons from the home, and was with an acquaintance, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said earlier this week.

Officers were still interviewing the mother about places the teens might be when the shooting began at the county's largest mosque.

De-radicalizing people is becoming more difficult

Vazquez's father said in a 2025 court statement that his family made a concerted effort to steer Caleb Vazquez back onto the right track. He said when they locked away their weapons, they were in communication with his school, were monitoring his social media presence closely and he was in therapy twice a week.

“We observe all of his online activities, who he talks to, what he talks about, and who he is friends with,” Marco Vazquez wrote, emphasizing that he didn't support his son's ideology.

Some experts say it's increasingly difficult to help people drawn to the kind of radicalism Vazquez and Clark expressed.

Samira Benz works for the Violence Prevention Network, which conducts interventions when people are radicalized into believing in violent extremism. Benz said the work has become increasingly complicated as the internet blurs ideologies and creates niche, meme-based languages that can be fleeting and hard to decipher.

“Even if a parent is looking at the phone of their child, they don’t necessarily see something bad is going on,” Benz said.

___

Associated Press writers Julie Watson and Javier Arciga in San Diego contributed.

Vietnam's U.N. Ambassador Do Hung Viet, who chaired the conference, announced that there was no consensus among the 191 parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty on even a watered-down final document.

He told a news conference later that “no one blocked consensus.” But he said “a very important reason” for the failure to reach an outcome was a provision in the final draft that said Iran “can never seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”

It was the third failure in a row at a conference reviewing the NPT, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation and disarmament. At the last treaty review in August 2022, Russia blocked agreement on a final document over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and references to Moscow’s occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed regret at the failure when the “elevated risk posed by nuclear weapons demands urgent action,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He appealed to all countries “to make full use of all available avenues of dialogue, diplomacy, and negotiation to reduce tensions, lower nuclear risks, and ultimately eliminate the nuclear threat.”

Tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program escalated ahead of the Iran war, which began with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28. President Donald Trump has said the war was aimed at preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has enriched uranium to near weapons-grade levels but insists its program is only for civilian purposes.

The U.S. and Iran have clashed since the opening of the review conference on April 27. The U.S. has accused Iran of showing “contempt” for its commitments under the treaty, while Iran has said U.S. and Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities violated international law.

Iran is a party to the NPT, which requires countries to open all nuclear sites to inspection by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency. But Iran has not given inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to nuclear sites that were bombed by the U.S. last June.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said the United States insisted that Iran be named in the outcome document for its refusal to comply with its NPT obligations, including inspections, and it was. Iran objected to being singled out and insisted that the U.S. and Israel be condemned for attacking its nuclear sites, which violates the NPT, but that was not included, he said.

In speeches at the end of the conference, the United States called Iran a “prolific treaty violator” and said it had spent the conference “shirking accountability for its grotesque violations.” Iran accused the U.S. and its allies of conducting a “relentless campaign” to legitimize their “unlawful attacks” on the country and its nuclear facilities.

Kimball said the conference “showed that rhetorical support for the NPT is strong, but the foundations of the NPT are cracking due to inaction, inattention, and intransigence on the part of the major powers.”

“Much more enlightened, engaged, and pragmatic leadership and diplomacy will be needed to guard against the growing risks of an unconstrained nuclear buildup, threats to resume nuclear testing, and the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran," Kimball said.

Britain’s Rebecca Johnson, founding executive director of the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, had harsh criticism for both the U.S. and Russia, the two largest nuclear powers, which she said "double down on nuclear threats, blame others and try to undermine or ignore the NPT’s nuclear disarmament commitments and related agreements,” including on nuclear testing.

For Ley Wright, those constant moves eventually became emotionally overwhelming.

“I felt isolated, alone, misunderstood, and unrepresented,” Wright said.

Wright and her husband, Dominick, have lived in several places throughout his career in the Navy, including Florida, Washington, the Middle East and Texas.

“Every two to three years, we have to give up our careers, give up our jobs,” Wright said, “for, in other words, love.”

The frequent goodbyes, packed boxes and unfamiliar cities left Wright searching for connection and community.

That experience inspired her to create “Base Buddies” — a podcast and growing online community designed to support military spouses navigating deployments, reassignments and the emotional challenges that come with military life.

“The idea of Base Buddies came from finding friends,” Wright said, “and I wanted it to be a community where military spouses can find people that they genuinely connect with.”

Wright launched Base Buddies six months ago. Since then, spouses from around the world, including Korea, Spain and the Middle East have joined the community to share stories, advice and support.

“We talk about absolutely everything. We talk about the raw, the good, the bad, the ugly,” Wright said. “We talk about deployments, we talk about permanent change of stations or PCS, we talk about the loneliness epidemic, everything.”

With San Antonio home to one of the nation’s largest military communities, Wright hopes Base Buddies can help spouses feel connected in a place that may not feel like home yet.

“Making them seen, heard and understood is the reason why I started the podcast in the first place,” Wright said. “We have such a large military community out there, but oftentimes, we’re in positions to meet other spouses at gatherings our husbands invite us to. But we aren’t genuine connections and we’re all going through the same thing.”

What began as a search for friendship has grown into something much larger — a support system for military spouses learning how to navigate military life together.

For more information about Base Buddies, check out their YouTube and Instagram pages.

Read also:

• San Antonio veterans, community members honor fallen heroes ahead of Memorial Day
• Veteran family denied school voucher funding over tax form requirement

The SAWS board approved a roughly 32% increase that would add about $4.47 to the average bill each year, totaling about $19 over the next four years, according to information presented to council members. City Council is scheduled to vote on the plan June 11. If approved, the first increase would begin around July 1, according to a SAWS public notice.

District 7 Councilmember Marina Alderete Gavito said she is leaning against the current proposal.

“Right now, I’m looking at voting no against the current SAWS rate increase,” Gavito said.

SAWS officials said the additional revenue is needed to maintain the city’s wastewater treatment system and fund proactive replacements to ensure dependable water service.

However, Gavito said residents in her district have been frustrated by the number of water leaks.

“One of the things that we’ve been particularly frustrated with in District 7 is the amount of water leaks,” Gavito said. “SAWS is losing 16 and a half billion gallons of water. I know that we need to invest in SAWS infrastructure, but right now, I am not confident in the leadership or the plan that they’ve pushed to council.”

She also warned that residents are facing multiple potential cost increases at once.

“We’re talking about a proposed SAWS rate increase. We’re talking about a proposed city property tax increase. All the while, we’re all feeling the pinch at gas stations, at grocery stores,” Gavito said.

Homeowners told KSAT they are worried they won’t be able to absorb another bill increase as inflation continues to squeeze budgets.

“So many people are living paycheck to paycheck and struggling,” Fabiola Fernandez said. “I am a single income household. I don’t rely on anybody else. It is just me and my daughter.”

Julio Encarnacion said rising everyday costs are already stretching families thin.

“We’re battling inflation and cost of living, hikes in groceries, gas,” Encarnacion said.

Some residents also pointed to ongoing infrastructure problems in their neighborhoods.

“A couple of weeks ago they were down the street trying to fix another pipe,” Fernandez said.

Gavito said she joined Councilmembers Marc Whyte and Misty Spears in requesting an audit of SAWS finances. However, she said SAWS does not plan to get an audit until after the rate increase is approved.

“We should have the results from that audit,” Gavito said. “We should look at how SAWS can be trimming.”

Encarnacion said the proposed increase would add to what he described as a steady stream of higher costs.

“It’s just another one in a series of increases that’s not going go over for consumers pretty well,” he said.

The San Antonio City Council will vote on the proposed SAWS rate increase on June 11. According to the SAWS website, if approved, rate increases would begin around July 1.

Read also:

• How much could a San Antonio tax hike cost you?

Brandon Felan was arrested and charged with online solicitation of a minor, a second-degree felony.

He is currently booked into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center.

A BCSO deputy, posing as a 16-year-old girl, was in communication with Felan through a anonymous online texting app, Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a press conference on Friday. He allegedly made inappropriate requests and acts through messages.

The Secret Service worked alongside BCSO in this operation and Salazar said federal authorities were already familiar with Felan from a prior sting operation attempt in April.

That operation fell flat because he stopped talking to the undercover detective and didn’t meet up with the underage child, according to Salazar.

This time Felan planned to meet up with the 16-year-old girl at a restaurant in the 10700 block of Potranco Road, Salazar said, and was arrested by a SWAT team at the scene.

“Three different instances where he thinks he’s talking to three different underage girls, when in reality he’s talking to three undercover operatives,” Salazar said.

Felan had a connection to the military, according to Salazar.

“He’s some kind of contractor that had been doing some work at Lackland (Air Force Base),” Salazar said. He doesn’t believe any actions related to the crime were committed on base.

Read also:

• 2 women arrested, 5 cited in connection with West Side gambling bust, BCSO says

The San Antonio star — as expected, given how the DPOY voting went — appeared on all 100 first-team ballots and made first-team All-Defense for the second time in his three NBA seasons. The team was announced Friday night.

Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren, Detroit’s Ausar Thompson, Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert and Boston’s Derrick White rounded out the first team. Gobert is now a nine-time All-Defensive team pick, while Holmgren, Thompson and White were all first-time selections to the first team.

The second team was Toronto’s Scottie Barnes, Oklahoma City’s Cason Wallace, Miami’s Bam Adebayo, New York’s OG Anunoby and Atlanta’s Dyson Daniels.

Gobert and Daniels are the only players that have made the All-Defensive team in each of the last two seasons.

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/nba

The letter comes days after a traffic stop, initiated by the Texas Department of Public Safety, prompted a response to a West Side library from multiple law enforcement agencies, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The traffic stop resulted in the arrest of 50-year-old Rogelio Cortez, who state troopers said had an outstanding vehicle burglary warrant.

Bexar County officials said he was not a voter, nor did the incident “affect access to the polling site or disrupt voting operations.”

In the letter, Jones asked Mullin to provide guidance to ICE officers about the “sensitivities around polling sites.”

KSAT spoke to a witness of the Wednesday traffic stop, who said Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar told a DPS trooper to “get out of here because it’s intimidating the voters.”

In a statement to KSAT later that afternoon, Salazar described the state trooper as “extremely professional” and reaffirmed that the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is in charge of “election security.”

“I want to assure everybody that polling sites are safe and secure,” Salazar said. “I’ve gotten some assurances that federal authorities are not, in fact, targeting polling sites — as they should not.”

Jones concluded the letter by extending an offer to have an “open dialogue” with Mullin, in the interest of balancing public safety and transparency.

Read the full letter below:

San Antonio Mayor Jones' letter to Homeland Security Secretary Mullin regarding ICE presence at polling... by criley

Read also:

• What to know about voting in the 2026 Texas primary runoff election in Bexar County
• ‘A wake-up call for City Hall’: SAPPOA calls for more park officers presence after woman assaulted
• Mayor Jones targets District 7 chief of staff in memo on home security leak

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in federal court in Manhattan chided Wolff for an “inappropriate level of tactical gamesmanship” and said she “will not be conscripted to oversee an abusively presented spat.”

Vyskocil, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, agreed that Wolff and the first lady “have a real dispute,” but said “they must litigate it according to the same procedures as everyone else.”

Wolff sued Melania Trump last October after her lawyer, Alejandro Brito, told him in a letter that she would be “left with no alternative” but to sue him if he didn’t retract statements that the lawyer said had caused her “overwhelming reputational and financial harm.”

Wolff wanted a judge to declare that he did not defame the first lady and that, were she to pursue a lawsuit against him, she would be liable for costs, fees and unspecified monetary damages.

Wolff originally sued in state court in New York under a law barring lawsuits designed to silence critics. Such lawsuits are known as SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation. Brito then had the case transferred to federal court and later sought to have it dismissed or moved to a federal court in Florida.

Vyskocil, in her 45-page decision, said that while federal court does have jurisdiction, she was declining to exercise it and “dismisses this case to be litigated like any other.”

Nick Clemens, a spokesperson for Melania Trump, said she “is proud to continue standing up to, and fighting against, those who spread malicious and defamatory falsehoods as they desperately try to get undeserved attention and money from their unlawful conduct.”

In April, Melania Trump made a statement at the White House denying any affiliation with Epstein, the millionaire financier and convicted sex offender who killed himself in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Reading prepared remarks, the first lady said she and her lawyers were fighting back against “unfound and baseless lies” that suggested she had ties to Epstein.

“The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,” Melania Trump said. “The individuals lying about me are devoid of ethical standards, humility and respect. I do not object to their ignorance, but rather I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”

In his lawsuit, Wolff argued that the Trumps “have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them” with costly legal actions “to silence their speech, to intimidate their critics generally, and to extract unjustified payments and North Korean style confessions and apologies.”

He said the threats were “designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Wolff has published a dozen books, including four bestsellers about the president.

Wolff said in the lawsuit that Melania Trump’s threat to sue him was related to statements he made to The Daily Beast and in three social media videos. Some statements were incomplete phrases and were taken out of context, he said.

Others, the lawsuit said, were protected speech. For instance, the statement that the Trumps were in a “sham marriage, trophy marriage,” was a “fair and justified” statement of opinion, it said.

The lawsuit noted that Wolff never said Melania Trump was involved in any of Epstein’s crimes.

In July 2025, after receiving a letter from Brito, The Daily Beast retracted an article titled, “Melania Trump ‘Very Involved’ in Epstein Scandal: Author,” that was based on an interview with Wolff.

Wolff, in his lawsuit, said his comments pertained to the first lady’s “involvement” last year managing the matter “behind the scenes” at the White House — not that she was involved in any of Epstein’s crimes.

Among other statements Wolff said were true were those his comments about Melania Trump meeting Donald Trump in Epstein’s social circle, and that Donald Trump liked to have sex with his friend’s wives and first slept with Melania Trump on Epstein’s private jet.

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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville in Washington contributed.

Facing a $131 million shortfall in two years, city staff recommended during a Friday budget discussion that council members consider maxing out the property tax rate in the upcoming fiscal year to help close the gap, though that plan would still require spending cuts.

Some council members are adamantly opposed to raising the tax rate, while others say the opponents need to be clearer in that case about what they want to cut.

“This is (an) absolutely non-starter for me,” Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) said. “Under no circumstances should we be raising the property tax rate on our citizens right now.”

“The balancing of the budget will require a comprehensive approach that includes both expenditures, reductions, and identification of new revenue opportunities,” Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran (D3) said a few minutes later in Friday’s meeting.

“But what I am not hearing from some council members is where we are going to cut — what you are willing to sacrifice — just what you’re willing not to do."

What’s the max?

Property taxes make up about 28% of the revenue for the city’s general fund, which pays for many city services, like police, fire, libraries, and parks.

However, the city expects the overall taxable values to dip this year, which would mean less revenue unless the city raises the tax rate.

State law generally bars cities from bringing in more than 3.5% additional revenue from existing properties for its maintenance and operations without voter approval. However, the city has the ability to go even higher in its next budget because it didn’t always hit that cap in recent years.

If it maxes out the tax rate, the city says it would raise the current tax rate of $0.54159 per $100 of valuation by almost 3.5 cents up to $0.57648, which would be the highest tax rate since FY 2007.

At that rate, according to a city presentation, the average San Antonio homeowner would pay an additional $81 on top of their current $1,074 annual city tax bill.

The calculation appears to be based on a discounted, taxable value of $232,606 instead of the homestead’s full, appraised value.

City staff cautioned the estimates are based on preliminary data from the Bexar Central Appraisal District. The certified values aren’t expected until late July.

Close to 46% of homesteads in San Antonio are owned by seniors or people with disabilities, whose city property taxes are frozen and would be unaffected by a tax increase.

City staff tried to relate a tax increase to increased police and fire costs, which are popular budget priorities with residents.

Increased fire and police costs tied to collective bargaining agreements and benefits; equipment, technology, and fuel; as well as mandates and contracts are expected to cost another $77.2 million in the next budget.

Maxing out the property tax rate would bring in another $53.8 million.

Cuts are coming

Even maxing out the tax rate wouldn’t completely solve the city’s budget problems.

A scenario laid out by city staff still calls for $15.6 million in spending reductions over the next two years, which would be on top of the $10.6 million and 30 positions the city was already expecting to cut based on last year’s budget discussions.

Council members were reticent when it came to naming exactly which programs should be cut, though. Even Whyte, who is fond of saying the city has “a spending problem, not a revenue problem,” hedged his comments.

The Northeast Side councilman rattled off examples of city spending, such as $1.5 million for tenant relations and event coordination at La Villita or $500,000 to develop analytical tools, but qualified that “I’m not saying to cut all this, but a lot of these have ‘scrutinize’ next to it.”

“That’s what we need to be doing, looking at each one of these,” he said. “I bet you there’s millions of dollars just in these three pages that we could find.”

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said the city needs to find potential new revenue opportunities and find inefficiencies. She also raised the possibility of getting money from Spurs Sports and Entertainment through contract penalties for having failed to secure a Major League Soccer franchise.

“I’m open to it,” Jones told reporters about raising the tax rate, “but I need to be able to explain to folks, ‘Hey, we’ve done all of our due diligence,’ and we’re just not there yet."

Next steps

City staff are expected to present a “trial budget” on June 18 that will take into account Friday’s discussions.

Though that’s typically a high-level look at the overall shape of the next budget, City Manager Erik Walsh told reporters it would be “a little more detailed.”

“I want to show what the actual reductions are,” he said.

Walsh said the budget may look different in terms of both spending and revenue.

“What you didn’t really see a lot of in there was other revenue sources we could tap. We talked about it, but we really need to do a little more work in those areas,” he said.

Staff will present a full, draft budget in August, and council members will pass a final spending plan and tax rate in September.

Read also:

• ‘A wake-up call for City Hall’: SAPPOA calls for more park officers presence after woman assaulted
• Mayor Jones targets District 7 chief of staff in memo on home security leak
• San Antonio moves ahead with leaving César Chávez Blvd. behind, separate street renaming for Super Bowl winner

Jones was asked about an agreement with Spurs Sports & Entertainment tied to Toyota Field and efforts to land an MLS team. The mayor has previously said the city and county each put in $9 million, with an agreement calling for $5 million to be paid back if an MLS team was not in place after five years.

On Tuesday, she said the city manager met with Spurs Sports & Entertainment to discuss roughly $2.1 million she said is currently owed.

An additional $1 million is expected this year, she said.

“I think it’s not a surprise that we would try to go get all the resources that we possibly can so we can minimize any cuts,” Jones said.

Jones also said the city is “structurally imbalanced,” spending more than it takes in, and warned that the five-year budget gap has grown from $224 million last year to roughly $260 million projected through 2031.

She said a property tax increase is among the options being considered to address the deficit.

Jones also discussed San Antonio Water System (SAWS) board members approving a potential gradual rate increase.

Watch the full interview in the video player above.

Read also:

• KSAT Q&A: Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones discusses bond priorities, repayment for failed MLS attempt

Busch died Thursday at age 41. No cause of death has been given, though his family said earlier he had been hospitalized with a “severe illness” three days before he was to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Busch was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told the AP.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because details have not been disclosed by Busch’s team or family.

During the emergency call placed late that afternoon from the General Motors training facility, an unidentified caller calmly told the dispatch: “I’ve got an individual that’s (got) shortness of breath, very hot, thinks he’s going to pass out, and is producing a little bit of blood, coughing up some blood.”

Busch was lying on the bathroom floor inside the complex and the caller told dispatch “he is awake,” according to audio provided by the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office.

The man then gave directions on where emergency responders should go and asked that they turn off any sirens upon arrival.

NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell addressed reporters at a news conference Friday but declined to answer any questions about the cause of death or any health problems that might have plagued Busch.

“We are 24 hours from getting a phone call and out of respect for the family, and they have asked for privacy, I am not going to address anything,” O'Donnell said. “But transparency is something that we all believe in. So in due time I think that everyone will be comfortable with where things stand.”

O'Donnnell talked at length about Busch's legacy, his rebellious nature and even his feuds with NASCAR, while calling him “an American badass.”

“We certainly had our battles but I would give a lot of money to have a few more battles,” O'Donnell said.

He joked about the time Busch pretended to be seriously hurt when NASCAR had ordered him to go to the infield care center after hitting the wall at Texas.

“He laid flat out on a pit cart, made fun of us,” O'Donnell said. “I was mad at the time, but I look back and that was damn funny — and that was Kyle.”

O'Donnell mentioned NASCAR might consider adding Busch to this year's list of Hall of Fame Class of 2027 inductees, which was determined earlier this week with Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Larry Phillips being voted in.

The news of Busch's death sent shock waves across the motorsports world on one of racing's biggest weekends, which also features the Indianapolis 500.

The NHL's Carolina Hurricanes honored Busch with a moment of silence before Thursday night's Eastern Conference Finals game against the Montreal Canadiens.

Vice President JD Vance took to social media, saying “I had the opportunity to meet Kyle, one of NASCAR’s greatest racers, on the campaign trail in 2024. Usha and I are praying for him and his family. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.”

Richard Childress Racing announced plans to suspend use of Busch's No. 8 Cup Series car until his 11-year-old son, Brexton, is old enough to begin NASCAR racing.

Gloomy, gray skies hung over the track on an unseasonably cool day in Concord, which seemed a fitting background for the in memoriam photo of Busch on the videoboard.

Christopher Bell was among the drivers planning to run in the NASCAR Trucks Series race on Friday night, one that Busch had been scheduled to compete in. Busch won last week's Trucks race at Dover — the final win of his career — giving him 234 victories across NASCAR's three national series, the most of any driver.

“It's going to be very strange to be out there without Kyle in the field,” Bell said. “It's going to take a long time before things feel back to normal.”

Bell called Busch's death a “gut-wrenching feeling.”

He said he spoke to Busch before the last Trucks Series race and said he seemed “normal, like completely normal.”

On Monday, Busch posted a birthday message to Brexton on Instagram, saying, “Your mom & I are so proud who you’re turning out to be!”

The father and son spent Tuesday night in Durham, North Carolina, with the Andretti family at the opening of a go-kart facility.

“I guess it is a very stark reminder of how fragile life can be,” Bell said.

O’Donnell said NASCAR never seriously considered canceling the Coca-Cola 600.

“Kyle Busch would probably be pretty (upset) if we didn’t race,” O’Donnell said. “So we’re going to honor his memory and make sure people know what he was all about.”

___

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Ken Martin, the committee's chair, faced new calls to resign from elected officials and Democratic operatives, who say he mismanaged a report originally intended to be a comprehensive examination of the party’s failures and a potential road map for its future. Martin kept the document under wraps for months, stoking speculation about its contents, only to release it this week and insist it was too flawed to be useful anyway.

“There doesn’t seem to be a plan to turn things around and the clock is ticking. November is literally around the corner,” Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas, told Semafor. “I believe it’s time for him to move on.”

“He should resign,” Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said to Axios.

And in a radio interview, Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., said he agreed with a caller saying Martin should be replaced.

But Martin maintains support from many state party leaders, who have benefited from a steady stream of funding from national headquarters since he took over. In a conversation with DNC staff on Thursday, Martin apologized for his handling of the autopsy and said he was determined to continue leading the organization.

“This was a major mistake. I own it, and now it’s time for us to move forward at the DNC, and I hope that you’ll move forward with me,” Martin said, according to a person with knowledge of the call who was not authorized to disclose a private conversation.

Martin, a little-known Minnesota operative before emerging last year as the head of the national party’s formal political machine, has already faced criticism for dismal fundraising and inability to inspire confidence among his party's unruly membership.

However, there was no sign that a serious alternative was emerging. The Associated Press contacted a half dozen Democratic presidential prospects to gauge their support for Martin and all of them declined to weigh in.

The intraparty feud represented an extraordinary distraction for a Democratic Party showing signs of momentum in its fight to break President Donald Trump's grip on power in Washington. Democrats hope to regain majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate in the November midterms, and Republicans could be vulnerable because of Trump's low approval ratings, dissatisfaction over the war in Iran and lingering economic frustration.

Martin's allies across the country lashed out at Democrats who were fueling the election-year drama, dismissing them as unhappy consultants and supporters of Martin's previous rivals for DNC leadership.

Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna RePass described calls for the first-term chair to step down as “ridiculous and dangerous.”

“It is dangerous for Democrats to be playing politics with our leadership when these elections are five and a half months away,” she said. “The American people are counting on us.”

Janet Kleeb of Nebraska, who leads her state party and the DNC's association of state committees, said the fighting “is nuts.”

“I haven’t had a single chair come to me saying I think Ken needs to resign,” she said. “Ken was elected by the DNC members to do a four-year term, and he has not violated any of our rules or bylaws where there would be a two-thirds vote, right? Because that’s what it would take to remove the chair.”

Kleeb added, “These reports are such distraction.”

The long-awaited postelection autopsy said Kamala Harris “wrote off rural America” during the 2024 presidential campaign and failed to attack Trump with sufficient “negative firepower,” among other key findings.

Martin shared the 192-page report only after facing intense internal pressure from Democratic operatives. He originally promised to release the autopsy even before taking over the committee last year, only to keep it under wraps because he worried it would interfere with Democrats’ focus on the November midterms.

“I didn’t want to create a distraction,” Martin wrote on Substack. “Ironically, in doing so, I ended up creating an even bigger distraction. And for that, I sincerely apologize.”

Although the autopsy criticizes Democrats’ focus on “identity politics,” it sidesteps some of the most controversial elements of the 2024 campaign. The report does not address former President Joe Biden’s decision to seek reelection, the rushed selection of Harris to replace him after he dropped out or the party’s acrimonious divide over the war in Gaza.

___

Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina.

The potential rate hike, which received unanimous support from the seven-member board, received the green light to advance to the next step in the process during a SAWS meeting on Tuesday morning.

Residents could see their bills increase as early as July 1. However, the rate increase still needs approval of San Antonio City Council. Council members are expected to vote on the hike plan on June 11.

SAWS Vice President of Customer Experience and Strategic Initiatives Cecilia Velasquez said the utility would see additional revenues from the hike in August.

The rate increase plan could increase the average bill of $56.68 in 2026 to $75.19 in 2029, which is roughly a 32.7% increase.

“While this is a rate increase of, as you (Velasquez) mentioned, less than about $4.60 each year for 4 years, it is, in fact, the cheapest option to ensure we have the facilities that we need in the interest of public safety and public health,” San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, a SAWS board member, said moments before Tuesday’s vote.

In an April 7 meeting, Velasquez said the average resident’s bill would increase by $4.47 for 2026.

Rate increases won’t impact customers enrolled in the Uplift assistance program, Velasquez previously said.

“At the lower usage (10,000 gallons), general customers would see a 5.9% increase, while the higher usage at 100,000 gallons would see a 6.7% increase,” Velasquez said.

Irrigation customers utilizing 10,000 gallons would see a 7.5% increase and 100,000-gallon users would see 8.2% increase, according to Velasquez.

More related coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Amid talks of raising SAWS water rates, CEO receives $130,000 bonus
• San Antonio water rates could rise. Here’s how to save on your bill

TUBING CONDITIONS

Across the area, recent rain has helped boost flows slightly, but many rivers are still running near to below normal levels for late May.

• Comal River: Flow is sitting comfortably within the recreational range. Expect slower currents and a longer float in spots due to lower flow.
• Guadalupe River: Conditions are lower and fluctuating, with some areas running below ideal tubing levels depending on releases from Canyon Lake.
• Frio River (Concan area): Flows are considered fair for tubing but on the lower side, meaning shallow stretches are possible.

Overall, most rivers are still open and safe for recreation, but tubers should be prepared to paddle in slower sections and watch for shallow areas.

LAKES & RESERVOIRS

Conditions vary widely across South Texas, but many reservoirs remain below conservation levels due to ongoing drought conditions. Water storage across the region remains a mixed picture heading into the holiday weekend:

WEATHER NOTE

The weather isn’t taking a break over the holiday weekend. Scattered showers and thunderstorms could produce heavy downpours, severe weather, and could cause quick changes in water levels, especially if you plan on heading to the coast.

It’s important to check the local lake levels and the KSAT Weather Authority forecast before you head out.

• 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

San Antonio police booked John Micheal Gonzalez, 39, into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center just after midnight Thursday on five criminal mischief charges at a combined $25,000 bond, online records show.

The charges, which estimates damage between $2,500 and $30,000 apiece, are considered state jail felonies.

Caught on camera

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by KSAT, Gonzalez allegedly began the barrage on April 17.

A male employee at the real estate company, located along the Interstate 10 eastbound access road and Medical Drive, told police that “someone had shot out” the firm’s windows. The employee looked at the company’s surveillance footage, which revealed “what appeared to be a firearm barrel” sticking out of the passenger’s side window of a red Ford Expedition, police said.

Moments later, the real estate business’ windows were “shot out and damaged,” investigators said.

Detectives believe Gonzalez “shot out and damaged” the company’s windows on four additional occasions: April 20, April 30, May 6 and May 12, court records indicate.

In the May 6 incident, an employee at the real estate firm alleged that the building’s windows were shot out again. The employee arrived for work on the morning of May 7 and found shattered glass before calling police.

Another review of security footage revealed a red Ford Expedition appeared on camera between “10:30 p.m. and 11:59 p.m.” on May 6, the affidavit states.

During the May 12 incident, an employee told the San Antonio Police Department that the company’s windows were shot out at approximately 10:30 p.m. The employee, who told officers they witnessed the shooting, said a red Ford Expedition drove up to the business, rolled “down the driver’s side window” and began firing at the building’s windows.

Tracking the suspect down

After one of the shootings, the employee told officers that they decided to take matters into their own hands.

According to the affidavit, the employee followed the red Ford Expedition into the parking lot of the Sumo Japanese Steakhouse, which is located in the 8300 block of the Interstate 10 eastbound access road near Fountainhead Drive.

The male employee told detectives he saw the suspected shooter get out of the vehicle in “a work uniform from the steakhouse,” wrote down the Ford Expedition’s license plate and gathered “a description of the driver.”

The employee provided police with video from each shooting, the description of the suspect and his vehicle, the affidavit states.

After reviewing the information, investigators were able to identify a possible suspect, which the employee later picked out of a photo lineup, SAPD said.

The suspect, later identified as Gonzalez, was arrested at the Sumo Japanese Steakhouse after a search warrant was granted, according to police.

Officers recovered the following items from Gonzalez’s vehicle, the affidavit states:

• An AR-style pellet gun
• A rifle pellet gun
• Three pistol-style pellet guns
• 22 carbon dioxide cartridges
• Three pellet containers
• A BB container

Gonzalez talks to police

In an interview with officers, Gonzalez said what caused the shootings was his pellet gun accidentally discharging as he “cleared” it while “driving in front of the (real estate) building,” court documents show.

Gonzalez admitted to investigators that the guns and the pellets found in the Ford Expedition belonged to him.

In all, the employee said damage to the building cost the firm north of $40,000.

Jail records show Gonzalez was released on bond around 9 a.m. Friday. His next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 18.

More crime coverage on KSAT:

• Woman found dead at Northeast Side apartment complex; Suspect detained, SAPD says
• 2 women arrested, 5 cited in connection with West Side gambling bust, BCSO says
• New Braunfels man faces 74 charges after illegally killing white-tailed bucks, TPWD says

The protesters gathered In Kyiv to oppose legislation passed in February on the legal status of missing persons that critics say allows courts to declare missing Ukrainian military personnel legally dead before their fate has been fully confirmed.

“Today all the families came out so that the missing are not equated with the dead,” said Mariana Yatselenko, 27.

More than 90,000 people are listed as missing in Ukraine’s unified registry of persons who disappeared under special circumstances, according to Artur Dobrosierdov, the country’s commissioner for missing persons.

The missing date back to 2014

Neither Russia nor Ukraine publish regular casualty numbers in the war, although analysts estimate hundreds of thousands of casualties in the fighting.

The Ukrainian register covers people who went missing during combat, as a result of armed aggression or in occupied territories, mostly after Russia’s all-out invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022. But some cases date back to 2014, when Russian soldiers invaded the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russia forces started fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The registry began operating in May 2023, and at that point, information about both military personnel and civilians from previous years was entered into it.

Similar demonstrations have been held previously over the issue.

Russia says Ukraine struck a dorm, killing 6

Ukrainian drones hit a college dormitory building in Starobilsk, a city in Ukraine’s Russia-occupied Luhansk region, killing six people and wounding 39 others, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. He added that another 15 remain missing as emergency workers are clearing the debris.

Speaking at a meeting with war veterans in Moscow, Putin denounced the attack on the dormitory as a “crime” and ordered the military to submit its proposals for retaliation. He noted that there were no military or law enforcement facilities near the college.

Later in the evening, Putin called Russia's Security Council meeting to discuss the attack on Starobilsk.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting on the strike on Friday at the request of Russia.

During that session, Melnyk Andrii, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.N., blasted and refuted his Russian counterparts’ accusations of war crimes, calling them a “pure propaganda show.”

“Such false accusations belong to a textbook disinformation campaign from Moscow designed to deflect from its own war crimes and manipulate international public opinion,” Andrii told the 15-member council.

He added that the May 22 operations “exclusively targeted the Russian war machine” with strikes neutralizing an oil refinery, “which was fueling occupation forces, ammunition depots, air defense assets, and also command centers.”

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said that it intercepted 217 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, including the Moscow region and St. Petersburg, the country’s second-largest city.

For the fourth time this month Ukraine struck Russia’s Yaroslavl oil refinery, around 700 kilometers (440 miles) from the border, in an overnight operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday.

Ukraine has been pounding Russian oil facilities in an effort to deny Moscow funding for its invasion.

U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting have brought no significant results and recently appeared to peter out.

“They were not fruitful, unfortunately,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of negotiations over the past year with Russia and Ukraine.

No talks are happening now, he said during a trip to Sweden, although they could resume if Washington sees an opportunity for progress.

Zelenskyy had a call Friday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to brief them on the progress made in recent weeks, according to Starmer's office. The leaders agreed that “standing up to Russian aggression remains vital for European and global security, and reaffirmed their commitment to securing a just and lasting peace for Ukraine," the office said.

Russian barrages as Ukraine makes battlefield gains

Ukraine’s air force said that it shot down or jammed 115 of 124 Russian drones that were launched overnight, in regular bombardments of civilian areas that in recent months have escalated.

Russian attacks across the northern Sumy region wounded 11 people, including a child, the National Police said. Also, a Russian drone killed a man in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, according to the region’s military administration chief.

The number of Ukrainian civilian casualties verified by the United Nations increased by 21% in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period last year, with 815 civilians killed and 4,174 wounded.

In Washington, the Trump administration approved a modest $108 million arms sale to Ukraine that will help the country sustain its midrange air defense missile system.

The U.S. State Department announced the sale of ground-to-air Hawk missile components, spare parts and logistic support late Thursday. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington has slashed military support for Ukraine.

On the battlefield, Ukrainian counterattacks have driven the Russian army out of more than 400 square kilometers (150 square miles) of southern Ukraine since the end of last year, Western analysts say.

Those successes are attributed to Ukraine’s increasingly homegrown drone and missile technology, as well as Russian forces being denied access to Starlink satellite services used to steer drones toward targets.

Ukraine keeps a wary eye on Belarus

Zelenskyy said that Russia could be planning new attacks on northern Ukraine, launched from Belarus.

Moscow “is eager to draw (Belarus) deeper into this war,” Zelenskyy said on social media, warning that “there will be consequences” for the Belarusian government, if it provides a platform for strikes on Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha alerted allies at a NATO meeting in Sweden about what Ukrainian intelligence services say are growing threats from Belarus. Sybiha urged partners to take unspecified deterrence measures against Minsk.

Russia and Belarus held joint nuclear exercises earlier this week.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, underscored “Russia’s ability to leverage Belarus for future Russian military operations and Russia’s deepening de facto control over Belarus.”

___

Matthew Lee in Washington, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.

___

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

Raymond Hernandez, 33, received 45 years behind bars for shooting tattoo artist Leonel Chavez on April 3, 2021. He was 46 years old.

Hernandez was convicted of murder, a first-degree felony.

Chavez was at a friends house in the 800 block of West Baetz Boulevard near Commercial Avenue before Hernandez approached and shot him just before 10 p.m., a district attorney’s press release said.

A neighbor who heard the gunshot called San Antonio police as Hernandez fled the scene on foot, KSAT reported in 2021.

>> SAPD: Man, 28, charged with murder after fatal South Side shooting

He was shortly taken into custody and SAPD said Hernandez still had a gun at the time of his arrest.

Hernandez visited the home “to get a tattoo,” according to the district attorney’s office.

More stories from today on KSAT:

• Sheriff: West Side gaming room was issuing illegal payouts to customers
• ‘Burned in my memory’: Mother, daughter T-boned by hit-and-run driver near downtown

The World Health Organization said that the outbreak now poses a “very high" risk for Congo — up from a previous categorization of “high” — but that the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be “much larger."

There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo's Ituri Province following the first known death while authorities tested for another, more common, Ebola virus and came up negative. There are now 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.

“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner told the AP. “It is a race against the clock."

Efforts ramping up in Ituri Province

Supplies were being rushed to Ituri in the northeastern corner of the country, where nearly a million people have been displaced by armed conflicts over mineral resources. Ramping up contact tracing is a priority, Kayikwamba Wagner said.

In the provincial capital of Bunia, AP reporters saw empty emergency treatment centers, and doctors in the nearby town of Bambu using expired medical masks while tending to suspected Ebola patients.

The provincial government said Friday it was temporarily banning wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people. It said funerals must be conducted in strict compliance with health protocols. The authorities also required journalists to obtain a permit to report on the outbreak, impeding their work.

Illness spreads in rebel-held areas

The illness also has been reported in two Congolese provinces to the south of Ituri — North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu, where the rebels reported two cases.

The group said Friday it was creating a crisis team to fight the outbreak.

Kayikwamba Wagner said having the illness in rebel-held areas was alarming because “M23 is, despite whatever ambitions they may have, thoroughly ill equipped" to fight the disease.

She said the Congo government and rebels were not communicating on the outbreak.

Response clashes with local customs

The efforts of health officials and aid groups have met with pushback from communities due to misinformation or situations where medical policy has clashed with local customs such as burial rites.

On Thursday, an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara was set on fire by youths who were angered when they were blocked from retrieving the body of a friend who apparently had died of Ebola, according to witnesses and police.

The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities, because the bodies can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when they are prepared for burial or when people gather for funerals.

Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, a local aid group, said the population’s anger is mostly due to misinformation. “We have lived through years and years of conflict and hardship so rumors spread easily,” she said.

She said some churches have told their congregations the outbreak is fake and that divine protection makes medical care unnecessary.

Grief and the lack of a proper goodbye

In the Ituri province mining town of Mongbwalu where the outbreak is believed to have originated, Lokana Moro Faustin lost his 16-year-old daughter to the disease and bemoaned the fact that he was not able to give her a proper goodbye because of Ebola restrictions.

“At first, we thought it was malaria. But then came vomiting, a high fever, nosebleeds, and bloody diarrhea,” he said, grief-stricken.

The teenager died on May 15 and her body was taken from the hospital by specialized teams and taken directly to the cemetery for a secure burial. Faustin was not able to say goodbye because he was in self-isolation, and it pained him to have his daughter buried by people who were not family.

In Bunia, coffin workshop manager Christian Djakisa said demand has soared since the outbreak began. “We're here every hour making coffins,” he said.

Aid is being flown in, but front line staff lacks resources

The United Nations said Friday it released $60 million from its Central Emergency Response Fund to accelerate the response in Congo and in the region.

The U.S. has pledged $23 million in funding to bolster the response in Congo and Uganda, and said it would also fund the establishment of up to 50 Ebola treatment clinics in the affected regions.

Lusenge said her group’s small hospital near in Bunia lacks basic protective equipment, exposing nurses and doctors to possible infection, she said. “We only have hand sanitizer and a few masks for the nurses, but we need much more than that," Lusenge said.

Public health officials say that a person infected with Ebola generally passes the virus along to one to two other people — which is less contagious than measles, whooping cough and chickenpox, in which one person can infect around a dozen others.

But researchers note that transmission rates have varied in past Ebola outbreaks, and they are still trying to determine how contagious the Bundibugyo virus is.

The outbreak is bigger than official figures show, WHO says

Both the WHO and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believe the outbreak is larger than the cases reported so far.

The region’s already-weak health infrastructure and surveillance capacity has been further weakened by international aid cuts, experts say. The International Rescue Committee said it had to stop its surveillance activities in three out of five areas in Ituri over the last year because of funding cuts.

Armed conflict in the region further complicates efforts to handle the crisis. To get from Bunia to Mongbwalu, aid groups have to brace for potential attacks from armed groups.

“The outbreak can still be contained but the window for action is narrow,” Gabriela Arenas from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Friday.

——

Pronczuk reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo; Jean Yves Kamale in Kinshasa, Congo; Jonathan Poet in Philadelphia; Mark Banchereau and Wilson McMakin in Dakar, Senegal, contributed to this report.

——

For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The 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.

Vendors selling shirts, hats and other silver and black merchandise have become a common sight around the city, especially along busy corridors on the South Side.

Some shoppers said they support the vendors because the merchandise is more affordable than products sold through official retailers.

“I’m supporting the community here,” said Joshua Martinez, who was shopping for merchandise. “A lot of the merch is really expensive at the Spurs shop and whatnot. So supporting people like this who are hustling and making money for the family, it’s cool to support their businesses.”

Others said the merchandise represents local pride and culture.

“It’s beautiful and represents the South Side of San Antonio,” said Jack Daniel Hernandez while buying merchandise. “This is the best spot to come.”

But while the products may be cheaper, not all of them are legal to sell.

According to the NBA, team names, logos and other NBA team identifications are intellectual property owned by the league and its member teams. Merchandise using official logos, player likenesses or copyrighted branding without authorization may violate trademark and copyright laws.

Items that only use generic phrases or references without protected logos or player images are generally allowed.

Many vendors approached by KSAT declined to speak on camera about the merchandise they were selling.

The San Antonio Police Department said it is aware of the issue.

“We are aware of potential unlicensed Spurs merchandise being sold around the city,” SAPD said in a statement. “Our Financial Crimes Unit is taking appropriate steps into this matter.”

Sources told KSAT that enforcement efforts often increase if the Spurs advance into the NBA Finals.

More Race For Seis coverage on KSAT:

• H-E-B gives out groceries, Spurs tickets to surprised shoppers on Southeast Side
• ‘It wasn’t a celebration’: Spurs fan left with $10K in vandalism to her SUV after playoff win
• San Antonio shops, pop-ups see boost from Spurs playoff excitement

The 30-year-old South Korean put himself in position to break 60 with a curling 17-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the par-3 17th hole at TPC Craig Ranch. It was his 12th birdie of the day, putting him at 12 under on the par-71 layout.

Kim was in the fairway on the 18th, but blasted his second shot over the green. His chip coming back stopped about 19 feet short of the hole, and his putt for par lacked pace and broke to the right for his only bogey of the day. Kim shot 11-under 60 for a five-shot lead at 18-under 124 after two rounds.

The 18th hole at Craig Ranch — about 30 miles north of Dallas — is a par 4 for the first time in the six Nelson tournaments it has hosted. A $25 million overhaul designed by Lanny Wadkins changed it from a par 5, and it has played as the hardest hole on the course through two rounds.

Most of the rest of the holes are as easy as they've been in the past — despite more bunkers along the fairways and contours on the greens. Part of the the reason is soft conditions from a rainy opening day and calm winds that aren't supposed to pick up on the weekend, either. Because of the rain on Thursday, players were still allowed to lift, clean and place their golf balls in the fairway.

Kim, playing with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and five-time major winner Brooks Koepka, took full advantage.

The four-time PGA Tour winner who lives in Dallas already had seven birdies through 10 holes when he put his 166-yard approach shot at the par-4 11th inside 3 feet.

Needing just one birdie over the final three holes for a 59, Kim missed by inches on the par-4 16th. Hopes dimmed with his tee shot on the stadium hole at 17, until he dazzled by far the biggest of any of the galleries on the course with a perfect putt.

“I hit it great and putted great,” Kim said. “So everything was perfect, other than the last hole. I’ll still take it. Sixty is hard, but I was a little bit of thinking about the 59 after I make that on 17. It was a little bit of like adrenaline.”

Jim Furyk has the PGA Tour's 18-hole record with his 58 from the 2016 Travelers Championship at TPC River Highlands. A 59 has been recorded 14 times, including by Furyk and Scheffler, who shot his at TPC Boston in 2020. That was two years before the first of his 20 tour wins, and four major victories.

“I definitely wasn’t going to tell him anything about his round today as we were out there,” Scheffler said. “I would say it would definitely be in poor taste to remind somebody they’re on 59 watch.”

The 59 watch overshadowed Scheffler's 8-under 63, which included a stretch where he was 5 under over four holes with a 45-foot eagle putt.

Scheffler was five shots back in second place, tied at 13 under with Kim's fellow South Korean, Sungjae Im, Japan's Kensei Hirata and Wyndham Clark. Im aced the par-3 seventh and shot 61.

“I feel like, when you’re watching somebody like Si Woo, especially when you’re paired with him, just watching somebody birdie every hole and you feel like the tournament is getting further and further away from you,” said Scheffler, who had a runaway eight-shot victory at his hometown Byron Nelson last year. “I think I did a good job of staying patient and not forcing things.”

Kim said he chose a hard 6-iron over a 5-iron for the approach on 18, and said the chip might have been too clean because it had too much spin and stopped sooner than he hoped.

“Yeah, it was a tough shot,” Kim said. “But I’ll take it still — 60.”

___

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

“Her speech was rapid and slurred, her gait was unsteady, and she was fidgeting with her fingers,” the report from the California Highway Patrol said. “Her mood changed from confrontational and agitated to flamboyant and compliant. She also appeared to speak with a British accent at times.”

Spears told officers, “I could probably drink four bottles of wine and take care of you, I’m an angel.”

But she said that in actuality she only had one drink, a mimosa, hours earlier, and she put her level of drunkenness at “zero.” Breath tests put her blood alcohol level at .05 and .06, below the .08 level at which someone is presumed impaired in California.

A bottle of Adderall — the stimulant used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder — was found by an officer in her purse, and was not prescribed to her, the report said. She also gave a blood sample for a drug test, but those results were not included in the report.

A Spears representative did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

Spears was pulled over for speeding and swerving on U.S. 101 in Ventura County near the Los Angeles County line in the area where she lives on March 4, authorities said. She was later charged with misdemeanor DUI and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Spears at first refused to get out of the car, saying she had been pranked and harassed in the past and as a woman she had a right to decline. She also said she feared getting out on the highway. When officers said they could take her around the corner, she suggested they go to her house.

“I’ll make you food or lasagna, whatever you want. I have a pool,” Spears says on the video.

She was eventually cuffed, taken to jail and released on bail hours later.

Spears voluntarily checked into a rehabilitation facility soon after.

On May 4 she pleaded guilty to reckless driving involving alcohol and drugs and avoided more jail time. Ventura County prosecutors said the plea agreement is standard offer for defendants with no DUI history, no crash or injury on the road and a low blood-alcohol level.

“I don’t think anybody’s happy about pleading guilty to anything, but under the circumstances, to get this behind her, I think everybody is pleased with the result,” Spears' lawyer Michael Goldstein said after the plea hearing, at which she did not appear.

Spears grew to superstardom in the 1990s and 2000s with several platinum-selling albums and hit singles including “Toxic,” “… Baby One More Time” and “Oops! … I Did It Again.”

She became a tabloid obsession in the early 2000s and a source of intense public scrutiny as she battled mental illness and paparazzi fought to document her private life.

Spears spent nearly 14 years in a court-ordered conservatorship controlled primarily by her father before she was freed from it in 2021. Since then she has married, divorced and released a bestselling memoir, “The Woman in Me.”

___

This story has been updated to correct the date of Spears’ arrest to March 4, not March 5.

All three were listed as questionable, but their status was updated 45 minutes before the scheduled start of Game 3, with the series tied.

Williams played in Game 1 after missing the previous six postseason contests with a hamstring injury. The 6-foot-6 wing exited Game 2 with tightness in his left hamstring.

Recurring hamstring injuries in both legs limited Williams to 33 games during the regular season.

Fox missed the first two games of the series after his right leg was rolled on by Minnesota guard Ayo Dosunmu in San Antonio’s semifinal-clinching victory May 15. Fox finished that game but did not play Monday or Wednesday due to an injury Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said will likely linger as long as they are in the postseason.

Harper made his first two postseason starts in place of Fox but exited Game 2 shortly after landing awkwardly and grabbing his hamstring with 4:50 left in the third quarter. His injury was diagnosed as right adductor soreness.

“I can tell you there’s games that people are playing right now that wouldn’t be playing in the regular season, and, so, that’s what I mean by different,” Johnson said. “I think there are levels of competitiveness and urgency and as of right now we’re at the height of that. So, you just try to make sure you keep some of these guys from themselves and their own competitiveness and desire to be out there because, again, their well-being is still the priority.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read also:

• Spurs host pep rally ahead of Western Conference Finals home opener
• H-E-B gives out groceries, Spurs tickets to surprised shoppers on Southeast Side
• San Antonio shops, pop-ups see boost from Spurs playoff excitement
• ‘It wasn’t a celebration’: Spurs fan left with $10K in vandalism to her SUV after playoff win

Three people found inside the house on Wednesday died. A fourth person who was in the house and one of the emergency responders who became sick were still being treated at a hospital Friday.

A doctor who saw the responders exhibiting symptoms — including nausea and dizziness — said their symptoms most closely resembled fentanyl exposure. However, the investigation into how the exposure happened and what caused it was ongoing.

University of New Mexico Hospital Chief Medical Officer Steve McLaughlin said during a news conference in Albuquerque that authorities were working “under the assumption” that fentanyl was to blame. He said the responders' symptoms ranged from mild to slightly more severe.

“It’s probably not absorbed through your skin, but it would be absorbed through your eyes, nose, mucous membranes, or if you inhale it,” McLaughlin told The Associated Press.

Meth is notoriously toxic when exposed to it, and fentanyl less so. Authorities noted during Friday's news conference that the responders who became ill had directly treated the people found inside the house east of Albuquerque, in the rural town of Mountainair.

More than a dozen first responders were quarantined and decontaminated after responding to the scene.

Of the two people still hospitalized Friday, one was a person who was found unresponsive in the home where three died. Authorities said they were called to the home by a co-worker of one of the people inside after they failed to show up to work.

New Mexico State Police Chief Matt Broom said investigators did not immediately find evidence of drug manufacturing in the house.

State police said early on that there was no threat to the public and that investigators did not believe the substance that caused the responders to become sick was airborne.

Two of the victims were identified Friday as Mika Rascon, 51, and Georgia Rascon, 49. The name of the third person who died has not been released, and the cause and manner of their deaths has not been determined.

Audio archives from the Torrance County Fire Dispatch channel on the site Broadcastify showed that responders went to the home following a report of a 60-year-old man unconscious but breathing.

Within minutes, a dispatcher is heard saying there were three other people at the home, two of whom might not be breathing. Then came a call for naloxone, the opioid-overdose antidote. One person was revived using naloxone, authorities said.

Less than an hour after the initial call, the dispatch center relayed that there were multiple exposures.

Some first responders began coughing, vomiting and experiencing dizziness, authorities said. Most had no symptoms, hospital officials said.

The initial responders on the scene did not have protective gear but followed safety protocols, said Torrance County Fire Chief Gary Smith. They saw two victims inside, pulled them into the fresh air and attempted to resuscitate them, he said.

“This did come in as an overdose. There was no indication of any type of hazmat type scenario,” Smith said.

Debriefings were planned in coming days to determine if there were any weaknesses in the response, he added.

Scientific evidence shows fentanyl, a potent opioid, does not cause overdoses through casual skin contact or brief airborne exposure in typical field scenarios. Experts say overdoses require significant ingestion, injection or inhalation of the substance.

Residents around Mountainair, a town with fewer than 1,000 people, have voiced frustration about drug use in the community and elsewhere.

New Mexico had the fourth-highest rate of drug overdose deaths of any U.S. state in 2024, with 775 deaths, according to the most recent data available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

___

Claudia Lauer contributed reporting from Philadelphia.

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

On Thursday, investigators descended upon Silver City, a storefront business located near Highway 90 and Military Drive, and seized 44 gaming machines as well as more than $19,000 in cash, according to a news release from BCSO.

“What we found is a total of about seven people, five that were there playing the games and then two employees that were there as well,” Sheriff Javier Salazar told KSAT 12 News on Friday morning.

Those arrested have been identified as Olga Sifuentes Rodriguez, 66, and Ecstasy Leyva, 21. Salazar said he also expected the owner of the business, who was not in custody yet, to face criminal charges.

Salazar said game rooms, in general, are not necessarily illegal in Texas.

However, the way they pay out customers’ winnings makes the difference, he said.

“Any time that somebody’s paid out more than 10 times the amount of what they bet, then it becomes illegal,” Salazar explained.

He said in many cases, those who are running illegal operations will try to get around the law by awarding a non-monetary prize, then allowing the customer to exchange it later for cash.

“My understanding is they were giving out beads that you would then go to some sort of a store nearby and sell those beads to the person there,” Salazar said regarding the staff at Silver City.

The sheriff said Thursday’s bust was the result of an ongoing effort to crack down on illegal gambling. He said investigators received a tip about Silver City that ultimately led to the raid.

“Whether you’re in the unincorporated areas or whether you’re in the city, our organized crime group is still going to be looking at what these folks are doing and are still going to be acting upon it,” Salazar said.

Read also:

• Game room owner arrested, charged with felony, weeks after she told KSAT she thought business was legal

Spieth is giving himself a chance to answer, although Si Woo Kim's flirtation with history while settling for a 60 left the three-time major winner with plenty of work to do.

Kim was in position for the 16th sub-60 round in PGA Tour history on Friday before a bogey on the final hole left him at 11 under for the day and 18-under 124 through 36 holes. Scheffler was among the players five shots behind the 30-year-old South Korean.

Spieth started his back nine — the front side of TPC Craig Ranch — with six consecutive birdies on the way to a 9-under 62 and was 12 under.

Spieth was one shot behind playing partner Sungjae Im, who aced the par-3 seventh moments after Spieth's sixth birdie in a row and finished his 61 with an eagle on the par-5 ninth. Im was tied with Scheffler, Japan's Kensei Hirata and Wyndham Clark, who matched Scheffler's 63.

A nearly $25 million renovation at the TPC Craig Ranch added bunkers and put plenty of contours in the greens. But a rainy Thursday and minimal wind left the Lanny Wadkins-led redesign as vulnerable as the course was the first five times it hosted the Nelson.

“I think the problem right now is that this is like the first time in the history of Dallas, Texas, that you’ll have four or five days of very little east wind and soft conditions in May,” Spieth said. “You get your normal what we had on Monday out here, that’s how it’s designed. I think it would show that it’s significantly harder, but also fair.”

Tom Hoge shot 62 and Tony Finau had a 63 to join Spieth at 12 under, one stroke ahead of first-round leader Taylor Moore, who followed his opening 62 with a 69. Tyler Duncan and Keith Mitchell also were at 12 under after each shot 66.

Brooks Koepka, who opened with a 63 and is looking for his first victory since his return to the PGA Tour from LIV Golf, shot 69 while playing with Scheffler and Kim. He was eight shots back.

Spieth credited a par at No. 18 for setting up his birdie binge, which started with a 12-footer. He hit the first four fairways after struggling off the tee on his first nine, made a 12-footer at the par-3 fourth, a 4-footer on the par-5 fifth and capped the surge from 9 feet on the sixth.

After Spieth put his tee shot 29 feet right of a pin to the far left at No. 7, Im bounced his 222-yard shot between the fringe and the hole and watched it roll in, raising his arms and looking skyward after the ball dropped. The 28-year-old was tied for the lead at that point.

“That was one of the prettiest hole-in-ones I’ve ever seen,” Spieth said. “Prettier than any one I ever made. There’s only a few people that would land that left of it on purpose. He might be one of them.”

Spieth's birdie run ended when his 29-footer at No. 7 came up about a foot short, while Im added another eagle with a 14-foot putt at the par-5 ninth. Spieth finished a bogey-free round with a birdie on No. 9. Im had a bogey and seven birdies to go along with his hole-in-one and eagle.

“I was hurting my head trying to figure out what our best ball was,” Spieth said. “I think it was 57, which is pretty good.”

Spieth, who contended on Sunday as a 16-year-old high schooler at his first Nelson in 2010, finished fourth a year ago when Scheffler won by eight at 31 under while tying the tour's 72-hole scoring record of 253.

The 32-year-old Spieth with 13 tour victories was actually worried about the cut line when he was 5 under at the turn. Then he went on to match his career best at the Nelson from the final round last year.

“Just a lot of it just comes down to knocking in putts,” he said. “It’s not a normal week, and it’s fantastic. Now that our families have grown and stuff, you get the little kids coming out, and it makes it even better.”

Scheffler kept himself in contention by playing a four-hole stretch in 5 under on the back nine, including a 45-foot eagle putt on the par-5 12th.

Hirata, a six-time Japan Golf Tour winner looking for his first PGA Tour victory, followed a 64 that included an eagle with a bogey-free 65. A short birdie putt on the ninth pulled him even with Im.

___

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

After San Antonio faced the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday and Wednesday nights from the Paycom Center in downtown Oklahoma City, the series has since shifted back to the Alamo City for Games 3 and 4 on Friday and Sunday nights.

The Thunder’s series-tying Game 2 win on Wednesday has now made Tuesday’s night Game 5 in Oklahoma City a necessity.

If necessary, a potential Game 6 in San Antonio (May 28) would be sandwiched in between Game 5 and a winner-take-all Game 7 (May 30) in Oklahoma City.

The 2026 postseason is the first since the NBA’s new long-term television contracts with ESPN/ABC, NBC/Peacock and Amazon Prime Video went into effect.

Due to the new TV deals, this year’s conference finals are being split between NBC/Peacock (Spurs-Thunder) and ESPN/ABC (Cavaliers-Knicks).

KSAT 12 is scheduled to air Game 3 of the Cavaliers-Knicks series at 7 p.m. Saturday.

The winners of the Spurs-Thunder and Cavaliers-Knicks series will advance to the NBA Finals, which ABC and KSAT 12 will air exclusively for the 24th consecutive postseason next month.

Below is the full Western Conference Finals TV schedule:

*if necessary

Click here to see how the Spurs match up against the Thunder.

More recent Race For Seis coverage on KSAT:

• NBA Western Conference Finals: Spurs, Thunder clash for trip to NBA Finals
• Spurs advance to Western Conference finals for first time since 2017; defeat Timberwolves in Game 6

But the eyebrow-raising move — the latest in his push to prove his loyalty to Trump — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers whose support he would need if he is nominated for the permanent job.

Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a series of splashy steps the Justice Department has taken under his watch since he took the position on an acting basis last month, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him.

The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm at a time when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the post for the remainder of Trump’s term. And it sharpened concerns from Democrats and other Blanche critics that he has not shed his mantle as the president’s personal attorney.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, said in a statement.

From Trump's former lawyer to the Justice Department's top job

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump's defense team, including during the Republican's hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

He was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job, then was elevated last month after Trump ousted Pam Bondi.

Now he finds himself the latest Trump-appointed attorney general to simultaneously confront expectations from subordinates to uphold institutional norms and demands from the president to do his bidding.

Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced out after the 2018 midterms after infuriating the president over his recusal from an investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign. Another, William Barr, resigned after their relationship fizzled over Barr's refusal to back Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud. Bondi was removed after struggling to bring successful prosecutions against Trump's political opponents.

Blanche has moved to advance Trump's interests

Two weeks after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche announced the appointment of Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to a special position inside the department, where he'll oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

“At some point, at the right time, that will be made public and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade," Blanche said in a Fox News Channel interview.

Prior government reviews of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, a centerpiece of the current conspiracy investigation, have failed to produce criminal charges against senior officials or evidence of criminal conduct by them. It's not clear what, if any, new information the continuing investigation has developed.

The Justice Department also last month obtained an indictment charging Comey, a Trump foe whose prosecution the president has long called for, with threatening Trump through a social media photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47" — a case legal experts say will be challenging for prosecutors. Comey has said he wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments against him.

In other moves, Blanche announced an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that has long been the target of conservative outrage, with misleading donors about its activities, and has publicly defended a Justice Department crackdown on leaks to the news media, including subpoenas to reporters.

The $1.8 billion fund sparks Republican resistance

Arguably the most audacious demonstration of loyalty to Trump came this week when the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who feel they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted, coupled with a guarantee of immunity from tax audits for Trump and his eldest sons.

As Republican concerns grew, Blanche held a tense meeting with GOP lawmakers Thursday. Shortly afterward, Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche, who defended the fund at a congressional hearing this week, has said anyone who believes they've been persecuted can apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation. But the fund has been widely understood as a boon to Trump allies investigated during the Biden administration.

“It’s pretty clear that he’s not the attorney general for the United States as much as he's the attorney general for President Trump,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and former senior Justice Department official. He said Blanche would get an A+ if report cards were issued for loyalty to Trump.

David Laufman, a former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general in President George W. Bush's administration, said that rather than protecting the Justice Department's independence, Blanche has been a “willing and ardent accomplice for carrying out any partisan or corrupt scheme the White House may devise.”

Blanche says he feels no pressure to please Trump

Blanche’s supporters dismiss the suggestion he is trying to curry favor with Trump to secure the permanent job.

“What he is doing is he is seeking justice based on facts and the law,” said Jay Town, who served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama during the first Trump administration. “And I don’t think that will ever change about him, whether he is the attorney general going forward or doesn’t spend another day in the administration. He is an honorable man and anybody that knows him knows that to be true.”

Blanche also insists he is not angling to keep his job or feeling pressure to placate Trump.

He has told reporters he would be honored to be nominated but, "if he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”

In recent days, he's functioned as the fund's public face and most visible defender, a role consistent with his comfort in the spotlight. He sometimes holds multiple press conferences a week and grants interviews to a variety of news outlets, a contrast to Bondi, who largely stuck to Fox News appearances.

His defenders say his experience as a federal prosecutor has made him a more sophisticated communicator for the department than Bondi, but his statements have at times invited backlash, such as his refusal to rule out that violent Jan. 6 rioters could be eligible for payouts.

Though Blanche will appoint the five commissioners tasked with processing claims, his precise role in the fund’s conception and implementation is unclear. He told CNN it was developed through negotiations with Trump’s private lawyers, not him.

But for some Democrats, that's a difference without a distinction.

“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told Blanche during a combative exchange in the Senate hearing, "and that's the whole problem."

Just hours after Rubio departed for Friday’s NATO foreign ministers meeting in Sweden, Trump stunned virtually everyone by announcing he would send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, a country that recently was told it would not be getting an expected deployment.

At the meeting, Rubio tried to calmly explain the situation to Europeans who have been unnerved by Trump’s constant unpredictability: The U.S. remains committed to NATO but will adjust its military footprint in Europe, which eventually will mean fewer American troops on the continent.

Rubio and NATO chief Mark Rutte insisted that the U.S. is consulting with allies. Yet the announcements have blindsided some countries.

“At the end of the day, I think it’s well understood in the alliance that the United States’ troop presence in Europe is going to be adjusted," Rubio told reporters. “That work was already ongoing, and it’s been done in coordination with our allies. I’m not saying they’re going to be thrilled about it, but they certainly are aware of it. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody.”

Rubio insisted that “none of this is surprising, although obviously I understand why it creates some nervousness.”

America's top diplomat has often been called on to offer a calmer, less antagonistic presence from the Trump administration. Rubio has been dispatched on several such missions this year, including to the Munich Security Conference in February and, more recently, to Italy, where he met with Italian officials and Pope Leo XIV after Trump criticized the American pontiff for his stances on crime and the Iran war.

Lack of clarity remains about US troop drawdowns in Europe

Friday’s meeting in the city of Helsingborg, which precedes a NATO leaders’ summit in Turkey in July, also came amid great uncertainty over how the war in Iran will play out and whether stalled U.S. efforts to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict will resume. Resentment also still simmers on the continent over Trump’s criticism of allies and his interest in taking over Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark.

Still, it was the abrupt reversal of the Poland decision and an earlier announcement about drawing down thousands of U.S. troops in Germany that attracted the most attention.

Rubio said “this is not a decision that was made on the back of a napkin” and that the Germans “didn’t freak out about it” because the reduction brought the numbers back to where they were three years ago.

With details about the Poland deployment still unknown a day later, Dan Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland and assistant secretary of state for Europe, slammed the Trump administration for its initial decision and an inability to explain the reversal.

He called it the result of a “bad process or lack of process” and said it created “an absolute mess” with America’s European allies. “It was a poorly managed decision — people were appalled,” he said.

Fried, who was traveling throughout Europe for three weeks before returning home Friday, said he had been doing a live TV interview in Poland on Thursday night when Trump announced the surprise reversal. He said he and the host had to laugh when they saw the news.

Although Fried welcomed the step, he said it pointed to larger issues that raise major concerns about the administration’s commitment to NATO and its seriousness about demanding reforms, such as spending more on defense, that most members have already agreed to.

“The administration’s seriousness about that policy is now in serious question,” he said. “They are so haphazard and chaotic that they can’t take yes for an answer. The administration needs to pull itself together.”

For the second day in a row, Rubio declined to discuss any further changes to the American military presence in Europe, including a possible reduction in the number of troops that the U.S. will commit under the NATO Force Model, which is a contingency plan for European defense in the event of serious security concerns.

Rubio reiterates criticism of NATO over the Iran war

Rubio repeated that he is a “strong supporter” of the transatlantic military alliance and called it important. But he reiterated complaints that some NATO allies, notably Spain, had refused to allow access to U.S. bases for the Iran conflict and others had been reluctant, if not resistant, to join a coalition to reopen and protect the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route that Iran largely has closed.

“When some of those bases are denied to you during a conflict that we’re involved in, then you question whether that value is still there,” he said Friday. “So that’s going to have to be discussed.”

Rubio, who was heading next to India, noted that nearly all NATO allies agree that Iran should not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, but few, if any, stepped up when Trump said he would take action to prevent it.

San Antonio police officers responded to a shooting call at approximately 2:30 p.m. Thursday at the intersection of Stahl Road and O’Connor Road, which is located near the Madison High School campus.

The teen told officers there was an altercation at a different location that led to the road rage incident, according to an SAPD preliminary report. A North East Independent School District spokesperson said the road rage incident happened near Loop 1604.

In the initial road rage incident, officers said the teenager fired multiple gunshots at another vehicle.

Later in the day, according to an SAPD report, the teen was walking near the Madison High School campus when someone inside a vehicle drove by and shot him.

Madison High School entered a secure status as a result of the shooting, the NEISD spokesperson said. The 16-year-old student was later taken to a hospital for treatment, SAPD said.

At this time, no arrests have been made. It is unclear whether anyone else was injured in addition to the teen.

SAPD said its investigation is ongoing.

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Deputies responded to a home just before 2 p.m. Friday in the 2300 block of Rosillos Peak, which is located near Loop 1604 and Marbach Road.

During a Friday news conference, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said a dog bit the girl on her head and the girl was “bleeding.”

However, the sheriff said the girl suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital for further treatment.

According to Salazar, deputies detained two dogs in a patrol vehicle and are awaiting Bexar County Animal Control crews to arrive on scene.

At this time, it is unclear who the dogs belong to, the sheriff’s office said.

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A male went to the woman’s apartment and found her dead around 9:50 a.m. Friday at an apartment located in the 5100 block of Eisenhauer Road.

Officers later arrived at the scene and found the woman with wounds “consistent with a sharp cutting object,” according to an SAPD preliminary report.

The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office will determine the woman’s identity, as well as her cause and manner of death.

At this time, it’s unclear whether the male who found the woman was the one whom officers detained.

SAPD said its investigation is ongoing. Further information was not readily available.

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There is a civil case in Maryland where he has been challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s attempts to deport him to a series of African countries. A criminal case in Tennessee, where the government accused him of human smuggling, has just been dismissed after a judge found evidence of “vindictive prosecution” by the Justice Department.

Here is a timeline of key events:

Arrival: around 2011

Abrego Garcia flees El Salvador for the U.S. as a teenager.

Arrest: March 28, 2019

Abrego Garcia is arrested outside a Maryland hardware store. Police accuse him of being a gang member and turn him over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Immigration court: Oct. 10, 2019

A Maryland immigration judge rules that Abrego Garcia cannot be deported to El Salvador, where a gang has threatened his family. He is given a work permit and placed under federal supervision.

Detained by ICE: March 12, 2025

Abrego Garcia is detained by ICE in Baltimore while driving home with his 5-year-old son.

Deportation: March 15, 2025

Abrego Garcia is mistakenly deported to El Salvador and held in a notoriously brutal prison.

Supreme Court: April 10, 2025

The U.S. Supreme Court says the Trump administration must work to bring Abrego Garcia back.

Criminal charges: June 6, 2025

Abrego Garcia is returned to the U.S. and charged with human smuggling, based on a Tennessee traffic stop from 2022.

Attempts at second deportation: July 23, 2025—present

ICE announces plans to remove him to a series of African countries, but is blocked by an injunction from a Maryland federal judge.

Released from jail: August 22, 2025

Abrego Garcia leaves the Tennessee jail, where he has been since June, to return to his family in Maryland and await trial. Within minutes of his release, ICE sends notice that they intend to deport him to Uganda.

In immigration custody: Aug. 25, 2025

Abrego Garcia reports to an immigration office in Baltimore and is taken into custody.

Judge orders release: Dec. 11, 2025

A federal judge in Maryland orders ICE to immediately release Abrego Garcia.

No immigration detention: Feb. 17, 2026

A Maryland federal judge rules ICE cannot re-detain Abrego Garcia.

Judge dismisses criminal case: May 22, 2026

A federal judge in Tennessee dismisses the human smuggling case against Abrego Garcia after finding evidence the government engaged in “ vindictive prosecution."

For over half a century, foreign nationals with legal status have been able to apply for and complete the entire process for permanent residence in the United States — including individuals married to U.S. citizens, holders of work and student visas, and refugees and political asylum seekers, among others.

The announcement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said foreigners who are in the U.S. temporarily and who want to apply to become lawful permanent residents, or green card holders, have to return home and apply there, except in “extraordinary circumstances." USCIS officers would decide whether applicants meet those.

“Nonimmigrants, like students, temporary workers, or people on tourist visas, come to the U.S. for a short time and for a specific purpose. Our system is designed for them to leave when their visit is over. Their visit should not function as the first step in the Green Card process,” the agency said in a statement.

It is the latest step by the Trump administration making legal immigration more difficult for foreigners already in the U.S. and for those hoping to come here.

Hundreds of thousands apply for green cards from the US each year

“The goal of this policy is very explicit. Senior officials in this administration have said over and over that they want fewer people to get permanent residency because permanent residency is a path to citizenship and they want to block that path for as many people as possible,” said Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, who added that about 600,000 people already in the U.S. apply each year for a green card.

USCIS did not say when the change would come into effect, whether individuals would be required to remain in another country throughout the entire process, or whether the policy impacts foreigners whose green card applications are already underway.

In an emailed statement to the Associated Press the agency said people who provide an “economic benefit” or “national interest” could likely stay in the U.S. while others would have to go abroad to apply.

The changes come on top of steps the administration has already taken to restrict and limit entry for people from dozens of countries. In some cases, there are outright bans on travel from those countries, while people from others face pauses in visa processing. Experts and attorneys warned that forcing people from those countries to return home to apply for a green card would result in them being barred from coming back.

“If families are told that the non-citizen family member must return to his or her country of origin to process their immigrant visa, but immigrant visas are not being processed there, it’s a Catch-22. These policies will effectively create an indefinite separation of families,” wrote World Relief, a humanitarian and refugee resettlement organization.

Confusion over who the change applies to

USCIS described the change as a return to “the original intent of the law” and closing a “loophole.”

But immigration lawyers and aid groups pushed back, saying it was longstanding practice for many groups to be able to adjust their status in the U.S. and that many people couldn’t return home because it wasn’t safe or they had no embassy to apply at. The U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, for example, has been closed since the U.S. pullout in August 2021.

“USCIS is trying to upend decades of processing of adjustment of status,” said Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This all applies very broadly to anyone seeking a green card”.

Among them could be individuals married to U.S. citizens, immigrants with humanitarian protection who are applying for a green card, and holders of work visas — including doctors and professionals — as well as student and religious visa holders, the attorney noted.

At some U.S. consulates abroad, wait times for a visa appointment could take up to more than a year, said Dalal-Dheini.

Immigration attorneys were picking through the policy memo and announcement Friday afternoon, trying to decipher who it would apply to.

Organizations that provide legal and other assistance to immigrants said they were hearing from clients concerned about what the new guidance would mean for them.

“It’s really hard to tell how this is going to be applied,” said Jessie De Haven, senior staff attorney with the California Immigration Project a non profit that provides legal services to low income immigrants. “I do think it might have a chilling effect on people applying.”

The ruling amounted to an extraordinary rebuke of a Justice Department that under President Donald Trump has repeatedly been accused of targeting defendants for political purposes. The Trump administration touted the charges against Abrego Garcia last year at a press conference in which then-Attorney General Pam Bondi declared, “This is what American justice looks like.”

“The evidence before this court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, in Nashville, Tenn., said in his ruling granting Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.” Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution."

Abrego Garcia’s deportation became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. In his motion to dismiss, Abrego Garcia claimed that both the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.

Despite the win in criminal court, his future in the United States is uncertain. Barred from deporting him to El Salvador, administration officials have threatened to deport him to a series of African countries, most recently Liberia.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a victim of a politicized, vindictive White House and its lawyers at what used to be an independent Justice Department," his criminal defense attorneys said in a statement after Friday's ruling. "We are so pleased that he is a free man."

The Justice Department vowed to appeal, calling the judge’s order “wrong and dangerous.”

Crenshaw stopped short of finding the government acted with “actual vindictiveness,” a rarely-met standard that usually requires evidence like a prosecutor admitting that charges were filed in retaliation against someone. But the judge did find there was enough evidence of “presumptive vindictiveness” — including the timing of the indictment, statements made by then-U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the sustained oversight of the case by other top Justice Department officials — that the case against Abrego Garcia was thoroughly tainted.

The government’s own explanations weren’t convincing, Crenshaw wrote.

Abrego Garcia was charged with human smuggling and conspiracy to commit human smuggling, with prosecutors claiming that he accepted money to transport within the United States people who were in the country illegally.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was eventually allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

In the Friday ruling, Crenshaw wrote that the timing of the charges was central to the presumption of vindictiveness. Homeland Security had been aware of the traffic stop for two years and had closed the case against Abrego Garcia when it deported him. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he should be brought back to the U.S., they reopened the case. While the government bore the responsibility to rebut the presumption of vindictiveness, prosecutors did not call as a witness the person who reopened the case, to explain why. Instead they offered only “secondhand testimony.”

In a statement released by the group We are CASA, which has been supporting Abrego Garcia and his family, he thanked God for the dismissal of the criminal charges.

“Justice is a big word and an even bigger promise to fulfill; and I am grateful that today, justice has taken a step forward,” he said.

Abrego Garcia's deportation violated a 2019 immigration court order granting him protection from deportation to his home country, after the judge found he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years although he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. The 2019 order allowed him to live and work in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision, but he was not given residency status.

The 94-year-old stood tall and unwavering under a warming sun, even as some people nearby fainted before the May 1 event began. Standing behind him was his security detail, led by grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro.

It was a rare public appearance for the last Castro from the revolutionary era. While he is believed to wield significant influence over the government, he maintains a low profile even as a general of Cuba’s army.

He was in the spotlight Wednesday when U.S. prosecutors unveiled an indictment that accuses Castro of ordering the 1996 shootdown of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles. The charges include murder and destruction of an airplane. Castro was minister of defense at the time.

The indictment and remarks Thursday by U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio renewed fears of a possible U.S. military intervention in Cuba, much like what happened in Venezuela in early January.

“We expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the charges against the former Cuban president during a press conference in Miami.

Cuba’s socialist government condemned the charges and held a rally Friday to honor Castro.

Thousands of people crowded into Havana’s famed seawall to demonstrate their support for him and decry the indictment against him. Raúl Castro did not attend, but present were his grandson and his daughter, Mariela Castro.

“Who do they think they are to judge Raúl?” Gerardo Hernández asked as the crowd that had gathered in front of the U.S. embassy cheered. Hernández is one of five Cubans accused of being a spy who was imprisoned and later released by the U.S. in 2014.

“For the United States, the law is a tailor-made suit,” he said before punching the air with this fist to a shout of “Viva Raúl!”

The crowd responded to his call: “Homeland or death, we will vanquish!”

Castro is rarely seen in public

In July 1953, Castro was arrested in Cuba after being accused of armed rebellion following a failed assault against military barracks. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison but was released two years later following a political amnesty. He then left for Mexico and helped organize the revolution.

He married a guerrilla fighter, Vilma Espín, in the 1960s and the couple had four children. Little else is known about Castro's private life: He is considered a family man and officially resides west of Havana.

Even during his years as defense minister under his late brother, Fidel Castro, and later as president, his routine stood out for its discretion: no agendas, official ceremonies, or public or family gatherings.

Since stepping down and handing over to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro has rarely been seen in public. He wears his signature olive-green military uniform when greeting visiting dignitaries.

“He still has influence, and the leadership seeks his opinion on major decisions, but he is not running the government on a day-to-day basis,” said William LeoGrande, a political scientist at American University in Washington.

“If the U.S. were to abduct him, it would not change the operations of government, unlike what happened in Venezuela,” LeoGrande said.

Tensions between the US and Cuba worsen

The indictment against Raúl Castro has deepened tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, which recently announced that its oil reserves had run dry because of an ongoing U.S. energy blockade.

The island’s crises have worsened since the Jan. 3 U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which halted critical oil shipments from the South American country. Then in late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.

Top Trump aides — including Rubio, CIA chief John Ratcliffe and other senior national security officials — have met with Cuban officials in recent months to explore improving relations. But the U.S. side has come away unimpressed from those talks, leading to more sanctions imposed on the Cuban government in the past week.

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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.

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

The Mission Drive-In Theater first opened in 1948 and still uses its original movie screen for outdoor screenings — adding a nostalgic touch for longtime San Antonio residents.

The large outdoor lawn gives families plenty of room to spread out with blankets and chairs before the movie starts at dusk. Visitors are also allowed to bring their own snacks and drinks. Glass containers, however, are prohibited.

Free popcorn is provided courtesy of H-E-B, and food trucks are also available on-site during events.

The plaza is designed to be family-friendly, offering space for children to play, pet-friendly accommodations, restrooms and free Wi-Fi access.

Before the movie begins, visitors can also enjoy free entertainment on the venue’s large stage.

The next scheduled movie screening is “Zootopia 2” on Saturday, June 6.

A full schedule of upcoming films and events can be found here.

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Rubio spoke days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was holding off on a military strike against the Islamic Republic because “serious negotiations” were underway. Trump has been threatening for weeks that the ceasefire reached in mid-April could end if Iran does not make a deal, with shifting parameters for striking such an agreement.

America's top diplomat made the comment ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden, where the military alliance discussed what role it could play in helping police the Strait of Hormuz once the war is over.

Rubio said he did not want to exaggerate the progress, saying there had been “a little bit of movement and that's good.” In recent weeks, repeated claims of progress have emerged, but a deal has stayed out of reach.

Trump has repeatedly set deadlines for Tehran and then backed off. But he’s also previously indicated he would hold off on military action to allow talks to play out, only to turn around and launch strikes. That happened at the war’s outset, when he ordered strikes in late February shortly after indicating he would let talks play out.

The president said he called off attacks on Iran this week at the request of allies in the Middle East.

Pakistan's army chief arrives in Iran for third round of talks

In a renewed push for a peace agreement, Pakistan's top army officer arrived Friday in Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders, Pakistani officials and the military confirmed. It's the third round of meetings between Pakistani and Iranian officials in recent days.

Field Marshal Asim Munir will be joined by Pakistan’s interior minister, who has already met with Iranian leaders in Tehran twice this week. Pakistan has sought a deal between Iran and the U.S. since Munir facilitated face-to-face talks between the two countries in Islamabad last month.

Qatar also sent a delegation to Tehran, according to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks. The delegation is working in coordination with other countries, including Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the official said.

Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for the shipment of oil, gas, fertilizer and other petroleum products. The U.S. is blockading Iranian ports and has redirected 94 commercial vessels and disabled four others since mid-April, U.S. Central Command said.

At the NATO meeting in Sweden, Rubio said he discussed reopening the strait with other foreign ministers. He said there needs to be a “plan B” if Washington and Tehran fail to reach a deal.

“Someone’s going to have to do something about it, OK?” Rubio said, insisting that Iran was not going to “voluntarily reopen” the strait.

No mines have been found in the Strait of Hormuz

The American military has not found or destroyed any explosive mines in the Strait of Hormuz so far, but it is still searching, a U.S. official said Friday.

No ships have been struck or damaged by mines in the strait either, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. That is even as some commercial traffic has been flowing, though at much lower volumes than before the war began.

Trump said last month that he ordered the military to begin mine-clearing efforts as part of a broader push to get commercial ships to traverse the strait again following several attacks by Iran.

No evidence of mine-laying by the Iranians has emerged since the start of the conflict, and U.S. officials have repeatedly said that they targeted and destroyed that capability as part of the airstrikes across the country.

Trump's war pause sparks tension with Netanyahu

Trump's decision to give more peace talks a chance sparked tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said Thursday that Trump and Netanyahu had a “dramatic” phone conversation Tuesday about the status of the Iranian negotiations and that Israel is angry with Trump’s efforts to strike a deal with Iran.

The White House declined to comment on the substance or tenor of the call. Trump told reporters after the conversation that Netanyahu “will do whatever I want him to do.”

The comments are some of the first public signs of daylight between the leaders since they launched the war.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE separately struck Iran

Two regional officials and a Western diplomat said Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates separately launched multiple attacks on Iran and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq during the war. An Israeli military officer with knowledge of the situation also confirmed that the UAE proactively struck Iran at least once.

All of them spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the information. The regional officials said the strikes on Iran targeted military facilities.

One of the regional officials said strikes by Saudi Arabia targeted hideouts of Iraqi militias, mainly Kataib Hezbollah, after Riyadh assessed that most of the drone attacks on Saudi Arabia came from neighboring Iraq. He said Saudi Arabia has repeatedly briefed Baghdad before deciding to strike.

The Western diplomat and one of the regional officials said the UAE had pushed for a collective military response from the Gulf Arab countries since the onset of the war.

Asked for comment, the UAE referred to a May 16 statement that "all measures undertaken by the UAE have been within the framework of defensive actions aimed at protecting its sovereignty, civilians, and vital infrastructure.” Saudi Arabia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran has not publicly addressed being targeted by the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

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Magdy reported from Cairo, Egypt, and Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Konstantin Toropin, Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington; Farnoush Amiri in New York; and Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.

The S&P 500 added 0.4% and pulled closer to its all-time high set in the middle of last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 294 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.2%.

Ross Stores helped drive the market and rose 8.1% after the off-price retailer reported profit and revenue for the latest quarter that easily cleared analysts’ expectations. CEO Jim Conroy said it saw strong customer traffic through the three months, and the company may have benefited from households spending their tax refunds.

Estee Lauder jumped 11.9% after saying it was no longer considering a possible merger with Puig, the Spanish fragrance and beauty products company.

Workday rose 5.2%, and Zoom Communications jumped 9.2% after both delivered better profit reports for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

They’re the latest companies to top analysts’ expectations for earnings for the start of 2026, and the cavalcade of such reports has helped U.S. stocks remain near their records. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term.

The strength is coming even after a survey of U.S. consumers by the University of Michigan found sentiment fell to a record low, piercing below a bottom in 2022 when inflation peaked above 9%. Households are feeling worried about how bad inflation is now because of expensive oil created by the war with Iran.

U.S. consumers are forecasting inflation will worsen to 4.8% in the coming 12 months, up from a forecast of 4.7% last month, according to the survey. In the longer run, their forecasts for inflation jumped to 3.9% from 3.5% last month. Such rising expectations are a concern for economists because they can drive behavior that creates a vicious cycle that makes inflation worse.

Sentiment dropped in particular for lower-income consumers who are least able to absorb higher costs for essentials, and it fell for Republicans as well, according to the survey.

Helping to keep uncertainty high have been continued swings for oil prices. They yo-yoed again Friday, like they did through the week on uncertainty about when the United States and Iran may find a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The closure has prevented oil tankers from exiting the Persian Gulf and delivering crude to customers worldwide.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil to be delivered in August added 0.7% to settle at $100.21 after erasing an earlier decline.

Worries about inflation staying high have pushed bond yields higher worldwide, threatening to slow economies and undercut prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments. High yields have already forced the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to its most expensive level since last summer, and they could curtail companies’ borrowing to build the AI data centers that have supported the U.S. economy’s growth recently.

Yields had been down Friday morning, offering some relief, before wavering after oil prices erased their losses and the survey on consumer sentiment showed worsening inflation expectations.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.56% from 4.57% late Thursday, but it remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war.

Worries about inflation have climbed so high that traders on Wall Street have eliminated bets that the Federal Reserve will resume its cuts to interest rates later this year. Lower rates would give the economy a boost, but they could also worsen inflation.

An important member of the Fed, Gov. Christopher Waller, said in a speech Friday, “If I believe inflation expectations start to become unanchored, I would not hesitate to support an increase in the target range for the federal funds rate.”

But he also said that is not the case now in his speech titled “Policy Risks Have Changed.” Instead, he said it “is time to simply sit and watch how the conflict and the data evolve.”

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across Europe and Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 2.7% to another record after a report showed inflation hitting a four-year low in April, at 1.4%, despite higher prices for oil and gas due to the war.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 27.75 points to 7,473.47. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 294.04 to 50,579.70, and the Nasdaq composite added 50.87 to 26,343.97.

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AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed to this report.

But he veered off-topic right from the start, going off on tangents about voter identification, crime in cities, transgender women in sports and “Dumocrats,” his new chosen moniker for the opposition party. He complained that toiletries are locked up in pharmacies, making them harder to buy, and polled the audience on what he should call his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

Eventually, he landed on the topic of the speech, telling the crowd that he and his party worked to slash taxes and increase take-home pay, while Democrats opposed the effort at every turn.

"I cut your taxes, cut the taxes on workers, families, small business, who are the soul of this state," Trump said to the audience at Rockland Community College. Listing off the various provisions of the tax law, the president said: “These are all Republican tax cuts. The Democrats voted against every one of these tax cuts.”

Trump traveled to the Hudson Valley area to appear with Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who is up for reelection in what will be one of the most closely watched House races this November, for an event meant to promote the tax law Trump signed last year, particularly the quadrupling of the deduction for state and local taxes, which is critical in a high-tax state like New York.

Trump called Lawler “fantastic” and mused about how the congressman was a “pain in the ass” as he badgered the administration on expanding the deduction.

He pulled Lawler onstage during the event, and the congressman thanked the president “for working with me to deliver a big win” for the people in his district. He said that more than 90% of the people in his district were able to fully deduct their state and local taxes.

Also appearing with the president at the event Friday was Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Trump-backed Republican candidate for New York governor. Trump said, “Guys like Mike Lawler, guys like Bruce Blakeman, you put them in, they’ll turn it around.”

Trying to reverse a slumping approval rating

The White House has been looking for more opportunities to highlight Trump’s economic accomplishments as his approval rating on the economy has slumped. About one-third of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling the economy, according to a new AP-NORC poll, down slightly from 40% at the start of Trump's second term. Trump had promised to bring prices down, but gasoline prices have surged this year due to the war in Iran.

Lawler is just one of three House Republicans who represent a district won by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024. Unlike the other two — retiring Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, who’s been a critic of Trump policies — Lawler has chosen to embrace the polarizing president in hopes of not alienating Republican voters who support the party’s leader.

“Look, the people who hate the president — and that’s their sole basis for their vote — are likely never voting for me, and you know, obviously, you need to turn out your base, and you need people energized,” Lawler told The Associated Press in an interview on the sidelines of the White House congressional picnic earlier this week. “Moreover, I have a record in my district that is one I’m very proud of, and a record that appeals to a broad middle.”

Lawler, wearing a red ball cap emblazoned with “Mr. SALT,” the acronym for the state and local tax deduction he fought to include in the bill, added, “I am confident that I will be reelected on my own merits and my own record.”

Trump established a SALT cap in 2017 through his Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Last year’s law expanded the SALT deduction to $40,000 from $10,000 after arduous negotiations with Republicans, including Lawler, whose district has high local taxes. The law also raised the average tax refund for New Yorkers to more than $3,800, according to data provided by the White House.

“My constituents were seeing anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 refund checks, which is pretty massive,” said Lawler, who said he wanted to give Trump one of his “Mr. SALT” ball caps.

A competitive House race in New York

Trump formally endorsed Lawler for reelection last year, although it came at a time when the congressman was publicly mulling a run for governor of New York. The endorsement was viewed as a way to keep Lawler in a reelection bid rather than opening up a competitive House seat.

Five Democrats are vying for the party's nomination to compete against Lawler in the general election. The Democratic primary is June 23.

“Nothing says ‘I don’t understand my district’ quite like Mike Lawler bringing Donald Trump to NY-17 to tout a disastrous economy that’s crushing working families at every turn,” said Riya Vashi, a spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Richard Hudson disputed that, arguing that Trump's Friday appearance will “absolutely” help.

“His poll numbers are pretty good in Lawler’s district,” said Hudson, a North Carolina congressman. The NRCC has been polling in competitive districts and Hudson said the “president’s numbers are good. Democratic numbers are tanking.”

The remarks were an official White House event and not a campaign one, said Lawler, who noted that more than 5,000 people registered to attend in the first 12 hours that a sign-up was available.

___

Kim reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.

Trump is heading to a toss-up congressional district in New York to test his midterm message on the economy, even as voters largely disapprove of his stewardship of it. The focus of the event is to promote the tax law Trump signed last year, particularly the quadrupling of the deduction for state and local taxes, which is critical in a high-tax state like New York.

Trump on Thursday said the U.S. will send an additional 5,000 troops to Poland, stirring confusion following weeks of changing statements from Trump and his administration about reducing — not increasing — the American military footprint in Europe. And in Sweden, Secretary of State Marco Rubio faced NATO allies confused by contradictory administration statements.

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Trump says he is posthumously awarding Presidential Medal of Freedom to man who helped rescue people on 9/11

The president, during the rally, announced he would be recognizing Welles Crowther of Rockland County, who lost his life on Sept. 11, 2001. Crowther died as he helped people escape the World Trade Center’s South Tower after it was hit by a hijacked airplane.

Crowther wore a red bandana on his face, which is on display at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

Trump called Crowther’s mother to the stage after announcing the award, America’s highest civilian honor.

Trump veers off-topic during speech in New York that was supposed to be on the economy

The president has begun testing his midterm-year message, focusing on the economy.

But in New York, he quickly veered off-topic, discussing voter ID, crime, and transgender women in sports. He complained that toiletries are locked up in pharmacies, making them harder to buy, and polled the audience on what he should call his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

He eventually highlighted his tax cuts, claiming Democrats opposed them.

“I cut your taxes, cut the taxes on workers, families, small business, who are the soul of this state,” Trump said to the audience at Rockland Community College.

Trump appeared with Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, praising him for supporting the tax law that expanded state and local tax deductions. Lawler, up for reelection, said he will embrace Trump to energize Republican voters.

The White House aims to spotlight Trump’s economic achievements amid declining approval ratings.

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US says Congolese World Cup team cannot return home before traveling to tournament

A U.S. official said members of Congo’s World Cup team, who have trained for weeks in Europe, far from the Ebola outbreak, will be exempt from the U.S. travel ban on non-Americans recently in affected countries — provided they do not return home before the tournament.

The official said U.S. authorities advised the athletes, coaches and staff currently in Europe that they will be subject to the entry ban and any quarantine restrictions should they return to the Congo or the broader affected region before traveling to the U.S. The impacted area includes Uganda and South Sudan. The team is not prevented from traveling elsewhere to compete in pre-World Cup matches.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations between the U.S. and the team, said the Trump administration “will continue to uphold the highest safety and health standards for the United States and all World Cup participants.”

US military hasn’t found or destroyed any explosive mines in the Strait of Hormuz, AP source says

A U.S. official says the search for mines in the vital oil shipping corridor is ongoing, though none have been found.

No ships have been struck or damaged by mines in the strait, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations. That’s even as some commercial traffic has flowed through the waterway where Iran has a chokehold, though at much lower volumes than before the war began.

Trump said last month that he ordered the military to begin mine-clearing efforts as part of a broader push to get commercial ships to traverse the strait again, following several attacks by Iranian forces.

No evidence of mine-laying by the Iranians has emerged since the start of the conflict, and U.S. officials have repeatedly said that they targeted and destroyed that capability as part of the airstrikes across the country.

Trump calls Lawler ‘Mr. Salt' as he praises him in New York

The president opened his rally with Republican Rep. Mike Lawler by touting the congressman’s fight for SALT, the acronym for the state and local tax deduction he fought to include in Trump’s sweeping tax cuts law last year.

“He wouldn’t stop. He was driving us crazy,” Trump said.

Trump also gave a shout-out to Nassau County’s Republican Bruce Blakeman, who is running for governor.

“You better watch yourself, Kathy,” Trump said, referring to New York’s incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for reelection.

“You got a race,” Trump added.

Judge dismisses human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported

A human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Tennessee was dismissed Friday without a trial.

Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation to El Salvador last year became an embarrassment for the Trump administration when it was ordered to return him to the U.S.

Abrego Garcia claimed the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated the prosecution was vindictive.

A federal judge agreed to dismiss the charges against Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen with an American wife and child who has lived in Maryland for years. Abrego Garcia immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager.

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An all-women Senate delegation is heading to the Arctic to reassure US allies

A bipartisan group of senators is departing for a tour of Arctic nations to reassure U.S allies. And this time they’re leaving the men behind.

From the eight senators to their staff and military liaison officers, the group will be entirely women. They are paying diplomatic visits to government officials in four Arctic nations, witnessing the challenges for militaries operating in the region and visiting a Norwegian archipelago so remote they will need escorts to avoid run-ins with polar bears.

The trip comes at a time when Trump has taken an aggressive, go-it-alone stance in the region.

“We will reassure our allies that we recognize and appreciate the importance of our allies and partners in the Arctic as in so many other areas,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told The Associated Press. She leads this trip alongside Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

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Trump says he’s skipping his son’s weekend wedding

The president wrote on social media that he “very much wanted to be” at the wedding of his son Don Jr., but “circumstances pertaining to Government, and my love for the United States of America, do not allow me to do so.”

“I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time,” Trump wrote.

The president had originally been scheduled to spend the weekend at his estate in Bedminster, New Jersey, and was not scheduled to head to the Bahamas, where the wedding is reportedly taking place.

His post came a day after Trump told reporters that his son would “like me to go” and “I’m going to try and make it.”

But he also added, “This is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.”

Senate Democrat says Gabbard replacement needs to restore trust in top intelligence post

Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate’s Intelligence committee, said that with Gabbard’s departure, her successor should help restore the reputation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Warner said that “at a time when the boundaries between verified intelligence and politically convenient claims have too often been blurred...the next DNI must be committed to restoring trust in the office, protecting the integrity of our intelligence, and ensuring our nation’s intelligence professionals can speak truth to power, without fear or interference” in a statement released shortly after Gabbard’s resignation became public.

Last summer, Gabbard revoked the security clearances of dozens of U.S. officials who she said had engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance personal or partisan goals, failing to safeguard classified information, failing to “adhere to professional analytic tradecraft standards” and other unspecified “detrimental” conduct in a memo released at the time.

Trump says Gabbard did ‘a great job’ in the post she’s leaving

In a social media post, the president wrote that Gabbard was “unfortunately” leaving his administration at the end of June.

“Her wonderful husband, Abraham, has been recently diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer, and she, rightfully, wants to be with him,” Trump wrote.

He added, “Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her,” and that Gabbard’s “highly respected Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Aaron Lukas, will serve as Acting Director of National Intelligence.”

Tulsi Gabbard resigns as director of national intelligence, citing her husband’s health

Gabbard has resigned as Trump’s director of national intelligence, saying she needed to step away as her husband battles cancer.

She is the fourth Cabinet official to depart during Trump’s second term. In her resignation letter, which she posted on the social platform X, she wrote: “Unfortunately, I must submit my resignation, effective June 30, 2026. My husband, Abraham, has recently been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer.”

There had been rumblings that Gabbard would split with Trump after he decided to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration. Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation in March, saying he “cannot in good conscience” support the war.

Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii known for opposing foreign wars, faced an awkward moment when the U.S. joined Israel’s attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.

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Senate Republican chairman urges Trump to resume Iran war

Sen. Roger Wicker, the GOP chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is telling Trump not to settle for a peace deal with Iran.

In a statement, Wicker says the president “is being ill advised to pursue a deal that would not be worth the paper it is written on.”

“Our commander-in-chief needs to allow America’s skilled armed forces to finish the destruction of Iran’s conventional military capabilities and reopen the strait,” he added.

Wicker’s statement stands in contrast to the position of a small but crucial number of Republicans who are calling on Trump to end a war that he started without congressional approval.

GOP leaders in both chambers have struggled this week to find the votes necessary to defeat war powers resolutions brought by Democrats that would compel Trump to end the war. A handful of Republicans have switched their votes to try to end the war.

Warsh bri

efly nods to the issue of independence

Warsh, in his remarks, said he saw former Fed chair Alan Greenspan as a model for the role, explaining that the Fed can help with the nation’s prosperity.

“Our mandate at the Fed is to promote price stability and maximum employment. When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve — inflation can be lower; growth, stronger; real take-home pay, higher,” Warsh said.

America’s central bank has a new chairman

Kevin Warsh has been sworn in as Fed chair by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Warsh said it was an honor to be sworn in by his “esteemed friend,” Thomas. He explained Kavanaugh’s presence by telling the audience the two of them had worked at the White House earlier in their careers.

He’s also talking about former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, calling him an idol.

Greenspan was sworn in at the White House by President Ronald Reagan.

Warsh said that, like Greenspan, he intends to fill the role of Fed chair “with energy and purpose.”

Trump says he wants new Fed chair to be ‘totally independent’

“I really mean this. This is not said in any other way,” Trump said. “I want Kevin to be totally independent. I want him to be independent and just do a great job.”

“Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing and do a great job, okay?” he added.

The pressure Trump placed on outgoing Fed chair Jay Powell to lower interest rates raised questions about the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Trump hosts swearing-in ceremony for Kevin Warsh as new Fed chair

The East Room was packed for the ceremony, which usually is held at the Federal Reserve Building.

Among those attending are Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council and at one point a top contender to succeed Jay Powell as Fed chair, until Trump decided he wanted to keep Hassett at the White House.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence will deliver the oath. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was also present, as were members of Trump’s Cabinet, other top Trump administration officials, and current and former members of Congress.

Trump opened with praise for Warsh, predicting that he “will go down as one of the truly great chairmen of the Federal Reserve.”

“I think he’s got abilities that very few people have,” Trump said.

Blanche thrust into Republican firestorm over $1.8B fund

When Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate Trump’s allies for alleged political prosecution, he may have pleased his boss. But the eyebrow-raising move — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers he would need to secure the permanent job.

Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy steps taken under his watch at the Justice Department, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, have left no doubt that he’s trying to prove his loyalty to the president.

The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm just when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the job for the remainder of Trump’s term. Read more

Buoyed by Trump, Paxton makes final pitch in Texas against Sen. Cornyn

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is riding high ahead of his Republican primary runoff against Sen. John Cornyn, now that he has the president’s backing.

“I don’t know if y’all noticed this, but Donald Trump endorsed me,” Paxton told a small rally in a town outside Austin, inciting whoops and applause.

The senate race in Texas has drawn gobs of money and attention, including from Trump, who continues encouraging voters to boot any politician who displeases him.

Paxton has been turning his focus to state Rep. James Talarico, opening his latest event with attacks on the Democratic nominee, a sign of his confidence heading into Tuesday.

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Judges in Maine and Wisconsin reject DOJ efforts to obtain voter rolls

Democrats are cheering rulings by federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin that dismissed Justice Department demands for detailed voter registration information.

The DOJ has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking to force the release of voter information including dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Thursday’s defeats follow similar rulings in Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island, In Georgia, a judge dismissed a DOJ lawsuit filed in the wrong city, prompting the Trump administration to refile elsewhere.

Bianca Shaw, state director of Common Cause Wisconsin, said the decision protects voters “from an unauthorized national database that would have been a goldmine for hackers and a tool for intimidation.”

Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat and Trump opponent who is running for governor, said the ruling affirms that states run elections.

Trump IRS immunity shocks experts, who warn of undermining trust in tax system

Trump has a reputation for slashing his taxes using techniques that some experts find aggressive. Now the Justice Department has told the president he doesn’t have to worry about being called out on it.

In an extraordinary decision this week, the IRS is suspending probes into his past returns to settle a lawsuit that Trump brought against the agency he ultimately runs. Trump says tax authorities targeted him politically — a claim for which he has given no proof — and that he was right to seek a remedy.

Law experts say the move is unprecedented and unfair.

“This is giving the president and his affiliates completely different set of rules than everyday taxpayers,” said Brandon DeBot, policy director at New York University’s Tax Law Center.

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Rubio says an Iranian tolling system can’t happen. Iran says it already has

“Iran is trying to create a tolling system,” Rubio said. “That’s just not acceptable. It can’t happen. If that were to happen in the Straits of Hormuz, it will happen in five other places around the world.”

Iran’s official Mizan news agency reported that 35 vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz in coordination with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy in the previous 24 hours.

Without specifying the nationalities of the vessels, Mizan quoted the Revolutionary Guard navy as saying that the oil tankers, container ships and other commercial ships transited the strait after obtaining permission and in coordination with, and under the protection of, the Revolutionary Guard navy.

Iran has demanded the right to collect the tolls as a precondition for reopening the waterway vital to world oil supplies.

Rubio says US remains ready to resume Russia-Ukraine peace efforts

The Trump administration remains ready to resume mediation efforts that have been stalled for some time, Rubio said.

With concerns high in Europe, particularly in the Baltic states, that the administration’s interest in ending the conflict is waning, Rubio told reporters that the U.S. still believes the “the war can only end with a negotiated settlement. It will not end with a military victory by one side or the other.”

Previous rounds of talks were unfortunately “not fruitful,” Rubio said, but “if we see an opportunity to pull together talks that are productive, not counterproductive, and that have the chance to be fruitful, we’re prepared to play that role.”

Rubio: ‘Someone’s going to have to do something about’ Hormuz

The secretary of state said he and other foreign ministers discussed the issue of reopening the critical waterway, and that he reiterated the need for a “Plan B” if a deal isn’t reached between Washington and Tehran.

“Someone’s going to have to do something about it, okay?” Rubio said. “They’re not just going to voluntarily reopen the straits in that scenario.”

Rubio said he received lots of “nods” from European allies when he brought it up Friday. In the same breath, Rubio confirmed what Iranian officials had been saying, that progress is being made in the negotiations.

“I wouldn’t exaggerate it and I wouldn’t diminish it,” he said. “But there’s more work to be done.”

Rubio says US force posture in Europe will eventually be reduced

Rubio says America’s NATO allies understand that eventually there will be a reduction in the U.S. troop presence in Europe as the Trump administration evaluates its force posture globally.

“I think there’s a broad recognition that there are going to be eventually less U.S. troops in Europe than there has historically been for a variety of reasons,” Rubio told reporters.

NATO allies have been confused by contradictory statements coming from Trump and his top aides, including an announcement last week that troop levels would be reduced in Poland that Trump appeared to reverse on Thursday. A previously announced troop reduction in Germany appears to be going ahead but Rubio noted that the Germans “didn’t freak out about it” because it brought the numbers back to where they were three years ago.

The State Auditor’s Office report cleared UT System schools and the community colleges on one narrow question: whether they spent state money in violation of Senate Bill 17, the 2023 Texas law that forced public colleges to close DEI offices, end required DEI trainings and stop using diversity statements in hiring.

The report does not detail about what auditors found at each campus, what issues they raised privately with university leaders or how schools draw the line between banned DEI work and classroom teaching the law still protects.

Randa Safady, UT System’s vice chancellor for external relations, said the private communications mentioned in the report were not necessarily findings. She said such language often means auditors asked about “process or clarification, not a substantive issue.”

UT institutions changed staffing, programs, training and spending when the DEI ban took effect, Safady said. The system also updated its policies and certified to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that all institutions were in compliance, she added.

The audit, first reported by KXAN on Thursday, covered all 14 UT System institutions and the following 15 community colleges:

• Alvin College
• Amarillo College
• Austin Community College District
• Brazosport College
• Clarendon College
• College of the Mainland
• Frank Phillips College
• Galveston College
• Houston City College
• Lee College
• Lone Star College System
• San Jacinto College District
• South Plains College
• Victoria College
• Wharton County Junior College

Officials at Austin Community College District, one of the larger systems reviewed with nearly 44,000 students enrolled last fall, said it would continue to follow the law.

“ACC will continue to use effective, student-focused practices to help all students access resources and supports they need to achieve their academic and workforce goals,” said Sydney Pruitt, senior media relations coordinator.

Auditors interviewed college employees and reviewed state-funded spending from Sept. 1, 2024, to Aug. 31, 2025. They looked at hiring records, job postings and descriptions, promotion and merit-pay records, training, programs, websites and documents related to former DEI offices.

They reviewed samples of such records. The report cautions that the audit’s results should not be used to draw conclusions about every record at each school.

At UT-Austin, for example, auditors reviewed 25 employees, 25 new hires and 25 promotions or merit increases out of thousands of records in those categories.

The State Auditor’s Office has found problems before. Its first audit of the ban, released in February 2025, flagged Texas A&M University-Central Texas for contracting with a vendor to perform DEI office duties and McLennan Community College for requiring a new employee to take DEI training.

Republican leaders spent much of last year accusing universities of failing to fully comply with the DEI ban. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened budget cuts to state campuses if universities did not “kick DEI out of their schools.” GOP senators later warned they could block funding increases after claiming they had found “numerous” violations, though they did not publicly identify them.

In the end, lawmakers created a faster way to investigate complaints by creating a new ombudsman office to act on written complaints from students, faculty and staff who allege their school violated the DEI ban. The office must notify a school’s governing board within five days of a qualifying complaint and can recommend lawmakers block the school from spending state money until the auditor confirms a violation is addressed.

As of mid-March, none of Texas’ eight public university systems had records showing they had received formal complaint notices from the ombudsman’s office, according to public records responses obtained by The Texas Tribune.

Outside groups are keeping up the pressure too.

Accuracy in Media, a conservative group that uses undercover videos, recently published recordings of UT-Austin and UT-Arlington employees.

In the UT-Austin video, an employee in the department of women’s gender and sexuality studies said the DEI ban created more work for staff but did not change academic work. In the UT-Arlington video, an academic recruiter in the School of Social work said faculty still cover topics related to race and gender but avoid certain language.

The Tribune reached out to Accuracy in Media for comment on the audit.

The organization’s president, Adam Guillette, issued a statement saying that “multiple administrators at more than a half-dozen Texas universities have bragged about continuing their DEI programs, often in defiance of state law.”

“The auditor’s office needs to immediately address our findings and issue an explanation,” Guillette said.

UT-Austin officials did not immediately respond to questions Friday while those at UT-Arlington said leaders investigated after the video circulated online.

“The statements reflected in the video do not represent university policy or practice. As a result, the employee referenced in the video is no longer employed by the university,” said Jeff Kaplan, UT-Arlington’s director of media relations. He declined to comment further.

Safady, at the UT System, later added, “Any allegation or complaint that suggests an institution is not following the law is investigated to ensure full compliance with law.”

Academic course instruction and scholarly research are exempt from the DEI ban.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Amarillo College, Austin Community College District, Brazosport College and University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

In her resignation letter, which she posted on social media, Gabbard said she told Trump she would leave her job overseeing the coordination of 18 intelligence agencies on June 30. She said her husband had recently been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer and “faces major challenges in the coming weeks and months.”

“At this time, I must step away from public service to be by his side and fully support him through this battle,” she wrote in the letter, which was reported earlier by Fox News.

Trump, in his own social media post, said “Tulsi has done an incredible job, and we will miss her.” He said her principal deputy, Aaron Lukas, will serve as acting director of national intelligence.

While Gabbard says her departure is for personal reasons, the juxtaposition between her long-held, anti-interventionism stance and Trump’s series of overseas military operations had seemed to put them on a collision course.

Iran put Gabbard and Trump at odds

There had been rumblings that Gabbard would split with Trump after the president's decision to strike Iran, which caused some division within his administration. Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, announced his resignation in March and said he “cannot in good conscience” back the war.

Gabbard, a veteran and former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, built her political name on her opposition to foreign wars. This put her in an awkward position when the U.S. joined Israel in launching attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.

During a congressional hearing in March, her measured comments were notable for their careful non-endorsement of the Iran war. She repeatedly dodged questions about whether the White House had been warned of potential fallout from the conflict, including Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway crucial for global oil shipments.

Gabbard said in written remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee that there had been no effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear capability after U.S. attacks last year “obliterated” its nuclear program. That statement contradicted Trump, who has repeatedly asserted that the war was necessary to head off an imminent threat from the Islamic Republic.

This created several awkward exchanges with lawmakers who asked Gabbard for her opinion on the threat posed by Iran as the nation’s top intelligence official. She repeatedly said it was Trump’s decision to strike, not hers.

“It is not the intelligence community’s responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she said.

Gabbard’s departure follows Trump having ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in late March, in the midst of mounting criticism over her leadership of the department — including the handling of the administration’s immigration crackdown and disaster response.

The second Cabinet member to leave was Attorney General Pam Bondi, in response to growing frustration over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. And Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in April, after being the target of various misconduct investigations.

Lukas, who will be taking over for Gabbard, was an intelligence aide to the acting director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, in 2020 during Trump's first term. A former policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, he also served as deputy senior director for Europe and Russia at the National Security Council in the final year of Trump’s previous administration.

A surprising choice for the job

A military veteran but without any intelligence experience, Gabbard was a surprising choice for director of national intelligence. She ran for president in 2020 on a progressive platform and her opposition to U.S. involvement in foreign military conflicts.

Citing her military experience, she argued that U.S. wars in the Middle East had destabilized the region, made the U.S. less safe and cost thousands of American lives. Gabbard later dropped out of the race and endorsed the ultimate winner, President Joe Biden.

Two years later, she left the Democratic Party to become an independent, saying her old party was dominated by an “elitist cabal of warmongers” and “woke” ideologues. She subsequently campaigned for several high-profile Republicans and became a contributor to Fox News.

She later endorsed Trump, who also was a strong critic of past U.S. wars in the Middle East and campaigned on a pledge to avoid unnecessary wars and nation-building overseas.

Iran caused early tensions

But friction with the president started soon after he began his second term and tapped Gabbard to lead ODNI, which was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to improve coordination between the nation’s intelligence agencies.

Shortly after taking on the job and before this year's war, Gabbard testified before lawmakers that there was no intelligence suggesting Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. After Trump launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites last June, he said Gabbard was wrong and that he didn’t care what she said.

She appeared to be back in Trump’s good graces when she took a lead role in Trump’s effort to relitigate his 2020 election loss to Biden. She appeared at an FBI search of election offices in Fulton County, Georgia, even though her office was created to focus on foreign espionage, not state elections.

Gabbard made big changes in her time in office

Gabbard vowed to eliminate what she said was the politicization of intelligence by government insiders. But she quickly used her office to support some of Trump’s most partisan arguments — that he won the 2020 election.

She also worked to undermine the results of earlier investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia.

In her year on the job, Gabbard oversaw a sharp reduction in the intelligence workforce, as well as the creation of a new task force that she charged with considering big changes to the intelligence service.

Earlier this year, an intelligence sector whistleblower filed a complaint that Gabbard was withholding intelligence for political reasons, a complaint that prompted calls from Democrats for Gabbard’s resignation.

Gabbard, 44, was born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa, raised in Hawaii and spent a year of her childhood in the Philippines. She was first elected as a 21-year-old to Hawaii’s House of Representatives but had to leave after one term when her National Guard unit deployed to Iraq.

As the first Hindu member of the House, Gabbard was sworn into office with her hand on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu devotional work. She was also the first American Samoan elected to Congress.

During her four House terms, she became known for speaking out against her party’s leadership. Her early support for Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ 2016 Democratic presidential primary run made her a popular figure in progressive politics nationally.

___

Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.

Judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia voted 6-5 against having the court's full complement of judges review the ruling. In January, a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel found that a federal judge in New Jersey who had sided with Khalil and ordered his release last year from immigration detention didn’t have jurisdiction to decide the matter.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is involved in representing Khalil, said his lawyers will ask the 3rd Circuit for an order preventing the decision from taking effect — and barring Khalil from being detained or deported — while it asks the Supreme Court to take up the case.

An appeal to the high court is expected in the coming months, possibly in late summer.

“Today’s decision is not the final word, and we still strongly believe in our arguments going forward,” ACLU senior counsel Brett Max Kaufman said in a statement.

In its January ruling, the 3rd Circuit found that Khalil's lawsuit challenging his detention and U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz’s subsequent rulings in the case were premature because federal law requires that such challenges first move through the separate immigration court system. That system is part of the Justice Department, not the judicial branch.

The decision didn’t decide the key issue in Khalil’s case: whether the Trump administration’s effort to throw Khalil out of the U.S. over his campus activism and criticism of Israel is unconstitutional.

Judge Cheryl Ann Krause, who had voted for the 3rd Circuit to review the decision, wrote in a dissent that the court was “abdicating our duty to meaningfully review Khalil’s constitutional claims. The Judicial Branch, she wrote, cannot fulfill its role as a check on the other branches of government, “if we write ourselves out of relevance and leave the Executive Branch to check itself.”

Khalil, 31, has also appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana, where he was detained, after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld his removal order.

Through his lawyers, Khalil argued that the immigration judge who issued the order failed to consider relevant evidence and wrongly upheld a charge that he had misrepresented information on his application for legal permanent resident status. That charge, Khalil's lawyers said, was brought in retaliation for his protest activity.

The immigration judge suggested Khalil could be deported to Algeria, where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative, or Syria, where he was born in a refugee camp to a Palestinian family. Khalil's lawyers have said he would face mortal danger if forced to return to either country.

An outspoken leader of the pro-Palestinian movement at Columbia, Khalil was arrested in March 2025. He then spent three months detained in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his child.

Federal officials have accused Khalil of leading activities “aligned to Hamas,” though they have not presented evidence to support the claim and have not accused him of criminal conduct. They also accused Khalil of failing to disclose information on his green card application.

Khalil has dismissed the allegations as “baseless and ridiculous,” framing his arrest and detention as a “direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

The government justified the arrest under a seldom-used statute that allows for the expulsion of noncitizens whose beliefs are deemed to pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests. In June 2025, Farbiarz ruled that justification would likely be declared unconstitutional and ordered Khalil released.

President Donald Trump’s administration appealed that ruling, arguing the deportation decision should fall to an immigration judge, rather than a federal court. The 3rd Circuit ruled 2-1 in the administration’s favor.

Judge Emil Bove, who was involved in investigating student protesters while a top Justice Department official, did not participate in the 3rd Circuit vote on whether to review the decision. He later issued an order denying a request by Khalil's lawyers that he step aside from the matter, calling it moot.

___

Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.

The lawsuit adds fuel to a mounting backlash against the Trump administration's creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” to resolve the Republican president's lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.

Plaintiffs' attorneys from the legal advocacy group Democracy Forward are seeking a court order halting the fund's implementation and preventing the Trump administration from disbursing any payouts from it. The federal suit, filed in Alexandria, Virginia, claims there is no legal basis or accountability behind the fund.

“The unlawfulness that has imbued the Anti-Weaponization Fund from its inception requires that it be wholly dismantled,” the suit says.

Another advocacy group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, separately filed its own lawsuit on Friday in Washington, D.C., to challenge the “slush fund” created by Trump's “sham settlement.” CREW's suit refers to the fund as "a jaw-dropping act of presidential corruption."

Two police officers who helped defend the U.S. Capitol from a mob's attack on Jan. 6, 2021, also sued this week to prevent anyone, including Capitol rioters, from receiving payments from the settlement fund.

During a congressional hearing on Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche wouldn’t rule out the possibility that rioters who assaulted police on Jan. 6 could be eligible for fund payouts.

The plaintiffs for Friday’s lawsuit include former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Floyd, an Alexandria resident who prosecuted Capitol riot cases in Washington, D.C., before he was fired last year by then-Attorney General Pam Bondi. Floyd was a deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Capitol Siege Section. He believes his firing was retaliation for his Jan. 6 work.

Another plaintiff is California State University Channel Islands professor Jonathan Caravello, who was acquitted of an assault charge. He was accused of throwing a tear gas canister at federal agents during a 2025 protest against an immigration raid at a Camarillo, California, cannabis farm.

Also named as plaintiffs are the government watchdog Common Cause; the city of New Haven, Connecticut; and the National Abortion Federation, an association of abortion providers. New Haven claims the Trump administration officials have targeted it and other municipalities that they perceive to be “sanctuary” cities. The federation fears that the fund will issue payments to people who have attacked abortion clinics, providing an incentive for more violence against its members.

The suit's defendants include the Justice and Treasury departments, Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Spokespeople for the departments didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

The Capitol riot investigation was the largest in Justice Department history. Trump ended it with the stroke of his pardon pen, erasing hundreds of Jan. convictions.

Nearly 1,600 people were charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 1,200 were convicted and sentenced before Trump handed out mass pardons, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of every pending Jan. 6 criminal case.

Beneficiaries of Trump’s sweeping act of clemency included supporters who assaulted officers at the Capitol. He also freed far-right extremist group members who were imprisoned for plotting to attack the Capitol to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.

After Trump returned to the White House last year, he appointed conservative activist Ed Martin as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Martin, a leading advocate for Jan. 6 defendants, fired or demoted some prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases.

The apparent change of mind came after weeks of statements from Trump and his administration about reducing — not increasing — the U.S. military footprint in Europe. Trump's initial order set off a flurry of action among military commanders and left allies already doubtful about America's commitment to Europe's security to ponder what forces they might have to backfill on NATO's eastern flank with Russia and Ukraine.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration said it was reducing levels in Europe by about 5,000 troops, and U.S. officials confirmed about 4,000 service members were no longer rotating into Poland from Germany. The dispatch to Germany of U.S. personnel trained to fire long-range missiles was also halted.

But in a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said he would now send "an additional 5,000 Troops to Poland,” citing his strong ties with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, whom Trump endorsed in elections last year.

“It is confusing indeed, and not always easy to navigate,” Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told reporters Friday at a meeting she was hosting of her NATO counterparts, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Ministers from the Netherlands and Norway were sanguine about Trump’s latest move, as was Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže, who said allies knew the U.S. troop “posture was being reconsidered, and now there is no change of posture. For now.”

U.S. defense officials also expressed confusion. “We just spent the better part of two weeks reacting to the first announcement. We don’t know what this means either,” said one of two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

But Rubio said Washington’s allies understand that changes in the U.S. troop presence in Europe will come as the Trump administration reevaluates its force needs. “I think there’s a broad recognition that there are going to be eventually less U.S. troops in Europe than there has historically been for a variety of reasons,” he said.

US withdrawal followed German criticism

The latest surprise came despite a U.S. pledge to coordinate troop deployments, including one from NATO’s top military officer, U.S. Gen. Alex Grynkewich, on Wednesday.

Trump's initial announcement that he would withdraw troops came as he fumed over remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by the Iranian leadership and criticized what he called a lack of strategy in that war.

Trump told reporters that the U.S. would be cutting even more than 5,000 and also announced new tariffs on European cars. Germany is the continent’s biggest auto producer.

Rubio insisted that Trump’s decision “is not a punitive thing. It’s just something that’s ongoing.”

The US has a commitment to keep at least 76,000 troops in Europe

About 80,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Europe. The Pentagon is required to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment on the continent unless NATO allies are consulted and there is a determination that such a withdrawal is in U.S. interests.

The withdrawal of 5,000 troops might drop numbers below that limit.

But Trump's latest post suggests that troop numbers in Europe would not change. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed the decision to send more forces to his country, saying it ensures that “the presence of American troops in Poland will be maintained more or less at previous levels.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also welcomed the move. On Thursday, before Trump took to Truth Social again, Rutte had underlined that it was important for Europe to take care of its own security. “We have a process in place. This is normal business,” he told reporters.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, meanwhile, U.S. officials briefed the allies on the Pentagon's aims for its commitments to the NATO Force Model, which involves contingency planning for Europe’s defense in the event of serious security concerns. It was widely expected that a further reduction of U.S. forces would be coming.

Asked whether any cuts were announced, Rutte said: “I’m afraid it’s much more complicated than that.” He said the procedure “is highly classified” and declined to give details.

Rubio played down concerns about a shift in U.S. force levels in Europe, saying: "Every country has to constantly reevaluate what their needs are, what their commitments are around the world, and how to properly structure that.”

___

Cook reported from Brussels. Associated Press writer Emma Burrows in London contributed.

——-

This story has been updated to correct the title for Gen. Alex Grynkewich

“We’re looking at a history on this site from 1724,” said Kolby Lanham, Senior Researcher and Historian at the Alamo.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, few places demonstrate the sacrifice that helped shape the nation like The Alamo, which has become a symbol of courage, resilience and the fight for freedom.

Lanham said The Alamo, which began as a Spanish mission, eventually helped shape not just Texas, but the future of the United States.

“That will forever change the course of our nation because when we win our independence as a nation, Texas will eventually join the United States in 1845 as the 28th state,” Lanham said. “It’ll cause the Mexican-American War.”

Lanham said the outcome of that war changed the size and direction of the country.

“Mexico will see it over any territory north of the Rio Grande River, which will almost double the size of the current United States,” Lanham said. “Without the Alamo, you have none of that.”

He said the Alamo remained a dominant force in Texas history as the state joined the union and the idea of Manifest Destiny took shape.

“This idea of manifest destiny, that the United States should go from coast to coast,” Lanham said, “Texas is centralized in all of that.”

Beyond the history books, visitors still feel the impact of The Alamo today.

Arianna Schaeper, a fourth grader from Georgetown, visited the Alamo and said she felt the weight of the site’s history.

“I do feel honored to be here,” Schaeper said. “You could think right where we’re standing, people could have died.”

For many visitors, especially students learning Texas history, The Alamo is a place where history becomes real.

Nolan George, a fourth grader from Dallas, said the lesson of the Alamo is simple.

“It shows that even though you’re outnumbered,” George said, “be brave.”

Read more stories celebrating 250 Years United:

• Bexar County’s hidden role in the American Revolution highlighted ahead of country’s 250th anniversary
• League of Women Voters San Antonio roots trace back to historic St. Anthony Hotel
• Texas’ oldest VFW post keeps veterans connected as America nears 250 years
• They established Texas’ first civilian government. How San Antonians are keeping those ancestors’ memories alive.
• San Antonio flag company helping America celebrate 250 years of pride, patriotism

A state government reporter at the Miami Herald, Glorioso was part of the team that uncovered that the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis orchestrated the transfer of $10 million in public funds to a foundation spearheaded by his wife. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, had hailed the Hope Florida Foundation as an alternative to welfare, one that would help needy Floridians. Instead, the nonprofit was used to divert Medicaid settlement funds to the bank account of a political committee controlled by the governor’s then-chief of staff. The committee focused on defeating an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.

The work of the reporting team, which also included Tampa Bay Times reporters Lawrence Mower and Justin Garcia, ultimately showed that more than $35 million had been funneled from state coffers to political campaigns that targeted and helped defeat the marijuana initiative and another measure that would have repealed Florida’s six-week abortion ban.

The reporting prompted a criminal grand jury investigation by local prosecutors. The Legislature changed the law to prohibit future administrations from using public money for politics. Lawmakers also refused to give Hope Florida additional funding.

Glorioso, Mower and Garcia were named finalists for the 2026 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.

Before joining the Herald, Glorioso worked for other local and national news organizations, including the Naples Daily News and Politico. She also freelanced for The New York Times and for The Guardian.

While at Politico, Glorioso exposed sexual harassment and misconduct accusations from six women against Florida’s Senate budget chairman, Jack Latvala, a Republican who had been planning to run for governor. Two independent probes later confirmed much of the reporting. Latvala, who maintained his innocence, resigned from office after the investigations.

Glorioso has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.

“We are thrilled to have Alexandra on our team,” said Zahira Torres, editor for the ProPublica-Texas Tribune investigative unit. “Her work shows a clear passion for accountability reporting and for investigations on topics important to Texas, including healthcare, politics and governance.

“A cancer survivor herself, Alexandra understands the importance of access to quality healthcare and the financial obstacles that many Texans must overcome. Her colleagues described her as compassionate, collaborative, fearless and relentless. We can’t wait to get started.”

“It’s a total dream job for me to join ProPublica’s Texas team and to do what I love: statewide political and healthcare investigations,” Glorioso said. “There’s so much energy in Texas politics right now, and I can’t wait to join my colleagues in shining a light on the dealmaking.”

In 2020, ProPublica and the Tribune began a first-of-its-kind collaboration to publish investigative reporting for and about Texas. Under the jointly operated investigative reporting unit, both organizations publish the team’s stories, which are distributed for free to news organizations in Texas and beyond.

Judge, who was born into slavery on George Washington’s plantation, was 22 years old when she slipped away from the president’s official residence in Philadelphia on May 21, 1796. She hid on a boat that carried her to New Hampshire, where she later married and had three children.

May 21st has been officially declared Ona Judge Day in Philadelphia, where a rally took place Thursday at the President’s House site, a target of the Trump administration’s efforts to remove information it deems “disparaging” to Americans from federal properties. Participants chanted “Tell the truth! Restore our history!” after hearing from those involved in fighting to restore exhibits about Judge and other people enslaved at the site.

The panels were abruptly removed in January following an executive order from President Donald Trump. Some of the exhibits were restored following a judge’s order, but the work has been halted while the administration appeals.

A panel featuring Judge is among those that have been rehung, and she is further memorialized in a series of bronze footprints embedded in the sidewalk symbolizing how she escaped to freedom.

“We remember her courage, her passion, her determination, that we make sure that in no way, shape or form she is ever forgotten," said Cindy Bass, a member of the Philadelphia City Council. “Each one, teach one. Everyone, tell someone.”

Dawn Chavous, a volunteer for the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, said it's important to acknowledge the contributions of all people who shaped the country.

“You can’t love America without knowing the good, the bad and the ugly,” she said. “Slavery was part of our American story, and that is not something that we should hide or run away from.”

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, a 13-by-25-foot mural depicting Judge is being unveiled Saturday on the side of a building owned by the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire. The organization has featured her story for years with tours and other educational programs.

“At a time when stories of struggle and freedom are being erased, New Hampshire is choosing something different: to make the quest for freedom visible, permanent, and undeniable,” the organization said in announcing the mural project.

____

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

But similar pressure campaigns do not equal similar results, experts say, even if President Donald Trump has often warned that "Cuba is next.”

“President Trump viewed the Venezuelan intervention as a fantastic success,” said Brian Finucane, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and a former State Department lawyer. “And he’s sought to replicate the Venezuela model elsewhere, including in Iran. But obviously, Cuba, like Iran, is a very different country than Venezuela."

If the U.S. were to depose Cuba's leadership, there is no obvious successor who would work with the Trump administration, Finucane said. That is unlike Venezuela, where the U.S. captured leader Nicolás Maduro in January and his second in command, Delcy Rodríguez, stepped in with U.S. approval and remains in power.

Cuban officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, say “there is no Delcy in Cuba.”

The number of American forces in the Caribbean Sea now is also smaller and far less foreboding than the massive military buildup off Venezuela's coast in the months ahead of Maduro's ouster, Finucane said. Plus, an indictment against a 94-year-old former Cuban leader — Raúl Castro — is less impactful than charging Venezuela's sitting president with drug trafficking and using that to justify his capture.

Here are some of the similarities and differences between the U.S. pressure campaigns against Venezuela and Cuba:

Trump has threatened military action

Like other conflicts, Trump began to lay the groundwork for U.S. intervention in Venezuela — and the possibility for Cuba — with escalating threats months before military action took place.

He has warned the leaders of the Caribbean countries to either get in line or face American might. Weeks before the audacious military operation that plucked Maduro from power, Trump stood with his top national security advisers in Florida and made what would be one of his last public threats to the autocratic leader.

“If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it’ll be the last time he’ll ever be able to play tough,” Trump said in December. Just after Maduro was whisked to the U.S. to face trial, Trump shifted his focus to other countries in the region, namely Cuba, as being next on his list.

“Cuba is ready to fall. Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall. I don’t know if they’re going to hold out,” he told reporters on Jan. 5.

He went on to threaten tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba and said the U.S. might have “the honor of taking Cuba” following military operations in Venezuela and Iran.

On Thursday, he repeated his threats, calling Cuba “a failed country.”

“Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something,” Trump said. “And, it looks like I’ll be the one that does it."

US squeezes countries with oil embargoes

U.S. oil embargoes on Cuba and Venezuela have been designed to have the same impact: Putting intense pressure on ruling elites — but push diametrically opposite means to achieve those goals.

With Venezuela, the Trump administration was targeting the country's oil exports, aiming to starve the Maduro government of revenue. After Maduro’s ouster, the focus shifted to denying Venezuela the ability to export oil to certain countries — primarily Cuba, from which it did not receive cash payments — and forcing it to agree to U.S. conditions for such shipments.

Much of Venezuela’s crude is now or will soon be sent through U.S. refineries.

With Cuba, the embargo is aimed at starving the energy-strapped country of oil imports, although the U.S. has allowed some limited shipments to arrive on the island, which recently declared it had run out of reserves. The oil embargo, an extension of the broader U.S. blockade on Cuba in place for decades, has made it far more difficult for the government to provide electricity and gasoline to its citizens.

The measures could go too far, Finucane said, and prompt many Cubans to head 90 miles north for Florida in makeshift boats as many did in the 1990s.

“President Trump especially cares about immigration. And if they push too hard on Cuba and destabilize the island, there’s the possibility of some kind of a refugee crisis,” he said.

US brings charges against figures in power

The Justice Department had charged Maduro with narco-terrorism conspiracy and other counts during Trump's first term in 2020.

The case was used to justify capturing Maduro, who is now in New York awaiting trial and has pleaded not guilty. The move changed Venezuela's relationship with the United States, which has allowed the sale of previously sanctioned Venezuelan oil to U.S. companies and on global markets, a massive shift after largely blocking dealings with Venezuela’s government and its oil sector for years.

The immediate aim of the indictment against Castro over the 1996 shootdown of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles is to take another step up the ladder of escalation in the Trump administration's pressure campaign, said William LeoGrande, a professor specializing in Latin American politics at American University in Washington.

But he said that capturing Castro following charges that include murder and destruction of an airplane would not change the operations of the Cuban government.

Castro “still has influence and the leadership seeks his opinion on major decisions, but he is not running the government on a day-to-day basis,” LeoGrande said.

Building up a US military footprint in the region

In the months before Maduro was captured, the U.S. dispatched a fleet of warships to the waters near Venezuela in what became its largest military buildup in Latin America in generations.

The nation's most advanced warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, was notably rerouted from Europe to join in the operation. Three amphibious assault ships carried around 2,000 Marines as well as helicopters and Osprey aircraft.

U.S. forces spent months attacking small boats accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean — and still are carrying out those strikes — while fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela.

The actual mission to capture Maduro involved more than 150 aircraft launched across the Western Hemisphere.

The U.S. military now has a smaller force in the Caribbean Sea, which still includes two amphibious assault ships with Marines onboard. It touted the arrival of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and accompanying warships on the same day the charges against Castro were announced this week.

But the Nimitz is on its last ever tour, taking part in maritime exercises in the region, before being decommissioned.

“They're very different situations, and it's very difficult to see similar outcomes," Finucane said. “A snatch-and-grab raid against Raúl Castro or someone who's actually in a leadership position doesn't seem like it's going to have the same outcome in Cuba as in Venezuela.”

___

Associated Press writer Andrea Rodríguez in Havana contributed to this report.

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

CURRY BOYS BBQ

536 E Courtland Pl, San Antonio, TX 78212

Curry Boys BBQ is one of San Antonio’s most creative culinary concepts, combining Central Texas barbecue with rich Southeast Asian curries in a way that has earned national attention. Opened in 2020 by Andrew Ho, Sean Wen, and Andrew Samia, the restaurant started as a pop-up operating out of a bright pink shipping container on the St. Mary’s Strip before quickly becoming one of the city’s hottest dining destinations. The concept blends slow-smoked meats with bold Thai-inspired flavors, pairing brisket, pulled pork, and smoked chicken with creamy curries served over jasmine rice.

One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is the Brisket Smoke Show, featuring oak-smoked prime brisket topped with fragrant green curry that balances smoky, savory, and spicy flavors in every bite. Other fan favorites include the Tony Porker with yellow curry and smoked pulled pork, along with inventive sides like curry cream corn, green curry potato salad, and cold noodles tossed in chili oil. The James Beard-nominated concept continues to push San Antonio’s food scene forward by blending barbecue tradition with vibrant Southeast Asian flavors.

PEARL FEST

303 Pearl Pkwy, San Antonio, TX 78215

Pearl Fest 2026 is set to transform San Antonio’s Historic Pearl district into a full-day celebration of music, food, and local culture. Taking place Saturday, May 23, the festival will feature free daytime performances throughout the district before transitioning into a ticketed evening concert experience headlined by Grammy-winning trio Los Lonely Boys. Festival organizers are utilizing multiple stages across the Pearl campus, bringing together local musicians, regional artists, and nationally recognized performers for a citywide celebration of Texas music and community.

Beyond the music lineup, Pearl Fest highlights the district’s acclaimed culinary scene with participating restaurants and vendors serving food throughout the day and evening. Guests can grab bites from favorites like Ladino, Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery, Casanova Barbecue, and Pullman Market concepts while exploring the festival grounds. Free performances begin during the Pearl Farmers Market at 11 a.m., while evening main-stage performances run through the night beneath Highway 281, creating one of San Antonio’s largest entertainment events of the year.

FIFE & FARRO

221 Newell Ave, San Antonio, TX 78215

Located inside Pullman Market in the Pearl District, Fife & Farro is a casual yet polished restaurant specializing in handmade pasta and wood-fired sourdough pizza. The concept focuses on heritage grains, house-made dough, and seasonal ingredients sourced directly from Pullman Market’s in-house bakery and pasta program. The warm, welcoming restaurant has become a popular stop for everything from family lunches to date nights thanks to its elevated comfort food and inviting atmosphere.

The menu features handcrafted pasta dishes like fettuccine carbonara with house-made guanciale and spicy pasta alla vodka finished with Calabrian chile. Wood-fired pizzas are baked on naturally fermented sourdough crusts and topped with high-quality ingredients ranging from classic pepperoni to seasonal vegetables and Texas chèvre. Guests also flock to the restaurant for shared plates like hot focaccia with garlic butter and a popular Caesar salad known for its rich, balanced dressing. With its open kitchen, cozy dining room, and focus on scratch-made food, Fife & Farro continues to stand out as one of the Pearl’s most popular dining destinations.

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The guidelines, posted days before former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned, will allow companies to launch certain nicotine-based products before they've been fully vetted by regulators.

Some FDA officials tasked with enforcing vaping regulations were not consulted on the changes and only learned of them the night before the document was published earlier this month, according to two staffers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential agency matters. The document's sudden appearance sparked internal confusion about how the policy came about and who authorized it, the staffers said.

In recent days, agency officials have convened hourslong meetings grappling with how to implement the six-page memo, which breaks with longstanding FDA policy requiring scientific verification of health benefits for smokers before any new products are introduced.

It’s highly unusual for the FDA to draft new policies without input from the staffers who oversee them.

“It begs the question of whether the true subject matter experts may have actually opposed this policy and were ordered to do it anyway,” said Mitch Zeller, who retired as the FDA’s tobacco director in 2022. “And that goes to the ability of the public to have trust and faith in institutions like FDA.”

The vaping guidelines bypassed a federally required period that allows for public comment and revisions. Instead, the FDA published them as a finalized policy hours after media reports surfaced that President Donald Trump had approved a plan to fire Makary. He resigned from the FDA last week following months of complaints from industry lobbyists close to the White House.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson did not address the origins of the guidance in a written statement.

“This approach strengthens protections against youth nicotine addiction while supporting evidence-based alternatives for adult smokers seeking to move away from combustible tobacco products,” Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

Messages seeking comment from Makary were not immediately returned Friday.

FDA eyes new approach to vaping flavors

Most health researchers agree that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes, and the products have been promoted in the U.K. and other European countries as an alternative for smokers.

In the U.S., the FDA has struggled to police the market for over a decade. The agency has authorized vaping products from five companies while rejecting millions of other applications, mainly due to the presence of fruit, candy and other sweet flavors that were deemed appealing to kids. And yet, unauthorized vapes are widely available.

But recent changes in Washington and across the U.S. reflect a shifting landscape.

Underage vaping among U.S. teenagers has fallen to its lowest level in more than 10 years, following the disruptions of the pandemic and new state and federal restrictions.

Trump came to power last year after vowing to “save” the vaping industry. Major tobacco companies, such as Reynolds American and Altria, have contributed millions to political action committees supporting Trump and other administration priorities, including Trump's inauguration and his proposed White House ballroom. Both companies have invested heavily in e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, in addition to cigarettes.

Despite the influence campaign, vaping issues took a backseat at FDA under Makary. On rare occasions when Makary addressed e-cigarettes, he voiced skepticism about the data showing declining underage use.

Even as FDA staffers were poised to shift course on flavors, Makary and other agency leaders intervened.

In February, one of Makary’s deputies blocked an FDA decision that would have authorized the first fruit-flavored vapes, according to internal memos later released by the agency. FDA reviewers had determined the products were unlikely to be used by children when combined with digital age-verification technology.

The mango- and blueberry-flavored products were finally OK’d during Makary’s last full week heading the FDA, just days before the agency posted the new guidelines allowing unauthorized nicotine products.

Under the guidance, the FDA is supposed to publish a list of e-cigarettes and pouches that are not yet authorized but will be subject to “enforcement discretion,” meaning they can be sold without regulators targeting them for removal. While there is no public list of products that might qualify, the policy is expected to allow for new flavors that had previously been blocked by regulators.

“What we’re seeing is a broader opening up and responsiveness to flavored products by the agency both in terms of a stronger appetite for authorization but also less appetite to take enforcement action against flavored products,” said Brian King, former FDA tobacco director now with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

US stores are already packed with illegal flavored vapes

While FDA’s new approach breaks with precedent, it may have little impact on the flavors already available at gas stations, vape shops and convenience stores.

The U.S. market has been flooded for years by unauthorized vapes containing mango, gummy bear, strawberry and dozens of other flavors.

These disposable e-cigarettes filled the vacuum left by Juul when it pulled its high-nicotine flavored products from the market, after they became ubiquitous in U.S. schools beginning around 2017. Currently, the company only sells FDA-authorized e-cigarettes in tobacco and menthol flavors.

Juul and other companies now see the chance to directly compete with disposable Chinese vapes, which by some estimates account for 80% of U.S. sales.

“The choice we face is not whether flavored vaping products should be sold in the U.S. They already are,” said Robyn Gougelet, a Juul vice president. “The choice is whether those products should be regulated and responsibly marketed — or illegal, untested, and smuggled into the country.”

Rather than targeting flavors, the FDA said its new enforcement approach will focus on vapes with specific youth-appealing features, such as designs that resemble children’s toys.

“The reality is they’re just deluged by illegal products coming across the border,” said Jonathan Foulds, a tobacco-addiction specialist at Penn State University. “So they’re making it clear what should be common sense: ‘We’re going to focus on the worst actors.’”

New policy may create winners and losers among vaping firms

It’s far from clear whether FDA’s new approach will be embraced by the vaping industry at large, which includes multinational tobacco companies alongside hundreds of smaller companies selling imported devices from China.

As written, the guidance suggests only e-cigarettes that are under “scientific review” will qualify to launch without FDA authorization. Only a small number of applications typically reach that stage, which requires detailed health data on smokers who switch to the new product, King noted.

“This is certainly going to benefit the larger tobacco companies, which have the resources to get far enough into the application review process and thus won’t be prioritized for enforcement,” King said.

Lobbyists for smaller companies say it’s too early to tell whether the policy will be help or hinder their clients, but they fear being left behind.

“The big companies would love nothing more than to see their largest swath of competitors out of the marketplace,” said Tony Abboud of the Vapor Technology Association.

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

The woman was found without clothes and multiple facial injuries Tuesday morning at the Tobin Park Trailhead after a trip to a nearby gas station, according to San Antonio police.

Officers said the woman used the trail as a shortcut home on Monday night and later woke up with no recollection of what had happened.

Although the woman reported that no sexual assault had occurred, SAPD said its investigating the incident as a sexual assault until evidence proves otherwise.

SAPPOA President Henry Bassuk said the incident highlights the reason why Park Police officers are crucial to keeping people safe on trails.

“This is exactly why dedicated Park Police matter,” Bassuk said in a statement. “Our trails, greenways, and park systems are not immune from violent crime, and pretending otherwise puts people and families at risk.”

Bassuk also pointed to what he sees as a flawed assumption at City Hall — that SAPD can absorb the growing demands of park and trailhead patrol.

Last year, the City of San Antonio announced plans to merge the park and airport police under the police department, a move the union believes was in the works at City Hall for nearly two decades.

“This should be a wake-up call for City Hall,” Bassuk said. “Shifting more park and trailhead duties onto SAPD ignores the reality that SAPD is already stretched thin citywide. The belief that a reactive patrol model can replace the proactive Park Police presence is a dangerous gamble with Public Safety.”

Bassuk is also calling on city leaders to expand ATV and bike patrols, improve lighting and increase public safety visibility throughout San Antonio’s parks.

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The official Spurs watch party, which begins at 6:30 p.m., at The Rock at La Cantera is already fully reserved, but fans who didn’t snag a reservation still have plenty of options.

Several other San Antonio hotspots are hosting free watch parties open to the public, including:

• The Friendly Spot: 943 S. Alamo St.
• The Social Spot on Broadway: 930 Broadway
• City Base Cinema: Fans can catch the game on the big screen
• All La Gloria locations

The City of San Antonio also announced its free watch party for Game 3 in La Zona at 333 W. Commerce St.

Food and drinks will begin flowing at 6:30 p.m. ahead of tipoff at 7:30 p.m., according to a news release.

Attendees “are encouraged to bring chairs.” However, officials said coolers and ice chests are not allowed. Event parking rates could be in effect, which can be up to $15 at city parking facilities.

Before the game, fans can tune in to KSAT’s “Race for Seis” pre-game special, airing live at 6:30 p.m. on KSAT 12 and streaming for free on KSAT Plus.

KSAT will also have live coverage from inside Frost Bank Center and from the official Spurs watch party at The Rock at La Cantera.

Fans are encouraged to share their Spurs pride by submitting photos through KSAT Connect throughout the night.

Looking ahead

The City of San Antonio also announced its Game 4 and 5 watch parties for this weekend.

Sunday night’s watch party will be at Legacy Park, 103 W. Houston St. Food and drinks are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.

Guests can bring chairs or bring their own food and drinks, according to the city, but no glass or confetti will be allowed at the party. Updates ahead of Sunday’s watch party can be found here.

Tuesday night’s watch party heads east of downtown to The Espee (1174 E. Commerce St.). Attendees can bring their own chairs, but cannot bring any coolers or ice chests, the release said.

The first 50 attendees “will receive an exclusive Spurs giveaway,” the city said. More information on the Game 5 watch party can be found here.

As with the city’s game three watch party, officials said event parking rates, up to $15 at city parking facilities, could be in effect Sunday and Tuesday night.

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Friction has grown between Congress and the Trump administration in recent weeks as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle push for updates on what has happened with $400 million in Ukraine aid and $200 million more for defense programs in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The money was allocated by Congress last year. Even Republican lawmakers have aired their frustration as President Donald Trump's administration disengages with Ukraine and other European allies.

“Ukraine has persistently and bravely repelled a four-year Russian onslaught, but its military needs and deserves continued American support,” said Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley in the joint letter.

Republican Sens. Kevin Cramer and Thom Tillis and Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Catherine Cortez Masto also signed onto the letter.

During a congressional hearing over three weeks ago, Hegseth had told lawmakers that the Ukraine funding had been “released” and a spending plan would soon be sent to lawmakers. But the senators say the Pentagon failed to meet the promised May 15 deadline for that plan.

“Any further delays — particularly as the Department reportedly plans troubling U.S. troops withdrawals from the region — risks our ability to adequately deter Russia,” the senators said.

The letter was the latest sign of Senate Republican frustration with the Trump administration after a week in which the president endorsed the primary challenger to Texas Sen. John Cornyn, angering many.

In a back-and-forth with the president on social media Friday, Tillis blamed Trump's advisors for a list of policies he says are hurting the GOP politically, including, “Firing our very best generals and not holding Putin accountable for his systematic kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of Ukrainian civilians.”

Several Republicans have also taken issue with Hegseth's firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George last month. George had pushed to reconfigure the Army's battlefield strategy to incorporate drone warfare and had worked with Ukraine's military to learn from its experience.

In the House, a Democratic-backed proposal to impose sweeping sanctions on Russia and send $1 billion in military aid to Ukraine has gained momentum as well. While that aid package is unlikely to become law, it’s helping fuel a renewed push among lawmakers for supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

The $400 million in security aid for Ukraine is relatively small compared to the multi-billion dollar aid packages that Congress initially approved in the months and years immediately following Russia's invasion, but for lawmakers, the provision has also taken on significance as a sign of their continued support.

Paxton filed the lawsuit Friday in a Collin County state district court, the latest in a recent flurry of lawsuits by Paxton’s office against tech companies and other businesses ahead of his U.S. Senate GOP runoff against incumbent John Cornyn on Tuesday.

Texas joins Nevada, Indiana and New Jersey as states that have recently sued Discord. Florida announced its investigation of the company in March. Many private lawsuits have been filed in recent months, as well, largely from families accusing the messaging service of allowing children to be sexually abused or exploited while using Discord.

Paxton first opened an investigation into the messaging platform in 2024, along with several other tech companies, all broadly focused on user data privacy. Paxton announced last October, following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, that he would expand the investigation of Discord to include a focus on the sexual exploitation of minors and extremist content on the platform.

Discord is an online messaging service generally used by people to communicate while playing video games. It also includes chat functions and the ability for users to create topic-based servers. Paxton has sued other video game and social media platforms, like Snapchat, Tiktok and Roblox, in recent months over similar concerns that they are violating users’ data privacy and allowing their platforms to be used to exploit children.

“Discord has allowed and invited all kinds of nihilistic violence and evil,” Paxton said. “We live in a time where the dangers children face online have never been greater, and every parent in Texas deserves to know their child is protected.”

Discord did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2023, Texas lawmakers strengthened laws requiring social media platforms to protect minors from inappropriate content online. That legislation, called Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment (SCOPE) Act, is still fighting its way through the courts and parts have been blocked for being unconstitutionally vague.

Paxton has used the remaining provisions of the SCOPE Act to bring lawsuits against Discord and the other tech companies.

The lawsuit asks the courts to require Discord to implement age verification for all users under that law, the Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. The lawsuit also seeks for Discord to pay fines under the state Deceptive Trade Practices Act, arguing the company has misled users about the safety of the platform.

Paxton cited a 2025 lawsuit filed by the family of a 13-year-old girl who says she was groomed on Roblox, then later Discord, before being sexually assaulted in her home. The family’s lawsuit argues the companies failed to protect the girl.

This week, Paxton also sued WhatsApp and its parent company Meta, alleging the platform can access users’ private messages.

Thankfully, Rachel Crum, 19, and her mother, Shannan Hern, are doing OK. They are both sore but grateful they were not seriously injured.

“My head snaps back. I see her (head) snap back. And then just takes off,” Hern said emotionally as she recalled what happened.

Hern said just hours prior, they surprised their daughter with a car for her birthday. A silver and black Mini Cooper, which she named after Spurs great Manu Ginobili.

“Unfortunately, we did lose our last game, but I was looking forward to in the future going honking and celebrating with my family,” said Crum.

After the Spurs lost, the mother and daughter duo decided to take Ginobili for a spin.

Not even a block from their home, at the intersection of N. St. Mary’s Street and E. Parks Avenue, the mother and daughter say a dark colored Toyota Tacoma T-boned them at the stop sign.

“It’s going to be burned in my memory forever watching that come at my daughter,” Hern said.

They found pieces of the other vehicle left behind and are hoping someone recognizes the truck or saw the crash.

“You can kind of see where the car accelerated to turn onto the street,” Crum said. “And it actually cut through the metal in my car.”

Instead of being left with anger, the family hopes the incident is a wake-up call for the hit-and-run driver.

“I really pray that they woke up this morning and said, ‘That’s enough. It’s enough,” Hern stated.

San Antonio police have not found the driver. They also have not said whether impairment was a factor. The family says, based on the parts left behind, they believe investigators are looking for a dark colored Toyota Tacoma, possibly a 2016 to 2020 model.

Contact SAPD’s non-emergency line at (210) 207-7273 with any relevant information about the incident.

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Trump spent months criticizing Warsh's predecessor, Jerome Powell, for being reluctant to cut interests rates, with the Republican president arguing that lower borrowing costs would provide an economic boost. By taking the unusual step of holding the ceremony in the East Room and not the Fed, Trump made clear his pleasure that Warsh is now in charge.

The war with Iran has caused gas prices to spike, unsettled financial markets and driven inflation concerns across the economy. Those developments have led to recent doubts about whether Warsh might heed Trump's calls and push the Fed to lower rates.

Still, Trump said he had faith that Warsh would prioritize a strong economy.

“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, it is, that’s a good thing,” the president said. Trump said it was not necessary "to go crazy. Just let it go. We want it to boom.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office. Also on hand were House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Justice Brett Kavanaugh, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Cabinet members.

“I expect he will go down as one of the truly great chairmen of the Federal Reserve that we’ve ever had,” Trump said of Warsh.

Republican President Ronald Reagan swore in Alan Greenspan as Fed chair at the White House in 1987. Republican President George W. Bush attended the 2006 ceremony at central bank headquarters when Ben Bernanke became chair.

But having the event at the White House raises more questions about the Fed's independence at a time when Trump has constantly sought to bend the independent central bank to his will.

Trump's Department of Justice began an investigation into Powell and the Fed’s extensive building renovations. That drew backlash from lawmakers and the department scrapped the investigation. The Fed’s internal watchdog is now handling the matter. Powell’s term as chair ended last week, though he has opted to remain on the Fed board for now.

Trump made a point of saying during his remarks, “Honestly, I really mean this. This is not said in any other way: I want Kevin to be totally independent.”

“I want him to be independent and just do a great job,” Trump said. “Don’t look at me, don’t look at anybody. Just do your own thing.”

In the next breath, however, Trump said that “in the eyes of many, the Fed has lost its way in recent years” under his predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden. Trump also suggested that Warsh is looking to lead policies that promote “positive economic growth” and that doing so did not have to mean higher inflation.

Trump also noted that the stock market had risen Friday. "That means they like you,” he said of Warsh.

Warsh once harshly criticized Fed’s policies, including its low interest rate policies coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, which he says contributed to the largest U.S. inflation spike in four decades in 2021-2022. More recently, he has sometimes echoed Trump’s demands for lower rates.

Warsh says productivity gains from artificial intelligence will help the economy grow more quickly without spurring inflation, enabling the Fed to reduce borrowing costs. Many Fed officials, however, disagree that AI’s development will support rate cuts, especially because the technology has also been blamed for large-scale layoffs in the computer sector and other parts of the economy.

On Friday, Warsh promised “to lead a reform oriented Federal Reserve, learning from past successes and mistakes, both escaping static frameworks and models and upholding clear standards of integrity and performance."

He told Trump that he believes “these years can bring unmatched prosperity that will raise living standards for Americans from all walks of life. And the Fed has something to do with it.”

Warsh further noted that the Fed's mandate “is to promote price stability and maximum employment. When we pursue those aims with wisdom and clarity, independence and resolve, inflation can be lower; growth, stronger; real take home pay, higher and America can more prosperous."

As he left the ceremony, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced Trump's message, predicting to reporters that Warsh will "do the right thing for inflation and growth.”

The red carpet at Cannes is one of the most famous fashion showcases in the world. Unlike events such as the Oscars ceremony or Met Gala, the display goes on for more than a week.

That gives both celebrities and their stylists lots of opportunities to pull luxe looks together, on top of plenty of daytime casual couture for Cannes photocalls.

Here's a look at the couture highlights — and lessons on what not to wear — from the festival this year:

Gowns bring drama and volume

While voluminous gowns were frowned on by festival organizers — see also barely-there dresses — that didn’t stop structural elegance from making an appearance.

Eschewing slinky silhouettes were Cate Blanchett who popped up her frilly collar on a Louis Vuitton gown, and Sharon Stone who swept along the red carpet in an oversized creation by Sophie Couture.

Joan Collins also brought drama with a gown by Stéphane Rolland that orbited her like a delicate origami flower.

Stunning outside the Palais, but not great for anyone sitting behind them in the cinema, who wants to see the screen.

NSFW: Not suitable for walking

For those not careful, the outfits may impress when standing still in the mirror — but fail once the wearer starts moving.

Seen this year: Guests tripping over, being reduced to a crawl or going up the Palais' 24 steps sideways, making the wrong impression on the Croisette crowd.

Some victims of their fashion were caught out by a dress train that's too tight around the knees, heels that were too high, and flying fabric strands tying one up at the first hint of a breeze.

Demi Moore's seemingly bottomless wardrobe

The biggest selection of styles come from the never-ending wardrobes of the jury members, who attend daily premieres to watch the movies.

This year the panel, lead by Park Chan-wook, included Demi Moore, Ruth Negga, Chloé Zhao, Stellan Skarsgård, Laura Wandel, Diego Céspedes, Isaach De Bankolé and Paul Laverty.

Moore, in particular, switched up styles with off-the-shoulder lavender Gucci, a body-hugging gown by Jacquemus, a dramatic shaggy fur from Gucci’s Resort 2027 collection, and a huge hot-pink gown by avant-garde fashion label Matières Fécales.

Honorable mentions

Chefs' kisses go to Colman Domingo, who wore a caped, twinkly purple Valentino shirt; Blanchett in backless floral Givenchy, complete with tassels; Isabelle Huppert in a delicate fanned out, bright red Gucci gown; Ruth Negga in black and white tuxedo tailoring; and vintage lover Dita von Teese channeling Old Hollywood in Tamara Ralph Couture.

In a news release, the park will offer one complimentary six-ounce draft beer to its pass members aged 21 and older with a valid ID beginning on June 1. The promotion will last throughout June.

Patrons can pick up their free beverage at SeaWorld’s Lone Star Lakeside Bar between 11 a.m. until closing time to help guests “cool down and beat the heat,” the park said in the release.

The park opens at 10:30 a.m. in June, but closing times will vary anywhere between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

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From the eight senators to their staff and military liaison officers, the group will be entirely women as they pay diplomatic visits to government officials in four Arctic nations, witness the challenges for militaries in the region and visit a Norwegian archipelago so remote they will need escorts to avoid run-ins with polar bears.

“I want them to experience, first of all, the awesomeness of the Arctic," said Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who is leading the trip alongside Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The trip was born out of both senator's work to stabilize relations with U.S. allies in North America and northern Europe at a time when President Donald Trump has taken an aggressive, go-it-alone stance in the region. Just this week, the Pentagon announced that the U.S. would pause participation on a joint board with Canada for continental defense that dates back to World War II.

Murkowski and Shaheen said that is the wrong approach in an Arctic region that has increasing strategic value and unique challenges.

“We will reassure our allies that we recognize and appreciate the importance of our allies and partners in the Arctic as in so many other areas,” Shaheen told The Associated Press, adding that she expected the group to discuss “what more we can do as members of Congress to support those relationships.”

The group is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, with Sens. Cindy Hyde Smith, Katie Britt and Cynthia Lummis making up the Republican side, and Sens. Maggie Hassan, Kirsten Gillibrand and Catherine Cortez Masto from the Democrats. Departing Friday, they will visit Arctic or sub-Arctic regions in Canada, Greenland, which is an autonomous territory of Denmark, Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that is one of the northernmost inhabited areas on earth, and Iceland.

Understanding the Arctic

Murkowski and Shaheen said they want the group to come away with a deeper understanding and appreciation for Arctic communities that are experiencing the effects of climate change, as well as the unique challenges of conducting military operations in the region.

“It’s to understand what it means to go into a remote, isolated community that has no access by road,” Murkowski said, adding that the group would see how military sites need airplane hangars because aircraft cannot be kept outside overnight in the Arctic cold.

NATO has recently tried to foster cooperation in the High North through a series of joint military exercises, especially as nations like China and Russia increase their activities there.

As climate change thins the Arctic ice, it could potentially create a northwest passage for international trade as well as reignite competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources. The region is also host to a number of undersea cable projects that hold strategic value.

The group will also visit Indigenous communities that have lived in the region for generations and understand the environment. Murkowski said she hopes the senators come away from the trip “excited and intrigued and hopefully inspired.”

As Trump threatened to take Greenland earlier this year, Shaheen and Murkowski also teamed up to push for legislation that would prevent the U.S. from attacking any fellow NATO member. They are among the lawmakers pushing to include language in this year's defense legislation that would prevent the Trump administration from withdrawing military commitments to NATO allies.

Shaheen said, “I also want to know if there are policy directives that we should be thinking about. And it will be great to have a strong bipartisan group there to discuss what we might want to do when we get back.”

How an all-women trip will be different

For some of the nations the group will be visiting, a high representation of women is nothing new. Iceland's parliamentary body is comprised of roughly 46% women, one of the top ranking countries globally for female political representation.

Shaheen said that research suggests that “when women are the negotiating table, that agreements that are made have a much better chance of lasting for a longer period of time.”

She added that data shows that representation of women in government leads to more stable societies, as well as investments back into their communities.

“There are very real reasons why we need to make sure that women are at the table,” she added.

There was nothing to laugh about Thursday night early in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, when Hart missed three 3-pointers to continue a postseason shooting slump. His frustration was evident as he slammed the ball down a few times, and he wondered why what he was doing in practice wasn't showing up in the games.

“I’m just like, bro, it’s not translating right now,” Hart said, once he finished chewing a slice from the box of pizza he carried to his postgame news conference.

His teammates — particularly the ones who were also his teammates at Villanova — knew eventually it would.

“I know we joke around a lot about his practice habits, but he does work hard,” Jalen Brunson said.

Hart broke out with five 3-pointers and scored a playoff career-high 26 points as the Knicks pulled away for a 109-93 victory over Cleveland to move two wins from their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999. He exited to a standing ovation, two nights after he was on the bench for nearly all of New York's comeback from a 22-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

Even with everything he does for the Knicks, it was hard to keep Hart on the court at that time. The Cavaliers, like a number of NBA teams, view the forward's outside shooting as one of the weaknesses in a potent lineup headlined by All-Stars Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, and assign their center to cover him. He realizes he will have room to shoot from outside, because opponents want him to.

Knowing that, Hart worked extra hard on his shot fundamentals leading into Game 2.

“When you have guys that are gamers, they do stuff that people don’t think that they can do at any time,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “And he knows the work that he puts in, we know the work that he puts in, and his confidence is not going to waver. He's going to put pressure on himself to take that next one and make that next one.”

Hart was shooting only 26.7% behind the arc in the playoffs going into the game, so sagging off him is statistically a sound strategy — except Hart is not a player to be judged solely by the numbers.

“I’m never a huge analytics guy," Hart said. “At a certain point they’re a lamppost to a drunk person. You can lean on them, but it won’t get you home.”

As Towns, seated next to him at the podium, removed his sunglasses to stare at Hart in bemusement, Hart explained that the quote belonged to Jay Wright, his coach at Villanova.

Hart, a couple years older than Brunson and Mikal Bridges, was the scorer late in his career with the Wildcats. After they won the 2016 NCAA championship, he averaged a career-high 18.7 points and shot 40.4% behind the arc and was the Big East player of the year as a senior.

Brunson is the dominant scorer now, while Hart's value to the Knicks is for the many other things he does. He's taken a large role in the defending of Cavs All-Star Donovan Mitchell, and his defensive rebounding, while standing only 6-foot-4, allows the Knicks to push the ball up the court quickly in transition.

“He’s the perfect example for any basketball player who wants to learn how to truly impact the winning of a team and he does that at the highest level,” Towns said. “What he does not only talentwise but mentally for our team, when he goes out there, he’s hustling, he’s playing that hard, you feel like you’ve got to match his intensity.”

And on nights like Thursday, Hart can punish teams that dare him to shoot. Just like he did two years ago in the first round, when he made the series-clinching 3-pointer against Philadelphia in Game 6.

So Brunson, who had a playoff career-high 14 assists in Game 2, will keep looking for him.

“I mean, I’m really not trying to look for him. He just happens to be open, so I give him the ball,” Brunson said, with a smirk that resembled his sidekick. “I have the utmost confidence in him, watching the things he does and after practice with his routine and everything. He works hard.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

Days after U.S. President Donald Trump raised doubts about continuing arms sales to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao said Thursday that the sales would resume when the administration considers it appropriate.

“Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for ‘Epic Fury,’” Cao told the U.S. Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, referring to the Trump administration's name for the Iran operation. “Then the foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary.”

Taiwan's authorities have seen the reports, “but currently there is no information regarding any adjustments the U.S. will make to this arms sale,” Taiwanese presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said Friday when asked about Cao’s comments.

China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province to be brought under its control by force if necessary. Like other countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with Beijing, the U.S. doesn't recognize Taiwan as a country, but Washington remains the island’s strongest backer and arms supplier.

Trump’s Republican administration authorized an $11 billion weapons package for Taipei in December, but it has yet to move forward. American lawmakers also approved a separate $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan in January, though the deal can't proceed until Trump formally submits it to U.S. Congress.

In an interview with Fox News on his way back to the United States from last week’s trip to Beijing, Trump said that arms sales to Taiwan are “a very good negotiating chip” in Washington’s dealings with China.

On Wednesday, marking his two years in office, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said that if given the chance, he would tell Trump to continue U.S. arms purchases, which Lai called essential for peace.

China warns US over Taiwan

When asked about Cao's comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that “China’s opposition to the U.S. arms sale to China’s Taiwan region is consistent, clear-cut and resolute.”

Last week, during Trump's visit to Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a strong warning, telling him that the “Taiwan question” is the most important issue in U.S.-China relations and that the two nations could “have clashes and even conflicts,” if the issue isn't handled properly.

Trump later told reporters that he needed to talk to the person who is running Taiwan, without naming Lai, who Beijing deems a separatist.

Trump and Lai holding talks likely would anger China, which typically responds strongly to visits to Taiwan by U.S. politicians.

Kuo, the Taiwan presidential spokesperson, said Friday there was no more information about a potential conversation between Lai and Trump.

Another five rockets followed in rapid succession, before a second HIMARS truck drove out of its concealed position in a copse of evergreens, fired its salvo of six rockets, then retreated back to cover.

The live-fire exercise this week at the U.S. military’s Camp Fuji east maneuver area lasted only a few minutes, but was a significant demonstration to Pacific allies of American capabilities as Washington seeks to deter possible Chinese aggression against Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its own and hasn't ruled out taking by force.

Deterrence through strength, not confrontation

It was also a demonstration of how the U.S. has been shifting tactics in the Pacific, made necessary by the rapid modernization and improvement of China’s military in recent years.

“The U.S. does not want China to invade Taiwan, but it would not be relying on the traditional aircraft carrier-based attack wings of the past,” said Euan Graham, a senior defense analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“In Iran, with the U.S. conflict there, there were over 40 U.S. aircraft, manned and unmanned, either destroyed or damaged against a much less capable adversary, so in the case of conflict with China that vulnerability would be much greater," he said. "That’s why we’re seeing the U.S. emphasizing ... these smaller units.”

According to the Pentagon's latest annual report to Congress, the goal is to “deny the ability of any country in the Indo-Pacific to dominate us or our allies." It said the priority was on bolstering deterrence “through strength, not confrontation.”

Recent wars and proliferation of drones underscore need for mobility

The function of the HIMARS is implicit in its full name, “High Mobility Artillery Rocket System." It's a truck-mounted pod of rockets that can be hidden from drone or satellite surveillance, driven out to fire its GPS-guided missiles, then quickly back to a new hidden position using what the military commonly calls “shoot-and-scoot” tactics.

“It depends on the crew, but it can get as fast as four minutes, (even) two minutes sometimes,” said Sgt. Kevin Alvarez, section chief of one of the two Fox Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12th Marines, 3rd Marine Division HIMARS involved in the Camp Fuji exercise.

Introduced about 20 years ago, the HIMARS has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, but was largely unknown to the general public until Ukraine was able to use it with great success in its fight against Russia.

Those conflicts, especially with the proliferation of drones on the battlefield that can quickly identify static artillery positions, have underscored the value of mobility, said Lt. Col. Ryan Anness, commander of the 3rd Battalion.

“They’re much quicker, much faster, and much easier to hide than, say, traditional cannon artillery, and obviously having the precision fire weapons and having the ability to hide easier is why so many countries, and why it’s important for us, to have the HIMARS,” he said.

HIMARS can now hit targets at more than 300 miles

The HIMARS can fire a variety of missiles, and initially only shorter-range munitions were provided to Ukraine until the U.S. decided to allow Kyiv to have the ATACMS, or Army Tactical Missile System, that can hit targets at about 300 kilometers (180 miles) away.

In the first days of the war against Iran after the U.S. and Israel attacked on Feb. 28, the HIMARS was used to fire both ATACMS and, for the first time in combat, the even longer-range Precision Strike Missiles, sinking “multiple” Iranian surface ships and a submarine in port, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said.

The so-called PrSM can reach targets at ranges greater than 500 kilometers (310 miles,) according to manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Together with the Army’s Typhon — another truck-based launching system that shoots longer-range Tomahawk missiles and others, but is less maneuverable than the HIMARS — the two systems could easily cover the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, and the strategically important Luzon Strait, between the Philippines and Taiwan, if deployed on Taiwan and the Philippine and Japanese islands nearby, Graham said.

Both waterways would be critical to any sort of Chinese invasion or blockade plan.

“In advance of a conflict around Taiwan, there would likely be a large-scale outflux of U.S. assets within the envelope of China’s missile capabilities,” Graham said. "All that would be left is submarines, which are more survivable, and small units based on rugged survivability — mobile systems like the HIMARS.”

Exercises demonstrate capabilities, and partnership

The maneuvers carried out at Camp Fuji on Wednesday used dummy rockets — concrete-filled tubes with no explosives — and were carried out under strict safety guidelines and observed by Japanese military officials, who shut down a local road during the exercise just in case one of the projectiles fell short.

Even though the precautions meant carrying out the live-fire exercise somewhat slower than the HIMARS would be used in combat, Lt. Col. Anness stressed the value of it both for his Marines and for ties with U.S. allies.

“Being able to have long-range precision-fire weapons provides deterrence here in the Pacific, and we train with our Japanese partners as much as we can to make sure we’re ready,” he said.

Warner is not surprised what would seem to be an overdue honor came more than 30 years since his last game for the Panthers.

“My career has never been conventional, so why should my HOF induction?” Warner wrote in a lengthy text to The Associated Press. “Most UNI HOFers will be recognized for their accomplishments at the university. I will be recognized for what I was able to do because of my time there.”

Warner, whose selection was announced Thursday, won one Super Bowl and played in two others during an improbable 12-year NFL career that ended after the 2009 season.

The Burlington, Iowa, native was a member of four straight conference championship teams at UNI but didn't become the starting quarterback until he was a senior in 1993, when he was conference offensive player of the year. Warner said he had a hard time believing his college accomplishments merited selection to the school hall of fame. He said Megan Franklin, UNI's second-year athletic director, and new football coach Todd Stepsis convinced him otherwise.

“It totally makes sense to me now, that when looking at a college HOF it does not have to be limited to what you did in your time there but can be fully representative of what you went on to do beyond your days at the university,” Warner said.

Warner went to training camp with the Green Bay Packers as an undrafted free agent in 1993 and was cut, going on to stock shelves at a grocery store and star in the Arena Football League.

In 1998, after leading NFL Europe in touchdowns and passing yards, he joined the St. Louis Rams and became the team’s starting quarterback in 1999. He led the Rams' “Greatest Show on Turf” offense to a Super Bowl victory over the Tennessee Titans in 2000 and was the game's MVP. Warner made it back to the Super Bowl with the Rams in 2002 and with the Arizona Cardinals in 2009.

Warner had a lukewarm relationship with UNI in the years after he left, according to a 2009 story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. But in 2021, UNI and its trademark licensing agency partnered with Warner and his agency, Priority Sports, to develop and launch a merchandise line celebrating Warner’s legacy. That was the year “American Underdog,” a movie about Warner's life, was released.

“We are excited to celebrate Kurt and the other members of our 2026 UNI Athletics Hall of Fame Class,” the athletic department said. “Regardless of the paths they took to receive this recognition, we are thrilled to celebrate their induction!”

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

Candidates Maureen Galindo and Johnny Garcia have traded accusations in press releases and on social media in the final stretch before voting starts.

“I stand with Jews, and the Jews are saying that Zionists are not real Jews,” Galindo said.

Galindo repeatedly says her opponent, Garcia, is controlled by money from Jewish people.

“He’s funded by the Zionists who control San Antonio,” Galindo said. “I know that that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but we have the Epstein files now. We have all of the evidence.”

Garcia shoots down Galindo’s claims, calling them conspiracies. He has called Galindo’s comments antisemitic as well.

“It just goes to show her growing conspiracy theories and her antisemitic theories as well,” Garcia said. “We cannot allow this in our party. We need to stand up and condemn this type of rhetoric as we see antisemitic attacks on the rise throughout the nation, and more so than anything it’s undemocratic.”

The political clash is unfolding as voters adjust to a newly redrawn District 35, which includes San Antonio, Cibolo, Converse, Schertz, Seguin, New Braunfels, Floresville and more.

“Just a couple of days ago, I encountered somebody that didn’t know they were redrawn into this district,” Garcia said.

The two are working to find a balance to educate voters on the new district lines, each respective candidates’ platforms and the infighting between the candidates.

The Jewish Federation of San Antonio also weighed in on “the spread of antisemitic tropes” in a statement on Instagram.

“Divisive and hateful rhetoric targeting the Jewish community has no place in our civic life,” the statement read, in part.

Early voting begins May 18. Election Day is May 26.

Read also:

• New Braunfels City Council terminates city attorney following mayoral election confusion
• Voter says cease-and-desist letter won’t silence her criticism of Kendall County Judge candidate’s past
• Texas’ 35th Congressional District primary runoffs: Who is running and what to know

Guardiola had a year left on his City contract but will take charge of his final game on Sunday against Aston Villa in the Premier League.

“Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving. There is no reason, but deep inside I know it’s my time,” he said.

City said Guardiola will become a global ambassador and it was naming its newly developed stand at Etihad Stadium after him.

Enzo Maresca — the former Chelsea manager who was previously assistant to Guardiola at City — is the favorite to take on the daunting task of filling the Catalan's shoes after a decade of unprecedented dominance.

Since joining City in the summer of 2016, Guardiola has led the Abu Dhabi-owned team to six Premier League titles and a first Champions League crown in 2023.

He won 17 major trophies including a domestic double this season of the English League Cup and the FA Cup. He has won 35 major titles across his coaching career including at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

City was by far his longest job in management, having never previously stayed more than four years in a role.

“I will not train for a while,” the 55-year-old Guardiola said. “I feel I would not have the energy that is required to daily … with the expectations to fight for the titles.”

Guardiola set new benchmarks; City became the first team to win four straight English leagues and the first to amass 100 points in a single season in 2018. The following year City was the first team to win the domestic treble of the league, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season.

His biggest achievement was leading City to the ultimate treble in 2023, winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup — matching Manchester United’s feat from more than 20 years earlier in 1999.

He also brought to England a style of soccer — a possession-based approach that started with playing the ball out from the goalkeeper or defense — that ended up being mimicked across the country, from kids’ teams at grassroots level to rivals in the Premier League.

“The unique approach that he brings to his coaching has allowed him to constantly challenge the accepted truths of our game. It is the reason that in the last 10 years he has not only made Manchester City better — he has also made football better,” City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said. He added it was the “right answer” for Guardiola to walk away now.

While he goes out on another trophy-winning campaign, this was the first time in his career that he has gone two seasons without being crowned league champion. City was also eliminated from the Champions League before the quarterfinals in the last two years.

City said Guardiola's new role would see him give technical advice to clubs in its ownership group.

“Pep’s legacy is extraordinary and its true impact will be better assessed by Manchester City historians of the future,” chief executive Ferran Sorriano said. “If there is something more difficult than winning, it is winning again. It requires incredible persistence, resilience and the humility to start again every year, with the same energy, again and again. This is what Pep did.”

While Guardiola will go down as one of the greatest managers in Premier League history — rivaling Alex Ferguson — he repeatedly had to defend City against allegations of financial breaches, with more than 100 charges still hanging over the club.

City was accused of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period from 2009-18 — a span in which it won three titles and signed some of the world’s best players like Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne. One of those titles was won under Guardiola.

City has always denied wrongdoing. Guardiola said he was “fully convinced” the club was innocent.

“We worked. We suffered. We fought. And we did things our own way. Our way,” Guardiola said in his farewell message to fans.

___

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

A letter to Everlane employees from CEO Alfred Chang confirming the deal was obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

Everlane, based in San Francisco, didn't disclose a purchase price. Shein declined to comment. Everlane's majority owner L Catterton couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

Everlane was founded in 2011 by Michael Preysman and Jesse Farmer with a mission to produce eco friendly and affordable clothing. The company publicized regular audits of its pay and working conditions, as well as the brand's environmental impact. The online retailer opened its first physical store in 2017.

But the company in recent years has been embroiled in controversies surrounding treatment of its workers, according to media reports.

Everlane, which was joined by other eco-friendly brands like Allbirds, also found that offering a more transparent look at its factories wasn't enough for consumers, according to independent retail analyst Bruce Winder. Winder said shoppers were also seeking more affordable prices, and “the novelty wore off.” He cited Allbirds. After sales of the once highly popular shoe tumbled, it rebranded itself “NewBird AI,” and is now focused on artificial intelligence and cloud-computing services.

L Catterton began acquiring significant stakes in Everlane in September 2020. becoming its majority owner. It also owns a significant stake in brands Boll & Branch, Etro and Birkenstock.

Preysman officially stepped down in 2022.

The online retailer Shein was founded in China in 2012 and become extremely popular with teens and young shoppers with $15 trendy dresses and sandals, A majority of items are mass produced and stitched together by workers in a web of factories in China. It has moved its headquarters in Singapore.

“Like many brands, we’ve faced increasing pressure in a rapidly changing retail landscape,” Chang wrote in the letter. “This partnership allows us to remain independent, and gives us the stability and resources to make a larger impact, without compromising on the quality and standards that make Everlane, Everlane.”

Chang, who became CEO in 2024, wrote that the deal will enable the business to invest more in its product, innovation and staff. He emphasized that Everlane will remain an independent brand, staying true to its “sustainability” commitments.

Chang said he will continue as CEO and its leadership will remain in place.

The takeover bid arrives at a time when Everlane is struggling. Sales are down and debt has mounted, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. The company needs new ownership to survive, and Shein can provide that financial stability, he said.

Shein can establish a presence outside of fast fashion through Everlane, Saunders said, as growth within the industry becomes more difficult. Tariffs and other trade restrictions under the Trump administration have upended imports of the inexpensive clothing that dominates fast fashion.

Winder noted that Shein also has an opportunity to redefine its brand by creating a portfolio of eco-friendly brands like Everlane.

But Everlane and Shein are an odd couple, analysts noted.

Shein is unlikely to completely retool Everlane's supply network, Saunders said, but even being associated with the Shein group may be “somewhat jarring for core Everlane customers. ”

“Ultimately, the deal likely saves Everlane,” he said. “But that salvation comes at a price.”

Chang seemed to allude in his memo to some of the negative responses on social media when rumors of the deal were swirling, stating that the “past week has been a hard one. Seeing our company in the media, and in that light, was painful.”

Harvell was driving a family vehicle, just as he had countless times before.

This set of wheels, though, topped out at around 25 mph (40 kph).

Harvell and dozens of his fellow seniors eschewed their cars and trucks and arrived in tractors, ATVs, golf carts and more.

It was all part of Tractor Day, a celebration that dates back to the 1980s at the school in Carleton, Michigan, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Detroit. Most students arrived by 7:30 a.m., but the fun was to continue throughout the day with games, music and lunch catered by a local restaurant.

The annual event is not only a fun going-away celebration for seniors but also serves to honor the area’s agricultural heritage.

“We’re just a farm school,” Harvell said. “It’s a tradition. Everyone’s done it before us. We just carry it on.”

The fourth-generation farmer on Friday was behind the wheel of a Case 305 Magnum, the same tractor used to till the soil where he and his family grow soybeans and corn. And the one his older brother drove to Tractor Day three years ago.

Myah Hoppert arrived bright and early in a John Deere 8300 that could practically drive itself to school at this point. The same tractor carried Hoppert’s two sisters and eight of their cousins to Airport High during past Tractor Days.

“Last day with all my friends,” said Hoppert, who plans to study nursing at Monroe County Community College next year.

Friday was “one final hurrah,” said Austin Neddo, who may hold the distinction of having the most vintage ride. He arrived in a restored 1940 Farmall A, a tractor once owned by Neddo's great-great-grandfather.

As class treasurer, Jocelyn Kleman helped organize Friday’s festivities, which she described as “our last recess.” She expected that 150 of the roughly 180 seniors were taking part in Tractor Day.

Kleman and two friends rode in on an off-road vehicle known as a “side-by-side.” She had looked forward to this day for four years, after, like other Airport students, only being able to watch the end-of-year revelry through classroom windows.

“You could just see how much fun the seniors are having,” said Kleman, who plans to attend Michigan State University in the fall. “What a nostalgic event this really is.

“And how much the seniors look forward to it each year.”

Hannah joins KSAT from Fresno, California, but she’s no stranger to San Antonio.

She is excited to be back in the Alamo City, where she was born and raised. Here’s what to know about Hannah:

How do you feel about coming back to the Alamo City and covering news in your hometown?

It is truly an honor to be back not only reporting in my hometown, but especially at KSAT. After visiting the station during school field trips, I was sold.

I knew one day I wanted to work alongside the talented journalists at KSAT and help give my community a platform to make change, highlight the good and show how we come together when tragedy hits.

You were born and raised in San Antonio. What are your favorite local traditions?

Fiesta and the rodeo are two events that I always look forward to! I grew up going to both, and was even in the Flambeau Parade with my dance studio, Sarita’s.

Even though I lived away from home for nearly eight years, I’ve always tried to come back to enjoy the food, fun and family.

What made you want to pursue journalism as a profession?

I was introduced to TV production during my time at Providence Catholic School. I joined the broadcast class, Provet TV, where I learned every aspect of producing a newscast, both in front of and behind the camera.

We gained hands-on experience editing, writing and interviewing classmates and teachers around campus.

That experience laid a strong foundation that helped me excel at the University of North Texas.

When you’re not working, how do you enjoy spending your time?

I love going to Pilates, reading and spending time with my chihuahua Frankie. Even if it slows us down, we take Frankie everywhere and anywhere!

So far, his favorite trips have been Carmel-by-the-Sea, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park.

What’s a story that you’ve covered in the past that still sticks with you?

My first news station after college was in Sherman, Texas, covering North Texas and southeastern Oklahoma. The area was no stranger to severe weather. In April of 2024, an EF-4 tornado hit Marietta, Oklahoma. A semi-driver was killed in the storm, and nearly 20 businesses and homes were destroyed, including the local hospital.

Over 600 people lost their place of work overnight, and patients were transferred to other facilities while the town worked to build. Covering this kind of destruction never got easier, but it always amazed me how the communities would grow stronger every time.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?

My favorite place to visit is Hawaii. I’ve been to Oahu twice and hope to go to Maui soon! I’m obsessed with sushi, so I could get poke bowls from Foodland every day if you let me.

But if I had to go somewhere new, I would love to travel across Europe.

Read also:

• Meet Alexis Scott, one of KSAT’s newest reporters
• KSAT meteorologist Shelby Ebertowski is engaged

Spurs Sports & Entertainment hosted a citywide pep rally at Tower Park at Hemisfair.

Fans who arrived early received free tacos and coffee from Taco Palenque, as well as free playoff T-shirts.

The morning also featured live entertainment, including Mariachi Los Galleros, the Spurs Hype Squad, and music from DJ Quake.

The rally was hosted by Zay Zay, with appearances from Sean Elliott, Jacob Tobey and other special guests.

Read also:

• H-E-B gives out groceries, Spurs tickets to surprised shoppers on Southeast Side
• San Antonio shops, pop-ups see boost from Spurs playoff excitement
• ‘It wasn’t a celebration’: Spurs fan left with $10K in vandalism to her SUV after playoff win

In a preliminary report, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said its Organized Crime Division executed a search warrant at approximately 3 p.m. in the 7400 block of U.S. Highway 90, which is located near Military Drive.

During their search, deputies found 44 gambling machines and more than $19,000 ($19,137) in cash, the sheriff’s office said. Deputies initially detained seven people.

After further investigation, BCSO took two women into custody and cited five others for gambling participation, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said.

Olga Sifuentes Rodriguez, 66, and Ecstasy Leyva, 21, were charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, which is considered a state jail felony, and transported to the Bexar County Adult Detention Center.

According to jail records, Rodriguez and Leyva have since been released on bond.

More local news coverage on KSAT:

• New Braunfels man faces 74 charges after illegally killing white-tailed bucks, TPWD says
• ‘It wasn’t a celebration’: Spurs fan left with $10K in vandalism to her SUV after playoff win

Before you leave, AAA urges drivers to check tire pressure and plan routes ahead of time.

More than 3.7 million Texans are expected to travel by car this weekend — more than last year, according to a news release from AAA.

AAA says the majority of Texans traveling for Memorial Day will be driving at least 50 miles.

When will roads be busiest?

AAA says the busiest travel times are:

• Friday, May 22
• Memorial Day, Monday, May 25
• 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. both days

AAA expects Sunday to be the lightest day on the roads.

Busy route to watch

AAA says one of the busiest routes will be Houston to Austin, traveling Interstate 10 West and State Highway 71 West.

Enforcement expected

In a news release, Texas Department of Public Safety says troopers are expected to focus on the following through May 25.

• Seat belt use
• Speeding
• Intoxicated driving

“Seat belts save lives— it’s that simple,” Texas Highway Patrol Chief Bryan Rippee said in a news release. “Buckling up is one of the easiest decisions you can make to protect yourself and your loved ones every time you get on the road.”

Helpful number to save

TxDOT runs a free Highway Emergency Response Operator (HERO) patrol that helps clear minor crashes and provides assistance to drivers who need help on area highways.

HERO crews work to restore traffic flow and improve safety by:

• Moving disabled vehicles to a safer location
• Clearing minor crashes from travel lanes
• Providing traffic and lane control at crash scenes
• Removing debris from the road
• Assisting first responders

HERO crews also help stranded motorists by:

• Changing flat tires and adding air to low tires
• Providing small amounts of gas or water
• Performing minor repairs
• Jump-starting batteries
• Offering drinking water and limited cell phone assistance

TxDOT’s HERO roadside assistance number is 210-732-HERO.

Average gas prices in major Texas cities

According to AAA, these are the average prices for a gallon of regular gasoline:

• San Antonio: $4.112
• Houston: $4
• Austin-San Marcos: $4.123
• Dallas: $4.157
• Corpus Christi: $4.139

AAA says the highest average prices are in El Paso, San Angelo and Abilene, while Houston, Lubbock and Beaumont–Port Arthur have some of the lowest.

5 things to do before you leave your driveway

AAA recommends checking:

1. Tire pressure
2. Oil and coolant
3. Brakes
4. Battery

Stay weather-aware

An upper low will swing through the area on Saturday, enhancing rain chances. In this type of messy pattern, storms could pop up just about anywhere, so pinpointing where the heaviest rain may fall is a difficult task.

Stay weather-aware with Your KSAT Weather Authority.

Read also:

• Another round of heavy rainfall possible Saturday
• Volunteer dive teams prepare Guadalupe River for summer visitors

Severe thunderstorms with large hail and gusty winds were possible Friday in Texas and other parts of the Southern and Central Plains, the National Weather Service said.

Forecasters warned of possible flash flooding along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana on Saturday, when rain and thunderstorms were expected across much of the central and eastern U.S.

The Waymo vehicle got stuck during a downpour in Atlanta on Wednesday that flooded streets and even part of a downtown highway. The vehicle was not occupied and was later recovered, the company said in a statement. At least one other Waymo vehicle was waylaid during the storm.

Waymo serves only the city of Atlanta in Georgia, and services several cities in Texas.

The company paused service in Texas “out of an abundance of caution for the forecasted severe weather,” the statement said.

So, in the back kitchen of Lo Duca Pizza, the 39-year-old began tweaking the original recipe handed down by his parents — with unexpected results.

“When we started playing around with a different flour, I actually took a liking to it,” said Lo Duco, who runs the shop with his five brothers. “It’s a little more expensive, but the quality is there.”

A looming ban on the additive, potassium bromate, may soon force thousands of pizzerias and bagel shops across New York into a similar transition.

The bill, passed by state lawmakers and awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, has divided dough makers, triggering fears that even a minor change to long-established baking practices could have dramatic implications for the city’s most iconic foods.

“This is an earth-shaking event for New York pizza,” said Scott Wiener, a pizza historian who leads tours of notable slice shops. “That ingredient is part of the identity of the slice.”

Employees at several stores that use bromated flour declined to comment for this story. But Wiener estimated that around 80% of pizza and bagel shops rely on a flour that contains the oxidizing agent, which reduces rest time for dough and helps ensure a stronger, chewier product.

To some, the quintessential qualities of the New York bagel — its height and structure, external crispiness and springy bite — would not be possible, or at least as ubiquitous, without the chemical shortcut.

“You could achieve that same bagel texture, but it’s a lot more work and it’s going to be a lot more expensive,” lamented Jesse Spellman, the second-generation owner of Utopia Bagels.

Ahead of the possible ban, he too has been adjusting his family recipe, experimenting with yeast concentrations and rise time.

“It’s going to take some time to get a product that we’re happy with,” Spellman said.

Others, meanwhile, see the proposed ban on potassium bromate as long overdue. The additive is already outlawed across the European Union, China, India, Canada and — as of next year — California. Some experts have theorized that its absence outside the United States could be one reason that many Americans find baked goods in Europe and elsewhere more tolerable.

“From a consumer’s point of view, there’s nothing good about potassium bromate,” said Erik Millstone, a professor of science policy at the University of Sussex focused on the health impact of chemicals in food.

Going back to the 1980s, he noted, studies have shown it can cause cancer in laboratory animals, even in “perfectly reasonable” doses.

“Most well-informed people would prioritize a long healthy life over a slightly softer and more soluble bun,” he said.

Already, many of New York’s most celebrated pizzerias, particularly newer and more artisanal-leaning shops, tout their use of “unbromated” flour.

But neighborhood slice shops still overwhelmingly rely on a General Mills flour called All Trumps, a standard ingredient since the city’s first grab-and-go pizza parlors opened nearly a century ago, according to Wiener. General Mills now sells an unbromated flour for roughly the same price, though other alternatives are costlier.

In Wiener’s view, the move away from bromated flour could ultimately improve the quality of slices across the city.

“Without such a fast turnaround for dough production, you’re going to get more well-fermented doughs, which is going to lead to lighter pizzas that are easier to eat and leave you with less of a stomachache,” he said. “It will require more of a process. But everything will be built back better.”

If the legislation passes, businesses will have a one-year grace period to continue using the additive, plus additional time to go through unexpired bags. A spokesperson for Hochul said she will review the bill.

In the meantime, the possibility of the ban has rippled beyond New York’s borders.

“Pizza in Florida is officially better than pizza in New York,” crowed Mario Mangilia, the owner of DoughBoyz in Florida in a recent Instagram post. He added that “my grandfather would haunt me” if the shop’s dough recipe were ever changed.

But after he was confronted by several prominent pizza accounts over the additive's health concerns, Mangilia appeared to walk back his pro-bromate stance.

“I’ll tell you what,” he replied to a Long Island-based pizza owner. “I’ll test some different flour out to check it out.”

Crews responded to the fire just before 10:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of West Sunshine Drive, which is located near Bandera Road.

Every resident was safely evacuated from the complex, officials said. No injuries were reported.

SAFD said between eight to 12 apartment units were impacted by the flames.

Multiple residents were displaced and are being put in contact with American Red Cross for temporary housing.

The flames caused severe roof and water damage due to rain when crews responded to the fire, fire officials said.

Read also:

• New Braunfels man faces 74 charges after illegally killing white-tailed bucks, TPWD says
• Tobin Park visitors call for better lighting after woman reports possible sexual assault

Carrick replaced the fired Ruben Amorim on a temporary basis in January and transformed United’s fortunes. He secured qualification for the Champions League and earned standout wins against Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.

He has steered United to third in the Premier League after it finished 15th last term, a record low in the modern era. His record in his short spell stands at 11 wins in 16 games, with only two losses.

While there was uncertainty as to whether he was the long-term solution for United after more than a decade of decline since the retirement of club icon Alex Ferguson, Carrick's impact made it nearly impossible for the club’s hierarchy to overlook him.

“Michael has thoroughly earned the opportunity to continue leading our men’s team," said United director of football Jason Wilcox, who led the search for the club’s next coach. “In the time he has been doing the role, we have seen positive results on the pitch, but more than that, an approach which aligns with the club’s values, traditions and history.”

Carrick is the seventh permanent manager since the retirement of Alex Ferguson in 2013.

“Throughout the past five months we’ve shown what our club represents — resilience, togetherness and a determination to succeed," Carrick said. "Now it’s about moving forward again with ambition and purpose. This club and our supporters deserve to be challenging for the biggest honors and we’re never going to stop.”

As a multiple title winner with United as a player, Carrick had the support of fans and club icons, who have been calling for him to be given the job on a permanent basis for weeks. He also inspired an upturn of form in key players like Kobbie Mainoo, Casemiro and Benjamin Sesko.

Yet he is a novice coach at the top level. His only previous full-time managerial experience was at second-tier Middlesbrough from 2022-25.

United gave itself time to assess other candidates since January. Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola and Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner were among potential contenders to take up a role that proved too much for a succession of managers.

“Michael’s achievements in leading the club back to the Champions League should not be understated,” Wilcox said. “He has forged a strong bond with the players and can be proud of the winning culture at Carrington and in the dressing room, which we are continuing to build.”

After Ferguson

Wilcox has put his faith in Carrick after Amorim lasted just 14 months, despite a reputation as one of the top emerging coaches in Europe.

Carrick was part of one of Ferguson’s greatest teams, which won a Premier League and Champions League double in 2008. In all he won 12 major trophies in 12 years at United including five league titles. He was in United’s last title-winning team in Ferguson’s final season.

The list of predecessors to Carrick is evidence of the varying attempts United has made to try to return to the summit of English soccer.

It went for top tier coaches, serial winners such as Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho, but neither could deliver the Premier League title. David Moyes was a well-established top-flight manager, while Erik ten Hag and Amorim came in as title winners from overseas.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was an iconic player — part of the club’s DNA — and had the affection of the fans but also ultimately came up short.

“From the moment that I arrived here 20 years ago, I felt the magic of Manchester United," Carrick said. “Carrying the responsibility of leading our special football club fills me with immense pride.”

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

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

The driver nicknamed Wild Thing, Outlaw, Rowdy and KFB over his 26-year NASCAR career was more comfortable than anyone might imagine with a checkered flag in one hand and fans jeering all around. He leaned into the villain role as the wins mounted — and boy did they — and even started encouraging his haters, trying to get the howling to a fever pitch before delivering his signature bow.

It was Busch at his best.

And it’s the way he should be remembered.

The two-time Cup Series champion, who won more races than anyone across NASCAR’s three national series, died Thursday at age 41. Tributes poured in, with many echoing the sentiment that racing had lost one of its fiercest competitors.

Busch was that — and so much more.

He was arguably the greatest driver of his generation, displaying unrivaled success. He notched a combined 234 wins — 63 in the top-tier Cup Series and another 171 in NASCAR’s two feeder series, O’Reilly (102) and Trucks (69).

He was a devoted husband, a side that became public when he and wife Samantha chronicled their struggle to become parents and later founded the Bundle of Joy Fund, which is dedicated to advancing access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) care and providing support so others don’t have to navigate infertility alone. The fund has raised more than $2 million and has celebrated the birth of 111 babies.

He was a loving father, who tirelessly tried to teach his 11-year-old son, Brexton, everything he could about racing and even sold his successful Truck Series team to help raise money to support his son's budding career.

He was even one of NASCAR’s most popular — some would say polarizing — drivers thanks to his longtime M&M's sponsorship. Kids flocked to Busch and his colorful No. 18 Toyota at Joe Gibbs Racing.

Older fans might not have been as supportive, and it was evident every time Busch took the checkered flag and responded to booing with a mocking bow.

“This is a devastating loss and one that is hard for the NASCAR community to process. Kyle was a fierce competitor who demanded the very best from himself each time he put on the helmet,” four-time Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon said. “As teammates, I saw firsthand the passion and intensity he brought to the sport every single day.

“He was a champion and a prolific racer who made a tremendous impact on NASCAR and was a lifelong advocate for all forms of motor sports. But beyond the track, he loved his family deeply and was incredibly proud of Samantha, Brexton and Lennix.”

Busch had become sort of a sympathetic figure in recent years, a series champion in the worst slump of his career and a surefire Hall of Famer who never got to celebrate a Daytona 500 victory. Both skids bothered him, no doubt, the first more than the second.

Busch’s last Cup Series victory came at World Wide Technology Raceway in Illinois in 2023. Busch won three of the first 15 races that season, his first with Richard Childress Racing. RCR had built the Next Gen prototype, so the team had an early advantage with the new car.

But once everyone else caught up, Busch and RCR lagged behind. He was winless in his final 105 starts and changed crew chiefs twice this season while searching for a winning combination. The most trying part: Feeling like he was letting Brexton down week after week.

“It’s no secret, right? And seeing my son and his passion that he has; he really is probably my biggest cheerleader,” Busch said at Daytona International Speedway in February. “And he wants to see me run well. He wants to see me win races. He wants to celebrate in victory lane like he sees other drivers’ kids being able to do.

“So there’s nothing more that drives me every single weekend than seeing him see me and be proud of me.”

Busch died after being hospitalized with a severe illness. It came three days before he was to compete in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Busch was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord, North Carolina, on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because details have not been disclosed by Busch’s team or family.

Busch’s death came 11 days after he radioed his crew near the end of a Cup Series race at Watkins Glen and asked a doctor to give him a “shot” when he finished the race. Busch had been struggling with a sinus cold exacerbated by the intense G-forces and elevation changes at the New York road course, broadcasters said.

Busch finished that race eighth. He competed at Dover last weekend and — maybe fittingly — won his last Trucks Series start for Spire. He then finished 17th in the NASCAR All-Star race, his final event.

Busch stormed into the Cup Series in 2005 and won Rookie of the Year honors. He was at Hendrick Motorsports at the time, a job he was fired from to make room for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

His career, though, was as much defined by post-race fights, feuds with other drivers and outlandish behavior as all the trips to victory lane.

Nonetheless, Busch won championships in 2015 and 2019 for Joe Gibbs Racing. His first title came after he missed part of the season while recovering from two broken legs. He was let go from JGR in 2022 after losing his M&M’s sponsor and with the team looking to make room for Ty Gibbs, the grandson of team owner Joe Gibbs.

Busch landed at RCR, where he ranked a disappointing 24th in Cup Series points after 12 races. But an indelible image was his final victory. And he celebrated that Truck Series win with two bows amid a scattering of boos.

“You take whatever you can get, man,” Busch said. “You never know when the last one is going to be, so cherish them all — trust me.”

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

“I don’t know if y'all noticed this, but Donald Trump endorsed me,” Paxton told a small rally in a town outside Austin, inciting whoops and applause from the crowd.

Tuesday's election has drawn national attention and gobs of money. It also has become the latest campaign in which Trump is encouraging voters to oust a politician who has displeased him and elect a challenger more aligned with the president. That effort has been largely successful for Trump. Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost in the GOP primary to Ed Gallrein, Trump's handpicked candidate. Trump also has succeeded in defeating incumbents in Louisiana and Indiana.

Paxton has been turning his focus to the Democratic nominee, state Rep. James Talarico. Paxton opened his event Thursday with attacks on Talarico, a sign of his confidence heading into the runoff.

Paxton then gave a biography of his political life and tried hammering home the reason he says he should be the nominee: his history of lawsuits defending conservative values. It is the type of resume that endears Paxton to the “Make America Great Again” faithful, some of his supporters said.

“He’s a fighter, he’s a person of action, he’s proven that as attorney general,” said Jeffrey Sonnier, 72, who attended the rally and echoed the sentiment of many supporters at the event.

As for Cornyn, said Sonnier, “he’s inactive for five years and digs out to become a supposed active Republican MAGA person every six years.”

Who is closer to Trump?

Paxton’s campaign said Thursday that it's pulling negative ads against Cornyn. Instead, starting after Trump's Tuesday endorsement, the campaign and a super political action committee that supports his candidacy began airing separate ads promoting Trump's favor.

Cornyn’s campaign and groups supporting him, however, were outspending the pro-Paxton groups 3-to-1 and had reprised an ad they began airing last year noting Cornyn’s support for Trump’s agenda and featuring video clips of Trump praising Cornyn.

“He's called me a friend, and that's no surprise because I've supported him and his policies, you may have seen a commercial or two to that effect, 99.3% of the time,” said Cornyn in a video posted to X from a recent event.

Cornyn has also long worked to shift the race to focus not on fidelity to the president but on character.

The campaign has leaned heavily into messaging about Paxton's past, which includes an alleged affair and an impeachment for corruption in which Paxton was acquitted.

If Paxton is the nominee, that will be litigated in a general election against Talarico, where voters will be less “willing to overlook all the corruption, the self-dealing and the scandals,” Cornyn argued at a recent campaign event. “Ken Paxton would hand it to (Democrats) on a silver platter.”

Paxton supporters at his Thursday rally shrugged off the accusations.

“He’s had his flaws, but so have we; we all make mistakes,” said Daniel Vega, 18, adding, “He’s repented, let’s move on.”

A contest where spending reached beyond $100 million

Through this week, Cornyn’s campaign and groups supporting it will have spent roughly $90 million in advertising, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. That includes more than $20 million since the March 3 primary election.

Paxton’s campaign and the single super PAC have combined to spend roughly $10.5 million on advertising, with roughly $6.1 million since that contest.

The ads have flooded voters.

“The commercials are leading me against Paxton, that he might be a little crooked,” said Gail Licea, 74, a retired registered nurse, who attended a Cornyn event before Trump’s endorsement. Then again, she said, “I’ve been led to believe that sometimes John Cornyn doesn’t back President Donald Trump, and that concerns me.”

The advertising has been so concentrated, it was unclear how much the late pivot by the groups would affect Tuesday’s outcome, said Wayne Hamilton, former executive director of the Texas Republican Party.

“There is so much noise out there right now,” said Hamilton, who is an adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott and is unaffiliated with either of the Senate candidates. “I don’t know how any one message is going to break through.”

The hirings were announced Friday and complete the league’s round of GM additions for each of its four new franchises, which will begin play next season.

The 38-year-old Duggan spent the past five years in a player development role in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils. She brings high-profile name recognition and experience to the PWHL’s fifth Canadian-based franchise.

She had already been working with the PWHL as a special consultant for the hockey operations department. Before her retirement in 2020, Duggan was a founding member of the PWHPA, which was made up of a group of players who helped establish the PWHL three years ago.

“Meghan has been an effective leader at every stage of her career, and she is a rising star in the front office ranks,” said PWHL executive VP of hockey operations Jayna Hefford, who oversaw the hiring process.

Ryan first in PWHL to have both roles

Ryan, meantime, leaves Toronto after coaching the team in its first three seasons to become the PWHL’s first to handle both coaching and GM duties. The move continues an offseason of transition for Ryan. He previously said he’s stepping down after a six-year stint as head coach the Canadian national women’s team.

The 54-year-old Ryan coached Canada to a gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and won silver at the Milan Cortina Games in February.

“Expansion creates a rare opportunity to shape everything with intention, from the standards and culture, to the people and connection to the community,” Ryan said. “We want to build a team that plays with purpose, represents the Bay Area with pride, and helps continue to grow women’s hockey on the West Coast.”

The four new franchises grow the PWHL to 12 teams for next season, doubling the league’s size since it began play in 2024. The league also added teams in Detroit and Las Vegas.

Among Duggan and Ryan’s immediate responsibilities are hiring their staff, including a coach in Hamilton, while also filling out their rosters. The league’s expansion signing process is set to begin in two weeks, followed by the draft on June 17.

Duggan's international success

Duggan is from Danvers, Massachusetts, and won Olympic silver medals in 2010 and 2014 before winning gold in at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, with her serving as team captain. She also won seven gold medals and one silver in eight world championship appearances.

Despite her U.S. roots, Duggan has Canadian connections. She’s married to former Team Canada rival Gillian Apps, who is from the Toronto area, about an hour’s drive east of Hamilton.

“This league represents the future of women’s professional sports. And the opportunity to help build a team, culture, and identity from the ground up is a privilege,” Duggan said. “Hamilton is a passionate sports city with a rich hockey tradition, and my goal is to create an environment where players can thrive and compete for a championship.”

Duggan played at Wisconsin, where she won the 2011 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as women’s college hockey’s MVP following her senior season with the Badgers.

Ryan brings a wealth of hockey front office and coaching experience to the PWHL’s first team in California. He was the PWHL’s first coach of the year in 2024, and has a career record of 52-32-10.

Under Ryan, the Sceptres lost in the semifinal round of the playoffs in their first two seasons, and finished fifth this year after being eliminated on the final day of the regular season. In Toronto, he worked with GM Gina Kingsbury, who held the same role with Team Canada.

Ryan is credited for helping turn around a Canadian national team program that hit its low in winning bronze at the 2019 world championships. In the five following world tournament appearances under Ryan, Canada won three gold medals and two silvers.

Ryan is from Nova Scotia, and worked in several GM and coaching jobs in the men’s Junior A Maritime Hockey League. He then made the switch in becoming head coach of the Dalhousie University women’s team from 2020-23.

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AP women’s hockey: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-hockey

Here is what to know:

How did Kyle Busch die?

At this point, the cause of death has not been released and details remain limited.

What is known is that Busch was testing in the Chevrolet racing simulator in Concord on Wednesday when he became unresponsive and was transported to a hospital in Charlotte, several people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because details have not been disclosed by Busch’s team or family.

Had Kyle Busch been ill?

Busch was thought to have had a sinus cold While racing May 10 at Watkins Glen, Busch radioed his team requesting a “shot” from a doctor after he finished. Per the TV broadcast, Busch had been struggling with a sinus cold that was exacerbated by the intense G-forces and elevation changes at the New York road course.

It's unclear if that issue had something to do with his death.

Busch did race last weekend and won the Trucks Series race at Dover and finished 17th in the NASCAR All-Star race. That would be his final race.

How good was Kyle Busch?

Busch won 234 races across NASCAR's three national series — more than any driver in history. He won Cup season championships in 2015 and 2019 for Joe Gibbs Racing.

His first championship was particularly impressive. Busch missed the first 11 Cup races of the 2015 season after injuring his foot following a crash in the O'Reilly Auto Parts series opener in Daytona, but came back to win five races to qualify for the playoffs before capturing the title at Homestead.

Will the Coca-Cola 600 be postponed or canceled?

No. NASCAR officials confirmed that the 400-lap race will continue on as planned Sunday night at the 1 1/2-mile track at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Earlier in the day, RCR had announced that Austin Hill would replace Busch in the No. 8 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.

Does CMS plan to honor Kyle Busch?

Yes, CMS officials said they plan to honor Busch “in some way” this weekend at the Coca-Cola 600, but details were still being ironed out.

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AP freelance writer and former AP auto racing writer Jenna Fryer in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

President Donald Trump’s political revenge tour met its potential match this week as angry, upset Republican senators, pushed to a breaking point by his seemingly insatiable and outlandish demands — particularly a $1.776 billion fund for Jan. 6 rioters and others he believes were wrongly prosecuted — did the unthinkable.

They simply refused, closed up shop, and went home.

The moment was as rare as it was daring, a sudden flex from the Congress that has become a shell of its former self as a coequal branch, the Republican majority almost always more willing to accommodate the Republican president than to confront him.

The result left in shambles, for now, the GOP's top priority of passing a roughly $70 billion budget package that would fuel Trump’s immigration and deportation operations for the remainder of his presidential term, into 2029. The voting was postponed until Congress resumes next month, blowing Trump's June 1 deadline to have it on his desk.

Trump, asked during an event at the Oval Office if he was losing control of the Senate, shrugged.

“I really don't know,” the president said.

It all caps a bruising week after the president swept midterm primary elections, taking down one Republican after another — Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky, and endorsing the challenger to Sen. John Cornyn in Texas — turning the might of his Make America Great Again movement against those who have stuck to their own views, rather than yield to his.

And it wasn’t just the Senate. In the Republican-led House, for the first time this year, enough GOP lawmakers broke ranks to signal support for a war powers resolution from Democrats designed to halt Trump’s military action in Iran. House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed voting until he could ensure an outcome that avoids confronting the president.

The endgame leaves Trump and the party exposed in new ways.

While the president is winning with his handpicked candidates, many are untested heading into general elections this fall. Trump's own approval rating sits at a low point, and he is spending his political capital, alienating his would-be allies and threatening to derail GOP priorities as they try to persuade voters to keep them in office.

Anger in the Senate over Trump's ‘payout for punks’

Trump's announcement of nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund for those the president believes were wrongly prosecuted came with little warning, and less support, blindsiding senators already fuming over his push for $1 billion to provide security for his new White House ballroom.

The audacity of the arrangement — Trump negotiating a settlement to his own lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service that would set up the compensation fund for those perceived to be wrongly prosecuted — proved too toxic for the Senate to bear.

“Under what circumstances would it ever make sense to provide restitution for people who were either pled guilty or were found guilty in a court of law?” steamed Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Tillis derided the White House move as “stupid on stilts” and a “payout for punks.” Trump fired back Friday morning, accusing Tillis of “screwing the Republican Party” in a lengthy social media post.

GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, who tends to keep his own counsel, issued his own a statement in the aftermath.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” McConnell said.

The political calculations were becoming apparent: The more Trump bullies and badgers the Congress, the more they are left questioning what they have to gain, or lose, from trying to appease him, especially for those already heading for the exits.

“I think it’s hard to divorce anything that happens here from what’s happening in the political atmosphere around us,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche met for hours behind closed doors with senators over the compensation fund, but left without a resolution.

Afterward, Thune said the discussion likely left the administration’s team with “an appreciation for the depth of feeling on the issue.”

Trump's victories come at a cost

While Trump-backed candidates defeated Republican incumbents in the House and Senate this week, showing his command of the party faithful, some in Congress saw the defeats of their colleagues differently.

“You don’t want to have a totally loyal party that’s in the minority. And that's maybe where we’re headed,” said Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring at the end of his term.

It began Saturday, when Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate impeachment trial after Jan. 6, lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger in Louisiana. He returned to Washington days later noticeably more eager to criticize Trump — and more willing to vote against him.

“Congress should hold the executive branch accountable,” Cassidy said Monday. A day later, he joined Democrats in voting to rein in the war in Iran.

Then came Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton over Cornyn in Texas, a move many Republicans viewed as both personal and politically reckless. Trump said Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.”

“There’s a lot of folks in our conference that are disappointed because we appreciate working with John Cornyn,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.

Others worried the divisive Texas primary could jeopardize a seat Republicans cannot afford to lose.

“He made the wrong pick,” Tillis said. “It’s going to be a lot more expensive to hold that seat.”

Frustration extends beyond the Senate

In the House there were also signs of Republican discontent.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., joined Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi in introducing legislation that would block taxpayer dollars from being used for Trump’s proposed “anti-weaponization” compensation fund.

Fitzpatrick also drew Trump’s ire after the president complained publicly that the congressman “likes voting against Trump” and warned, “You know what happens with that?”

But Fitzpatrick insisted the backlash inside the party was driven by policy concerns, not political fear.

“People have the right to free speech in this country,” Fitzpatrick said. “But what we do here is all about policy.”

At the same time, Fitzpatrick and Republican Michigan Rep. Tom Barrett were expected to side with Democrats in voting for the war powers resolution to rein in Trump’s military campaign in Iran.

GOP leaders pulled the measure at the last minute when it became clear Republicans lacked the votes to defeat it.

Bacon, who spent some 30 years on active duty in the Air Force, said he believed much of the Republican pushback to the war could be resolved if Trump consulted Congress more.

“You sit down with somebody, and work with them instead of threatening, bully and yelling,” said Bacon. “It don’t work.”

Employees reported the incident, according to an affidavit, after a “repeat theft offender” walked out of the store with “high valued store merchandise.”

SAPD arrested 37-year-old Maria Elena Guevara in the Home Depot parking lot.

Guevara told police she came to the store with other men and had a receipt for the items in the cart. She led authorities to a truck where Rogelio Saldana, 55, and Roland Saldana, 52, were taken into custody, according to the affidavit.

Inside the truck, SAPD said it found a printer plugged into an outlet. Police said the receipt had visible typos and a stamp that read “completed APR 27 2026.”

The receipt was shown to Home Depot’s loss prevention team and confirmed to police that it was fake, citing typos and an incorrect barcode, the affidavit states.

Guevara’s purse was later searched by police where officers found more receipts with typos and barcode errors, according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavit, the value of the stolen goods was $1,051.80.

Court documents obtained by KSAT show all three individuals are facing multiple state jail felony charges.

Guevara and Roland Saldana were booked into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center on April 28, jail records show.

Roland Saldana received an organized retail theft ($750-$2,500) charge and was later released on bond the following day.

After exiting jail, a forgery and evading arrest charge was added to Roland Saldana’s list of charges. Records indicate he was booked into jail on May 14 and bonded out the next day.

Guevara faces forgery and engaging in organized criminal activity charges. She bonded out of jail on May 9.

Rogelio Saldana was booked into the Bexar County jail more than three weeks later on May 19, facing organized retail theft ($750-$2,500) and forgery charges, records show.

As of Thursday afternoon, Rogelio Saldana remains behind bars.

Read also:

• Mayor Jones targets District 7 chief of staff in memo on home security leak
• SAPD officer suspended after testing positive for marijuana

Friday, May 22

A crash on Interstate 35 northbound at Randolph Boulevard has caused some traffic delays on Friday morning.

Drivers are asked to use alternate routes.

Additional information was not immediately available.

For more information on traffic, you can click here to view our traffic page on KSAT.com. To view more on the current weather conditions, click here.

Click the links below for current road closures.

• San Antonio road closures
• Bexar County road closures
• TxDOT highway conditions

Plus, empowering young girls--Girl with Grit is encouraging young women to lead, innovate, and excel in the skilled trades. It’s our KSAT Community spotlight for May.

Plan your commute with more convenience as VIA shares their new routes and plans for a smoother trip.

If this rain is helping add some green to your yard, consider a full glow-up with help from Zion Outdoors. Today, they share their tips and tricks to spruce up your happy space.

It’s a packed show full of Spurs spirit, community, and helpful information you won’t want to miss.