The crossing at the top of that list is Old Seguin Road at Salado Creek. SAFD has responded to 46 high-water rescues there since 2015, more than any other spot on its list.

The second-worst location is Old O’Connor Road, just north of Lookout on the Northeast Side, with 31 high-water rescues since 2015.

On the Northwest Side, Hollyhock Road about 600 feet west of Babcock has had 20 high-water rescues.

On the West Side, Pinn Road just south of West Commerce has had 14 high-water rescues since 2015. When the water gets high enough, crews will shut down the entire road.

SAFD said six inches of moving water can knock a person off their feet, and about 12 inches can sweep a vehicle away.

Downtown, San Pedro Creek is not on SAFD’s top 10 list, but two people were swept away in the creek during the Aug. 28 storms. One person was rescued and one died.

Click here to view the full list of high-water rescues.

The city posts real-time updates on barricaded roads at the link here.

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Discussion

At 300 PM GMT (1500 UTC), the center of Post-Tropical Cyclone Hanna was located near latitude 33.4 North, longitude 43.6 West. The post-tropical cyclone is moving toward the east near 5 mph (7 km/h). A turn toward the east-northeast is expected later today with an increase in forward speed on Thursday.

Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 km/h) with higher gusts. The remnant low should gradually weaken during the next couple of days.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1008 mb (29.77 inches).

Watches and Warnings

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

Land Hazards

None.

Carter Eslick, 20, also received three years of supervised probation during a sentencing hearing in Coconino County Superior Court. Eslick had pleaded guilty to a felony hazing charge in the Jan. 31 death of Colin Daniel Martinez, 18, at an off-campus house.

An autopsy found Martinez died of alcohol poisoning with a blood-alcohol content of 0.425% — more than five times the state's legal limit for drivers 21 and over.

Martinez was among four Delta Tau Delta pledges who shared two bottles of vodka to ensure they vomited, according to court documents. Witnesses reported adjusting Martinez’s sleeping position and checking his pulse and breathing to look for signs of alcohol poisoning throughout the night, the documents said.

Coconino County Attorney Ammon Barker said no sentence can undo the harm to Martinez's family.

“My hope is that this case helps people understand the serious dangers of hazing and encourages them to speak up and intervene before another family experiences this kind of loss," Barker said in a statement.

The Associated Press left email and voice messages for Eslick’s attorney, Burges McCowan, seeking comment late Wednesday.

Eslick was the fraternity’s pledge master at the time and was responsible for welcoming new members. He’s no longer a student at NAU.

He could face additional jail time if he doesn't meet the conditions of probation, which include delivering 305 anti-hazing presentations and keeping the court updated on his progress.

Eslick can't use alcohol or drugs unless prescribed, and he must complete any treatment required after an assessment.

The university suspended the fraternity after Martinez’s death, and the national organization later closed the NAU chapter.

The Trump administration had granted visas, albeit with severe restrictions, to Iran’s president and foreign minister and their delegations to attend the annual meeting of world leaders despite the hostilities between the two countries.

While President Masoud Pezeshkian left New York a day after speaking at the United Nations last week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had remained behind ostensibly to participate in indirect talks with the U.S. on opening the Strait of Hormuz, ending the conflict and resuming negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

According to some accounts, Araghchi had planned to stay in New York until Wednesday.

After little progress was made in weekend meetings between Iranian and Qatari mediators, Rubio lost patience and told the Iranians on Monday that Araghchi and his delegation had to leave New York immediately, according to the two officials, who were familiar with the decision and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration process.

Rubio, according to one official, determined that the Iranians had “overstayed their welcome” and that since the high-level meetings at the U.N. were over, they should leave.

Ararghchi and his team departed New York very early Tuesday.

The Iranian U.N. delegation on Wednesday denied that they were ordered to leave.

“The Iranian delegation left New York on Monday evening, in accordance with the schedule that had also been communicated to the U.S. Department of State in advance on September 17,” the delegation wrote on its official X account. “Having achieved nothing, the State Department has resorted to propagating baseless and worthless news.”

Rubio’s decision was first reported by Axios.

Pike, 50, had been scheduled for execution for a killing she committed at age 18 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling that stopped the lethal injection just an hour before it was to start.

Officials appeared to give Pike two doses of pentobarbital.

At 7:46 p.m. prison officials closed the curtain to the media room. They raised the curtain three minutes later. Pike could be heard loudly snoring, and the curtain was closed again at 8:06 pm.

Pike continued to be heard snoring behind the closed curtain until the microphone was cut off at about 8:53 p.m. At that time there was an announcement to escort media witnesses out of the area.

Tennessee Department of Correction spokesman Dorinda Carter told media witnesses she was unable to immediately provide information about what happened.

Lawyers for Pike filed an emergency motion late Wednesday to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to immediately halt and stay the execution, saying she was in “unnecessary agony” and it was violating her right to be executed free of cruel and unusual punishment. They also filed motions in the Sixth Circuit court and district court.

The motion also asserted that the Department of Correction should begin lifesaving measures. “Failure to provide such care constitutes deliberate indifference to legitimate, serious medical needs.”

Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the fatal stabbing and beating in 1995 of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread attention in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.

She was initially scheduled to be put to death in the morning, and witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to issue a stay. That court said a delay was needed to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing.

But later in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to proceed. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority did not explain their order, while the three liberal members signed a dissent that said Pike’s claims deserved a closer look.

A spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Correction then said it would proceed with the execution ahead of a midnight cutoff.

Decision stopping execution was swiftly appealed

After the stay was issued, Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Witnesses and media remained at the prison while the high court considered the case.

The attorney general's office said in its appeal that halting the execution at the last moment traumatized Slemmer’s family and rewarded “abusive delay tactics” by Pike’s attorneys.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent that the decision to vacate the stay interfered with the Sixth Circuit court's handling of the case and “unnecessarily prevents that court from giving due consideration to Pike’s claim.”

Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider her age at the time, her mental illness and her allegations of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler.

“It is inconceivable that in the 21st century, the criminal justice system is poised to execute a survivor of rape and child sexual abuse whose jury never had the opportunity to consider those facts in weighing the defendant’s moral culpability,” her attorneys wrote in a filing.

Pike's case renewed debate on the death penalty for teens

As the execution date drew near, the case renewed debate over the death penalty for young offenders.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had such sentences vacated.

After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she couldn’t “put the brakes on.”

“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement.

Victim's mother says she is waiting for death sentence

Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.

“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” May Martinez told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Saturday.

Martinez said a group helped raise money so she and her husband could travel from Florida to witness the execution. She didn't respond to a message Wednesday after the execution was halted.

Martinez said her daughter's age also should matter in deciding Pike's fate.

“Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst,” she said, noting that her daughter would have turned 51 earlier in September.

The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satan, into her body.

Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.

Executions of women are rare in the US

Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Older records can be spotty, though, so it is difficult to know precise details about the last woman who was put to death there.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.

Most recently, in 2023, Missouri executed Amber McLaughlin for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021 the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that it put a female inmate to death.

Pike would be the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year after Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday.

___

Associated Press writers Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, Ed White in Detroit and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

The officials did not say what the response contained and whether it was a rejection.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi presented the U.S. response to President Masoud Pezeshkian at a Cabinet meeting, government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told the state-run IRNA news agency.

“We will make every effort to bring the agreement to fruition and will firmly stand up for the rights of the Iranian people,” Pezeshkian said. “The agreement must now be based on a win-win strategy.”

The Cabinet meeting followed Araghchi's return to Iran after traveling to New York for last week's U.N. General Assembly, where officials held indirect talks with U.S. officials and also met with Qatari and Pakistani mediators on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders.

Araghchi and his delegation were ordered by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to leave New York earlier than planned, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an internal administration process. They departed New York very early Tuesday.

Araghchi briefed the Cabinet on his trip to New York and the meetings he held there, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Mohajerani said had been conveyed through mediators.

Araghchi last week said he floated the proposal to reopen the strait in a week if the U.S. agreed to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, release frozen Iranian assets and waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, among other conditions.

Trump swiftly rejected the proposal, saying Iran wanted to make a deal because it was “losing so badly” but that its offer “would not be acceptable.” Despite Trump's public rebuff, mediators continued working with Iran and the U.S. to try to broker a deal to end the fighting and open the strait, according to officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department unveiled new sanctions on Tuesday targeting people and companies around the globe that it accuses of being financial facilitators or enablers of Iran’s military supply chain.

The latest action is part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign aimed at severing “critical financial lifelines” for the already heavily sanctioned Iranian government.

Ten people and entities based in Iran, Hong Kong and Pakistan now face sanctions over accusations of procuring weapons and weapon components for Iran’s defense ministry as it fights its now seven-month war against the U.S.

Iran's economy is spiraling further

Iran's economy, under heavy strain before the war started, has been in a free fall since the conflict began in late February.

The country's currency fell to a record low on Tuesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging more than 2.5 million rials to the U.S. dollar in a stark reflection of how the war in the Middle East has steadily eroded the Iranian economy.

The latest decline came just 27 days after the rial hit its previous record low of 2.2 million to the dollar on Sept. 2. The currency has repeatedly reached new lows since the war began in February.

Trump on Wednesday, in an Oval Office exchange with reporters, threatened to “blow them up” if the U.S. and Iran don't forge a deal soon.

“It’s going to end very soon, one way or the other,” Trump said.

At the onset of the conflict, he predicted that the war would last just weeks. More recently, Trump said he expects it won't end until after the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the U.S.

Iranians face soaring prices for medicine amid US blockade, sanctions

Medication prices are soaring in Iran and some treatments have become hard to find, leaving patients and their families scrambling as a U.S. blockade and stepped-up sanctions squeeze the country’s pharmaceuticals industry.

Some medicines have more than tripled in price, further straining Iranians’ finances seven months into the country’s war with the United States and Israel. Prices for food and other goods have skyrocketed even as unemployment has risen and the currency, which hit a record low this week, has lost half its value.

The war has become an economic endurance test. Iran has tried to push world energy prices higher with attacks on the region’s oil shipping routes; the United States, in turn, has aimed to wreck Iran’s economy by blockading its ports since June and slapping it with increasingly tough sanctions.

Iran executes 2 men on charges of violence during January protests

Also on Wednesday, two men were executed in Iran over their role in violence during nationwide anti-government protests in January, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Citing the country's judiciary, IRNA said the men took part in unrest in the northeastern city of Mashhad that left four members of the security forces dead earlier this year. Their death sentences were upheld by Iran’s Supreme Court before being carried out Wednesday morning.

The unrest began Dec. 28 amid anger over Iran’s collapsing currency and worsening economy and quickly spread across the country, with demonstrators increasingly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown.

Rights groups say thousands were killed and tens of thousands arrested, while Iranian authorities have reported a substantially lower death toll.

___

AP writers Michelle L. Price and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed reporting.

But while Trump and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan — a two-term senator and long-time advocate for the pipeline project — described it as a fait accompli, South Korean officials were more cautious, saying they needed to assess the project's commercial viability before committing to the investment.

The announcement was the second time in three days that the president used promises of big projects to try to elevate Senate candidates in states where Trump won comfortably each time he has run — but where Republicans are now in surprisingly competitive races just weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections. On Monday, Trump made a similar-styled announcement about a massive steel plant in Iowa.

But South Korea’s participation in the Alaska project — an 807-mile (1,300-kilometer) pipeline connecting Alaska’s North Slope to a liquefied natural gas export terminal in the southern part of the state —“has not been finalized,” said Han Jeoungae, secretary-general of South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s liberal Democratic Party. She said that she believes Trump’s comments were “intended to emphasize the U.S. position.”

“We will decide whether to invest in the Alaska LNG project only after thoroughly reviewing it in accordance with our domestic legal procedures and based on the principle of commercial viability,” she wrote on Facebook.

Trump and Alaskan leaders in the Oval Office did not describe the project as pending. Trump praised Sullivan —who is facing a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman — for pushing it forward, saying “He’s been working on this deal and other deals in Alaska, the pipeline, for almost 20 years, and we’re now getting it done."

Sullivan thanked Trump and his cabinet for their work on the deal. “Mr. President, this one is huge for Alaska,” Sullivan said, adding that he’d been working on it “relentlessly.”

Peltola, Sullivan's Democratic challenger, also praised the project and Trump's advocacy for it, saying in a statement that she had been part of the bipartisan push to bring it “closer to reality" and looked forward to “continuing this bipartisan work with the President as Alaska’s next United States Senator.”

Trump is hitting the road to promote his administration's actions

The push to deliver big projects in areas where GOP candidates could use a boost comes as Trump's approval ratings have sunk ahead of the midterm elections.

Even Trump himself has begun acknowledging that Republicans could face an uphill climb in their push to retain control of both chambers of Congress after November. “We have to turn this around,” he said on Wednesday, suggesting his administration hasn't done enough to promote its accomplishments.

“I’ve done a very bad job of explaining," the president said during an earlier event in the White House East Room. He's promised to try to rectify that by spending much of the next month on the road campaigning. He begins that swing on Thursday with trips to Texas and Alabama, followed by Ohio on Saturday and Nebraska on Monday. All four are normally solidly red states.

Democrats are targeting Alaska and Iowa

On Monday, Trump announced plans for a $15 billion steel plant to be built by a Minnesota company owned by an Indian industrial conglomerate in Iowa, where Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson is in a close U.S. Senate contest with Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek for the seat being vacated by retiring two-term Republican Joni Ernst. Hinson spoke in the Oval Office during the announcement.

Democrats need to gain a net of four seats in the 100-member Senate to overtake Republicans and gain a majority, and the seats in Iowa and Alaska are among those they're targeting.

Trump's announcements come as voters express concern about near-record fuel prices related to the unresolved war with Iran and as majority Republicans in Congress are facing voters dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

In a late-July poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, only about one-third of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and about 7 in 10 described the economy as poor.

___

Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea. AP writers Tom Beaumont contributed from Des Moines, Iowa and Meg Kinnard from Columbia, S.C.

According to the KSAT Weather Authority, widespread rain is expected and flooding is possible Thursday, especially during the first part of the day.

>> Click here for the latest forecast

Any evening classes, college operations and events after 5 p.m. have been canceled, the district said.

“We will continue to monitor the weather closely and work with the National Weather Service,” the district said. “We will share any urgent updates through our Alamo Alert emergency notification system. Please also check your Alamo email regularly for the latest updates and information.”

This story will be updated if any other delays or cancellations are announced.

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The White Sox used a big first inning and a three-run homer from Chase Meidroth to propel them to a 7-3 win over the Houston Astros on Wednesday to sweep their AL Wild Card Series.

“I’m proud of the guys and certainly happy for them as they’re probably the only ones in this country that believed that they could be in this spot," manager Will Venable said. “And they maintained that belief in the beginning of the season and went throughout the season maintaining that, and they made it happen. So it’s awesome to get to this point.”

It's the first time Chicago has won a playoff series since beating Houston in the World Series in 2005. Under the direction of Venable, the second-year skipper, and with a letter of support from Pope Leo XIV, the White Sox advanced to face AL Central champion Cleveland in the AL Division Series beginning Saturday in Cleveland.

“It means everything for our fans,” Meidroth said. “They have been incredible all year. So the main thing was getting back to Chicago for some postseason baseball, and so we’re really blessed that we get to do that.”

The White Sox, who lost 100 games in each of the last three seasons, are the only team in major league history to follow consecutive 100-loss seasons with a playoff berth.

The AL West-winning Astros went 81-81 to become the first team to reach the postseason without a winning record. Their recent playoff woes in Houston continued Wednesday as they dropped their ninth straight home playoff game in a ninth trip to the postseason in the last 10 years.

Chicago pounced on the Astros for four runs in the first inning a day after scoring three in the first two innings of a 6-3 win. Houston ace Hunter Brown was lifted after getting just two outs and wasn’t helped by a sloppy defense which committed two first-inning errors.

He was 6-0 with a 2.39 ERA in six career starts against the White Sox before Wednesday’s debacle.

The Astros clawed their way back into it with solo home runs from Jeremy Peña, Cam Smith and Jose Altuve to trail by 1 entering the sixth inning.

AJ Blubaugh, who opened Game 1, and Peter Lambert, pitching on two days’ rest, combined to retire the next 13 batters after Brown exited. Chicago’s next baserunner came when Lambert walked Andrew Benintendi to start the sixth and then walked Tristan Peters.

Bryan Abreu came in, and Meidroth smashed his fifth pitch off the wall in left field to push the lead to 7-3. He yelled on his entire trip around the bases to the delight of a patch of White Sox fans seated near the visitor’s dugout.

“I was looking for something middle up,” Meidroth said. “He’s had my number all year, really good fastball, so I got something middle up and I was able to cash in for the team. So, yeah, that was awesome.”

Houston faced boos for a second game in a row from an unusually thin crowd. It’s a second straight playoff trip where the Astros have been swept at home in the wild card after losing both games to Detroit in 2024.

Now they’ll face an uncertain future with manager Joe Espada’s contract set to expire at season’s end after general manager Dana Brown was fired last month.

“We fought back and we set our goal to win this division and we accomplished that,” Espada said. “We wanted to play deep in October. We came short on that. But just the way our guys stayed together and were able to get this far, extremely proud of our team.”

It was a disappointing series for Houston slugger and AL MVP-favorite Yordan Alvarez, who managed only a single with two strikeouts in eight at-bats in the series.

Altuve’s shot to the seats in left field in the fourth inning got the Astros within 4-3. It was the 28th postseason homer of his career, which is second in MLB history behind Manny Ramirez (29).

“We’re all sad,” Altuve said. “We wanted to go to the World Series and win it. But today is sorrow for the final day of the season."

The Astros had a shot to take the lead before Meidroth’s homer. They loaded the bases with two outs in the fifth, but Anthony Kay retired Altuve on a fly out to end the inning.

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia. The shaken passengers from the FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv landed Wednesday evening in Israel on another flight, as onlookers cheered. Israel's emergency services said they treated three passengers with minor injuries.

It was not clear what motivated the attack, which led Israel to scramble warplanes amid concerns about a possible hijacking. In a CNN interview aired on Wednesday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attacker was an Omani national and was being interrogated in Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested.

Aviation experts were surprised the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.

“We’re going to die,” passenger Naama Bershadski recalled thinking as she closed her eyes and prayed.

A video shared by Netanyahu's office showed passenger Yaniv Hayoun, who grappled with the attacker, wearing a bloodied shirt and hugging the prime minister, who told Hayoun: “I look at you and I see a lion. I see a great hero."

President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he and Netanyahu discussed the incident “at length” by telephone and that it seemed as though the copilot “was perhaps a terrorist or perhaps a whack job. And, he stabbed the pilot.”

Responders said they knew they had seconds to act

Hayoun, who Netanyahu identified as a plumber, said he and others pushed their way into the cockpit, where he saw the alleged attacker seemingly trying to destroy the controls.

“The door apparently wasn’t locked, and we managed to open it,” Hayoun told journalists. “What made it difficult for us was the (other) pilot himself. He had been stabbed and was on the other side of the door.”

Hayoun told Netanyahu that as people wrestled with the attacker, he grabbed the controls and pulled them the way he had seen on television shows. Then crew members took over. FlyDubai said the aircraft was secured by crew “who diverted and landed the aircraft safely.”

Another passenger, dentist Shota Musayev, told journalists they realized they had just seconds to take control of the plane before a “critical event.” They feared another attacker might be on the plane, so “we spread a few more people inside the plane so that if something happened, we would be able to simply take control.”

Musayev then attended to the wounded pilot: “He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him.”

Netanyahu identified the captain as Smit Machchhar, an Indian citizen, and noted his “extraordinary bravery.” The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Machchhar was hospitalized in stable condition.

In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity that aired Wednesday night, Netanyahu said the attacker might have hit the captain with an axe. Airlines are generally required to carry crash axes in the cockpit for use in an emergency to break open a window to escape or break open a panel to access a fire.

“Despite being stabbed and seriously injured, he fought back, resisted, opened the cockpit door, and enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic midair disaster,” Netanyahu said of the wounded captain on X. “He saved the lives of 174 people, including Israeli citizens and other nationals.”

Israel's Foreign Ministry said those on board were from Israel, India and the United Arab Emirates. The U.S. State Department said four passengers had American citizenship.

FlyDubai said its flights to and from Israel would be suspended while an investigation takes place. Netanyahu said he spoke with the UAE’s president, who agreed that Israel would join in interrogating the suspect.

The incident came at a busy travel time as the Jewish High Holy Days wrap up. In addition, national elections will be held on Oct. 27 and many Israelis plan to fly back to vote, since Israel doesn’t permit absentee voting from abroad.

Netanyahu had warned in recent days of unspecified, heightened security threats. The country is a week away from the anniversary of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which has triggered a series of wars.

Aviation experts marvel that the plane didn't crash

In the chaos about two and a half hours after leaving Dubai, the flight descended from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in about a minute, before making an erratic circle close to the Jordanian border and landing in Tabuk about an hour later, according to Flightradar24, which identified the aircraft as a Boeing 737 Max 8.

According to a statement by Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Tabuk, the plane landed there at 9:45 a.m., an hour after making a distress call.

“Suddenly the aircraft started to fall down, like, a massive turbulence, like a massive G force, for 20 or 30 seconds,” passenger Almog Italie said.

Former United Airlines pilot and aviation safety expert Steve Arroyo said he was surprised the plane was able to land safely after most of the rudder was ripped off the tail during the extreme descent.

“That was a serious descent and strong aerodynamic forces on that rudder for that to happen. I’m just amazed the aircraft didn’t come apart,” Arroyo said.

Another expert, Jeff Guzzetti, said that given the rate of descent, it may not have been possible for the plane to level out if it had fallen below 10,000 feet.

“It is remarkable they were able to pull out of that dive. What saved them is there was enough altitude left for them to recover,” said Guzzetti, who used to investigate crashes for the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S.

A panicked mayday call as the flight sought place to land

A person who heard the flight’s communications with air traffic control described the plane being turned away by Saudi Arabia and Jordan before eventually landing in Tabuk.

The person said the pilot’s voice was trembling as he called “mayday” and said a hijacking was taking place and ambulances would be needed. But Saudi Arabia initially denied clearance to land and directed him to Jordan. The plane was told to wait for clearance from the Jordanian military and then turned away.

The pilot then returned to Saudi Arabia and said he had to land in Tabuk. The air control operators gave no reason for the refusals. The person who heard the communications spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he spoke with his counterpart in the UAE and they agreed to work together “against extremist elements seeking to harm security and undermine stability in the region.”

An official confirmed that Israel had scrambled warplanes, fearing a hijacking. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was under investigation.

Israelis have made emergency landings in Saudi Arabia before

Israelis were targeted in a string of hijackings and airplane attacks by Palestinian militants in the 1960s and 1970s. Israel has not experienced a hijacking in decades but maintains some of the strictest airport security in the world, including on Israel-bound flights.

The emergency landing in Saudi Arabia was not the first for a plane carrying Israelis home. The kingdom does not have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, but ended its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory in 2022.

Since then, Saudi Arabia has coordinated emergency landings for Israeli passengers, including in 2023 when a plane experienced an electrical malfunction.

The UAE has become a popular vacation destination for Israeli tourists since the countries normalized ties in 2020. FlyDubai is the lower-cost sister carrier of Emirates airlines.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo, Scharf from Jerusalem and Funk from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Sam Metz, Aamer Madhani and Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Ami Ben Tov in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adam Schreck in Bangkok, Darlene Superville in Washington and Giovanna Dell'Orto in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

The indictment against 36-year-old Ivanna Lisette Ortiz of Orlando was unsealed Wednesday by a Los Angeles County judge.

Ortiz, appearing in court wearing yellow jail clothes, spoke only to her attorney, who entered a not guilty plea for her. The judge then ordered her held on $2.6 million bail.

The move came a day after another judge ruled that Ortiz is mentally competent to stand trial. The secret grand jury proceedings were held as Ortiz was undergoing months of psychiatric evaluation. The jurors returned their indictment June 18, but it was kept under wraps for three months until the judge ruled on her competency. Now, a case that appeared stalled — possibly permanently — is on a fast track to trial.

No one was injured in the March 8 shooting. Authorities allege Ortiz drove a Tesla up to the gates of the Beverly Hills-area property of the singing superstar and her rap star partner, A$AP Rocky, pointed an AR-15 style rifle out the window and fired at least 20 rounds toward the property and the neighboring house.

“This is a person who wanted to kill Rihanna,” Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott said outside court. “Everyone else was collateral damage.”

Bullets tore through the Airstream trailer, according to a police report. Shots also struck the wall of their home's nursery, where their three small children were with their nanny. Rihanna’s mother and several staffers also were in the home, and authorities say she also fired shots toward a neighbor's house.

Both Rihanna and her mother, Monica Fenty, testified to the grand jury, as did Hollywood agent Tracey Jacobs, the owner of the neighboring house who was home at the time and is listed among the victims in the indictment.

Their testimony remains under seal but will become public in about two weeks unless the defense seeks to keep them secret and the judge agrees.

Rihanna told investigators just after the shooting that she “suddenly heard approximately ten loud sounds like something banging on metal,” and pulled Rocky out of a bed and onto the ground. She said she opened curtains and saw bullet marks in the windshield right in front of where she had been standing.

Deputy Public Defender Derek Dillman, Ortiz's attorney, did not speak to reporters outside the courtroom, and a message seeking comment from the public defender's office on the indictment was not immediately answered. Other than her not guilty pleas, her lawyers have not publicly addressed the charges, saying only that they would work to defend her rights.

Investigators said that on the day of her arrest, Ortiz told them: “I wasn’t attempting murder.”

Ortiz was charged with very similar counts in March. The new indictment supersedes those charges. The secret grand jury proceedings allow prosecutors to skip California’s preliminary hearing process, where evidence must be presented publicly to see if a trial is merited.

The indictment also charges Ortiz with 10 counts of assault with an assault weapon — one for each of the people on the two properties — and three counts of shooting at an inhabited dwelling or camper. It names the couple's three children Rza, Riot and Rocki, all under age 5, as victims. The assault weapon counts carry a stiffer sentence than the original charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm. Ortiz was the registered owner of the rifle, which she obtained in Florida, authorities said.

She could get life in prison if convicted of all counts.

Reports have been sealed on the psychiatric evaluations that paused the case shortly after it began, and there was no public discussion of the details of her mental state.

Prosecutors have not said anything about a motive or cited any connection between Rihanna and Ortiz, a longtime licensed speech pathologist. But in videos posted on Facebook and YouTube in the months before the shooting, Ortiz made increasingly angry comments on Rihanna that sometimes took the form of threats, at one point calling her a “devil.”

A nine-time Grammy Award winner, Rihanna has had 14 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including “We Found Love,” “Work,” “Umbrella” and “Disturbia.”

Some residents have questioned whether another trauma center could help reduce emergency room wait times. University Health spokesperson Leni Kirkman said trauma centers are designed to treat patients with severe injuries, including those caused by car crashes, gun violence and falls. They do not serve the same purpose as general emergency departments, she said.

“Trauma is not an emergency room,” Kirkman said. “Trauma center is a whole hospital. Trauma teams are activated when a patient is injured. Not sick, not a heart attack, not a stroke, but when they suffer an injury that might require surgery.”

Kirkman said the most seriously injured patients need the resources and expertise available at a Level I trauma center. While she explained that San Antonio has 13 trauma centers, most are level three and four, which are responsible for lower-level traumas.

“Every hospital can’t be a level one trauma center,” she said. “First of all, there are not enough specialists to staff them, and it is extremely expensive to operate a level one trauma center, so they are very important resources in their region.”

Kirkman said the number of trauma cases requiring the highest level of care has declined, even as San Antonio’s population continues to grow. Kirkman said spreading those patients across more facilities could affect the experience and training available at University Health and Brooke Army Medical Center.

In a statement, BAMC said patient volume is crucial to patient care and military medical readiness. Kirkman said BAMC also brings battlefield medical expertise to the San Antonio community.

She said reducing the number of patients treated at the city’s existing Level I trauma centers could affect highly trained surgeons, specialists and trauma research.

“When it’s your loved one, you want somebody who has done it multiple times before they are operating on your loved ones,” Kirkman said.

The decision ultimately rests with the Department of State Health Services, but in a committee meeting Tuesday, District 4 Councilman Edward Mungia, District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Galvito, and District 8 Councilwoman Ivalis Meza Gonzales cited a lack of information and concerns about limiting healthcare options.

District 9 Councilwoman Misty Spears said that an added trauma center would ultimately hurt BAMC’s military mission, and leaders at the Pentagon were concerned.

Methodist has not filed official paperwork with DSHS to upgrade its trauma services yet, but city leaders said Tuesday that they would begin taking steps on Oct. 1. Methodist has not responded to KSAT’s inquiries for comment.

More coverage of this story on KSAT:

• San Antonio City Council seeks more data on proposed Methodist trauma center upgrade
• As Methodist Healthcare seeks new trauma center, city leaders want to protect BAMC military mission

In a letter obtained by KSAT, Shanon Miller, the city’s chief downtown officer, said she had received a letter from Conservation Society President Betty Bouche ending the society’s license to host NIOSA.

The move marks a significant development for the long-running event, which is tied to La Villita and preservation efforts in the historic downtown area.

Miller also wrote that the city would continue working with the Conservation Society to spend the remaining money in the La Villita Preservation Fund.

The fund is used for city-owned buildings and improvements.

In a statement sent to KSAT, Bouche said the Conservation Society sent a letter requesting the termination of the license agreement “within the last couple of days”.

Bouche also said the La Villita fund has a remaining balance of approximately $890,000, which will be directed to the city’s general fund.

The city will decide how to use the remaining money in the La Villita fund.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana contend that the laws in California, Massachusetts and New York undermine their abortion bans and their states' sovereignty. Federal regulations allow prescriptions for abortion pills to be made by telehealth and filled by mail, and the three GOP states want to keep the pills out and punish out-of-state providers for sending them.

“This is the first time we've seen a state or group of states suing other states to challenge the validity of shield laws,” said Mary Ziegler, a University of California, Davis, law professor and author of seven books on abortion law and history.

The Supreme Court can hear disputes between states directly, though it rarely does. If the top court weighs in, it could short-circuit existing lawsuits.

Louisiana and anti-abortion activists have been frustrated with a lack of federal action by President Donald Trump's administration against medication abortion. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its rules allowing mail-order prescriptions. The Supreme Court in May preserved access to abortion medications as that case plays out.

“We need and deserve the opportunity to be able to enforce our laws against those who have chosen, despite their knowledge of the illegality, to continue to foster abortion in our state,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said during a news conference with Murrill and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin.

Thirteen states ban abortion in all stages of pregnancy, which the Supreme Court allowed in its 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Most Democratic-controlled states adopted abortion protections, including eight with laws intended to protect providers who prescribe abortion pills for patients in states with bans.

Louisiana and Texas have pursued criminal charges and civil claims against doctors based in New York and California. Officials in California and New York have refused to cooperate, citing their shield laws.

“Louisiana, Alabama, and Arkansas are asking the Supreme Court to let them impose their abortion bans on New York and punish our doctors for providing legal health care,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Wednesday.

Ziegler said Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana would have a stronger case if they had first tried to get the highest court in one of the three other states to force its officials to cooperate. She also said the lawsuit's timing is odd — six weeks before November congressional midterm elections that could prove difficult for the GOP.

“This may be an example of the political incentives not being the same for state-level Republicans versus federal Republicans,” she said. “If you're running in a contested race, calling attention to abortion is not a great idea, but if you're Louisiana attorney general, you're not really in that position.”

But Rachel Rebouche, a University of Texas law professor, said suing other states has been a potential legal strategy for GOP states since the first shield laws were enacted.

“That it’s taken this long is kind of remarkable,” she said.

Even before Roe was overturned, abortion pills were the most common means of ending pregnancies in the U.S., and telehealth makes abortion available even where it's banned. The three GOP attorneys general said hundreds of patients in their states use pills to end pregnancies each month.

Also on Wednesday, Alabama, Arkansas and Louisiana filed a lawsuit against 30 out-of-state abortion pill providers and their officers, accusing them of false advertising and other misconduct harming patients in states with abortion bans.

FDA scientists have repeatedly found the regimen safe and effective, though the agency is now reviewing its rules.

Councilmembers reviewed a revised proposal, which is a similar, delayed version of the one they considered three months ago. Under the new plan, rates could bump an average monthly bill by roughly $13 to $17 by 2030.

Instead of raising rates in July under the initial proposal, residential rates would go up 6.9% on Jan. 1, 2027 and be raised again by 6.5% in 2028, between 4.5% and 7% in 2029, and between 4% and 6.6% in 2030.

The range of rates in the latter two years of increases dips slightly lower than what was presented in June, 4.5% and 4% instead of 5.5% and 5%.

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said she supports a potential SAWS rate increase, citing the need to replace aging infrastructure and protect the city’s drinking water.

During KSAT Q&A on the 6 p.m. newscast, Jones said SAWS needs additional money for major upgrades, including work on pipes that are more than 100 years old.

“I think it is an appropriate time for us to invest in the infrastructure,” Jones said. “It will require a rate increase. The SAWS team has worked very hard to make sure that it’s as small as it can be. But at the end of the day, some of these projects are over $200 million.”

SAWS officials have said the money would help fund critical infrastructure projects as the utility works to maintain reliable service and keep drinking water clean.

City Council is expected to vote on the proposed rate increase next week.

Read more:

• SAWS is back with a new rate proposal; what’s changed?

The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement that it received “credible information about an individual planning a violent attack" for Thursday in Austin.

The tip came in Tuesday evening, and SWAT officers made the arrest about 3 a.m. Wednesday at a residence in Converse, near San Antonio.

Benny Caldera Jr. could face charges including felony terroristic threat against a public servant, the DPS statement said. He was jailed and then released on a $75,000 bond, according to the online case docket.

Messages were left seeking comment from John Bunk, an attorney listed for Caldera.

Officials did not provide details about the alleged plot, citing the ongoing investigation.

DPS notified state lawmakers about the threat and arrest early Wednesday. The Capitol remained open during regular operating hours.

Texas Senate Secretary Patsy Spaw said in a notice that there will be increased security at the Capitol during the investigation.

Gov. Greg Abbott said the state DPS was assisted by the FBI in making the arrest.

"Texas will NOT tolerate threats of violence against our Capitol," the governor said in a statement on social media.

Judge Dustin Howell said that the case against Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, should proceed after prosecutors presented body-worn camera footage of the encounter in Austin, in which Garces Perez allegedly struck a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with his driver's side mirror.

Garces Perez is charged with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer and faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. His case has sparked widespread outrage across the Texas capital city and brought renewed criticism from Democrats of President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.

Garces Perez appeared in court in a wheelchair and wearing a sling on his arm

With a bullet still lodged in his back, Garces Perez appeared in court in a wheelchair. His attorneys said he still urgently needs medical care, 10 days after being shot. He also wore a sling on his arm and needed help putting on a headset to listen to a translation of the proceedings.

The defense called the charges against Garces Perez “retaliation” and argued that the camera footage was inconclusive because it didn't fully capture the moment when he allegedly tried to flee.

The hearing also included testimony from Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Rick Bazan, who signed the criminal complaint charging Garces Perez with assault. The defense argued that Bazan, whose agency is the investigative arm of ICE, could not confirm whether the ICE agent was actually hit by the car mirror since no federal investigators interviewed the agent directly. Bazan also couldn't explain why officer allegedly struck by the mirror was not wearing a body-worn camera.

Footage provided Wednesday in court shows officers pulling Garces Perez over Sept. 20 in Austin, where he was making deliveries for DoorDash.

The video showed Garces Perez giving officers his drivers license through a crack in his window and then asking in Spanish if he can park his car so that a relative could come retrieve it. The officer demanded Garces Perez get out of the car multiple times, to which he asked if he could park his own car so a family member could come retrieve it. After a back and forth, Garces Perez abruptly and rapidly drives off.

Prosecutors show video but not of the shooting itself

Prosecutors presented a video from cameras at a nearby business showing the ensuing high-speed chase through residential streets. The shooting itself was not captured on the footage shared in court.

The federal officer who shot Garces Perez wasn’t wearing a body-worn camera. The immigration officer who did have a camera was driving in a separate car and turned the camera off during the pursuit.

Garces Perez said he was struck by a law enforcement SUV and spun around before he was shot. Federal officers told investigators, however, that Garces Perez attempted to strike an officer with his car at the end of the chase before the unidentified officer fired his weapon.

The accusations against Garces Perez recall previous claims made by immigration agents after other high-profile shootings similarly accusing drivers of weaponizing their vehicles. In a handful of cases, the allegations have been undermined or walked back after the release of body-worn camera footage, drawing renewed scrutiny about the DHS’s reliance on vehicular stops to execute arrests.

The man's lawyer accuses ICE of denying him medical treatment

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, one of Garces Perez's immigration attorneys, accused ICE of denying him medical treatment for his bullet wound.

“ICE’s conduct has been so egregious, that physicians, nurses, medical ethicists and health advocates have come together to demand his release,” she said outside court after the hearing.

Garces Perez entered the U.S. in 2024 using CBP One, a program begun under President Joe Biden that allowed migrants to schdule appointments with U.S. authorities to be considered for asylum. President Donald Trump ended the program on his first day back in office.

Garces Perez was an asylum seeker and had a valid work permit, according to his lawyer. She said a judge later issued a deportation order after Garces Perez missed an immigration court hearing because the notice had been sent to a former address.

Judge Howell said he denied Garces Perez bond on the basis that he could be a flight risk to Venezuela, where he has a child.

His attorneys have filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent his removal from the U.S.

___

Riddle reported from Los Angeles.

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Patrick Steck, the assistant director of the department, said according to team members, a number of those in the unhoused community have heard about the rain forecast.

He said that is good to hear, but they are working to make sure those who have not heard get the weather alert.

Steck said everyone the outreach team speaks to is being encouraged to find higher ground, especially those who live in or near drainage ditches or culverts.

Last March, a 61-year-old woman who reportedly lived in a drainage tunnel drowned after she was swept away. Her body was found in Woodlawn Lake.

Six months later, another tragedy hit when another woman and a man known to be part of the unhoused community were found dead near Salado Creek.

They too were believed to have been swept away.

Steck said to prevent loss of life, those who do not have shelter need to be informed as early as possible about potential safety risks and dangers, such as avoiding drainage systems and other low-lying areas.

“So, number one is getting the word out about what’s coming. So, we’re monitoring the weather forecasts,” Steck explained. “Every time they come out from the weather service, which is several times per day, we’re keeping a track of that internally and then getting that message (out).”

Something else the city is doing to ensure the unhoused community is aware of the potential flooding danger in an area is putting up signs.

Steck said the signs are going up in areas where they know people live and sleep, but members of the outreach team missed them and could not tell them face-to-face that their spot could possibly flood.

The city is working with local nonprofits like Close to Home, Haven for Hope, Corozan and the Salvation Army to offer resources.

Steck said the city’s outreach team will be back out Thursday to check on the people in areas they have already stopped by to make sure they are safe and to also hand out rain ponchos.

If you see someone who may need assistance, you can call or share the number to the Community Connections Hotline at 210-207-1799.

Read also:

• Texas deploys emergency crews, equipment ahead of severe weather threat
• After $16K in damage, West Side homeowner prepares for another storm
• Gov. Greg Abbott discusses how Texas will prepare for this week’s flood threat

The transcript, which has not been publicly released, raises new questions surrounding the local district attorney's decision not to prosecute anyone at the time.

In recent days, Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten has maintained the woman's first account to police didn't include allegations that she was drugged, incapacitated beyond the ability to consent, or forced into sex. Yet, he also said he had reopened the investigation based on new information in the woman's lawsuit, which was filed this month.

Cornell has agreed to bring in outside lawyers to independently investigate how the university handled the woman's allegations, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday.

The woman initially went to Cornell's campus police about three weeks after the alleged attack that began on Oct. 19, 2024, then went back on Nov. 14 and 15, 2024, to be interviewed.

“Yes. It was coercion, yes,” she told a campus police officer, according to the transcript obtained by CBS. According to CBS News, she said she was “completely and totally incapacitated” before some of the sexual abuse.

The woman acknowledged she had been drinking alcohol and used drugs the night she visited the Chi Phi fraternity house in October 2024, and that she had gaps in her memory.

She also told police she was comfortable with an initial sexual encounter with two of the men, but not with what happened later, when other men began to enter the room.

“And then, of course, I was being hit at the same time. Physically hit very, very hard," she told police, according to the transcript. “I can say with 100% confidence I was raped," it said she told investigators.

The woman, identified only by the pseudonym Jane Doe in the lawsuit, filed a complaint Sept. 16 saying she was sexually assaulted at the Chi Phi fraternity house after being pressured into snorting ketamine, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol. She became completely incapacitated while fraternity members were sexually assaulting her, she said.

Van Houten didn't immediately respond to emails and phone messages from The Associated Press on Wednesday, but he told CBS News he never saw the transcript of the woman's interview when his office declined to bring charges, and relied instead on a statement written by a campus police officer but signed by the accuser.

Van Houten has released a summary of that statement, with some of her direct quotes included. He has defended his office’s decision not to do additional investigation after the woman first came forward.

“There were no question marks. There was no additional need to find information because we had all of the information that the police collected from Jane Doe through her very detailed, very comprehensive statement that she provided,” Van Houten told CNN earlier this week.

Cornell University first publicly disclosed that it was investigating the woman's allegations on Nov. 8, 2024, the same day she first went to police. The school sent students an email warning them that a person had reported they had been sexually assaulted at a fraternity house and coerced into consuming drugs. Cornell suspended the Chi Phi fraternity the same day.

In another public statement to students in late November 2024, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff said campus police were investigating “deeply disturbing allegations of drug abuse and sexual violence” at the fraternity house.

Later, Cornell appointed a task force designed to address sexual assault on campus. But with the district attorney's decision not to pursue charges and the university's internal disciplinary investigation shielded from the public, attention on the matter waned.

Cornell said in a statement this week that it supported the decision to reopen the criminal investigation, adding that its own investigation had led to some students being disciplined or expelled. The Chi Phi chapter remains barred from campus, but the university has declined to release more information on discipline for individual students, citing privacy rules.

Earlier this week, Hochul called for a new investigation into the university's handling of the matter. In a post on social media Wednesday, she said she had spoken with Kotlikoff and he “agreed to bring in outside counsel for an independent investigation.” Cornell confirmed it had agreed but declined additional comment.

“This culture has to stop. And in New York, we’re going to do everything we can to stop it,” Hochul said.

Benny Caldera Jr., 40, was arrested Wednesday and charged with felony terroristic threat against a public servant, records show. The charge is a third-degree felony.

DPS said the department received information Tuesday about a planned attack on the Texas State Capitol scheduled for Oct. 1, 2026.

DPS and FBI agents arrested Caldera around 3 a.m. at his Converse home, according to DPS. The investigation is ongoing.

Caldera was booked into the Bexar County Adult Detention Center on a $75,000 bond, jail records show.

The Texas Capitol remains open during regular operating hours, DPS said.

Suspicious behavior can be reported through the iWatchTexas mobile app, online at iwatchtx.org or by calling 844-643-2251.

Read also:

Girl stabs boy at Metzger Middle School, Judson ISD board member says

Maria Salazar, who lives on the city’s West Side, said the storm left her neighborhood looking like “a war zone” after trees were uprooted and fell through her roof.

Weeks later, Salazar is still waiting for repairs to be completed. She said she hopes the work will be finished within the next few weeks, barring any setbacks.

With more rain in the forecast, Salazar said her first concern was whether the unfinished portions of her home could withstand the weather.

Her carpenter told her the repairs should be able to handle the rain, but Salazar said she remains nervous, particularly because of a tree near her home.

“My neighbor has a tree; I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.

The latest storm threat is expected to be driven more by heavy, widespread rain than destructive winds, according to KSAT’s Weather Authority. The rainfall could create a risk for flooding in parts of the area.

For Salazar, the possibility of more rain brings back memories of the damage she experienced last month.

“I’m hoping we don’t get any water, but I have PTSD, so I have towels ready and candles going,” she said.

Salazar said the storm uprooted trees that fell onto her home and caused significant damage. The repairs have cost her more than $16,000, not including cosmetic improvements.

She is now focused on protecting what she can, including items with sentimental value that remain inside the damaged portion of her home.

Among those belongings are her daughter’s quinceañera items from about 15 years ago, along with photographs and photo albums.

Because the damaged area is not safe to enter, Salazar said she cannot retrieve the belongings unless she can reach them from outside.

With another storm approaching, she is considering getting a tarp to help protect the area.

Read also:

• Gov. Greg Abbott discusses how Texas will prepare for this week’s flood threat
• How school districts plan for inclement weather during athletic events

And no matter which way they go, the bond vote could also effectively put the Spurs arena project back onto the ballot, albeit in a roundabout way.

The city’s five-year bond programs are typically crammed with major infrastructure projects like overhauling failed streets, drainage projects, park improvements, new greenway trails, and fire and police stations. Across the city, staff estimate there are 304 potential projects worth $5.8 billion.

“Our need will always outweigh our capacity,” City Manager Erik Walsh said during a Wednesday council briefing.

This time, the gap is especially noticeable.

The bond programs, which require voter approval, are backed by city property taxes. But because of sagging property values, the city estimates it only has the capacity for a $442 million bond program in 2027. That’s compared to the $1.2 billion program voters approved in 2022, which also included the city’s first housing bond.

Staff also recommended raising stormwater fees on residents’ San Antonio Water System bills to make room for another $175 million worth of drainage projects outside of the bond program. That would be in addition to the SAWS rate increase the council is also considering.

Staff say if property values recover sooner than expected, the city could put together another bond program before the five-year program is over.

Some councilmembers, miffed that needed projects may have to sit on the back burner even longer, want to pursue a larger bond program — perhaps $1 billion or more.

“People on our sides of town are demanding more things, their fair share, and they haven’t been getting that,” Edward Mungia (D4) said.

But under that approach, if property values don’t rise quickly enough to cover debt payments, which the city doesn’t expect they will, the property tax rate would have to go up instead.

And any increase would be on top of the 3.9% tax hike the City Council just approved as part of its regular operating budget and another increase planned for next year.

“If we go and we raise the amount of this bond by increasing taxes, we’re going to have something of a holy war on our hands over this bond package,” said Marc Whyte (D10), who was one of four votes against the budget tax increase.

Walsh promised staff would provide councilmembers with “worst case scenarios” to see how much residents could see their tax bills go up.

Project Marvel infrastructure

Part of that bond could include $35 million worth of infrastructure needs around the city’s planned downtown sports and entertainment district, known as Project Marvel. That amount assumes the Texas Department of Transportation provides about 80% of the funding for several projects.

That’s a dramatic drop from the $220 million to $250 million staff initially presented in June 2025, but city officials say they’ve dropped or scaled back some of the major projects.

For instance, there is no plan for a new parking garage within the new proposal and no complicated “single-point urban interchange” for Durango Boulevard and I-37. Work on Durango Boulevard would include improvements, but not a complete overhaul.

Part of the non-binding term sheet for the Spurs arena deal, though, says the city’s $489 million share is subject to voter approval passage of a bond program to support infrastructure improvements for the district.

If that fails, Walsh told KSAT, “We would have to reexamine where we’re at with the whole thing.”

At least one council member said they wanted to see those projects separated into their own proposition for voters to consider, and Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones asked about dipping into a pool of hotel-related state tax dollars the city’s using to fund the arena, known as the Project Finance Zone (PFZ), instead, to fund those downtown projects, and possibly others.

She also asked about using city-controlled tax capture districts known as Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZ) to fund potential bond projects.

“I think as we’re, you know, all looking at how do we get as much done here, looking at all the various pots, we want to also explain to folks, ‘Hey, we have taken those things that can be paid for with other pots of money. We’ve done that to protect as much of the bond capacity as possible,’” she said.

Read also:

• San Antonio ethics board fines Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez $1,000 over Facebook post
• San Antonio City Council seeks more data on proposed Methodist trauma center upgrade
• San Antonio lacks thousands of streetlights, and not everyone wants them

The laws ban employers from using the technology to predict a worker's emotional state by using their biometric data, require employers to send written notices to workers if AI is responsible for mass layoffs and ban employers from relying on AI to decide to fire someone.

The Democratic governor also signed an executive order to require state agencies to continue to refer to the technology as “artificial intelligence” instead of the term “ super intelligence ” President Donald Trump recently ordered U.S. diplomats to use.

“AI should expand opportunity — not come at the expense of workers and families,” Newsom said in a statement. “As this technology reshapes the workplace, California is putting people at the center.”

He sharply criticized Trump at an hourlong event with reporters Wednesday for not passing comprehensive federal AI regulations at a time when industry leaders are warning about the technology’s risks. Trump said Tuesday that top tech leaders signed a voluntary accord to “self-police” AI development.

The governor signed a law this month requiring operators of AI chatbots to perform risk assessments before rolling them out and an executive order requiring the state to consult with experts to further improve oversight over the industry.

“We have to do a lot more in the absence of federal leadership,” Newsom said, leaving the door open for the possibility of calling lawmakers back for a special session to further tackle the issue.

The news conference came on Newsom's last day to sign or veto bills before he terms out in January. He started the event by signing a law creating a tax credit program aimed at helping local news organizations — including newspapers, digital outlets and TV stations — hire and retain journalists. Newsom criticized what he called Trump's assault on a free press, pointing to the president's barring of news organizations from the White House.

Newsom also spoke about the upcoming midterms, which will decide control of Congress. He involved himself early in that fight by leading Democrats last year in a redistricting battle to improve their chances of winning more House seats. He's said repeatedly that the stakes are high if his party doesn't succeed in November.

“There will not be a free and fair election in 2028 unless we take back the House of Representatives,” he said Wednesday.

Asked if he's set a deadline for himself to decide whether he'll run for president in 2028, Newsom hedged, saying “that moment will arrive when it arrives.”

Former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who, like Newsom, hails from the San Francisco Bay Area, has also said she’s considering running for the job in 2028. Newsom told CNN recently that he wouldn’t run for president if she entered the race. He said the two haven't spoken since that interview aired.

Newsom weighed in on a proposal to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires that will be on the ballot in November, which he's consistently opposed. He said he respects supporters of the measure, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who are committed to addressing income inequality in the country.

“He's spot on about the balance between the rich and the poor,” Newsom said. “On this issue, we fundamentally disagree.”

Newsom's remarks came hours before a gubernatorial debate between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton.

“You're going to ask me, ‘Are you going to watch the debate?’” he said. “No.”

The last U.S. troops left an air base in northern Iraq under a deal between Baghdad and Washington.

Trump, in a social media post, described the withdrawal by a Sept. 30 deadline as “orderly." Appearing soon after at a White House event celebrating Hispanics, he spoke at length about the withdrawal and said, “It’s been a long time with very bad decision making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place. It was a quagmire. For many, many years it lasted. But soon that part of history will be over.”

He said the shift was a victory for the U.S., Iraq and a sign of victory over the Islamic State group.

The withdrawal, agreed on two years ago, comes against the backdrop of the ongoing war between the United States and Iran that has also sometimes spilled over into Iraq, with Iran-backed militias firing on U.S. troops and the U.S. striking the groups' strongholds.

Trump’s comments came as his own decision earlier this year to launch the war with Iran has been compared to the Iraq war for its undefined mission as it nears its seventh month.

Appearing at the White House, Trump made that comparison, arguing both that his one-day military action in Venezuela earlier this year to capture now former President Nicolás Maduro and the Iran war compared favorably, taking far less time and with fewer deaths of U.S. troops.

In recent years, Washington has sought to shift its focus from the Middle East toward Asia, but that shift has been inconsistent, with the Pentagon alternating between reducing its Mideast presence and then finding itself engaging in new conflicts — including the ongoing war in Iran.

Baghdad touted the end of the U.S. mission as a sign of the country's increasing strength and sovereignty.

The withdrawal was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups but raised concerns among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region, where many fear a resurgence of the Islamic State group as well as more attacks by Iran-linked groups, possibly emboldened by the departure of U.S. forces.

Meanwhile, questions loom around the future of the Iraqi militias, which the Baghdad government has sought to disarm, with little success so far.

A new phase in Iraq after decades of US involvement

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement that U.S. troops and equipment had completed an “orderly departure” from the air base in Irbil, in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

“This milestone reflects the success of a 12-year campaign that defeated ISIS as an organized military threat in Iraq and across the region,” he said. “It also marks a transition from a wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security effort supported by a more normal bilateral security relationship.”

He added that the U.S. military “will continue to provide targeted training and intelligence support to our Iraqi partners.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi presided over the handover ceremony and described the U.S. withdrawal as the beginning of a “new phase, one defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, the unity of its decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends.”

He said Iraqi security forces will continue the fight against IS and the government will ensure that non-state groups no longer hold weapons.

Trump in his remarks on Wednesday lavished praise on al-Zaidi, calling him “outstanding,” a “fantastic guy, friend of mine,” and someone who “will hopefully be able to handle things very well.” He also appeared to try to take credit for al-Zaidi's leadership, saying that the Iraqi leader was “running for election” and “wasn’t given even a chance and I endorsed him and politicked for him a little bit, and he ended up winning in a virtual landslide.”

Al-Zaidi was not on the ballot but was selected as prime minister when Iraq’s dominant parliamentary bloc nominated him after weeks of internal debate among its member parties and Trump publicly announcing his opposition to the coalition's previous choice.

U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. They departed in 2011, but three years later, Iraqi authorities invited a smaller U.S.-led mission to fight the Islamic State group, which had rampaged across Iraq, seizing large swaths of territory.

With the extremist group reduced to scattered sleeper cells, Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind the mission down.

U.S. troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a small presence of hundreds of troops in the semiautonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on Feb. 28. Iran-backed Iraqi militias also have coordinated with Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack Saudi Arabia.

The future of militias remains unclear

The Iraqi government initially linked the Sept. 30 deadline for U.S. withdrawal to the disarmament of non-state armed groups by that date.

While a handful of less-influential militias have agreed to turn over their weapons, powerful groups close to Iran rejected the prospect or set conditions for disarming that the government would be unlikely to meet.

Al-Zaidi has since walked back the deadline. He told The New York Times earlier this month that the deadline for militia disarmament has been pushed to June 2027.

The effects of the U.S. withdrawal may not be immediately visible, particularly since the U.S. military presence had already been scaled down. But officials in Iraq's Kurdish region have expressed anxiety about the departure and particularly about the removal of U.S. air defense systems.

The Kurdish regional government's Peshmerga Ministry said the Kurdish region had faced more than 1,000 drone and ballistic-missile attacks during the recent U.S.-Iran conflict.

“The departure of the United States from the Kurdistan Region under these complex regional circumstances, without the provision of a defense system, is a matter of concern,” the statement said.

Iran-allied groups in Iraq, meanwhile, have celebrated the U.S. withdrawal.

“The expulsion of the occupation forces, defeated, from the land of Iraq is the beginning of full sovereignty,” Abu Mujahid al-Assaf, a security official with the powerful Kataib Hezbollah militia, said in a statement.

He added a warning to al-Zaidi and his government not to carry out American plans, threatening that “any government that does not work for the benefit of the people will be overthrown by all means.”

Kataib Hezbollah leader Ahmad al-Hamidawi took a somewhat more conciliatory tone, calling on the group's fighters to halt their military activities “with the exception of targeting hostile aircraft violating the country’s airspace.”

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, said in a statement that negotiations with the government over the regulation of weapons have not resulted in an agreement and that it was “not bound by any timeline or agreement” announced by the government or political entity. The group said it is open to “any dialogue that guarantees Iraq’s sovereignty and dignity.”

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Price reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Istanbul contributed to this report.

Noem, who was tasked with leading President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown from January 2025 to March 2026 and previously served as South Dakota's governor, is seeking a divorce from Bryon Noem in their home state. The two married in May 1992 and have three children.

The filing, submitted to the court in April but posted online on Monday, comes after questions arose earlier this year about the nature of Kristi Noem's relationship with a top adviser. The complaint, filed in Hamlin County, South Dakota, notes “irreconcilable differences” as grounds for the divorce.

Kristi Noem's attorney, Michael Sabers, confirmed that she has filed for divorce and said she will reserve further comments for the legal process.

Tim Bottum, Bryon Noem's attorney, said his client is “saddened that the marriage is ending" and will welcome the opportunity to share his perspective if court proceedings become necessary.

“Bryon’s priority is to protect the family and move forward as loving parents and grandparents,” Bottom said in a statement.

A day before Noem was ousted from her post in Trump's cabinet, members of Congress questioned her about an alleged extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, a special government employee and one of her lead advisers at the time. He was Trump’s first campaign manager in 2016 and appeared to play an outsized role in Noem's department, even though his position was supposed to have a limit on days worked.

Noem denied the allegations that they were having an affair, dismissing them as “tabloid garbage.”

Once a close ally to Trump, Noem became a liability for the Republican president as questions arose over her conduct following the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis at the hands of immigration officers. Noem characterized both Renee Good and Alex Pretti as aggressors, contradicting videos from the scene and descriptions of their deaths from bystanders. She also faced criticism from fellow Republicans for her spending at her department.

Trump nominated Markwayne Mullin, then a U.S. senator from Oklahoma, in Noem's place and made her a special envoy for The Shield of the Americas, a new security initiative focused on the Western Hemisphere.

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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.

FORECAST HIGHLIGHTS

• TONIGHT: Storms west will push toward San Antonio
• THURSDAY: Widespread rain expected, flooding possible, especially during the first part of the day
• THURSDAY NIGHT & EARLY FRIDAY: Redevelopment likely
• WEEKEND: Rain lingers in spots, but will be lighter

Street flooding is the main concern in urban areas, while we will closely monitor creeks and streams.

FORECAST

A slow moving front, an upper level low, and moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Polo will bring San Antonio and most of Texas some much-needed rain. However, it may be too much of a good thing for some areas, so a Flood Watch is in place tonight through Friday.

Remember: A “watch” means the ingredients for flooding are present, so we’re “watching” the weather closely. A “warning” means that flooding is happening or will begin soon, so you should take action to avoid flooded roads. You should have a way to get warnings if flooding starts.

Here’s what you need to know:

HEAVY RAIN THURSDAY

Thursday remains our best chance for rain, as the slow-moving front makes it way closer to the I-35 corridor. Moisture is stacked in the atmosphere, meaning any storm that develops will put down very heavy rainfall. Street flooding is a concern in the urban areas, while we will closely monitor creeks and streams.

The highest risk for flooding appears to be during the first half of Thursday, but redevelopment Thursday night into Friday morning could also be problematic.

RAIN LINGERS ON FRIDAY

While rain Friday morning could lead to additional flooding, rain will lighten during the second part of the day.

SHOWERS THIS WEEKEND

More scattered activity is expected over the weekend, but activity will be light and intermittent, so flooding is not a concern. Fall-like weather is in the forecast for next week.

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.

With new faces on the coaching staff and on the hardwood, the Spurs said the team is focused on taking the right steps early in the preseason.

Veteran guard Devin Vassell and second-year forward Carter Bryant spoke with reporters after practice Wednesday. Vassell acknowledged the discipline it takes to approach the preseason day by day and not look too far ahead.

“It’s human nature. You want to be back in that situation, but you can’t skip a day, you can’t skip training camp, you can’t skip preseason, you can’t skip opening night, you can’t skip the long back-to-backs,” Vassell said. “You can’t sit here and just say, ‘Ah, you snap your fingers and you’re back in the Finals.’ It just doesn’t work like that.”

Even though the Spurs are coming off a Finals season, a return to that stage is not guaranteed.

“We can’t fast-forward anything, so we just take it day by day,” Vassell said.

Bryant said he is focused on staying present.

“I’m just trying to win basketball games. Just understanding what I can provide to this team and how I can be successful and how we can be successful as a collective,” Bryant said.

Both players said the team’s chemistry has picked up where it left off, including with the new additions.

The Spurs will host their first preseason game Oct. 8 against the Atlanta Hawks at the Frost Bank Center.

Don’t forget to catch KSAT Sports’ preseason special that day, starting at 6:30 p.m. Our KSAT crew will be live at the Frost Bank Center.

More Spurs coverage on KSAT:

• Spurs Media Day: ‘Haunting’ NBA Finals emotions fuel Spurs entering 2026-27 NBA season
• Spurs reflect on NBA Finals loss, desires to win a championship on media day 2026
• What Spurs fans should know about ticket resale and dynamic pricing

Benny Caldera, a 40-year-old Converse resident, was arrested at 3 a.m. Wednesday by DPS, booked into Bexar County Jail and charged with a felony for a terroristic threat against a public agent.

An email from Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw sent to Capitol staff obtained by The Texas Tribune said the individual arrested was the “main suspect” in a planned attack with suspected co-conspirators intended for Thursday. A statement from DPS about Caldera’s arrest made no mention of any other suspects or arrests.

DPS’ statement and Spaw’s email said there would be increased DPS presence at the state Capitol while an investigation is ongoing.

The FBI was involved in assisting with the arrest, DPS said. An FBI spokesperson did not respond to an immediate request for comment.

There are no legislative hearings or events scheduled for Oct. 1, according to the Capitol legislative website.

In a social media post, Gov. Greg Abbott thanked DPS and the FBI for their roles in arresting Caldera. “Texas will NOT tolerate threats of violence against our Capitol,” he said.

In June 2025, DPS arrested a man in La Grange for threats that prompted the evacuation of the Texas Capitol, which occurred the day of a large “No Kings” protest at the Capitol and downtown Austin. The man was released from jail a few days later.

Alejandro Serrano contributed to this report.

It was an electric scene for fans at Truist Park — at least for those who decided to show up.

There has been a noticeable number of empty seats in Atlanta and Houston for day games during this week's Wild Card Series, with the Braves drawing 30,127 fans for Game 1 on Tuesday that started at 2 p.m. local time, well below the 41,108 capacity. The Astros announced that 34,011 fans attended Tuesday's 4 p.m. Game 1 at Daikin Park, also well below its 41,168-seat limit.

It's not the first time this has happened.

Since MLB permanently expanded the playoffs to a 12-team bracket in 2022, just six of 26 afternoon Wild Card Series games through Tuesday have reached or exceeded stadium capacity. Seven games failed to reach even 85% capacity. The Braves-Phillies game on Tuesday was 73.2% full, which is the lowest since the postseason expanded, according to research from Sportradar.

On Wednesday, the crowds were slightly better. Game 2 of the Braves-Phillies series had an announced crowd of 37,150 while Game 2 of the White Sox-Astros matchup had 36,015 in attendance.

The main issue for day games is obvious: It's hard for fans to attend day games during the week — particularly in late September and October — because people have to work and children are back in school. It doesn't help that those game times are announced with only a few days' notice.

Still, it's a less-than-ideal atmosphere for some of the most important contests of the year.

Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm shrugged off the smaller crowds before Wednesday's game, saying his team just wants to win games and advance.

“I don’t think anybody on our team is really focused on how many people are showing up here," Bohm said. "It’s just kind of -- I think, like you said, it’s a 2 o’clock game in the middle of the week, so I think that might have something to do with it.

“That doesn’t take away from what’s going on on the field and kind of the stakes of all that in our minds.”

All three ALWCS games in Cleveland last year between the Guardians and Detroit Tigers started at 1:08 p.m., and none drew more than 30,000 fans. The Tampa Bay Rays had just 19,704 for an ALWCS opener against Texas in 2023 that started at 3:08 p.m., the lowest attendance for a non-COVID MLB postseason game since the 1919 World Series.

MLB declined to comment on the attendance numbers, but the league spreads its wild-card games throughout the day on purpose so they have their own television window and capture the largest viewing audience possible. NBC is paying the league roughly $200 million per year to host “Sunday Night Baseball” and the Wild Card Series during a three-year deal agreed to last November.

The Astros fans who did attend Tuesday's game were in a bit of a foul mood, peppering the team with boos as they fell behind 5-0 by the fifth inning on the way to a 6-3 loss. Astros manager Joe Espada said he understood the fans' frustration but hoped for a better atmosphere on Wednesday.

“I do want our fans to know that we love them and we need them,” Espada said. “They’re part of what we are trying to accomplish here. They’re part of our family.”

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AP Sports Writers Charles Odum in Atlanta and Kristie Rieken in Houston contributed to this story.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Shili Chen and Shouyong Zhang, both 77, were briefly in court Wednesday for an arraignment on the charges that was postponed until Thursday. Jennie Otis, a public defender representing Zhang, declined to comment. Chen told the judge through an interpreter that she didn’t have the money to hire an attorney. A public defender will be assigned to her case Thursday, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Diane Meier told her.

Jonathan McKinsey, a 40-year-old gaming engineer for The New York Times, was shot to death in the parking lot of a sports complex in Dublin, east of San Francisco. A police sergeant was driving nearby and saw him on the ground as witnesses began calling 911 and pointing out the couple in their vehicle, who were still near the scene, Dublin Police Services said in a news release.

Police detained the couple as they were driving away in the parking lot and found a gun in Chen's possession. Prosecutors said Zhang admitted to shooting McKinsey during a later interview, and another firearm was found in the car that he admitted to using during the crime.

Prosecutors also said surveillance video was recovered showing both Chen and Zhang shooting the victim.

Chen and Zhang's murder charges included additional allegations of lying in wait and using a firearm.

Court records show McKinsey's killing came during a contentious divorce with Jang and a custody battle over the couple's three young children. In petitions for restraining orders filed last year, the couple accused each other of physical, emotional and psychological abuse going back more than a decade. McKinsey, who is transgender, alleged that both Jang and her parents were verbally and physically abusive regarding a gender transition he underwent years ago.

In his petition for a protection order, McKinsey alleged that Chen had directed anti-LGBTQ slurs at him and his oldest child.

He also accused Jang of being physically and emotionally abusive during medical procedures related to his transition. He alleged Zhang punched him in the chest while he was recovering from double mastectomy surgery.

Victim had been charged with misdemeanor child abuse

McKinsey was arrested last October and charged with misdemeanor child abuse for allegedly hitting their oldest son. Police said he acknowledged having slapped the child. Prosecutors also charged him with endangering their youngest child after deputies responded to the family’s home to talk with him and found their 2-year-old had been left home alone, according to court documents.

McKinsey pleaded not guilty to the charges and alleged in court records that he had been set up by his wife, who had left the house without telling him the child was sleeping in a crib upstairs. He was released from jail on the condition that he complete 12 parenting classes. At the time of his killing, McKinsey was out on bail and had been trying to enter a mental health diversion program.

It was also in October that Jang obtained a domestic violence protection order against McKinsey.

Jang said in her filing that in 2010 McKinsey had grabbed her by the forearms during one argument and caused her to hit the corner of a coffee table, fracturing a vertebra in her upper back. She also said that in 2023 she called the police to their home after McKinsey pushed their oldest son hard on the head. Jang also accused McKinsey of emotionally abusing her mother.

Victim filed a competing protective order request

McKinsey in December filed his own request for domestic violence protection against Jang, alleging years of abuse that included her hitting him in the head with a frying pan. He later filed for divorce and sought more time with the three children, noting that he had been limited to two hours of supervised visits per week since last fall, Alameda County court documents show.

In late August, McKinsey was granted unsupervised visits in public twice a week.

The killing occurred a week before a hearing was scheduled in McKinsey and Jang’s divorce case. The couple had been married since July 2011.

McKinsey joined The New York Times in January 2023. He was director of engineering for New York Times Games and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the paper said. A spokesperson declined to comment further.

In a Wednesday order, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ruled that the proposed consent decree was a “fair, reasonable, and good faith approach to address the competitive harms” alleged by the states' lawsuit. Paramount, which was bought by Skydance just last year, previously called the antitrust challenge the last hurdle ahead of closing its Warner merger.

The companies now expect to complete the deal on Oct. 6. Shortly after Martínez-Olguín's ruling Wednesday afternoon, Paramount also announced Ynon Kreiz — who is toy giant Mattel's current chief executive — will soon join as co-CEO alongside David Ellison.

In a statement, Ellison said Paramount's merger with Warner marks a “transformational moment for our industry” and that he and his new co-CEO will lead a business that is “creator-first, tech-forward and built to scale globally.”

A Paramount-Warner marriage will bring together two of Hollywood’s last five legacy studios. HBO Max, a library full of titles including “Harry Potter” and cable networks such as CNN will also find themselves under the same roof with CBS, the likes of the “Top Gun” franchise and the Paramount+ streaming service.

That further concentrates power in an industry already run by just a handful of major players. And many critics of the deal have decried the states' settlement, arguing the terms are too weak.

The final antitrust fight

Paramount touted clearances for its Warner acquisition from regulators worldwide over recent months, including the Trump administration's Justice Department in the U.S.

But in July, top prosecutors from 12 states — led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta — sued to block the merger altogether. They alleged a Paramount-Warner combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly movie theatergoers and cable customers.

Last week, the states agreed to settle those claims through new commitments from Paramount, including pledges to increase film production in the U.S. over the next five years, grant millions of dollars to a fund aimed at supporting workers displaced by the merger and establish new editorial monitoring of CNN and CBS.

Martínez-Olguín didn't greenlight the terms right away — maintaining at a Thursday hearing that the court isn’t merely a “rubber stamp” on a settlement of this kind and that she, like many others, had questions. The judge granted outside critics of the settlement (including members of the Block The Merger coalition and the League of United Latin American Citizens) a brief window to share their opposition. She also instructed Paramount and the states to respond to concerns raised by Democratic Sen. Cory Booker.

By Wednesday's order, however, she concluded that the hopes for settlement terms to go further "do not rise to the level of legal violations upon which the Court can reject the parties’ negotiated resolution.”

The Writers Guild of America, which had filed its own suit shortly after the states in July, also reached a settlement agreement with Paramount last week — concluding that it couldn’t continue its legal fight alone.

Ongoing criticism of the deal

The Block the Merger coalition on Wednesday maintained the states' settlement was a “toothless” deal.

“In years to come, we’ll be able to point to this failure to put consumers over the monied interests of corporate consolidation as the tipping-point moment for media in this country," Block the Merger said in a statement. But, the group added, “if there is one discernible benefit to the approval of this corporate takeover, it’s that people are now wide awake and paying attention — and their anger is not going to fade away."

Before agreeing to settle, Bonta previously said the states would only consider “robust” structural remedies. The bulk of the eventual settlement outlined behavioral requirements, at least in the immediate future, with some potential “court enforceable” penalties if Paramount breaks promises down the road.

Even so, most of the company’s new commitments only last five years. Paula Blizzard, an attorney for California, said in Thursday's hearing that the states eventually settled on terms that didn’t “last forever” because the industry is changing — while immediate divestments, or even the complete blocking of the deal that they initially demanded, could open the door to further acquisitions.

Among those new commitments include a pledge from Paramount to increase spending on film production in the U.S. — by at least an additional $1.5 billion over the next five years — and promises to release at least 30 films each year, a figure Ellison already touted earlier in his quest for Warner.

The states’ settlement would require Paramount to distribute 30 films in theaters each year for the next two years — and 32 films in each of the three years after that. The fine print notes that only 50% of those movies would have to be “produced or jointly produced” by the combined company. If Paramount fails to meet these film outputs, the states say it will have to divest from Miramax Studios and pay $30 million for each missed film toward healthcare and retirement trust funds associated with the Writers Guild of America and other industry unions.

Paramount also agreed to commit $47.5 million to help fund training and career development for workers displaced by the merger, again over the next five years ($9.5 million each year).

Meanwhile, when it comes to cable, the states' settlement orders the company to negotiate deals for current Paramount-owned and Warner-owned basic cable channels separately over the next five years. If Paramount violates those terms, a court may order future divestments.

The company must also form a “News Editorial Independence Board” to monitor news operations at CBS and CNN within 180 days of completing its Warner acquisition. But critics point to editorial turmoil already seen at CBS under Skydance ownership — and aren’t convinced this new body will move the needle much.

Per court documents outlining the settlement’s terms, Paramount’s new editorial body will be made up of five “active or retired” journalists with at least 10 years of experience — all appointed by, and reporting to, the combined company’s board of directors for three-year terms. Beyond his CEO title, Ellison is Paramount’s current chairman and is set to remain in the top spot after the Warner acquisition closes.

While joining the rest of the states in the wider settlement, Colorado and Washington declined to sign off on the editorial board terms. And prosecutors like Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who wanted a full divestiture of CNN and CBS, said last week he wished the deal could have gone further.

Including billions of dollars in debt, Paramount’s buyout of Warner is currently valued at about $111 billion based on outstanding shares.

The hearing comes as the governor, lieutenant governor and Texas House speaker have said greater transparency and accountability for district attorneys will be a focus of the 2027 legislative session.

The issue has gained attention in Texas following investigations into the Wren Collective’s relationships with prosecutors and questions about how outside organizations may influence local prosecutorial policies.

In 2024, KSAT obtained thousands of emails and text messages involving Gonzales, his then-first assistant district attorney, Christian Henricksen, and Wren Collective founder Jessica Brand.

The messages showed discussions about prosecutorial policies involving marijuana, bail, sentencing and plea guidelines, among other issues.

More than a dozen people testified before the committee, including family members of crime victims and representatives of public safety organizations.

Sean Kennedy, of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, told lawmakers that Brand communicated directly with Gonzales and Henricksen about prosecutorial policies.

Kennedy alleged that Brand provided policies involving marijuana, bail, sentencing and plea guidelines and directed the office to drop a death penalty case and charges against a man who assaulted a police officer and was later shot by that officer.

Those claims were part of a broader focus on the Wren Collective’s relationship with Travis County District Attorney José Garza, whose office has also worked with the organization.

Brand was invited to attend the hearing but did not appear. In a statement to KSAT on Wednesday, Brand said she “never received a formal invitation to testify.”

“When the Chairman called me yesterday toward the end of day to invite me, I could no longer move a work obligation,” Brand said.

Gonzales’ name was also discussed during the hearing, although the committee’s focus was largely on Garza and Travis County.

Gonzales is not seeking reelection and is scheduled to leave office at the end of 2026.

The committee’s examination could lead to additional proposals during the 2027 legislative session.

KSAT will continue to follow the issue as lawmakers consider potential changes involving district attorneys and prosecutorial oversight.

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The crash happened around 9 a.m. near mile marker 102 on southbound I-37.

The victim, a 52-year-old man, was taken to a hospital with serious bodily injuries, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Atascosa County Deputy Chief Eric Kaiser told KSAT the man was on the shoulder of the highway changing a flat tire when he was hit by a passing vehicle.

Dash camera footage obtained by DPS shows the vehicle involved may be a newer-model white Dodge utility van with damage to the passenger-side mirror, according to DPS.

The crash caused an hours-long closure of the highway, which has since reopened.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact DPS at 210-531-2280.

The investigation is ongoing.

Read also:

• Man hospitalized, 1 facing DWI charges after fiery crash on US Highway 90, SAPD says

During the 2025-2026 school year, 619 districts across the state implemented the instruction materials for the first time. The TEA reports on average, those districts saw “better year-over-year achievement change than non-Bluebonnet districts.”

A greater percentage of those students met grade level on Spring 2026 STAAR assessments compared with Spring 2025 results — an improvement other districts did not see, according to the TEA.

Seventy-two districts using at least one Bluebonnet Learning program during the 2025-2026 school year earned an “A” rating, including 26 that had scored below an “A” the previous year.

“Bluebonnet Learning is an important resource to help our schools focus on the fundamentals of literacy and numeracy,” said Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath. “With insights from year one, we will continue our investments in rigorous curriculum to make Texas number one in public education.”

The TEA says the instructional materials save taxpayers money. Print costs for Bluebonnet are lower than other instructional materials, the agency reports.

“For example, over a four-year period, Bluebonnet Learning Grade 2 math is $1,350.88 less expensive per classroom than the next comparable available material approved by the SBOE (State Board of Education), and Grade 2 RLA is $498.48 less expensive,” a TEA news release states.

San Antonio-area districts opted-in

When Bluebonnet Learning was first approved by the state in 2024, South San Independent School District was the first district in San Antonio to adopt the materials.

The state-endorsed teaching materials grew “controversial” amongst First Amendment advocates who have raised concerns that the curriculum may blur the distinction between educating about religious texts and promoting a specific faith, while potentially enticing financially challenged districts.

South San ISD Superintendent Saul Hinojosa said he worked with a committee to review the curriculum before it was taught in the district’s public schools.

“If there was anything that the committee felt was inappropriate by their standards, they took a vote, and we took their feedback and put it into action,” Hinojosa told KSAT in August.

Among the changes, South San ISD removed or modified several readings from the curriculum because of their focus on religion.

After the first year, South San ISD boosted its TEA accountability rating from a “D” to a “C.” When asked whether that progress is tied to Bluebonnet Learning, Hinojosa didn’t hesitate.

“Absolutely. I mean, your curriculum is a driving force,” Hinojosa said.

San Antonio Independent School District joins South San ISD who adopted the instructional materials at some schools at the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year.

“The Bluebonnet curriculum provides a high-quality, standards-aligned foundation for teaching reading and math and is the curriculum most closely aligned to the STAAR assessment,” a SAISD spokesperson told KSAT in August. “By consistently implementing Bluebonnet throughout the year, we give students the strongest opportunity to demonstrate ongoing growth, build mastery of essential skills, and achieve academic success.”

Bluebonnet designed for ‘transparency,’ TEA says

The TEA says the instructional materials are designed for “total transparency,” with every unit including a take-home letter for parents to know exactly what their children are learning.

“TEA works closely with Texas teachers who use Bluebonnet materials in their classrooms to make improvements based on teacher feedback,” the release states. “In this way, the benefits that one district experiences with Bluebonnet can be more easily spread to others across the state as district adoption of Bluebonnet Learning continues to grow.”

Read also:

• San Antonio ISD students begin Bluebonnet Learning, which critics have described as controversial

It is not yet clear whether he will need surgery. Anthony was sidelined from early May to late August with an injury to the same hand.

“We did everything we could to be back this year and play, which we did,” Anthony said Wednesday in the tunnel outside the Red Sox clubhouse at Yankee Stadium before Game 2. "Going forward, we haven’t really even talked about it today."

Batting leadoff as Boston's designated hitter in his playoff debut Tuesday night, Anthony struck out in both of his at-bats against Cam Schlittler, then was removed for a pinch hitter with the Red Sox trailing by two runs in the sixth inning of a 9-0 loss.

Boston manager Chad Tracy said Anthony felt discomfort in his right hand after a couple of checked swings.

“After I came back, the hand was never really fully 100%," Anthony said. "For me it was to a point where it was tolerable and I was taking certain swings that were sketchy and I was still able to come back and recover enough to just be in there every single day. But ultimately I just took a few swings here recently where that wasn’t the case.”

The team sent Anthony to Boston in a car after the game. He arrived about 3 a.m. and had new MRIs on Wednesday morning.

“Additional damage to some muscles in his wrist that weren’t there before,” Tracy said.

The 22-year-old Anthony returned to Massachusetts because the medical staff there was familiar with his injury from earlier this season.

“My thoughts are kind of all over the place,” he said. “Feelings and emotions of, you work all this year to put yourself in a position to just be good enough to go in the playoffs and for this to happen, it just doesn’t feel real.”

Anthony wasn't sure whether the injury is something he'll have to manage going forward.

“Given the point where we were at this year and all the different things that I tried and the different shots that I took and the routes that I went, I think — never really rested a ton, right? — so I don’t necessarily know the answer to that,” he said. “Once we saw it today, it was more so about like, all right, this is what it is. You can’t go. It’s not in the team’s best interest for you to play tonight. So get back there. Root your guys on and be a good teammate. And then once, like I said, once we get past the series, it’ll be one of those things where we reassess regardless of what happens and kind of go from there.”

Anthony missed 101 games from May 5 to Aug. 29 with the earlier injury to his hand.

“There’s been periods of time since he’s come back where he’ll get a zinger and feel something. And then it dissipates and we’re good to go,” Tracy said. “That’s not been an uncommon occurrence since he’s come back. But yesterday, as you went through those two at-bats, it got worse.”

The club announced Anthony was diagnosed with a right hand strain, and Major League Baseball approved a Red Sox roster substitution. Anthony was replaced on the Wild Card Series roster by infielder Curtis Mead, obtained from Washington in late July for pitcher Connelly Early.

According to MLB rules, Anthony is ineligible to return until the American League Championship Series — if the Red Sox advance that far.

“I’ve been experiencing some things with the swings and the check-swings over the past six weeks. Last night just felt a little bit more intense, a little bit more worse than past swings that have been lingering a little bit longer than the ones I was used to,” Anthony said.

“It was just super alarming and it got to a point where it was tough to grip a bat. I knew then and there that this was a little bit more similar to the one earlier in the year. That’s why we decided to go get imaging."

Mead got hit by a pitch in his first game with the Red Sox at the Athletics on July 27 and was placed on the injured list with a broken left wrist. He hasn't played in the big leagues since.

Mead was on the bench for Game 2 against the Yankees. Jahmai Jones was set to hit leadoff as the DH with the Red Sox one loss from elimination, followed in the batting order by catcher Adley Rutschman, first baseman Willson Contreras, right fielder Wilyer Abreu, center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela, third baseman Caleb Durbin, second baseman Nick Sogard, shortstop Trevor Story and left fielder Nate Eaton.

Sonny Gray was set to start on the mound for Boston against one of his former teams. Left-hander Max Fried was scheduled to pitch for New York.

One of baseball’s premier prospects when he debuted in the majors last year, Anthony batted .245 with five home runs, 15 RBIs and a .735 OPS in 55 games this season.

“Hopefully he’s going to be healthy for next year,” Abreu said. “It’s a big loss for us, but we still have to play the game and try to win the game today.”

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

The high gas prices took center stage in Ohio on Wednesday, as lawmakers passed a 90-day state gas tax holiday with broad bipartisan support. Including Ohio, about one-third of U.S. states have implemented some form of fuel tax relief, with many taking action within the past week, according to an Associated Press review.

Some states have suspended their fuel taxes. Others have temporarily reduced taxes. And still more have targeted relief only to farmers, loggers and others who use a special type of diesel fuel.

The average price of regular gasoline stood at $4.43 a gallon on Wednesday, up roughly 50% since the war with Iran began, according to the AAA motor club. The average price of diesel was $6.41 a gallon — just a few cents shy of a record high set last week.

Here's what to know about states’ actions on fuel taxes:

Ohio governor's race at center of fuel tax action

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's office said he plans to sign legislation that will suspend the 38.5-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax and 47-cent-per-gallon diesel tax through the remainder of this year. The plan taps $725 million from the state's general fund to pay for roads and bridges typically funded by fuel taxes.

Republican legislative leaders scrambled to recall lawmakers to the Statehouse after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton called for a gas tax holiday last week and rival Republican Vivek Ramaswamy announced a plan to do the same a few hours later. The two are locked in a closely fought contest to succeed DeWine, a term-limited Republican. Democrats criticized Ramaswamy for taking credit for Acton's idea, while Ramaswamy's allies said his plan had substance and Acton's consisted of “tweets.”

Ramaswamy's running mate, Rob McColley, is the Ohio Senate president. On Wednesday, McColley used a technical maneuver to quickly close debate on the measure, suggesting Democrats were preparing for nothing more than “theatrics.” Senate Democratic Leader Nickie Antonio said one proposal would have called for an end to the Iran war.

Republican state Sen. Michele Reynolds, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it "will provide much-needed relief to Ohioans at a time when they are feeling the pressure of gas prices continuing to rise.”

In the House, Democratic state Rep. Allison Russo, a candidate for secretary of state, accused Republicans of an election-year “stunt” that will save Ohioans an average of $55 over the next three months.

Several states have already halted or reduced gas taxes

In March, Georgia became the first state to suspend its fuel taxes after the war in the Middle East sent prices spiraling. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp extended the tax break into June. More recently, he announced a 30-day resumption of the motor fuel tax holiday, which began Tuesday.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, has extended a fuel tax exemption multiple times since spring, with the current version running through Oct. 5.

A six-month, 6-cent reduction in Utah's fuel tax is in effect through the end of this year. Illinois and Kentucky have more modest fuel tax breaks in effect, delaying increases that were due to take effect in July.

Some states have relaxed diesel fuel regulations

In the past week, governors in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Texas all have taken steps to provide fuel tax relief for the agricultural industry amid the harvest season.

The executive orders target dyed diesel fuel, which is exempt from state taxes but normally can be used only for off-road machinery like tractors, logging equipment and irrigation pumps. The orders temporarily waive enforcement of those rules, allowing the tax-exempt diesel fuel to be used in vehicles driven on highways.

Some governors noted that reduced costs for transporting crops could affect grocery prices.

California ends restrictions on cheaper fuel blends

The Environmental Protection Agency allowed an annual switch to cheaper, winter-blended fuels beginning Sept. 1, a couple of weeks earlier than normal. The change could save up to 15 cents a gallon, according to data from the National Association of Convenience Stores.

But California sets its own stricter environmental fuel standards. In many parts of the state, summer-blended fuel is required through Oct. 31. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ended the summer fuel requirement Monday, citing a recent state law that requires a reevaluation of regulations when retail gas prices rise substantially.

Fuel tax changes may have a delayed effect for consumers

State actions intended to provide relief from high fuel prices don't always have the effect some consumers expect. That's partly because fuel price volatility could cause costs to rise even as tax rates fall. But that's also because taxes typically are charged at the wholesale level, not at the retail pump.

“Customers expect the day that a gas tax holiday takes effect that the price at every pump will be reduced by that amount. But it’s way more complicated than that,” said Jeff Lenard, a spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores.

“The costs and the changes happen further upstream," he said. "The retailer may also have product that has already been paid for with taxes that needs to be sold before you can acquire the new fuel that is not taxed and you can lower the price.”

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Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

“The Texas Division of Emergency Management has activated over 1,900 state emergency responders and over 1,500 pieces of equipment, including aircraft and boats and high-profile vehicles, to ensure that local officials across the state in those areas that we’re concerned about have equipment and resources and personnel in those communities,” Texas Department of Emergency Management spokesperson Wes Rapaport said.

The State Emergency Operations Center is also coordinating with Texas A&M Task Force 1, the Texas National Guard and the Texas Department of Transportation.

Rapaport said high-profile vehicles, boats and aircraft can be used to support rescue and response operations if flooding develops. He added the goal is to make sure local emergency managers have the resources they need before conditions worsen.

“A lot of the disaster response can be handled at the local level,” Rapaport said. “We have resources that are staged in and around the threat areas to ensure that if a request for state assistance comes, we have the resources nearby.”

Residents in areas at risk for severe weather and flooding should monitor local forecasts and follow guidance from emergency officials as the storm system moves through Texas.

“We want you to understand what your risks are,” Rapaport said. “Stay informed, pack an emergency supply kit with food and water and clothes and maybe a weather radio if you have one, extra chargers and batteries and flashlight and those kinds of things. Don’t forget about medications and don’t forgot about your pets. But we also encourage Texans to make a plan. Now is the time to make that plan. You don’t want to be scrambling in the middle of an incident when you are being given directions by local officials and you can’t find your emergency kit or you’re not sure who to call or what to do or where to go. Now is the time to sort all of that out so that if you are given directions or action by your local officials that you’re ready to do so.”

Alec Bohm put Philadelphia ahead with a two-out homer in the 10th inning, and the Phillies beat the Atlanta Braves 4-3 on Wednesday to force a decisive third game in their NL Wild Card Series.

The Phillies rallied with back-to-back homers from Kyle Schwarber and Harper in the eighth after trailing 3-1 in the seventh. Harper's homer made up for a crucial fielding mistake an inning earlier.

“I wasn’t not trying to hit a homer, I can tell you that,” Harper said with a smile.

Andrew Painter (1-0), a starter in the regular season, saved the Phillies’ beleaguered bullpen with three scoreless innings to close things out. Painter stranded two runners in the 10th when he struck out Dominic Smith with a successful ABS challenge.

Playing under traditional extra-inning rules that don't include automatic runners at second base like in the regular season, Bohm delivered his third career postseason home run, a 357-foot shot to right field off right-hander Didier Fuentes (0-1).

For Bohm, who has faced criticism during a rocky season in which he hit .249 and is facing free agency, the homer may have extended his time with the Phillies.

“I've been trying not to think about that,” Bohm said. “I really don't want the season to end.”

The Phillies will try to continue their postseason dominance over the Braves in Thursday's Game 3. Philadelphia beat Atlanta in the 1993 NLCS and the 2022 and 2023 NLDS.

In the seventh, Drake Baldwin's double glanced off Harper's glove in right field, driving in Sean Murphy to give Atlanta a 2-1 lead. Harper, who resumed playing the outfield late this season for the first time since 2022, got a poor jump and was leaping for the ball near the warning track. He was not charged with an error. Matt Olson added a sacrifice fly.

“I didn’t think he hit it very hard," Harper said. “I thought it was going to be a pop fly just right at me and then it kind of kept traveling. Obviously a ball I should have caught. ... And obviously I was hearing it pretty good from Braves and Phillies fans in the dugout, so got to show up in that situation.

“But how quickly can I turn the page and just get past that moment, knowing that I’m still coming up to the plate to hit and knowing that in the postseason, it doesn’t matter what you did the at-bat before, the inning before. It’s what you do in that moment.”

The Phillies pulled even with eighth-inning home runs by Schwarber and Harper off Dylan Lee, the winning pitcher in the Braves’ 5-3 opening win on Tuesday. Schwarber’s drive carried 447 feet and Harper followed with a 418-foot shot.

“Some big home runs late by some really good hitters,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “That’s what got us.”

Tyler Mahle allowed one run on six hits in seven innings for Atlanta. Cristopher Sánchez allowed three runs in 6 2/3 innings for Philadelphia while throwing a career-high 116 pitches.

Painter gave up a one-out single to Mauricio Dubón in the 10th, then struck out Austin Riley before giving up a bloop single to Michael Harris II. Painter's 0-2 fastball to Smith was called inside by plate umpire Adam Beck, but Painter and catcher J.T. Realmuto immediately called for a robo-ump challenge. ABS confirmed the ball clipped the strike zone, the first time a postseason game has ended with a strike-zone appeal.

Atlanta's Ronald Acuña Jr. walked, stole second and then stole third with Edmundo Sosa not covering the bag before scoring on Olson’s single in the first.

Sánchez didn’t allow another hit until Sean Murphy doubled to center field with one out in the fifth.

Mahle kept pace, though he didn’t have a perfect inning until the fifth, when he struck out Schwarber and Harper. Sánchez issued an intentional walk to Acuña with two outs before Baldwin’s grounder to second base ended the inning.

Injury scare for Mahle

Weiss said the Braves had a major scare when Mahle felt an abdominal pull during his pregame warmup.

“We didn't know if he could make the start,” Weiss said, adding the scare came "right at game time when he came out of the bullpen.

“He ended up working through it and got better as the game went on. We were scrambling.”

Sosa leaves with injury

Sosa left the game after reaching on an infield single to open the ninth. He appeared to aggravate a leg injury and was replaced by pinch-runner Derek Hill. Phillies manager Don Mattingly said the injury did not appear to be serious.

Up next

Braves RHP Grant Holmes (10-6, 3.44) is expected to either start or pitch in bulk relief in Game 3 on Thursday against Phillies RHP Aaron Nola (7-12, 4.67).

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan national, was shot by an ICE officer in Austin on Sept. 20. He was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center, where he was released and taken into ICE custody three hours later with the bullet remaining in his back. He had been held at a detention center in Pearsall

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that Garces Perez will remain in federal custody and determined that he is a flight risk. He appeared in a federal courtroom in Austin in a wheelchair with his left arm in a sling.

Magistrate Judge Dustin M. Howell made the ruling after federal prosecutors argued Garces Perez was a flight risk because he fled the original scene of the traffic stop and because of his family ties to Venezuela. The judge did not agree with the government’s argument that Garces Perez was a danger to the community.

Garces Perez had appeared before a federal court in Austin on Tuesday morning to be formally charged. Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, his lead attorney, said she saw him at the courthouse and he “was clearly very confused and distraught. He was in a lot of pain. He had not been given pain medication and he did not understand what was happening.”

In a sworn affidavit, federal prosecutors say that Garces Perez was first pulled over by ICE officers after they had observed him exiting a restaurant and identified him as having a final order of removal. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Rick Bazan testified Wednesday that the officers were running license plates through a database and saw Garces Perez’s final order of removal.

The officers identified themselves as immigration agents and Garces Perez handed them his Texas driver license, the court documents say. One officer was wearing a body worn camera that captured the incident. The other officer, the one that eventually shot Garces Perez, was not wearing a camera.

According to Garces Perez’s statement to investigators, he knew that he would be detained, so he asked to park in a different location. The officers and Garces Perez give conflicting statements over when emergency lights were activated and if the officers struck Garces Perez’s vehicle.

Garces Perez disregarded the officers’ commands to exit the vehicle and he fled the scene. As he pulled away from the scene, his driver’s side mirror hit one of the officers in the torso, according to the criminal complaint.

After a brief vehicle chase, one ICE officer claims that Garces Perez attempted to strike him with his car, which is when the officer, standing outside the vehicle, shot into the car and struck Garces Perez in the back.

Garces Perez is now in custody of the U.S. Marshals and has been taken for a medical review, according to Lincoln-Goldfinch. She said she has received no updates about his medical status or location.

“There’s a lot moving very quickly and this is because the government has refused to cooperate and inform the other side which is, in my experience, not a professional way to litigate,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “We believe that the government is playing games with Wilber’s life … we still have concerns about sepsis and long-term immobility, and that is backed up by medical professionals.”

President Donald Trump won a second term in 2024 vowing to crack down on immigration. During his second administration, immigration agents, who often are masked, have shot at least two dozen people. At least six, including three U.S. citizens, have died. Many of the shootings involved agents firing at people in moving vehicles, which law enforcement experts said is typically prohibited or discouraged by local police.

The court documents outlining the criminal case against Garces Perez do not name the two agents involved, but refer to them by the initials “L.G.” and “D.F.”

The federal government has withheld the identification for most immigration agents involved in shootings since Trump returned to office. The growing tally of deaths at the hands of anonymous federal agents has ignited outcries by Democrats, the victims’ relatives and residents to identify them. On Monday, The Texas Tribune identified the federal immigration agent who witnesses say fired through an open van window and killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston in July.

Since the Austin shooting, several members of Congress and advocacy groups have called for Garces Perez’s release from detention due to his medical needs, which they claim are not being adequately addressed by ICE. U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, visited Garces Perez last Wednesday and described him as in high spirits but in pain and in need of surgery.

“This person needs a doctor, not a deportation or a detention center,” Casar said in a news conference last week.

Garces Perez entered the U.S. legally through a port of entry in San Ysidro, California, in December 2023 and applied for asylum via the CBPOne app. Records show that he had received a removal order in August 2025, which Lincoln-Goldfinch says was sent to the wrong address. A motion to reconsider was denied in July 2026. The attorney added that his work permit expired in December 2025.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, according to the Department of Justice.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment beyond a press release announcing the charges.

Trustee Jose Macias told KSAT that he was informed that a girl stabbed a boy at the middle school, located on Binz Engleman Road near Woodlake Parkway on the Northeast Side.

The “student-related incident” happened during a scheduled lockdown drill Wednesday morning, according to Judson ISD’s Director of Communications Lexie Greathouse. The incident then led campus administrators to place the school on a hold.

“During the response, a weapon was located and immediately confiscated,” Greathouse said in an emailed statement.

Macias said the girl had multiple knives inside her backpack.

KSAT asked the district if the knives recovered were used in the stabbing this afternoon, but have not heard back yet.

“The situation was quickly contained. Appropriate disciplinary action is being taken, and the matter has been referred to law enforcement for further review,” Greathouse said.

KSAT asked Greathouse if any student was transported to the hospital, but we did not immediately hear back.

“The district has contacted all Metzger MS parents,” Greathouse said. “If they have additional concerns, you can direct parents to campus administration for specific questions regarding their child.”

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The 41-year-old Ronaldo said that “in time” he would “tell the Portuguese people the truth about the reasons” behind his departure.

“Following the national team coach’s news conference, and after a conversation with the president of the Portuguese football federation, I decided to leave the national team’s training camp,” he said on Instagram, adding that he has always “dedicated” himself to the side.

“Now is the time to wish good luck to Portugal and to all my teammates, without exception.”

The Portuguese federation said only that Ronaldo left the training camp and that the team's preparations would continue with the remaining 24 squad members.

“The entire delegation remains fully focused on the national team’s upcoming fixtures and on achieving our goals,” the federation said.

Jesus had said in the pre-game news conference he was not planning to start Ronaldo, but dismissed the notion there was a feud between the pair.

Jesus said every player knows the coach makes the decisions, and that Ronaldo told him he would abide by whatever choices he makes.

The coach added the “rules are the same for everyone” and that Gonçalo Ramos would start up front against Denmark if everything went to plan.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen in the game,” Jesus said. “If we need him (Ronaldo) to play (at some point), he’ll play. If not, he won’t.”

Ronaldo, the all-time leading scorer in men’s international soccer with 146 goals and pursuing the milestone of 1,000 career goals, didn’t play on Sunday in Portugal’s 2-1 win over Norway. He has not trained with the rest of the group since, sparking widespread rumors about a possible feud with Jesus.

Jesus had said Al-Nassr forward Ronaldo would practice normally with the rest of the squad on Wednesday, but the player ended by leaving the training camp after the coach's words during the news conference.

Ronaldo, who has 979 career goals, had said recently that this Saudi Pro League season is likely to be the last of his professional career.

Earlier this year, he said the 2026 World Cup would be the last of his career but did not specify when he would stop playing for Portugal.

Jesus, who worked with Ronaldo for about a year in Saudi Arabia, said the player did not refuse to practice after having been left on the bench against Norway.

“It seems like there was an issue between us, but there was no issue,” Jesus said. “I’m the one who makes the decisions and everybody knows that.”

Jesus acknowledged he had told Ronaldo he would likely play against Norway, but changed his mind because of the circumstances of the match.

He said it was a mistake to send Ronaldo to warm up for as long as he did and then not use him. Jesus added “any player” would be upset about that.

But Jesus did not apologize for telling Ronaldo that he was likely to play.

“I can promise whatever I want, I’m the coach,” Jesus said. “No player will ever make a decision for me.”

Jesus said, though, that someone with the stature of Ronaldo deserved a different type of attention from coaches “because of his career and history in soccer.”

Jesus, who took over the squad from Roberto Martínez after the World Cup, said he ended up being “obligated” to have a meeting with Ronaldo because of the noise created in Portugal over the situation.

But he maintained there was no “Ronaldo case” to talk about and there was nothing to solve between him and the player because nothing was wrong.

Jesus said it was normal that the federation president, Pedro Proença, also met with the pair.

“We had to talk the three of us, but I had already talked with Chris and the president didn’t have to solve anything because there was nothing to solve,” Jesus said.

Ronaldo started Portugal’s 1-0 win over Wales last Thursday but was substituted in the 67th minute. On Tuesday, he posted on Instagram a photo of him wearing the kit accompanied by the country’s flag and a heart emoji.

Portugal leads Group A4 of the Nations League with six points from two matches, three points more than Denmark and Norway. Wales is last with no points.

Portugal also hosts Norway on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear whether Ronaldo’s departure would extend beyond the current international break.

Wednesday's news comes just as Ronaldo's long-time rival, Lionel Messi, is set for his farewell match with Argentina next week.

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See AP’s full soccer coverage here

Marie-Célestin Karondwa, a local official with Congo’s ruling Union for Democracy and Social Progress party, was attacked Sunday at his home in Butembo, an Ebola hotspot in the eastern North Kivu province, after defending the government’s response efforts during a radio program, the party said.

“They beat him up and then set the house alight,” Sagesse Kavira, Karondwa’s granddaughter, told The Associated Press at his funeral on Wednesday. He later died from his injuries at a local hospital.

The killing follows a series of attacks on health workers and other responders as the Central African nation battles its 17th and deadliest Ebola outbreak, which has so far recorded over 8,000 cases including nearly 4,000 deaths.

Authorities this month launched a village-centered approach to fight the Ebola outbreak. But those efforts continue to face resistance from some residents who dismiss Ebola as a hoax amid a widespread distrust in the country’s government for various reasons, ranging from how it’s managed past Ebola outbreaks to chronic corruption.

Responders say skepticism about the disease has complicated efforts to work with residents, including in remote communities and emerging hot spots that already face shortages of medical supplies and healthcare workers.

The mistrust is particularly difficult to overcome in eastern Congo's rebel-controlled territories, where decades of conflict with rebels as well as human rights abuses have left many residents wary of outsiders and state authorities.

The local politician killed in Butembo had been using the radio show to call on the public to obey response measures, particularly social distancing and handwashing, Jean-Baptiste Katsongo Lwatswa, first federal vice-president of UDPS in Butembo, told the AP.

“That is believed to have provoked the anger of certain young people,” he said.

Enoch Muhindo Balimatangi, a resident of Butembo, said there's fear and mixed feelings about Ebola among locals. "Some say that the illness exists, while others refuse to accept that it does. That’s frightening!” he said.

A key challenge in slowing this particular outbreak is the absence of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus that is causing it. Clinical trials for those are currently ongoing in Ituri province, the epicenter.

In its latest situation report, the World Health Organization warned the disease remains serious and there are “persistent challenges in timely case detection and access to early and adequate patient care.”

WHO has also said the outbreak continues to outpace efforts to track and slow it, and is on track to exceed the deadliest on record, West Africa’s regional outbreak between 2014 and 2016, which killed 11,000 people.

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Brennan reported from Dakar, Senegal. Justin Kabumba in Goma, Congo, contributed.

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

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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.

Salah Sarsour was detained in Milwaukee in March by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. A federal judge ordered Sarsour’s release in June, saying he raised a “substantial” claim that the Trump administration was targeting him for speaking out against Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights.

Sarsour called the ruling “deeply disappointing,” but said he intends to appeal.

“I will continue fighting to defend the right to free speech and to stay in the country I have called home for more than three decades,” Sarsour said in a statement.

Government attorneys say Sarsour’s decades-old convictions in Israel make him a threat to national security and accuse him of lying on his green card application and falsely claiming citizenship to vote. Judge Jayme Salinardi, with the Chicago Immigration Court, found him removable on foreign policy grounds but tossed out the government's claim that Sarsour lied to immigration authorities.

“All illegal aliens receive due process,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period.”

Sarsour says his life will be at risk if he is deported to the West Bank

Sarsour, who was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after being convicted of throwing stones at Israeli military personnel. DHS has said he was also convicted of throwing a Molotov cocktail. His defense team says he was accused of that but not convicted. In 1995, he was convicted of attempting to possess weapons. Sarsour denies committing those crimes and his attorneys say he was tortured and coerced into confessing in both instances.

Sarsour, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, does not have a criminal record in the U.S., where he has lived since 1993. His attorneys say the U.S. government has known about Sarsour’s convictions in Israel since he arrived.

Deportation to the West Bank “means the end of my life,” Sarsour told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

One of his attorneys, Patrick Taurel, said Sarsour’s treatment by Israeli authorities is “probably a good indicator of what awaits him” if he is deported.

At a status hearing Wednesday, Taurel pressed the judge to specify that Sarsour can only be deported to Israel or the Palestinian territories. Jordan, a country to which Sarsour has no connection, is listed as a possible destination on the order of removal.

Sarsour was instructed by immigration officers to list Jordan as his home country on an immigration form because his preferred entry — “Palestine” — is not a fully independent, unified state. But he “has no right to reside in Jordan,” Taurel said.

Salinardi declined, saying that can be addressed on appeal.

If sent to Jordan, Sarsour “would just be immediately handed off to Israel,” Taurel said during a news conference Wednesday.

Attorney says Sarsour will fight deportation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a memo in June 2025 invoking a rarely used immigration provision saying Sarsour could be deported on the same grounds as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both advocates for Palestinian rights whom the Trump administration has tried to expel, according to court documents.

DHS said in its statement that Rubio “has reasonable grounds to believe Sarsour’s presence would have adverse foreign policy consequences for the U.S., and he has engaged in terrorist activity or supported a terrorist organization.”

Salinardi found Rubio's letter singling out Sarsour as a foreign policy risk was “presumptive and sufficient evidence” that the government can remove him, Taurel said Wednesday, reading from the judge’s decision. The judge gave “extreme deference” to Rubio and to Israel, which has “collaborated” with DHS in the effort to deport Sarsour, the attorney said.

Taurel has said Sarsour will need to demonstrate that he could be tortured again if he were deported, calling it a “very high bar” that he believes his team “can meet in this case.”

A notice of appeal is due within 30 days, and Sarsour has 60 days to file an application for relief. The government cannot deport Sarsour until he has exhausted all available legal avenues. Salinardi, who did not schedule a new hearing, announced he is retiring and that Judge Craig Defoe will oversee the case going forward.

Sarsour says he was tortured and coerced into confessions

Jawad Boulos, who represented Sarsour when he was convicted in Israel, testified in August that Sarsour was coerced into confessing and that he wasn’t convicted of any charge tying him to a terrorist organization. He said Sarsour was tortured by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

The Department of Homeland Security challenged Boulos about the torture allegations, questioning how he could know it was true.

Sarsour’s defense team has repeatedly asked why the government waited until this year to detain him, saying it has known of his imprisonment in Israel for decades.

Experts on forced confessions and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons also testified in Sarsour’s defense. Israeli military courts have faced repeated scrutiny over allegations of limited due process and the high conviction rate of Palestinians. Israel rejects the claims.

In June, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon ordered Sarsour released from ICE custody saying he could have a case arguing the U.S. government detained him in retaliation for protected speech. Further, Hanlon said, government attorneys had not explained why Sarsour was suddenly considered a threat after decades as a lawful permanent resident.

The Trump administration has appealed Hanlon’s ruling.

Sarsour, who has Type 2 diabetes, lost more than 30 pounds (14 kilograms) while detained by ICE, and his blood sugar levels were checked only once a month, putting him at risk of organ failure or death, his attorneys said.

An investigation by KFF Health News and The Associated Press found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states have filed federal lawsuits with similar allegations of medical neglect.

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Mayes-Osterman is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

The Pentagon also will launch an effort to study the future of warfare that will be led in part by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Hegseth said. The Defense Department will create an Office of Religious Affairs and plans to build a new base for the first time in 40 years, he added.

Hegseth made the announcements to junior officers and enlisted leaders at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia — the second year in a row that he has given such an address. But this time, the U.S. military is seven months into a war with Iran with no clear end in sight, has captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and killed more than 200 people in strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats in Latin America, among other actions worldwide.

The speech is not a usual fixture among Pentagon leaders. While Hegseth’s predecessors have regularly addressed troops and top officers, they have traditionally done so in small or private settings.

The Pentagon chief, however, again led with how he has drastically retooled the U.S. military by targeting what he calls “woke” culture — through a rollback of diversity programs, a review of ground combat units with female troops and a new screening program for “testosterone deficiency” among male personnel — as well as attacks on the media for the coverage of the military.

Hegseth announces a new drone-focused warfare command

The Pentagon chief announced the intention to create a new four-star command to oversee the rollout of autonomous and robotic capabilities in what he called “the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.”

He acknowledged that “the pace of war is changing faster than the process to support it.” Iran commonly uses cheap drones, including those that have killed U.S. troops during the seven-month war. Hegseth pointed to Ukraine's pioneering use of drones to combat Russian forces — something American forces have learned from firsthand.

“Ukraine’s lesson is not that one type of drone wins wars, but rather the need for a purpose-built system that maximizes the ability to adapt,” Hegseth said.

However, a U.S. Army unit based in Europe that specialized in drone warfare was ordered recently to end its efforts and return to being a traditional infantry battalion.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers subsequently asked the Army to explain the order, given that the world’s battlefields are rapidly evolving and military tactics increasingly rely on uncrewed systems to fight.

The plans for a drone command come as the U.S. is in a stalemate with Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy shipping corridor. The war has forced American forces in the region to expend hundreds of expensive missile interceptors to defend against Iran’s missile and drone attacks, which have still managed to kill and wound U.S. troops.

Hegseth repeated claims that the U.S. military has destroyed Iran's navy, air force and defense systems as well as many of its leaders and its industrial base. But Tehran has continued intermittently to launch drone and missile attacks against at U.S. or allied bases, while maintaining its ability to strike commercial and military ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

During his speech, Hegseth touted the Trump administration’s major investments in the defense industry and push for contractors to speed up their work to expand the nation’s weapons arsenals. But experts say U.S. military contractors will need at least three years to replenish stockpiles of key weapons systems used heavily in the Iran war.

Hegseth faces questions from lawmakers over cuts to general ranks

Hegseth said he directed the military services to double the 10% reduction he ordered last spring for roughly 800 flag and general officer positions, to a 20% decrease to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027.

“I call it accountability and long overdue,” he said.

Some members of Congress have criticized the war and the drawdown of munitions stockpiles, while calling the latest cuts to the general ranks a “purge” that will take years to rebuild.

“He’s got some kind of like deep-seated grievance about leadership in the military,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot who has been critical of Hegseth. “He’s purging a generation of great leaders of the military, and it’s going to take a generation to recover from it.”

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wanted to understand Hegseth’s reasoning.

“If it’s simply a matter of eliminating a very heavy top, there may be some validity to it, but I want to see it first,” Rounds said.

Musk and Gingrich to lead a study of future warfare

In innovating the next wave of weapons systems, Hegseth announced an effort to study the future of warfare led by Musk, Gingrich and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril Industries.

Hegseth said the work “will be focused on discovering, developing and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes.” He pointed to the need to dominate "any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the moon.”

This month, the U.S. confirmed for the first time that it had deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.

Among the other announcements was the unveiling of a plan to build a new military base, with Hegseth inviting all 50 states to compete for the chance to play host to 15,000 to 25,000 service members. He also announced a plan to make every military base self-powered.

___

Finley reported from Washington, and Kinnard from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

The bill, proponents argue, would cut down the arduous timeline for getting big energy projects off the ground at a time when demand is rising because of mushrooming data centers for artificial intelligence. The bill would ensure AI data centers are forced to pay for the increased electricity they use and would mark a significant change to a landmark environmental law that critics say slows the process of building energy projects.

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the bill “a major step toward making it faster and more efficient and easier to build infrastructure projects” of all types while maintaining important environmental protections.

Vote on the bill won't happen until after the midterms

“The American people sent us here to do big things. This is a big thing. It’s monumental and it’s legacy-setting,” Capito said at a news conference at the Capitol where she was joined by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. The four senators lead the chamber's energy and environment panels.

Heinrich said the bill “will mean more energy on the grid, more good-paying jobs, and lower electricity costs for families and businesses. And as data centers drive demand for more power, it will ensure they pay their fair share of the grid upgrades they require — not leave that bill to American families.”

A vote on the bill won’t happen until after the midterm elections — reflecting the fraught political reality as elections loom that could change partisan control of both chambers. But the bill represents a rare instance of bipartisanship over the country’s energy policy as lawmakers from both parties agree on the need to build new energy projects of all types.

Lee, who chairs the energy committee, said he is confident the bill will be approved in a lame-duck session in November, noting its bipartisan support and encouragement from business and environmental groups.

Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the environment panel, also was hopeful but said Democrats were still seeking clarity on how the bill will prevent President Donald Trump's administration from blocking wind and solar projects.

He and Heinrich, the top energy Democrat, have decried what they call Trump's “reckless and vindictive assault on wind energy” that includes repeated actions to block large-scale wind projects under construction off the East Coast. The administration suspended five offshore wind projects in December, citing unspecified national security concerns.

The projects later moved forward after federal judges intervened. A federal judge also struck down Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects early in his second term.

Brad Campbell, president of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, panned the deal, saying it “appears to adopt a fossil fuel industry wish-list.” He said the bill could roll back protections for clean water and endangered species, limit judicial review and curtail the power of the Environmental Protection Agency and states to consider impacts of energy projects.

Drew Maloney, president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents for-profit utilities, said he was encouraged by provisions to streamline environmental permitting and “create project certainty.” The group is reviewing the transmission provisions to see how they affect efforts to deliver electricity to its 250 million customers, he said.

In a statement, the White House said the bill would “deliver transformative policies to lower Americans’ energy and housing costs, drive new construction and investment in American infrastructure, and create American jobs.”

Trump's wind opposition played a role in delaying a deal

Trump's opposition to wind power has been a consistent stumbling block to a deal on permitting reform, which Democrats say can only go forward if the administration agrees to allow previously approved projects to move forward.

Trump recently offered to ease his administration’s holdup on renewable energy projects, in part to entice Democrats to agree to a permitting deal. But it was unclear how long the offer would last and whether it would change after the election results are known.

Whitehouse called the administration's proposal reasonable but said the overall issue remains “unresolved.”

Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said his group was studying the bill’s details, but said: “Ensuring the agreement puts an end to the Trump administration’s war on clean energy — the cheapest and fastest sources of energy — will be a necessary element to any deal.”

Capito was confident such obstacles can be overcome.

Both parties recognize that for far too long, “America has had a permitting system filled with delays, expenses, red tape, uncertainty,'' she said. “Too long, too expensive. And we’ve seen projects that should be finished more quickly (take) decades” to complete.

The Senate bill would limit legal challenges under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law that requires federal agencies to consider a project’s possible environmental impacts before it is approved. The law has increasingly been blamed for stalling projects of all types.

Challenges under the National Historic Preservation Act also would be restricted. The law protects Native American cultural treasures and other important artifacts.

The bill would ease siting of interstate transmission lines and strengthen the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authority to review major projects at the same time as state reviews, helping needed projects move through the overall permitting process more quickly.

The bill also would require data centers to pay for all associated transmission costs, preventing costs from being passed on to families or businesses.

___

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, R.I.

Dionisiah Edwards-Carpeal, 36, was arrested moments after the crash Monday evening in the Medical Center area.

She faces charges of murder and aggravated assault.

A preliminary police report says Edwards-Carpeal intentionally hit a 37-year-old woman and 39-year-old man in a parking lot on Data Point Drive, not far from Wurzbach Road.

It says she initially began following the pair in her car as they left a nearby restaurant, then arguing with them from her car window.

At some point, police believe she purposely aimed the car at them.

The female victim died later at a hospital.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the Bexar County Medical Examiner still had not positively identified her.

Police did not give an update on the man’s condition, nor did they explain whether the suspect and victims knew one another.

Read also:

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He says his old team did not do much to try to keep him when he left in free agency for Baltimore.

“They shipped me out,” he said Wednesday, before walking that back a little. “No, I don't want to say it like that. It's always love. But no, they didn't offer nothing at all.”

Tennessee was 6-11 in 2023, Henry’s final season there. He turned 30 in January 2024. It’s hard to know what it would have taken for him to stay, and after his final game there he was given a microphone and thanked the fans.

“I knew the writing was on the wall throughout that season, and they were ready to move on,” he said. “Good things don't last forever, so it was time for me to find a new home.”

Joining Lamar Jackson on a contending team in Baltimore has been great for him.

Henry rushed for 1,167 yards in his final season with the Titans, but he averaged a career-low 4.17 yards per carry. His first two full seasons with the Ravens: 1,921 yards in 2024 and 1,595 in 2025 — with a career-high 5.91 yards per carry in '24 and 5.2 last season.

“Lamar was a big reason why I came here,” Henry said. “It kind of takes the pressure off of the running back just because of who he is. So, whenever I came out for free agency, this was the No. 1 spot I wanted to go to, even during that season before I got here.”

Baltimore hosts Tennessee on Sunday. It's the first time the teams have met since Henry's move.

“I’ve never coached with him, but I’ve always gotten a chance to see him from afar and go against him,” Titans coach Robert Saleh said. “He’s an animal still running like he’s 25 years old. So he’s a tremendous challenge and anytime you’re trying to replace a Hall of Famer, it’s not easy.”

The Titans are 6-31 since Henry left, 0-3 this season.

Baltimore is coming off a last-second win over Dallas in Brazil. That was not the easiest game for Henry, who struggled in short-yardage situations behind an injury-plagued offensive line.

“Got to have them. I've got to be better. Can’t stop thinking about them,” Henry said. “Not saying it’s like living rent-free in my head, but just very hard on myself and very critical of myself. I’m my worst critic, so I got to be better. I ain't looking at nobody else, nobody to blame, the play call — if it’s called to give me the ball, I got to get a yard or got to get in the end zone, it's got to happen.”

Henry may want to take responsibility, but this past weekend was not the best rushing situation for him. Tackle Ronnie Stanley missed the game with a toe injury. He was back at practice Wednesday but limited. At center, Baltimore's top three options are now injured, and none is expected back anytime soon.

Rookie guard Vega Ioane is capable of moving over to play there, and coach Jesse Minter indicated that may be the short-term solution. It would leave Andrew Vorhees and Emery Jones Jr. competing for a guard spot, and Baltimore also signed guard Kyle Hergel and center Andre James to the practice squad.

The Ravens also signed safety K’Von Wallace to the 53-man roster.

Jackson, meanwhile, was not at practice when reporters were present at the beginning, but he eventually made it onto the field. He was listed as limited with a back issue.

He did talk to reporters before practice and said the team is motivated to help Henry to a win over the Titans.

“It will mean a lot to him, but to us too,” Jackson said. “We want him to win versus those guys, which is going to be a rival game.”

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See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

EAT IT OR LEAVE IT | MURF’S BETTER BURGERS

2922 West Ave, San Antonio, TX 78201

David Elder traveled out to Murf’s Better Burgers to try out their double cheeseburger combo, which includes fries and a drink, only for the affordable price of $8.99. The fries were alright as they could’ve used some more salt, but the cheeseburger was great, and the drink is a generous size as well. While the meal as a whole was very filling for only $8.99, Elder would leave the fries, but he’d eat the double cheeseburger any day of the week. There’s a half price deal every Thursday, which makes an already affordable meal, even cheaper. As an institution in San Antonio’s fast food scene, Murf’s lives up to it’s reputation as a cheap option to load up on a juicy cheeseburger.

FOOD NEWS | MIGRATORY MONTH

monarchfest.org

The 11th annual Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival caps off Migratory Month in San Antonio, a September celebration of the birds, butterflies, bats, bees and other pollinators that travel through the region. Throughout September, nine San Antonio restaurants, bars and cafes featured special dishes and drinks built around ingredients made possible by pollinators, including Liberty Bar, Best Quality Daughter, Farm Table, Southwest Elixirs, Howdy Child, Geranium Club, Fine and Dandelion, Miss Chickpea’s Bake Shop, and Mesquite. Guests who spot the Made Possible by Pollinators logo can snap a picture and tag @MonarchFestSATX along with the participating restaurant for a chance to win a goodie basket.

MEAL DEALS | CHICKEN WINGS

sa.gov/health

Just in time for football season, San Antonio Metro Health shared food safety guidance for cooking chicken wings at home. The first step happens before the package is even opened: clean your counters and cutting boards and wash your hands with soap and warm water for at least 20 seconds. Metro Health also recommends keeping raw poultry separate from other foods to prevent cross-contamination, and thawing poultry completely before it hits hot oil, either in the refrigerator a couple of days ahead or by buying it already refrigerated.

The wings used for this recipe were Hill Country Fair chicken wingettes, $7.10 per pack with roughly 12 to 14 wingettes inside. They soak in a brine of a quarter cup of kosher salt to one quart of water for one to two hours, covered and kept on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator. They then get drained, patted dry, and dusted with cornstarch for crisp skin. Frying happens outside on a stable surface, with the oil brought to at least 380 degrees so it settles near 350, and the wings cook about 7 to 10 minutes to an internal temperature of 165. From there they get tossed in butter, then Cajun seasoning, then buffalo sauce.

CHOP IT UP | JOHNNY HERNANDEZ

This episode of Chop It Up welcomes chef Johnny Hernandez, a name that comes up in nearly every conversation about the city’s culinary scene and someone who has spent years promoting both his own brand and San Antonio itself. The set for this episode, including the chairs, rug, coffee table and side table, was furnished by La-Z-Boy of San Antonio, with more at SouthTexasFurniture.com.

Hernandez traced his start back to the family business his father opened when he was about five years old, where everyone pitched in and he gravitated to the back of the house, washing dishes, peeling potatoes and chopping onions. His father closed the business when Hernandez was around 14, but by then the kitchen had already claimed him.

DAYCATION DESTINATION | STATE FAIR OF TEXAS

The State Fair of Texas is officially underway in Dallas, running 24 days with a Ferris wheel spinning, plenty to do and an enormous lineup of food. The Cotton Bowl sits on the fairgrounds, hosting Texas OU on October 10. Prices range from $15 to $25 a person depending on the day and time, some kids get in free, and fairgoers are encouraged to check prices online before heading out.

This year’s savory winner is the Burger Chop Tater Taco, a shell made of flattened tater tots with a crunchy cheese crust, filled with ground beef, coleslaw, cilantro, onions and a chipotle sauce. Also in the mix is the Flamin’ Crunch Pizza, a top five bite topped with hot Cheetos over cheese pizza, with a creaminess and crunch that hold up to the over-the-top presentation.

Follow Texas Eats and David Elder on Facebook and Instagram for more food info, pictures, videos and giveaways.

• Facebook: @TexasEatsTV
• Instagram: @texaseatstv
• TikTok: @ElderEats
• Twitter: @TexasEatsTV

The new hurricane, Rachel, is expected to develop rapidly and could become a major one with sustained winds topping 111 mph (178 kph). The storm was hundreds of miles offshore, however, and posed no threat to land.

Parts of New Mexico, meanwhile, looked less and less like the months of drought that dried up reservoirs and caused hungry bears to roam into neighborhoods in search of food.

“There’s a lot of standing water in the fields and near some homes,” National Weather Service meteorologist Greg Lundeen said of one area where water overtopped a minor dam.

Floodwaters threatened the state's famous chile crop at harvest time. And the Rio Grande that ran dry through a long stretch of the state was overflowing.

The damp and stormy pattern is consistent with an El Niño year of above average Pacific storm activity.

Soggy weather slogs off to the east

From Colorado and across the Great Plains to Iowa, as much as 2 inches (5 centimeters) of rain fell Tuesday and into Wednesday, with some areas seeing even more.

More storms were expected in Texas and Oklahoma after one in Amarillo, Texas, flooded streets and spawned a tornado Tuesday night. Storm totals in the Amarillo area topped 3.5 inches (9 centimeters).

The weather was the remnant of tropical systems including Hurricane Polo, a Category 3 hurricane that made landfall overnight Monday on the Baja California peninsula and then farther inshore.

In southern New Mexico, ongoing rain threatened to rot red chiles as the harvest wraps up. Mold and disease will put stress on the plants in the field, said Preston Mitchell, a Hatch Chile Association board member.

“There will be nobody picking chile for at least five or six days,” Mitchell said. “All these growers whose fields were flooded, everything’s toast. Everything that’s out there is done.”

But most of about 100 people who sought refuge from potential flooding in chile-growing Dona Ana County were headed home from shelters Wednesday, county officials said.

As the weather cleared, water stopped spilling over an earthen flood-control structure in the area that held without failing.

Acting Gov. Howie Morales declared a state of emergency that made $3.75 million available through local governments to help affected people get temporary housing, healthcare, food and transportation.

Rachel is the latest in a busy Pacific hurricane season

Mexican authorities remain on alert in the states of Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco due to Hurricane Rachel.

In the state of Jalisco, schools were closed Wednesday in 30 municipalities as a precautionary measure.

Rachel was located about 185 miles (300 kilometers) southwest of Cabo Corrientes, Mexico, or about 310 miles (495 kilometers) south-southeast of Cabo San Luas. Its maximum sustained winds were around 85 mph (140 kph), according to an advisory from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.

The cyclone was moving northwest at 8 mph (13 kph) and was forecast to turn toward the west-northwest and west later this week, moving away from mainland Mexico and passing south of the Baja California peninsula.

The hurricane center said the Mexican government had discontinued all coastal watches and warnings. But it warned of possible isolated rainfall totals of up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) and heavy surf along the coasts of Guerrero, Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco states.

In Jalisco, the bodies of three people -- two children ages 3 and 15, and their mother -- were found Sunday after the family went missing due to a river flooding in the city of Talpa de Allende, before Polo made landfall. The father is still missing, according to the Jalisco State Civil Protection agency. A tourist also is missing due to strong waves in Puerto Vallarta, but the agency says that case is not linked to Polo either.

In the central Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Nolo threatened dangerous conditions for parts of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a marine conservation area. Formerly a hurricane, the storm drenched parts of Hawaii’s Big Island over the weekend. Its maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph (85 kph).

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Mikella Schuettler and Wufei Yu in Phoenix, Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Fabiola Sanchez in Mexico City and Julie Walker in New York City contributed reporting.

A variety of missteps by the Fed's Board of Governors and staff inflated the cost of the $2.4 billion renovation, the Fed’s inspector general said. The board did not secure a comprehensive cost estimate at the beginning of the project, nor did it nail down a maximum overall cost, a step that could have forced the building contractor to absorb the impact of inflation, the IG said in a 120-page report. Prices spiked after construction began in 2022.

“Our review found that the Board has not effectively managed and executed its ... contract and repeatedly deviated from its cost-management provisions,” the report said.

The building project became a high-profile flashpoint in the Trump administration’s efforts to pressure the Fed into cutting its key interest rate. President Donald Trump even visited the construction site last July, when then-Chairman Jerome Powell corrected Trump’s estimate of the project’s expected costs as the two stood in hard hats before TV cameras.

Criticism of the project also mounted in Congress, leading Powell to request in July 2025 that the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, investigate the renovation.

The building project then became the focus of a criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department, specifically into whether Powell had committed perjury during brief testimony about the renovation before a Senate committee. That investigation was dropped in April after a judge quashed subpoenas issued by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro said then she would await the outcome of the inspector general’s investigation before deciding whether to take any further action.

“At no point during our evaluation did we find reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of federal criminal law had occurred requiring a referral to the U.S. Attorney General,” the IG’s report said.

Tim Lauer, a spokesperson for Pirro's office, said the report is under review.

Powell's term as chair ended in May, but he took the highly unusual step of remaining on the board as one of seven governors. His term as a governor lasts until January 2028. Powell said earlier this year he would remain on the board at least until he is convinced that Pirro's investigation is done. By keeping his seat, Powell has also prevented the Trump administration from filling another spot on the board.

Trump on Wednesday afternoon seized on the report to renew his call for Powell to resign from the Fed.

“He can’t manage a Building, and he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to manage his High Interest Rate Policy,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social. “And no, I do not want this Building named after President Donald J. Trump, ME!”

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee and a frequent critic of Powell's, said the report “confirmed that Trump lapdogs U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and Attorney General Todd Blanche have no basis to restart the President’s witch hunt against former Fed Chair Jerome Powell.”

Current Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, who took office last May, welcomed the IG’s findings in a letter and said the General Services Administration, a federal agency that oversees most government buildings, would take on a consulting role with the Fed to help oversee the project.

He also said the Fed would engage an independent auditor to evaluate the building project and all its costs. The Fed, with the GSA, will review all the project's contracts and “pursue appropriate remedies,” including seeking reimbursement for any work paid for but not performed, the letter said.

The report said that the construction costs to renovate two Fed buildings more than doubled from an original estimate of $921 million in February 2020 to $2.018 billion by December 2024. Construction is expected to last until December 2027, long past its originally slated completion date of mid-2024.

Some aspects of the project that were criticized by the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress for being luxurious — water fountains, private elevators and marble facades — were not significant drivers of the excessive costs of the project, the report said.

Instead, the IG said that a design change by the Fed in 2023 from a mostly open workspace to one with mostly closed office space caused a significant delay in the project's design. It also delayed the Fed from seeking a maximum cost ceiling for the project at that time.

The Fed has long blamed a range of factors for the cost overruns, including a spike in inflation that occurred as the economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpected expenses such as asbestos remediation, and additional demands from review agencies. For example, Trump appointees to a planning commission from his first term pushed the Fed to add more marble to the exterior of the renovated buildings, in keeping with Trump's preference for classical architecture.

The report said those factors all played a role, but added that they “do not account for the effect of key project management and contract execution decisions” that effectively transformed the contract to "a cost-plus reimbursement contract with a pay-as-you-go approach.”

“Inflation does not change the Fed’s responsibility to manage its resources prudently and be accountable to Congress,” Sen. Tim Scott, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a South Carolina Republican, said.

The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% to close out its third losing month in the last four. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 443 points, or 0.9%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.2%.

Stocks turned lower after data reports suggested the U.S. economy was even stronger during the spring than earlier thought. That helped yields remain high in the bond market, which in turn kept up the pressure weighing on stocks and all financial markets.

The day began with gains for stocks following an encouraging report that said inflation wasn’t as bad across the United States last month as economists expected. It said the cost of living for U.S. consumers was 3.4% higher overall in August than a year earlier. That was not as high as the 3.7% inflation rate that economists expected, even if it remained worse than the Fed’s 2% target.

The report followed others from earlier in the month about inflation during August, but it’s the one that the Federal Reserve prefers to use.

Shorter-term Treasury yields fell as traders pared bets that the Fed will raise its main interest rate next month to get inflation further under control. They now see just a 37% chance of that, down from the coin flip’s chance seen a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.

That helped the yield on the two-year Treasury briefly fall toward 4.83% before it pulled back to 4.89%, where it was late Tuesday.

But longer-term yields rose in the bond market. That’s in part because worries about high inflation are just one of the reasons longer-term yields have jumped in the United States and around the world.

The seemingly solid U.S. economy is another. Besides Wednesday's better-than-expected report on the overall U.S. economy, another update said growth in business activity in the Midwest was also stronger than economists expected.

Much of the strength in the U.S. economy is due to consumers, who are increasing their spending by more than their incomes are rising.

“The consumer remains resilient, in a much better position than previously thought,” according to Gary Schlossberg, global strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.

Other factors sending Treasury yields higher are also continuing to churn, including worries about the big debt loads that Washington and other governments worldwide are supporting.

Oil prices, meanwhile, rose in their latest swings amid uncertainty about when the war with Iran will allow the flow of crude to be fully restored. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 1.9% to settle at $98.03 per barrel.

It all helped the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which is the centerpiece of the bond market, drop as low as 5.20% in the morning before rising to 5.29%. That’s up from 5.26% late Tuesday, and it’s back to where it was more than two decades ago in 2002.

The 30-year Treasury yield, which takes into account expectations for inflation and economic growth many years down the line, climbed to 5.64% from 5.59% late Tuesday.

Higher yields slow the overall economy by making borrowing money more expensive for everyone, while undercutting prices for all kinds of investments.

On Wall Street, Cal-Maine Foods dropped 0.7% after the country’s largest egg company reported a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. With plenty of eggs available in the market, Cal-Maine Foods saw a sharp drop in prices it could charge, compared with a year earlier.

Helping to limit the market's losses was Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which rose 3.9%. It increased its forecast for revenue from its networking business, which is benefiting from the boom in artificial-intelligence technology.

MongoDB climbed 3.4% after the database company’s board boosted its program to send cash to shareholders by $1 billion through buybacks of its own stock. That helped MongoDB recover some of its sharp loss from earlier in the week, after it said Chirantan “CJ” Desai was stepping down as CEO for a senior role at Meta Platforms.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 19.30 points to 7,651.54. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 443.87 to 50,906.05, and the Nasdaq composite added 63.52 to 26,861.06.

In stock markets abroad, indexes dipped in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.9%, while France’s CAC 40 fell 0.9% for two of the world’s bigger moves.

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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Michelle Chapman contributed to this report.

The complaint alleges the seven judges — nominated by Democrats and Republican presidents — violated judicial ethics by speaking to The New York Times about their experience dealing with a flood of cases during last winter’s Operation Metro Surge crackdown that led to thousands of arrests in the Twin Cities.

The complaint escalates the department's battle with the federal judiciary, which has halted administration priorities, dismissed high-profile prosecutions and accused government lawyers in some cases of failing to comply with court orders.

The department is demanding that the judges recuse themselves from all criminal or civil cases involving the Department of Homeland Security, Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters, because of what he described as “obvious bias they have shown" in their remarks to the newspaper.

“When we have a situation like we have now, where you have a judge, a couple of judges, just not only violating the canons in our view, but also showing bias in what they’re saying, we have no choice but to act to defend not only our prosecutors, but also DHS,” Blanche said.

The judge at the center of the story, Patrick Schiltz, accused the government in January of failing to comply with nearly 100 court orders. He said in a ruling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a part of DHS, "is not a law unto itself.”

Schiltz, who was nominated by Republican President George W. Bush and served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told the newspaper that what happened in Minnesota's federal court last winter “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Minnesota court said legal experts have confirmed that the judges were acting “well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges” in speaking to the newspaper. Schiltz also said in a statement that his comments did not violate any ethical rules.

“Indeed, in February of this year, the Committee on Codes of Conduct issued an advisory opinion to emphasize that federal judges" may speak or write "on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence,'" Schiltz said in a statement. “That is exactly what I did."

The complaint was filed with the chief judge of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees federal judges in Minnesota.

The Republican administration has railed against what it describes as “activist judges” who officials say are intent on thwarting Trump’s agenda. Yet some of the most critical and unfavorable court rulings have come from judges nominated by Trump and other Republican presidents.

A crash has closed southbound Interstate 37 just south of Pleasanton, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

The crash was reported Wednesday afternoon. Drivers are being detoured at SP 199 and reenter the main lanes at FM 541, TxDOT said in a 12:45 p.m. X post.

Atascosa County Deputy Chief Eric Kaiser told KSAT a man on the shoulder of the highway was changing a flat tire when a passing vehicle hit him. Kaiser directed KSAT to the Texas Department of Public Safety for more information.

Closure expected for several hours. Drivers should expect possible delays and seek alternate routes, if possible.

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

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed the names of detainees with final removal orders from its Online Detainee Locator System on Sept. 15 in an apparent effort to speed up their deportations. The change, which ICE did not announce and has not explained, applies to more than 16,000 of the nearly 69,000 detainees who are in ICE custody.

The move has interfered with detainees' ability to challenge looming deportations by impeding access to their lawyers while devastating families who lost track of their loved ones, immigration lawyers say.

A coalition of more than 30 groups who advocate for noncitizens in the U.S. petitioned the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to declare the policy a violation of international law and to push for its end.

“A system with no transparency is a system with no accountability, and that should terrify all of us,” said Sarah Decker, an attorney at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, one of the petition's signatories. “Disappearing people into a network of remote detention sites, hiding their whereabouts, and cutting off their access to outside help is the definition of an enforced disappearance."

Separately, on Wednesday, more than 45 House Democrats led by Reps. Luz Rivas and Veronica Escobar urged ICE to restore the names to the locator, calling the practice of concealing them “contrary to foundational principles of the American legal system.”

ICE's parent agency denied Wednesday that its practices amount to disappearing people, saying all detainees “have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”

“The appropriate process due to an illegal alien with final deportation orders is removal, plain and simple,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “That said, DHS has a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process under the U.S. Constitution.”

Detainees can typically call relatives if they have money in their commissary accounts, while calls to their legal representatives are supposed to be free.

Approximately 1.4 million people living in the U.S. are subject to final orders of removal. That typically means an immigration judge has ruled they should be deported and the decision has been upheld on appeal or not appealed. They still have several legal options to challenge their detention and deportation. Federal judges have ruled thousands of times that detainees should be released or granted bond hearings.

The petition to the U.N. said the policy has already “obstructed legal counsel from accessing their clients in detention, preventing interventions to seek immigration relief, challenge unconstitutional detention, and block unlawful deportations.”

It cited examples of several detainees, including a mother and 7-year-old daughter who were challenging their detention at a Texas facility but lost access to their lawyers as they faced deportation to Venezuela. Only after a judge ordered ICE to disclose their whereabouts did the agency do so, about 18 hours later, and release them from custody, the petition said.

One man reported intense stress and that the “darkest thoughts imaginable went through" his mind after the whereabouts of his elderly disabled mother were abruptly removed from the system, according to the petition.

The petition said ICE's online locator, launched in 2010, has become “an even more crucial tool” as President Donald Trump's administration has carried out a sweeping campaign to arrest and deport people who are in the country illegally. It noted that the U.N. working group had lobbied for the locator’s creation and its 2024 expansion to include people detained by the Border Patrol.

The petition asked the U.N. group to urge ICE to publicly list all detainees’ locations within an hour of their arrest and give detainees’ lawyers 24 hours’ notice before a transfer. The U.N. group, which was formed in 1980, helps families locate loved ones who have reportedly been subjected to enforced disappearance by government agents. It has five members and is currently chaired by Grazyna Baranowska of Poland.

The punches will come later, on Dec. 11 in Cardiff when the two former two-time world champions square off for the first time, and on UK soil to boot.

“Ten years in the making,” Joshua said at a press conference in London, the first time the two fighters squared off since the fight was announced last week. “We’re here now … it had to happen at some stage and there’s no better time than now.”

It is being billed as the biggest fight in British boxing history. The only question is whether it comes too late to settle the dispute over who is the better fighter.

Fury is 38 and has come out of retirement a handful of times already. Joshua turns 37 in two weeks and his only fights since losing his IBF world title clash with Daniel Dubois in 2024 were against YouTuber Jake Paul and Kristian Prenga.

“People say is it too late? (Expletive) too late,” Fury said. ”It’s the icing on the cake.”

Both men praised Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority and president of the Saudi Boxing Federation, for finally making the fight happen.

Alalshikh said he wanted to stage it at Wembley Stadium in London but settled for Cardiff because he couldn’t get permission to have the iconic venue stay open until 2 a.m.

“In the end, Wales delivered,” Alalshikh said. “And still it is UK.”

The prize money for the fight has not been announced, but British media reports have put the collective purse at close to $200 million.

"They’re getting extremely well paid.” said Frank Warren, the promoter in Fury's camp.

Tickets go on sale Oct. 9.

And the fighters are saving their heavy punches for the big event. The press conference was mostly full of smiles and laughter as the two exchanged a few verbal barbs about a famous sparring session more than 10 years ago, when Joshua was still an amateur.

A few hundred fans had been granted tickets and a vast majority were loudly in Joshua’s camp.

But it was Fury who did most of the talking, although he mainly had good things to say about his opponent.

“He’s been a role model and a poster boy for British boxing for years. I find myself defending my archrival to fans I meet in the street,” Fury said. “That aside, obviously we’re here to fight, and fight we will.”

That’s all boxing fans — especially in Britain — have wanted to see for so long.

“I know in pubs, people have had proper fights about who’s going to win between me and Tyson,” Joshua said. “I know family members have fell out with each other about who’s going to win … I’m just happy to be here, fighting, and fulfilling my destiny before I depart this world.”

Fury also pointed out the vastly contrasting physiques and styles of the two fighters.

“I stand here today as the most awkwardly built world heavyweight champion in the history of sport,” Fury said. “I’m a bald, fat, bearded, ugly, slow and ponderous, all of the above.”

At which point Joshua cut in: “It’s true.”

Fury then continued: “And we’ve got this guy here. He’s carved in stone like an Olympian, from marble. But every time he gets cracked on the jaw he falls over.”

Fury had less nice things to say about Eddie Hearn, the promoter in Joshua's camp, and briefly tried to stoke a bit of animosity by making fun of his ring opponent having referred to himself as “the landlord” in the buildup.

“Now it’s come time to collect the rent, and I’m not (expletive) paying,” Fury said. “Because I’m No. 1.”

The two fighters also bickered over why Fury's name is first in the “Fury vs. Joshua” promotional material for the bout — which will be shown on Netflix — and whether the fight should be staged in Britain.

But they never seemed close to getting physical as they squared up on stage, and Fury is already preparing to take his opponent out for a beer after the bout.

“I don't know if you're a a drinking man, but I hope that after this fight we can have a pint of Guinness together. Win, lose or draw," Fury said. "Have a fight first, then have a beer. How does that sound?"

Replied Joshua: “I don't know if I can trust you.”

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Passengers, many of them Israelis, feared for their lives as the FlyDubai aircraft lost half its altitude in about a minute.

As Israel scrambled fighter jets out of concern for a possible hijacking, a passenger and crew member burst into the cockpit to subdue the attacker, enabling other crew members to gain control of the aircraft, which landed safely in Saudi Arabia.

It was not clear what motivated Wednesday's attack.

The terrifying flight occurred just days before the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that launched the war in Gaza. It has rekindled anxieties about airline security and focused attention on an unsettling question: Are pilots a significant threat to the flying public's safety?

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about what happened on FlyDubai flight FZ1073:

A fight, an alert and a rapid descent

The distress call came at 8:44 a.m. local time, about two and a half hours after the flight with about 170 passengers left Dubai and headed to Tel Aviv.

The captain and first officer had been fighting in the cockpit after one stabbed the other and tried to crash the aircraft, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The aircraft swiftly lost altitude — dropping from 33,000 feet to 17,000 feet (around 10,000 meters to 5,100 meters) in the span of about a minute. It then circled close to the Jordanian border before landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, about an hour later.

A person who heard the flight’s communications with air traffic control described the plane being turned away by Saudi Arabia and Jordan before eventually landing in Tabuk, while passengers screamed in the background. The person who heard the communications spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Aviation experts said they were surprised that the plane did not crash after a descent so extreme that most of the rudder was ripped off the tail.

Both pilots suffered injuries that required hospital treatment, according to a statement from Tabuk's Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz International Airport. Netanyahu said Saudi Arabia had arrested one of the pilots.

A plane carrying passengers from the flight landed Wednesday evening in Israel.

Passengers and crew wrest control

A passenger and a crew member managed to enter the cockpit, enabling other crew members to fly the plane to a safe landing, according to Netanyahu, who cited a passenger he had spoken to.

The cockpit door on all aircraft is locked during flight for security reasons — a measure that became the industry standard after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, in which hijackers broke into the cockpits of four domestic flights in the United States.

Netanyahu said on X that the pilot who had been stabbed opened the cockpit door, which "enabled passengers and crew to overpower the attacker — preventing a catastrophic mid-air disaster.”

What security checks do pilots undergo?

One question surrounding this incident is how anyone on the aircraft — especially a pilot — was able to get a knife onboard. It's unclear how big the knife was that was used in the attack.

Pilots undergo rigorous screening, including passing through metal detectors, at checkpoints at all airports. It's also standard for airlines to vet their pilots' background for criminal and employment history, their physical and mental health, as well as having them undergo intelligence and security screening.

Israel has some of the most stringent airline security measures worldwide. Passengers on Israel-bound flights regularly are taken aside for questioning and baggage searches after passing through normal airport security. It's unclear whether the pilots of the FlyDubai flight had been screened as vigorously.

There have been extremely rare occasions when airline security protocols fail. In 2015, the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 locked the captain out of the cockpit and deliberately set the plane on a collision course with a mountainside, killing all 150 people aboard.

Cecilia Mueller, 47, was first arrested in connection with the alleged incident on April 27, 2026.

According to police, the alleged assault happened with a student several times while she was a teacher at Lewis Elementary School for nearly 12 years, until June 2019.

Mueller is no longer affiliated with the district, and records show her teacher educator certificate is also indefinitely suspended.

According to Bexar County jail records, Mueller was indicted on two first-degree felonies and three second-degree felonies.

Those charges include three counts of indecency with child sexual contact, one count of aggravated sexual assault of a child, and one count of continuous sexual assault of a child under 14.

Mueller’s next hearing is scheduled for Oct. 13, records show.

Read also:

• At least 2 students involved in stabbing at Metzger Middle School, district officials say
• San Antonio man receives life sentence after ‘heinous’ murder of girlfriend, Atascosa DA says
• 1 killed, 1 injured after woman allegedly drives into them near Northwest Side restaurant, SAPD says

Growth in gross domestic product — the nation’s output of a goods and services — decelerated from a 2.5% pace from January through March, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. The second-quarter growth was an improvement on the department’s previous estimate of 1.5% — a surprise to economists who had expected little or no change in the GDP number.

Consumer spending — which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity — increased at a healthy 3.8% annual pace, up from 0.7% in the January-March period. Spending has been helped by a strong stock market, which reflects enthusiasm over the prospects for artificial intelligence and which enriches wealthy investors and gives them more money to buy things with.

The overall growth number was dragged down by imports. They are subtracted from growth because GDP is only supposed to count domestic production. Imports rose at a 12.6% annual pace from April through June, partly due to a surge in shipments of computer chips and other products that support artificial intelligence investment, and slashed nearly 1.7 percentage points off second-quarter growth.

The U.S. economy has proven surprisingly resilient in the face of fighting with Iran and the energy price spike it caused.

Business investment, excluding housing, rose at a 9% clip in the second quarter, reflecting the AI investment boom. And a measure of the economy’s underlying strength — which strips out volatile government spending and trade numbers — grew at a strong 4.6% rate, up from 1.8% in the first quarter.

“The economy is increasingly reliant on AI gains and the corresponding wealth effects boosting higher-income households’ spending power to fuel recent growth,” said Michael Pearce, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. "The economy remains sensitive to a sudden reversal of optimism on AI.''

Investment in housing rose 2.8% ticking up for the first time since the end of 2024. The housing market has been depressed by high mortgage rates.

Wednesday’s report was the last of three Commerce Department estimates of second-quarter GDP growth. The first look at third-quarter growth is due Oct. 29.

This year, the festival will feature two processions and five stages with more than 50 performances.

Muertos Fest opens Friday, Oct. 23, with “Presente: A Night to Remember,” a quieter evening built around the community altar exhibition.

A sensory-friendly altar viewing will also take place from 5-7 p.m., followed by a performance from Tejano and Chicano orchestra LA 45, with special guest Sunny Ozuna.

Grupo Metal, featuring Chris Pérez, headlines Saturday night. Tejano musician Michael Salgado closes the festival Sunday.

Organizers said Max Baca y Los Texmaniacs will pay tribute to Texas Tornadoes musician Augie Meyers, the San Antonio musician who died earlier this year.

Other performers include:

• Girl in a Coma
• Los Carnales
• El Dusty y Los Homies
• Vanita Leo
• Santiago Jiménez Jr.
• Campanas de América
• Mariachi Las Alteñas
• Guadalupe Dance Company

The two processions, which take place one on Saturday evening and one on Sunday afternoon, will include more than 15 groups honoring San Antonians who have died.

Muertos Fest, which honors the traditions of Día de los Muertos through art, live music and more than 80 altars created by community members, draws more than 100,000 attendees each year.

Organizers said Muertos Fest has an annual economic impact of more than $5.3 million.

If you can’t make it, that’s alright! You can watch a recap of all the fun, as KSAT will air a two-hour primetime Muertos Fest special at 8 p.m. on Oct. 28 on all KSAT platforms.

Read also:

• Muertos Fest to bring Día de los Muertos traditions to Hemisfair

Taxpayers have asked the city to stop the contract with the AI company. After the governor called for a pause on all new contracts for Flock cameras, some cities have stopped the contracts altogether.

KSAT reached out to Kerrville to see if they had any intent to stop, and a spokesperson said:

“The City is aware of the recent action regarding automated license plate readers and is continuing to monitor developments at the state level.

“Based on the information currently available, the Texas Department of Transportation’s action pauses new permits for automated license plate readers along state-owned roadways. It does not appear to require local governments to discontinue existing LPR systems or prohibit their use generally.

“Because the TxDOT action applies to automated license plate readers broadly, rather than solely to a specific manufacturer, the brand of equipment would not necessarily determine whether a future installation within a state right-of-way is affected.

“At this time, the City has no additional changes regarding its use of LPR technology to announce. As with other public-safety technology, the City will continue to monitor applicable state requirements and evaluate its practices as necessary.”

A community protest against the AI cameras in Kerrville is set for Friday; the Kerr Freedom Coalition is leading it.

The protest is happening at the corner of Junction Highway and Harper Highway from 4:30-7 p.m. Organizers say they are standing up for freedoms and protest government invasion of privacy. A similar rally was held a week prior.

Read also:

• Leon Valley installs 6 license plate reader cameras using state grant

The AI giants and other tech companies in recent months have disclosed examples of their AI agents going beyond human instructions, finding their way onto the internet and hacking external websites.

An FTC spokesperson confirmed the investigation but declined further comment. The investigation was first reported by the New York Post, which said it has been underway for months.

Representatives for Anthropic and OpenAI did not immediately respond to messages for comment on Wednesday.

Concerns around the dangers powerful AI models may pose to humanity have led some of the top AI developers to call for a slowdown. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, said this month that the industry should slow its fast-moving development to give safety measures time to catch up. Without such a slowdown, Amodei warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.

OpenAI, meanwhile, recently delayed the launch of its newest model this week over safety concerns.

Now Flores is one of several candidates in tougher races than originally envisioned as Republican-run states heeded Trump's call to begin an unusual round of redistricting to help retain control of the U.S. House.

Republicans hoped to pick up as many as nine seats combined in Texas and Florida. But even though the districts were redrawn to make them easier to win for Republicans, the party is weighed down by the public's dissatisfaction with Trump, the economy, the war with Iran that has raised gas prices, and the president's deportation agenda.

The political landscape is competitive enough that Vice President JD Vance was in Texas on Wednesday, appearing with Flores and promoting him up as “a fighter." Acknowledging the broader discontentment with high prices, Vance blamed it on the “hole that Joe Biden left us," saying the previous Democratic administration "created the problems and we’re solving them.” Vance plans to visit Florida on Thursday.

The House Democrats' national campaign chair, Rep. Suzan DelBene, recently was in Florida districts that Republicans are hoping to claim.

“Republicans arrogantly thought they were going to redistrict seats to pick up more,” DelBene said in an interview during her trip. “Instead, what they have is people across the state souring on the Republican agenda.”

Mike Marinella, the House Republicans’ campaign spokesman, said the party can still capitalize this year “with a more favorable map, historic fundraising and spending advantages, stronger candidates and a common-sense agenda.”

House seats are up for grabs in Texas

Republicans won 25 of Texas’ 38 seats in the U.S. House as Trump returned to the White House two years ago. Partially using that election as a baseline, the redrawn map was intended to help Republicans win up to 30 seats.

Key to this plan was the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Latino region on the southern tip of Texas that had shifted toward Trump.

The 34th Congressional District, where Flores is running, includes some of the valley, and it went for Trump by 10 percentage points over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. But Flores said he expected his race to be close, which he credits to his opponent's five terms in office.

Flores received Trump's endorsement and it is still pinned to his X account, and he spoke at his unusual midterm convention in Dallas. But Flores also removed from his website a promise to “SUPPORT PRESIDENT TRUMP’S AGENDA" as he looked toward general election voters and widening his base of support.

“If I tell them the red meat issues or I tell them, you know, oh, Republican, Democrat, or anything like that, you lose them,” he told The Associated Press. “I just sell them myself, sell them what I stand for.”

Republicans in Washington acknowledge that inflation, Trump's tariffs and the war in Iran have made their path harder. Latino voters’ discontent with Trump’s immigration agenda further scrambles their efforts.

Republicans are also facing the potential loss of an incumbent who represents a redrawn district. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, who is running for a third term, has a strong challenge from musician Bobby Pulido. A Latin Grammy winner whose top song on Spotify has 619 million streams, Pulido does not face the usual first-time candidates’ challenge of establishing name ID.

“I want a picture!” Eloise Ibarra, 42, exclaimed as Pulido walked through the crowd at a high school football game. Ibarra later said she “probably” would vote for Pulido after sitting out the last presidential race.

“I don’t really like his policies,” she said about Trump. “It’s very expensive, I go to the grocery store and buy $50 worth of stuff and it’s like five items.”

Democrats argue that Republicans miscalculated this year.

“I think Republicans counted on Hispanics, and they counted on rural Texas, to deliver votes for them, and these are the two places that are hurting the most,” said Terri Burke of the Texas Democratic Party. Speaking of redistricting, she said, "this is really no longer such a slam dunk for the Republicans anywhere.”

Democrats see opportunity in Florida

Republicans already had 20 out of Florida's 28 House seats, and they wanted to boost that to 24 with their new congressional map. But much like in Texas, their plan was based on 2024 results, when voters, including many Latinos, were dissatisfied with Biden on the economy and immigration.

Republicans went after Rep. Kathy Castor in metro Tampa and Rep. Darren Soto in the Orlando area, while putting South Florida Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz into the same district.

Moskowitz shifted to a nearby Republican-leaning district, and Wasserman Schultz ran for another term in a separate, heavily Democratic district. Castor and Soto face longer odds in their redrawn districts, though DelBene believes they have a shot in the current environment.

The new map did not stop Pia Dandiya, an Ivy League-educated school principal whose parents immigrated from India, from making her first House campaign for Congress.

She is running in the 22nd Congressional District, where Trump won by double digits in 2024 and where Republicans had hoped to pit Moskowitz against Wasserman Schultz.

But Dandiya notes that Biden outpaced Trump in the same collection of precincts in 2020, and she calls herself “a happy road warrior” as she travels 150-plus miles between campaign stops.

“The way this district has been drawn just shows yet again that we are living in a world where elected officials are choosing voters instead of voters choosing elected officials, and it should never be that way,” she said. DelBene and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee tapped her as one of their “Red to Blue” priority candidates.

Dandiya said voters' current circumstances matter more than how they voted two years ago.

“Cost of living is not an issue that is exclusively impacting Democrats. It is an issue that is ubiquitous,” she said, adding that she hears the same concerns even in her district's more conservative communities.

___

Barrow reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Atlanta.

Officers initially responded to a fight just before 6 p.m. Monday in the 9700 block of Data Point Drive, near Wurzbach Road.

In an SAPD preliminary report, police said the woman, identified as Dionisiah Kazuko Edwards-Carpeal, 36, began following two people as they walked away from a local restaurant.

Edwards-Carpeal allegedly argued with them from inside her vehicle before driving into both of them, police said.

A 37-year-old woman sustained major injuries and was taken to a local hospital, where she later died. The condition of the second person, a 39-year-old man, was not immediately available.

Edwards-Carpeal was arrested for murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, Bexar County court records show.

The investigation is ongoing.

Read also:

• Murder defendant guilty of lesser charge, will spend 40 years in prison for fatal stabbing, DA says

Often, properties are considered “high risk for wildfires,” and carriers will not renew their policies until the home qualifies as a “Wildfire Prepared Home.”

Builders, developers, insurance and real estate professionals, as well as landscapers, are encouraged to attend along with homeowners.

The workshop continues through Wednesday, Sept. 30, until 4 p.m. at Boerne City Hall. Email info@hcfcoftx.com for more information.

Read also:

• How school districts plan for inclement weather during athletic events

Could he actually start against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? Maybe.

Washington coach Dan Quinn said Wednesday it’s “too early to call” if Daniels, who was injured in Week 2 against the Dallas Cowboys, would return after missing last week's game against the Seattle Seahawks.

“But as we’re working through the week, he’ll get more reps,” Quinn said at a news conference after the team arrived in the U.K. “As we get into Thursday and Friday, we’ll see what that load looks like.

“By Friday we’ll have a definite determination of where we’re at,” Quinn continued. “Until then, we’ll work and start the process, but it would be too early to call.”

Marcus Mariota started last week and threw three touchdown passes in the 33-31 win over defending champion Seattle.

The Commanders' session Wednesday was described by Quinn as a light “jog-through” not in pads. Were it a regular practice, Daniels would have officially been “limited,” the coach explained.

Daniels did some light footwork and passing drills, as well as taking snaps under center and simulating a handoff with the ball in his left, non-throwing hand — all with a big, restrictive brace holding his elbow at an angle.

It's the second elbow dislocation for Daniels, who missed most of the second half of last season with the same injury.

“Any athlete would probably tell you when you are going through something a second time, there’s a known of what the road looks like," Quinn said. "We just don’t know yet.

“We’re not going to put him out there before he’s ready,” he continued. “Him being back on the field is like, man that’s a good step for us, and then we’ll take it from there.”

Mariota on Daniels: ‘This is his team’

Mariota, who also filled in for Daniels in Washington's game last season in Madrid, is preparing to start again Sunday. He grew up playing soccer so competing at the home of a Premier League club will be “kind of a cool moment, so I’m looking forward to it.”

But the veteran, in his 12th NFL season, made it clear who QB1 is.

“They’re going make a collective decision that is best for Jayden, and we are going to support that,” Mariota said. “At the end of the day, I think if he’s healthy and he can play — he should play. This is his team.”

He described Daniels, who didn't speak to the media, as being in “good spirits” and “comfortable with where he's at.”

The Commanders lost to the Miami Dolphins 16-13 in overtime last season at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, home of Real Madrid.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Sunday’s game offers another contrast in the sports science debate about when to arrive in a country for an international game.

The Commanders are in town two days before the Colts — a significant but not huge difference.

A year ago, the Los Angeles Rams landed in London just 30 hours before kickoff against the Jacksonville Jaguars, who had arrived Tuesday of that week. The Rams then routed the Jags 35-7 at Wembley Stadium.

The Rams took a similar approach for their season opener in Melbourne, Australia, against the San Francisco 49ers, who choose to go Down Under a week in advance. The Niners prevailed 27-7.

The Colts beat the Houston Texans 19-17 last Sunday, ending a nine-game losing streak.

Nice digs

NFL teams typically stay in fancy hotels located far from central London. The Commanders are at The Grove, a luxury hotel 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of the city, and it includes a practice field.

If Quinn or his players get bored with football, they can book horse riding lessons, pumpkin picking or an afternoon tea. Tiger Woods won an event at the hotel's golf course in 2006. They could also do a tour at the nearby Warner Bros. Studio.

“I hope I can go see Big Ben or something,” defensive tackle Daron Payne said.

Injury updates

Running back Rachaad White was still dealing with a shoulder injury and did not practice Wednesday. “He needs more treatment and time and rehab on it,” Quinn said. The Commanders signed veteran RB Austin Ekeler on Monday.

G Sam Cosmi (concussion protocol) and S Nick Cross (internal injury) did not travel to London.

___

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Bednar, who has coached the Avalanche to a 445–262–75 record during his tenure, led the team to a Stanley Cup title in 2022 behind a nucleus that included Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and captain Gabriel Landeskog.

“We love Bedsy. We've said that for a long time — he’s a great coach, great human, the right coach for this group,” Landeskog said Wednesday morning before the team opened the season against the Los Angeles Kings. “We know he’s as hungry as we are, and that’s a big part of it. Happy for him.”

The team gave Bednar a vote of confidence in the offseason after being swept in the Western Conference Final. Bednar said leading into training camp they were in discussions to get an extension completed. It's the second big deal the Avalanche completed over the summer as the team also locked up Makar, a two-time Norris Trophy winner, to the richest deal in league history.

“We obviously have full trust in him,” said Makar, who signed a signed a $163.2 million, eight-year extension that kicks in next season. “For us to have stability like that as a team and to know the direction that we feel comfortable in and confident that we can find success in is great.”

Bednar was hired in August 2016 following the resignation of coach Patrick Roy. The 54-year-old Bednar is currently the second-longest tenured coach in the NHL, trailing only Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Jared has done an outstanding job over the last decade, and there’s no doubt in my mind he’s the best coach for this group," Joe Sakic, the Avalanche's president of hockey operations/general manager, said in a statement. "He commands the room and has complete confidence of the players. We’re excited to continue to have him in charge, and we believe that his presence maximizes the team’s potential while this core group is intact.”

Bednar brings a sense of calm to the bench, which his players appreciate. The team has been to the playoffs in every season but one under Bednar — his first, in 2016-17, when the team went 22-56-4. He's the 13th head coach (14th occasion) in league history to take the same organization to the postseason in at least nine straight seasons.

“I'm ecstatic," Bednar said. “Nice to be sticking around.”

He had his concerns after his rookie NHL head coaching season.

“The most worried I’ve been is after year one, because it was so bad,” Bednar said. “I put a lot of thought into what I do, how I coach, the way we operate, and I do the best job I possibly can. I’m at peace with that. I don’t really think about the term I have on my contract or don’t have on my contract, it's just going out and doing the best you can to help this team win.”

His team was the Presidents' Trophy winner last year with a franchise-best 121 points and is expected to be another strong Cup contender this season.

“At the end of the day, we have to go out and perform and do the job,” Landeskog said. "I think Bedsy is the right man for us behind the bench. He's always done a good job for us.”

___

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

On an Israel-bound flight Wednesday, a pilot stabbed another pilot and then apparently tried to crash the aircraft carrying dozens of Israelis, the Israeli prime minister said. Passengers and crew subdued the attacker and the plane made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, in Iran, authorities executed two people accused of violence against security forces during the country’s January protests. And the last U.S. forces left Iraq, under a Washington-Baghdad deal from two years ago.

Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Wednesday. Full coverage is available here.

Israeli strikes kill 5 Palestinians and wound 19 in Gaza

Israeli strikes killed five Palestinians and wounded 19 in Gaza, hospital officials said Wednesday, the latest of almost daily attacks since Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire nearly a year ago, halting the heaviest of the fighting.

Officials at Shifa Hospital said an Israeli strike killed a woman and critically wounded her husband in Gaza City, while another struck a bus, killing four and wounding at least 14. Elsewhere in the territory, a strike in Khan Younis wounded four Palestinians, officials at Nasser Hospital said.

Israel’s military didn’t immediately respond to questions about the bus strike, but said it was reviewing information about the strike in Khan Younis.

Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 1,400 Palestinians since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which maintains detailed records that are generally seen as reliable. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed in militant attacks over the same time period, while two more were killed by friendly fire.

Mourners hold vigil for 105 people killed during the Gaza war

Hundreds of mourners in Gaza City held a vigil Wednesday for 105 people killed during the war and whose bodies were recovered in the past several days from the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes.

Their remains were wrapped in white bags and draped with Palestinian flags. Plastic candles and red lights from the ambulance trucks provided lighting. Attendees gathered around the bodies, some piled atop the rubble their loved ones were originally found in.

Mass funerals have become more common in Gaza, where Israel has not allowed in the heavy machinery needed to clear the rubble of destroyed buildings and recover the dead.

Israel-bound plane makes emergency landing in Saudi Arabia

A pilot on a flight from the United Arab Emirates to Israel stabbed another pilot Wednesday and then apparently tried to crash the jetliner carrying around 170 people, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Passengers and crew subdued the attacker, and the plane landed safely in Saudi Arabia.

The FlyDubai flight landed safely after issuing an emergency alert and abruptly descending thousands of feet (meters). Israel scrambled warplanes over concerns of a possible hijacking.

Yasmin Abukasis said her daughter who was on the flight told her in a phone call that she could hear someone screaming “help!” Abukasis said that her daughter told her that the plane started to lose control, but eventually two people were able to wrest control of the plane, while others attempted to subdue an attacker on the floor of the plane.

— By Samy Magdy in Cairo, and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel

American troops leave Iraq

The U.S. military said Wednesday that it had completed the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, ending a 12-year mission to fight the Islamic State group.

Baghdad touted the move as a sign of the country’s growing strength and sovereignty. It was also celebrated by Iran-backed groups, but raised concerns among some other Iraqis, particularly in the Kurdish region.

U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the withdrawal in a social media post, saying it “marks the end of a very expensive excursion into Hell.”

“It has been a long time, with very bad decision-making that got us involved in this quagmire in the first place, but soon, that will be part of History,” Trump said.

Iran hangs 2 men on charges of violence during protests

Iran executed two men Wednesday over what it said was their role in violence during nationwide anti-government protests in January, state media reported.

IRNA, citing the judiciary, said the men took part in unrest in the northeastern city of Mashhad that left four security officers dead. The judiciary said the men confessed to the violence, including setting fires and damaging public property. It also said one confessed to stabbing a member of Iran's paramilitary force. Iran’s Supreme Court upheld the sentences before they were carried out Wednesday morning.

The unrest began Dec. 28 amid anger over Iran’s collapsing currency and worsening economy and quickly spread across the country. Iranian authorities responded with a deadly crackdown.

Dozens of Iranians have since been executed in connection with the protests, according to state media in Iran. Executions aren't uncommon in Iran, where rights groups say the accused are often tried in secretive courts based on forced confessions extracted through torture.

Oil and fuel exports near pre-war level with alternate routes

Alternate export routes and a U.S.-protected route through the Strait of Hormuz have helped restore oil and fuel exports from the Gulf to near pre-war levels, according to figures from data firm Kpler.

Exports through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal — along with a pipeline to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman and a U.S.-protected route that guides tankers at night — have been a key workaround after the threat of Iranian attacks disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Kpler said during a Tuesday podcast.

About 21.8 million barrels per day of crude and fuel products made from crude are being shipped weekly, on average, compared to the pre-war baseline of 23.3 million barrels per day, Kpler said.

“We are not at pre-conflict levels, but we are getting close to there,” said Matt Smith, Kpler's director of commodity research.

Still, the workarounds are time consuming and expensive.

Saudi Crown Prince says he's confident his kingdom can deter all foes

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de-facto ruler says his kingdom is capable of deterring its enemies as the oil-rich country remains embroiled in a proxy war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“Your country possesses highly efficient human and military capabilities, capable — by the grace of God Almighty — of repelling threats and deterring them completely, regardless of their sources,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Wednesday at the inauguration of a new session of the unelected advisory Shura council.

The Houthis recently captured the strategic port city of Mokha and several Red Sea islands, extending their reach toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a maritime route through which about 12% of global trade passes. They, along with allied militias in Iraq, also have attacked Saudi oil facilities and sought to prevent Saudi tankers from using the strait, disrupting the kingdom’s oil exports.

Egypt's president says Suez Canal revenue down $20 billion

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi says that the Suez Canal has lost a cumulative $20 billion in revenue since the Hamas-led attack on Israel unleashed the war in Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, and because of maritime navigation disruptions from the Middle East conflict.

During a televised meeting on Tuesday with Cabinet members, top military leaders and local governors, el-Sissi blamed the government’s tight budget and little education and health spending on the volatile geopolitical situation that led to increases in food and energy prices.

“Does that affect us? Of course it does affect us severely,” el-Sissi said.

Traffic was significantly disrupted after Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels began targeting vessels heading to Israel through the Suez Canal after the start of the war in Gaza.

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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

Before leaving Washington to campaign, Senate Republicans reserved one of the chamber's final votes for a bill they hoped would underscore efforts to address the impact data centers have on voters' monthly energy bills. The bill needed 60 votes to advance, but fell short, 57—43.

The bill is a modest one. It requires utility regulators to consider adopting a federal standard that charges large power customers a rate that covers the cost of the system upgrades needed to serve them. Democrats say it amounts to a suggestion and that more is needed. Republicans say the bill sends a message to regulators to act.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Ohio, is in a tough reelection battle and has been labeled in campaign ads as the “face of data centers” by his Democratic challenger, former Sen. Sherrod Brown.

“You all know this is the only game in town,” Husted told reporters in advocating for his bill. “This bill passing is the only way to get a chance to prove to the American people before the midterm elections whose side you're on.”

Senate Democrats say the bill isn't tough enough

The measure passed the House by a vote of 417-3. It needed support from at least seven Democratic senators to proceed to a final vote, but that didn't happen given the criticism from within their ranks that it doesn't go far enough and knowing that passage could give Husted's reelection prospects a lift.

“The bill is a fraud, plain and simple,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Democrats have offered competing proposals. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. sponsored legislation that would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to issue rules for large electricity customers that requires them to pay for necessary grid upgrades.

“They want it optional, which means zero. We want it mandatory,” Schumer said.

Republicans are looking to position Democrats as obstructionists who are blocking progress on key voter concerns. Husted's bill is one example. Another would be the bill from Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., that would bar members of Congress from purchasing individual stocks. The issue is a popular one with candidates running for office this election cycle, but also includes voter identification requirements that Democrats have called a poison pill.

Thune teed up both bills for procedural votes and both failed to meet the 60-vote threshold for advancing.

“Both pieces of legislation strike at the very heart of issues that the American people care deeply about, passionately about, and we'll see if the Democrats are willing to take yes for an answer," Thune said.

Data centers have become a top campaign issue

The House and Senate are both expected to be out of session for all of October. The House left in mid-September, canceling nearly two weeks of votes as Republicans were anxious to get on the campaign trail in a bid to keep their majority in the next Congress.

President Donald Trump has embraced the building of more data centers, but there is growing wariness from voters. About 6 in 10 Americans support limiting the number of new data centers that can be built, including most Democrats and Republicans.

And a majority of Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices or the water supply in the communities where they are built.

In Ohio, a data center hot spot with closely contested races for governor and U.S. Senate, the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned in a recent memo that Husted is vulnerable to losing his seat because of the centers. Husted helped promote Ohio as a destination for data centers while serving as lieutenant governor.

The Ohio race is seen as vital to determining control of the Senate, helping explain why the data center bill has generated so much scrutiny and is so hotly contested despite the overwhelming vote it received in the House.

Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Husted said that the bill requires states to at least confront the issue of data centers paying their own way for their power and the grid improvements needed to serve them. He said the bill could hardly get broader support than it did in the House, but by blocking the bill in the Senate, Democrats would be showing they don’t care about the issue of affordability.

“Let’s hold data centers accountable and let’s stop blocking a path to affordability,” Husted said.

A total of 31 migrants, most of whom were Iraqi Kurds, died in November 2021 when their boat sank.

Fourteen people, including two who remain at large, had been on trial since Sept. 8. One of them was acquitted. They were accused of organizing the crossing of a small boat that was unfit for navigation on the open sea, was overloaded and lacked appropriate life jackets.

Emmanuel Daoud, a lawyer for victims’ families, said that “when it costs the lives of 31 people and the sea becomes a cemetery, there is a price, and the court said that the price they had to pay was justice and prison time.”

Meanwhile, an investigation into seven military personnel who have been indicted for failing to assist the shipwreck survivors is still underway.

Following an alert from a fishing vessel about bodies in the water off the coast of Calais, French authorities recovered 27 bodies, including two teenagers and a child. Four others weren't recovered.

The court said that the trial highlighted the dramatic consequences of the methods used by smugglers driven by greed “profiting from the vulnerability of exile candidates.”

Court documents said that one of the survivors told investigators that he had taken part in an earlier failed attempt to cross the Channel with 53 other migrants. They were brought back to French shores by rescue teams.

He said that his family in Iraq funded his passage, having paid $3,200, according to the documents.

He said that the same smugglers’ network organized the second attempt on Nov. 24 when the small boat sank. After it was prepared in a wooded area, the gray boat equipped with a 40 CV outboard motor was launched. The migrants, wearing life jackets provided by the smugglers, set out to sea at around 10 p.m. local time.

Four hours later, the boat began to deflate, and with the motor having stopped, it drifted at the mercy of the currents. Some passengers then wanted to return to France, while others wanted to reach England and several people who spoke English tried to contact emergency services.

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Nicolas Vaux-Montagny reported from Saint-Etienne, France.

A jury found Jeffrey Lee Devorah, 47, guilty of murder last month. The DA said Devorah’s punishment of life in prison was decided by an Atascosa County judge on Tuesday.

He is eligible for parole after serving 30 years in prison.

KSAT reported Devorah was arrested in 2023 after Atascosa County deputies found human remains in his backyard.

At the time, the remains were believed to be his girlfriend, Tiffany Lynette Garza, 37, who was last seen on March 25, 2019.

In July of that year, investigators heard audio that said Garza was killed in the 600 block of Bocawood Drive in the Shalimar Subdivision, north of Poteet.

Investigators went to the home and found “significant blood evidence” along with a backyard burn pit that contained human bones and bone fragments.

A tip led local investigators and Texas Rangers to a person who said they “reported seeing Tiffany’s murder and helping burn her body in Devorah’s backyard.”

The bone evidence was sent to forensic experts at Texas State University, and they confirmed the bones belonged to a woman between the ages of 22 and 56. Garza was 37 at the time.

The blood recovered from the house was tested by the Bexar County Crime Lab, where they found DNA that matched with the biological mother of Tiffany’s son and the biological daughter of Tiffany’s mother.

Devorah was first interviewed by police after an unrelated arrest in 2019, but he said he knew nothing about her disappearance. He did say that she was living at the home on Bocawood.

Audrey Gossett, the Atascosa County DA, called Garza’s murder heinous in her emotional statement shared on social media.

“No sentence can restore what her family has lost, but Tiffany’s life—and the truth about what happened to her—deserved every bit of that effort,” Gossett said. “Tiffany’s life mattered. Our thoughts remain with her family and everyone who loved her.”

Read also:

• Man charged in girlfriend’s death after remains found in burn pit, Atascosa County sheriff says

SPURS MEDIA DAY BEHIND THE SCENES

The show took viewers onto the floor at Spurs Media Day, and the media crowd itself told the story: roughly 200 outlets credentialed this year, up from about 60 last season. Players talked about what changes when a team stops being a surprise. Victor Wembanyama said the difference is real but familiar, since opponents were already expecting something by game 60 last year. De’Aaron Fox framed the expectations as fuel, and there was plenty of talk about chemistry, including the group getting back together in Paris over the summer. Dylan Harper and rookie center Tarris Reed Jr. were also part of the day. The season opener is Tuesday, October 20 at the Frost Bank Center against the Thunder.

TARRIS REED JR., ROOKIE CENTER

The one-on-one with the rookie center was the warmest stretch of the hour. He described still not quite believing he is a Spur, down to his parents helping him move in and his brother’s reaction, and credited veterans in the locker room for being open with him. Asked about a core Spurs memory, he skipped past any single game and went straight to playing 2K with his brothers, using players he now shares a gym and a city with. Meeting Manu Ginobili, he said, was surreal. He also admitted he has never had a breakfast taco, which the hosts treated as an emergency: one recommended bacon, egg and a little cheese on flour, the other went corn tortilla with a darker roasted salsa. San Antonio was invited to weigh in.

FLOOD PREPAREDNESS IN BEXAR COUNTY

Sponsored by the San Antonio River Authority, this conversation with the deputy chief of emergency management for the Bexar County Office of Emergency Management made the case that the work happens on dry days. Flooding is the area’s most common hazard, he said, and the office plans, trains and exercises year-round with partners including the National Weather Service, county public works and the city. His most concrete advice: subscribe at bexarflood.org for alerts tied to specific low water crossings near your home, job or your kids’ school, then actually use them by mapping alternate routes before the water rises. An alert is only an alert, he said; what you do with it counts. More preparation information is at Floodsdontcare.com, or by phone at 210-227-1373.

ATLAS FLOORS CARPET ONE, THREE GENERATIONS IN

In a sponsored segment, the leadership of Atlas Floors Carpet One walked through a business that started in San Antonio in 1948 and is now run by the third generation. The founders were a World War II veteran and carpenter and his wife, who was the first woman to graduate from Trinity University with a business degree. The company turns 80 next year. The president and vice president, mother and daughter, talked about digging through family photographs and old marketing materials, and about how tastes have moved from shag carpet and orange and avocado vinyl to waterproof, kid-proof, pet-proof luxury vinyl and laminate as customers pull up carpet for hard surface. Giving back came up as part of the company’s DNA: rugs donated to local classrooms, support for the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and accessible homes for wounded veterans, and sponsorship and volunteering with the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. There are two San Antonio showrooms offering free estimates, and details are at atlasfloors.com or (210) 496-5006. The code SALIVE gets 10% off a flooring project.

THE CARPET REMNANT PURSE CHALLENGE

One detail from that history was too good to let go. The founders’ wife ran a boutique inside the first showroom, out of the front of the house the family also lived in, and she turned leftover carpet remnants into custom ladies’ purses. For HemisFair in 1968 she made versions with a special pendant, sold as Tower Tote bags to mark the opening of the Tower of the Americas. So the hosts revived it, with fringe on hand, and challenged each other to build their own remnant bags. The working name on set: the shag bag.

Crews have been inspecting drainage systems and equipment, clearing debris from culverts and inlets and checking flood-prone areas, including construction sites. TxDOT has also placed barricades and signs in some areas ahead of the storms.

“We’re planning to activate our Emergency Operations Center, which would call for 24-hour surveillance on all roadway conditions,” TxDOT spokesperson Jonathan Cotto said. “Our crews are also prepared to deploy.”

>> VIA prepares for possible detours during rain event forecasted for the San Antonio area

Maintenance crews and HERO trucks will be on standby to assist drivers who need help. TxDOT is urging people to avoid driving in severe weather when possible.

Cotto reminded drivers to “turn around, don’t drown” if they encounter water covering a roadway.

“Any water level above any roadway can be deceiving,” Cotto said. “You never know how truly deep the water can be, and you don’t know what the conditions may be below the water. We don’t know if the surface has been eroded.”

Drivers can find real-time road condition updates through the DriveTexas app or at DriveTexas.org.

Read also:

• After $16K in damage, West Side homeowner prepares for another storm

The Bexar County Constable Office Precinct 2 is looking for Sebastian Martinez Guajardo. The precinct said Guajardo faces a Class A misdemeanor charge of cruelty to non-livestock animals when he is found.

The precinct is accusing Guajardo of abandoning three of his dogs. Investigators said one of the dogs died due to extreme malnourishment.

Anyone with information related to this case is urged to contact the Bexar County Constable’s Office Precinct 2 at 210-334-5480.

Read also:

• 1 killed, 1 injured after woman allegedly drives into them near Northwest Side restaurant, SAPD says
• Murder defendant guilty of lesser charge, will spend 40 years in prison for fatal stabbing, DA says

Consumer prices rose 3.4% in August compared with a year earlier, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, below the 3.7% economist expectations. On a monthly basis, prices climbed 0.3%, up from 0.1% in July, a sign prices that are still running hot.

Excluding the volatile energy and food categories, inflation also came in lower than expected, rising 3% in August from a year ago. And from July to August, core prices rose just 0.2%, up from 0.1% the previous month. Many economists feared core prices would rise more quickly month-to-month.

U.S. markets bounced higher immediately on the new inflation reading, with investors betting that an expected interest-rate hike from the U.S. Federal Reserve might be delayed.

Even so, inflation remains above the Federal Reserve's 2% target and the monthly increase in August suggests it isn't moving back toward the target anytime soon. The Fed lifted its key short-term interest rate two weeks ago for the first time in three years to combat inflation and most economists expect it will do so at least once more this year, possibly as soon as late next month.

“Inflation’s trend is lower but still not close to their target and not improving, either,” Bill Adams, chief U.S. economist at Fifth Third Commercial Bank, said in an email.

Wednesday's report covered a key inflation gauge closely watched by the Fed, known as the personal consumption expenditures price index. It is similar to the higher-profile consumer price index, which was released earlier this month.

High prices have cast a pall on the U.S. economy, even as growth is mostly solid and the unemployment rate is low. On Tuesday, the Conference Board's consumer confidence survey fell to its lowest level since 2014, a period that includes both the Great Recession and a global pandemic.

Americans' paychecks are growing but not as quickly as prices.

Inflation for July was previously reported at 3.7% but was revised lower to 3.4% by the government as part of an update in how it measures price changes in several categories, including investment management, computer software and accessories, and legal services.

For example, the government previously put a heavy weight on some computer accessories that have jumped in price because of outsized demand from the AI buildout. The revisions lowered that weight and as a result, the higher prices for some computer equipment are not driving up this measure of inflation as much.

Spending picks up

Despite elevated prices, Americans accelerated their spending last month, the government said, with spending jumping 0.9% from July to August, up from just 0.1% the previous month.

Some of that increase was likely fueled by wealthier Americans cashing in their gains from higher stock prices, a recent report from JPMorgan suggests. Other consumers may be taking on more debt to support their spending.

After-tax incomes, adjusted for inflation, were unchanged on a monthly basis in August, after rising 0.3% in July, the report said.

Healthy consumer spending could fuel a pickup in growth. In a separate report Wednesday, the government said the economy expanded at a 2.2% annual pace in the July-September quarter. Analysts expect that to pick up to a 3% rate in the current quarter.

At a recent fundraiser before a small group of conservative lobbyists and donors, The Times reported, Paxton was asked, “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” The recording does not make clear whether the question referred to Trump, though Paxton’s response suggested as much.

“So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers,” Paxton responded in the recording. “Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.”

The Texas Tribune did not independently verify The Times’ reporting.

Paxton’s remark comes as he faces mounting pressure to gain ground against Democratic nominee James Talarico, with early voting less than three weeks out and Paxton continuing to narrowly trail in most public polling. Trump, a longtime Paxton ally who has played a key role in boosting the attorney general’s campaign, did not immediately address the report Wednesday morning. The president’s own approval rating in Texas was underwater as of August, according to The Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

Earlier this year, the president helped deliver Paxton the Republican nomination by endorsing him over U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. More recently, Trump has mobilized his political apparatus to help Paxton catch up on ad spending.

Trump pushed the GOP to host a first-of-its-kind midterm convention in Dallas earlier this month, urging voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot this year with the aim of juicing Republican turnout in November. On stage, the president ribbed Paxton for his looks and the way he speaks while praising him as the “greatest attorney general in America.”

“I think the fact that we had such a successful convention really helped Ken Paxton,” Trump told reporters earlier this month. “He was a big part of it.”

In a statement, Paxton senior adviser Nick Maddux called the recording “more manipulated nonsense from the New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist.”

“Every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September,” Maddux said. “Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump including when he comes to Texas this week.”

Paxton’s campaign on Tuesday released an internal poll, fielded two weeks after the convention, showing him up three percentage points over Talarico. The attorney general also planned to accompany Trump during a visit to a truck factory in Denton on Thursday.

Vice President JD Vance was also set to appear in Harlingen Wednesday as part of a fall push from the administration to boost Republican candidates in competitive races, including the handful of battleground U.S. House races anchored in South Texas.

With Paxton’s fundraising far lagging Talarico’s, Trump’s super PAC has deployed $22.2 million on a mix of pro-Paxton and anti-Talarico advertising since early September, when the president’s MAGA Inc. group delivered the first major round of outside spending. Texas PAC, a group associated with Senate Republican leadership, was up to $125 million on airtime, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.

Those outlays from national Republicans have helped tilt the spending balance firmly in Paxton’s favor and turned the contest into the ninth-most expensive Senate race on record, according to AdImpact. Talarico, meanwhile, has spent $63.4 million on advertising. Because of a lower rate on airtime offered to candidates, Talarico’s dollars go further than those of national groups and super PACs.

In addition to Paxton’s remarks about the convention, Democrats this week also seized on a clip of him defending his office’s handling of the case of Adam Hoffman, a Waco man who was charged with repeatedly sexually abusing a young boy. Talarico has consistently attacked Paxton over the case, accusing him of offering an overly generous plea deal and labeling him in ads as a “pedophile protector.”

“The criticism has been that I let a child predator out having [served in jail] one day. Well, guess what? They served 60 days. It wasn’t what we wanted, but we did not control that situation,” Paxton said during a conversation with the United States Hispanic Business Council Monday. “We wanted to retry it, and we decided, you know what? We need to protect this kid.”

After Hoffman’s trial ended with a hung jury, and the child victim declined to testify in a second trial, Paxton’s office offered a plea deal that would have let Hoffman plead guilty to two misdemeanors and serve a total of one day in jail. The judge insisted on a 60-day sentence. Paxton’s comment went viral online this week, with critics homing in on the “60 days” snippet and arguing it was little better than a single day behind bars.

Paxton’s latest stumbles also come as Talarico has pressured him to stand for a debate. At The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last week, Talarico challenged Paxton to a debate hosted by Fox News. He then posted a video on social media that showed him leaving Paxton a voicemail.

“I’ve accepted four local TV debates, but we haven’t heard from you, and we’re running out of time,” Talarico says in the message. “So if Fox News is where you’ll be most comfortable, I’ll be there, because I think it’s that important. Brett Baier can moderate. We can both take questions, and Texans can hear from us directly.”

A Fox News spokesperson suggested to the Huffington Post this week that the network would move forward with a debate if Paxton agreed. Paxton’s campaign previously said “of course” he would debate Talarico. But he has not yet agreed to any debates, with just over two weeks before the start of early voting.

Gabby Birenbaum contributed to this report.

Disclosure: The New York Times and The University of Texas at Austin have been major financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.

Brown arrived in a Miami courtroom Wednesday morning and was ready to plead no contest to aggravated assault and be sentenced to probation, his lawyer said. But a Florida judge said she was in the middle of another trial and not ready to go forward. The hearing was pushed back to Oct. 28.

Brown is accused of grabbing a handgun from a security staffer after a celebrity boxing match in Miami on May 16, 2025, and firing two shots at a man he had been in a fistfight with earlier, according to an arrest warrant. Zul-Qarnain Kwame Nantambu told investigators one of the bullets grazed his neck.

Defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh said Brown was looking forward to putting the case behind him. Eiglarsh said the plea deal offered by prosecutors was too good to turn down and that it says Brown would not be considered a convicted felon.

“It’s a setback because it’s another month that my client has an ankle monitor on and doesn’t have closure, which everybody in this case wants,” Eiglarsh said. He said he was “cautiously optimistic” the judge would agree to the terms.

Brown could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the original attempted murder charge. He has said on social media that he was defending himself from an attack and others were trying to steal jewelry from him.

Florida’s Stand Your Ground law allows people who believe they face death or serious injury to use deadly force to defend themselves without a duty to retreat.

Nantambu said after Wednesday’s postponement that he hopes Brown will take advantage of the deal to “become a better person and be there for his family.”

“We want him to get the healing that he needs,” he said.

Richard Cooper, an attorney for Nantambu, said Nantambu forgave Brown and would not cooperate with law enforcement.

At one point in the court’s hallway, Brown slipped on a dark mask while talking to his attorney and then pulled it off before going into the hearing.

Brown, 38, spent 12 years in the NFL and was an All-Pro wide receiver who last played in the 2021-22 season for Tampa Bay and won a Super Bowl with quarterback Tom Brady the previous season.

Over the course of his career, much of it spent with Pittsburgh, he had 928 receptions for more than 12,000 yards and accounted for 88 total touchdowns, including punt returns and one pass.

During a January 2022 game with Tampa Bay against the New York Jets, Brown took off his jersey, shoulder pads and gloves and ran off the field, leading to his release by the Buccaneers and effectively ending his career.

Brown has dealt with several legal problems over the years. He previously was accused of battery of a moving truck driver, several domestic violence charges, failure to pay child support and other incidents.

Brown was extradited in November 2025 from Dubai, where he has business interests, after an arrest warrant on the attempted murder charge was issued in June of the same year.

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This story has been corrected to show Brown’s last game against the Jets was in 2022, not 2021.

The crash happened just after 9:00 p.m. in the 9600 block of U.S. Highway 90 West.

When officers arrived, a police preliminary report states they learned the suspect, identified as a 26-year-old man, was traveling westbound on the highway when he crashed his vehicle into the back of a 63-year-old man’s truck.

Police said the impact caused the suspect’s vehicle to catch fire, trapping him inside. Bystanders pulled the suspect out of the vehicle before officers arrived.

Both men were taken to a local hospital. Their conditions were not immediately known.

According to authorities, the man who allegedly caused the crash is expected to face DWI charges.

The investigation is ongoing.

Read also:

• 1 killed, 1 injured after woman allegedly drives into them near Northwest Side restaurant, SAPD says

A sometimes-overlooked element of the bill designed to regulate name-image-likeness payments and myriad other problems in college sports is the protections it offers the smaller, non-revenue-generating “Olympic” sports. Hundreds of thousands of athletes across the country play these sports in college, and their talent leads to hundreds of medals for the U.S.

Exhibit A: Of the 257 U.S. athletes who won medals at the Paris Olympics two years ago, 184 had roots in an NCAA program.

That's why, at the urging of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, the bill includes language requiring most college programs, which devote the lion's share of their resources to football and basketball, to maintain the same number of scholarships and roster spots for Olympic sports as they had in the 2024-25 school year.

Another element of the bill adds a $27 million “retention pool” to the revenue-sharing cap schools are allowed to pay to athletes; $5 million of that has to be spent on women’s and Olympic sports.

While not a foolproof solution — some schools could ask for waivers and others could shift numbers around among different sports to dilute their investments — Olympic insiders believe the bill offers a sustainable remedy for what they consider a likely move away from non-revenue sports if schools are left to their own devices.

“The sky is not falling, but we're not going back to what used to be” whether the bill becomes law or not, Sarah Hirshland, the CEO of the USOPC, said last week at the annual USOPC Assembly. “We're not in a state of panic about Team USA not being able to compete in Los Angeles. But there are some things that really need to be fixed.”

With House passage uncertain, Olympic leaders study other solutions

Against that backdrop, leaders at the USOPC know that even if the bill passes the House, where it faces a steep climb, they need to plan for a future in which college programs cut Olympic sports to make ends meet.

A report released within the last month by the bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said that since 2023, which is when the so-called “arms race” to obtain football and basketball talent shifted into high gear, colleges have eliminated more than 100 women’s and Olympic sports programs.

“I feel for the athletic directors because many of them are trying to run a business but they don't know what tomorrow is, and that makes it really difficult for long-term planning," said Rocky Harris, the USOPC's chief of sport and athlete services. “If you can't do long-term planning, you can't run a good business. And if they can't run a good business, then that impacts Olympics sports directly.”

Cantwell has cited the peril Olympic and women's sports face as the key reason she got involved in crafting the legislation.

The connection between, say, a starting quarterback's NIL haul and the U.S. gold medal count in LA two years from now exists because the U.S. government, unlike most governments around the globe, doesn't bankroll the Olympics or its pipeline. That leaves the task to the nation's grassroots sports organizations and, eventually, the U.S. college system, where football underwrites everything.

“I don't think people understand the connection between the money that's made by football and the success of our Olympic system,” said Cody Campbell, the billionaire from Texas Tech who has aired ads during Saturday college football games supporting the legislation.

LA Games should give participation a boost, but will colleges play along?

Harris, who led USA Triathlon before coming to the USOPC, said the push to make women's triathlon an “emerging sport” at the NCAA level was intended to give young girls a chance “to dream about doing triathlon.”

“Maybe they couldn't see themselves as Olympians, but many of them could see themselves as a college athlete and I knew that would drive our plan," Harris said.

Without college programs, Harris says, the potential elite athletes in a sport move on to other things. If those programs do exist that's how a pipeline begins.

In many ways, the doubts about the future of the Olympic movement come at a time when the United States should be preparing for an upswing in participation with the LA Olympics less than two years away. Hirshland cited numbers that showed participation in some Olympic sports grew between 25% and 35% after the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, the last time the Summer Games were held on U.S. soil.

“I'm still bullish that LA will actually accelerate that,” Hirshland said. “We're not going to see flat. We're going to see growth in the desire to do sports some people might have never contemplated.”

But where will the kids who discover fencing or wrestling or track during the LA Games play in college?

The thinking around the USOPC offices is that there will always be programs.

Oregon, for example, has always been a bastion for distance runners and probably won't do anything to detract from its iconic track program. Iowa's wrestling program has produced 24 national titles over the years.

What grabs more attention was the move Stanford made in 2020, when, citing financial pressures from the pandemic, it announced it was axing 11 varsity sports. Less than a year later, and under pressure from alumni and boosters, it reversed those decisions.

Still, if a deep-pocketed school like Stanford that had won 25 straight Directors' Cups — awarded for the overall strongest results across all collegiate sports — could cut programs because of financial pressure, then what school couldn't? Stanford's new athletic director, John Donahoe, was recently appointed to the USOPC's Collegiate Advisory Council, replacing his predecessor on The Farm, Bernard Muir.

Even if the bill passes and schools are required to maintain their numbers, the provision lapses in nine years at the biggest schools and four years at mid-sized universities, which is why the USOPC is doing work now.

Hirshland said she thinks there will be “more customization and differentiation, sport to sport,” based on what makes sense at each university.

“I'd like to believe our education system will remained anchored in sports," she said. “But if it doesn't, I'm confident there will be systems that emerge to pick up that demand and provide the experiences for people who want them. Our job is is to drive interest and ensure the infrastructure, and we're focused on both.”

___

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In a notice published Wednesday in the Federal Register, the State Department said it was amending its International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, so that Syria no longer was among the nations subject to a policy of denial for licenses and other approvals needed for the sale of U.S. weapons and munitions.

The change effective Thursday means that arms sales requests from Syria will now be considered on a case-by-case basis.

President Donald Trump acted last year to ease economic sanctions on Syria that had been in place for decades during now-ousted President Bashar Assad’s rule. In August, Secretary of State Marco Rubio rescinded Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, helping paving the way for the latest step in drawing closer to the current government.

The State Department has also announced plans to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus. It has been closed for 14 years.

With Syria’s removal from the ITAR blacklist, only seven countries remain subject to the policy of denial for licenses for U.S. arms exports: Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and Venezuela.

Syria’s interim president, former rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, overthrew the Assad government nearly two years ago and has embarked on a policy of change that has impressed the Trump administration. His moves have led to hopes of eventual stability in a country that was wracked by civil war and the Islamic State insurgency that engulfed northeast and western Iraq for years.

Wednesday’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq may mean that the Syrian government plays a greater role in preventing an IS resurgence.

The San Antonio City Council voted 6-5 in mid-June to delay a vote on a set of rate increases that could raise the average residential customer’s bill by roughly $15 to $17 per month by 2029 — an increase of 29.9%.

SAWS has said a rate increase is mainly needed to support billions of dollars worth of capital expenses, including upgrading wastewater treatment plants, replacing pipes and installing backup generators.

On Wednesday, the council will discuss a revised proposal, which is a similar, delayed version to the one they considered three months ago. Under the new plan, rates could bump an average monthly bill by roughly $13 to $17 by 2030.

Instead of raising rates in July under the initial proposal, residential rates would go up 6.9% in January 2027 and be raised again in 6.5% in 2028, between 4.5% and 7% in 2029, and between 4% and 6.6% in 2030.

The range of rates in the latter two years of increases dips slightly lower than what was presented in June, 4.5% and 4% instead of 5.5% and 5%.

Because of the delay, SAWS Chief Financial Officer Cecilia Velasquez said SAWS has had to shrink its $3.2 billion, five-year capital program to $2.6 billion.

That means dropping about $600 million worth of work, she said, including on eliminating dead-end water mains, constructing new water mains, and coordinating work with other governmental projects.

“But that’s what we had to do to fit into the program,” Velasquez said.

Councilwoman Sukh Kaur (D1) was one of the council members who voted to delay considering the rate increase. She told KSAT on Monday “they do need this money. There is work that needs to be done. There’s not a debate about that.”

“It’s making sure that they understand what we are — what they are asking us to do and ensuring their operations are at the place we expect from a public utility,” she said. “And so for me, it was always less about the issue and more did I see progress and metrics on things that they were coming to us with or were they just saying ‘rubber stamp this,’ and so that was always my concern.”

Councilman Marc Whye (D10) also voted for the delay. Even if the plan isn’t much different than what it was in June, he says residents are still paying less for their water now by virtue of it being delayed.

But he also doesn’t appear ready to vote for an increase.

“I still do not believe we need to be raising water prices for our citizens, flat out. I want to make sure that that’s clear,” he said. “The citizens are paying enough right now. But in the event any proposal that they put forward was to go through, I think the deal will be better for the citizens than it was two months ago.”

The council is only expected to discuss the rate proposal at its Wednesday meeting, but it could come up for a vote at the Oct. 8 meeting.

Read also:

• 6 breaks in 6 years: Clay soils make NW Side street a challenging environment for water mains, SAWS says

Suzanne Simpson was last seen in October 2024. Her body has not been found, and a trial date has not been set.

At a hearing in late August, prosecutors told the judge they needed 30 days to turn over evidence to the defense.

Judge Joel Perez suggested a potential pretrial date in February 2027 to “finally put this thing to rest.”

The judge previously said he wants to get the murder trial on the calendar for early 2027.

If that timeline holds, a new district attorney will likely be handling the case by the time it goes to trial.

Read more:

• Judge hopes Brad Simpson murder case goes to trial in ‘early 2027′

Hello parents, teachers and students! If your kiddos are learning about weathering, make sure to do this fun demonstration with them! It speeds up the weathering process by millions of years 😉

Be sure to check out GMSA@9 on Wednesdays when KSAT Meteorologist Sarah Spivey does the demonstrations and explains the science behind it. To view, click on the video player above. Check out our Science with Sarah webpage for more fun science experiments!

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED

FOR THE OOBLECK

• A large container
• 2 cups corn starch
• 1 cup water
• Food dye (optional)

DRY ICE “INSTRUMENT”

• Dry ice (NEVER HANDLE DRY ICE WITHOUT GLOVES!)
• Metal spoon

BILLIONS OF BUBBLES

• Cups/containers of different sizes/shapes
• Water
• Soap

DO THE ACTIVITIES

OOBLECK SLIME

• STEP 1: Measure out 1 cup of water and add the food dye to the water.
• STEP 2: In the large container, place 2 cups of cornstarch.
• STEP 3: Pour the colored water into the large container with the cornstarch and mix using your hands (NOTE: This will be messy! Make sure to have plenty of paper towels nearby and maybe use an apron to cover your clothes!)
• STEP 4: Try compressing the Oobleck in your hands into a ball. Observe how it quickly “melts” into a liquid.
• STEP 5: You can store your Oobleck in the fridge to use for later. When you’re ready to dispose of your Oobleck, throw it away in the trash. Large amounts of cornstarch should not go down the pipes.

DRY ICE “INSTRUMENT”

• STEP 1: Place a small piece of dry ice on the table in front of you.
• STEP 2: Using a spoon, press on the dry ice. It should make a silly sound.

BILLIONS OF BUBBLES

• STEP 1: Fill the containers with water and a little bit of soap.
• STEP 2: Drop some dry ice into the containers and watch as lots and lots of bubbles form.

HOW IT WORKS

OOBLECK

Because cornstarch is not totally soluble in water, it can make a non-Newtonian fluid when combined with water.

A non-Newtonian fluid does not follow Newton’s laws of viscosity. That may be a mouthful, but basically, Oobleck is a fluid that can exist both as a solid and a liquid depending on how much force you use!

DRY ICE

Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide that turns directly into a gas from a solid. That’s called sublimation. It makes the funny noise on the spoon because of the gas bubbles trapped against the metal. You can see the gas in the bubbles that form in the soapy water!

APPLY FOR SCIENCE WITH SARAH

Want Sarah to come out to your school? Here’s how to apply: CLICK HERE.

Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News Channel contributor, was advanced out of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on a 12 to 11 vote to serve as surgeon general after she was grilled at her confirmation hearing earlier this month about her stance on childhood vaccines.

She expressed support for vaccines and told lawmakers she didn’t believe they cause autism. The Trump administration has sought to revisit claims about a link between vaccines and autism, although widespread scientific consensus and decades of studies have firmly concluded there is none.

Timothy Westlake, who was nominated to serve as assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at the Department of Health and Human Services was also advanced out of committee on the same en bloc vote.

It was not immediately clear when the officials would face a full Senate vote for their confirmation but they are expected to be approved.

During her confirmation hearing, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy pressed Saphier to declare whether she believed there was a link between vaccines and autism. Saphier responded that she does “not believe childhood vaccines cause autism,” adding that “the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles,” in response to a question by Cassidy over whether parents should give children that shot.

MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella, and the president recently called for the shots to be spaced out, against the guidance of medical groups.

The surgeon general position carries limited policymaking power but serves as a loud megaphone as the nation’s top communicator to Americans on public health issues.

Cassidy, who led the inquiry into Saphier's views on vaccines, ultimately voted in support of her nomination.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate HELP committee, said ahead of Saphier's vote that he would vote down her nomination because in part Saphier “has questioned the need for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, when the data science has been clear.”

“We need a surgeon general who will tell the truth about vaccines, not someone who misleads the public,” Sanders said. At her confirmation hearing, Saphier said the universal birth dose of hepatitis B was safe and effective.

Chris Klomp, who was nominated to serve as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, was advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee last week on a 15 to 12 vote. He was questioned during the same hearing as Saphier about his duties associated with the role as the current chief counselor of the Department of Health and Human Services under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as well as about his vaccine stance.

In protesting Klomp's nomination at the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Ron Wyden said Klomp “tried to create the impression that he will be the adult in the room on vaccines. Yet, as we sit here today, the vaccine chaos that we’ve come to expect from Robert Kennedy’s HHS continues.”

The announcement on plans for the national park, made in two court filings late Tuesday, gave no details on what the government may do. In August, the Republican administration initiated a pause on construction-related activity in the park as it engaged in outreach efforts to opponents of the project. The pause ends Wednesday.

Customs and Border Protection is “actively considering adjustments" to the work "that would reduce its scope and avoid or minimize potential impacts, based on input received from the National Park Service and other stakeholders,” the government said in the court filing.

The agency said it will make a final decision the first week in October and will take “several weeks” after that announcement before any “ground-disturbing work” starts.

After intense opposition from environmentalists and local residents and business owners, CBP backed off plans this year to build a 30-foot-tall bollard wall through the park. But its intention to move forward with other measures such as a new road, lights, vehicle barriers and technology did not quell local resistance.

After bulldozers were spotted in August clearing land in Big Bend, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott announced a pause on all activity there and it was later expanded to the area upstream of the park. The agency has said it was only carrying out design and planning work, not full-scale construction activities.

Opponents of the border project called on the administration Wednesday to continue the pause while coming up with a new plan.

Bob Krumenaker, head of Keep Big Bend Wild and a former NPS superintendent at the park, said in a statement that the Border Patrol already works with the park service and local sheriffs to operate an “effective surveillance system” in Big Bend that includes ground sensors and patrols. The Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks said building in the park would be “mutilating an extraordinary landscape.”

The project is part of a $46 billion plan by the administration to line the U.S.-Mexico border with steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology to deter migrants and smugglers.

The government has also paused work on a 61-mile piece of land stretching north of the national park along the Rio Grande River, most of which is owned by private landowners. In that area, the government plans to build a 30-foot-tall steel bollard wall designed to prevent people on foot from crossing, roads and various types of surveillance technology where appropriate, according to the court filing.

CBP has started building the wall in a West Texas part of the broader Big Bend region, but has run into intense opposition there, including from landowners challenging the project in court.

Also in the court filing Tuesday, the government suggested it was facing resistance in getting permission from landowners to survey and build on their property and would be referring some cases to the Department of Justice to pursue condemnation.

The government also detailed efforts it had made to meet with people potentially affected by Big Bend projects and shared with them incidents of cartel-related violence that concerned the Border Patrol.

The administration has been pushing forward with the border wall projects that have long been a key part of President Donald Trump's vision for border security. The agency said it is building 12 miles (19 kilometers) of wall per week.

But lining up against the work are private landowners, Native American tribes, environmental groups and others who question the necessity and cost of the project at a time when illegal immigration has fallen dramatically. Opponents also have accused the government of damaging Native American sites and sensitive ecology locations in its rush to finish construction.

Content used in live performances, including songs and stand-up comedy scripts, must be approved in advance by local authorities, a long-standing requirement that reflects China’s strict censorship of the entertainment industry. Artists who violate the rules can be fined or banned from future performances and even public appearances.

Singer Na Ying’s performance was “a brief, fragmentary performance during an audience interaction segment rather than a full rendition of the song” and therefore did not require additional approval, the Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism said in a statement.

Na, one of China’s most influential female singers, performed “Curved Moon” at her concert in Chengdu on Saturday in memory of her friend and singer Liu Huan, a household name who died the previous day.

“I want to sing a song he sang before on this stage, to pay tribute to him,” Na, dressed in black, told the audience, according to videos posted on social media. Her voice trembled as she sang.

Some commenters called the performance an “expensive tribute,” expressing admiration for Na while also voicing concerns that she could be fined.

Liu, one of China’s best-known musicians for nearly four decades, died Friday at age 63, according to an obituary published Sunday by the University of International Business and Economics. A professor of music history, Liu taught at the university for more than three decades before retiring.

Liu performed the theme song for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with soprano Sarah Brightman during the opening ceremony.

Brightman called Liu “an amazing talent and a true gentleman” and said he “will be greatly missed” in posts on Facebook and X on Sunday.

The Chengdu decision came weeks after authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan fined one of the country’s best-known comedians for changing the lyrics of a patriotic song during a performance.

Júnior, 59, is running for Congress for the first time. But until Oct. 4, he is Plínio Trump, channeling U.S. President Donald Trump with his hairstyle, long orange tie, firm handshake and even his stride.

“(Trump) is likeable, iconic," Plínio Trump told The Associated Press late Monday after campaigning in Juiz de Fora, a city of 570,000 residents 180 kilometers (111 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro. "Few people sneered at me. Most people smile and hug me."

Candidates like Plínio Trump are part of a Brazilian tradition that spans nearly eight decades. Whether called protest candidates or joke candidates, they bring a surreal element to congressional elections. To run, they must belong to one of Brazil's 30 political parties and meet the same eligibility requirements as other candidates, including the country's clean-record rules.

This year, a few hundred of those are among more than 7,800 candidates running for a seat in Congress, with even more running for state legislatures.

Paradoxically, while these entertaining figures can attract voters disillusioned with traditional politics, the ballots cast for them also add to their parties' total under Brazil's electoral system. More votes for joke candidates can translate into more seats in Congress — and more public funds for the very apparatus that protest voters are trying to reject.

‘Barack Obama’ and ’Mick Jagger' enter the race

Trump is not the only U.S. politician with admirers in Brazil’s congressional race.

Henrique Barack Obama, born Cláudio Henrique dos Anjos, has even loftier ambitions. After previous runs for office in Rio de Janeiro, he is seeking one of the two Senate seats at stake in the Federal District, home to Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. But even those who have seen him up close acknowledge that the 57-year-old bears little resemblance to the former U.S. president.

“It is more about his posture,” said Claudio Santos, 33, who knows the Brazilian Obama from his time in Rio. “He also likes the attention that the name brings, obviously. When he wasn't running for office, he would pose as Obama during Flamengo soccer games.”

Another novelty candidate, Mick Jagger, whose real name is Walcy Calixto Vieira, is again running for a seat in the legislature of the central state of Goias. He is no rock'n'roll frontman, but a 66-year-old carpenter with shaggy hair and brow-skimming bangs.

Other candidates skip celebrity impersonations and opt instead for catchy aliases. “Tsunami Grandmother,” whose real name is Scheile Aparecida Soares Brandão, is seeking a seat in the Minas Gerais state legislature. “Who Who," born Francisco das Chagas Costa Oliveira, is running for the legislature in the northeastern state of Piaui.

“Lonely Boy,” or Marcelo da Rosa, is a truck driver from Parana state seeking a seat in Congress, and then there is Severino Cardoso Sobrinho, better known as Samurai Taxi Driver, a nunchaku master featured in Instagram videos who is running for the state legislature in Pernambuco, the home state of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

A tradition dating back to the 1950s

Brazil's tradition of novelty candidates dates back to 1959, when roughly 100,000 voters in São Paulo wrote the name of Cacareco, a female rhinoceros from the city zoo, on their paper ballots in a city council election. Electoral authorities later invalidated the votes.

Such political stunts disappeared during Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. But the country's return to national elections in 1989 featured one of its most memorable presidential candidates: Dr. Enéas Carneiro, a respected cardiologist who delivered rapid-fire, complex speeches in 15-second radio and television spots. Many Brazilians found his breathless delivery hilarious.

“My name is Enéas!” he shouted into the camera at the end of every ad. Carneiro pulled in 360,000 votes in Brazil’s first direct presidential election since 1960.

Five years later, with voters still angered with the corruption scandal that led to President Fernando Collor’s impeachment, Carneiro finished third, drawing 4.6 million votes behind Lula and eventual winner Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

The movement reached a new high in 2010, when Tiririca, a circus clown and comedian, won a congressional seat for São Paulo with more than 1.3 million votes. His campaign slogans included, “It can’t get any worse” and, “What does a federal congressman do? I really don’t know. Vote for me and I will find out for you!”

Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva, nicknamed Tiririca by his mother for looking perpetually angry as a child, served four consecutive terms. He is seeking a fifth, representing his native Ceara state in Brazil’s northeast. In 2022, he secured 70,000 votes to retain his job.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper university in São Paulo, said candidates like Tiririca punch above their weight because of Brazil’s proportional representation system. Votes for candidates go to their party and are then distributed proportionally.

“Some of these candidates have enough votes to win their own seats, but others just add 1,000 or 2,000 votes to their parties. They don’t get seats, but they help their parties secure a bigger slice of Congress and public funds,” Melo said. “Nowadays, we see many more of these bizarre candidates because traditional political leadership is decomposing. People who would normally fill these roles are opting out of institutional politics.”

As Plínio Trump wrapped up campaigning in Juiz de Fora and prepared to return to Varginha — a city 400 kilometers (248 miles) west of Rio de Janeiro nationally famous for its alleged UFO landing site — he acknowledged that his decision to campaign as the U.S. president goes beyond physical resemblance.

“We have few options on the right in Brazil,” he said. “For me, Trump is a right-wing reference.”

____

Savarese reported from São Paulo.

___

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

Lou Ferrigno, who starred as the Marvel character during its 1977–1982 U.S. television run, met with the American pope and chatted briefly with him at the end of Leo's general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

“I’m here because it’s a lifelong dream for me to meet the pope,” Ferrigno told reporters. Noting that one side of his family hails from the southern Amalfi region, Ferrigno said that he grew up hearing about the pope in a Catholic Italian family and served as an altar boy.

“I’m very, very honored to be here to see Pope Leo, because it’s my whole life, it’s a dream coming true,” he said.

He posed for photographers, mimicking the gesture that made him famous in his onscreen transformation from Bruce Banner into the superhero Hulk — flexing his arm muscles.

Ferrigno, a retired professional bodybuilder, starred as Hulk in the CBS series before going on to other television and film roles. He noted that some had been filmed in Rome, and that he appreciated the pope's message.

“Our world, our country needs someone like him: A great leader about kindness and peace, because there’s so much turmoil happening in this world,” he said.

It's unknown if the former Robert Prevost was a Hulk fan.

By 1977, when the series began, the Chicago-born pope was graduating from Villanova University and entering the Augustinian religious order as a novitiate.

Recently, Leo has acknowledged he and his family were regular watchers of a different television personality: the newly-beatified Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the popular American TV and radio preacher.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Today on Texas Eats NOW:

FAST FOOD FRIDAY | CHICKEN SANDWICH SHOWDOWN

KFC | POPEYES | CHICK-FIL-A | JOLLIBEE

Fast Food Friday turned into a chicken sandwich showdown as David Elder put regular and spicy chicken sandwiches from KFC, Popeyes, Chick-fil-A, and Jollibee head-to-head. Each restaurant brought its own approach to the fast-food staple, giving the Texas Eats NOW team a chance to compare everything from the chicken and breading to the toppings, sauces, spice, and overall flavor. After tasting all four contenders, Jollibee came out on top in both categories, earning the title of Best Regular Chicken Sandwich and Best Spicy Chicken Sandwich. The taste test highlighted just how different the familiar chicken sandwich can be when four major fast-food restaurants battle for bragging rights.

DAYCATION DESTINATIONS | MISSION MARQUEE PLAZA

3100 Roosevelt Ave., San Antonio, TX 78214

Mission Marquee Plaza on San Antonio’s South Side combines the history of the former Mission Drive-In Theater with free movies, markets, festivals, and other community events. The original drive-in opened in 1948, and its iconic movie screen remains a centerpiece of the 60,000-square-foot plaza, which reopened in its current form in 2014. In recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Mission Marquee Plaza will celebrate Latino culture with screenings of “La Bamba” and “Selena.” The pet-friendly venue also hosts outdoor movie nights, farmers and artisans markets, live music, cultural celebrations, and community activities throughout the year. This Daycation Destinations segment was sponsored by Metro Health, the public health agency serving San Antonio and unincorporated areas of Bexar County.

ON THE MENU | TERRY BLACK’S BARBECUE

1310 E. Common St., New Braunfels, TX 78130

Terry Black’s Barbecue has brought its Central Texas-style smoked meats to New Braunfels with a new location that opened Sept. 15 in the former Los Cucos building. The 8,649-square-foot restaurant features market-style ordering, a dedicated 1,400-square-foot pit room, and a two-story covered outdoor deck, giving barbecue fans plenty of room to dig into the Black family’s signature offerings. Diners can order brisket, massive beef ribs, pork ribs, turkey, chopped beef, and original or jalapeño cheese sausage by the pound, along with sandwiches and traditional barbecue sides such as macaroni and cheese. Family packs offer larger spreads for groups, while house-baked peach cobbler provides a sweet finish. The New Braunfels restaurant expands Terry Black’s footprint while keeping the focus on the smoked meats and casual service that have become hallmarks of the Texas barbecue brand.

Follow Texas Eats and David Elder on Facebook and Instagram for more food info, pictures, videos and giveaways.

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Today on Texas Eats NOW:

ON THE MENU | PHARM TABLE

611 S Presa St, Ste 106, San Antonio, TX 78210

Pharm Table is an award-winning apothecary kitchen in San Antonio’s Southtown and King William area from chef and founder Elizabeth Johnson, featuring globally inspired dishes built around a health-conscious, anti-inflammatory approach to food. The menu draws inspiration from Latin American, Asian, Mediterranean, and Ayurvedic traditions while emphasizing seasonal, plant-forward ingredients and selectively sourced meats. The restaurant avoids ingredients such as wheat, dairy, refined sugar, and heavily processed foods, and works with local and regenerative farms when possible. Guests can also explore botanical cocktails and mocktails, natural wines, and two outdoor patios with views of the Tower of the Americas. Pharm Table’s focus on food, sustainability, and the natural world made it a fitting partner for the upcoming Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival.

ON THE MENU | MONARCH BUTTERFLY & POLLINATOR FESTIVAL

Brackenridge Park, 3700 N St. Mary’s St, San Antonio, TX 78209

The 11th Annual Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival returns to Brackenridge Park on Saturday, Oct. 3, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., offering a free, family-friendly celebration centered on monarch butterflies, pollinators, and environmental education. Presented by Project Bloom and Blooming with Birdie, the festival features live monarch tagging with Monarch Watch, the Bizzee BumbleBee life cycle adventure, a Monarch Migration Obstacle Course, and the Lights Out! Bird City Maze. More than 50 education and environmental partners will participate, with additional activities including free plant and tree giveaways, live music, local food vendors, face painting, and a pollinator procession. Shuttle and trolley options will also be available to help attendees travel to and from the event.

TRY IT TUESDAY | THE AMAZING BACON WIZARD

The Amazing Bacon Wizard promises an easier way to prepare up to a pound of bacon in the microwave by hanging strips vertically from a collapsible rack and allowing excess grease to drip into a tray below. On “Try It Tuesday,” David Elder put the kitchen gadget to the test, but the results did not live up to the promise. Cooking the bacon took about 18 minutes, with some portions coming out burnt while others were undercooked, and the process left plenty of grease splattered inside the microwave. While the BPA-free, dishwasher-safe gadget folds flat for storage and eliminates the need for a frying pan, the lengthy cook time, uneven results, and messy cleanup left the Texas Eats NOW team unimpressed.

WILL IT SLUSHY? | PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE

In honor of National Coffee Day, “Will It Slushy?” gave one of fall’s most recognizable drinks an icy makeover as David Elder put pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks and Dutch Bros into the Ninja SLUSHi machine. The recurring Texas Eats NOW challenge pits drinks against each other to find out whether they taste better, worse, or just plain strange after being transformed into frozen slushies. This time, neither pumpkin spice latte survived the experiment particularly well, with the freezing process changing the flavor and leaving the team preferring both drinks in their original form. The verdict was clear: Pumpkin spice may work hot or iced, but turning it into a slushy did not improve either.

TEAM BUILDING TUESDAY | BEANBOOZLED

The Texas Eats NOW crew put their taste buds and teamwork to the test with Jelly Belly’s BeanBoozled, a candy roulette game where identical-looking jelly beans can taste either surprisingly good or spectacularly awful. David Elder, Andre Glover, Alex Mathison, and David Hinojosa took turns choosing beans without knowing whether they would get flavors such as Strawberry Banana Smoothie or Dead Fish, Berry Blue or Toothpaste, Juicy Pear or Booger, and Cappuccino or Liver & Onions. Because each good and bad flavor pair looks virtually identical, there is no way to know what is coming until someone takes a bite. The unpredictable reactions make BeanBoozled equal parts candy challenge and team-building exercise, although some flavors make it considerably harder to be a team player.

Follow Texas Eats and David Elder on Facebook and Instagram for more food info, pictures, videos and giveaways.

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Today on Texas Eats NOW:

ON THE MENU | ALZER’S ROASTERY

9871 I-10, San Antonio, TX 78230

Alzer’s Roastery brings Middle Eastern and Arabian flavors to San Antonio with a combination of freshly roasted coffee, nuts, traditional desserts, and viral sweets. David Elder checks out Turkish coffee ground and prepared in-house, specialty drinks like the Pistachio Latte and Lavender Matcha, and freshly roasted nuts and seeds available in a variety of Middle Eastern-style preparations. The sweets selection ranges from traditional künefe and baklava to Dubai chocolate, mousse cakes, pastries, imported gourmet chocolates, and an expansive selection of halal gummies and candies. By blending traditional flavors with modern dessert trends, Alzer’s Roastery offers plenty to explore beyond the typical coffee shop experience.

FOOD NEWS | SAMURAI BARTENDER

David Elder takes a look at Yuzo Komai, the Japanese master mixologist who has gained attention online as the “Samurai Bartender” for his highly precise and theatrical approach to cocktail making at Bar Centifolia in Tokyo. Komai turns preparing a drink into a performance, using calculated movements to carve large blocks of ice into diamond shapes while incorporating elements such as flames, liquid nitrogen, and smoke. Instead of relying on a fixed cocktail menu, Komai creates bespoke drinks based on each guest’s preferences, mood, and seasonal ingredients. His elaborate presentation and disciplined technique have helped turn the reservation-only Tokyo bar into a viral destination for cocktail enthusiasts.

RAUL IS REAL | RAÚL B. RODRIGUEZ LAW, P.C.

922 S. Alamo St., San Antonio, TX 78205

David Elder sits down with San Antonio attorney Raúl B. Rodriguez for “Raul Is Real,” a conversation series featuring the bilingual personal injury and wrongful death trial attorney behind Raúl B. Rodriguez Law, P.C. A third-generation San Antonio native and graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and St. Mary’s University School of Law, Rodriguez began his legal career working with insurance defense firms before establishing his own practice representing injured clients. Today’s conversation takes place at Anchor Bar, where the menu features its famous Buffalo wings alongside San Antonio favorites and sports bar classics, including chicken tenders, pizza logs, Buffalo mac and cheese, burgers, Chicken on a Stick, and fresh-to-order micheladas.

CHOP IT UP | ESAUL AND GRECIA RAMOS

YouTube.com/@TexasEats

David Elder sits down with Esaul and Grecia Ramos, the husband-and-wife team behind San Antonio’s 2M Smokehouse and Catering, for “Chop It Up.” Esaul handles the pits and smoked meats while Grecia brings her baking and dessert expertise to the restaurant, a partnership they describe as, “He’s the smoke. She’s the sugar.” The couple recently added another achievement to 2M’s growing list of accolades by winning the debut season of Food Network’s “Pitmasters,” earning a $30,000 prize after a week of barbecue challenges. The Texas Eats NOW segment offers a preview of the conversation before the extended “Chop It Up” interview premieres Friday afternoon on the Texas Eats YouTube channel.

MYSTERY BOX MONDAY | LOU MALNATI’S FROZEN PIZZA

David Elder puts one of Chicago’s most recognizable pizza names to the test with Lou Malnati’s frozen pizza for “Mystery Box Monday.” The company ships its Chicago-style pizzas nationwide by flash-freezing handmade pies, giving customers outside Chicago a chance to prepare them at home. Its signature deep-dish pizza features a buttery, pastry-like crust layered with Wisconsin mozzarella, toppings, and chunky vine-ripened tomato sauce, while its sausage version features a distinctive layer of sausage covering the pizza rather than traditional scattered pieces. Lou Malnati’s also offers cheese, pepperoni, spinach, crustless, and thin-crust frozen varieties, giving David plenty to examine before delivering his final verdict.

Follow Texas Eats and David Elder on Facebook and Instagram for more food info, pictures, videos and giveaways.

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“How are you supposed to enjoy the city if you got to pay $40 just to park?” said Johnny Reyes, who works downtown.

Reyes is not alone in his frustration. Parking prices vary widely depending on location, and a difference of just one block can mean significant savings.

A parking lot near the River Walk runs nearly $40 for the day. But the city-owned Houston Street Garage, about a block from the Majestic Theatre, costs just $3 an hour — or $10 for the full day.

For visitors like Sam Abrahamson, that kind of price gap matters.

“I feel like $20 is reasonable for the day,” Abrahamson said. ”Anything really over 30, unless it’s like an event, is just kind of unnecessary.”

The City of San Antonio operates 13 parking lots and garages that it says are the most affordable options downtown. A city map highlights those locations and is available online.

Parking is free in city garages on Thursdays. Special events may impact prices.

Whether heading to a restaurant or catching a show, downtown Operations Director John Jacks said planning ahead is key.

“It’s not like going to the grocery store where you just drive up, and you park in a parking space right in front of the grocery. It should be part of your planning process,” Jacks said.

Project Marvel, future parking plans

With a proposed Sports and Entertainment District coming near the Alamodome, questions remain about how downtown parking will keep up with increased demand.

City officials say additional parking is part of the plan.

“So obviously it will be at times very busy,” Chief Downtown Officer Shanon Miller said. ”Not to mention the fact that it’s in largely in Hemisfair Park, which we want people to use all the time.”

Miller said the city is already looking at the bigger picture of downtown mobility.

“The city is currently in the process of the Downtown Accessibility and Mobility Study,” Miller said. ”That’s really intended to look at overall how people are accessing downtown.”

The Downtown Accessibility and Mobility Study is designed to identify the best ways people can get around downtown, with the goal of improving overall traffic flow on a daily basis.

Results from the study are expected this fall.

Read also:

• VIA to test drive late-night VIA Link, rideshare service for downtown workers

Moscow’s steep escalation of its aerial campaign since the end of August is putting pressure on Ukraine as it braces for winter, when Russia regularly bombards energy facilities to deny Ukrainians heat, power and running water.

The heavy overnight attack caused power outages and prompted questions about whether it marked the start of Russia's anticipated cold weather campaign, which Ukrainian officials describe as an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

“There has been virtually no day since summer when the enemy did not attack energy infrastructure,” Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said on Telegram. “But such a massive and combined attack happened for the first time since the end of the last heating season.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha noted the increase in Russian strikes has brought “days of almost uninterrupted air raid alerts across Ukraine.”

“Russia is intensifying its terror: jet-powered drones during the day, ballistic and cruise missiles at night, constant attacks against our cities and civilian life,” Sybiha said on X.

Ukrainian officials say Moscow is not engaging with U.S. efforts to halt the fighting, 4½ years after Russia invaded its neighbor. Moscow says it wants a comprehensive settlement rather than a temporary truce, but its demand for Ukraine to surrender land is unacceptable for Kyiv.

Russia exploits Ukraine's air defense gaps

Nationwide, the Russian attacks killed seven Ukrainian civilians and wounded 24, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, without providing details.

A boy was killed in an attack on a private home in Vyshhorod, a city in the wider Kyiv region, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. Three other people were rescued from the rubble, he added.

Three other people were killed by attacks in the capital, with four injured, according to authorities.

Russia fired 2,850 jet-propelled drones at Ukraine in August but by Tuesday it had already launched 3,177 this month, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said.

Russia has exploited gaps in Ukrainian air defenses by firing ballistic missiles and new jet-powered drones, both of which are hard to stop. Air raid alerts are disrupting daily life, sending people running for shelter and denting economic output.

The attacks come in waves, Ihnat told Ukrainian television late Tuesday, mostly aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region. Ukraine needs more missiles for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems to counter ballistic missiles and for other ground-based air defenses, he said.

The main Russian targets were energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region, Zelenskyy said on social media, describing it as “a difficult attack” as Moscow stretches Ukraine's air defenses.

Zelenskyy thanked foreign countries supporting Ukraine for recent deliveries of air defense help. “And the closer we get to winter, the more of this protection we need," he said. "We must do everything to ensure that Russia’s bet on ballistic missile and drone terror does not pay off.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said its overnight attack hit a hydroelectric and a thermal power plant, an electrical substation, an energy storage facility and a data center.

Ukrainian officials didn’t specifically confirm those strikes, as Kyiv wants to deny Moscow intelligence about the effectiveness of its attacks. Authorities reported hits on civilian areas of at least four Kyiv districts.

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Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal.

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

Dr. Isabel Basaldu-Prado, a NICU doctor at St. Luke’s Baptist Hospital, lost her son, Roel, to suicide in 2020.

He was a junior at Texas A&M University.

“If it saves one life, then I’ll feel like my son’s death would not have been in vain,” Basaldu-Prado said.

Basaldu-Prado provides care for sick and premature babies in San Antonio.

“I love what I do because it’s saving lives,” she said. “I get to see that first breath. I get to hear that first heartbeat. I get to help parents take their bundle of joy home.”

Basaldu-Prado is also a mother of five. Her children range in age from 15 to 34. Roel was her third child.

She said Roel struggled with his mental health for years and was open with his family about what he was experiencing.

“He came to us his junior year in high school and told us that he was having suicidal ideations,” Basaldu-Prado said.

His mental health care journey included medication, therapy and hospitalization, she said.

Through it all, Basaldu-Prado said she and her husband worked to create a home where difficult conversations were welcomed.

“I’ve always told my kids that there’s nothing that we can’t talk about, that there is nothing that we cannot fix,” she said. “I always tell them that I would be more upset if they lied to me than if they tell me the truth, that we will always try to figure it out.”

As Suicide Prevention Month comes to a close, Basaldu-Prado said she hopes her family’s experience encourages other parents and caregivers to listen closely when children talk about anxiety, sadness or suicidal thoughts.

“If your child comes up to you and says that they’re having issues with anxiety, they’re having issues with sadness, pay attention,” she said. “Listen.”

In 2021, the year after Roel died, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported suicide was the third-leading cause of death among high school students.

Basaldu-Prado said families should approach mental health struggles with compassion, even when they are difficult to understand.

“I would say to parents, just be open, be accepting, be understanding,” she said. “Mental health does not make sense.”

Anyone facing mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, or anyone who needs someone to talk to can call or text 988 or use the 988 Lifeline chat. The service is free and available 24/7.

Read also:

• ‘The system failed us’: Families say lack of SAPD mental health response left loved ones in crisis

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District is expected to transfer the property to the City of Uvalde in the coming months. Once that happens, city leaders will oversee the next steps in developing the memorial.

The memorial would honor the 19 students and two teachers killed in the May 2022 school shooting. Plans also call for the site to include a community park with indoor and outdoor recreation areas.

The city said it will seek community input as the project moves forward. A timeline for construction and details of the property sale have not yet been released.

Read also: Uvalde CISD board names lone finalist for superintendent

Notably, Talarico has enjoyed larger leads in recent polling than Democrat Beto O’Rourke ever did in 2018 when he nearly beat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Talarico is dominating Paxton in fundraising.

How to read a poll

The quality of polls and pollsters can be measured by several metrics, including how well their polls have performed in the past and how transparent they are about their methodology.  Here are a few things to pay attention to when navigating different polls.

Partisan sponsors: Polls sponsored by a candidate or party should be taken with a grain of salt, according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research. While nonpartisan polling organizations typically release all of their polling results regardless of who is ahead, candidate-sponsored or party-affiliated surveys can choose to only release results that benefit their campaigns.

Sample size: In general, the more people an election poll surveys the more reliable its results are. As sample sizes increase, the results of a survey are more likely to reflect the real attitudes of those who will vote in an election.

Sample type: Election polls usually survey three kinds of populations: adults, registered voters and those they deem to be “likely voters,” based on their voting history and gauged interest.

Polls that survey adults are able to increase their sample sizes, but can be less reflective of the opinions of those who will actually make it to the polls to vote on Election Day. During an election year, polls using samples of registered voters are common as they are a concrete group and more likely to vote than unregistered adults.

Closer to election day, polls with “likely voter” samples are often considered more representative of those who will actually vote. Different pollsters use different methodologies to determine who is a likely voter, using factors such as past voting behavior and interest in the election.

Sampling method: The methods by which pollsters select who participates in their surveys usually fall into two categories: probability and non-probability samples.

In a probability-based sample, every person of the full population has a chance of being selected for the survey, whereas in a non-probability based sample, such as an internet panel or a self-selected sample, the chance of any one person being selected is unknown. As a result, the samples can be skewed toward characteristics that may not be as reflective of the whole population. 

Although probability based sampling has been the preferred method for many decades, its rising cost has led researchers to turn to non-probability based sampling. The results of some non-probability based surveys have been shown to be comparable to and sometimes more accurate than probability based surveys.

Margin of error: While polls conducted with probability samples allow for the calculation of the margin of error, non-probability polls have no simple way of calculating the same error metric. They must instead use statistical models to produce estimates of their sampling error.

Methodology for our tracker

Where the polls come from

The New York Times collects polls and manages a database of election polling. This tracker pulls data from their collection, and estimates the average of every poll conducted since Paxton won his  Republican runoff election in May. 

Which polls we include

We included every public poll of the Texas U.S. Senate that asked voters to choose who they would vote for if the election occurred that day and included James Talarico and Ken Paxton as options. Polls that ended before the May runoff election are not included in the average, but are listed in the table. 

How the average works

The average is calculated by weighting every poll by three factors: recency, sample size and whether the poll’s sponsor has a partisan affiliation. We then averaged them. 

• Recent polls count more than older ones as they are more reflective of current sentiment. 
• Polls with larger sample sizes count more than those with smaller samples. 
• Polls sponsored by a political party count half as much as ones without a partisan sponsor.

Limits

The average is not a forecast of the election and who will eventually win. Additionally, early in the race, the number of polls that have been released can be relatively low, meaning the average can shift meaningfully when a single new poll is added. As a result, individual outlier polls carry more weight early on.

Apurva Mahajan contributed to this report.

Disclosure: The New York Times has been a financial supporter 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 Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The penalty stems from a post McKee-Rodriguez made in May. The board found two ethics-code violations connected to the post and assessed the maximum fine of $500 for each violation.

The fine will be paid to the city’s general fund. No payment deadline was specified.

On June 1, San Antonio resident Juan Rider Mireles II filed the sworn ethics complaint against McKee-Rodriguez, alleging he misused official city resources and violated the city’s ethics rules by publicly exposing a constituent’s private information on Facebook.

According to the complaint, a constituent posted a comment on social media that used a racial slur against McKee-Rodriguez.

McKee-Rodriguez, who is Black, then published three images on his Facebook page in response — including a screenshot of the constituent’s comment, her profile picture and a screenshot of an email from the Council District 2 office sent to her on Sept. 12, 2024.

The complaint states the email screenshot appeared to have been accessed through a Microsoft Outlook application on an iPhone and exposed the constituent’s full email address, which the complaint said McKee-Rodriguez obtained through official council channels.

About 8 in 10 rural voters — an important voting bloc for Trump and fellow Republicans — said the Trump administration’s policies have had a negative effect or no impact on the health of people where they live. Most MAHA supporters, 68%, also feel this way, according to the national survey of more than 2,000 rural registered voters.

The findings signal an apparent disconnect between the Trump administration’s MAHA-branded policy priorities and rural America’s perception of their reach and effectiveness.

Iowa pastor Mike Jager, 58, is a registered Republican and considers himself part of the MAHA movement. The Trump administration’s health policies have had “minimal” impact on the health of his community, Jager said, but he added that Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is moving the needle “in the right direction.”

“It’s a beginning,” Jager said. “It’s a big ship to try and turn around and course-correct.”

Kennedy has used the MAHA label to support various agendas, including abandoning long-standing vaccine guidance, researching ultraprocessed foods and investing in regenerative agriculture.

Jager lives in Sumner, Iowa, “less than a quarter mile from where the corn ends and the city begins.” He’s seen family members and neighbors develop diseases that he believes resulted in part from exposure to agricultural chemicals and consumption of unhealthy, processed foods.

In the June Republican primary for governor, Jager voted for Zach Lahn, a businessman and farmer who ran on a MAHA platform and beat out Trump-backed U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra. He plans to vote for him again in November.

Many rural voters are prioritizing health issues

About two-thirds of rural voters who support MAHA said it’s “extremely” or “very” important to them to vote for a candidate who does, too, while only 4 in 10 rural voters overall said the same.

Trump sought to seize on MAHA support during his campaign for another term two years ago. Now, amid tight midterm races, Kennedy has campaigned to galvanize the movement’s support. In May, he attended a MAHA bill signing with Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, and in August, he went fishing with Lahn, posting about it on social media.

Yet the survey indicates voters are noticing “this weird split in the Trump administration” between what Kennedy messages and what Trump says and does, said David Peterson, a political science professor at Iowa State University.

In Iowa, concerns about what’s causing rising cancer rates are “a big deal,” he said. For many people who identify with MAHA, being healthy includes taking on corporate agriculture and pharmaceutical companies that they think cause cancer, he added.

In the poll, views on healthcare access and costs largely diverged along party lines. Most Democratic and independent voters said the Trump administration’s healthcare policies have had a negative impact on their healthcare costs and the health and well-being of people in their communities. Republicans were likelier to say there hasn’t been an impact.

Talking on the phone from her 200-acre farm in Carroll County, Iowa, 71-year-old Donna Klocke said that her husband had died from cancer and that she has neighbors who also have cancer.

“It’s just very prevalent,” Klocke said. “We’re in a farming community. We use chemicals and pesticides and all kinds of things that aren’t necessarily good for us.”

Klocke, a Democrat, said the MAHA movement is a good idea because she cares about being healthy, but she does not consider herself part of it and will not be voting for a candidate who represents the movement.

Kennedy, who was an anti-vaccine activist before entering politics and has sent mixed messages to Americans about getting the measles vaccine, scares her.

“Measles are coming back and polio,” Klocke said. “It’s the measles that really gets me. It’s like, do you not understand how dangerous it is?”

Survey reflects angst over healthcare

Nearly half of rural voters said their communities don’t have enough doctors or other healthcare providers, and even more said there aren’t enough mental health workers specifically. The share of rural voters who said their community does not have enough hospitals increased to 35% from 21% in a similar question asked in a KFF-Washington Post survey in 2017.

And as with the general population, healthcare, gas and grocery costs are top pain points. At least 6 in 10 rural voters said they were worried about healthcare costs.

The level of worry varied based on coverage, with rural voters enrolled in employer plans or Medicare less likely to be worried. The survey found that 80% of working-age rural voters on Medicaid were very or somewhat worried about healthcare costs. Last year, Republicans passed a tax and spending bill that cut over $900 billion in projected Medicaid spending over a decade and mandated new eligibility requirements.

In the tiny community of Lipan, Texas, west of Dallas, Kim Solis and her husband have a handyman-and-home-remodel business and get their insurance on the marketplace. Since Trump returned to office, their premium payment jumped from zero to $166 a month. Their copays went up, and their deductibles each increased by $2,000.

Solis, 62, said she worries what will happen if they get a big medical bill.

“Certainly, we’d be in a world of hurt trying to take money out of savings or getting it out of our 401(k) just to be able to do something about it,” she said.

Most MAHA voters are also MAGA — but not all

Like the general population, rural voters said they trust their own doctors and healthcare providers for health information over government agencies or officials, according to the poll.

Trust in Kennedy and Trump fell largely along partisan lines. About 10% of rural Democratic voters reported having a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in Kennedy, compared with 74% of rural Republican voters. About 5% of rural Democrats and 69% of rural Republicans said they trust Trump a “great deal” or “fair amount” for reliable health information.

While Make America Great Again and MAHA identities are “linked in a lot of ways,” the rising costs of healthcare and groceries pose a challenge for those committed to the MAHA principles that Kennedy promotes, said Peterson, the Iowa State professor.

Buying healthy food “becomes, ‘I can’t afford to do that because of Trump’s policies,’” he said.

In Stamping Ground, Kentucky, Alma Johnson, 65, works night security at a horse farm.

Johnson voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024 and said she “pretty much” likes how Trump is running the country. But she said she is not a MAGA devotee, preferring to “think for myself.”

MAHA, however, is an easy sell for Johnson because, she said, she doesn’t think people should be able to buy junk food in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Still, she said she hasn’t seen much impact from the Trump administration’s healthcare policies, including the new food pyramid.

“It takes a long time to change people, their habits, their thoughts or the things they do,” Johnson said.

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The poll of 2,241 U.S. adults registered to vote in rural areas of the country was conducted Aug. 12-24, 2026, using a sample drawn from the probability-based SSRS Opinion Panel. The margin of sampling error for the full sample is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In collaboration with AP, KFF researchers worked to design the survey sample and questionnaire, analyze and report findings.

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This report is a collaboration between The Associated Press and KFF Health News. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was charged Tuesday with one count of assaulting, resisting and impeding a federal officer, according to a criminal complaint. A detention hearing is set for Friday, October 2.

>> Austin man shot by ICE agent charged with assault, resisting arrest

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

The charges stem from a Sept. 20 traffic stop in north Austin. According to the criminal complaint, ICE officers were attempting to detain Garces Perez after confirming an immigration judge had issued a final order of removal.

The complaint alleges Garces Perez ignored orders to put his vehicle in park and get out. It says he drove away, striking one ICE officer in the torso with the driver’s-side mirror. The complaint further alleges officers pursued him through commercial and residential areas and that Garces Perez later attempted to strike another officer with his vehicle. That officer then fired his gun.

Garces Perez was shot and hospitalized. His attorney has said the bullet remained lodged in his back after he was released from the hospital and transferred to ICE custody. He later returned to the hospital for additional treatment.

Before the shooting, Garces Perez was working as a DoorDash driver, according to his attorney. His legal team has said he entered the United States through a parole program, was seeking asylum and had no criminal history.

Garces Perez has disputed the officers’ account, saying he tried to pull over and that the agents shot him as he drove away.

The preliminary detention hearing will address whether Garces Perez remains in custody while the criminal case proceeds.

Read also:

• Protesters rally outside ICE Processing Center in Pearsall

KSAT’s Japhanie Gray caught up with Tremell Brown, deputy CEO and chief safety officer, and he answered a few questions residents have during wet weather events.

How have you prepared for weather events like this in the past?

“With our buses, you know you are in a much heavier vehicle and much taller vehicle,” Brown said, “But we have procedures our operators follow so that they can detour while communicating with a dispatcher. The dispatcher also lets them know where there is a low-water crossing, but everything is about safety. We have an internal emergency operations command team that helps monitor the things that happen for our maintenance team, our operators and all of our employees.”

How does your maintenance team prepare the buses during rain events?

“Believe it or not, when buses go through rising water there is a lot of water that may splash underneath and sometimes there needs to be some augmentation for the frame so that water doesn’t remain inside,” Brown said. “The water can tread out easily so that way it can keep everything dry to keep the bus functional. They check the seals and make sure the windshield wipers work. Operators are required to go through inspection every single day.”

Is there a resource for your passengers to use if their bus routes are detoured because of low-water crossings?

“On our website and our app, you can check for detours specific to your route on your trip or destination for where you are going to,” he said. “So, if you happen to know that you normally ride a certain route, go on our website, look at service disruptions, take a look on the app and it will tell you exactly where the detours are at. If they have any other questions that that, they can call 210-362-2020 and someone will coach you through what you need.”

Based on what you have dealt with in the past, what are your usual trouble spots when it rains?

“There are a lot of places underneath overpasses where the road dips down so we see things that happen on I-35,” Brown said. “If you take a look at the South Side where St. Roosevelt and St. Marys are, there is a bridge there that has low water crossing. We have long-standing detours, even when it starts to rain, we will put that bus on detour, so there is no risk to the customer or the safety of the operator. Those buses will automatically go on a detour around that concerning spot which is why it is important to check the app or the website.”

For detours or to sign up for service alerts, visit viainfo.net. VIA said another good resource of information can be found on their social media pages.

“We always want our customers to be safe and feel safe,” Brown said. “We understand they have to get to work, to school or different situations they need to be. We want to get them there safely and we want to be there safely for you. Take your time getting to wherever that bus stop is. You can double check our website again or the app to find out where we are with that bus if it is on time or late. Just communicate with us and we will be there for you day or night.”

Read also:

• Storms possible as early as Wednesday, heavy rain expected Thursday
• After $16K in damage, West Side homeowner prepares for another storm