The 28-year-old was among four occupants of a vehicle that stopped in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store in St. Augustine before 7 a.m.

During an encounter with agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations, the four fled on foot, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Dylan Bryan said in an emailed statement. The driver of the semi stopped and tried to help the man, Bryan said.

It was at least the 10th death involving encounters with immigration agents since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign last year. In two other cases, people died after fleeing agents and being struck by vehicles.

It wasn't immediately clear what prompted the encounter Tuesday, and the 28-year-old's nationality and immigration status were not known. Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately returned emails from The Associated Press seeking comment or information on the status of the other three occupants of the vehicle.

Last summer, a man fleeing from immigration officers outside a Home Depot store in southern California died after being hit by an SUV as he tried to cross a freeway. Homeland Security officials said that 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, of Guatemala, was not being pursued by immigration authorities when he was struck.

In October, a pickup truck fatally struck 24-year-old gardener Josué Castro Rivera, of Honduras, on a highway in Norfolk, Virginia, as he tried to escape authorities during a traffic stop. Authorities said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and that Castro Rivera had “resisted heavily and fled.”

Supporters of Ukraine have been working for more than a year to pass a bill that would impose steep tariffs on goods from countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas and other exports. They unveiled a revised measure Tuesday with the goal of depriving Russia of money it uses to fund its war against Ukraine.

Some lawmakers worried the original bill was too broad and could harm the economies of some of the U.S.'s strongest allies that have also helped Ukraine. The White House wanted to ensure the president had adequate flexibility to waive sanctions when it is the national interest to do so. The revised bill attempts to address both concerns.

The final bill more narrowly applies the tariffs to the world's top five purchasers of Russia oil or natural gas, according to a summary. China and India are at the top of that list, sponsors said. It also dramatically reduces the tariffs from a blanket 500% to up to 100%, and it provides exceptions for countries that import less than 15% of their natural gas from Russia and are taking steps to reduce those imports.

The bill also includes sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior Russian political and military leaders, and Russian financial institutions and energy projects. It would also expand U.S. sanctions to target older, reflagged oil tankers that Russia uses to circumvent existing U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and energy revenues.

Graham said he was making progress with Trump

Graham and colleagues who had been working on the legislation issued a statement Friday announcing that significant progress had been made in talks with the Trump administration. The senator passed away late Saturday before the revised bill could be unveiled.

Graham had just returned from Ukraine and discussed the sanctions bill with President Donald Trump in a call shortly before his death.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who was working with Graham on the legislation, said he would be in favor of naming the bill after Graham.

“It's part of his legacy,” Blumenthal said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called Monday on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring the sanctions bill to the floor immediately “in honor of Lindsey,” saying “it will pass overwhelmingly and help our allies in Ukraine.”

Thune said he was “hopeful we can make that happen."

“It would certainly be an incredible legacy for him if, in fact, we can find a path forward. It’ll take Democrats and Republicans here in the Senate to do that,” Thune said on CNN.

The bill has support from more than two dozen senators so far and aides said the list was growing. The House passed a much different bill last month that included more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid for Ukraine as well as making another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.

Blumenthal said he spoke with Graham last week about the progress he had made in talks with the White House.

“He was absolutely ecstatic. You know, I’ve never heard him quite as exuberant.”

Lawmakers want to act quickly

Graham traveled to Ukraine last week and offered the country reason to be optimistic, telling reporters that sweeping, hard-hitting new economic sanctions against Russia were finally within reach. He said he would be heading back to Washington to meet with bipartisan leaders to advance the proposal.

Lawmakers said no one had done more to advance the sanctions bill than Graham. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., said Graham was overjoyed when Trump gave the nod to move forward.

“He did a lot of big things, but this one he believed would have the largest impact, would make the biggest difference,” Britt said.

Senators said the war has generated a heavy human and economic cost for both nations, but Ukraine has momentum on its side.

“Unfortunately, if the Kremlin is able to fund its war machine through the sale of oil and gas, it's going to be able to keep going, and that's what this bill is going to do," said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. "It's going to stop those purchases. It's going to make clear those purchases come with real costs."

It's unclear when the bill will come up for a vote in the Senate, but Blumenthal said Thune has made clear he's ready to move “when we have the votes.”

“And I think we have the votes,” Blumenthal said.

Dennis Sochor was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke. He was convicted of killing Patricia Gifford on Jan. 1, 1982, just hours after meeting the 18-year-old woman at a New Year’s Eve party.

Sochor was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at at the 6 p.m. execution time. Asked by the warden if he had any last words, Sochor said he did.

He apologized several times to the Gifford family, saying he was “deeply sorry” for his actions and thanked his own loved ones for their support over the years. Then, he finished by commending his spirit to Jesus Christ.

The lethal drugs began flowing at 6:03 p.m. Sochor underwent about a minute of heavy breathing and then some seconds of sputtering. After two minutes of relative stillness, the warden looked into his eyes, shook his shoulders and yelled his name. There was no response. A medic was called into the room at 6:14 p.m., and Sochor was pronounced dead soon after.

Another 74-year-old inmate just a week younger than Sochor at the time of execution was put to death late last month. And later this month, the state is preparing to execute an 80-year-old, the state’s first octogenarian scheduled to receive a lethal injection.

The execution plans highlight the aging death row population in the U.S. and the busy death chamber in Florida, which has now carried out 10 of the 16 executions conducted in the nation this year — more than every other state combined.

It’s unclear why Florida scheduled the executions of the three prisoners consecutively.

Maria DeLiberato, legal director of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, noted that in Florida the governor has practically sole discretion when it comes to scheduling executions. In many other death penalty states, the scheduling is up to the courts.

The office of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis did not respond to an email prior to Tuesday's lethal injection seeking comment about the executions.

A New Year's Day killing

According to court records, Gifford was celebrating the upcoming New Year with a friend at a Fort Lauderdale area bar when they met Sochor and his brother.

The four spent several hours talking, but after the friend became ill and went to sleep in her car, Gifford left with Sochor and his brother to get breakfast. But instead of going for food, Sochor stopped his truck in a secluded area and attacked Gifford when she refused to have sex with him, according to investigators.

Sochor was later arrested in Georgia in 1986 on unrelated charges and extradited to Florida. Sochor’s brother told police that Sochor was responsible for Gifford’s disappearance, and Sochor himself confessed on tape to choking Gifford and disposing of her body, which was never found. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping in 1987, and he was sentenced to death.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Sochor’s last request to intervene.

And last week, the state Supreme Court denied Sochor’s appeals, including arguments that the state violated his right to a fair trial by failing to disclose a 2022 letter sent to Sochor’s brother from a detective asking for information about the location of Gifford’s body.

Oldest inmates executed in Florida

On June 25, Florida executed 74-year-old Dusty Ray Spencer for the killing of his wife Karen. Until Tuesday, Spencer was the oldest inmate executed in Florida.

According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the oldest inmates executed by the state before Spencer were both 72: Samuel Lee Smithers on Oct. 14, 2025, for the 1996 killings of two women and R. Charlie Gifford on Feb. 21, 1951, for the 1950 shooting of a state representative, Charles Schuh Jr.

Meanwhile, Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is scheduled to be executed July 28 for the killings of his ex-girlfriend's parents.

He would become the second oldest prisoner known to be put to death in modern U.S. times after 83-year-old Walter Moody Jr. Moody was executed in Alabama in 2018 for killing a federal judge and a Black civil rights attorney during a wave of Southern mail bombs.

Florida carried out a record 19 executions in 2025. DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was eight executions set in 2014.

Late Friday night, Mayor Janeshia Grider posted a video to the city’s Facebook page.

Grider said the vote to remove City Council member Susan Street during Thursday’s meeting happened because the council believed Street’s conduct was disruptive.

“The behavior cited included repeated interruptions during another council member’s speaking time, anger and rudeness directed towards staff,” Grider said. “The conduct was found to directly interfere with the orderly transaction of city business. This action was not taken lightly.”

Grider also said she had heard from several citizens over the years who reported feeling “uncomfortable, at times intimidated and disappointed by the lack of decorum” during council meetings.

Street was elected to Kirby city council last year. The council members represent approximately 8,000 residents.

KSAT Investigates reached out to Street on Tuesday for a response to the mayor’s comments. This story will be updated with her response.

Grider posted the video instead of responding to KSAT Investigates reporter Daniela Ibarra’s emailed request for comment, which was sent Friday morning.

On Monday, KSAT reporter Pachatta Pope reached out to Grider for an interview. Grider said she did not want to speak with KSAT and accused the station of twisting the narrative.

Grider later called KSAT and asked another email request for an interview. Before KSAT had the chance to send the email, Grider shared the following statement:

“As Mayor of the City of Kirby, I am deeply concerned about what I believe is a growing culture of intimidation in our community. Based on what has been reported to me by residents and city employees, a small group of fewer than 15 individuals has created an environment where people are afraid to speak publicly.

This goes beyond political disagreement. I have received reports of ongoing bullying and harassment directed at community members, city staff, and public officials. I have also been told of incidents involving people contacting employers and an employee reporting unexpected visitors at their home. That is disturbing and unacceptable.

One resident told me, “I live alone” and another “I don’t want them to come after my family.” No one should feel afraid to participate in local government or voice their opinion.

I encourage the media to review the public community pages and social media posts for themselves. Do your own research and examine the pattern of conduct. Kirby deserves respectful dialogue not fear, intimidation, or harassment."

Kirby Mayor Janeshia Grider

This is not the first time Grider has refused to respond to KSAT Investigates.

In 2025, KSAT Investigates caught up with Grider before a city council meeting after she refused to answer five requests for an interview about rehiring Brian Rowland to serve as Kirby’s city manager.

KSAT uncovered that the city had fired Rowland the previous year after employee complaints, but hired him back with a pay raise.

Kirby council member removed from July 9 meeting by police

During the July 9 meeting, the council discussed an agenda item about the Texas Water Development Board.

Street asked Rowland why an application did not have an amount listed for how much financial assistance the city was requesting to extend water lines.

“Resolutions come through all the time with empty spaces on them,” Street said. “I’ve just never called it out before. I’m doing it now.”

If the resolution did not pass, Rowland said the city would not be able to apply for the grant.

“I’m just asking if you can fill these in next time. Would that be possible?” Street responded. “Would it be possible to give us the appropriate information prior to the meeting?”

Grider asked Street if she was finished.

“Not if you’re about to come after me,” Street said. “No.”

Grider told Street that she was on her second warning.

“You just seem to be rushing me because you sounded like you were about to tell me I was being inappropriate or something,” Street replied. “I’m pointing out the actions that are not getting taken to fill in the information for council members who do not have access to [Rowland’s] office on a daily basis.”

Street said her questions to Rowland often go unanswered.

Off camera, a man suggested that the council could bring forward a motion to expel Street from the meeting.

Grider gave Street a third warning, but she did not indicate what the warning was for.

In a 4-3 vote, council voted to expel Street from the meeting, but a reason was not given.

According to footage from the meeting, Grider asked a Kirby police officer to escort Street out of the meeting. Video posted by the city showed a Kirby police officer walking up to the platform next to Street, but the footage stopped before she left.

In March, city council was set to talk about and possibly take action on removing Street from Kirby’s city council.

Records obtained by KSAT Investigates show Rowland made a formal complaint against Street. He accused her of creating a hostile work environment, which she denied.

“They’re coming after me because I ask a lot of questions that they don’t want to answer,” Street said at the time. “I ask them in council, I email the city manager and ask questions and I don’t get the answers.”

However, questions remain about whether the council has the authority to remove an elected official.

While the city manager declined to comment, UTSA political science professor Jon Taylor told KSAT Investigates that removing a council member in a city with Kirby’s form of government is not a simple process.

Under the Kirby City Charter, a removal would require a recall election — which is triggered by a petition signed by registered voters.

If enough valid signatures are collected, the issue would then go before voters for a final decision.

Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

The policy change came after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian driver Monday in Maine and a week after one shot and killed a motorist in Houston, renewing criticism of the agency’s enforcement tactics that were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

In Florida on Tuesday, a third man in roughly a week died during an encounter with immigration officers. This time, a 28-year-old man was killed after he was hit by a tractor trailer while running from immigration and other federal officers, authorities said.

The suspension of vehicle stops allows room for exceptions when executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, according to a person who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations. Matthew Felling, a spokesperson for Maine Sen. Angus King, said the senator’s office was also told by the Department of Homeland Security that ICE was suspending stops.

Hundreds of people in Maine protested Tuesday over the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national.

DHS said Monday that an officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed Durán Guerrero while officers were watching the home of someone they believed was in the U.S. illegally and facing a final order of removal from the country. It said in a post on X that when ICE tried to stop a car driven by someone who came from the home, the vehicle attempted to flee and the officer fired.

That was a shift from how King earlier described the encounter, when he said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon. King said Mullin told him the officers were trying to serve an arrest warrant, but not for the man who was shot.

DHS, which oversees ICE, didn’t respond to an email seeking clarity on what led to the shooting.

In a scathing post on X, outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the shooting a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Petro, who has openly quarreled with U.S. President Donald Trump, urged Trump to provide an explanation and accused ICE officers of treating Durán Guerrero as “an inferior being without rights.”

The shooting also sparked outrage in Maine, where hundreds of protesters gathered Tuesday outside an ICE detention center in Scarborough, just up the coast between Biddeford and Portland.

“These people are killers and they must leave our state now,” organizer Todd Chretien told the crowd, including some who held signs reading “Stop the murder” and “End this terror.”

Maine’s congressional delegation on Tuesday demanded a “comprehensive, transparent, and expedited investigation.”

Questions surround the shooting

Durán Guerrero's shooting marked at least the ninth time ICE has used deadly force since Trump began his immigration crackdown.

Photos showed bullet holes in Durán Guerrero’s car’s windshield, but the officers involved in the shooting didn’t have body cameras, leaving many questions. Among them are how close the officer was to the vehicle when they fired, whether officers told Durán Guerrero to stop, and why ICE believes he had put the public in danger.

“We are always evaluating our procedures to keep our officers safe and criminals off our streets. We will not disclose or discuss law enforcement tactics,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement.

Maine's attorney general’s office, which noted that it’s working with federal agencies to investigate, said initial statements suggest the driver was trying to flee in the direction of the officer, whose name hasn’t been released and who was placed on leave.

The state's other senator, Republican Susan Collins, said Mullin told her that DHS’ Office of Inspector General is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.

Democrats seeking to unseat Collins in November sought Tuesday to connect her with the public's unease over ICE's methods. Collins later said in a statement that although ICE needs to improve, eliminating the agency would make the nation less safe.

Video shows the shooting's aftermath

According to neighbors and public records, Guerrero lived in an apartment about 150 feet (46 meters) from where his car came to a rest outside an apartment building across the street from a pawnshop and laundromat.

Video from a nearby business' security camera obtained by the AP shows a white car slowly approaching an intersection before making several circles. A law enforcement SUV blocks its path and two officers open the driver’s door and drag out a limp body.

It isn't clear from the video when the shots were fired.

Daniel Boucher said he heard a “pop, pop, pop” and ran to the intersection.

“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.’”

Boucher said the officer who shot Durán Guerrero walked close to him.

“He looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect,” Boucher said. “I don’t remember his exact words.”

Durán Guerrero is survived by his wife and young daughter

Two advocacy groups — the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! — said Durán Guerrero was authorized to work in the U.S.

Neighbors say Durán Guerrero was a friendly and familiar face even though they rarely chatted because he didn’t appear to speak English.

Sadie Dilboy and Cory Poulin, who owns the laundromat near the intersection, said they saw Durán Guerrero all the time.

“Everyone knows him,” said Dilboy, who remembered that he often came to their store with his daughter and gave her quarters to buy candy.

Claudia Morton, who often waved to Durán Guerrero, was distraught. “The whole world should be crying,” she said.

___

Brook reported from New Orleans and Sisak from New York. Associated Press reporters Astrid Suarez in Bogota, Colombia, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

The official opening at midnight on Tuesday — after a border fence was fully removed — allows a new freedom of movement under a historic treaty between the European Union and the United Kingdom that came after years of post-Brexit wrangling.

The contested British Overseas Territory of 38,000 people is perched at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, strategically located mere miles from Morocco at a point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea.

When Britain left the EU in 2020, the relationship between Gibraltar and the bloc had been left unresolved.

Previous talks on a deal to ensure people and goods could keep flowing across the border had made halting progress. In 2025, the EU and U.K. announced an agreement on those issues, with the two sides and Gibraltar’s government signing a treaty Tuesday that eases border crossings.

The U.K.’s Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said Tuesday that the agreement secured Gibraltar’s long-term economic future and interests.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade representative, praised the agreement, too.

“It has taken four years of patient, complex negotiation, but the outcome speaks for itself,” Šefčovič said. “It is a very special feeling to see a fence come down.”

Without a deal, Gibraltar could have a faced a hard land border with full passport checks, posing economic risks for the territory deeply dependent on some 15,000 Spaniards — almost half of Gibraltar’s workforce — who cross the frontier every day for work.

Leisure visits by people crossing both sides of the border would have been affected, too.

“People who are visiting family in Spain, or whose Spanish family is visiting them in Gibraltar. Children who are going to football matches and extracurricular activities, either in Spain or in Gibraltar. They will be able to do that without having to worry about frontier queues,” Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told The Associated Press in an interview.

The deal in effect brings the territory into the EU’s Schengen free travel area. At Gibraltar’s airport and port, entry and exit checks will be conducted by both U.K. and Spanish border officials. The arrangement is similar to what’s in place at Eurostar train stations in London and Paris, where both British and French officials check passports.

In Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, 96% of voters in Gibraltar or the Rock, as the territory is popularly known in English, supported remaining in the EU.

Travelers to Gibraltar from countries outside the Schengen area will have to contend with the EU Entry-Exit System, or EES, that was rolled out in Europe in April and replaced passport stamps with biometric data collected through photographs and digital fingerprints.

Facial recognition cameras at the Rock

With the border fence gone, Gibraltar officials have set up live facial recognition cameras at entry points and throughout the territory.

Chief Minister Picardo said the territory will have many more CCTV cameras, and that it has increased its police presence as well as resources for customs and Coast Guard agencies.

“The fortress has become a digital fortress now,” Picardo said.

Gibraltar was ceded to Britain in 1713, but Spain has maintained its sovereignty claim ever since. Relations between the two countries with respect to Gibraltar have had their ups and downs over the centuries. The treaty that removed the border fence does not resolve the territory’s contested status.

The guest of honor? An orange traffic cone.

Tuesday’s arrival of the “Boston Cone” marked the latest chapter in the city's unlikely love affair with Scotland’s Tartan Army, whose habit of placing traffic cones atop statues during the team's World Cup run last month turned the humble orange cone into one of the tournament’s defining symbols.

“I have to admit, this is probably — yes, it is — my first official welcoming ceremony for a traffic cone,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in the airport's Terminal E, before signing her name to the cone. “But it’s a pretty special one, isn’t it? Because this cone tells the story of what happened this summer. What happened in Boston, what happened in Massachusetts.”

“And special thanks to the Scots for drinking all the beer,” she added to laughter. “I do promise you, when you return … we will never again run out of beer in Massachusetts.”

During Scottish fans’ World Cup visit, Boston bars struggled to keep up with the Tartan Army’s thirst, with some running out of beer and scrambling for emergency deliveries. The fans transformed parts of Boston into an unofficial outpost of Scotland, filling downtown with bagpipes, songs and chants while bright orange traffic cones sprouted atop some of the city’s most recognizable landmarks — from Samuel Adams outside Faneuil Hall to Red Auerbach outside TD Garden, former Mayor Kevin White near Quincy Market and even the beloved Make Way for Ducklings statues in the Public Garden.

“There are still some traffic cones atop our most important statues,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu joked Tuesday, recalling how Boston had “unofficially become New Scotland.”

The official commemorative cone, decorated with illustrations celebrating Boston and Scotland and the slogan “No Boston, No Party,” will spend the next week visiting landmarks across Massachusetts to raise money for mental health charities before returning home to Scotland.

The tradition dates to Glasgow, where placing bright orange traffic cones atop public statues began as a late-night prank in the 1980s before evolving into an unofficial symbol of the country’s irreverent humor. The best-known example is the Duke of Wellington statue in the city center, where the cone has become so iconic that repeated efforts to remove it have been met with public opposition.

“It’s an in-joke that’s gone too far, actually,” one of the cone's Scottish escorts, Danny Campbell, said, laughing as he stood beside the cone in a kilt. “But no, it isn’t a joke. This is a metaphor for life.”

Campbell said people can become consumed by “going to our jobs and cooking sausages and all the sort of serious stuff that adults have to do” and lose sight of what matters.

“That’s what our countrymen represented when they came here,” he said, speaking of Scottish fans' stay in Boston. “They left stomachs and cheeks sore from laughing, they cleaned up after themselves, they spread joy and these people came together with humor and they built relationships with each other.”

“This is not just a silly cone,” Campbell said. “It means love. It means love, and that is the whole point.”

___ See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

“The protection of Texans is my top priority,” Abbott said in a news release. “As severe storms and the threat of dangerous flash flooding continue across the state, this disaster declaration ensures we can rapidly deploy state resources to support local communities. Texas is positioned to respond quickly and effectively.”

The disaster declaration covers 59 counties, stretching from the Gulf Coast to Central Texas region.

>> Click here for the latest forecast

According to KSAT’s Weather Authority team, parts of Bexar County saw up to 3.5 inches of rain on Tuesday.

Abbott activated 24-hour operations at the state emergency operations center and is urging Texans to stay off flooded roads, monitor local weather forecasts and have emergency supplies ready.

More counties may be added to the declaration “as conditions warrant,” according to the release.

Read also:

• LIVE COVERAGE: KSAT tracks storms in San Antonio, Hill Country, surrounding areas
• KSAT Connect: Viewers share photos of lightning, flooding in San Antonio area

The U.S. first imposed the blockade in mid-April and then lifted it in mid-June, a day after the signing of the interim deal aimed at permanently ending the war. The deal set a 60-day timeline to also negotiate an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, but talks have stalled as fighting over the strait has intensified.

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced the return of the blockade Monday, he also said he would impose a 20% fee on ships passing through the strait. But he dropped the plan to collect fees hours before resuming the blockade, citing requests from allies in the Gulf.

The interim peace agreement was supposed to reopen a waterway that is key to world energy supplies and give negotiators time to hammer out a permanent end to the war. Instead, fighting has once again engulfed the region, threatened the global economy and brought warnings to commercial airlines.

The U.S. carried out another wave of strikes ahead of reimposing the blockade, the U.S. military's Central Command said. Iran's deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, Kazem Gharibabadi, said in an interview aired Tuesday by IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, that the U.S. was seeking to prevent Tehran from exercising what he described as “effective sovereignty” over the strait.

There are at least 19 U.S. warships in the Arabian Sea, including two aircraft carriers and an amphibious assault ship with more than 1,000 Marines aboard. U.S. Central Command also said in a social media post that there are “hundreds of military aircraft operating across the Middle East."

A fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the war, when it was open to all without tolls. When the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, it effectively shut the passage by attacking and threatening ships. That sent the price of oil, fertilizer and other goods soaring.

Iran has more recently attacked ships moving through the strait on a route overseen by the U.S. military that is outside Tehran’s control, setting off tit-for-tat strikes. The U.S. has threatened to reopen the strait by force — but experts say that would require a much bigger armada if not tens of thousands of ground troops.

Trump says he's replacing the fees with Gulf investments

Trump said Tuesday that he was called by “kings and emirs” and other leaders who suggested an alternate arrangement to charging ships fees to pass through the strait.

“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office.

Trump said he preferred that arrangement to charging tolls “because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait.”

It was unclear if the investment deals would be new commitments relative to what Trump announced after a visit last year to the Middle East.

Strikes and counterstrikes resume across the Mideast

U.S. Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran earlier Tuesday, targeting “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged the strikes but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the U.S. military said.

Iranian state media Tuesday reported the sound of explosions on Qeshm Island in the strait, alongside additional explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the port city of Bandar Abbas.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.

The International Maritime Organization said the attack killed two mariners and wounded 14 others on two of the tankers, Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, which were associated with the United Arab Emirates. The UAE threatened to retaliate.

Qatar called for diplomacy Tuesday and condemned what it described as repeated Iranian attacks on Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, calling them an “egregious violation” of the three countries’ sovereignty and the international rules-based order.

Hours after the U.S. said it ended its campaign of strikes, the Iranian city of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf was hit in at least four locations, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Explosions in the southwestern city of Ahvaz and the southern port city of Bandar Abbas also were reported by Iranian state media on Tuesday evening.

The attacks again raised the possibility that Gulf Arab states were retaliating against Iran without discussing it in public.

The interim peace deal is in peril

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast doubt on the interim peace deal — now almost halfway through the 60-day period in which negotiators were supposed to agree to a final accord, which also was meant to address Iran’s disputed nuclear program and other issues.

“The passage of vessels is not important to the U.S. The U.S. is not dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump has announced it many times,” Gharibabadi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said in an interview aired Tuesday by IRIB. It was not immediately clear when the interview was recorded.

Trump's plan to charge fees would have been a change to longstanding U.S. policy and a departure from U.S. promises that the strait would remain open to all without tolls — recently offered by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on a trip to the region.

Under the interim deal, Iran agreed that passage through the strait would remain free of charge for 60 days — but the agreement left open what would happen after. Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic and potentially charge fees. The U.S. has disputed that.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, briefly topped $87 early Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war. The price dipped to $78 in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement that he had changed course.

Mediators are trying to prevent a return to full-scale war

Regional mediators are still trying to get the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the delicate diplomatic process, said Pakistan-led mediation was working around the clock to reactivate the ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Lebanese and Israeli delegations met Tuesday in Rome and will continue U.S.-mediated negotiations Wednesday. Shortly after the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah joined the conflict in support of its ally, Iran, and began attacking Israel. Israel responded with a ground invasion of Lebanon.

Last month, Lebanon and Israel announced a “framework agreement” outlining the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah. Implementation has stalled.

___

Toropin and Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

On Wednesday, July 15, all Bexar County residents can visit the zoo for $8. The zoo is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Locals Day zoo tickets can be purchased online. One guest per party must provide an ID or utility bill with a Bexar County resident address.

For anyone who can’t visit the zoo on Wednesday, don’t worry. There are more Locals Days planned throughout the year.

Upcoming Locals Day events:

• Aug. 6
• Sept. 5
• Sept. 13
• Oct. 9
• Nov. 27
• Dec. 4

To learn more about the zoo or its exhibits, click here.

Read also:

• San Antonio Zoo welcomes 1-year-old female giraffe from Tulsa

The appearances from Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Elena Kagan were the first of their kind since 2019. Their testimony came weeks after the conservative-majority court handed down a series of major opinions, including one that increased President Donald Trump’s power over federal regulatory agencies and one that rejected his wide-ranging tariffs. Those rulings and more sparked harsh personal criticism of the justices.

The main focus of the hearings in the House and Senate was a request for increased security funding for the justices. Like judges around the country, they’ve faced a surge in threats of violence and intimidation.

Barrett said she had to take a bulletproof vest home a few years ago, something she struggled to explain to her 12-year-old son. “I didn’t expect that performing this service would put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was, why I had to wear one,” she said.

While security was the major theme of the justices’ testimony, ethics and the shadow docket also emerged as lines of questioning for members of Congress in packed hearing rooms with lines out the door.

Security is central to the Supreme Court's budget request

The Supreme Court requested a total of $228 million for next fiscal year, a roughly 10% increase over the year before. About $18 million of that is for maintaining the building and grounds.

Much of the requested operating-budget increase, $14.6 million, would go to expanding personal protection for justices, with six more agents for each.

The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats in the last government fiscal year, an increase that includes threats to the hundreds of federal judges around the country.

The nine-member Supreme Court has also been targeted, including by fake 911 swatting calls and pizza deliveries in the name of a judge’s murdered son.

Barrett said her son opened their door in May to see their street filled with police cars responding to a fake swatting call that her security team quickly dispersed. Last year, her sister was the victim of a bomb threat in Charleston, South Carolina, police said. No bomb was found.

In 2022, shortly after the leak of a draft opinion overturning the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, a would-be assassin was arrested near the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with weapons and zip ties. Threats to the Supreme Court have continued to grow since then and are expected to be up 38% this year, Kagan said.

She condemned rhetoric from public officials targeting judges for personal criticism when they disagree with their rulings.

“When political figures of any stripe are trying to intimidate judges and justices to do things that they like rather than things they don’t, that’s where we really have crossed the line,” she said.

Kagan and Barrett differ on ethics code enforcement

Multiple Democrats brought up the Supreme Court's relatively new code of ethics, adopted in 2023 during a storm of criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices.

While the justices agreed that members of the court are taking the code seriously, Kagan supported creating a way to enforce it. The liberal-leaning justice acknowledged, though, that enforcement could be tricky. That would have to come from the judicial branch and the Supreme Court sits at its head.

Barrett, who is part of the court’s conservative majority, said she's not sure an enforcement mechanism is possible. It's not clear there's an effective way to address questions about who would do the enforcing and how, she said.

“I am certainly fully committed to the code as are all of our colleagues, but because of some of the complexities I'm just not quite sure" about enforcement, she said.

Kagan cites downsides to the rise in emergency appeals

The Supreme Court has seen a sharp rise in appeals to its short-term emergency docket, where the justices make quicker decisions in cases still working their way through the court system.

It's been especially busy during Trump's second term, as his administration appeals orders blocking parts of his wide-ranging agenda to the nation's highest court. The government notched a string of wins in this manner, on cuts to the federal workforce, restrictions on transgender members of the military, and more.

Such decisions are usually made without a detailed explanation, and while the orders are designed to be temporary they can nevertheless have real-world effects.

“There are downsides of using emergency relief," Kagan said. “You don’t get the kind of briefing that we ordinarily do. We don’t get the argument we ordinarily get." She added: “We should consider those downsides when we decide how often to grant relief.”

___

Associated Press video journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this story.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney's office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission.

Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, was deeply involved in the effort to flip majority control of the highest court in battleground Wisconsin.

The tech titan and groups he supported spent at least $20 million on the candidate backed by Republicans, Brad Schimel. However, he lost by 10 percentage points to Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.

A month after the lopsided loss, Musk announced that he would be spending far less on political campaigns. Spending on the election topped $100 million, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

Prosecutors will decide if Musk should be charged over the $1 million checks

The complaints, which are confidential under state law, were brought by voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, which is in Brown County. Musk handed out checks at a rally there just days before the election.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session on Thursday to refer the complaints to the district attorney, the commission's spokesperson Emilee Miklas said.

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

The motion approved by the elections commission said it found probable cause that Musk broke Wisconsin law by making a social media post offering $1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election “in order to induce them to vote in that election.”

Spokespeople for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk gave $1 million checks to 3 Wisconsin voters

Three Wisconsin voters received checks from Musk, including two who got them in person at the Green Bay rally. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.

Crawford's win kept liberals in control of the state Supreme Court, and their majority grew to 5-2 after Democratic-backed candidate Chris Taylor's victory this year.

Musk’s spending on the 2025 race has already resulted in one lawsuit filed by a government watchdog group, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which seeks to prohibit him from ever again offering cash payments in the state.

That lawsuit is pending in Brown County. It alleges that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and that his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance.

Attempts to stop Musk failed in 2025

Wisconsin's Democratic attorney general sued to stop Musk from handing over the checks to two voters, but was rejected by state courts.

Musk’s attorneys argued in legal filings in 2025 that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.

The payments are “intended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate,” Musk’s attorneys argued in court filings.

Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the 2024 presidential election, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.

A day after his 19th birthday, Yamal was denied a goal on a close offside call that came soon after Porro's give-and-go with Dani Olmo in the 58th minute had put Spain up 2-0. But it was Yamal's smart play against a veteran defender that put Spain in the lead.

“They were facing the best team in the world,” Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said.

Spain, which will play in the final for only the second time, will face either defending champion Argentina or England on Sunday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

“So difficult to get to this moment, but we want more," midfielder Rodri said. “We want to win this World Cup.”

Kylian Mbappé and France, FIFA’s top-ranked team, were trying to become only the third team to reach three consecutive World Cup finals. They instead will play in the third-place game in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Saturday, the day before the final at MetLife Stadium across the river from New York City. Argentina and England face each other on Wednesday in Atlanta in the second semifinal match.

This win on soccer’s biggest stage marked the third summer in a row that Spain beat France in a tournament semifinal match. Yamal scored in a 2-1 win in the 2024 European Championship semifinals just days before his 17th birthday, and La Roja won 5-4 in Nations League play last year.

After a quarterfinal win over Belgium last Friday, Yamal said he believed France should fear Spain. Those words certainly proved true.

"In so many ways, France was missing everything today," France midfielder Rayan Cherki said through a translator. "Truly, everything was missing today. We’ll be back in four years and we won’t make the same mistakes.”

Oyarzabal’s penalty kick in the 22nd minute came after Yamal drew a foul when kicked by defender Lucas Digne.

After a poor first touch with his head, Digne was trying to clear the ball when Yamal raced in from behind to challenge in the penalty area. The ball hit off the elbow of the leaping teen before he was kicked by Digne, playing in his 63rd game for France only six days before his 33rd birthday.

Oyarzabal’s fifth goal of this year’s World Cup marked the first time either team had trailed in their seven games in this tournament. It was his 30th goal in 60 international games for Spain.

For the second goal, Porro broke free and received a pass back from Olmo, who got the touch just before getting knocked off his feet by defender Dayot Upamecano.

“We gave it our all in order just to go through to the final,” Porro said. “We knew that we’re a very tough team, we’re doing things really well. This is our team, it’s not about me.”

France had allowed only two goals in its first six games in this tournament. Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón has six shutouts while allowing only one goal in seven games so far.

Spain had two other real scoring chances in the first half.

There was the a free kick from just beyond the box after Adrien Rabiot drew a yellow card for a foul on Olmo in the eighth minute. Alex Baena’s kick went directly into the wall of French players.

After France goalkeeper Mike Maignan’s attempted clearing pass in the 38th minute instead went straight to Baena, there were several quick nifty passes before Fabian Ruiz's close-range shot was denied.

Spain’s run at this year's World Cup has extended its unbeaten streak in regular time to 37 matches (28 wins and nine draws) since March 2024. That broke the country’s previous record of 35 in a row from 2007-09.

The loss broke France’s record-matching streak of six consecutive World Cup wins, which also was accomplished in the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

In this week’s episode, our hosts speak with Texas Tribune reporters Uriel J. García and Colleen DeGuzman about the unanswered questions and investigations in response to the death of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Watch the video above or subscribe to the TribCast on iTunes, Spotify, or RSS. New episodes every Tuesday.

The rescue happened around 8:30 a.m. as more than 12 inches of rain fell in the area, causing creeks to rise rapidly and creating dangerous flooding conditions.

>> Click here for the latest forecast

David Flores, who did not want to be interviewed on camera, recorded the rescue as he made his way through the swollen creek toward a man identified as “Nathan.”

“I’m coming. I’m coming toward you, Nathan,” Flores can be heard saying in the video.

As Nathan clung to a tree in the rushing water, Flores encouraged him to keep talking and hold on.

“Come on, keep going. Go through the trees,” Flores said as he carefully moved through the current.

The video shows floodwaters reaching Flores’ chest as he made his way across the creek. Nathan is seen gripping the tree while trying to catch his breath as he waited for help.

After reaching Nathan, Flores helped him out of the creek, and both men made it to safety.

Flores told KSAT he was in the right place at the right time.

The rescue comes as South Texas continues to deal with dangerous flooding brought on by heavy rainfall. Officials continue to urge residents to avoid flooded roadways and waterways, warning that fast-moving water can quickly become life-threatening.

Read also:

• LIVE COVERAGE: KSAT tracks storms in San Antonio, Hill Country, surrounding areas
• KSAT Connect: Viewers share photos of lightning, flooding in San Antonio area

The relatives of Youlin Chen of Boston broke their silence this week, apparently after they saw no sign from the Chinese government that it was planning to release Chen — even after President Donald Trump brought up the case when meeting Xi in Beijing in May, according to Global Reach, a Washington-based nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing home Americans wrongly detained abroad.

“I have not been able to speak with my husband for over 600 days and am concerned for his health and well-being," Yufang Rong, Chen's wife, said in a statement released by Global Reach, which has been advising the family since Chen's detention.

“President Trump has taken a personal interest in freeing Youlin. Since taking office, he has already freed 106 people and I know that he and his team will bring Youlin home to us," Rong said.

Chen is the only U.S. citizen determined by the State Department to be wrongfully detained in China, Global Reach said. The designation means those cases are of high priority to the U.S. government and can lead to intense diplomatic efforts to secure releases. The Biden administration in 2024 secured the release of three wrongfully detained Americans from China.

“President Trump has been clear that he wants every American detained abroad to return home, and he has reunited over 100 individuals with their families since taking office this term," Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said when asked about Chen's case.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio designated Chen as a wrongful detainee in March. The State Department said Tuesday that the U.S. government has raised Chen's case directly with Chinese officials, calling for his immediate release. Reuters reported earlier on his detention.

Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Tuesday that there is no “wrongful detention” in China and that judicial agencies handle cases in accordance with the law.

If not resolved, Chen's case could “figure prominently” when Xi is expected to meet Trump in Washington in September, said Eric Lebson, a Global Reach adviser to Chen’s relatives. The family decided to speak out now because Chinese officials do not appear to be acting on Xi's commitment to Trump after the U.S. president raised Chen's detention in May, Lebson said.

The seismologist was detained in November 2024 by state security agents during a personal trip to visit his parents in Beijing, and he has been charged with espionage, Global Reach said.

Chen has worked as a U.S. government contractor for the State Department and Air Force Research Lab, with much of his work involving collaborating with Chinese colleagues to analyze seismological data, Global Reach said.

Chen’s arrest is “likely an effort by Chinese officials to learn about the techniques the U.S. uses to detect nuclear tests using seismic data,” the group said.

U.S. embassy personnel have been allowed to visit Chen several times but are not allowed to discuss the case with him, the group said.

Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, vowed Tuesday to do “everything within my power to advocate for” the immediate release of one of his constituents.

“It is my hope that increased attention on his unjust detention will force the Chinese government to do the right thing and release Dr. Chen and allow him to return to his family in Massachusetts,” Markey said.

The House passed a bill Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent. Proponents, including the White House, argued the change would provide more daylight during the times that Americans are most active. The vote was 308-117.

Daylight saving time is that period between spring and fall when clocks in most parts of the United States are set one hour ahead of standard time. States could opt out if their respective legislatures act to do so before the bill's enactment. The Senate would also have to pass the bill before it could be signed into law, but it’s unclear if it will do so.

Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., said Americans are ready to “ditch the switch," saying that changing the clock twice a year creates unnecessary disruption. More important, he said, it would give families more daylight time in the evening to spend outdoors and support local businesses.

“In my home state of Florida where tourism is a cornerstone of our economy, having more predictable daylight hours is a practical improvement that benefits workers, businesses and visitors alike,” Bilirakis said.

Detractors said permanent daylight saving time would lead to darker and potentially more hazardous winter mornings where children will be waiting for school buses and parents will be driving to work in darkness.

“Millions of Americans will wake up during the winter months in complete darkness with the sun not rising until long after people get up and travel to school or work or have to go about their days,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass, said he supported the bill, but he questioned whether it was the best way for Congress to be spending its time.

“For folks getting crushed by rent, groceries, utility bills and healthcare costs, is this really the best the majority can do?” McGovern said. “Is this really the most pressing issue before the American people at this moment?”

A 2025 poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that if forced to choose, most Americans would prefer to keep that extra hour of daylight in the evening.

If they had to choose one option for the entire country to use, more than half of adults — 56% — prefer making daylight saving time permanent, with less light in the morning and more light in the evening. About 4 in 10 prefer standard time, with more light in the morning and less in the evening.

The White House weighed in before the House vote, calling the “Sunshine Protection Act” a popular, common-sense reform and saying advisers would recommend the president sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Members of Congress have long been interested in the potential benefits and costs of daylight saving time since it was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. The Senate passed a bill four years ago to make daylight saving time permanent, but it stalled in the House.

On June 8, 2026, Cantu, 21, was sentenced to two years of deferred adjudication after he took a plea deal on a 2025 burglary of a habitation charge.

The deferred adjudication sentence came weeks after he received credit for time served for both a 2024 misdemeanor assault case and a two-year prison sentence after violating his probation twice.

Following a July 13, 2026, continuance hearing and a new allegation against Cantu, Brennand’s aggravated assault by a public servant charge was dismissed by the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.

If convicted, Brennand — whose trial was expected to begin July 20, 2026, — could have faced up to life in prison.

Here’s a timeline charting the two’s legal troubles from the night of the shooting to the present day:

Oct. 1, 2022: San Antonio Police Department records showed that Erik Cantu evaded ex-SAPD officer James Brennand in a maroon BMW sedan near U.S. Highway 281 and Bitters Road. Records showed that Brennand did not engage in the pursuit but documented the car’s license plates.

Oct. 2, 2022: Brennand encountered Cantu in the parking lot of a McDonald’s on Blanco Road. Brennand, who said he recognized the BMW from the night before, approached the vehicle and opened the driver’s side door without announcing himself as an officer.

Cantu, who was eating a burger in the car with then-17-year-old Emily Proulx, reversed the vehicle and attempted to drive away, police records showed. Brennand fired multiple shots at the BMW, striking Cantu. Proulx told investigators that after the shooting, Cantu stopped the car near a Las Palapas restaurant and surrendered to responding officers. He was taken to a hospital for gunshot wounds.

Oct. 3, 2022: Brennand was placed on administrative duty, the San Antonio Police Department said.

Oct. 5, 2022: Brennand, who had been with SAPD for seven months, was fired from the police department. Bodycam footage of the shooting was made publicly available.

Oct. 7, 2022: Charges filed against Cantu were dismissed by Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales. Cantu was initially charged with evading arrest with a vehicle and aggravated assault.

“We have since reviewing (sic) the footage. I’ve instructed my office to dismiss the cases against this young man,” Gonzales said.

Oct. 11, 2022: Brennand was charged with two counts of aggravated assault by a public servant. SAPD Chief William McManus called the shooting video “horrific.”

Cantu’s attorney, Brian Powers, told KSAT that the teenager was unconscious and on life support.

Oct. 12, 2022: Brennand was released from jail after posting a $200,000 bond.

Oct. 13, 2022: SAPD officials said that Cantu was not driving a stolen vehicle. Brennand had initially said he suspected the car Cantu was driving was stolen.

SAPD confirmed that the license plates did not belong to the vehicle but that it was not stolen.

Oct. 19, 2022: Cantu’s family hired civil rights attorney Ben Crump to assist in Cantu’s representation.

Oct. 28, 2022: KSAT requested the additional video from Brennand’s body-worn camera and other officers, in addition to the police report, under the Texas Public Information Act.

City of San Antonio officials argued against releasing the information and requested that the city keep the records private under an exception in state law.

Nov. 4, 2022: Cantu’s family said that the teenager was no longer on life support after undergoing extensive surgery.

Nov. 23, 2022: Cantu was released from the hospital. A Bexar County court hearing for Brennand was rescheduled due to an assigned judge being out of court for the week.

Dec. 1, 2022: Brennand was indicted by a Bexar County grand jury for two counts of aggravated assault of a public servant and one count of attempted murder.

Dec. 2, 2022: Emily Proulx, the passenger in Cantu’s car the night of the shooting, also hired attorney Ben Crump in a precursor to a civil lawsuit.

Dec. 6, 2022: Cantu was hospitalized again for organ complications related to the shooting.

Feb. 24, 2023: Brennand had his first hearing in a Bexar County courtroom. He was represented by attorney Nico LaHood.

June 9, 2023: Brennand made his second court appearance. Prosecutor Daryl Harris told the judge he was still collecting evidence.

“I’ve also been made aware of some incidents involving the defendant in his employment as an officer that could be probative to this matter,” Harris said in court.

July 14, 2023: Cantu and Proulx were arrested and charged with theft. According to authorities, the duo stole a car charger and air freshener from a Walmart.

Aug. 21, 2023: Cantu sat in on a court hearing for Brennand. Harris and the defense updated the judge on the case.

Oct. 20, 2023: Brennand’s attorneys filed a motion seeking a change of venue in his upcoming trial. His attorneys argued that Brennand would not receive an impartial jury due to the extensive media coverage the incident received.

Oct. 23, 2023: Cantu was named as a suspect in two felony evading arrest cases that occurred less than a week apart, according to SAPD records.

In the first case, the driver of a vehicle traveled 100 miles per hour in a 65 mile-per-hour zone and evaded police in a pursuit. Six days later, an SAPD bike patrol officer attempted to stop a driver who also evaded authorities.

Investigators linked Cantu to the cases from a physical description, the car’s license plate and an Instagram handle on the car. The records showed that a woman, who claimed to be six months pregnant with Cantu’s child, said she was assaulted by Cantu in August.

An SAPD spokesperson said Cantu had not been formally booked on any of the charges.

Nov. 13, 2023: Cantu was taken into custody on a felony warrant for evading arrest with a vehicle, Bexar County court records showed. Authorities had responded to a disturbance call where a woman, who identified herself as the mother of Cantu’s girlfriend, said he would not leave the apartment.

Cantu was taken into custody and was issued a criminal trespass warning, an incident report stated.

March 7, 2024: A Bexar County judge heard arguments for a change of venue in Brennand’s trial. The judge did not rule on the matter and said that he would view the presented evidence before making a decision. Court records obtained by KSAT revealed that Brennand no longer faced an attempted murder charge in connection to the Cantu shooting.

March 20, 2024: Brennand’s request for a change of venue was denied. 437th District Court Judge Joel Perez ruled that Brennand will be tried in Bexar County.

March 25, 2024: The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office announced that it would be recusing itself from Erik Cantu’s evading arrest cases.

April 15, 2024: Cantu and Proulx filed a civil lawsuit against Brennand. The lawsuit stated that Cantu and Proulx were seeking “money for each element of damages that will fairly and reasonably compensate Cantu, Jr. and Proulx for their harms and losses suffered in the past and those which will, in reasonable probability, be suffered in the future as a result of the injuries incurred by Plaintiffs.”

May 1, 2024: Brennand’s trial was set for Nov. 12, 2024, on a charge of deadly conduct with a firearm.

June 24, 2024: A judge denied a request from the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office to recuse itself from a pair of cases involving Cantu. The judge said the district attorney’s office must move forward and prosecute Cantu.

Nov. 7, 2024: Cantu was arrested after a warrant for his re-arrest was issued the month before. Prosecutors said he repeatedly violated terms of his community supervision in his felony evading arrest cases.

Court records obtained by KSAT revealed that Cantu had skipped court-ordered drug screenings on Sept. 11 and Oct. 9. The records also showed that he operated a motor vehicle on Oct. 8, in violation of the conditions of his community supervision.

Dec. 3, 2024: Cantu was transferred to a county counseling facility after a judge ruled that he had violated his probation. Cantu’s attorney argued that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stemming from the 2022 shooting has affected his decision-making.

March 6, 2025: Brennand was issued a new trial date set for April. Prosecutor Neil Cordero told Judge Joel Perez that the state was close to being fully prepared for trial.

March 26, 2025: Sources told KSAT that issues with evidence led to another delay in Brennand’s trial. His trial was postponed without a new date set.

May 10, 2025: Cantu completed a program at the county counseling facility and was refitted for a GPS monitor. As part of his conditions, he was barred from driving for the remainder of his probation and was required to wear a GPS monitor.

June 27, 2025: Brennand’s trial received a new start date of Oct. 17 for jury selection. Testimony was set to begin three days later on Oct. 20.

Sept. 22, 2025: Cantu was arrested again on an assault charge stemming from a 2024 case. An arrest warrant affidavit stated that Cantu threw a woman to the ground and repeatedly assaulted her on Sept. 28, 2024. The warrant for his arrest was not issued until Sept. 18, 2025, nearly a full year later.

The district attorney’s office filed a motion to revoke Cantu’s community supervision.

Sept. 26, 2025: A Bexar County judge denied a request to delay Brennand’s trial. Defense attorney Jason Goss made the request where he argued that attorneys involved with Brennand’s defense would be tied up with a different trial less than two weeks before its proposed start date.

Oct. 13, 2025: Cantu appeared in court nearly one month after his latest arrest. Judge Stephanie Boyd agreed with Cantu’s attorney to give the defense additional time to review medical records related to the 2024 assault charge. Cantu is expected to be back in court on Nov. 18.

Brennand, the officer accused of shooting him, awaits a trial date.

Nov. 18, 2025: Judge Stephanie Boyd sentenced Cantu to eight years probation after he violated the terms of his probation last year.

Dec. 4, 2025: Cantu is arrested once again, this time for stealing Proulx’s tablet from her apartment and messaging her friends.

Dec. 6, 2025: Proulx asks the court and District Attorney’s office to drop the charges against Cantu for stealing her tablet.

Dec. 15, 2025: In a courtroom on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said that court security deputies took Cantu into custody on two motion to revoke probation warrants for evading.

It is unclear when Cantu will make his next court appearance on the evading arrest charges.

March 30, 2026: Cantu made a court appearance for a probation revocation hearing.

Due to discovery issues with the witness’ attorney, the hearing was originally delayed from March 2, 2026, to March 26, 2026. According to county court records, the court appearance was delayed a second time with Boyd temporarily out of the courtroom during the week of March 26, 2026.

No decision was made during the March 30 hearing, which meant he was expected back in court the following day.

March 31, 2026: Cantu made his second court appearance in as many days.

Again, however, no action was taken regarding his probation.

April 1, 2026: Cantu returned to court. In the first case of Judge Stephanie Boyd’s morning docket, she agreed with prosecutors’ position to revoke his probation.

As a result, Boyd sentenced Cantu to two years in prison with credit for time served.

April 17, 2026: Brennand appeared before Judge Joel Perez in Bexar County’s 437th Criminal District Court.

Perez tentatively scheduled jury selection for Brennand’s trial for July 20.

April 20, 2026: Cantu was sentenced to time served by Judge Mary Roman inside Bexar County’s Court at Law No. 8. The case stemmed from a 2024 Class A misdemeanor assault.

Ultimately, Roman decided the “time served” sentence was adequate due to the two-year sentence Cantu received from Boyd on April 1.

May 22, 2026: According to Bexar County jail records, Cantu was designated as a parolee in absentia on the evading arrest violations and was released from custody.

June 1, 2026: Cantu was indicted on the Dec. 4, 2025, burglary of a habitation charge, which was considered a second-degree felony.

June 8, 2026: In lieu of going to trial, Cantu accepted a plea deal and pleaded no contest on the burglary of a habitation charge. Boyd sentenced him to two years of deferred adjudication, which means he will not serve any additional time behind bars.

July 1, 2026: According to a SAPD incident report obtained by KSAT, a police officer was called to an East Side apartment complex after a woman — who said she had been dating Cantu for a “couple of months” — accused Cantu of making threatening “comments that were concerning” to her.

July 13, 2026: After the July 1, 2026, incident involving Cantu came to light, prosecutors in Brennand’s case asked Judge Joel Perez in Bexar County’s 437th Criminal District Court to delay the start of the trial beyond July 20, 2026.

Perez, however, denied the state’s request.

Less than 90 minutes after Perez’s denial, just before 11 a.m., the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office elected to dismiss Brennand’s case due to “further investigation.”

At approximately 9 p.m., San Antonio police officers said they arrested Cantu following a brief foot pursuit on the Northwest Side.

Cantu was booked on three charges, including a parole violation, evading arrest and the reinstatement of a 2025 burglary of a habitation count.

It was Cantu’s seventh arrest since October 2022.

At this time, Cantu has not been arrested or charged with any crime in connection with the July 1, 2026, incident.

More recent Erik Cantu coverage on KSAT:

• Erik Cantu won’t serve additional prison time, receives 2-year deferred adjudication sentence
• Erik Cantu sentenced to 2 years in prison on evading arrest charges

Sotheby's said the 67-million-year-old fossil, nicknamed “Gus,” is now the most expensive set of dinosaur bones ever auctioned off, besting the almost $45 million price tag for a nearly complete stegosaurus sold by the same New York auction house in 2024. The previous record holder had been a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton nicknamed “Stan” that sold for nearly $32 million in 2020.

“Gus is not only an exceptional find, but a specimen that’s been excavated, documented, prepared, and cared for with real excellence,” Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby’s vice chair, said after the sale was completed. “The market responds when great specimens are taken care of in the right way.”

Why the bidding for this T. rex was intense

Standing upright with its tail extended and right foot slightly raised, “Gus” is an adult dinosaur specimen measuring about 12 ½ feet (3.8 meters) tall and 38 feet (11.5 meters) long.

He's about 61% complete, with what Sotheby's describes as an “exceptionally preserved” skull including a gaping jaw of powerful teeth, two “well represented” feet and a number of rarely found bones, including a furcula, or wishbone.

The fossil was discovered in 2021 on a ranch in South Dakota and named in honor of property owner Gary Licking, who died during the roughly five year excavation, restoration and mounting process.

The auction house said the winner, who participated by phone and wants to remain anonymous, outbid six other prospective buyers during Tuesday's 10-minute bidding battle. The piece had been estimated to fetch anywhere from $20 to $30 million ahead of the sale.

“Try a bigger bite,” auctioneer Phyllis Kao cajoled the bidders at one point during the auction, which was conducted live and online. “It’s a T. rex, after all.”

Scientists want ‘Gus’ on public display

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, an advocacy group of scientists, scholars and students, said scientifically significant fossils such as “Gus” should be publicly displayed in museums and other research institutions so that they can be “preserved, documented, and accessible for future generations.”

“Our hope is that the new owner recognizes the extraordinary scientific and educational value of Gus the T. rex and that they aim to keep it in the public trust by immediately donating it to an accredited natural history museum,” Kristi Curry Rogers, the society's president-elect, said in a statement Tuesday. “That outcome would ensure that this remarkable specimen continues to advance science, rather than becoming unavailable for study.”

Indeed, “Apex,” the stegosaurus, the previous dinosaur fossil record-holder, is currently on long-term loan to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. “Sue” the T. rex, the first dinosaur ever sold at auction in 1997, also by Sotheby's, is a centerpiece of the Field Museum in Chicago.

And “Stan” is on display at the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, posed in combat with another fossilized T. rex over the remains of a triceratops.

A Cretaceous king and Hollywood staple

Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name roughly translates to “King of the Tyrant Lizards,” stood firmly at the top of the food chain when it ruled during the late Cretaceous period.

With its fearsome jawline and comically stubby arms, it has become the most recognizable and beloved of the dinosaurs, depicted in everything from children’s programs like Barney, the purple T. rex, to the enduring “Jurassic Park” movie franchise.

The great beasts roamed what is today western North America, during a time when the region boasted “warm climates, high sea levels, and rich coastal floodplains” that allowed their primary prey, giant herbivores like the triceratops, to flourish, according to Sotheby’s.

“I’m Joe Lombardo,” he said as the officer arrived at the passenger-side window, police body camera video obtained by The Associated Press shows.

Gov. Lombardo was pulled over May 15 by an officer from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the agency Lombardo led as sheriff for eight years. The officer walks up to the passenger side of a light-gray Ford pickup truck and says, “Hello, how are you doing, sir?” according to the video.

Lombardo is in the driver's seat, with his wife Donna Lombardo in the passenger seat.

The officer begins to explain the reason for the stop, and Lombardo interrupts to say, “I’m Joe Lombardo.” The officer says, “I’m aware,” and continues to explain the stop was initiated because he did not see Lombardo stop at a red light before making a right turn.

“Come on, man,” Lombardo says.

The officer replies, “You’re good to go, sir. Appreciate ya. Have a good day,” and then walks away.

The whole interaction lasts about 15 seconds of the 1 minute and 10 second video.

The police department said the governor did not receive a citation but did not say why, however law enforcement officers say it is common to not give a citation over a minor violation.

Lombardo's campaign said the governor and his wife were headed to the airport when they were pulled over.

“Governor Lombardo spoke with the officer, fully complied with all instructions, and was promptly on his way,” the campaign said in a statement Tuesday. “He remains grateful for the professionalism of the officer involved and for the service of law enforcement officers across Nevada.”

The video, which was obtained via public records request, comes to light months before the November election, when Lombardo, a Republican seeking reelection, will face Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford.

Steve Grammas, the president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said the interaction wasn't uncommon. Officers stop drivers, explain why drivers are stopped and then let them go on their way.

“It really is a big nothing in my opinion,” he said.

Grammas, whose union endorsed the Republican governor, denied Lombardo received any special treatment. Typically officers ask for the driver’s license in order to identify them, but the officer already knew who the governor was, he said.

“Being that it is the governor, the former sheriff, odds are he doesn’t have warrants, does not have a suspended driver’s license, and so there’s no need to run that person,” Grammas said.

Grammas added that the governor didn’t identify himself as the governor, and simply said his name.

Edward Obayashi, a deputy sheriff and policy adviser who teaches an ethics and policing class in California, said there is nothing unethical about what the governor or the officer did.

“We let motorists off with a warning all the time,” Obayashi said.

Obayashi said that it was obvious the officer already knew who he was stopping because he ran the license plate, and the governor identifying himself is a common courtesy.

Heavy rainfall fell across several areas along U.S. Highway 90 from Hondo to Uvalde and northward into Bandera County.

>> ⚠️FLOOD RISK CONTINUES⚠️: Heavy rain has fallen overnight, especially west of San Antonio

According to the Uvalde Police Department, officers conducted 24 water rescues on Tuesday. A police spokesperson said residents rescued from high-water rescues have been relocated to the William R. Mitchell Uvalde County Fairplex, which has been set up as a temporary shelter.

Others who need to relocate to a safe area can also go to the temporary shelter.

Rounds of heavy rainfall continued across the area through the morning hours. More rounds could potentially happen later Tuesday.

Read also:

• Map: Emergency road closures in San Antonio, Bexar County, Hill Country and Texas

The France striker couldn't generate many chances in his team's 2-0 loss to Spain in the World Cup semifinals on Tuesday.

Mbappé and Messi have eight goals each. Messi and defending champion Argentina will play again on Wednesday in the other semifinal match against England.

France will play the loser of that match in the third-place game on Saturday in Miami Gardens, Florida. Spain will take on the winner in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Mbappé had the fewest touches of any forward in the first half with 15. Perhaps his most prominent moment was trying to persuade referee Ivan Barton that the penalty resulting in Spain's first goal shouldn't have been called.

Mbappé's best chance came in the 67th minute when his shot deflected off Spain defender Marc Cucurella and just wide. France was already trailing by two goals at that point.

The 27-year-old Mbappé was issued a yellow card in the 86th minute when he rushed toward Unai Simón just as the Spain goalkeeper was bending over to pick up the ball. The two collided, sending Simón to the grass.

Mbappé started the match against Spain after exiting in the 77th minute of his team’s 2-0 quarterfinal win over Morocco, when he scored his eighth goal of the tournament.

Mbappé also scored eight goals four years ago in Qatar, where France lost to Messi and Argentina in a penalty shootout in the final. France beat Croatia to win the World Cup eight years ago in Russia.

___

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Down the street, U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed new Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi to the White House after strongly backing the political novice’s bid for office. Iraq has been under pressure to disarm Iran-backed militias that attacked U.S. bases and diplomatic facilities after the U.S. and Israel instigated the Iran war.

The U.S. launched more strikes on Iran early Tuesday after Trump vowed to blockade Iranian ports and charge 20% of their cargo for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Later Tuesday, he said he was backing away from the tolls and pursuing another arrangement following discussions with Gulf allies.

And in Maine, protesters are raising unanswered questions about the ninth fatal shooting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents since Trump's immigration crackdown began.

The Latest:

White House launches cybersecurity clearinghouse to rush AI-found software fixes

The White House has established a cybersecurity clearinghouse to help identify and quickly fix vulnerabilities in software that artificial intelligence models have detected.

The clearinghouse is named “GOLD EAGLE” and was developed as part of a June 2 executive order signed by Trump to provide oversight for rapidly evolving AI technologies.

After AI models such as Anthropic’s Mythos exposed weaknesses in classified government computer systems, the administration has sought to find ways to protect against the risk cyberattacks and intrusions made possible by AI.

The Trump administration has stressed that the U.S. is leading in the AI race, though the claim comes with the caveat that there is no apparent finish line to cross.

National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross said the clearinghouse was officially launched on July 2 by the departments of Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security in consultation with the White House.

Fears of burnout for Supreme Court’s security staff

Kagan says that when she joined the court in 2010, the need for security was vastly different. She drove herself to work, and security personnel only came along for high-profile speeches.

That started to change after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, and the need ramped up after the leak of the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

Today, each justice has a security team of four to eight people, and they’re having to work overtime to provide the level of security needed, raising fears of burnout, Barrett said.

Vance tapes an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast

The vice president was taping the show on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Vance’s appearance on the show comes as Rogan has become a vocal critic of the Trump administration, particularly over the Iran war. Vance has been skeptical of military interventions abroad and seen as a reluctant defender of Trump’s war. He worked to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Iran that Trump has said is over

Vance appeared on Rogan’s show in 2024 when he was the vice-presidential nominee.

Supreme Court now requires NDAs for employees, Justice Barrett says

She said the move and others are aimed at controlling leaks of internal deliberations.

She said the court has long required confidentiality agreements, but recently upgraded to non-disclosure agreements with carveouts for whistleblowers.

The documents serve as an “additional check” on inappropriate or illegal information sharing.

They come after the 2022 leak of the draft opinion overturning abortion as a constitutional right, a major breach for the nation’s highest court.

The new NDA requirement was previously reported by the New York Times.

Collins calls attacks on judiciary ‘appalling’

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said rhetoric from public figures attacking judges is “appalling.”

The Maine senator said officials on both sides of the aisle have gone after the judiciary. Collins, who is up for reelection this year, pointed to examples of criticism of the conservative-majority court from the left.

Democratic Sen. Jack Reed, meanwhile, highlighted Trump’s targeting of justices who ruled against him and struck down his wide-ranging tariffs.

Trump administration orders ICE to suspend most vehicle stops after two deadly shootings

Administration officials issued the order after two deadly shootings in little over a week, a person familiar with the matter told the AP.

The order Tuesday came a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a Colombian man in Maine, renewing criticism of the agency’s tactics during enforcement operations. The suspension is not absolute and there’s room for exceptions when executing a criminal warrant or working with partner agencies, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive law enforcement operations.

The Department of Homeland Security said an ICE officer, “fearing for public safety,” shot and killed the man Monday in the city of Biddeford.

New York City’s mayor calls for abolishment of ICE

Zohran Mamdani made the demand in a post Tuesday on X in response to the fatal shooting of a man in Biddeford, Maine.

“ICE is killing our neighbors,” Mamdani wrote. “ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.”

Outgoing Colombian president slams fatal shooting of citizen in Maine

In a scathing post on X, Gustavo Petro of Colombia described the fatal shooting of a Colombian citizen in Biddeford as a targeted killing “at the hands of the U.S. government.”

Petro, who has openly quarreled with Trump, called on him to provide Colombia with an explanation for the killing. He accused ICE officers of shooting the Colombian national “for believing him to be an inferior being without rights.”

Petro, who will leave office in less than a month, said he expects Colombia’s foreign service to pursue legal action against those responsible for the shooting.

Abelardo de la Espriella, Colombia’s Trump-backed president-elect, has not commented publicly on the case.

Official vying for Pentagon budget job skirts questions about Iran war costs

Prime Minister al-Zaidi noted that it’s “my first visit to the United States of America” and it’s “not just like any visit.”

He said from the Oval Office that the visit is about announcing an “economic partnership” with the United States. Al-Zaidi said all remaining U.S. forces will be out of Iraq come Sept. 30 “while U.S. companies will be inside Iraq” and investing in the country.

He also thanked Trump for extending a “warm welcome,” which included a last-minute offer of lunch.

“I have no idea what we’re going to be eating, but it will be fine,” Trump said before ending the joint press availability.

Iraqi leader al-Zaidi says his first US visit is about ‘economic partnership’

Prime Minister al-Zaidi noted that it’s “my first visit to the United States of America” and it’s “not just like any visit.”

He said from the Oval Office that the visit is about announcing an “economic partnership” with the United States. Al-Zaidi said all remaining U.S. forces will be out of Iraq come Sept. 30 “while U.S. companies will be inside Iraq” and investing in the country.

He also thanked Trump for extending a “warm welcome,” which included a last-minute offer of lunch.

“I have no idea what we’re going to be eating, but it will be fine,” Trump said before ending the joint press availability.

Trump says his Thursday address will touch on ‘free and fair elections’ but reveals little else

Asked for a sneak peek of his scheduled national address, the president said it will be “really, really big news” but added he’d “rather save it.”

“It doesn’t get bigger, because without free and fair elections you don’t have a country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “We’ll be discussing other things too. But it’s going to be a very big announcement.”

The Republican president has said little else about the address, which he announced on social media on Monday. His post said only that he will be “making a Speech to the Nation on Thursday evening” at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Asked about it on Monday, Trump quickly pivoted to discussing what he called a “busy news day,” talking about the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham and other topics.

Trump hails report showing inflation declining

The president blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the rate of inflation having spiked to three-year high just last month. Biden, Trump said, “could create inflation like anybody.”

But Trump cheered a report Tuesday showing that prices dropped 0.4% from May to June, the largest monthly drop in four year and way down from a year-over-year gain of 4.2% in May.

Trump added of inflation, “It’s not my fault. We are putting it to sleep.”

“The report was incredible. Inflation is way down,” Trump said, before urging voters, “Remember that for the midterms.”

“Nobody else could do it,” Trump said.

Trump says FBI is ‘wasting their time’ on Sen. Graham’s death

Trump said he doesn’t know why the FBI is looking into Graham’s death.

The president said the late South Carolina senator had “a problem” and that what ultimately took his life “is actually something that’s very hard to detect.”

A preliminary medical examiner’s report said Graham suffered a tear in his aorta.

Trump said he’s watched medical reports about Graham’s case and had White House doctors explain to him what happened. “And this is something that is very almost undetectable,” Trump said, adding that there’s not much that can be done about a torn aorta.

“So I don’t see a lot of evil there. I know there’s all sorts of conspiracy theories going along, and I don’t think the FBI, I think the FBI is wasting their time if they’re doing it,” Trump said of an investigation.

Trump says Gulf allies asked him to move from tolls to trade deals in Strait of Hormuz

The president explained his thinking in backing away from a 20% toll on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, saying he was called by “kings and emirs” and other leaders who suggested an alternate arrangement.

“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Trump said he prefers that arrangement to the tolls he previously said the U.S. would impose. “I like that actually, because I don’t think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the strait,” Trump said.

Trump praises Iraqi PM, says he’s a ‘great leader’ who will hold office for a ‘long time’

Trump said he and Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi had a “great meeting” in the Oval Office and will now have lunch together because of their “tremendous chemistry.” Lunch wasn’t on the original schedule.

“We’re going to do it on the fly,” Trump told reporters about the meal.

Trump heaped praise on al-Zaidi in front of reporters, calling him a “great fan of America.”

“He’s a great leader. I think he’s going to be there for a long period of time,” Trump said, emphasizing “long.”

“He’s changed that country so much, especially toward their thinking about the United States,” the president said.

Trump also commented on the prime minister’s youth and looks.

“He’s young and he’s handsome, which I don’t like. I’m not happy about that,” Trump joked.

Justices Kagan, Barrett split on enforcement mechanism for Supreme Court’s new code of ethics

All nine justices agreed to the code in 2023 amid a storm of criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices.

Kagan and Barrett both said the court is taking the code seriously, but Kagan also supported creating a way to enforce it. The liberal-leaning justice acknowledged it could be tricky since any enforcement would have to come from the judicial branch and the Supreme Court sits at its head.

Barrett, who is part of the court’s conservative majority, said she wasn’t so sure. There are significant questions over who would do the enforcing and how, and it’s not clear whether there is a way to address them effectively, she said.

How does the court decide emergency appeals?

The relatively quick process of deciding emergency docket cases centers on whether the petitioner will eventually win, and how they could be legally harmed if the court doesn’t step in, Barrett said.

The justices declined to talk about specific cases, including suits where the court sided with the Trump administration and allowed cuts to the federal workforce to proceed.

The court often begins by considering the case from the petitioner’s point of view, Barrett said, though Kagan pointed out the court can also consider how the other side might be affected if the court intervenes.

Supreme Court justices address rise in ‘shadow docket’ appeals

Kagan and Barrett address the rise in appeals on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket.

While the court can’t control how many are filed, Kagan points out that some high-profile decisions may have encouraged attorneys to file more appeals. Those appeals are decided without full briefing or arguments, Kagan said, and “we should consider those downsides.”

Iraqi PM arrives for White House meeting with Trump

Trump was waiting outside the entrance to the West Wing to greet the prime minister when he arrived. They shook hands and exchanged small talk before entering the White House with their arms around each other’s backs.

“Love Iraq,” Trump replied to a reporter’s question about his message to the people of Iraq.

The leaked Dobbs opinion’s shadow on the Supreme Court’s security concerns

Kagan said threats against the Supreme Court increased after the leak of a draft of the opinion that later overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion decision, and have continued to grow since then.

In 2022, shortly after the leak, a would-be assassin was arrested near the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh with weapons and zip ties. Chief Justice John Roberts has condemned the threats to all U.S. judges, saying during a speech in March that criticism of judicial opinions is understandable, but personally directed hostility is “dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”

Supreme Court justices testify before Congress on increasing security funding in rare appearance

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett said Tuesday that a sharp increase in threats targeting her and other justices has increasingly encroached on their personal and family lives.

During a rare appearance before Congress, Barrett said she had to wear a bulletproof vest home a few years ago, something she struggled to explain to her 12-year-old son.

“I didn’t expect that performing this service would put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was, why I had to wear one,” she said. The hearing marks the first time justices have testified before Congress since 2019.

▶ Read more

Warsh vows to crush inflation but offers no hint on the Fed’s next move

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s written testimony to Congress says the Fed will make high inflation “a thing of the past,” but provides no signal about the central bank’s next steps.

Fed policymakers “have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation,” Warsh will say when he testifies Tuesday before a House committee. “And we share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”

Yet about half of the 19 members of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee expect they will have to raise the central bank’s key rate by the end of the year to defeat inflation, while nearly half have penciled in no change or even a rate cut. Warsh faces a stiff challenge in reconciling the divided committee while navigating a rapidly-changing economic outlook.

▶ Read more

Lindsey Graham’s sister prepares for her Senate swearing-in

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham, will be sworn in Tuesday afternoon as his temporary replacement after his unexpected death over the weekend, and will serve out the rest of his term ending in January.

Graham earned a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling and has worked as an optician and at various state agencies. She’ll be the first woman to represent South Carolina in the Senate.

“It is such an honor,” she said, as dozens of Graham staffers and campaign advisers stood behind her during a statehouse news conference. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”

▶ Read more

Trump to welcome Iraq’s new prime minister to the White House

Al-Zaidi has been under pressure to disarm a network of Iran-backed militias operating in the country, some of which launched attacks on U.S. bases and diplomatic facilities after the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran.

Trump is scheduled to greet the Iraqi leader Zaidi at 11 a.m., followed by an Oval Office meeting.

Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Chatham House think tank, expects that “the U.S. will put significant pressure on al-Zaidi” to move ahead with disarmament “and Zaidi will respond by saying, ‘But I need support — intelligence support, technical support, armed support.’”

“There is a scenario in which, if the Iraqi government starts going after these groups, they will also go after the government,” Mansour said. “And this is a scenario that I think that the Iraqi government is apprehensive about.”

‘Dangerous.’ ‘Brazen.’ ‘Unprecedented.’ ‘Uncharted territory’

Reaction has been swift and severe to the issue of subpoenas to five New York Times journalists who reported on security questions involving Trump’s new Qatari-gifted Air Force One.

“The subpoenas are an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations and have a chilling effect on the work of journalists across the country,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The White House Correspondents Association holds its rescheduled dinner celebrating the First Amendment in less than two weeks, with Trump planning to attend. The first was scuttled when a shooter opened fire in what prosecutors say was an attempt to kill the president.

“The WHCA condemns any act of intimidation against journalists, including attempts to pressure them into revealing sources,” said a statement from the group’s president, Weijia Jiang.

▶ Read more

What does the Supreme Court want from Congress?

Security is central to the court’s budget request of $228 million — roughly 10% more than the last fiscal year.

Nearly $15 million of that would go to expanding personal protection for justices, with six more agents for each.

Another $2 million would fund more Supreme Court police officers and an off-site residential security post to speed emergency responses.

The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats to the hundreds of federal judges around the country during the last fiscal year, and justices have not been immune: Barrett’s security detail had to defuse a fake 911 call at her house, and her sister was the victim of a bomb threat. A would-be assassin was arrested near the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Chief Justice John Roberts has condemned the threats, saying it’s “dangerous, and it’s got to stop.”

June inflation report shows complicated outlook for Trump on economy

The White House will have reasons to rejoice in the June release of the consumer price index, as prices fell 0.4% on a monthly basis in large part because of tumbling oil prices tied to the now deteriorated ceasefire with Iran.

But prices still rose 3.5% over the past 12 months, well above the Federal Reserve’s inflation target of 2%.

And the monthly decline could be short-lived, with oil prices jumping again as fighting intensifies in the Middle East.

Prices for the global benchmark of Brent crude oil have risen nearly 8% in the past five days of trading to about $81 a barrel on Tuesday, a sign that inflation could soon pick up again as the American public begins to focus on the November midterm elections.

Attacks resume across the Mideast

The U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck several areas in Iran, targeting “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged the strikes, but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the U.S. military said.

Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Trump called it “another major attack” and said the U.S. was “putting the blockade back.”

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and three tankers that traveled through the strait.

Here's Trump's rationale for charging tolls in the strait

U.S. Central Command said on social media that it “will enforce the blockade against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas” beginning Tuesday at 4 p.m. EDT, and will “support traffic flow through regional waters for all vessels not violating the blockade.”

A notice to mariners released Monday by the U.S. military warned of using force if ships don’t comply. It also said the military will let through humanitarian shipments.

The statement follows Trump declaring that the U.S. would be reinstating the naval blockade and charging a 20% toll on eligible cargo.

“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world,” Trump said. “We’re spending money. And so, what we’ve done is, we are going to be reimbursed for protection.”

Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, would not say whether the military would be collecting tolls, and referred questions to the White House.

Trump to address the nation on Thursday

The president posted on social media that he would be “making a Speech to the Nation” at 9 p.m. EDT on Thursday.

Trump appeared to refer to himself in the third person in the post.

He did not disclose the details of his planned speech, but the announcement comes after Trump said he would block Iran-related ships from traveling through the Strait of Hormuz and that the U.S. would charge a 20% fee on all cargo going through the waterway.

Asked in an interview with Hugh Hewitt what his Thursday address will be about, Trump made it sound like nothing out of the ordinary.

“It’s just going to be a speech like a lot of my speeches,” he said, without offering any more detail.

Simpson appeared before Judge Joel Perez inside Bexar County’s 437th Criminal District Court.

During Simpson’s most recent court appearance in May, Perez told the court that an outside judge is reviewing “extensive” evidence connected to the case. Once Perez reviews the judge’s findings, he “will decide what to disclose to the defense.”

On Tuesday, Perez announced that the outside judge’s review of evidence was complete. The judge will present the evidence to the prosecution and defense teams later this week.

Perez also said he was informed Tuesday of a possible “civil litigation” matter regarding Simpson. When asked if the state was ready to discuss the civil matter in court, prosecutors said they preferred to clarify details with the civil division of the Bexar County DA’s Office before reconvening with Perez and the defense.

The judge tentatively scheduled another status hearing 45 days from Tuesday. According to court records, the next hearing is set for Aug. 31.

KSAT reached out to the DA’s office Tuesday morning for additional details regarding the “civil litigation” matter.

In a response, a DA’s office spokesperson, citing a gag order, declined comment to KSAT.

Perez asked the prosecution and Simpson’s team to begin planning to take this case to trial, which includes collaborating on a potential witness list and any body-camera redactions.

“Everybody is telling me that this is going to be a long trial,” Perez told the court Tuesday.

A trial date for Simpson has not been set.

Background

Investigators said the couple was involved in a dispute with one another prior to Suzanne Clark Simpson’s October 2024 disappearance.

Authorities linked Simpson, 55, to his wife’s murder since she was first reported missing on Oct. 6, 2024, after a party at The Argyle in Alamo Heights. Simpson reported his wife missing the following evening.

While Suzanne’s body has not been found, her husband was taken into custody on Oct. 9, 2024.

Bexar County court records show that Simpson was charged with murder on Nov. 7, 2024. He was indicted one month later.

His business partner, James Cotter, has also been charged in connection with the case.

Cotter is accused of helping Simpson hide an AK-47 that was illegally modified. Authorities said the firearm was modified into a “machine gun” that was not properly registered.

In October 2025, a judge ruled to have Cotter’s GPS monitor removed.

Surveillance footage gathered by investigators showed Simpson driving with three large trash bags, a heavy-duty trash can and a “large bulky item” wrapped in a blue tarp the day after his wife’s disappearance, an arrest warrant affidavit previously revealed.

In February 2026, KSAT reported that Simpson’s defense team accused the Olmos Park police chief of mishandling evidence and violating a gag order.

Simpson’s attorney alleges that Olmos Park Police Chief Fidel Villegas violated the gag order and allowed Olmos Park Mayor Erin Harrison to privately review physical evidence in the case.

The motion, which seeks personnel files, claims Villegas gave Harrison access to all physical evidence in the department’s possession after a judge had prohibited disclosure of evidence to non-parties.

In addition to murder, court records show that Simpson has also been charged with tampering with a corpse and possessing prohibited weapons — both third-degree felonies.

If convicted, Simpson faces up to life in prison.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic violence, there is so much help for you. KSAT has a list of resources on its Domestic Violence webpage, which also explains how to identify different types of abuse.

If it’s an emergency, text or call 911. For wrap-around services, including the Battered Women and Children’s Shelter, call Family Violence Prevention Services at (210) 733-8810.

You can also contact the Bexar County Family Justice Center, which also provides wrap-around services at (210) 631-0100.

More recent coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Potential Brad Simpson murder trial date delayed by ‘extensive’ review of evidence, judge says
• Defense motion alleges Olmos Park police chief violated gag order, mishandled evidence in Brad Simpson case

The battle of the two No. 10s could be pivotal to deciding Wednesday's match in Atlanta.

“We know how good Messi is,” England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford said of the Argentina great, whose enduring brilliance has been on show again even at the age of 39.

Messi and Bellingham have been inspirational in their teams' respective runs to the final four. And Wednesday's match may well be determined by which one has the biggest say on the day.

Messi is playing England for the first time in his storied career.

“He's scored so many goals and contributed to so many goals as well throughout his career, it's great to finally go up against him,” Pickford said.

Settling the GOAT debate

Messi is already considered by many to the be greatest soccer player of all time and he seems to be on a mission to settle the debate about where he stands in the history of the sport.

Already the all-time top scorer in the World Cup with 21 goals, he could surpass Argentina icon Diego Maradona by leading his country to back-to-back world titles.

His eight goals in the tournament so far have been pivotal to Argentina's run and his moments of magic have dragged his team through big scares against Cape Verde and Egypt.

With Maradona as captain, Argentina won the World Cup in 1986 and was runner-up four years later when it lost to West Germany in the final.

“Trying to draw inspiration from what Diego did is difficult. Only Leo can do that,” said Argentina midfielder Alexis Mac Allister. “Diego is a national icon for us, and hopefully, we can achieve something similar to what that team did.”

Doubts about Bellingham

England has a talisman of its own in the form of Bellingham, who is at the opposite end of his career to Messi.

At the age of 23, Bellingham is already playing in his second World Cup and his fourth major tournament for England. He has six goals, including two each in the last two rounds against Mexico and Norway.

Not bad for a player who was dropped by coach Thomas Tuchel in the lead-up to the World Cup, prompting debate about whether he'd even be in England's starting XI.

For a long time Bellingham has not only been considered one of English soccer's brightest talents, but one of the global game's biggest names.

Yet his relationship with Tuchel cast doubt over his role in the England team, with Morgan Rogers threatening to take his place.

There is no doubt anymore about a player who Tuchel described as "world class” after his double against Norway in the quarterfinals.

Bellingham was tipped for greatness

Bellingham is different type of No. 10 to Messi, relying on his athleticism, power and speed when running beyond defenders. He is also technically gifted with his touch and range of passing, but arguably no one can rival Messi's individual control of the ball, his dribbling ability or vision.

Bellingham's maturity always stood out. He made his debut for second-division Birmingham at 16 and despite many of England's top teams wanting to sign him, he resisted the likes of Manchester United and moved to Borussia Dortmund in Germany instead.

Birmingham knew it had lost a special talent and said it was retiring his No. 22 jersey despite him playing less than 50 games for the club.

After starring for Dortmund, Bellingham joined Real Madrid, wore the great Zinedine Zidane's No. 5 and helped the Spanish giant to the Champions League and Spanish title in his first season in 2024. That same year he was part of England's team that reached the final of the European Championship, scoring an overhead kick in stoppage time to save his country from elimination earlier in the tournament.

With a record like that, it should come as little surprise that Bellingham, along with captain Harry Kane, who also has six goals, has been such an inspiration at this World Cup.

“Everyone talks about Messi because he's one of the GOATs of the game, but you can't look past the ability and talent we have in the squad,” Pickford said.

A fierce rivalry

England vs. Argentina is a fierce rivalry that goes beyond the soccer field, with tensions also relating to the 1982 conflict over the Falklands Islands.

There have been numerous clashes at the World Cup.

Argentina captain Antonio Rattin, whose death was announced on Saturday, was sent off in a bad-tempered quarterfinal match against winner England in 1966.

Maradona scored his infamous “Hand of God” goal in 1986 - and England also felt aggrieved when David Beckham was sent off for kicking out against Diego Simeone in 1998 and losing in a penalty shootout.

Most recently England beat Argentina in the group phase in 2002, with Beckham scoring from the penalty spot.

Rather than being weighed down by the disappointments of previous clashes, Kane said it was that win that stood out in his mind.

“We all knew what Beckham went through previously against Argentina and that kind of redemption story of scoring that penalty, his celebration, he’s pulling the shirt and his face.

“I think that’s one of my favourite England memories," Kane told ITV. “That was always one of my favourite memories, Beckham being a big idol of mine, so that one stands out for sure.”

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

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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Russian crewmates Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina lifted off as scheduled at 7:47 p.m. (10:47 a.m. EDT, 1447 GMT) aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 for an eight-month stint on the orbiting outpost. Their spacecraft docked smoothly at the station in automatic mode about three hours after the launch.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended the launch, the first visit to Baikonur by a NASA chief in eight years that highlighted the ongoing cooperation in orbit between Moscow and Washington, despite tensions over Russia’s military action in Ukraine.

Before the launch, Isaacman met with the head of Russia's state corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Bakanov. Speaking during Monday’s meeting with the crew, Isaacman thanked Roscosmos for its efforts to prepare for the mission, saying that “the integrated work performed over the past several months reflects the professionalism and dedication of everyone involved.”

Isaacman also had a meeting with Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. Manturov's office said they discussed prospective cooperation on the International Space Station and other projects.

The mission is Menon’s first space flight and the second for Dubrov and Kikina.

The trio will join NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway and Chris Williams, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev and Andrei Fedyaev.

Once bitter rivals in the space race during the Cold War, Russia and the U.S. cooperate on the space station and other projects. That relationship was marred by tensions after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, but Washington and Moscow have continued to work together, with U.S. and Russian crews flying to the orbiting outpost on each country’s spacecraft.

Plans for broader cooperation, including possible Russian involvement in NASA’s Artemis program of lunar research, have fallen apart. As Russia has become increasingly reliant on China for its energy exports and imports of key technology amid Western sanctions, Roscosmos has started cooperation with China on its prospective lunar mission.

The S&P 500 added 0.4% to recover some of its 0.8% loss from the prior day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 9 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.9%.

Stocks got help from easing yields in the bond market, which fell after a report said U.S. consumers had to pay prices for gasoline, food and other costs of living that were 3.5% higher last month than a year earlier. That wasn’t as bad as May’s 4.2% inflation rate or the 3.9% that economists expected for June.

Less bad inflation takes pressure off the Federal Reserve, which is considering raising interest rates. Higher rates would keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow the economy and hurt prices for all kinds of investments.

Following the inflation report, traders see less than a 17% chance that the Fed will raise its main interest rate at its next meeting in a couple weeks. That’s down from the nearly 42% probability they saw the day before, according to data from CME Group.

Rebounds for big, influential tech stocks also helped steady the market. They’ve swung sharply in recent weeks on worries that they shot too high in the euphoria around artificial-intelligence technology and that the voracious demand for AI chips and data centers may fade if they don’t produce the promised profits and productivity.

Micron Technology rose 4.9%, and Nvidia climbed 4.1%. A day before, they were two of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500 after falling 4.4% and 3.5%, respectively.

To be sure, big risks remain for inflation. Fighting in the Middle East is threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that oil tankers use to exit the Persian Gulf and deliver crude to customers worldwide.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, briefly topped $87 in the morning. Following its leap of nearly 10% on Monday, it got back to where it was before the United States and Iran signed their interim deal to halt their fighting in the middle of last month.

Brent’s price later pared its gain and settled at $84.73, up 1.7% from Monday’s settlement. It eased after Donald Trump backed away from his threat made Monday to charge 20% on all cargo going through the strait to reimburse the U.S. military for its protection.

Wall Street’s other big focus this week is the start of earnings reporting season, as companies tell investors how much profit they made from April through June. The pressure is on companies to deliver big growth to justify how high their stock prices have jumped. Indexes are near records despite the recent swings caused by worries about AI stocks.

Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo all on Tuesday reported fatter profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Their reports showed strength for their trading desks and suggested spending by U.S. consumers remains resilient.

Their stocks mostly rose following the results. Goldman Sachs jumped 9%, but Citigroup fell 5.3%.

IBM was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 and the biggest reason the Dow lagged behind other indexes after dropping 25.2%. That was its worst day since at least 1972, according to data provider FactSet.

CEO Arvind Krishna said performance for IBM’s software and infrastructure businesses fell short of expectations last quarter after customers shifted their spending toward servers, storage and memory to get ahead of expected price increases caused by the AI boom.

“These conditions require our teams to execute perfectly, and this quarter we faltered,” Krishna wrote in a letter to investors. “We did not adapt and move quickly enough, and numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall.”

All told, the S&P 500 rose 28.25 points to 7,543.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 9.63 to 52,508.27, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 233.83 to 26,107.01.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped to 4.58% from 4.62% late Monday. That halted its run higher from 3.97% before the war with Iran began.

Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh testified before lawmakers on Capitol Hill for the first time since taking over leadership of the central bank. He pledged to make high inflation “a thing of the past” but offered no signal about the Fed’s next steps.

In stock markets abroad, indexes inched higher in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.7% as SoftBank Group Corp. rose 3.3%. It’s a big investor in AI, and Chairman Masayoshi Son gave a speech in Tokyo where he derided the idea that there is a bubble in investments in capacity for AI.

Stocks rose 1.4% in Shanghai after the government reported China’s exports jumped 27% in June from a year earlier as AI drove strong demand for computer chips and other technology.

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AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.

The civil rights suit, filed in federal court Tuesday, names the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, as the architect of what it describes as an ongoing conspiracy to silence members of the pro-Palestinian movement by smearing them as antisemites.

Those efforts were aided by Canary Mission and Betar, two pro-Israel groups that maintain online lists of Israel's critics, often alongside unsubstantiated claims that they are affiliated with Hamas, according to the lawsuit.

Activists placed on those lists “were nearly automatically targeted by the Federal Defendants for arrest and removal," the suit claims, adding that the "process of nomination to punishment was frictionless.”

Lawyers for Khalil argue this “public-private partnership” could violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law that sought to restrict government coordination with vigilante groups.

The suit, led by the Center for Constitutional Rights, seeks unspecified damages and a judicial order to end the alleged conspiracy.

Inquiries to the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar were not immediately returned on Tuesday.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, did not comment on the lawsuit, but said in an email that the executive branch “has the lawful authority to take actions that will protect the public and to ensure the integrity of our immigration system.”

The suit comes as Khalil’s deportation case appears headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Khalil described the purpose of the latest filing as “exposing the network of organizations, particular actors and institutions that work together to criminalize solidarity with Palestine and to make an example of those who refuse to stay silent.”

“If constitutional protections can be cast aside under political pressure today, they can be cast aside tomorrow against anyone,” he added.

A former graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil gained prominence as a spokesperson and leader for student activists protesting against Israel and its actions in Gaza.

He was arrested in March 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment and quickly became the face of the Trump administration crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Khalil then spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.

Soon after his arrest, both Canary Mission and Betar boasted of their role in flagging Khalil's noncitizen status to the government.

Betar — an Israeli company that claimed to use facial recognition software to identify masked protesters — also claimed it had compiled a longer list of names and given it to the Trump administration. The group has since agreed to dissolve its nonprofit status, following a lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing its members of harassing Palestinians.

Khalil's lawsuit traces the origins of the alleged conspiracy to a blueprint from the Heritage Foundation, entitled “Project Esther,” which called for the expulsion of noncitizens who joined protests against Israel.

The report also suggested, without evidence, that participants in those protests should be seen as part of a “highly organized, global Hamas Support Network.”

In May, as the Trump administration ramped up its crackdown on pro-Palestinian activists, one of the report’s authors, Robert Greenway, appeared to acknowledge the foundation's influence, saying that it was “no coincidence that we called for a series of actions to take place privately and publicly, and they are now happening,” according to the suit.

Greenway, a former adviser to Trump, did not reply to a request for comment.

Khalil, meanwhile, has forcefully denied that his criticism of Israel amounts to antisemitism. While government officials — along with Canary Mission and Betar — have linked him to Hamas, they have offered no evidence to support the claim.

“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” Khalil previously told The Associated Press. “It’s as simple as that.”

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development.

Trump, a Republican, issued proclamations under the Antiquities Act to reduce their size by about 90% each. He took similar actions during his first term, but those were reversed by President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

The latest move comes as Trump and other Republicans have drastically reshaped the management of vast taxpayer-owned lands concentrated in Western states. Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans have sought to expand drilling, mining and logging on public lands, while removing protections for imperiled species and rolling back rules for conservation.

“They took the land from the people quite honestly,” Trump said at a signing event at the White House Monday. “We’re giving it back.”

President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, and President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, created Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the Antiquities Act. The 1906 law gives presidents the powers to protect sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important.

Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said tribal leaders had braced for a reduction since Trump was elected to a second term. She said it was “heartbreaking” and accused federal officials of sidestepping their legal responsibility to consult with tribal nations that would be impacted.

“From a Navajo perspective, Bears Ears is not simply a piece of federal public land,” Smith-Idjesa said. “This is a living cultural site that holds our histories, our ceremonies, our traditional foods and medicines and our ancestors’ footprints.”

‘Big day for Utah’

Utah officials had long fought against the monument designations and argued that the state should be in charge of controlling its own lands. Trump in his first term reduced their size, calling their creation a “massive land grab.” Combined they spanned more than 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares), an area nearly the size of Connecticut.

Trump reduced them Monday to less than 303,000 acres (123,000 hectares) combined.

That's a greater reduction than his first term, when he left Grand Staircase Escalante at 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) and Bears Ears at 213,000 acres (86,000 hectares).

“This is a big day for Utah,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox as he stood next to Trump at the White House. “These monument designations are supposed to be the smallest area as possible to protect the antiquities.”

Bears Ears was the first national monument created at the request of tribal nations that consider the land sacred. The landscape contains ancestral villages, ceremonial and burial sites and features in some tribes’ creation and migration stories. Its designation honored five tribes in the region — Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Uintah-Ouray Ute.

Home to hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural and scientific significance, Bears Ears is jointly managed by an agreement between tribal nations and federal agencies.

Grand Staircase-Escalante consists of cliffs, canyons, natural arches and archaeological sites, including rock paintings. It holds large coal reserves, while the Bears Ears area has uranium.

The national monument designation provides sweeping protections not just for significant geological features or artifacts but also for the surrounding landscape, banning drilling, mining and new construction nearby. Proponents of Trump’s move to downsize say the protective boundaries stretch too far and hinder mining for critical minerals.

Trump asserted Monday that people can not hunt, fish or “virtually not even walk” on the monuments. That's false: Hunting, fishing, camping and other recreation are permitted under state and federal regulations, said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a conservation group.

Biden designated or expanded more than a dozen monuments and had a goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

Trump’s policies are largely the opposite: He wants to tap into the natural resource wealth of federal lands that total more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) and offshore areas under federal control, such as in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska.

That’s drawn backlash from Democrats who warn of the wholesale disposal of treasured landscapes for commercial gain.

“Today’s executive action is another chapter in this administration’s war on the West," Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico said Monday. He added that Trump was “turning the Antiquities Act on its head."

Land sale proposals fell flat

Trump Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last year that federal officials would review and consider redrawing monument boundaries as part of a push to expand U.S. energy production.

Trump in his current term has used proclamations to lift commercial fishing prohibitions within expansive marine monuments in areas of the Pacific Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean off the New England coast. Those monuments were created by Democratic and Republican administrations. The effort to boost the fishing industry, which has been challenged in court, marks a dramatic shift in federal policy by prioritizing commercial interests over efforts to allow the fish supply to increase.

Some Republicans have tried to sell or transfer federal lands to states or other entities. Those efforts have largely fallen flat: A push by some GOP lawmakers in the House to sell public lands ran into bipartisan opposition, while another proposal by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to sell more than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square kilometers) of federal lands was removed from Republicans' big tax and spending bill.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year turned back a lawsuit from Utah officials who sought to wrest control of vast areas of public land within the state from the federal government.

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Hannah Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.

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This story was first published July 13, 2026. It was updated July 14, 2026, to correct that the monuments were a combined 1.3 million hectares, not 13 million hectares.

The Department of Homeland Security later said the officer fired his weapon when the man they were pursuing attempted to flee the scene, threatening “public safety.”

It’s a narrative that has been repeated again and again since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began, with federal officers confronting drivers then saying they opened fire when their vehicles became a danger. That's despite decades of warnings from policing experts that shooting into moving cars presents a danger of its own and should almost always be avoided.

The Embassy of Colombia identified the man killed Monday in Biddeford, roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland, as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian national. Some friends, neighbors and an advocacy group have spelled his name “Joan.”

Nine dead in immigration operations

He is the ninth killed during immigration operations since the start of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. At least four of those deaths involved people in vehicles, including one last week in Houston, a trend so troubling U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Tuesday she urged DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops.”

A person familiar with the matter told AP Tuesday that administration officials told immigration officers to suspend most vehicle stops. Some policing experts say Immigration and Customs Enforcement should never have conducted traffic stops.

“They’re saying that all these cases are justified because the officers were in danger,” said John Sandweg, who was acting director at ICE, which is part of DHS, during the Obama administration. “But then why the hell are we putting the officer in danger by asking them to execute traffic stops?”

Sandweg, who estimates there have been roughly 18 traffic-stop shootings during the immigration crackdown, noted there are many other places to make arrests, from homes to workplaces.

“It becomes a much more risky and dangerous situation once you start to pursue someone,” said John Gihon, an immigration lawyer who was an attorney at ICE from 2008 to 2014. “That’s going to escalate.”

Gihon said that during his tenure at ICE he regularly trained deportation officers about vehicle stop policies. He said officers were advised they have discretion on whether to pull over someone they are trying to arrest. But if that person refuses to get out of their car and drives away, the guidance is to let them go and track them down another day.

“If they refuse, you are not pulling them out of the vehicle, you are not putting yourself in front of their car,” he said. “This policy is for everyone’s safety.”

But fatal vehicle stops keep happening during Trump’s second administration.

There was Ruben Ray Martinez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen, shot during a late-night traffic stop in South Texas in March 2025, and Renee Good, a mother of three shot and killed in January as she drove her car through the streets of a Minneapolis residential neighborhood amid growing anti-crackdown protests.

Last week, it was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican builder shot and killed as he drove his crew to a worksite in Houston, where he had lived and worked for decades.

Shooting into moving vehicles creates danger for all who are near

Each time, officials insisted the federal officers had fired because they feared they or someone else could be killed by the vehicles.

“Many of you have been told this law enforcement officer wasn’t hit by a car, wasn’t being harassed, and murdered an innocent woman,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X after Good was killed. “The reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self defense.”

That shooting was captured on multiple bystander videos that contradicted the administration’s narrative and prompted widespread anger and protests against the officers' use of deadly force.

Much remains unknown about the others.

Officers were not wearing body cameras in the Salgado Araujo or the Durán Guerrero killings, despite DHS announcing months ago that it would outfit all officers with cameras.

Geoffrey P. Alpert, an expert on policing at the University of South Carolina, said without video evidence, investigators must rely on witness statements.

“There’s certainly a pattern, a practice, a trend that is disturbing,” Alpert said, adding that police departments decades ago began prohibiting officers from shooting into moving cars because if the driver is injured or killed, they can lose control, turning the vehicle into “an unguided missile,” threatening anyone nearby.

“Every bullet needs to be understood: why was it fired. Every time an officer pulls the trigger, we need to know why,” Alpert said. “We talked about that last time, and we’ll talk about that the next time.”

Texas lawmaker notes conflicting descriptions of Houston shooting

Doubts are already swirling about the official story the administration told about the fatal shooting of 52-year-old Salgado Araujo in Houston.

DHS officials said in a statement that the Mexican national ignored commands and was trying to evade arrest, then attempted to ram his car into an officer, who opened fire in self-defense.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia said she visited the facility where the men who were in the vehicle with Salgado Araujo are being held and spoke to two of them, raising “many alarming questions” about the administration’s claims.

“Here’s the deal. I visited with them separately, and their stories were consistent, and paint a totally, totally conflicting version of the events,” Garcia said. They said that at no time were any of the ICE officers in front of the vehicle. Instead, they told her the officers were on the passenger side and shot Salgado Araujo, who was driving, through the passenger side window. The window had been open because the vehicle’s air conditioning was broken.

The DHS story quickly shifted

What exactly led to the deadly shooting in Maine remains unclear. Officers were in Biddeford, surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal from the country, then tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, DHS said.

Maine U.S. Sen. Angus King said DHS Secretary Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against officers.

But nearly 12 hours after Durán Guerrero was killed, that story shifted: DHS issued a statement saying the “vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

When asked about the contrasting statements, King told CNN an investigation would reveal the truth.

The state’s Office of the Attorney General announced it would investigate the shooting in coordination with federal authorities, promised transparency and encouraged witnesses to come forward.

On Tuesday, hundreds of protesters gathered near an ICE facility in Scarborough, Maine. They held up a large banner reading “No more ICE killings” and signs saying “stop the murder” and “end this terror.”

“We need to never see this happen in the streets of Biddeford, Maine, and in this country,” said Democratic state Sen. Mattie Daughtry, said during the protest. “Never forget the human toll of what has happened here in Maine, in Minnesota, in Texas.”

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Santana reported from Washington, D.C., Sullivan from Minneapolis and Galofaro from Louisville, Kentucky. Associated Press reporters Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, and Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed.

More than 30 states have reported infections this year, and current data from them shows the number of infections surpassing the record U.S. mark of about 4,700 set in 2019. The illness is not usually life threatening and is typically treated with antibiotics.

Health officials have not yet definitively identified what is causing the infections. On Tuesday, federal health officials said there may be different infection patterns in different places, although they believe cases in at least four states — Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia — are linked.

Michigan officials blame lettuce

In Michigan — where more than 3,300 cases have been reported — officials say early information points to lettuce or salad greens as a possible culprit.

After conducting more than 1,000 interviews with patients, “early information has shown lettuce as a common product that regularly comes up during the investigation,” said Natasha Bagdasarian, the Michigan health department's chief medical executive.

Because of that commonality and because produce has been behind some past cyclospora outbreaks, Michigan officials advised consumers to buy whole heads of lettuce, discard the outer layers and thoroughly wash what is left. They also suggested people avoid bagged lettuce and pre-mixed salad kits.

On Tuesday, the Taco Bell restaurant chain issued a statement saying it had “voluntarily and temporarily removed limited ingredients at select restaurants as a precautionary measure. We will continue to closely monitor the situation and follow the guidance of public health authorities."

In a call with reporters on Tuesday, federal health officials did not directly respond to a question about whether they are looking at Taco Bell or any specific food vendor or distributor.

“FDA certainly is continuing its traceback investigation on multiple produce items, also including locations that are reported by the case patients before they became sick,” said Donald Prater, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Acting Deputy Commissioner for Food, in response.

Cyclospora causes ‘explosive’ diarrhea

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water.

The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is less common than foodborne illnesses caused by other germs, including salmonella and E. coli. Many cases are never linked to a specific food or other source and, for years, few U.S. cyclospora outbreaks were reported. But the number started rising about a decade ago, with a particularly notable spike in 2018 and 2019.

Experts say it's likely that cyclospora cases historically were underreported, in part because some common tests used to check for food poisoning have not been geared to detect cyclospora. They attribute the increasing trend in cases to climate change and better detection.

2019 was the worst year for infections

The worst year in the U.S. for infections was 2019, when about 4,700 illnesses were reported, according to federal data on confirmed and suspected cases.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps those numbers, but they traditionally lag what is posted by individual city and state health departments dealing with local outbreaks in real time. On Tuesday, CDC officials issued a health alert that said that since May 1, the agency is aware of 1,645 confirmed domestic cases and more than 5,100 that require further analysis to confirm whether the infections were acquired in the U.S. The reports come from 34 states, and no deaths have been reported, the CDC said.

The true number of cases is likely larger than what has been reported so far because some people may have milder illnesses that they don't seek care for, said Gwen Biggerstaff, deputy director of CDC’s Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases, in the call with reporters.

It can take days to weeks for someone exposed to the parasite to develop symptoms. It's not clear to what extent people currently are being infected, or whether many of the exposures happened earlier. But Biggerstaff said official expect that case numbers will continue to grow through August.

The CDC also posted information about the investigation of an outbreak affecting the four states.

The federal alert did not detail how many reports came from each state. But Michigan officials have reported more than 3,300 cases, officials in northwest Ohio said they have seen more than 1,100, New York City officials counted more than 400 and Illinois reported more than 200.

Officials do not think all can be tied to a common source. In Illinois, for example, more than half the people with infections said they had traveled outside the United States, and at least some may have been infected elsewhere.

But Michigan officials believe a large share of their total is likely due to a linked domestic outbreak. CDC officials did not go into detail about why they currently think cases in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia are part of the same outbreak.

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Associated Press writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report.

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

Position Summary

The Big Game Coverage Assistant plays an important role in supporting the production and execution of the station’s weekly high school football coverage across San Antonio and the surrounding communities.

Responsibilities

• Assist with building the weekly game night rundown.
• Create and update graphics for sportscasts.
• Print scripts and organize game-day materials.
• Maintain phone contact lists for schools, coaches, and athletic staff.
• Build and update a scrolling ticker featuring scores from approximately 70 local games each week, including about 60 Friday night matchups.
• Contact schools and teams weekly to verify and update game contacts.
• Monitor games by communicating with schools and stadium personnel to gather score updates.
• Update scores and game information on KSAT.com and the station’s social media platforms
• Upload sportscasts and game highlights to KSAT.com.
• Provide additional production support to the Sports Department as needed.

Qualifications

• Strong organizational and communication skills.
• Ability to multitask and work efficiently in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.
• Comfortable using computers and learning newsroom production systems.
• Must be dependable and able to work evening hours throughout the football season.

Schedule

• Temporary, part-time position.
• Up to 20 hours per week.
• Typical shifts are 5:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m., depending on the game schedule.
• Must be available to work various evenings during the football season, with Fridays being the primary workday.

If you’re passionate about sports and want to be part of one of South Texas’ premier high school football coverage teams, we’d love to hear from you!

Any offer of employment is conditional upon the successful completion of a pre-employment drug screening, investigative background check, employment/education verifications and reference checks.

To apply, please send resume to: Sean Talbot,

stalbot@ksat.com

KSAT 12

1408 N St Mary’s

San Antonio, TX 78215

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The payment — representing the $5 million jury award, plus interest — was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed the payment Tuesday.

“We are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment,” Kaplan said in a statement. Carroll herself later wrote on Substack that “the eagle has landed.”

Trump's lawyers have vowed to continue appealing.

Trump deposited the money in an escrow account shortly after the jury ruled against him. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money.

Trump’s lawyers then sought but were denied an emergency order to block the payment. The one-sentence denial set no conditions on how Carroll may use the money. Her lawyers have said in court papers that she plans to put it in a retirement account.

Trump's attorneys have since filed another appeal seeking to stop or reverse the payment.

The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in a New York luxury department store dressing room and defamed her after she told the story publicly in a memoir in 2019, during his first term as president.

Trump insisted nothing sexual happened between him and Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. Trump claimed she was “totally lying” and “ not my type ” in a 2019 interview. He said he didn't know her, dismissing a 1987 photo of them and their then-spouses at a party as inconsequential, and he accused her of harboring political motives and trying to sell books at his expense.

Trump didn't attend the trial, where Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent.

Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past.

Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a 2024 trial where Trump briefly testified.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually abused. Carroll has agreed to be named.

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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed.

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This story has been corrected to show that Carroll collected over $5.6 million, not $5.8 million.

The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone, or PROMISE Act, comes on the heels of the latest Social Security Board of Trustees’ annual report, which found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in 2032, a year earlier than last year’s projections.

Even with it being clear for years that Social Security was running out of money, Congress has been loath to act. Making changes to the program — and potentially cutting benefits — has long been politically unpopular, and lawmakers have repeatedly kicked Social Security and Medicare’s troubling math to the next generation.

“The longer Congress waits, the more difficult it will be to address the program’s financial shortfall,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., one of the bill’s authors, said in a statement. “We were elected to solve problems — we owe it to our kids and grandkids to protect and strengthen this critical program.”

Durbin, who is retiring, is joining with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia; independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and outgoing Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina in backing the Social Security legislation, which calls for an “independent, bipartisan advisory committee” that would make recommendations to Congress.

Sens. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Alan Armstrong, R-Okla., signed onto the bill right before its introduction.

The bill is designed to force Congress to confront Social Security’s long-term financing problem by guaranteeing that lawmakers vote on a solvency plan. It culminates in an up-or-down vote on a plan that restores Social Security solvency for at least half a century.

Committees, however, have been here before. That happened as recently as 2024, when House lawmakers undertook an effort with the backing of several in GOP leadership to form a federal debt commission that would include tackling the solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

The effort collapsed when Americans for Tax Reform — led by its president, Grover Norquist — aggressively lobbied against it.

Social Security's looming funding shortfall is mainly the result of lower projected birth rates, reduced immigration and reduced trust fund revenue due to the costs of Republicans’ massive tax and spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, according to the Board of Trustees' report.

The looming challenge for the programs is a partial funding gap, not a collapse. Even after trust fund depletion, the system will continue issuing benefits, albeit at reduced amounts.

Traditionally, Republicans have been skeptical of endorsing tax increases, while Democrats have been critical of calls to raise the age of Social Security eligibility. In 2022, members of the House Republican Study Committee proposed raising the age at which someone could qualify for Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security benefits were last reformed roughly 40 years ago, when the federal government raised the eligibility age for the program from 65 to 67, based on recommendations from a commission under the leadership of Alan Greenspan.

Still, there are ongoing bipartisan calls to find a way to provide long-term funding to Social Security.

Last month, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for raising the cap on the Social Security payroll tax.

For 2026, the payroll tax cap, or maximum amount of earnings on which you must pay Social Security tax is $184,500.

Americans for Tax Reform organized a lengthy and aggressive rebuttal with comments from scores of conservatives in opposition.

The Public Office (Accountability) Bill — or Hillsborough Law — imposes a legal duty of candor on public officials to tell the truth about public tragedies whatever the impact on their reputation.

It is named after the 1989 disaster in which 97 Liverpool soccer fans were killed in a crush at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. An independent inquiry in 2012 found the police had covered up their own mistakes and blamed the deaths on unruly supporters.

The bill completed its passage through the House of Commons after a delay caused by wrangling over whether it would apply to Britain’s spies. After pressure from bereaved families, the government has agreed that the intelligence services will also be covered by the duty of candor, but with a “secure process” for disclosing information if it could affect national security.

The bill will become law after being approved by the House of Lords, Parliament's upper chamber, in the coming weeks.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who promised to bring in the law during his 2024 election campaign, opened the debate on the bill in the Commons in one of his final acts as leader.

He said victims' families “have waited years and years too long” for justice.

Starmer's successor Andy Burnham, who is due to take over as prime minister on Monday, has long campaigned on behalf of the bereaved families.

In his first speech in the Commons since being elected as an MP last month, Burnham said the Hillsborough Law was “a rewiring of the state and a passing of power from the authorities to the hands of ordinary people.”

Paying tribute to Starmer, he said it was happening “because of the prime minister’s commitment to a country based on justice and fairness, and we thank him for that.”

The 54,000-capacity Hillsborough Stadium was nearly full for a FA Cup semifinal match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989, when more than 2,000 Liverpool fans poured into a standing-only section behind a goal. Many victims were crushed against metal fences or trampled underfoot, and suffocated.

With hooliganism rife in English soccer in the 1980s, a narrative blaming drunken, ticketless and rowdy Liverpool fans was created by the police, and was only overturned by years of campaigning by bereaved families.

An original inquest in 1991 found the deaths were accidental, a conclusion the victims’ families refused to accept. Those findings were overturned in 2012 after a far-reaching inquiry into the disaster that examined previously secret documents and exposed wrongdoing and mistakes by police.

In 2016, a jury at a second inquest found the victims had been “unlawfully killed” as a result of failings by the police, the ambulance service and Sheffield Wednesday Football Club, which ran the stadium. It found the behavior of fans did not contribute to the deaths.

In 2023 the government apologized for the way the families were treated over the decades and for the delay in its response to the report.

An investigation by the police watchdog concluded last year that 12 officers would have faced gross misconduct proceedings, were they not dead or long retired.

Labour lawmaker Ian Byrne, who was at Hillsborough and survived the tragedy, said he hoped the law would mean “that no grieving family will ever have to come to fight the state simply to uncover the truth.”

“This law is far more than Hillsborough,” he said in an emotional speech. “It is about the kind of country we choose to be, a country where power tells the truth, where public servants serve the public, where justice is not delayed until campaigners grow old, and where no family is ever left to walk alone.”

Authorities have linked Jose Roberto Medina, 30, to cases in Olmos Park and at the University of the Incarnate Word (UIW).

Medina allegedly followed women in an Olmos Park neighborhood and later entered a UIW dorm room and exposed himself, investigators said.

Medina is accused of voyeurism, indecent exposure and burglary of a habitation with intent to commit a felony, police stated.

Officers previously asked for more potential victims to come forward as the investigation continues.

In addition to the Olmos Park Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the UIW Police Department are expected to be in attendance at the news conference.

More coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Peeping Tom suspect taken into custody, Olmos Park police say

The award comes a year after he helped evacuate campers from the catastrophic Hill Country floods that cut off roads and capsized rescue boats near Camp Mystic.

Ruskan, a petty officer stationed in Corpus Christi, said he still remembers the early-morning call that sent his crew toward the flooding with only limited information.

“There’s a couple of hundred people trapped. And it’s near San Antonio, and we’re gonna go help them out,” Ruskan said. “That was pretty much all we had for briefing.”

When the crew arrived, Ruskan said they faced dangerous weather while flying through valleys and over flood debris.

“You would see trees where you shouldn’t see trees. There were cars where there shouldn’t be cars,” he said.

Ruskan said he was the first rescuer on the ground at Camp Mystic and took a moment to steady himself before beginning evacuations.

“I think I probably took like three seconds just to breathe,” he said.

Over the next four hours, Ruskan and his crew helped evacuate around 180 campers and counselors, he said.

Ruskan said he was credited with assisting 165 people into a U.S. Army aircraft, while other members of the Coast Guard crew assisted in evacuating an additional 15 people.

“Between the four of us, we got 180 people out of there to safety,” Ruskan said. “I couldn’t have gotten in there and done any rescuing if we didn’t get there safely.”

Ruskan said the campers were coping with fear and uncertainty as evacuations continued.

“They’re missing friends. They’re missing loved ones,” he said. “So just kind of being able to talk through them, be like, ‘Hey, I just need you to keep it together for a few more moments.”

Months later, Ruskan said he reunited with the family of one of the girls he rescued, Milly Cate McClymond, when he was honored at the State of the Union.

“They were super thankful,” Ruskan said. “And I was, you know, just trying to hold back tears and let them know I was OK.”

Ruskan said he learned of the ESPY award in a call in which he was asked if he knew about Tillman, the former NFL player who left professional football to join the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks. Tillman was later was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

Ruskan said Tillman’s legacy resonated personally because a relative was a New York City firefighter who responded on Sept. 11.

“The past winners of the Tillman Award have just been like awesome Americans,” Ruskan said. “They’ve done great things; they’ve saved lives.”

Ruskan told KSAT that he left a previous career in accounting to join the Coast Guard and felt it was a calling.

“My parents definitely had a little hard time at first being like, ‘You’re going to really leave your accounting job, and you’re gonna go join the Coast Guard?’ I said, ‘Mom, it is what I want to do. It’s exactly where I want to be.”

Ruskan said the recognition has not changed the day-to-day nature of his work and that the memory of the flooding remains with him. He also emphasized the bravery of the children and credited the entire crew.

“That’s going to be in the back of my head for the rest of my life,” he said. “And to all the kids we were able to pick up, thanks for being tough, thanks for being brave.”

Read also:

• US Coast Guard rescue swimmer during Hill Country flooding to receive Pat Tillman Award at ESPYs

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Tuesday imposing the country's first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, which house thousands of computer servers and require massive amounts of energy and a steady supply of water to keep cool.

The move pushes the state into a raging debate over how to regulate the AI industry, as concerns over rising electric bills and environmental risks collide with a desire to stimulate local economies and foster the U.S. tech sector.

“The bottom line is that progress shouldn't arrive with a higher utility bill, deleted water supply or noise pollution, so we have no choice but to address these challenges created by these massive facilities,” Hochul said at a celebratory signing ceremony in Brooklyn.

President Donald Trump has warned states not to slap regulations on the AI industry, echoing tech companies in arguing such moves hamper job growth and cede ground to China in a race to lead in the rapidly growing field.

Earlier this year, Maine seemed poised to establish a similar moratorium. But the measure was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills because it would have blocked a proposed data center in a town that has struggled after a mill closed.

Moratoriums have been proposed in at least a dozen states but have not gotten far, though some counties and municipalities have imposed their own temporary bans.

New York's executive order pauses state permitting for new large data centers and directs state regulators to create standards that address environmental impacts, energy demand, water usage and other factors, the governor’s office said.

Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition, a trade association, said the moratorium “will ensure that those investments, jobs, and economic activity flow elsewhere rather than to New York — with impacts far beyond the data center industry.”

The decision in New York also carries political significance for Hochul's reelection campaign and the state's tight congressional races this fall, as Democrats move to address affordability concerns over high utility bills. In addition, the governor this year softened New York's ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gases, citing rising energy costs for consumers.

Hochul’s Republican opponent in the governor’s race, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, opposes a statewide moratorium and says local governments should be allowed to strike deals with tech companies for data center projects that promise enough economic benefits.

In a statement Tuesday, Blakeman said the governor “doesn’t work with local governments and business leaders to figure out how to get things done,” while pledging to “modernize our economy to bring costs down and create good jobs.”

The state Legislature this year approved its own moratorium bill, but Hochul's office described the legislation as complex and said it needed additional work. Instead, the governor opted for an executive order that would take effect immediately.

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, joined the governor during the signing ceremony. “If Big Tech is coming onto our turf, it should be on our terms,” she said.

New York, at this stage, has not been a destination for the largest hyperscale data centers.

Graham was appointed by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday to fill the remaining months of her brother’s current term and arrived in Washington just a day later to take the oath of office. Senators, staff and family members looked on in the packed chamber, many of them visibly emotional, as Graham was sworn in by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican senator.

A separate special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Lindsey Graham’s seat, as he had been seeking a fifth term this year.

Darline Graham, who will be the state’s first female senator, has not previously held public office. She has worked as an optician and at various state agencies, including the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and the Department of Employment and Workforce. She is married to Larry Nordone but will be known in the Senate as Darline Graham, her legal name.

She said on Monday that her older brother, who raised her after their parents died, had always been there for her. “And now, I will be there for him,” she said.

After she was sworn in, Graham walked to her brother's desk and stood behind it as dozens of senators from both parties lined up to shake her hand or give her a hug. She attended the weekly Senate Republican luncheon before the ceremony, where Lindsey Graham's former colleagues told stories about him and welcomed her to the Senate.

Graham, 71, died unexpectedly on Saturday in Washington. A preliminary report from the medical examiner said he suffered a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection.

One of President Donald Trump’s closest allies in the Senate, Graham was the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and was set to become the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next Congress. Darline Graham will receive her own committee assignments in the coming days.

Graham has often been by her brother’s side

Lindsey Graham, who was not married and did not have children, was exceptionally close to his sister. He became her legal guardian after their parents died, when he was 22 and she was 13. She often appeared at his campaign events and supported him in speeches and campaign ads, and she was there as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year, along with her children and grandchildren.

“To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words,” his sister said as McMaster announced her appointment. “But I’m going to do this. I got it.”

McMaster said the two had spoken “in the wee hours of Sunday morning” after Graham’s death, and he asked her to serve.

“I had wondered what you would say, and I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster said. He added that President Donald Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick. Trump announced his support for Graham to fill the seat earlier Monday.

Senators welcome Darline Graham in the Capitol

The weekly Republican luncheon is generally a serious discussion of the week's agenda. But on Tuesday, Lindsey Graham's colleagues told stories and remembered his sense of humor while welcoming his sister into the fold.

“It's personal for us,” said South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican who sat next to Graham on the Senate floor. He said senators also tried to offer support for Darline Graham, “who has been put in a position of not only losing her closest family member, but then also being asked to step into this role."

Rounds said that Lindsey Graham, who was known for his quick wit, “was a character, and he was the guy that made everybody feel like you were one of his closest friends.”

Several of South Carolina's House members attended the swearing in, lining up in the back of the Senate chamber, as did prominent members of Trump's administration, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and special envoy Steve Witkoff. His son-in-law Jared Kushner was also there.

South Carolina holds a special primary in August

According to South Carolina law, a one-week filing period for a special primary election begins on the second Tuesday after the candidate’s death, or July 21.

The special primary election would be held on the second Tuesday after that filing period closes, or Aug. 11. Any necessary runoff would follow two weeks after that, or Aug. 25.

From that point, the new nominee would have just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

Several Republicans are potentially eyeing a run, including Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette and Republican Reps. Russell Fry, Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman.

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Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard contributed to this report from Columbia, South Carolina.

According to a notice published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration this week, the now-recalled vehicles were made with a certification label that incorrectly states their gross axle weight rating, or GAWR, which reflects the maximum weight that each axle of a vehicle can support.

The NHTSA warns a wrong GAWR label “may lead to an overloaded vehicle,” which could increase the likelihood of a crash.

Subaru has not been aware of any crashes or injuries resulting from this issue in the U.S., according to recall documents. And no mechanical repair is needed — but the company plans to mail impacted owners a “corrective certification label” to place over the faulty one. Customers may also choose to have a dealer place the new label on their cars, free of charge.

The labeling recall covers certain 2026 Crosstrek Hybrid, 2025-2026 Forester and Forester Hybrid, and 2019-2026 Ascent vehicles.

Owner notifications are set to go out in late August — and additional letters will be mailed “once the remedy is available,” NHTSA documents note. In the meantime, drivers can also confirm whether their specific vehicle is included in this recall and find more information using the NHTSA's website and/or Subaru's recall lookup platform.

The Associated Press reached out to contacts for Subaru of America — a New Jersey-based subsidiary of the larger Japanese automaker — for further comments Tuesday.

FORECAST HIGHLIGHTS

• FLOOD WARNINGS: Bandera, Edwards, Kinney, Medina, Uvalde Counties through afternoon
• FLOOD RISK CONTINUES: Rain resumes tonight, Wednesday, and Thursday. Flooding likely in spots
• • SAN ANTONIO: Additional 1″ to 3″, bullseyes 6″+
  • WEST & HILL CO: Additional 3″ to 6″, bullseyes 10″+
• BY THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Rain ends for San Antonio, flood risk continues west
• WEEKEND: Quiet and warm

FORECAST

FLOODING WEST OF SAN ANTONIO AND IN HILL COUNTRY

There are ongoing flash flood warnings across Bandera, Edwards, Kinney, Medina, Uvalde Counties from torrential rains. Some of these areas have seen over 7″ to 12″ inches, and flooding is ongoing. We need to monitor Hondo Creek, Nueces, Sabinal & Frio Rivers.

SAN ANTONIO

Rain is tapering off, and we’ll see a break around San Antonio until the late evening. Then, redevelopment is expected and heavy rain will continue overnight through the Wednesday morning commute.

TONIGHT & WEDNESDAY

More rounds of heavy rain are forecast to develop tonight into Wednesday. Like this Tuesday, morning pockets of very heavy rainfall will set up across the area. The most likely areas to see flooding will be those along Highway 90, mainly west of San Antonio, north into the Hill Country. A Flash Flood Watch remains in effect through Thursday.

THURSDAY AND BEYOND

The heaviest rainfall will slowly shift west toward the Rio Grande on Thursday. By Friday and into the weekend, rain chances will decrease, while temperatures warm.

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Congo has been battling an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola since May, with no approved treatment or vaccine. The Africa Centres for Disease Control says it is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on the continent.

“Perhaps the most alarming finding is that many of the newly reported deaths are people who died in their communities without ever reaching a health facility and without receiving care,” Chikwe Ihekweazu said after returning from Bunia, in Ituri province, one of the worst-hit cities. “And as of today, 80% of new cases are outside our contact lists and so are coming to us from unknown chains of transmission.”

People who die outside the health system cannot be isolated, treated or have their contacts traced promptly, increasing the risk of further transmission.

The outbreak, Ihekweazu said, “continues to outpace the response efforts.”

As of Monday, at least 1,926 people have been infected, of whom 702 have died, in three provinces in Congo from the rare Bundibugyo virus, Congolese authorities said. Cases have also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda.

Ihekweazu told reporters in Geneva that his visit to Bunia had been “quite encouraging on many fronts, but also deeply concerning.”

Treatment capacity in Bunia is now close to 800 beds, with capacity increasing every week, and lab capacity has grown from 1 to 14 labs, an effort the emergency chief lauded.

However, Ihekweazu said that despite “our best efforts ... we have not caught up in the race.”

A funding gap, attacks on health centers, an ongoing conflict in eastern Congo, and mistrust among local communities have hampered the response.

Dozens of healthcare workers at an Ebola virus treatment center in northeast Congo went on strike over unpaid salaries and bonuses on Monday. On Tuesday, they agreed to resume work under the condition that the government pays them within 72 hours.

“Just one day of strike action has already caused damage. Patients were unable to access the center," the striking health workers said in a statement. “We hold the government solely responsible for any loss of life if the site closes after this ultimatum.”

The Congolese authorities declared a fresh Ebola outbreak on May 15 after the disease had been transmitting for weeks without official detection, according to the WHO. Clinical trials for treatment began last week after researchers launched a highly anticipated study in the hope of fighting the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on July 11 that a U.S. citizen working for a humanitarian organization in Congo has tested positive for the Ebola virus, without providing further details.

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Associated Press writer Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.

Buffett also said in his statement that he wants all of his remaining Berkshire Hathaway stock worth more than $140 billion donated to charity by the end of 2034. Previously the plan was for his three children to distribute his remaining fortune within 10 years of the 95-year-old investor’s death.

“Of course, mortality is unpredictable, but my remaining shares will be donated to the four foundations one way or the other by December 31, 2034,” Buffett said in a statement. “The goal is to have the grants grow annually to each of the three foundations managed by each of my children and the annual grant to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation grow at a somewhat greater rate.”

Buffett did not immediately respond Tuesday to questions. CNBC said Buffett was scheduled to give the channel an exclusive interview on the topic Wednesday morning.

The Gates Foundation thanked Buffett for his gifts in a statement Tuesday and said the foundation remains in a strong financial position thanks to Gates' pledge to donate 99% of his remaining fortune to the charity, which plans to close in 2045 after distributing the money.

“The Gates Foundation is grateful to Warren Buffett for his decades of support for our work. His gifts, totaling more than $47 billion, have helped us expand and deliver on the foundation’s mission to improve health and opportunity for people around the world,” the charity said in its statement.

Buffett's latest gifts are roughly equal to last year's donations

The majority of Buffett’s charitable gifts — worth more than $61 billion — have gone to the Gates Foundation since he announced the plan to give away his fortune in 2006. He has been giving blocks of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation and the four foundations run by his three children regularly.

Buffett plans to give about $4.5 billion in stock to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation this year and about $500 million in shares each to the Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett Foundation and Novo Foundation, which are run by his children.

So the total amount of donations announced Tuesday is similar to the roughly $6 billion in donations he made last summer, with Buffett’s family foundations getting significantly more than in previous years that would seem to account for the money that would have gone to the Gates Foundation.

Gates has denied any ties to Epstein's crimes

Gates denies any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has not been accused of any wrongdoing. He said he only met with Epstein because he thought it might help him raise money for charitable causes.

Epstein, who was accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls, was found dead at the Manhattan federal lockup in August 2019 and his death was later ruled a suicide by New York City’s medical examiner.

Buffett already said in 2024 that he planned to cut off donations to the Gates Foundation after his death and let his three children decide how to distribute the rest of his fortune. The decision he announced Tuesday will accelerate that plan.

The two billionaires were the best of friends

Buffett and Gates used to be exceptionally close friends who talked often, played bridge online and even took vacations together. Gates also served on the board of Buffett’s conglomerate for years and the legendary investor sat on the board of the Gates Foundation. But Buffett told CNBC in March that he hadn’t talked to Gates for months since before the Epstein files were released. The disclosures began in December 2025 and continued into this year.

In the past, Buffett stood up for Gates. Three years ago, Buffett cut off a man who was presenting a resolution at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting after he questioned Gates’ character because of his ties with Epstein. Peter Flaherty was arrested that day for trespassing even though he had been approved to make the presentation beforehand. The charge was later dropped, but the incident led to a lawsuit, which is still pending in the courts.

Buffett can't believe how many people Epstein fooled

Buffett said to CNBC “it is astounding to me that anybody could be that successful as a con person” but Epstein found a way to exploit the weaknesses of others. Buffett would not discuss Gates’ involvement, but said he doesn’t want to be involved with anything that could be investigated later.

Gates discussed his ties to Epstein with the staff of his foundation recently. Gates appears multiple times in the Justice Department’s release of documents connected to its investigation of the late financier. The Justice Department’s files include email correspondence between Gates and Epstein about philanthropic projects, calendar entries documenting dates they got together, and photos of Gates at events the two men attended.

The foundation announced that it hired someone in March to assess the foundation’s past engagement with Epstein and review its policies to vet any future philanthropic partnerships. Gates and the rest of the foundation’s board expect to get an update on that investigation sometime this summer.

Buffett told CNBC that he’s amazed at how many wealthy and powerful people have been caught up in the Epstein scandal.

“I mean, it, here you had a guy that was a convicted guy, a sensational con man, and the percentage of people that he knocked off,” Buffett said. “I mean, whether it was, he found their weakness. It might have been sex. It might be power, it might be, whatever it might be. And I don’t see how anybody could have pulled that off.”

Buffett said he’s glad Epstein never came to Omaha, where he has lived for more than six decades. Buffett is regarded by many as the world’s greatest investor who built up Berkshire over the years by buying insurance companies like Geico, major utilities, manufacturers and well-known brands like Dairy Queen and the BNSF railroad.

Buffett stepped down as Berkshire CEO in January after 60 years of leading the company, but he remains as chairman and the largest shareholder. Greg Abel is now CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.

It marks the second straight quarter of strong results from the banks, which have benefited from market volatility since the Iran war began in late February.

Both consumer-facing and market-focused banks reported revenue and profit growth that beat even the most optimistic Wall Street expectations.

The KBW Nasdaq Bank Index, which tracks the performance of two dozen banks rose 0.7% in afternoon trading.

Here's a look at how and why banks have continued to thrive despite a clouded economic future.

JPMorgan hits records

JPMorgan Chase logged $16.9 billion in second-quarter profit as its equities trading division again took advantage of market volatility triggered by the war in Iran.

The nation's largest bank by asset size, JPMorgan said that revenue in every line of its business hit record levels in the quarter, including its markets division, where revenue grew 35% over the same period last year. Revenue in its equity markets division skyrocketed 86%.

JPMorgan earned $6.14 per share in the period, beating analyst estimates of $5.59 per share. Managed revenue came in at $58 billion, also topping the estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet.

JPMorgan shares rose 1.8% by midday.

The consumer keeps spending

Bank executives highlighted a surprisingly strong U.S. consumer even as inflation remains elevated, in part due to the higher oil prices brought about by the war in Iran.

Bank of America said that consumer spending expanded, outperforming expectations. Consumer investment assets grew 18% year-over-year and average deposits and spending all increased from the first quarter, the bank said.

JPMorgan reported revenue of $20.3 billion from its consumer banking division in the period, a year-over-year increase of 8%.

Wells Fargo also reported improved consumer activity, reflecting a broadly healthy U.S. economy.

“Consumer spending is higher, charge-offs and delinquencies are lower, and savings and investments are growing across consumer segments,” Wells CEO Charlie Scharf said.

The unresolved conflict in the Middle East, however, remains a potential economic hurdle for consumers and businesses alike.

Oil prices fell back near prewar levels earlier this month, but they’re back up more than 10% this week after the U.S. renewed attacks on Iran and President Donald Trump announced a new blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for about one-fifth of the world’s oil. At $3.86 per gallon, gas prices remain well above prewar levels but below their peak of around $4.50 in May.

Dimon said on a conference call that JPMorgan remains “appropriately cautious” in light of the current global economic risks.

“We cannot predict how these forces will ultimately play out,” Dimon said. “They may remain manageable, but they could also cause meaningful disruptions when they shift or collide.”

IPOs and mergers expected to stay hot through 2026

Dimon said that revenue from the New York bank's investment banking division rose 30%, accelerating to the highest level since 2021 as the thirst for initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions remained strong.

All the major banks played a role in SpaceX's record-setting IPO in June, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley acting as lead underwriters. The offering brought in $75 billion, more than all U.S. IPOs combined in 2024 and 2025, according to Renaissance Capital.

Renaissance expects the IPO market to extend its hot streak into the second half of this year, also driven by larger deals such as Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix’s “mega-listing” on Friday that raised $26.5 billion.

Global mergers and acquisition activity also accelerated in the second quarter of 2026, with announcements up 64% year-over-year and closings up 33%, according to Morgan Stanley.

Goldman Sachs said revenue from advising on mergers and acquisitions in the second quarter rose 17%.

Iran war the main source of market volatility

Markets have been swinging up and down since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, with military strikes from both sides interspersed with pauses in fighting and vague temporary truces.

Investors’ concerns that the war will last a long time has triggered high volumes of selling in financial markets, while hopes for a resolution and a freer flow of crude oil has inspired optimism and buying.

Though volatile markets can cause anxiety for individual investors, high-speed Wall Street trading desks can take advantage of the wild gyrations. Big swings in markets tend to increase activity on trading desks, leading to higher commissions and fee revenue for the banks.

Goldman Sachs said it brought in $15.52 billion in revenue from its banking and markets division in the period, 53% higher than last year's second quarter and a 22% increase over 2026's first quarter.

Citigroup's market revenue also topped its first quarter figure and was up 45% over the same period last year.

Overall strong second-quarter results

Wells Fargo reported a 22% jump in net income for the quarter to $6,4 billion. Revenue of $22.6 billion topped Wall Street estimates.

Scharf said the San Francisco bank benefited from a strong economy and its newly unleashed ability to invest after years of government oversight. Shares of Wells Fargo fell 2.6% at midday.

Goldman Sachs earned $6.6 billion in the quarter, or $20.98 per share, on $20.3 billion in revenue. Its shares rose more than 7%.

Bank of America’s profit rose to $9.1 billion, up 27% from a year ago. Bank of America’s shares climbed 1.7%.

Citigroup also beat Wall Street's projections for revenue and profit but its shares fell 4.5%.

Consumer prices dropped 0.4% from May to June, the largest monthly drop in four years, the Labor Department said Tuesday, after rising 0.5% in the previous month. On a yearly basis, inflation declined to 3.5%, down from a year-over-year gain of 4.2% in May and lower than many economists expected.

Excluding the food and energy categories, core prices were unchanged from May to June, a positive sign that underlying inflation is declining. On a yearly basis, core prices rose just 2.6%, down from 2.9% the previous month. Core inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%.

The core figures suggest that the gas price spike from the Iran war, while it pushed up airfares and some other costs, hasn't so far led to broad-based, sustained inflation, economists said.

“This reading is very much in the camp that the inflation we've had this year is transitory,” said Michael Metcalfe, head of macro strategy at State Street Markets. “Yes, gas prices went up, but nothing else did, more or less.”

Yet oil prices rose for a second day Tuesday as the United States renewed attacks on Iran and President Donald Trump announced a new blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for about one-fifth of the world’s oil. The increase threatens to undo at least some of the progress that occurred last month.

And many Americans have soured on the economy after five years of elevated inflation, posing a risk to Trump and Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

For his part, Trump on Tuesday blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for the rate of inflation having spiked to athree-year high just last month.

“It’s not my fault," he said. “We are putting it to sleep. ... Inflation is way down.”

“Remember that for the midterms," he added.

Yet inflation has risen since Trump's inauguration last year, to 3.5% from 3% in January 2025. It jumped even further after the Iran war began Feb. 28, when it was just 2.4%

Benign report could make Fed rate hike less likely

Tuesday's report likely reduces pressure on the Fed to boost its short-term interest rate to combat inflation. Last month, Fed officials left their key rate unchanged at about 3.6%.

“Today's report gave some breathing room for the Federal Reserve in deciding whether and when to raise interest rates,” Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide Financial, said.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, in written testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, said Tuesday that the Fed has “no tolerance” for high inflation which he pledged would become “a thing of the past.” Yet he provided no hints about what steps the Fed may take in coming months. Warsh will face questions later Tuesday from members of Congress.

More goods and services saw slower price gains than expected

A wider range of prices cooled last month than economists had forecast. Electricity prices, which have been elevated by spiking demand from data centers, fell 1% from May to June, though they are still 4% higher than a year ago. Clothing prices dropped 0.6% from May to June but are 3.9% more expensive than a year earlier.

Groceries rose 0.2% from May to June and are up 2.7% from last year, while apartment rental costs cooled, rising just 0.1% last month and 2.8% from a year ago.

The inflation-fighters at the Fed remain sharply divided over next steps, according to minutes of their June 16-17 meeting. About half of policymakers support raising interest rates by the end of the year to cool borrowing, spending, and price increases, the minutes showed. Another half are willing to wait for signs that inflation may resume falling as gas prices decline, though the minutes predate the recent flare-up of violence in the Middle East.

And the situation in the Middle East continues to change hour to hour. On Tuesday, the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, climbed 4.6% to $87.13 after the United States and Iran each said the Strait of Hormuz is under its control. Gas prices have also risen about 6 cents a gallon in the past week, to a nationwide average of $3.86 a gallon.

“Today’s number is a very good reading, but so much is going to depend on what happens in the Middle East," Bostjancic said.

Next steps

Many Fed officials have flagged massive investments in the build out of artificial intelligence infrastructure as a factor that could worsen inflation by pushing up prices for memory chips and other semiconductors, as well as electricity. With chips so much more expensive, companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Dell have announced price increases for laptops, tablets, and video game consoles.

Other Fed officials have offered conflicting views on what steps the Fed could take next. On Monday, Fed governor Christopher Waller said he was worried about core inflation, which he noted had risen from 3% last December to 3.4% in May, according to the Fed's preferred measure. He pointed out that the cost of more than two-thirds of services have risen by 3% or more compared with a year ago.

“If we get another hot reading on core inflation this week, then the (Fed) will need to consider tightening monetary policy in the near term,” Waller said in a speech in New York.

But last week John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said that if core inflation stays at a 0.2% monthly pace for the rest of this year, the Fed could avoid hiking rates. Tuesday's data is along the lines of what Williams wants to see.

Other signs of where prices are headed are mixed. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said last week that a survey found that nearly half the companies in its region that have paid tariffs still plan to lift their prices further.

Separately, Walmart last week said it was rolling back prices on thousands of items, including ground beef, potato chips, toys, and clothes. Trump praised the move on social media and sought to take credit for the reduction, though the company did not mention Trump in its announcement.

In a complaint to the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel filed Monday, Wyden requested an investigation into whether the June calls violated the Hatch Act, a 1939 law that restricts certain political activities by federal employees. The Oregon Democrat said Kennedy acted inappropriately by interfering with elections that Trump's Republican administration wants GOP candidates to win.

“Kennedy has spent sixteen months using his official position to undermine the health and well-being of his fellow Americans, and now he is using his official position to undermine the integrity of democratic elections too,” reads a statement from Wyden, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, which plays a role in overseeing the nation's health agencies.

The accusation comes as Trump has dispatched Kennedy to swing districts around the country as a key surrogate for the administration, promoting its widely popular efforts to encourage healthy eating and exercise. It takes issue with another task Kennedy reportedly did on behalf of the administration: calling Libertarian candidates to push them to drop out of two races where they could be spoilers for GOP candidates. At stake is control of Congress in a competitive midterm election year, where any win could be decisive in shaping the next two years of federal policy.

Spokespeople for Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Claims center on 2 competitive US House races

The calls Wyden references in the complaint include a June 8 call with Marco Battaglia, a Libertarian candidate running in Iowa's 3rd congressional district, and a June 11 call with Rick Stewart, a Libertarian candidate running in Iowa's 2nd congressional district.

They are among the three of Iowa's four congressional districts that are expected to be some of the most competitive in the country, and Libertarian candidates in recent election cycles have drawn support from 2 to 3% of voters. Republicans in Iowa filed challenges to Battaglia and Stewart's nominating paperwork, and Battaglia was removed from the general election ballot, while Stewart remains. Both cases are being appealed in district court.

“They don’t want our people in there. They feel we are spoilers,” Stephanie Berlin, chair of the Libertarian Party of Iowa, said Tuesday. “This is just another example of the major two parties trying to strangle us out of ballot access.”

Libertarian Party leader recorded a call with Kennedy

Berlin sat alongside Stewart when he spoke with Kennedy and was the one to record the call, which she said she interpreted as Kennedy offering quid pro quo even as he “skirted the line.”

Kennedy did not make any specific request of or offer to Stewart in the recording, according to a copy shared with The Associated Press. Kennedy said he could be Stewart's “liaison with the White House" and suggested Stewart could, like Kennedy himself, “make an agreement that puts me in a position where I can make a real difference in people's lives.”

“I can't go into specifics because, you know, there's legal prohibitions about that," he said. "If it's something that you want to work on together ... if there's other ways that you think you might be effective, you know, like I said, I will be your advocate."

The Washington Post previously reported on Kennedy's recorded conversation with Stewart.

Stewart told the AP it was clear that Kennedy wanted him to drop out, though he said he suspects Kennedy “did his best to stay on the correct side of the law.”

“That's how all politics works,” Stewart said. “Everybody does their best to avoid breaking the rules, but they also do their best to go around the rules.”

Wyden was more explicit, saying Kennedy’s offer of federal employment to Stewart amounted to illegal quid pro quo and that Kennedy needed to be held accountable.

Battaglia also told the AP last month that Kennedy called him to encourage him to drop out of the race but he did not have a recording.

Watchdog group calls Kennedy's comments a ‘clear violation’

Donald Sherman, president of the nonpartisan government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said there are several instances in the recording of Kennedy invoking his official position and responsibilities as health secretary. Sherman said that makes it a “clear violation” of the Hatch Act that's worthy of investigation by the Office of Special Counsel.

“I don’t want to be fighting subpoenas for the next two years instead of improving America’s health,” Kennedy said in the call to Stewart. “So for me, there’s an immediate, pragmatic reason for this phone call.”

There are ways Kennedy could make a political call that do not violate the Hatch Act but he would have had to call from a personal phone from a personal office and would have had to avoid referring to the government or his government office, Sherman said.

“Invoking the White House specifically, referring to his official duties and his official role as HHS secretary, is where he blurs the line between whether he's calling as a government employee or as a private citizen," Sherman said. "That's where the problem comes in.”

In the past, many other senior government officials have faced Hatch Act complaints. During the first Trump administration, the Office of the Special Counsel sent senior officials 15 warning letters about running afoul of the decades-old law. And Karine Jean-Pierre, former press secretary for President Joe Biden, was also found to have violated the law with references to “MAGA Republicans” during White House briefings. Penalties for Hatch Act violations are uncommon, and the Office of the Special Counsel did not recommend any fines or other punishments for Jean-Pierre.

Trump has taken steps in his second term to assert more control over independent agencies like the Office of the Special Counsel — a posture that could influence whether it acts on Wyden's complaint. Early in his second term, Trump fired the head of the office. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the president can fire members of independent agency boards without cause.

Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the watchdog group Public Citizen who has himself filed Hatch Act complaints against Trump administration officials, said he doesn’t expect the office to act on what he considers a violation in Kennedy's case.

“RFK using his official position, citing his official position, in his phone call and his connection to the White House and his ability to get the White House to provide favors – all of that would constitute a direct violation of the Hatch Act,” Holman said.

The Office of the Special Counsel could recommend that RFK be removed from his role, Holman added, “but I am not expecting that.”

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Swenson reported from New York.

Blanche will need the support of all GOP lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee in order to advance his nomination to lead the Justice Department, which he has done in an acting capacity since April.

Blanche is expected to face scrutiny over issues including the department's investigations into President Donald Trump's foes, a contentious deal to settle Trump's IRS lawsuit and its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files when he appears before the committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

Here's a look at key topics likely to dominate the hearing:

‘I love you, sir:' Blanche & Trump's close relationship from the courtroom to DOJ

Blanche came into the public spotlight as the lead attorney defending Trump in his hush money trial in New York. The close relationship they forged then — and the unwavering loyalty Blanche has shown to Trump since joining the Justice Department last year — is likely to command the spotlight at the hearing.

Trump has made clear his desire to use the Justice Department to pursue his political opponents. And Blanche has accelerated investigations into perceived foes of the president since Pam Bondi was fired after failing to deliver criminal cases against Trump's political enemies.

Democrats say Blanche is acting as if he were still Trump's personal attorney.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Trump praised Blanche's record at the Justice Department, calling him “tough, brilliant, and 100% LOYAL to our Constitution, and the American People.”

"He is a great lawyer, always very fair, and every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche, ASAP!" Trump wrote.

Blanche has strongly rejected accusations that the administration has weaponized the department for political purposes, saying in an ABC interview in February that "there’s not a whiff of political partisanship in what we’re doing.”

The Justice Department has historically prided itself on independence from the White House when it comes to prosecutorial decisions. But Blanche has insisted he sees no problem with the president’s interest in Justice Department matters and says he has felt no pressure to placate Trump.

“We have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now," Blanche said at a press conference in May. “And it is true that some of them involve men, women and entities that the president in the past has had issues with and believes should be investigated. That is his right, and indeed it is his duty to do that.”

When asked at the time about his potential nomination for attorney general, Blanche said that if Trump chose someone else for the job he would say: “Thank you very much. I love you, sir.”

Blanche has tried to walk a fine line when discussing Jan. 6

Blanche's past comments surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could face renewed scrutiny.

Blanche has said he was not consulted on Trump's sweeping clemency grant for some 1,500 people charged in the riot, including people convicted of attacking police. Pressed on the matter during his confirmation hearing for deputy attorney general last year, Blanche said that people who commit violence against law enforcement “should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Asked whether he would advise the president in the future against pardoning violent offenders, Blanche told lawmakers last year that “violence against law enforcement is never something that should be tolerated.”

But in front of a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in May, Blanche touted the Jan. 6 pardons as an accomplishment for the administration, saying to cheers in the audience that “by 5 p.m. on Jan. 20, every one of them was either pardoned or had their sentence commuted."

“So when folks say we’ve done nothing, I say ‘you have a very short memory,’" Blanche told the crowd.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, whose vote is likely to be crucial for Blanche's nomination, has said he will not support anyone for attorney general who equivocates on the events of Jan 6. Tillis, however, recently said he doesn't have any concerns about Blanche's record regarding Jan. 6.

With the death of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, there are 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats on the panel. If even one Republican on the committee votes against Blanche, it could scuttle his nomination.

‘We are not moving forward with the fund, period.’ Will that assurance be enough?

Arguably the rockiest stretch of Blanche’s tenure atop the Justice Department has been a $1.776 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the president who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system.

Blanche was the public face of the initiative, which emerged from a settlement of Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The fund faced instant bipartisan congressional backlash, exemplified by a tense closed-door meeting at which shouting Republicans confronted Blanche over the planned payouts.

Weeks later, he revealed on behalf of the administration that the idea had been scrapped, saying at a hearing, “We are not moving forward with the fund, period.”

Nonetheless, expect Democrats to press Blanche on whether he has truly foreclosed the possibility of reviving the fund, especially since Trump remains vocal about his desire for compensation for his supporters and since the Justice Department has balked at a judge’s insistence that it assert in writing that it won’t bring back the compensation.

Tillis has been sharply critical of not only the fund but a separate aspect of the IRS that guarantees Trump and members of his family immunity from audits. Blanche has repeatedly said that the IRS protection remains intact, something that Tillis and others are expected to demand answers about. A federal judge on Monday stopped short of voiding the audit immunity deal but called into question its legal legitimacy.

Questions over the Epstein files have never gone away

Blanche was deputy attorney general when the Justice Department in the summer of 2025 found itself besieged by crisis over its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. A year later, questions remain, despite the department's release last January of what it said were more than 3 million pages of records from its sex-trafficking investigation of the late financier.

Blanche will unquestionably be grilled about the case, especially after Bondi told lawmakers behind closed-doors after her ouster as attorney general that Blanche was the department’s point person on the release of the Epstein documents.

Trouble began in February 2025 when Bondi presented far-right influencers at the White House with white binders that she said contained the Epstein files but in reality actually consisted of largely public materials.

Things worsened last July when the department said in an unsigned statement that it would not release any additional records from the investigation, only to be forced into a reversal by an onslaught of criticism across the political spectrum and legislation from Congress that mandated the records’ disclosure.

But the staggered release was beset by problems, including redaction errors that left exposed nude photos showing the faces of potential victims. Some names, email addresses and other identifying information was either unredacted or not fully obscured.

Blanche has faced additional scrutiny over his unusual trip to a Florida prison to interview Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, as she serves a 20-year sentence for luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. After the interview, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.

It was a list of things to do on the weekend after missing the cut.

“He was like: ‘Hey, you can practice at the facilities. You can still go to the gym. You can also go to the next tournament.’ It was basically all my options,” Scheffler said Tuesday ahead of the British Open. “He never sent it to me, but he told me about it.”

The reason the text was created — without being sent, to Scheffler's disappointment — was missing the cut at the Scottish Open, his first missed cut in nearly four years, a streak of 78 consecutive cuts that was the longest since Tiger Woods set the record (142) from 1998 to 2005.

Frustrating, yes. Despair? Hardly.

“You never want to have a weekend off, but going into a tournament when you're defending, there's always a bit more stuff to do,” Scheffler said. “So it wasn't the worst thing in the world.”

Among his duties was officially returning the claret jug he won last year at Royal Portrush, a ritual the Royal & Ancient has turned into a ceremony. Then, it was playing an exhibition with Jordan Spieth, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and others.

But key to Scheffler's early arrival was Royal Birkdale, which has hosted the British Open more than any other links course in England since it first joined the rotation in 1954.

He had never seen it. Scheffler had not seen conditions like this — a combination of yellow and brown, which translates to firm and fiery in a links vocabulary. St. Andrews came close in 2022, but Jon Rahm recalls the greens still being soft enough to allow for low scoring.

Scheffler ticked off two items on his friend's list — he went to the gym in Scotland and then headed to the next tournament. That allowed him time to play 18 holes on Sunday, and to limit his energy in sunbaked Blighty to nine holes on Monday and Tuesday.

His general assessment: “The ball is just going to run forever.”

Is it driver to take it over the bunkers and possibly reach the green on the 393-yard, downwind 16th hole, or hit iron off the tee? Is the redesigned fifth hole at 321 yards worth trying to reach with a pond to the right, a series of bunkers short and a wee part of a wee burn to the left?

“On each hole there's a good bit of strategy. There's a decent amount of thinking,” Scheffler said. “If it wasn't as firm as it is now, there would be as much decision-making. But I think with the firmness, it creates a whole lot more challenges.”

Rose is among four players — and at 45, the youngest — to have played Royal Birkdale three times in the Open dating to 1998. He was a 17-year-old amateur that year, full of joy and optimism when he holed out a wedge for birdie on the 18th to tie for fourth. He didn't finish in the top 50 his two times as a professional.

Rose certainly has more experience than Scheffler, but only to a point.

“A links course is interesting because you never really get to know them that well,” Rose said. "Like 2008 I think it was, weather was dreadful. It was wet. You might have been hitting 2-irons and 3-woods into par 4s, and now you could be flicking 52-degree wedges.

“A golf course can play so differently decade to decade when we come back that you never really get to know the course that well.”

Scheffler said he felt at peace about his game, and he certainly looked the part. His game didn't look deplorable in the Scottish Open, just a matter of not hitting it terribly close and not making many putts and then moving on.

It was no less frustrating — Scheffler is a killer when it comes to competing, which is one reason he has been No. 1 longer than anyone since Woods — but it was filled with perspective.

“I don’t think it hurts as much as coming close to winning and finishing second,” Scheffler said. “I felt like coming in second at Travelers hurt more than missing the cut, but missing the cut is significantly more frustrating is how I would describe it.”

He's had plenty of experience finishing second. Scheffler's lone victory this year was his first tournament in January at The American Express. Since then, he has had four runner-up finishes, including the Masters. The most recent was a playoff loss to Viktor Hovland at the Travelers Championship two weeks ago when Scheffler missed a 4-foot slider.

“I think just towards the end of the season, you get a little tired,” Scheffler said. "I got a couple days off, reset the mind, reset the body, and just kind of get back to feeling even and at peace. I've had a very solid year, but like I said, frustrating at times because I’ve been close and I haven’t been able to get it done like I have been in years past.

“I'm excited to try and defend my title this week.”

That hasn't been done at the British Open since 2008 when Padraig Harrington won at Royal Birkdale. One week could change Scheffler's outlook on the year. But it's a week that presents a test the likes of which he hasn't seen all year.

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

Federal authorities initially used that language Monday when talking to state officials about the actions of a Maine driver who was fatally shot by immigration officers. In public statements, Department of Homeland Security officials shifted their description to say officers fired into the vehicle “fearing for public safety.”

It was the second time in a week that federal immigration authorities shot and killed someone behind the wheel of a car, initially accusing the driver of attempting to ram into immigration officers.

But while the weaponization of a car is often used to justify the use of deadly force against a driver, the legal definition is a lot less clear cut.

State legislatures and some courts say cars can be considered weapons

In numerous state and federal courts, judges have agreed that vehicles can be considered weapons when they are used to inflict harm. But many of those cases have been considerations of whether enhanced charges such as aggravated assault with a deadly weapon can be levied against a person after an injury or death was already caused by a vehicle.

Many state laws that address assault with a vehicle are designed to enhance manslaughter or other charges against people violating traffic laws or driving requirements. Judicial opinions have largely focused on crimes of negligence, road rage or driving while intoxicated, and in rare instances, cases where someone purposefully drove their car into a crowd of people.

They rarely deal with the question faced by police or federal law enforcement officials of when a moving vehicle should be considered a dangerous weapon, and when that allows for the use of deadly force.

Training often says to move rather than shoot

Many law enforcement departments and agencies weigh the potential for unintended harm heavily when instructing officers or agents on when it's acceptable to fire a weapon at a moving vehicle.

Many department policies tell officers to move out of the way of a vehicle rather than shoot because of the potential harm to bystanders who could be struck by unintended gunfire or by a careening vehicle if the driver is incapacitated.

Policies often say a suspect fleeing is not enough justification for using deadly force. Some require another weapon such as a firearm being used as a threat from the person in the vehicle to establish a clear threat to public or officer safety.

Experts say many factors determine when a car is weaponized

Exceptions exist in many use-of-force policies for what became a familiar scene abroad and at times in the U.S. — a person driving a vehicle into crowded public streets to inflict as much damage as possible.

But, experts say those exceptions have been used as a defense in situations where a person was not posing the same level of threat.

They say officers and juries should consider factors such as the speed of the vehicle, whether there are large gatherings of people on the sidewalks or nearby, and the reason for the initial police interaction. For example, a person fleeing an armed robbery at a bank might pose a higher danger than someone fleeing a traffic stop.

Robinson made an impact almost from the start with the Atlanta Falcons and then took his game to another level last season when he led the NFL in yards from scrimmage and was picked as the All-Pro running back.

That production helped Robinson win the honor of being named the top running back in the league by The Associated Press.

A panel of eight AP pro football writers ranked the top five players at running back, basing selections on current status entering the 2026 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second- through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points.

Robinson got three first-place votes, one second and was the only player named on all eight ballots to win the voting with 41 points. San Francisco's Christian McCaffrey got two first-place votes and finished second with 33 points, with Baltimore's Derrick Henry also getting two first-place votes and coming in third with 30 points.

The other first-place vote went to Saquon Barkley, who finished fourth, with Detroit's Jahmyr Gibbs coming in fifth.

Indianapolis’ Jonathan Taylor and Buffalo's James Cook also received votes.

1. Bijan Robinson, Atlanta Falcons

Robinson, the eighth pick in 2023, is one of the top dual-threat backs in the league, finishing fourth in the league in rushing last season with 1,478 yards to go along with 820 yards receiving.

He became the second player ever with at least 1,400 yards rushing and 800 yards receiving in the same season, joining Steven Jackson, who did it in 2006.

Robinson led the NFL with 2,298 yards from scrimmage and scored 11 TDs on the season.

2. Christian McCaffrey, San Francisco 49ers

McCaffrey has established himself as the most dangerous receiving threat out of the backfield and is a focal point of Kyle Shanahan's passing game in San Francisco.

McCaffrey wasn't the explosive runner last season as he had been earlier in his career, rushing for 1,202 yards and averaging just 3.9 yards per carry. He more than made up for that with 102 catches for 924 yards as he nearly became the first player ever with two seasons with at least 1,000 yards rushing and receiving.

McCaffrey generated an NFL-best 119 first downs, matching the most for any player in the past 15 seasons.

3. Derrick Henry, Baltimore Ravens

People have been waiting for Henry to shows signs of decline as he reached his 30s but it hasn't been evident yet.

Henry has topped 1,500 yards rushing in each of the past two seasons after turning 30, with his five 1,500-yard seasons tied with Barry Sanders for the most ever.

Henry ranked second in the NFL last season with 1,595 yards rushing and is 10th all-time with 13,018 yards. He set a record last season with his seventh 200-yard game and has a record-tying four seasons with at least 15 TD runs.

4. Saquon Barkley, Philadelphia Eagles

Barkley took a step back from his record-setting 2024 season when his 2,504 yards rushing in the regular season and playoffs were the most ever as Philadelphia's offense was less potent last season. He still managed to rush for 1,140 yards and scored nine total TDs to earn some support in this voting.

5. Jahmyr Gibbs, Detroit Lions

Gibbs has been a scoring machine since entering the league with Robinson in 2023, when he was picked four spots later at No. 12 overall. Gibbs' 49 career touchdowns are the most ever for a player before turning 24 years old, topping the previous mark of 47 set by Lions legend Barry Sanders.

Gibbs rushed for 1,223 yards and added 616 more receiving last season when he scored 18 overall TDs.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year old Houston man and Mexican national, was killed by an ICE agent last week when agents stopped his vehicle as part of a targeted operation pursuing a different man. Less than a week later, federal agents killed a 26-year-old Colombian man in Maine in his vehicle.

The policy is expected to be temporary while ICE agents receive more training on conducting vehicle stops, according to media reports, and will not apply to cases involving serious criminal targets.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters Tuesday that she had urged Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to take this step in the wake of Monday’s ICE shooting in Maine.

“While the investigation of the Biddeford shooting is not yet complete, it raises sufficient critical questions that I spoke with DHS Secretary Mullin last night and urged him to cease all non-urgent vehicle stops,” Collins wrote on X.

The White House referred a request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond when asked if vehicle stops were being halted.

The policy change will represent a significant shift in how ICE conducts enforcement operations. The agency — under pressure to ramp up arrests and deportations since the beginning of the Trump administration — regularly conducts vehicle stops, which can be performed without a judicial warrant.

But ICE’s decision did not satisfy all Democrats, who have called for more permanent changes, including abolishing the agency.

“A temporary training won’t solve a deeply ingrained problem,” said Rep. Christian Menefee, D-Houston. “ICE has been radicalized. Its agents have shot and killed unarmed people across the country. The agency needs to be torn down to the studs.”

The construction worker, later identified as 63-year-old Baltazar Rubio-Olvera, was removing dirt from the school’s crawl space with a mini-excavator.

>>Construction worker dies at Converse Elementary School, Judson ISD says

According to a news release, Rubio-Olvera became trapped between the equipment and a concrete beam, which led to his death. As a result of the incident, OSHA opened an investigation into Rubio-Olvera’s death.

The organization said it cited D.L. Bandy Constructors Inc., Rubio-Olvera’s employer, with one violation for “removing the rollover protective structures from mini-excavators” and “adding fabricated parts” to make the equipment fit inside the crawl space.

The agency also issued 15 “serious” violations related to confined space hazards, which include:

• The apparent failure to identify and evaluate permit-required confined spaces
• Conduct required atmospheric testing
• The lack of adequate ventilation and communication
• The failure of adequately training its employees
• Designate confined space personnel
• Implement required entry and rescue procedures

The staffing company, Pacesetter Personnel Services, was also issued two violations for allegedly failing to ensure permit-required confined space entry procedures were followed as well as failing to provide confined space training to temporary workers, the department said.

OSHA proposed $276,399 in penalties against D.L. Bandy Constructors, Inc. and $23,170 for Pacesetter Personnel Services.

According to the release, the companies have 15 business days from the receipt of the citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

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• Records: Case against ex-SAPD officer James Brennand dismissed following new Erik Cantu accusation
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South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a news conference at the Statehouse on Monday that she will serve the remaining months on Graham's current term, which expires in January. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said afterward that she will be sworn in Tuesday afternoon.

She will be the first woman to represent the state in the Senate.

“It is such an honor,” Darline Graham said as dozens of her brother's staffers and campaign advisers stood behind her, some with eyes glassy from welling tears. “Lindsey has always been there for me. And now, I will be there for him.”

Graham died on Saturday at age 71. He never married or had a family of his own, but his sister was often by his side for the political touch points of his career, speaking at events and appearing in some of his campaign ads.

After their parents died at a young age, Graham was left to raise his sister, for whom he later became legal guardian. They were very close, and she was there as he filed reelection paperwork earlier this year, along with her children and grandchildren.

“To Lindsey, I miss you more than I can even put into words," she said, emotion rising in her voice. "But I'm going to do this. I got it.”

Introducing her, McMaster said the two had spoken “in the wee hours of Sunday morning” after Graham's death, and he asked her to serve.

“I had wondered what you would say, and I was humbled by your quickness to see the duty that you had to serve,” McMaster said. He added that President Donald Trump “thought it was a great idea” when he later told him of his pick. Trump announced his support for Nardone to fill the seat earlier Monday.

Darline Graham has worked as an optician and at various state agencies, including the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and the Department of Employment and Workforce. She lives in Lexington, is a graduate of the College of Charleston and has a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling.

How will a special primary work?

A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Lindsey Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.

The rare open Senate seat has ignited a scramble among South Carolina’s most ambitious conservatives, who have been eager to climb the political ladder.

Republicans just finished a sprawling and bruising contest to figure out their nominee for succeeding McMaster, who is wrapping up his second term. State Attorney General Alan Wilson won the nomination, overcoming a field that included Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, Rep. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman — all of whom are now eyeing Graham’s seat following his death over the weekend.

According to South Carolina law, a one-week filing period for a special primary election begins on the second Tuesday after the candidate’s death, or July 21.

The special primary election would be held on the second Tuesday after that filing period closes, or Aug. 11. Any necessary runoff would follow two weeks after that, or Aug. 25.

From that point, the new nominee would have just over two months to campaign for the general election on Nov. 3.

All of this is problematic according to federal law, which requires military and overseas ballots to go out 45 days before any federal election. For the special election primary, that would have been June 27. Federal Election Commission officials didn’t immediately return a message seeking clarity about the process.

Who could replace Graham?

Graham died on Saturday night, and a preliminary medical examiner report said he suffered a tear in his aorta, known as an aortic dissection.

In the hours after Graham's death was announced, South Carolina’s Republican circles were already swirling with rumors about possible replacements.

Evette, who has served nearly eight years alongside McMaster and received his endorsement in the governor's race, is one possibility. She lost the June 23 runoff to Wilson.

Mace and Norman could run in the special primary as well. Neither of them are running for reelection to their House seats.

But another Republican from the state, Rep. Russell Fry, could be a possibility. The two-term lawmaker represents the growing area around Myrtle Beach, and he's been a top Trump ally.

Businessman Mark Lynch, whom Graham defeated in the primary, may jump into the race. So could Mark Sanford, the state's former governor who served two separate stints in the House.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who lived in South Carolina before joining the Trump administration, has fielded calls about potentially replacing Graham but doesn’t have interest in the role and enjoys working for the president, according to a person who insisted on anonymity to describe private conversations.

How does Graham's death affect the general election?

No Democrat has won a Senate seat in South Carolina in decades, and Republicans in recent history typically take statewide seats by double digits. When Graham last ran in 2020, he defeated his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison, by a 10 percentage point margin.

So while history suggests that Graham was en route to a fifth term, Republicans are carefully surveying the landscape.

Charleston pediatrician Annie Andrews won the Democratic nomination last month and has raised more than $8 million in the race, and she had just under $3 million cash on hand at the end of May, according to federal filings. Graham had taken in $6 million, with just over $4 million on hand.

In a statement Sunday, Andrews called on South Carolinians to join her “in setting partisanship aside and offering gratitude" to Graham for his service.

Harrison, noting that he and Graham “had our share of political disagreements,” wrote on social media that he “always appreciated that even in our fiercest political battles, we could still share a conversation, a laugh, and a mutual respect for South Carolina and the institutions we were both privileged to serve.”

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Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.

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Kinnard reported from Charleston, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

Council member Susan Street was elected last year. The council members represent about 8,000 residents.

During the July 9 meeting, council discussed an agenda item about the Texas Water Development Board.

Street asked City Manager Brian Rowland why an application did not have an amount listed for how much financial assistance the city was requesting to extend water lines.

“Resolutions come through all the time with empty spaces on them,” Street said. “I’ve just never called it out before. I’m doing it now.”

Rowland explained if the resolution did not pass, the city would not be able to apply for the grant.

“I’m just asking if you can fill these in next time; would that be possible?” Street responded. “Would it be possible to give us the appropriate information prior to the meeting?”

Mayor Janeshia Grider asked Street if she was finished.

“Not if you’re about to come after me, no,” Street said.

Grider told Street that she was on her second warning.

“You just seem to be rushing me because you sounded like you were about to tell me I was being inappropriate or something,” Street replied. “I’m pointing out the actions that are not getting taken to fill in the information for council members who do not have access to [Rowland’s] office on a daily basis.”

Street said her questions to Rowland often go unanswered.

Off camera, a man suggested council could bring forward a motion to expel Street from the meeting.

Grider gave Street a third warning, but did not make it clear what the warning was for.

In a 3-4 vote, council voted to expel Street from the meeting, but did not give a reason why.

According to footage from the meeting, Grider asks a Kirby police officer to escort Street out of the meeting. Video posted by the city shows a Kirby police officer walking up to the platform next to Street, but the footage stops before she leaves.

KSAT Investigates emailed Grider and council members Sylvia Apodaca, Joe Molina, and Dawn McCormick on Friday to ask why they voted to expel Street, and we reached out to Street for comment. This story will be updated once a response has been received.

This is not the first time Street has been targeted by her fellow council members.

In March, city council was set to talk about and possibly take action on removing Street from Kirby’s city council.

Records obtained by KSAT Investigates show Rowland made a formal complaint against Street, accusing her of creating a hostile work environment, which she denies.

“They’re coming after me because I ask a lot of questions that they don’t want to answer,” Street said at the time. “I ask them in council, I email the city manager and ask questions, and I don’t get the answers.”

However, questions remain about whether the council has the authority to remove an elected official.

While the city manager declined to comment, UTSA political science professor Jon Taylor told KSAT Investigates that removing a council member in a city with Kirby’s form of government is not a simple process.

Under the Kirby City Charter, a removal would require a recall election — triggered by a petition signed by registered voters. If enough valid signatures are collected, the issue would then go before voters for a final decision.

Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

Ali al-Zaidi emerged as a consensus candidate in Iraq after months of deadlock over the premiership following last year’s parliamentary elections. Trump endorsed al-Zaidi for the job after he threatened to cut off U.S. support for Iraq if another candidate became the country's next prime minister.

“Mark my words, I knew what I was doing,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he sat alongside al-Zaidi for his first visit outside Iraq as prime minister. “This man is going to be a great leader in the Middle East, beyond Iraq. His influence is going to spread all throughout the Middle East.”

Speaking through an interpreter, al-Zaidi said that he was conveying his greetings from the “oldest civilization in the world” and that the focus of his U.S. visit would be to announce an “economic partnership” between the two countries.

The issue of Iran loomed large in the discussions Tuesday. Iraq has been under pressure to disarm a network of Iran-backed militias operating in the country, some of which launched attacks on U.S. bases and diplomatic facilities after the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran in February. Officially, the Iraqi government has given non-state armed groups until the end of September to disarm, but some of the most powerful militias have said they have no intention of doing so.

Al-Zaidi stressed on Tuesday that there will be no justification for their existence after Sept. 30. A Trump administration official said ahead of the Oval Office meeting that the U.S. will make “informed” decisions based on Iraq’s efforts to disarm Iranian-backed militias inside its borders. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss the administration’s strategy ahead of al-Zaidi’s visit.

Al-Zaidi has been called ‘Trump of the Middle East’

Iraq’s dominant parliamentary bloc called the Coordination Framework, a coalition of Shiite parties allied with Iran, initially said it would back former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whom the Trump administration viewed as too close to Tehran. Trump, a Republican, got personally involved, threatening to block support if al-Maliki returned to power.

Since al-Zaidi's formal installation as prime minister-designate in April, the Trump administration has kept up its outreach to ensure the U.S. can wield significant sway in Iraq, particularly in extricating the Iranian influence that is deeply entrenched inside the country.

The parallel backgrounds of Trump and al-Zaidi have also bolstered their rapport. Victoria Taylor, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council, noted that al-Zaidi has been likened to “Trump of the Middle East” considering his business background and lack of political experience.

“When you value business success, I think then it’s very appealing to look at an Iraqi prime minister who is likely a billionaire and can be really pointed to as a political outsider,” she said.

But Taylor added that “the reality is much more complicated,” noting that al-Zaidi was chosen by the current political infrastructure in Iraq and will be “beholden in some way to that system.”

“I’m not always sure that there’s a full appreciation of the challenge that this prime minister will face in actually trying to really dismantle core parts of the political system,” she said, noting the obstacles that al-Zaidi will face as he tries to disarm the Iran-backed militias or challenge political corruption.

Underscoring the complicated competing interests that al-Zaidi is confronting in Iraq, the new prime minister sidestepped a question about Trump's remarks on the 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

“At that time, I wasn’t involved in politics," al-Zaidi said. "Let’s talk about the future.”

Renad Mansour, director of the Iraq Initiative at the Chatham House think tank, said he expects that “the U.S. will put significant pressure on al-Zaidi” to move ahead with disarmament during his Washington visit “and Zaidi will respond by saying, ‘But I need support — intelligence support, technical support, armed support.’”

“There is a scenario in which, if the Iraqi government starts going after these groups, they will also go after the government,” Mansour said. “And this is a scenario that I think that the Iraqi government is apprehensive about.”

Oil pipeline deal is set to be signed, Iraqi officials say

The two governments are also poised to finalize a significant energy deal.

Two Iraqi officials said an agreement is slated to be signed Friday between Iraq, U.S. companies Chevron and TI Capital, and Qatar’s UCC for construction of an oil pipeline that will connect southern Iraq’s Basra to western Iraq's Haditha and from there to the Ceyhan port in Turkey and the port of Baniyas on Syria’s coast. The pipeline is projected to carry about 2 million barrels of oil per day. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Neither Trump nor al-Zaidi elaborated on the pending deal publicly during their Oval Office meeting, but the U.S. president said Iraq has “tremendous potential" because of its oil.

Al-Zaidi cracks down on corruption

Al-Zaidi received Trump’s blessing, despite the fact that he was chairman of a bank, Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, that was among the financial institutions banned by Iraq’s central bank in 2024 from dealing in dollars amid pressure from the U.S. to crack down on money laundering and funneling of funds to Iran.

Since taking office, al-Zaidi has made a public show of cracking down on corruption. His government has conducted raids and arrested dozens of current and former lawmakers and government officials accused of corruption, including some affiliated with former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

The Iraqi premier’s delegation to Washington includes a number of Iraqi businessmen and government officials, and al-Zaidi’s office said in a statement that the aim of the visit is to “strengthen economic and development partnerships, attract investment, and expand the role of U.S. companies in implementing infrastructure projects” and to further develop the oil-rich country’s energy sector.

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An earlier version of this story was corrected to show Trump said “if we are not there to help,” not “if we are there to help.”

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Follow the AP's coverage of Iraq at https://apnews.com/hub/iraq.

Canada has suspended several animal exports from Texas due to concerns about the New World screwworm, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is immediately suspending the export of horses, pigs, cattle, bison, sheep, goats, deer, elk, moose, llamas and more. Imports from other states are permitted, provided the animals have not resided in or passed through Texas during the 21 days immediately prior to their arrival in Canada.

The USDA stated in a news release on Tuesday that its accredited veterinarians must include information on whether the animal resided in or was transported through a state affected by New World Screwworm, and that exporters/shippers have been advised that this is required; otherwise, the shipment will be refused entry into Canada.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced in a news release that it will continue to work closely with its United States counterparts to assess developments and adjust measures as needed.

“While our colder climate is not hospitable for the long-term establishment of the fly in Canada, they can survive shorter periods of time in the summer months,” the CFIA stated in the news release. “Taking this action now is an appropriate risk mitigation measure to prevent its introduction and protect animal health.”

The decision comes after an infestation of flesh-eating flies was confirmed in South Texas in June, setting off alarm bells for the state’s cattle industry.

Since then, the New World screwworm has continued to infiltrate livestock and other animals in Texas, with 34 confirmed cases as of July 10.

The Texas Animal Health Commission identified a potential cause last month: small wildlife and rodents, such as armadillos, opossums, and rabbits.

Until then, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins has pointed to multiple causes, including border policies under President Joe Biden and the illicit movement of cattle at the hands of drug cartels.

However, the source of the first case of New World Screwworm remains under investigation, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Other health experts say it’s still undetermined what allowed the invasive pest to finally breach the Texas-Mexico border.

The USDA closed all southern ports of entry to livestock imports from Mexico in May 2025 and has kept them closed since then, preventing cattle from legally crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.

Experts project that 500 million sterile flies are needed weekly to eradicate the pest, and at the moment, the U.S. government is producing about 100 million every seven days out of a facility in Panama.

That capacity is set to expand, but not enough to reach the 500 million threshold. And other technologies officials hope to pair with fly sterilization are not yet ready for deployment or are the subject of disagreement, leaving the Trump administration and Texas officials without a speedy path to eradicate the threat.

Bruce Meyer, who took over when Tony Clark was forced out in February, said the sport was thriving despite assertions by Major League Baseball that massive change is needed.

“I have watched over the last few years the owners, the commissioner’s office, try to convince fans, the consumers of their product, that the product is broken,” Meyer said ahead of the All-Star Game. "The supposed stewards of the game have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to convince those same fans that they don’t have hope or they shouldn’t have hope or that the product that they’re paying to consume in record numbers is somehow broken. I think it’s perverse.”

Attendance has averaged 29,230 this season, up 1.2% from 28,895 through similar dates last year. MLB is on pace for its highest attendance since 2017.

Management in May proposed a salary cap system, which players say they will never accept. MLB launched a “Level the Field” campaign claiming fans support a cap that contains a floor.

“In order for this game to reach its full potential we need to continue to address concerns that our fans have, particularly concerns that go to the core of what we’re about, that is competitive balance,” Manfred said in a separate question-and-answer session.

“We need to make sure that fans in markets at the beginning of the season have a realistic belief that their team has a chance to win," he added. "I think that we need a system where fans, particularly in smaller markets, can have some hope that the players that are signed and developed by their organizations can actually stay there through free agency and honestly I think we need a system where there is a more robust free agent market, so if you don’t want to go to New York or Los Angeles, you have a realistic opportunity to get a viable free agent contract.”

Fans have responded positively to MLB's changes in the 2020s, which include expanded playoffs in 2022, a pitch clock in 2023 and an appeals system to robot umpires for strike zone decisions this year.

“We got that momentum by listening to our fans and making changes that, candidly, the MLBPA was not interested in,” Manfred said. “Those changes have paid off in terms of creating that momentum, and the best way to lose momentum is to stand still.”

No small-market team has won the World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals. The Los Angeles Dodgers, coming off their second straight title, had a $323.3 million opening-day payroll for their 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. Cleveland had the lowest payroll at $75.5 million.

“It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that gap has the same opportunity to win as the top,” Manfred said. “There is no question, OK, that everybody in any sport is not going to win once every 30 or 32 years depending on how many teams you have, but the data in our sport is stark. Your opportunity to make the playoffs if you are a larger-market team is dramatically higher and your opportunity to proceed to the subsequent rounds, that advantage grows with each round.”

Meyer said unions for players in the NFL, NBA and NHL agreed to caps under duress.

“In one way or the other they were broken or forced into it,” he said. “I believe that this system is bad for players and would be for generations to come."

Baseball’s five-year labor contract expires Dec. 1 and management is expected to immediately start a lockout, the sport’s 10th work stoppage since 1972. No games have been lost since a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 caused the World Series to be canceled for the first in 90 years.

“Teams in every market across the league can afford to compete," Meyer said. “Many of them are choosing not to. From our standpoint, that’s the biggest problem in the game right now."

Meyer said owners want a cap to guarantee profits and increase franchise values, a system he called “subsidized mediocrity.”

“They don’t want it because they’re just so concerned about the fans,” he said. “If they were so concerned about the fans, they would listen to the fans all across baseball who are literally chanting 'Sell the team.' They want their owners to sell the team because they feel they're not competing."

Manfred did not want to comment on whether he thought President Donald Trump, who said he supports a cap, would attempt to intervene in bargaining.

“It would be wildly, wildly inappropriate for me to speculate about what the president of the United States might do or not do in a hypothetical situation,” he said.

Manfred defended MLB's advertising campaign supporting a cap.

“Sometimes the other side may not be completely accurate or fair in terms of their recitation and what’s going on,” he said.

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

The Peach Bowl and the Kickoff Game say the deal is worth “multimillion” dollars and marks the first time a neutral-site college football game has incorporated NIL compensation for student-athletes.

The NIL agreement also will involve third-party entities. According to the announcement, as many as two dozen Auburn student-athletes will promote the game through social media posts, public appearances, advertisements, in-game promotions and branding opportunities.

“In the new NIL era of college football, this will be an innovative way to create wins for the teams, programs and student-athletes,” said Peach Bowl Inc. CEO David Epps in a statement.

“This new model is a true win-win scenario where Auburn and its student-athletes get a financial boost in the NIL space. At the same time, it’s a potential game changer for neutral-site games like ours who want to bring added value to participating teams and make it a more attractive and lucrative opportunity.”

Auburn opened its 2025 season with a 38-24 win at Baylor. This year's rematch originally was scheduled as an Auburn home game. The teams agreed to move the game to Mercedes-Benz Stadium, also the home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons and the Peach Bowl.

The Kickoff Game is the nation's longest-running neutral-site game and will be televised by ABC at 3:30 p.m. EDT.

Auburn will be making its fourth appearance in the Kickoff Game. It will be Baylor's first appearance.

Peach Bowl Inc. operates the Peach Bowl as well as the Kickoff Game.

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Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here. Visit the Top 25 here and see AP’s full college football coverage here.

Road closures in Bexar County

• Gass Road, south of Culebra Road
• Specht Road at Cibolo Creek
• Old Fredericksburg Road at the county line
• Scenic Loop near Blue Hill Drive
• Doheny at Culebra Creek

Medina County road closures

• County Road 111
• County Road 211
• County Road 232
• County Road 241
• County Road 251
• County Road 252
• County Road 271
• County Road 311
• County Road 331
• County Road 341
• County Road 342
• County Road 343
• County Road 351
• County Road 353
• County Road 365
• County Road 371
• County Road 381 at FM 471 North
• County Road 422 at Parker Creek
• County Road 429 at Seco Creek
• County Road 429 in D’Hanis
• County Road 433
• County Road 441
• County Road 442
• County Road 445
• County Road 446
• County Road 450
• County Road 451
• County Road 452
• County Road 455
• County Road 456
• County Road 512
• County Road 542
• County Road 2615
• County Road 4516
• County Road 4526
• County Road 4545
• County Road 5219
• All roads in D’Hanis, located south of U.S. Highway 90, have “standing water”
• Constantinople Street
• Old River Road

Bandera County road closures

• Old School Road and Privilege Creek Road
• 1100 block of Hackberry
• Maple Street (State Highway 173-State Highway 16)
• Bandera Blvd Mulberry-Buck Creek
• Privilege Creek and State Highway 16 near Deer Creek Road
• Peaceful Valley Road
• Chaparral Court
• Elm Pass
• Chipman Lane
• Pioneer RV Park
• Lower Mason Creek Road
• Winans Creek
• S Seco Creek
• Mazurek Road
• Williams Creek Road
• 1st Street
• Spring Road
• Reid Road
• Upper Mason Creek Road
• South Goat Ridge Road

Hondo PD releases list of road closures

• Ave. C 22nd Street (Slough Crossing)
• Elm Slough Crossing in the 400 block of 15th Street
• Elm Slough Crossing in the 400 block of 16th Street

The first map below shows the latest road conditions at low water crossings in Bexar County. Below that you will find a statewide map of current road closures from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

• Avoid these notorious roadways prone to flooding during heavy rain in San Antonio
• Find the latest on the storms here from KSAT’s meteorologist, including forecasts, warnings and watches and an interactive radar.

Bexar County low-water crossing status

Read more about the map below and find the full version at BEXARflood.org.

About the map above, via Bexarflood.org:

“Each dot on the map indicates a location of a Bexar County HALT sensor - HALT stands for High water Alert Lifesaving Technology. The sensors detect rising water and send real time information to this website: green means the road safe, yellow means the water is rising and red means the road is closed. By subscribing to alerts through this website, you can receive text or email alerts when low water crossings you choose to monitor have water over the road.

“Bexar County has installed more than 150 HALT systems in our community to warn drivers to turn around with either flashing lights or a combination of flashing lights and gates.

“The map was developed through a partnership between Bexar County, the City of San Antonio and the San Antonio River Authority. These partners monitor local weather and road conditions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

• Get weather alerts based on your location from the free KSAT 12 Weather app. Click to download on iPhone OR click to download on an Android phone.

Hill Country and statewide road closures

Read more about the map below and find the full version at DriveTexas.org.

More tips from KSAT:

Remember, ‘Turn Around, Don’t Drown’: Tips for staying safe while driving in the rain

Read more: CPS Energy offers power outage tips

Live Doppler Radar

According to an SAPD report, officers were dispatched on a wanted person call just before 9 p.m. Monday in the 12400 block of Interstate 10 west.

When police approached Cantu, officers said he disobeyed commands and began fleeing on foot. Authorities quickly caught up with Cantu and took him into custody.

Bexar County jail records indicate Cantu, 21, was booked just before 10:30 a.m. Tuesday on the following three charges:

• Evading arrest with a previous conviction
• Parole violation
• Burglary of habitation (reinstated from a December 2025 incident)

A judge set Cantu’s bond at $20,000 on the new evading arrest charge, records show. As of Tuesday afternoon, he remains in custody at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center.

Cantu’s connection to Brennand

On Monday, the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office separately dismissed Brennand’s aggravated assault by a public servant charge due to “further investigation,” citing a separate investigation into Cantu stemming from an incident earlier this month.

According to an SAPD report obtained by KSAT, a 20-year-old woman told officers she was in a car with Cantu on July 1 in the 1000 block of Locke Street when he allegedly “made concerning comments that placed her in fear.”

The woman said Cantu, who was driving the vehicle, then stopped the vehicle and “demanded” she get out of the car, the report said.

On June 8, Cantu was most recently sentenced to two years of deferred adjudication on a 2025 burglary of a habitation charge. At the time, the sentence meant he would not serve additional time behind bars.

Cantu’s Tuesday arrest reinstated the burglary of a habitation charge, which is considered a second-degree felony.

The nature of Cantu’s parole violation is unclear at this time. Additionally, Cantu has not been criminally charged in connection with the July 1 incident.

Background

In October 2022, Brennand fired multiple shots at a BMW driven by the then-17-year-old.

Brennand, who was fired from SAPD three days after the shooting, was captured on body camera footage opening the door of Cantu’s vehicle and shooting at him as Cantu attempted to drive away.

Brennand believed Cantu’s vehicle had evaded him the night before as he attempted to pull it over.

The shooting drew national attention. Cantu suffered serious injuries and spent months recovering.

More related coverage of this story on KSAT:

• ‘I knew I was innocent from the first day’: Ex-SAPD officer breaks silence after case dismissal
• Records: Case against ex-SAPD officer James Brennand dismissed following new Erik Cantu accusation

Fed policymakers “have no tolerance for persistently elevated inflation,” Warsh said in his first appearance before Congress since becoming chair May 22, replacing former chair Jerome Powell. “And we share a resolute commitment to restoring price stability.”

Still, Warsh heads a sharply divided rate-setting committee, with about half of the 19 policymakers penciling in higher interest rates by the end of the year in forecasts released last month. Another half have signaled that they support keeping rates unchanged or even cutting them. Warsh faces a stiff challenge in reconciling the divided committee while navigating a rapidly-changing economic outlook.

Warsh spoke to the House Financial Services Committee soon after the government reported that inflation fell 0.4% from May to June, driven down mostly by cheaper gas prices. Core inflation — which excludes the volatile energy and food categories — was unchanged last month, a broader slowdown in price increases than economists expected.

Compared with a year ago, inflation dropped to 3.5% from 4.2% in May. Core inflation rose just 2.6% in June from a year earlier, down from 2.9% in May, a positive sign that higher gas costs haven't yet lifted broader prices. Still, the core figure is above the Fed's 2% target.

The cooling inflation figures reduce pressure on the Fed to combat higher prices by hiking interest rates. Still, the renewed conflict in the Middle East has already driven up oil prices and could reverse some of the progress on inflation in coming months.

Warsh, asked about the price figures, said they represented just one month of data and suggested he does not see inflation as defeated.

“There might be some that look at this morning's data and say, ‘mission accomplished,'" he said. “That is not my view.”

Guidance on next steps

In keeping with his stated policy of providing less guidance about the Fed's policies, Warsh did not signal whether rate increases would be necessary to combat inflation. The next meeting of the Fed's rate-setting committee is July 28-29.

Under questioning from members of the House committee, he explained a bit more his thinking about pulling back on what Fed-watchers refer to as “forward guidance.”

“If we were to give you my projection today about what we’ll do when we meet in two weeks,” Warsh said, Fed officials are more likely to accept information “consistent with our priors and rejecting information that’s inconsistent.”

“When we have news for you about exactly the methods of solving this problem, we’ll be very clear about what they are,” he added later.

Warsh was pressed by Democrats on the committee to explain how he would react if President Donald Trump, who repeatedly attacked his predecessor, demanded that he cut rates or take other steps that weren't justified by the economic data.

“Are you ready for that?” Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York, asked.

“My commitment to you is to follow the law and follow the data, follow our very best judgment,” Warsh said.

Warsh also cited the Supreme Court's recent decision to allow Fed governor Lisa Cook to remain on the central bank's board, thwarting Trump's attempt to fire her for now, as a sign the high court sees the Fed as independent.

“To the extent there were questions about it, the court has answered those questions,” he said.

The renewal of the Iran war has caused oil prices to climb again after they had fallen back to nearly their prewar level. Gas prices had fallen about 20% from their peak but have also increased in the past week and are still about 35% higher than they were when the U.S. attacked Iran Feb. 28.

Some Fed officials have argued that underlying inflation, even excluding the impact of gas prices, remains elevated and may require higher interest rates to defeat.

Impact of technology investments

Another factor that could boost inflation for the rest of this year is the massive investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure by the so-called “hyperscalers,” such as Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta Platforms. The spiking demand for memory chips and processors has sent semiconductor prices soaring, leading to price hikes for laptops, tablets, and video game consoles.

Warsh said Tuesday that AI investment is “the most striking feature of the economy right now" and added that the Fed is “monitoring the implications” for inflation and jobs.

Other Fed officials have stepped in to provide guidance as Warsh has declined to do so. Fed Governor Christopher Waller on Monday said that another “hot” inflation report Tuesday would mean the Fed would have to consider raising rates “in the near term.”

But last week John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said that if core inflation stays at a 0.2% monthly pace for the rest of this year, the Fed could avoid hiking rates. Williams' approach implies the Fed would keep rates steady for some time while it monitors incoming data.

Alexander, who signed a two-way deal with Utah last week, made contact with the Bulls' Caleb Wilson while driving toward the basket and, after tossing the ball toward the hoop, went behind the basket clutching his side. He then dropped to the ground, seemingly in great pain.

The 23-year-old Alexander was taken from the Thomas & Mack Center court on a stretcher. The incident occurred with just over two minutes left in the fourth quarter.

The Jazz said Tuesday that Alexander had a left rib contusion.

Alexander played three seasons at Creighton and skipped his final year of eligibility to turn pro. The G League rookie of the year for the 2024-25 season played 24 games for the Denver Nuggets the same season and nine game for the New Orleans Pelicans last season.

___

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

A 28-year-old man arrested on suspicion of murder and terror crimes remains in custody on an extended detention warrant under the Terrorism Act that allows police to question him for up to another week.

“It is clear that this was a targeted attack,” Laurence Taylor, head of National Counter Terrorism Policing told reporters. “We are still working to understand the extent of any planning or preparation, and the motivation that sits behind that attack.”

The death of Widdecombe, 78, a former member of Parliament, shocked the British political establishment, where she was long known for blunt-spoken socially conservative views opposing abortion and the expansion of LGBTQ+ rights.

Counterterror police took over the investigation Monday after new evidence was discovered. Devon and Cornwall Police have been criticized for originally saying the killing was not believed to be a terror-related crime and there was nothing to suggest it was politically motivated.

Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner Alison Hernandez defended her agency Tuesday, saying new information often changes the nature of a fast-paced investigation.

Police believe Widdecombe was attacked on Wednesday just past noon. She failed to show up for a scheduled TV interview about an hour later and was found dead the next day in her isolated rural home in a village in southwest England.

Police did not disclose a cause of death, saying only that she had sustained “serious injuries.” Taylor called it a “brutal attack on a 78-year-old lady in her own home.”

The suspect was arrested Saturday in South Yorkshire county in northern England, more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from the village of Haytor on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, where Widdecombe died.

Police have conducted extensive searches at his home and Taylor said they found evidence of planning, but he declined to provide details.

The man was arrested Saturday on suspicion of murder, but additional evidence found while he was in custody led police to rearrest him on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

The suspect has not been named because he has not been charged.

Widdecombe was in the House of Commons from 1987 to 2010, serving in roles including prisons minister in Prime Minister John Major’s 1990s Conservative government.

She found fame after leaving Parliament as a contestant on the reality television shows “Strictly Come Dancing” and “Celebrity Big Brother.”

She later joined the Brexit Party, briefly serving as a member of the European Parliament before Britain left the European Union in 2020. Most recently, she joined the anti-immigration Reform UK party, often appearing in the media as a spokesperson.

The killing renewed concerns for politicians about security, which was tightened in the past decade after the murders of two serving members of Parliament. Labour lawmaker Jo Cox was shot and stabbed in 2016 by a far-right extremist, and Conservative David Amess was stabbed in 2021 by an attacker inspired by the Islamic State group.

They do this in a grassroots, community-led way: helping families preserve photos, documents and memories; recording oral histories; and building a digital archive and museum exhibits so these stories are accessible for education and the public.

Their work makes the region’s history more complete by adding an African American lens to the broader San Antonio story, from Spanish colonial days through the Texas Republic and beyond.

KSAT Community Phone Bank

To strengthen efforts to preserve, share and celebrate the stories of African descendants across San Antonio and the Southwest, KSAT Community will host a phone bank benefiting SAAACAM.

The live televised “Every Story Matters” fundraiser runs 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12. Representatives from SAAACAM will be available to help collect contributions and answer your questions.

Community contributions help sustain free educational programming, public exhibits and long-term preservation of oral histories. Donations also support development of a future cultural center envisioned as a hub for sharing personal stories, learning from one another, honoring those who came before and ensuring the community’s history is not lost.

With traditional funding for museums and cultural organizations shrinking, community giving is increasingly critical to protect irreplaceable local history and expand access to learning opportunities.

Donations can be made through SAAACAM’s Givebutter page. From $10 to $100, every gift supports preservation, education and the long-term goal of a permanent home for these stories.

SAAACAM is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit preserving and sharing the history and cultural heritage of African descendants in San Antonio and the Southwest. Through community-led archiving and digitized exhibits, it brings a holistic African American lens to regional history and serves as a steward of historic resources. SAAACAM is a member of leading museum and oral history associations.

KSAT Community operates in partnership with University Health and Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union. Click here to read about other KSAT Community efforts. Interested in partnering with KSAT Community? Get in touch by filling out this form.

“Seeing my grandma and all these people affected made me feel like I had to do something, even if it was from the U.S.," said the 18-year-old, who has spent the last couple weeks preparing food for volunteers at the Doral, Florida headquarters of the nonprofit Global Empowerment Mission.

Izaguirre is one of thousands of people who have participated in an exceptionally large grassroots humanitarian effort based at GEM, supported by donations from across the U.S. and beyond and still going strong nearly three weeks after the catastrophe.

Hundreds of volunteers still show up each day at GEM's warehouses in Doral, where about half the population is of Venezuelan descent. They sort donated supplies –– curated to address the latest needs –– and prepare them for transport to Caracas on daily flights.

GEM's system, facilitated by the U.S. State Department, has given members of the Venezuelan diaspora and others an outlet to support the ongoing crisis, and a trusted mechanism to send aid amid widespread concern about theft and corruption on the part of Venezuelan officials.

“Whatever we can get to the Venezuelan public is what counts,” said Izaguirre.

The effort also underscores the stunning dynamic shift between the U.S. and Venezuela since President Donald Trump ordered then-Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s capture in an early morning raid on Jan 3. With military personnel again on the ground, the U.S. has assumed a response role that would have been unimaginable before January, when Trump said the U.S. would “run” the country and seized control of its oil exports.

“This is a whole different animal,” said GEM founder and president Michael Capponi, who was denied entry to Venezuela while trying to deliver aid during the reign of Maduro, who long rejected humanitarian help, equating it to foreign intervention. “We land a private plane, it gets unloaded by U.S. soldiers, it goes in a truck we pay for and to a warehouse that we completely control. It doesn’t touch the hands of the Venezuelan government.”

GEM quickly activated a supply chain

The 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude earthquakes struck 39 seconds apart on June 24, killing at least 4,500 people with thousands more still missing. They destroyed 190 buildings and damaged over 850, Venezuelan officials said, leaving 17,000 displaced and ravaging critical infrastructure providing electricity, clean water and sanitation.

GEM's headquarters became a donation collection point almost immediately. Some donors were initially skeptical that aid could reach those who needed it without being stolen or misused by a notoriously corrupt government, Capponi said. After GEM made its first successful aid distribution, the movement grew bigger than he'd seen in decades of global response.

Companies like Goya, Walmart and Amazon contribute supplies while professional sports teams have donated funds. But much of the aid is still amassed from thousands of individuals' contributions.

“They’re going to Walmart with their credit card, buying 15 cans of food and bringing it in a shopping bag,” said Capponi. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but when it’s 2,000 people... it’s an enormous amount of aid.”

Lines to drop off aid at GEM have at times been so long police had to help manage traffic. Supplies arrive from across North America: Two brothers drove a U-Haul of goods from Canada. Another group arrived from Mexico. Trucks have rolled in from Nevada, Texas and California.

As many as 1,000 volunteers across three warehouses sort and pack. They fill pallets with essentials like diapers, and assemble individual care packages with enough sustenance and hygiene items to last two people about five days. They also tuck in notes of encouragement: “Te queremos Venezuela,” one reads. “We love you, Venezuela.”

GEM aims to deliver at least 100,000 care packages monthly for the next three-to-six months, while also addressing upcoming needs, like longer term housing.

Volunteers have taken vacations from work to put in hours at the warehouses, said Billy Richardson, director of U.S. logistics. Others arrive after work. “We almost have to kick them out at the end of the day,” Richardson said.

Mariela Vila showed up because she remembers how affected she was when Hurricane Maria pummeled her homeland of Puerto Rico in 2017. “The Latino community in general gathered together to help Puerto Rico, and that made me feel really well,” said Vila, 25, who has worked full-day shifts at GEM since the effort began. “So I felt the need to help Venezuela.”

U.S. assumes a complicated role

Nearly one million pounds (454,000 kilograms) of supplies have been deployed so far from GEM headquarters to its recently leased Caracas warehouses. GEM collaborates with local nonprofits and trusted community members to organize distributions in the hardest hit areas, often twice daily.

But it is the U.S. State Department that facilitates the shipments with the Venezuelan government, making it possible for GEM to operate in the country, even getting help from the U.S. military. On Saturday, U.S. Marines maneuvered an amphibious landing craft onto a Venezuelan beach and unloaded GEM packages that were then passed to 2,000 people lined up for aid.

Partnerships with GEM and other nonprofits allow the U.S. to tap into existing logistics and donation mechanisms, a State Department spokesperson told The Associated Press, adding that the effort with GEM leverages “the Venezuelan American diaspora and private partners who want to donate.”

Several other U.S.-based humanitarian groups told The Associated Press they also have been able to operate without interference from Venezuelan officials. Some depend on collaborations with established local nonprofits.

Despite the U.S. response, questions remain over its influence in Venezuela, especially while it controls billions of dollars in oil revenue.

“There are a lot of transparency questions that linger on the use of that fund in a moment in which Venezuelans really need that money to be used for the protection of Venezuelans,” said Laura Cristina Dib, Venezuela program director at the human rights organization Washington Office on Latin America.

John M. Barrett, U.S. charge d’affairs for Venezuela, told reporters last week that revenue from Venezuelan oil production, currently controlled by the U.S. Treasury, is being made available for relief efforts.

Asked for further details, a State Department spokesperson said the U.S. was "supporting the Venezuelan interim government’s budgetary operations, improving Venezuela’s liquidity and access to capital during the recovery," adding that the U.S. has contributed over $386 million to earthquake response independent of the oil revenue.

In the coastal city of Maiquetía last week, Yoniel Reyes sat inside a tent, examining the contents of a GEM package he’d just received during an aid distribution, packed and sealed 1,300 miles away in Doral. There were instant meals, bottles of water, canned food, hydration powder and hygiene kits.

“I never imagined I would be receiving aid from the U.S.,” said Reyes. “We Venezuelans are thankful, very thankful.”

——

Associated Press videojournalist Juan Pablo Arraez contributed to this report from Maiquetía, Venezuela.

——

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits 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. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

There are ongoing Flash Flood Warnings across Edwards, Kinney, Medina, and Uvalde counties from torrential rains. Some of these areas have seen over 6-8 inches of rain, and flooding is ongoing.

>> ⚠️FLOOD RISK CONTINUES⚠️: Ongoing flooding west of San Antonio and in Hill Country

In Bexar County, rain is adding up, causing some street flooding.

This is just our first day with rain. Rounds of rain will continue in some spots through Thursday, and a Flood Watch remains in effect.

More weather coverage on KSAT:

• LIVE COVERAGE: KSAT tracks storms in San Antonio, Hill Country, surrounding areas
• How campers, visitors can stay safe ahead of potential flash flooding along Frio River

Graham, who had turned 71 just two days before dying on Saturday, was far younger than many of his Senate colleagues and appeared to have been in good health. He suffered a tear in his aorta, according to a preliminary report from the medical examiner.

It was the second time in less than a month that emergency personnel were dispatched to the home of a U.S. senator. In early June, Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate leader, was hospitalized for undisclosed reasons.

After weeks of increasingly dire speculation about his health, he finally revealed on Sunday that he had fallen and suffered from mild pneumonia. He released a photo, complete with a copy of the day’s newspaper.

Graham’s death and McConnell’s hospitalization have come amid an ongoing reckoning about the nation’s aging leaders, two years after the disastrous presidential debate that sparked widespread panic among Democrats about then-81-year-old President Joe Biden’s capacities and accusations of a cover-up.

Some politicians have continued to obscure details about their health challenges, asking for privacy despite their public positions, and fueling conspiracy theories.

“I think we need some transparency,” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Monday. “I wish Sen. McConnell and his team would have done that earlier, I think it would have resolved a lot of questions.”

McConnell is admitted to a hospital

McConnell, who at 84 is only the third-oldest member of the Senate, was admitted to the hospital on June 14 with barely any explanation. Aides said he was “receiving excellent care" but offered no details about his condition.

The dearth of information fueled a wave of speculation about his prognosis, with Laura Loomer, a Trump ally and conspiracy theorist, claiming on social media that a "high level source close to the White House” had told her he was “officially brain dead.”

But McConnell, who will retire from Congress at the end of January after serving as the longest-ever Senate leader, said in a statement that he is on the mend. He said a fall had led to his hospitalization and that he was “briefly unconscious" and treated for mild pneumonia.

“You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older," he said. “Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct – I can’t help it.”

That wasn't enough to put speculation to rest. On social media, many refused to believe the veracity of a photo his office released that included the front page of the “Sports” section of The Washington Post.

Conspiracy theories about McConnell’s health are “a symptom of our times," said Sen. Rand Paul, who is also from McConnell's home state of Kentucky. Paul said people should “give him a break.”

“People think they have a right to know everyone’s medical problems," he said, "but I don’t know, where does it begin and where does it end?”

Trump's medical reports offer limited details

The oldest person ever elected president, at age 78, has long offered only the rosiest picture of his health.

“Everything checked out PERFECTLY," he boasted after his last physical in May, adding that he took yet another cognitive test aimed at detecting early dementia and has “aced them all.”

His past medical reports have been criticized for offering limited detail and including statistics that some health professionals have viewed with skepticism.

When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump declined to release his health records, breaking with longtime precedent. He instead offered a four-paragraph note from his doctor declaring that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Rep. Ronny Jackson, White House doctor during Trump's first term, later drew headlines when he extolled the president's “incredibly good genes."

When he was infected with COVID-19 in the midst of his 2020 reelection campaign, Trump's doctors and aides withheld key details of his treatment and tried to downplay the severity of his illness.

And after an attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally, Trump aides kept the public in the dark for days, declining to discuss the extent of his injuries or release medical records after assuring he was “fine.”

Kean Jr. goes absent for months

The obfuscation extends beyond the septuagenarian and octogenarian set. New Jersey Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr. spent four months missing without explanation before he finally disclosed late last month that he had been in treatment for depression.

He said in a brief floor speech after his return that he had remained silent about his condition because he is a “private person by nature."

He won an uncontested primary during his absence, despite missing more than 100 votes in the House, and is running for reelection.

The approach stood in contrast to Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who disclosed his hospitalization for clinical depression the day after he was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment. He also suffered a stroke while running for office.

Biden's stumbles doom his reelection effort

Biden's halting gait, frail appearance and frequent verbal stumbles eventually doomed his 2024 reelection campaign. After a debate in which he frequently lost his train of thought, he chose to withdraw from the race, sparking an unprecedented swap at the top of the Democratic ticket that ultimately paved the way for Trump's return to office.

Many others have refused to retire. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, died in office in 2023 at the age of 90, after years of declining health, including a bout of shingles. Though she returned to the Senate after her illness, she appeared frail and confused at times. It was later revealed that her office had failed to disclose in real time that she had contracted encephalitis while recovering.

Longtime Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas spent the final months of her more than two decades in Congress, when she was in her early 80s, suffering from what her office called “unforeseen health challenges” that made travel to Washington difficult.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, 88, the longtime House delegate for the District of Columbia, announced earlier this year that she would not run for reelection amid questions about her competency.

___ Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

“You never know how long it lasts,” said Pogačar, who is on course to equal the record for Tour wins. Only Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault have five Tour victories to their names.

“We just need to be grateful for this moment to be riding in the biggest race of the world,” the 27-year-old Pogačar said.

Pogačar, who had already sapped his rivals’ morale with victory on the iconic Col du Tourmalet on Thursday, again stamped his authority with a break just over 900 meters from the summit of the Col de Pertus, the penultimate climb on Tuesday’s hilly stage.

Pogačar’s main challenger Jonas Vingegaard couldn’t follow and Pogačar quickly made ground on Richard Carapaz before powering past him 200 meters before the summit. The Slovenian rider didn’t slow down. Pogačar was 5 seconds ahead of Carapaz at the summit, and 18 ahead of Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, Juan Ayuso and Paul Seixas.

He then increased that lead.

At the finish line, Pogačar was 32 seconds ahead of Evenepoel for his 24th stage victory altogether – his third on Bastille Day, France’s national holiday – and the third already at this Tour.

Seixas, French fans’ greatest hope, was third, 34 seconds behind.

Vingegaard could only finish 44 seconds behind Pogačar, leaving the yellow jersey holder with a lead of 3 minutes, 36 seconds after 10 stages.

Pogačar already had the biggest lead he has ever had at this stage of the race.

Teamed to perfection

Pogačar's UAE Emirates-XRG teammates controlled Tuesday's stage even when Mathieu van der Poel, the winner of the previous stage, was among a group of 31 riders that pulled away before the first climb of the day on Côte de Pailherols.

Javier Romo emerged to lead alone but he was never allowed to get too far ahead. Carapaz attacked after the Spanish rider was caught by the peloton and he in turn was powerless to prevent Pogačar surging past on the Col de Pertus.

“The team did a super good job. We targeted this stage a long time ago,” said Pogačar, who remembered being beaten by Vingegaard “fair and square” at Le Lioran two years earlier. That was the Dane's last stage win over his rival.

“Today I had similar legs in the finish, completely destroyed,” said Pogačar, who added he couldn't hear anything over his radio because of the noise from fans. “I didn’t know I was going to win until the last kilometer.”

Some fans booed, but Pogačar said he didn't mind.

“To all the guys that were booing, they give us more power,” he said.

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

It was the first time in almost two weeks that Ukraine said it had downed Russian ballistic missiles, which are harder to stop than drones or cruise missiles and have pummeled the country in Moscow's 4-year-old full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian air defenses likely used the U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system that is the most effective way of countering ballistic missiles, but ammunition for it has been in short supply amid the Iran war despite European efforts to make up for the shortfall.

Paris cheers Ukraine along the Champs-Elysees

Along the cobblestoned Champs-Elysees in Paris, crowds cheered Ukrainian troops marching in the annual Bastille Day parade, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received an ovation from European leaders who showed solidarity with Kyiv. Ukrainian aviators trained in France flew aboard two Mirage 2000B fighter jets alongside French air force pilots.

Zelenskyy was in France seeking a remedy to his country's air defense problem, and he announced Monday that Ukraine is joining with nine other nations to form a coalition that will build a shared ballistic missile shield for Europe. Ukraine and its partners could jointly develop a mass-produced, low-cost system in the next 12 months, he said.

The Bastille Day parade featured about 500 troops from the ″coalition of the willing″ group of countries that have pledged to help with Ukraine’s postwar security. French President Emmanuel Macron called it a ″great honor″ to welcome them to the parade.

Tuesday's attack in Kyiv caused fires at two warehouses and also damaged a school, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement it targeted military manufacturing facilities that produce long-range missiles and drones.

Moscow is seeking to choke off Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities deep inside Russia that have caused critical fuel shortages, frustrating the public and, Western analysts say, are hindering the Russian army’s advance on the front line.

Ukraine’s air force said one ballistic missile and 25 drones struck 17 locations, while falling debris was reported in 10 locations.

Ukraine seeks to bolster air defenses ahead of winter

Ukraine urgently needs to improve its air defense shield before winter. Much of the country is at the mercy of Russian missiles that have hammered its power grid since 2022, making winters almost unbearable.

President Donald Trump said at the NATO summit last week that the U.S. will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems itself. However, they are expensive, in high demand and take a long time to produce, so it will likely be years before any Ukrainian-made systems are ready to deploy.

Ukraine strikes more Russian oil facilities

Ukraine, meanwhile, kept up its long-range onslaught on Russian targets, especially oil facilities.

An attack in southern Russia's Krasnodar region caused a fire at the Afipsky Oil Refinery that was later put out, authorities there said.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine also hit an oil refinery in the city of Salavat in the Bashkortostan region, some 1,400 kilometers (900 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Bashkortostan Gov. Radiy Khabirov confirmed an attack on an industrial area in Salavat, but didn’t say what was hit.

In addition, the Ukrainian navy struck four Russian tankers operating as part of Moscow's so-called shadow fleet of aging tankers of uncertain ownership and safety practices that are dodging international oil sanctions and a patrol boat, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine claimed Monday it struck 105 Russian vessels in the Sea of Azov next to the Crimean Peninsula between July 6-13.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight intercepted 288 Ukrainian drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has rebuffed ceasefires offered by Zelenskyy.

“This war must be brought to an end, and all reasonable diplomatic proposals are on the table,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

—-

Eva Van Dam contributed from Paris.

___

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

Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipina companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan, in Negros Oriental province, on Sunday night when the masked men forced their way in.

One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police said his companion told them. The men took a laptop, an unspecified amount of cash and a backpack before fleeing, national police spokesperson Col. Allen Rae Co told reporters.

Regional police spokesperson Lt. Col. Joem Malong told The Associated Press that Carpenter's companion sustained unspecified injuries and was being treated. Investigators were trying to determine the motive for the killing and identify the attackers.

Carpenter was a marine biologist who had worked as a lecturer at the Silliman University, in Dumaguete city, Negros Oriental, Malong said.

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

“We assure the victim’s family, the community and our foreign visitors that this case is being treated with utmost urgency and no effort will be spared until justice is served,” regional police director Brig. Gen. Romano Cardiño said.

Carpenter had been a biological sciences professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, since 1996. His research — which focused on the Philippines and the Coral Triangle between the Indian and Pacific oceans — shaped conservation efforts around the world, university officials said. They said he was on an extended research assignment in the Philippines and planned to retire in September.

“He dedicated his career to expanding our understanding of the world’s bodies of water and protecting some of its most vulnerable ecosystems,” Old Dominion President Brian Hemphill said in a statement. He described Carpenter's killing as sad and devastating. “His scholarship and passion impacted and inspired many individuals locally, nationally, and internationally.”

On his university webpage, Carpenter wrote that his research in marine conservation biology centered on assessing the extinction risks to fish species and plants. In 2010, he told the AP that unchecked global warming could lead to the extinction of all coral reefs on the planet within 100 years.

“You could argue that a complete collapse of the marine ecosystem would be one of the consequences of losing corals,” he said. “You’re going to have a tremendous cascade effect for all life in the oceans.”

Carpenter's interest in the Philippines stemmed from his Peace Corps assignment there in the 1970s, according to a 2007 Old Dominion newsletter.

Several Philippine environment and biodiversity centers mourned Carpenter's death. Silliman University said Carpenter was an exceptional scientist, who had collaborated with the university on marine research work and studies since 1976.

“Dr. Carpenter made ground-breaking contributions that transformed global understanding of Philippine marine biodiversity,” the university said.

Fire managers try to anticipate nature's next move, placing thousands of firefighters, hundreds of engines, batteries of bulldozers, and fleets of helicopters and air tankers where they'll make the biggest difference.

This year, they're dealing with persistent drought made worse by record-low snowpack levels and consecutive days of hot, dry and windy weather. Hundreds of homes have burned, three firefighters were killed battling flames in Colorado, and a helicopter helping with another Colorado fire crashed into a reservoir, killing the pilot.

National preparedness has yet to reach its highest level, but resources are getting stretched as new fires pop up daily.

“The U.S. Wildland Fire Service is prioritizing pre-positioning of crews, engines and aircraft in areas with the highest likelihood of wildfire activity,” the agency said in an email to The Associated Press when asked about available resources. “This allows for quicker initial attack when new wildfires ignite, which is often the most effective way to keep fires small.”

US preparedness level ratchets up

The National Interagency Fire Center, a collection of federal and state agencies that support on-the-ground wildfire fighting efforts, sets the preparedness level at 1 to 5 based on fire activity, resource demands, weather and conditions on the ground that can be fuel for a fire. By late June, surging wildfire activity prompted coordinators to move the needle to level 4 and begin funneling more crews to the hottest spots.

The national fire center has confirmed more than 2,100 fires since the beginning of July. The explosion of fire activity across the West led to the assignment of more highly skilled and experienced incident management teams. Some have traveled from Alaska and California to help with fires in the Great Basin region.

As of Tuesday, 17 such teams were overseeing nearly 17,000 people spread across more than a dozen states.

It’s typical to see preparedness increase in July and August, but fire managers are hopeful they can juggle resources to avoid maxing out.

Over the past decade, fire managers have reached the top preparedness tier an average of 25 days annually, with the longest stretch happening in 2021, according to federal statistics. The earliest the designation ever occurred was June 21, 2002.

Firefighters hit the road to help

The U.S. has 10 geographic area coordination centers — or GACCs — that mobilize firefighters and other resources.

Mike Morgan, director of the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control, noted during a news conference in early July that his state was getting help from an Alaska team.

“Thank God that they have the ability to free those resources up,” he said. “So I think at the moment I would say I feel pretty good about where we’re at. But I’m very concerned about where we go.”

In southeastern Utah, more crews arrived to help with the Babylon Fire, the largest active blaze in the U.S. at 166 square miles (430 square kilometers) — an area larger than Seattle.

In all, more than 5,650 square miles (14,633 square kilometers) have burned in the U.S. so far this year — more than the size of Yellowstone and Grand Canyon national parks combined — outpacing the average for the past decade.

Sharing resources requires balance

The most recent outlook shows above normal wildfire potential in July from the Four Corners region — where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet — north to Oregon, Idaho and Washington. It's not expected to simmer down until September.

Christopher Dunn, an assistant professor of wildfire risk science at Oregon State University, said those outlooks help determine how and where to mobilize resources. Those resources shift as the fire season moves from region to region.

In a busy year, states must weigh whether to free up resources to help elsewhere or pressure federal officials to keep crews in reserve in case of increased risk. That's what Dunn describes as hoarding resources.

“So there is sort of this delicate balance that has to be walked there, where you share, they share, everybody shares,” he said, “and everybody benefits from that sharing while not overextending your resources so much that you find yourself in a losing position.”

But along with sharing comes added exposure for firefighters who are in the field longer. That means more overtime and greater opportunities for burnout.

“With all this sharing and all of this increase in fire everywhere, we’re just going to see increased pressure on them to work more and work harder and essentially burn out quicker,” Dunn said.

Each fire season reignites debate over public investment in a permanent wildland firefighting workforce and what agencies can do to retain their most experienced personnel.

“More experience is critical when dealing with extreme conditions,” said Camille Stevens-Rumann, a former wildland firefighter and an associate professor at Colorado State University.

Red flag warnings determine strategy

Even with more resources, there's little firefighters can do when facing multiple days of strong winds, low humidity and warm temperatures. Stevens-Rumann said that's where the advance strategic positioning of resources comes in.

“They can be available for when those conditions die down, like in the evening,” she said. “But when we have day after day of red flag warnings and high winds, it’s really hard to control a fire.”

Even though Stevens-Rumann has been on the front lines and studies wildfires, it's unsettling when flames are close to home.

“There’s no denying it. It’s easy to disassociate that when you’re on a fire crew and you’re arriving to a place that you don’t have a connection to, per se, to fight a fire. You know, you’re there to do a job,” she said. “But when you see it in your own backyard, it’s definitely a totally different experience.”

This year, firefighters are being directed to attack every blaze as quickly as possible to limit growth, reversing a decades-long trend in which managers let some fires burn to clear brush and dead vegetation to reduce future risks. Stevens-Rumann said there are concerns about what that means for firefighter safety and work done on the landscape to slow the flames.

“It doesn’t do us any good to build miles and miles of line that just get burnt over, over and over again,” she said, noting newer strategies are helping managers figure out where best to take a stand.

Volunteers watch for smoke

Having eyes on the ground — or rather above the tree canopy — can help spot fires early. Despite once numbering in the thousands, there are just 350 lookout towers left in the U.S., with many staffed by volunteers due to dwindling budgets, said Michael Guerin, chair of the Forest Fire Lookout Association.

They're not just in the West. New Jersey opened a new one this year, and they're also used in Pennsylvania, Maine and other eastern states.

The recent fires have forced the evacuation of some towers in Colorado. Meanwhile, Guerin and fellow volunteers in California are ready for things to pick up in their state when the Santa Ana winds arrive.

Satellites could help in the future. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced in early July that the first satellites had been launched into orbit as part of a space-based wildfire detection system.

For now, the lookout volunteers use a map, compass and familiarity with landmarks to pinpoint the location for initial attack crews. But their job isn't done, Guerin said.

“We then become the overwatch — the people that keep them safe while they’re doing the hard work on the ground.”

Reaction in the media world has been swift and severe to the issue of subpoenas to five New York Times journalists who reported on security questions involving the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One — a legal maneuver seen as a troubling escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to control and intimidate independent media outlets.

“The subpoenas are an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations and have a chilling effect on the work of journalists across the country,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Media advocates and analysts expressed dismay at the tactic, even after months in which news organizations drawing President Donald Trump’s ire have been attacked both in courtrooms and in the court of public opinion; media access to corridors of power has been blocked; and a Washington journalist’s home has been searched by federal agents.

“They have used the levers of power to intimidate and demonize professional journalists who report stories that are unfavorable to the administration’s desired narrative,” said Frank Sesno, a former CNN White House bureau chief who is now a media and public affairs professor at George Washington University.

He called Friday’s subpoenas “dangerous and uncharted territory, but merely an extension of what we have seen from this administration and president.”

“Don’t like a poll? Sue the Des Moines Register," he said. "Don’t like the way an interview is edited? Sue ‘60 Minutes.’ Don’t like the coverage of the gifted Air Force One? Order the FBI to investigate and subpoena the journalists for what is, by the way, a story that is in the public interest.”

Some of the subpoenas were delivered to reporters at home

Some of the subpoenas were delivered to reporters at their homes, the Times said. Sought by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, they seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan this week.

The new jet in question, a present from Qatar that Trump's administration spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade, entered service last week. But the Republican president used an older model Air Force One jet to leave a NATO summit in Turkey.

The Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. On social media, Trump denied security concerns.

The subpoenas were issued after FBI Director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to talk about the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Times said the meeting lasted around eight hours.

The fact that the operation was conducted from the White House itself was particularly egregious to analysts like Sesno, who called the coordination “unprecedented.”

“This graphically illustrates the pressure and influence the White House and president have brought to bear on law enforcement that is supposed to be independent and driven by facts, not politics,” he said.

The Justice Department has justified the subpoenas by saying that “to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

“We value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country,” the department said in a weekend statement. "But DOJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information.”

The National Press Club called on the Justice Department to immediately withdraw the subpoenas.

“Every American should understand what is at stake,” Mark Schoeff Jr., the club’s president, said in a statement. “When federal agents arrive at the homes of journalists with subpoenas, it is not ordinary law enforcement. It is an extraordinary assault on the freedom of the press that strikes at the heart of the First Amendment.”

Also expressing solidarity with the Times journalists was the White House Correspondents' Association — which, in less than two weeks, holds its rescheduled dinner, with Trump planning to attend the event that celebrates the First Amendment. The first dinner was scuttled when a shooter opened fire in what prosecutors say was an attempt to kill the president.

“The White House Correspondents’ Association stands with the New York Times reporters who were targeted for doing their jobs to uphold the public’s right to know how its government operates,” said a statement from the group’s president, Weijia Jiang. “The WHCA condemns any act of intimidation against journalists, including attempts to pressure them into revealing sources.”

Trump's administration has initiated multiple lawsuits against media outlets

Trump’s animosity toward news outlets whose agenda runs counter to his own isn't new. But in his second presidential term, he has launched an escalation, often harnessing the levers of the federal government or attempting to do so. These efforts have taken place both in actual courtrooms and in the court of public opinion.

The president has sued various news organizations whose coverage he dislikes. He has also threatened to revoke TV broadcast licenses. His Federal Communications Commission chairman is seeking to penalize shows like ABC’s “The View,” where some hosts speak out against Trump, by having the FCC explore revoking its exemption from equal-time rules.

The legal skirmishes include an escalating dispute between the media and Trump’s Defense Department over reporters’ access to the Pentagon. The Times has filed two lawsuits over a policy requiring journalists to be accompanied by escorts at the military complex.

The White House has also battled with The Associated Press over the news organization's refusal to follow Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico. And it has battled with The Wall Street Journal over reporting about Jeffrey Epstein and his ties to the president — including an article that described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper said bore Trump’s signature.

Last month, the Justice Department withdrew subpoenas it had issued that sought to compel reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Post confirmed that one of its journalists received a subpoena from the Trump administration as part of a broader crackdown on media leaks that in January also included the extraordinary step of an FBI search of the home of another journalist at the newspaper and the seizure of her electronic devices. The media world was stunned by the search of the home of reporter Hannah Natanson, who was covering Trump’s transformation of the federal government.

The Times is now gearing up for battle against what its lawyer David McCraw has called “this brazen act.”

In an internal memo seen by the AP, the newspaper's executive editor, Joseph Kahn, criticized the subpoenas, praised his journalists' work and said: “We expect to prevail. We have the best legal team in the business. ... The law protects news gatherers from this sort of retaliatory abuse of prosecutorial power. It is essential that the courts reaffirm that protection and quash this overreach. We are confident they will in this case.”

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Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

Tau is one part of a toxic duo fueling Alzheimer’s but prior attempts to develop drugs that can target the protein have failed. Two Alzheimer’s drugs, lecanemab and donanemab, try to clear buildup of the better-known amyloid protein and can modestly slow cognitive decline.

The new findings suggest Biogen's diranersen did more than lower tau levels. The study of about 400 people found signs that it also slowed cognitive decline, in one small subset enough to be comparable to amyloid therapy, according to results presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London. Biogen is planning a larger study to try to prove the drug’s benefit.

“This is really quite promising if it were to hold up” in that next-step testing, said Jessica Langbaum of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, who wasn’t involved with Biogen’s study.

“This is early days,” cautioned Dr. Reisa Sperling of Mass General Brigham, who also wasn’t involved in the study. But “I think it will reinvigorate interest and investment in lots of tau mechanisms, and the field needs that.”

It’s one of multiple novel attempts to fight the mind-destroying disease, including a possible tau vaccine, an experimental heart drug that might do double-duty for some people at high risk of Alzheimer's, and ways to help medicines more easily get across the so-called blood-brain barrier.

New approaches are needed to fight the leading cause of dementia

It’s not clear exactly what causes Alzheimer’s, which affects more than 7 million Americans and tens of millions worldwide. That sticky amyloid protein starts building up to form plaques in the brain about two decades before symptoms appear. But amyloid alone isn’t enough to cause Alzheimer's. Many scientists believe that amyloid buildup eventually triggers an abnormal form of tau to form tangles in neurons, setting off symptoms.

Diranersen is what’s called an antisense oligonucleotide that doesn't attack tau buildup but instead instructs a tau-producing gene to produce less.

“If you lower tau production, you are lowering the amount of the abnormal tau that needs to be cleared by the microglia, by the clearance mechanism in the brain. And so you are enabling the normal clearance mechanism to have more capacity to clear the tau,” said Dr. Cath Mummery of University College London, who led the new study.

Today’s anti-amyloid drugs are given through the bloodstream via infusions or injections. Diranersen is injected into the fluid surrounding the spinal cord, a straighter path to the brain.

Biogen's tau drug missed a key study goal — but was still encouraging

Biogen’s study included people with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s, randomly assigning them to different doses of diranersen or a placebo. Back in May, Biogen and partner Ionis Pharmaceuticals announced that the lowest dose — given every six months — had the strongest effect. That was a counterintuitive surprise and meant the study didn't meet its planned goal of showing that higher doses brought greater benefits.

Still, scientists had been anxiously awaiting details about how much that twice-a-year spinal shot really helped. Five of six different brain tests showed diranersen recipients’ memory and other cognitive abilities still worsened but more slowly than those given dummy shots, Mummery said. In one test of the lowest dose, that translated to a 26% reduction in cognitive decline — “approximately the same” change seen in earlier tests of amyloid drugs, she said.

Side effects included injection site pain and a temporary state of confusion that could appear a few days after the shot and last about a week, she said. But there were no signs of brain inflammation, which can affect recipients of anti-amyloid drugs.

Alzheimer's researchers also target tau in a broad new study

The University of California, San Francisco, last week opened a first-of-its-kind study known as the Alzheimer’s Tau Platform. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, it will test a variety of experimental anti-tau therapies against and in combination with today’s amyloid treatments. First up is a vaccine called AADvac1 designed to train the immune system to recognize and fight a specific worrisome portion of the tau protein, said UCSF's Dr. Adam Boxer.

The “platform” approach will expand to locations around the country, allow addition of other tau drugs to test and include people with Alzheimer’s-related protein buildup who aren’t yet showing symptoms, he said.

Other studies hint at new ways of attacking Alzheimer's

Researchers told the Alzheimer’s meeting that an experimental cholesterol-lowering drug called obicetrapib might do more than help heart health. They're exploring if it also might lower buildup of Alzheimer's-related proteins in people who carry a genetic risk for the disease.

Why? That gene, called APOE4, also affects how the body processes cholesterol. Obicetrapib maker NewAmsterdam Pharma plans to begin a study soon to test if the drug's cholesterol effects also can mitigate the Alzheimer's risk in people carrying one or two copies of that gene.

Companies also are trying to get Alzheimer’s drugs into the brain faster and at higher volumes, by penetrating the protective lining meant to protect the brain from harm. Denali Therapeutics' CEO Ryan Watts describes it as “hitching a ride” with iron that naturally gets into the brain. His company is pursuing drugs that target tau and amyloid using that “transport vehicle” technology.

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

Records obtained by KSAT Investigates confirm Apple’s Crash Detection system repeatedly provided a San Antonio emergency call taker with Pesina’s precise latitude and longitude coordinates and an estimated search radius of two meters.

However, San Antonio police officers did not respond to those exact coordinates.

Instead, officers were sent to a nearby address along Southwest Loop 410, searched the area for less than 15 minutes and then cleared the call, dispatch audio confirms.

Thirty-seven hours later, Pesina’s loved ones used the same coordinates provided by Apple’s emergency alert to locate her vehicle and her body.

“I believe if they would have done their job they would have found her, but they didn’t,” Pesina’s mother, Mercy Villarreal, said.

A crash, an automated 911 call and exact coordinates

Pesina was driving to work shortly before 6 a.m. on Nov. 17, 2025, when investigators said she crashed through a guardrail along Southwest Loop 410 before Palo Alto Road and into Leon Creek.

Moments later, her iPhone automatically contacted 911.

Audio obtained by KSAT Investigates captured the automated emergency message.

“The owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash and is not responding to the phone,” the message states before providing Pesina’s latitude and longitude.

The coordinates were repeated multiple times during the call.

However, the 911 recording confirms the call taker repeatedly talked over portions of the automated message.

A dispatcher eventually relayed to officers a nearby street address: 12401 block Southwest Loop 410 eastbound lanes where officers responded.

Officers searched, then moved on

Dispatch records and police radio traffic show officers searched the area after being dispatched.

Apartment surveillance footage obtained by KSAT Investigates shows officers driving back and forth in front of the complex along the highway — blocks from the crash scene — just after 6 a.m.

At one point, an officer requested assistance from SAPD’s helicopter unit to search the wooded area off the roadway.

“We didn’t find anything on the roadway. Is there any way that EAGLE is available just to check the wooded area off the highway?” an officer asked.

The request was denied because the helicopter was not flying at the time, dispatch records confirm.

Minutes later, officers ended their search after being informed that traffic cameras in the area did not show signs of a crash.

Had officers responded to the exact latitude and longitude provided by Apple’s alert, those coordinates would have placed them directly in Leon Creek where Pesina’s vehicle and body were ultimately discovered.

Expert: Crash detection can be a ‘lifesaving tool’

Cody Breunig is a former police officer-turned-digital forensics expert who has extensive knowledge of Apple Crash Detection technology.

He reviewed details of the case, including the 911 audio, for KSAT Investigates.

“It’s baked into the hardware. It’s based on thousands of hours of crash data that Apple has collected and trained their device on,“ Breunig said. ”Quite frankly, it’s a lifesaving tool."

Breunig said emergency operators are generally trained to listen carefully to automated emergency alerts because they often contain critical location information.

“Most operators know to listen,” Breunig said. “That’s one of the biggest things we can do.”

Breunig said the case should prompt a review of what happened.

“I think it’s an opportunity for any individual who is in charge to look at and analyze what went wrong,” Breunig said. “It’s a sad situation all the way around. And the reality is, Apple tries to account for confusion that might happen when it’s system calls (911).”

Family members followed the coordinates themselves

As hours turned into more than a day, Pesina’s family continued searching for answers.

Pesina’s loved ones repeatedly contacted law enforcement seeking information about the crash, after two of her relatives received the same Apple crash alert and coordinates.

Using the coordinates from the alert, family members drove to that area of Southwest Loop 410.

At approximately 6:53 p.m. on Nov. 18 — 37 hours after the crash — Pesina’s boyfriend’s father called 911.

“We found the vehicle in a ditch,” the hysterical caller told a dispatcher. “We came looking for her.”

“She’s deceased. She’s deceased,” the caller said as cries can be heard in the background.

SAPD fought release of records

KSAT Investigates obtained the 911 recordings, crash report and incident detail report earlier this year after SAPD attempted to withhold them from public release.

City officials argued the records were related to a closed criminal case that did not result in a conviction or deferred adjudication, contained information protected by the Texas Transportation Code and contained information on a motor vehicle operator’s license.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office in March ordered SAPD to release the requested records after the AG’s office determined the information was related to a person who was deceased.

SAPD released the audio recordings and written records in mid-May — nearly two-and-a-half months after the AG’s ruling.

The department declined requests to make a member of its administration available for an interview.

SAPD officials did not answer questions from KSAT Investigates about whether any dispatchers, call takers or officers were disciplined in connection with the Pesina search or whether any procedural changes have been implemented since her November crash.

“I just feel like they failed her. And she was there by herself from Monday to Tuesday. And it really hurts,” said Villarreal. “They could’ve done more. They could have sent more policemen. They could have sent a helicopter. They could’ve sent dogs.”

Autopsy findings

Pesina died from blunt force injuries suffered in the crash, an autopsy released by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office shows.

The autopsy report does not indicate how long Pesina survived after the crash.

The report notes there was no evidence she drowned, since her head was above the water level when she was removed from the vehicle Nov. 18.

For Villarreal, the unanswered questions remain difficult to live with.

“Even though she was gone, at least I could have held her hand,” Villarreal said. “At least I could have kissed her. And I couldn’t even do that. And it just hurts. It just hurts.”

Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

Arredondo’s defense team is seeking testimony from federal agents who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting, arguing that their accounts are critical to preparing for his state criminal trial.

The hearing stems from a federal lawsuit filed by Arredondo after U.S. Customs and Border Protection declined to make certain agents available for testimony.

Arredondo faces 10 counts of abandoning or endangering a child in connection with the law enforcement response to the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were killed.

His state criminal trial is scheduled for next year. KSAT will have a crew in Del Rio, but cameras are not allowed in federal court.

Read also:

• Trial date set for former Uvalde school police chief in Robb Elementary shooting criminal case
• Ex-Uvalde schools police chief sues CBP, seeking agents’ testimony in his criminal trial
• Attorney for ex-Uvalde CISD PD Chief Arredondo ‘not surprised’ by Adrian Gonzales’ not guilty verdict

As of 9:24 a.m., more than 700 customers are affected by the outages, according to the Medina County Power Outage Map.

Most of the outages are happening along U.S Highway 90, located west of San Antonio, the outage map shows.

At the moment, there is a Flood Warning in effect for Medina, Bandera and Uvalde counties until 8 a.m. Tuesday.

Read also:

• LIVE COVERAGE: KSAT tracks storms in San Antonio, Hill Country, surrounding areas

The picture of Cardinals cool, Walker chased down Kyle Schwarber, shut up a rambunctious Philly crowd and introduced himself to a much wider baseball world.

Walker used six swings to swat six homers, besting Schwarber in a dramatic final round that silenced all those boo birds and made him the first St. Louis Cardinal to win the Home Run Derby on Monday night.

Schwarber hit 11 homers during his 15-swing turn in the final round. Philly fans, who jeered everyone but Schwarber and Bryce Harper throughout the night, quietly headed toward the exits when Walker’s winning shot soared over the left field wall.

“I was once told you don’t boo nobodies,” Walker said. “So it feels pretty good.”

The 24-year-old Walker sported the Derby champions' chain, slipped on a leather jacket and still wore his batting gloves as he broke down what it took to take down Schwarber on his home turf. He earned a $1 million prize for winning the Derby, which is more than his 2026 salary of $799,400.

“My thought was Philly is brutal,” Walker said. "I mean, honestly. But I think it’s pretty special because they love their players and that’s what you want from your home, like, where you play. I mean, I’d never hear people cheer so loud for, like, Schwarber and Harper. And those guys did their thing, for sure.

“But, you know, I can’t hate them, because that’s their guy, so I just got to play the game.”

Walker played a pretty great game in the first half for the Cardinals.

Walker is a first-time All-Star and having a breakout season in St. Louis. He already has a career-high 22 homers this season after struggling with a combined 11 over the previous two years.

Those final six in Philly all flying high with Iron Man on his bat are now stamped on the Derby highlight reel.

His cap backward just like Hall of Famer and Derby great Ken Griffey Jr., Walker celebrated with his family immediately on the field. His father rejoiced in recalling how Walker started hitting long home runs when he was 6 years old.

“When things got tough, they were always there in my corner to talk to them about it,” Walker said of his family. “They kept the energy levels high. They kept the feelings high.”

He fulfilled this childhood dream in striking fashion. Walker hit his seventh homer with two swings remaining and his eighth on the next swing to earn bonus swings. Needing to hit four straight homers to win, the right-handed Jordan knocked one off the top of the center field fence 401 feet away. He reached 10 homers and Philly fans booed with all their might, only for Jordan to finish the sensational surge and celebrate as fireworks shot off around him.

"You can’t say enough about how he was able to kind of slow the moment down, too, and lock it in,” said Schwarber, a Derby runner-up for the second time. “All of our fans were we’re raring and trying to will me to it.”

A revamped Derby format delivered great drama

MLB ditched its timed clock this season and returned to a swing format, with each hitter continuing to swing if he went deep on his final one.

The extra time between swings gave hitters time to track their home runs — and Philly a smidge more time to unleash those throaty boos at Contreras and Walker.

Each player had 20 swings in the first round and the top four advanced. Hitters were seeded for the second round, where No. 1 faces 4 and 2 meets 3.

Each player got 15 swings in the second round, with batters homering on their final swings continuing until not homering.

Boston’s Willson Contreras, Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, New York's Ben Rice and Kansas City's Jac Caglianone, and Chicago White Sox first baseman Munetaka Murakami also participated.

Philly came ready to celebrate its slugging stars

Phillies fans were wildly optimistic that Schwarber and Harper could somehow reach the final and crown the franchise's third Derby champion.

Harper hit only eight in the first round and was the final slugger to try and advance. Schwarber could only watch as Harper failed to join him. Schwarber, then with the Chicago Cubs, made the finals in 2018 at Nationals Park before losing to Harper when he played with the Nationals.

Schwarber and Harper — the first pair of teammates to participate in the Derby since 2018 — received roaring ovations when famed ring announcer Michael Buffer introduced them ahead of the competition.

As for the other six sluggers in the field, all wearing their home jerseys with red, white and blue uniform numbers?

Yeah, they were about booed out of the ballpark, with the loudest jeers saved for Rice. He gamely laughed as he walked out of his Liberty Bell entrance.

Harper — who said earlier Monday this would be his last Derby — waved his arms and exhorted the crowd to get louder as he walked to the home plate platform placed at second base. Harper about broke the ring ropes as he shook them like a pro wrestler, and the Philly crowd went bonkers for the star known as The Showman.

The ball-shagging kids in the outfield were even booed.

The Derby’s public address announcer implored the fans to cheer during some quiet stretches when homers — non-Phillies edition — were hit.

The fans did get a rise when Caglianone smoked one into Ryan Howard territory into the third deck in right field. Contreras socked ’em into the rarified air of the left field upper deck. One homer cleared the last row of stands in that section and bounced off the concourse in front of a bar. His 490-footer was the longest of the first round.

This was the first Home Run Derby and All-Star Game held at Citizens Bank Park since it opened in 2004 and the first derby in Philadelphia since Barry Bonds outslugged Mark McGwire in 1996 to win an afternoon event in front of thousands of empty seats at Veterans Stadium.

This derby was sold out and aired on Netflix for the first time, with the streamer getting into the game this season with a three-event package. Netflix already aired the opening night game, and the third attraction is the Field of Dreams game between the Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 13.

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

Tuesday, July 14

At least two main lanes on U.S. Highway 281 southbound at Brook Hollow Boulevard are flooded, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.

Drivers are encouraged to take an alternate route to reach their destinations.

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

Over 1,900 CPS Energy customers are currently being affected by power outages as storms roll through the San Antonio area.

Click here to see reported outages across the state of Texas.

Stay Informed

As always, Your Weather Authority team will keep you updated. You can get the very latest forecast and check out the interactive radar anytime by bookmarking our weather page and downloading the KSAT Weather Authority App - available for both Apple and Android devices.

To keep up with the weather situation, please download the KSAT Weather Authority app for Apple or Android and allow notifications for updates, including livestreams from KSAT meteorologists.

Want to share what you’re seeing with KSAT12’s meteorologists? Submit photos and videos here, and your submission may get featured on KSAT.com or on air.

More resources:

• Map: Emergency road closures at low water crossings in San Antonio, Bexar County
• Current power outages in Bexar County, tips for residents with energy outages from CPS
• Avoid these notorious roadways prone to flooding during heavy rain in San Antonio
• Find the latest forecasts and alerts on our weather page
• Live doppler radar

More than 70 people were injured in the Sunday night tragedy, with 24 of them still in critical condition, according to a statement by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

Initial details about the victims, which have not been updated since Monday, said 18 of the dead were women and nine were men, all Thai except one bar employee from Laos. The injured included 41 women and 34 men.

The blaze at the Rong Beer Na Ladprao bar, the city’s deadliest in 17 years, broke out shortly before midnight in a northern part of the Thai capital. Firefighters needed half an hour to bring it under control.

The bar, which in Thai calls itself a brewery or beer hall, claimed to accommodate as many as 600 customers. It was not clear how many were present Sunday night.

An investigation into the cause of the fire and whether the bar was following safety regulations is ongoing. Most of the people who were killed were found trapped in windowless bathrooms where they may have sought to escape the flames, police said.

Bangkok governor orders safety survey and better enforcement

Bangkok Gov. Chadchart Sittipunt said Tuesday he has ordered the city’s administration to conduct a sweeping survey of such establishments to assess risks. The city will also step up enforcement of existing laws to improve safety standards, he said.

Former patrons of the bar and other mourners visited the site Tuesday, adding to the growing pile of flowers leaning on the guardrails cordoning off the location of the blaze.

Handwritten messages in Thai and other languages, including Korean, were left alongside white flowers, expressing condolences to the victims.

Debris from the bar, including melted musical instruments and blackened chairs, lay scattered along the sidewalk, moved there Monday by officials investigating the cause of the fire.

University student Thanakon Phoklang said he was passing by and wanted to pay his respects.

“It was regrettable,” he said. “It’s impossible to feel anything else.”

The public clamor for answers and action concerning the tragedy has included relatives of the dead who went to Bangkok’s Institute of Forensic Medicine to collect their bodies on Tuesday.

Families weep as they retrieve bodies

Gathering at a loading area for vehicles, family members wept as they walked with coffins that were then loaded into an ambulance and taken away.

Namthip Tubsuk, a mother of two and teacher nicknamed “Ice,” died in the fire, according to her aunt Jittiya Phaiklaw, who focused on reports alleging exit doors had been locked.

“They shouldn’t have locked the doors,” Jittiya said. “If they were afraid the customers would get away, they could have had the security guard staff minding them away.

Jutatip Surakumhang, a friend of Namthip, said an apology was owed.

“I feel there must be someone coming out to apologize to everyone who died. There were deaths deserving an apology. It was heartbreaking,” Jutatip said.

The bar issued an apology and condolences Monday on Facebook and vowed to cooperate with investigations into the fire.

The relatives and friends of another deceased victim, 35-year-old Bangkok native Top Sarobol, also came to the forensic institute to accompany his body. They wept as his coffin was brought out and loaded into the van to be returned home.

“For his family, it is hard to accept it. His grandmother is old. She always said let her grandson cremate her,” his friend Nuttakarn Sevoy said. “But the reality is opposite of what we wanted.”

Speculation about the causes of the tragedy has been rampant but mostly unconfirmed, while experts have drawn general conclusions about fire safety in Thailand.

Engineering expert suggests problems should be probed

On Monday, the president of the Thailand Structural Engineers Association, Amorn Pimanmas, told reporters outside the bar that, while he had not inspected the venue, he observed some risk factors that could worsen fire hazards.

He said the building is enclosed, has low ceilings and may have used foam as decorative materials, without adequate flame-retardant treatment. Combined with limited air ventilation, smoke would accumulate quickly, he said, creating toxic air that could be the main cause of death for many victims.

He also noted that officials said the bar was licensed as a restaurant with a live music venue rather than an entertainment venue because it was located outside the designated zoning for such businesses. Amorn said that would exclude it from the stricter fire safety requirements for entertainment venues.

“There must be some kind of revolution regarding fire safety procedures, and I think law enforcement is also very important,” he said. “It’s not that we don’t have the law, but it’s the problem of how the law could be strictly enforced from now on. I think the government should answer this question.”

___

Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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We head to the east side to visit Tacos los Hermanos, a family-owned Tex-Mex restaurant & check out their menu and two of their most popular tacos go head-to-head in our latest Foodie Faceoff.

Can you really get fired for any reason here in Texas? Espinoza & Brock Workers Injury Attorneys find out what it means to be an “at-will” state and what exactly are your rights & protections as an employee?

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Until Ken Paxton sued to stop it.

A Trump-appointed judge, who previously worked at the Texas attorney general’s office, agreed that it was an unconstitutional overreach and struck down the policy nationwide.

Today, the threshold for mandatory overtime pay remains at $35,568, where the first Trump administration set it in 2019.

Over four years, Paxton’s office ran this same play more than 100 times, filing quick-turn lawsuits asking friendly judges to block President Joe Biden’s signature policies for the whole country. Texas was the tip of the spear, leading almost four times as many lawsuits as the next-highest state and marshaling unprecedented agency resources toward the cause.

This litigation machine had a profound effect on everyday life for millions of Americans, many of whom have never set foot in Texas. Because of these lawsuits, nursing homes are not required to keep a nurse on-site 24 hours a day; trans students cannot call on federal protections against discrimination at school; new housing built with federal dollars does not have to meet higher energy efficiency standards; and states are not required to track or reduce highway emissions.

Paxton’s record against Biden is his sword and shield on the campaign trail, where he portrays himself as the bulwark against the progressive agenda of a power-mad president, stymying him especially on protections for immigrants, the environment, the LGBTQ+ community and abortion access.

He called on this record of “relentless challenges” when he was impeached in 2023, warning that his removal from office would enable Biden’s liberal policies to proceed unchecked. In the GOP Senate primary, when Sen. John Cornyn aired out the indictments, investigations and infidelities that have long hung over Paxton’s political career, the attorney general ran ads calling himself a “conservative fighter who sued Biden over 100 times.”

He won in a landslide.

Now facing Democratic nominee James Talarico, Paxton has continued to trumpet his record against the Biden White House, frequently claiming an 80% win rate, which a Texas Tribune analysis found is overstated. A lawsuit’s lifecycle is complicated, and there are many ways to measure a win. By the most generous metrics, Texas got the outcome it wanted in about two-thirds of the cases it was involved in — lower than the number Paxton touts, though still plenty to throw a wrench in the works.

“It’s not always about winning. It’s often about delay, and dragging things out and making it more painful and making it harder to affect any sort of changes,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. “On that front, Paxton was extremely influential.”

Madison Cercy, a spokesperson for Paxton’s Senate campaign, did not respond to a question about how Paxton calculated his win rate, but said in a statement that his “results speak for themselves.”

“He filed more than 100 lawsuits against the Biden Administration, repeatedly stopped unconstitutional overreach, and secured major victories that protected Texas, defended our sovereignty, and forced the federal government to follow the law,” Cercy said. “Texans know Ken Paxton was the conservative fighter leading the charge against Biden.”

Border battles

Suffice to say, Paxton and Biden got off on the wrong foot. After the 2020 election, Paxton sued to overturn Biden’s win in four states, a long-shot ploy the Supreme Court swiftly rejected.

When it became clear Biden was going to be the next president, the upper echelons of the agency geared up for battle, said Chris Hilton, the former head of the general litigation division.

“There was a feeling of ‘game on,’” he recalls. “It’s gonna be four years of this. Let’s do it.”

It didn’t take long. On Day One, Biden issued a blitz of executive orders and directives, including a 100-day pause on most deportations.

“That’s not federal law, that’s Joe Biden made-up law,” Paxton recounted in a speech at the Grapevine Republican Club in April. “So we sued Joe Biden on Day Three. That’s actually pretty fast for a lawsuit against a sitting president.”

Paxton filed in Victoria, where one judge hears all cases. Drew Tipton, a Trump appointee, ruled in Texas’ favor, blocking the deportation pause for the entire country.

The opening shot had landed.

“No matter what the federal government was doing, they knew that if they weren’t dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s, they were going to get called to account,” Hilton said. “An executive order comes out, it was going to get challenged.”

Over the next four years, immigration became the central sparring ground between Paxton and Biden. With Congress largely immobile on immigration, the Biden administration tried to push reforms through the executive branch — an approach many presidents have taken, but one that leaves their policies subject to court challenges, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

“A lot of the state litigation is, honestly, symbolic,” she said, noting it’s how states can flex their limited power over this uniquely federal policy area. Still, Paxton sued Biden more than 20 times on immigration alone and managed to derail major priorities, like ending the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the Remain in Mexico program.

In 2018, President Donald Trump’s first administration began requiring some asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings, leaving more than 70,000 migrants in squalid, dangerous conditions on America’s doorstep. Biden’s Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, reversed course, saying the policy had reduced border crossings “by imposing substantial and unjustifiable human costs on the individuals who were exposed to harm while waiting in Mexico.”

Paxton filed a lawsuit in Amarillo, more than 700 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, where Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk has heard nearly all cases since Trump appointed him to the bench in 2018.

Paxton frequently exploited a loophole in the structure of Texas’ federal judiciary system to guarantee his cases would be heard by a Trump-appointed judge. Because of the state’s size and unequal population distribution, nine judicial divisions had just one judge for parts of the Biden administration; Trump appointed seven of them.

Of the lawsuits Paxton filed in Texas, 90% were guaranteed to be heard by either a Trump-appointed judge or Reed O’Connor, a Bush appointee who has become a reliable conservative arbiter.

There’s nothing illegal about a lawyer seeking a favorable venue, but Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown law professor and critic of this practice, has written that Paxton turned a “loophole into an art form” during the Biden administration.

“If litigants like Texas are regularly able to obtain nationwide injunctions from judges whom they have hand-picked to hear their complaints, it should go without saying that public faith in the independence of the federal judiciary will be undermined,” Vladeck wrote in an 2022 amicus brief.

Kacsmaryk ruled that Remain in Mexico should be restored, as the Department of Homeland Security had “failed to consider several of the main benefits” of the policy. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, with Judge Andrew Oldham, who previously worked as Texas’ deputy solicitor general, writing that the Biden administration was trying to “supplant the rule of law with the rule of say-so.”

The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the Biden administration was within its rights to strike down the Remain in Mexico policy — a year and a half after Kacsmaryk prevented it from doing so, and only after several thousand migrants had been sent back to Mexico to await their hearings.

And after the high court sent the case back to Kacsmaryk for review on other grounds, he promptly restored the policy again. Paxton was jubilant, posting on social media that the Biden administration had “played games all the way to SCOTUS,” but its “open-border agenda won’t survive my legal attacks.”

Rochelle Garza represented asylum-seekers who had to await their hearings in Mexico. Having seen the human toll of that policy, she said it was unconscionable Paxton pushed so hard to ensure it could continue.

“Ken Paxton didn’t have to look into the eyes of a woman who gave birth in a tent,” said Garza, the Democratic nominee for attorney general in 2022. “Every time I talk about it, I see the faces of the people I worked with, and knowing that someone like Ken Paxton is entirely okay with adding to the pain and suffering of people just seeking protection of our country is maddening.”

Texas ran a similar playbook on myriad immigration policies, asking Trump-appointed judges to grant nationwide injunctions to delay implementation of Biden priorities for months or years of litigation.

Texas sued over Biden’s revocation of Title 42, a COVID-era order that made it easier to remove undocumented immigrants; the administration’s guidance on who to prioritize for deportations; a program to grant temporary status to some migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela; and a program called Keeping Families Together that would have allowed undocumented spouses to remain in the country while they applied for green cards.

The relentless drumbeat of litigation gave Paxton headlines on an issue that emerged as Republicans’ most potent political cudgel. The attorney general gave speeches from the steps of the Supreme Court, went on Fox News and put out press release after press release, presenting himself as the last refuge against Biden’s “unwavering determination to get as many illegal aliens into this country as possible.”

During a tough reelection campaign in 2022, as his GOP primary opponents hammered him on long-standing securities fraud charges and abuse of office allegations from his top deputies, Paxton cited this record in campaign ads and on the trail. He won the primary and beat Garza by 10 points in November — evidence, Hilton said, that voters don’t care about his alleged indiscretions.

“They care about what he’s done with the office, what the office has produced,” he said. “You can agree or disagree with the policy decisions, but he’s squeezing all the juice out of that office.”

Culture warrior

When Gov. Greg Abbott was attorney general during the Obama administration, he famously quipped, “I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home.” During the Biden administration, it was more of the same — although Paxton’s lawyers often skipped the trip home.

“I’d often get a call that would say, ‘Hey, we need to be on file with this in less than 24 hours, get whatever resources you need, just make it happen,’” Hilton recalls. “We’d work all night and get something together.”

Paxton threw more resources at the agency’s political work, as the agency’s other, more bureaucratic obligations fell by the wayside. Those leading the charge against Biden developed a playbook to speed things along by filing “minimally viable lawsuits” they could later refine, as former Paxton deputy Aaron Reitz said on a podcast in 2021.

With these lawsuits, Paxton plunged the office into the culture war clashes that were riling his most conservative supporters. He sued aggressively over COVID restrictions and tried to combat the Biden administration’s strong stance on expanding LGBTQ+ rights.

One of Biden’s Day One directives was to fully enforce Bostock v. Clayton County, a 2020 Supreme Court decision that established workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Citing this seminal ruling, Biden issued guidance to ensure employees and students would be allowed to use the bathroom, changing facilities, pronouns and names that align with their gender identity.

To block these policies, Paxton returned to Kacsmaryk’s courtroom. Before joining the bench, Kacsmaryk worked at a religious liberty law firm and wrote frequently on the threat that enabling LGBTQ+ rights would create for “Americans who continue to believe that marriage and sexual relations are reserved to the union of one man and one woman,” as he argued in a 2015 essay.

He sided with Paxton on a 2021 lawsuit over the Biden administration’s first attempt at defining how workplaces must ensure they are not discriminating against LGBTQ+ employees, in which Paxton argued Texas was being forced to put “subjective views of gender” over the privacy of state employees.

Rather than appeal, the Biden administration issued a new policy. Texas sued, and Kacsmaryk struck it down again.

Equality Texas, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, tracked more than 40 anti-trans actions by Paxton and his office during the Biden administration. Brad Pritchett, the group’s executive director, said being in the attorney general’s sights for so long had left trans people exhausted and terrified, and prompted dozens of families to leave the state. Even when Paxton lost, the press releases and competing rulings created confusion and fear over what was still legal, he said.

“He’s manipulated the AG’s office and diverted taxpayer resources and dollars into these cases,” Pritchett said. “These cases don’t benefit Texans, they’re just designed to harm people who are transgender.”

Paxton ran the same play when the Biden administration attempted to shore up reproductive rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states like Texas to ban nearly all abortions.

Biden issued guidance reminding emergency rooms of their obligations under federal law to perform life-saving abortions, and telling pharmacists they could not discriminate in filling prescriptions for medications that can also be used to induce an abortion. Paxton sued over both policies, accusing Biden of trying to turn every emergency room into a walk-in abortion clinic and “intimidate every pharmacy in America.” Federal judges blocked both measures nationwide.

The oil and gas docket

In December 2022, the Biden administration waded into the swampy marshland of the Clean Water Act. For five decades, presidential administrations, businesses and states have fought over what wetlands and waterways should be protected from pollution by this landmark environmental legislation.

When the Biden administration tried to find a middle ground between Obama’s more sweeping protections and Trump’s narrower interpretation, Texas took a stand.

“It’s time to start suing,” Texas Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick said during an agency meeting. “I think the AG’s going to have a good time with this one.”

Biden campaigned on an ambitious environmental agenda to cut greenhouse gas pollution, increase renewable energy and, in a comment many in his party saw as a gaffe, “transition” the country away from oil and gas. These plans sent panic through Texas’ oil and gas industry, which employed almost half a million people and paid $27.3 billion in state and local taxes in 2024, according to an industry report.

Texas elected officials vowed to fight. Abbott directed state agencies to “use all lawful powers and tools to challenge any federal action,” and Paxton filed more than two dozen lawsuits on this issue alone.

The oil and gas economy actually boomed during the Biden era, with Texas boasting record levels of crude oil production, which those in the industry said was in spite of increased regulations, not because of them. Ed Longanecker, the president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, said Paxton was instrumental in holding off the worst of the new rules.

“He’s always been a fighter against federal regulatory overreach, and it’s clear for obvious reasons that he has an affinity for oil and gas, given its dominance in Texas,” Longanecker said.

Many of these lawsuits struck at the heart of Biden’s environmental agenda, like when Louisiana and Texas teamed up to block executive actions pausing new liquefied natural gas export permits and oil and gas leases on public lands and offshore waters.

For environmental groups, Paxton often served as a frustrating blocker. In 2024, the Biden administration added the dunes sagebrush lizard to the endangered species list after years of advocacy from environmental groups like the Center for Biological Diversity. This 2.5-inch lizard lives exclusively in the West Texas dunes, where oil and gas production has been encroaching on its territory, the groups argued.

Paxton sued, saying the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not relied on the best scientific and commercial data available in adding the lizard to the list. He called the designation a “backdoor attempt to undermine Texas’s oil and gas industries.” The lawsuit paused the work of protecting the lizard’s environment. After Trump took office, the Department of the Interior rescinded the lizard’s endangered designation and settled the lawsuit.

Laura Parker, a lawyer for the center, said it can be hard for people to understand why a tiny lizard, or rare mussel species, or the lesser prairie chicken are worth preserving. But “humans will suffer if we continue to lose the life that exists around us,” she argued.

“In the balance of trying to consider industry and economy, and also trying to consider the environment, the scales tilted way too far to the point where industry is prioritized over people,” Parker said.

In a red state with much of its economy and identity tied up in oil and gas, defending the industry has served Paxton well. He’s long been funded by two of the state’s wealthiest oil and gas magnates, Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, and has garnered widespread support from the conservative-leaning industry. He has hammered his opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, on the issue, saying the Austin Democrat “attacks the industries we love here, the oil and gas industry, the industries that provide energy and provide jobs to Texas.”

“It plays well with voters in general, not just because of the dominance of oil and natural gas in Texas, but just because of the political makeup of our state,” Longanecker said. “He’s a fighter and people like that.”

Disclosure: Equality Texas and Fox News have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Assess spending rate

People who have just retired or are about to are particularly vulnerable to sequence-of-returns risk, which means that a bad market shows up early in your retirement. Not only does that early retirement sell-off feel bad, it actually is bad because it imperils your portfolio’s ability to last throughout your retirement years. In  Morningstar’s 2025 retirement spending research, we found that the people most likely to run out of money in retirement were  the ones whose portfolios lost value in the first five years of their retirements.

Retirees who are pulling cash flows from their portfolios can address that risk by adjusting their spending down to ensure that more of their portfolios are in place to recover when the market eventually does. And those adjustments don’t need to be radical to make an impact. In  our retirement income research, we found that even small tweaks like forgoing an inflation adjustment following a bear market help ensure that spending lasts over a whole 30-year period and can lead to more lifetime income than a strategy that ignores market movements.

If you haven’t yet retired, assess your planned in-retirement spending and identify where you would be willing to make cutbacks. Turbocharge savings if you can afford to do so. Catch-up contributions are available to all retirement savers over age 50. And if you’re between 60 and 63, you can make a “super-catch-up” contribution to your company retirement plan, for a total of $35,750 in 2026. High-income heavy savers may also be able to take advantage of after-tax 401(k) contributions, which enable them to stash even greater amounts in their company retirement plans.

Pull cash flows from safer assets

In a turbulent market environment in which equities have declined, it’s best to pull any portfolio cash flows from safer assets and leave your stock positions undisturbed. That’s the general logic behind  the Bucket approach to portfolio construction. In good years for the stock market, like 2023-25, you’d be harvesting appreciated equity assets to supply your income needs. In bad ones, like 2022, you’re not touching stocks but instead sourcing cash flows from high-quality bonds, cash, or a combination of the two.

If your portfolio is riskier than it should be, it’s not too late to shift into a more situation-appropriate asset allocation.

Play the long game with Social Security

Social Security is a secure, inflation-protected source of income, much like a paycheck. But the lifetime benefits of delaying Social Security are hard to ignore: a higher income stream that also happens to be fully inflation-protected and will last as long as you do. Delayed filing can be particularly impactful if you’re the higher earner in your family and you have a younger spouse who will receive that higher benefit for their lifetime.

In  our retirement income research, we found that delaying filing up until age 70 did enlarge lifetime income, but the benefits are greatest if you have some other source of funds to draw from until your benefits start. And the benefits are also obviously more valuable for people with above-average life expectancies, in that they stand to receive those higher streams of inflation-protected income for a longer period of time.

Revisit inflation protection

Inflation is a key risk for retiree portfolios because the income from your safe investments is going to buy you less and less as you age. Moreover, retirees tend to spend more on healthcare, where prices have historically increased faster than the general inflation rate.

Many retirees focus on nominal bonds and underrate the value of inflation-protected bonds as a component of their retirement plans. You can address that by adding an inflation-protected bond fund to your portfolio; most of the better target-date series allocate roughly one-fourth of their bond portfolios to inflation-protected bonds. Alternatively, you could build a laddered portfolio of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities that will mature and supply you with living expenses throughout your retirement.

Investigate tax-saving strategies

The early retirement years are typically an excellent time to consider strategies like converting traditional IRA balances to Roth or accelerating withdrawals on traditional IRAs and 401(k)s. Without income from work and because you won’t be subject to required minimum distributions until you’re 73, your income, and in turn the taxes you’ll owe on those conversions and withdrawals, will be lower.

_____

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more retirement content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/retirement.

Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and co-host of The Long View podcast. Subscribe to her free newsletter, Improving Your Finances.

Related Links:

Your Retirement Countdown, With Christine Benz

https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/your-retirement-countdown-with-christine-benz

5 Things You Need to Know About RMDs This Year

https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/5-things-you-need-know-about-rmds-this-year

Retirees Don’t Need to Fear a Lost Decade. They Need a Plan

https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/retirees-dont-need-fear-lost-decade-they-need-plan

ODESSA — Mexico and the U.S. may frequently spar, but the two nations are bound by energy — networks of pipelines that stretch from Texas to its southern neighbor to deliver the lion’s share of Mexico’s natural gas.

This longstanding economic relationship is at risk as the Trump administration backs out of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a free-trade pact President Donald Trump spearheaded and that was enacted in 2018 as a replacement for NAFTA to bolster trade between the three countries.

Trump administration officials said they would instead negotiate amendments annually for a decade until the agreement expires in 2036.

Further complicating the issue is the U.S. war on Iran, as ceasefire talks collapse — which is all but likely to throw global energy markets into further disarray.

For at least two decades, Mexico has sought U.S. gas to support its electricity demand across the residential, industrial and power sectors, and its dependence has skyrocketed. In 2005, Mexico received 750 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from the U.S., said Ira Joseph, a fellow at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy. Last year, that number jumped to 7.5 billion cubic feet a day, according to the Energy Information Administration.

At least 90% of that natural gas comes from Texas, which has become one of the bigger beneficiaries of the economic arrangement.

“Today Mexico faces a high dependence on natural gas from abroad,” Energy Secretary Luz Elena González Escobar said at an April press conference. “We are importing 75% of the natural gas we consume in the country.”

Mexico has taken steps to shore up its own natural gas reservoirs, announcing in April that it would seek to ramp up fracking, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo’s administration said. The effort is meant to lessen its dependence on U.S. producers.

Experts are skeptical of this plan, arguing it would take years and a dramatic increase in oil and gas production to make up for the billions of cubic feet of natural gas the country imports a day to meet its growing demand. As nations move to insulate themselves from global energy shocks by decreasing their reliance on others, experts said Mexico is embarking on an opposite path.

“The Texas energy industry is strategic for not only (Mexico’s) power generation, but also industrial competitiveness,” said Adrian Duhalt, a fellow at Southern Methodist University’s Texas Mexico Center, which researches the relationship between the two. “We cannot imagine … the importance of the natural gas from Texas for Mexico’s power generation and manufacturing activities.”

The country has historically struggled to drum up its own supply. In 2013, former president Enrique Peña Nieto introduced a constitutional reform that broke a 75-year monopoly by Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, a government-run oil company charged with most of oil and gas production. The reform introduced bidding rounds for oil and gas exploration and production, including the development of hydraulic fracturing, Duhalt said.

But there wasn’t enough immediate building — or production — to transform Mexico into a standalone producer of natural gas, despite a surplus of crude oil. In 2018, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador rose to the presidency and halted new contracts, dramatically setting the reform’s goals back. And Pemex alone is unlikely to have the needed resources and infrastructure to deploy large-scale projects, Duhalt said.

And Mexico predominantly focused on crude oil production, Duhalt said, which also contributed to the sustained shortage of natural gas.

“Historically, Pemex contributions to the government represented a large percentage of government revenues,” Duhalt said. “So to maximize that rate in the short term, the government prioritized crude oil production, and natural gas was left on the back burner.”

The end result has been a tight-knit relationship that could put Mexico’s energy security at risk, experts said, as geopolitical conflicts deepen and trade agreements unravel.

The Permian Basin, a vast oil field in western Texas, is the nation’s largest producer of oil and gas. It contributes at least half of U.S. oil. An excess of natural gas resides in these oil deposits, too, that producers have grappled with disposing of for years.

Roughly 90% of Mexico’s natural gas is the product of Texas, said Aparajita Datta, an energy policy associate at the University of Houston, a transaction bolstered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump has said he wouldn’t renew. Rejecting the agreement — which keeps natural gas prices low for buyers — could be imperiled by the time the agreement expires in 2036.

And it could add new pressure for Mexico, which will pay higher prices, and Texas, which is overstocked with natural gas reserves.

Still, Datta added, the U.S. can store its excess reserves for 100 days, giving it more time and leeway to navigate market disruptions. Mexico, on the other hand, can only save any natural gas for three days.

“From the Mexican perspective, I benefit from piped natural gas from Texas, because I get rates that are cheaper than shipped liquefied natural gas and make sure that I have energy security for, let’s say, a war,” Datta said. “I am constantly dependent on my neighbor, where … there’s been policy uncertainties, all of this geopolitical movement that’s happening that essentially then puts my energy security at risk.”

The longstanding bond in energy between the two countries is particularly vulnerable as political tensions rise between them, Joseph, the Columbia fellow, said.

“It could become part of the geopolitical football,” Joseph said. “Obviously, the border relationship between the U.S. and Mexico, whether you’re talking about immigration or the most recent form of the trade agreement. This could potentially disrupt this big form of trade between the U.S. and Mexico.”

• FLOOD WATCH: In effect tonight through Thursday
• BEXAR COUNTY: Intermittent rain tonight through Friday morning
• • AMOUNTS: Widespread 1″ to 3″, Bullseyes: 6″+
  • RISKS: Street & creek flooding, lightning
• WEST & HILL COUNTRY: Highest rain potential, Bullseyes 8″+
• • RISKS: River & street flooding
  • • RIVERS ON ALERT: Rio Grande, Nueces, Frio, & Sabinal

FORECAST

An active pattern is taking shape across South Texas. Disturbances, combined with a boundary and ample moisture, will create a flood risk.

WHEN: Tonight through Thursday

CONCERN: Street flooding in urban areas. River and creek flooding will also be possible, mainly west of San Antonio. If you live or plan to be along any area river, make sure alerts are turned on your phone and you remain weather aware.

HOW MUCH RAINFALL?

• SAN ANTONIO: Widespread 1-3″ over the next four days, however, some spots could see more than 6″
• WEST & HILL COUNTRY: Higher totals, Some bullseyes over 8″ to 10″

TONIGHT & TUESDAY MORNING

Rain, heavy at times, should become widespread overnight then periodically come and go through Friday morning.

In this type of setup, it’s impossible to know where the heaviest of the rainfall will be, but flash flooding will be a concern at any point through Thursday night. The Tuesday morning commute is likely to be affected by rain, but we’ll have to wait and see where where street flooding becomes an issue.

TUESDAY

Heavy rainfall is forecast to continue into Tuesday, with a few breaks in the action during the day. Odds favor most of the rain to be focused in the morning hours, but some redevelopment in the late afternoon & evening will be possible.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY

More heavy rain is forecast to setup in the area Wednesday and Thursday, with the focus slowly shifting west towards the Rio Grande. Rainfall totals of up to 3-6″ will be possible, with some isolated spots seeing more than 8″ in and around the Rio Grande and Edwards Plateau areas. River flooding will be a concern and will be closely monitored. Those who live or have plans to be near the Frio, Nueces or Rio Grande should pay particularly close attention to the forecast.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH WEEKEND

While some lingering rain is possible Thursday afternoon, for the most part activity will wind down. Only spotty rain is possible over the weekend.

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.

Federal authorities have offered limited information about the July 7 shooting beyond saying Salgado Araujo tried to hit an agent with his van, prompting calls for an independent investigation and pressure from protestors and Democratic lawmakers for ICE and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to release evidence.

The Texas Tribune has repeatedly posed detailed questions about the Houston shooting in emails to ICE and Homeland Security, but federal officials have not addressed most of them.

Separately, the FBI’s Houston office — which is leading an investigation into the potential assault on a federal officer — said Monday that it does not discuss ongoing investigations and redirected all questions to Homeland Security.

Here is what we know and still don’t know about the Houston shooting.

What happened during the shooting?

Hours following the shooting, Homeland Security released a statement saying Salgado Araujo had tried to ram an ICE vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over” an ICE agent before the officer fired his weapon in self-defense.

Three men who were also in the van have since disputed that narrative, saying in written and oral comments that ICE vehicles rammed Salgado Araujo’s work van and the agents were not at risk of being run over. An agent ran toward them from the side and yelled “Stop!” before firing from the van’s passenger side, hitting Salgado Araujo in the abdomen, according to accounts provided to The Washington Post by a lawyer for some of the men, who remain in ICE custody.

As of Monday, no video footage had emerged fully showing what happened during the shooting.

Homeland Security said agents involved in the incident were not wearing body cameras, blaming Democrats for the lack of the equipment. In addition, ICE vehicles had no dashcam footage of the incident, according to U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat who said that information was provided by acting ICE Director David Venturella. The department didn’t respond to the Tribune’s repeated questions about why dashboard camera footage was not available.

Homeland Security also didn’t address multiple detailed questions about the circumstances of the shooting, including how many ICE agents were involved, how many shots were fired at the van and whether an ICE vehicle had rammed Salgado Araujo’s van at any point.

Who killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo?

Homeland Security has refused to identify the ICE agent who fatally shot Salgado Araujo, citing rising violence and threats against federal officers involved in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.

The Atlantic reported last week that the unidentified agent was “a veteran with more than two decades’ experience,” attributing the information to an unnamed senior ICE official.

It’s also unclear if the agent remains on duty while separate investigations by the FBI and Homeland Security’s inspector general continue. The agencies have either declined to answer this question from the Tribune or ignored it.

Local authorities have similarly been kept in the dark, according to Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, who has launched an independent investigation into the shooting. During a Monday news conference, he said his office would usually know the identity of state or local officers involved in fatal interactions within 12 hours.

“We’re almost a week in and no one on the state level knows who they were or where they are right now,” Teare said. “That’s unacceptable.”

Which agency gave the tip to ICE?

In a Thursday statement, Homeland Security said it received a “credible tip” from unspecified “law enforcement partners” that led ICE agents to watch a Houston residence where two white vans had been seen. Salgado Araujo was driving a white van.

The identity of the law enforcement agency remains unclear.

Homeland Security didn’t respond to repeated questions about which agency provided the tip. The Texas Department of Public Safety, the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and the Precinct 6 constable’s office have told the Tribune that they did not supply the tip.

ICE has also said agents were engaged in a “targeted operation.” The New York Times reported the agency was seeking at least one Guatemalan man with a prior removal order.

The agency has declined to answer questions about its operational plan that day and who it sought to arrest, but Garcia has announced that Salgado Araujo was not the intended target. He had no criminal history and was in the process of obtaining legal authorization to be in the U.S. after being sponsored by one of his U.S. citizen sons, according to his family.

The three other passengers in the white van, which include Salgado Araujo’s brother, were Mexican. They do not have prior deportation orders or a criminal record, according to local congressional staff and available public records. Homeland Security spokespeople did not clarify the criminal or immigration history of the passengers.

Homeland Security officials also did not respond to questions about their situations or the intended target.

Will federal authorities share evidence?

After mounting calls for transparency and accountability, local authorities have vowed to pursue independent investigations of the shooting but caution there are challenges to gaining access to evidence held by federal authorities.

“We’ve attempted to communicate with any number of federal agencies. We’ve had varying success in that,” Teare, the district attorney, said Monday, adding that his office has yet to speak with Homeland Security’s inspector general office.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire said last week that Police Chief Noe Diaz asked the FBI to “start sharing information” and that Diaz has a meeting with the agency’s Houston bureau chief this week.

A spokesperson for the FBI’s Houston office declined to answer whether it would share evidence with local officials, directing the Tribune to Homeland Security, which didn’t respond to the question.

Teare said his investigators have visited the shooting scene, collected surveillance footage from area businesses and fielded “well over 100 communications” from the community. He also is in contact with the Hennepin County attorney’s office in Minnesota, which is investigating the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in January.

“In all likelihood, this will take many, many months — potentially years — before we finally get the answers that we all need,” Teare said. “But we will not rest and we cannot do it without the support of the public and the support of our commissioners.”

This was not the first deadly shooting by federal immigration agents during the second Trump administration in Texas or across the country. It is also not the latest: An ICE agent fatally shot a motorist Monday in Maine.

Lomi Kriel, Uriel J. García and Gabby Birenbaum contributed to this story.

Every year, flash floods happen across the city as heavy storms move through the area, often during hurricane season. Bexar County officials monitor 178 low-water crossings, updating road closures when they occur.

Drivers warned to ‘Turn Around, Don’t Drown’

While more seasoned residents know which places to avoid, newer residents may not know which areas are most prone to flooding:

Salado Creek at I-35:

When heavy rain falls, the water pools up on the access roads, resulting in closures in the area.

Basse Road and 281:

After heavy rains, Olmos Creek will quickly rise, flooding the roadways it runs through.

Pinn Road:

Pinn Road and Highway 151 has been the scene of some notable high-water rescues before. Leon Creek runs below the road, leaving it prone to flooding.

Lower levels of I-35:

The lower levels of I-35 tend to shut down after heavy rains lead to flash floods on the highway.

While those are some of the most well-known flooding spots, intersections around San Antonio can also flood, depending on where the rain falls.

San Antonio Fire Department’s 10 most dangerous low-water crossings since 2015

• Old Seguin Road at Salado Creek (46 rescues)
• Old O’Connor Road, located north of Lookout Road (31 rescues)
• Hollyhock Road, positioned 600 feet west of Babcock Road (20 rescues)
• Pinn Road (14 rescues)
• Spencer Lane, located east of Balcones Heights (13 rescues)
• Ira Lee, north of Austin Highway (12 rescues)
• Sleepy Hollow at Sunburst (10 rescues)
• Gibbs Sprawl Road at Rosillo Creek (10 rescues)
• West Commerce Street from Pinn Road to Military Drive (9 rescues)
• North Loop, around 150 feet from West North Loop (8 rescues)

Find the latest on the storms here from KSAT’s meteorologist, including forecasts, warnings and watches and an interactive radar.

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

Below is a map of notable low water crossings in San Antonio.

The increase in exports in June was much better than economists had expected. Exports rose 19.4% year-on-year in May.

Imports in June surged 36%, better than May’s 27.4% year-on-year growth, with analysts attributing the expansion in part due to the Iran war driving up import costs.

China recorded a trade surplus of $125.6 billion in June, widening from $105.4 billion in the previous month.

“With the rapid growth of AI, our imports and export of products in this field are robust," Wang Jun, vice minister of China’s General Administration of Customs, said at a news conference in Beijing.

He said trade in electronic components, computer spare parts, and other computing hardware jumped nearly 57% to 5.1 trillion yuan ($760 billion) in the first half of the year. Other products such as AI glasses, AI translating devices, powered exoskeletons and other smart products are also evolving.

“Trade values took another big leg up in June,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, head of China Economics at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Tuesday. “This predominantly reflects the recent surge in semiconductor prices on the back of the AI boom. But even putting that aside, foreign demand for Chinese goods remains robust.”

China's exports of vehicles, especially EVs, and other tech-related products have boomed as rapid adoption of AI increases the need for semiconductors and other electronic equipment.

The strength in export manufacturing has helped to offset prolonged weakness in domestic spending and investmentdue to a prolonged downturn in the property industry.

In January-June, China’s exports climbed 17.6% from a year earlier, while imports jumped 26.6%, according to the customs data.

Policymakers including those in the U.S. and in Europe have express alarm over rising trade deficits with China. In order to bypass barriers such as higher tariffs, Chinese businesses have been moving factories to regions like Europe. China has also been exporting more to Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa.

Wang, the customs official, acknowledged the threat from rising trade barriers.

“We still face serious risks and challenges in the second half of the year,” he said.

While China's export growth is likely to continue, it is becoming increasingly fragile, said Wei Li, head of Multi-Asset Investments at BNP Paribas Securities (China). Robust shipments in autos and AI-related items will remain dependent on global demand and regulatory barriers, he said.

Exports to Southeast Asia in June surged nearly 35% from a year ago, while those to the European Union and Latin America increased more than 18% and 28%, respectively.

Exports to the United States climbed almost 14% from a year earlier. China's shipments to the U.S. have risen in recent months, partly due to declines in shipments a year earlier after President Donald Trump returned to office last year and implemented higher tariffs.

China is set to announce its economic growth data for the April-June quarter on Wednesday. Chinese leaders have set an annual growth target of 4.5% to 5% for this year, slightly lower than the 5% growth in 2025.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund raised China’s annual growth forecast by 0.2 percentage point to 4.6%. But it said it expects China’s economy to expand just 4.1% in 2027.

Chinese leaders have sought to boost consumer spending through various initiatives, including trade-in subsidies for autos and home appliances. But many ordinary Chinese have been feeling the pressure from a slowing economy and avoiding big-ticket purchases.

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AP Videographer Borg Wong contributed from Beijing.

Iran responded with attacks targeting Bahrain, Jordan and two tankers associated with the United Arab Emirates traveling through the strait, killing one mariner and wounding eight others. The Emirates threatened to retaliate against Iran, potentially drawing the nation home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai back into fighting with Tehran.

The attacks come as Iran and the U.S. both vie for control of the strait through which a fifth of all traded crude oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime. The price of benchmark Brent crude oil rose to a one-month high of over $84 in trading early Tuesday, still well below the nearly $120 reached at the height of the war but threatening to make costs everywhere higher.

Trump insists strait will be open

The U.S. military's Central Command said it struck areas around Abu Musa, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chahbahar, Jask and Konarak, targeting Iranian “coastal defense systems, missile and drone sites and maritime capabilities.” Iran acknowledged strikes around those areas, but provided no immediate casualty or damage assessments.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” the U.S. military said.

Moments after the military announced the new strikes, Trump called it “another major attack.”

“We’re hitting them very hard. And it’ll continue, and we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’re knocking out all of their offensive capability and we’re controlling the straits. We’re putting the blockade back.”

Trump also provided new details on his administration doing an about-face and suggesting it will charge tolls for ships going through the strait, after previously suggesting that it wouldn’t.

“We’re protecting a very rich portion of the world,” he said. “We’re spending money. And so, what we’ve done is, we are going to be reimbursed for protection.”

It's a change in U.S. policy that, until now, said the strait should remain open to all without tolls — as it was before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Any attempt by the U.S. or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and raise tensions, likely causing further economic disruption far beyond the region.

The U.S. Navy has fought for freedom of navigation on the seas since the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.

Attacks resume across the Mideast

The United Arab Emirates’ Defense Ministry said early Tuesday that Iran attacked two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one mariner and wounding eight others.

The Emirati Defense Ministry said Iran launched two cruise missiles at the tankers Mombasa and Al Bahiyah.

The attacks set both tankers ablaze, though the fires were extinguished.

Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard claimed the attack on the tankers, saying the vessels “ignored repeated warnings.”

“They chose to pass through a minefield and were subsequently targeted and disabled,” the Guard said.

Bahrain also came under renewed attack early Tuesday morning as Iran retaliated over the latest round of U.S. airstrikes. Bahrain sounded its missile alert sirens twice, urging the public to seek shelter. There was no word on any damage or casualties from the attack.

The Emirati Defense Ministry said the attack on the tankers killed one Indian national and wounded six Indians and two Ukrainians.

“The UAE reserves its full right to respond to this escalation and to take all necessary measures to protect its territory, its citizens and residents,” the Defense Ministry added.

The Emirates used similar language before launching attacks against Iran during the war. Fighter jets could be heard overheard Tuesday morning in Dubai.

The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the U.S. Consulate in Dubai alerted Americans early Tuesday that consular appointments had been canceled through Wednesday “due to the regional security situation.”

Jordan’s military said it intercepted four missiles from Iran, according to a statement carried by the kingdom’s state-run Petra news agency. Jordan hosts U.S. forces and has come under attack by Tehran in recent days.

Trump says Iran failed a test

Earlier Monday, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the agreement reached last month was “built to test” Iran, adding that “when you’re dealing with sleazebags (agreements) don’t mean much.”

“They didn’t honor the test,” the president said.

Iran asserts it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with the interim peace deal. The U.S. has disputed that.

The American military and the United Nations' International Maritime Organization have tried to establish a route through the strait along the coast of Oman that would be outside of Iranian control. Iran has attacked ships using that route, saying the U.S. is violating the interim peace deal. The U.S. has attacked Iran in response, drawing Iranian attacks on U.S.-allied Arab states.

Exchanges of fire in recent days had already cast further doubt on the interim peace deal. Washington had lifted a blockade it imposed in mid-April as part of that deal, which also called for the strait to be fully reopened.

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE,” Trump said on social media. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

The president said the U.S. would be “reimbursed” by 20% of the value of cargo to help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security.”

The U.S. military said it will resume its blockade of Iranian ports at midnight local Wednesday in Dubai.

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Boak, Weissert and Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mae Anderson in New York, Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Stella Martany in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

But restoring oil tanker traffic in the vital Middle East shipping corridor to prewar flows likely will require a much bigger armada of U.S. warships if not tens of thousands of American troops on Iranian soil, experts say. Despite on-and-off fighting, Iran can still target vessels in the narrow Persian Gulf waterway with drones and missiles that have been hidden in a country a third of the size of the continental United States.

“Iran has been preparing for this type of asymmetric conflict for decades now,” said Jason H. Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a former Pentagon official. “I think they’re starting to demonstrate why no other U.S. president since Reagan has elected to engage at this level of conflict with Iran, because they have that ability to completely disrupt the Strait of Hormuz.”

Trump said Monday that the U.S. is reimposing its blockade on Iran's ports and will charge other ships for safe passage through the strait. Iran has insisted it controls the waterway, through which 20% of the world's oil normally flows, while both sides have exchanged fire over the past week in a series of skirmishes that threaten a return to all-out war.

It underscores the bind that Trump is in as commercial shipping remains stifled in the strait, oil prices are rising again and Iran has shown no sign of capitulating. The war has been unpopular with many Americans and could factor into the upcoming midterm elections with gas prices high.

“They thought the situation was under control, and now they’re seeing renewed escalations, and the markets responding negatively to this,” said Eric Lob, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Middle East program and a professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University.

“It's really a kind of test of wills to see how much economic pain the Iranians are willing to absorb and then how much economic pain and even political liability this could be for Trump and the Republicans heading into November," Lob said.

Securing the strait could require ground troops

Before he was a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, Campbell was a researcher at RAND, where he worked in coordination with the U.S. military to simulate war-game scenarios against Iran.

“The things they’re doing now are precisely the types of things that were discussed and came up in really all of these types of situational scenarios,” Campbell said.

Iran produces parts for its weapons across different facilities to reduce their risk of being attacked, Campbell said. Its military units are often allowed to operate without waiting for orders from Tehran. They don't often mass in one place, making airstrikes less effective.

“It's very difficult to envision any scenario where you could satisfactorily secure the Strait of Hormuz absent ground forces,” Campbell said.

Doing so would require tens of thousand of troops, Campbell said, not only to take out Iran's hidden munitions but to secure hundreds of miles of coastline and large swaths of inland territory. The U.S. troops would likely face insurgent attacks.

Standing up that kind of force would take a few months and include “very high costs," Campbell said.

Trump insisted Monday evening that “the strait is open. It will be open,” and that the U.S. has made significant progress degrading Iran's capabilities in just a few months. Iran vowed to fight back against any U.S. interference in the strait.

Risk of US losses goes up with an increased presence

Another way to facilitate commercial traffic safely through the strait would be the continuation — and escalation — of U.S. warships guiding civilian vessels, experts say. But it comes with its own challenges and costs.

The U.S. conducted an escort operation in the 1980s when Iran had targeted shipping as part of its war with neighboring Iraq. The U.S., which supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein with intelligence, weaponry and other aid, escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers — which were reflagged as American.

Such an effort today would require a substantial number of U.S. warships at a time when the fleet is smaller than it was in the 1980s, said Michael Eisenstadt, a former U.S. military analyst.

“You’d still need a very large chunk of the U.S. fleet being dedicated to this on an open-ended basis,” said Eisenstadt, who now directs the Military and Security Studies Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He said it is a much more complicated environment today as Iran has amassed advanced capabilities, including its ability to launch drone and missile strikes.

“If we were to do what we need to do in order to make this work, which might involve putting people ashore in order to clear anti-cruise missile and drone launch sites, the losses of U.S. service members can go up, and if you’re going to do an escort operation also, the losses can potentially go up,” Eisenstadt added.

Iran's threats alone can scare away ships

Commercial vessels have been avoiding traditional routes through the strait out of fear of Iranian mines. Iran has demanded that ships use a route near its coastline and that it can potentially charge fees under an interim deal to end the war. Ships have been increasingly navigating a southern route along the coast of Oman under a U.S. overwatch operation that guided them using drones and aircraft.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, U.S. Central Command spokesman, said mine clearance operations are ongoing for some traditional routes through the strait but that “alternative pathways have been open.”

The southern route hasn't stopped Iranian attacks on ships, leading the U.S. military to strike Iranian air defense systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment, and small boats.

But Iran's threats alone can be enough to halt commerce in the strait, said Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy focused on energy and maritime risks in the Middle East.

“They don’t need to launch drones and missiles — they can just use the marine radio channel to make some threats,” Raydan said. “And this in itself is enough to scare off a lot of seafarers.”

Clayton Seigle, a nonresident scholar in energy security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Trump administration has not followed through on promises it made early on in the war to militarily assist shipments that became a liability of the conflict.

“Those naval escorts, U.S. warships, larger commitments like boots on the ground never came because I think that the rhetoric got a little ahead of our risk tolerance,” Seigle said. “And when push came to shove, the United States was not ready to deploy its Navy, to deploy its other military forces in the capacity that would be needed to even have a shot at neutralizing those threats.”

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Amiri reported from New York.

It was shortly after the 2012 presidential election and Republicans had lost badly to President Barack Obama.

Graham was calling with an outlandish proposal — “getting the band back together” — on a bipartisan plan for immigration reforms.

The move was classic Graham.

He has been called the “bridge.” The “dealmaker.” The senator at the center of all the action. And, more recently, “the Trump whisperer.”

Graham embodied a sort of institutional secret sauce that kept the Senate moving — and talking and arguing and laughing — with his hyperkinetic insistence on doing something when the place would otherwise seem destined to grind to a halt of atrophy and dysfunction.

After Graham’s sudden death over the weekend, it is unclear who, if anyone, will fill his role.

“Few have been able to frustrate and anger, amuse and engage me in a single conversation the way Lindsey could,” said Sen. Chris Coons, the Democrat from Delaware, who celebrated Graham’s birthday over dinner after the NATO summit in Turkey just days before the South Carolina senator died.

“I will miss having him as a partner in the Senate.”

Graham stayed at the center of the action

Many lawmakers like to see themselves as central to the action, but Graham was among the few actually positioned squarely at the heart of virtually every debate. With his relentless ability to adapt to the political times, he gave voice to issues at home and abroad, and insisted on drawing others into the arena.

There was almost no bipartisan gang in Congress that didn't count Graham as a member — from the gang of eight he hatched with Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to pass immigration reform through the Senate in 2013, to his recent effort with colleagues to impose sanctions on Russia over its war against Ukraine.

“We didn't agree on everything in our bipartisan immigration proposal,” Schumer said Monday, “but we agreed it was worth trying, because doing nothing was worse.”

At a time when Congress is increasingly broken, with lawmakers unable to carry out its basic legislative functions, let alone act with civility toward one another, Graham played a unique role in bringing the sides together.

The heartfelt statements and stories shared on Graham's passing, from other prominent senators as well as the back benches of the House, reflected the breadth and depth of his partnerships.

“We talked at all hours of the day or night, and traveled through all kinds of weather, meeting dictators and democracy defenders,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who joined with Graham on the Russian sanctions bill.

Blumenthal said their views often differed, “but he listened to me,” the senator said, "and sought to bridge our differences.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., opened the day's session noting Graham's empty desk in the chamber, covered with a black drape and white flowers.

Graham's friendship, he said, “made this job richer and its burdens lighter.”

His political shapeshifting drew criticism

Not that Graham was always successful. There have been plenty of times when GOP senators walked out of their private lunch meetings during a particularly stalemated time in Congress, simply shaking their heads at the latest plan from Graham to break the gridlock.

Graham’s political shapeshifting brought his detractors, to be sure, as did his unbridled pursuit of military intervention abroad.

His bipartisan immigration work with Schumer and the Democrats left Graham almost permanently outcast by the nativist and anti-immigration flank of his party.

And most decisively, Graham’s rapprochement with Trump, after having declared their relationship finished following Trump's role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol, damaged the senator's credibility among some would-be partners.

Still, Graham’s proximity to Trump during the president's second term kept him central to the action, the one senators of both parties would lean on to understand the White House's view.

“Many of us consider him the Trump whisperer,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who served as a manager in Trump’s first impeachment. Trump was later acquitted by the Senate.

“If we wanted to know what the president’s thinking was, or how he might be moved on something, you would go to Lindsey to discuss it,” Schiff said.

Graham's “voice is going to be really, really missed in terms of the relationship that Senate Republicans have with the president and his team,” Thune said on CNN, because "he was so good and so effective at talking to the president.”

Senators say Graham's humor lightened the load

In the chamber of 100 senators, with big personalities and bigger egos, Graham's self-effacing humor made it more bearable, helping to smooth the edges and bridge the divide.

He had “a wonderful sense of humor that he used to cut through the tension,” Schiff said.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in her own statement, told a story of seeking Graham’s support for her bill to ensure visas for Afghan refugees.

“I remember standing outside of a little phone booth in the Republican cloakroom last year as he spoke with the Vice President, holding up a sign that said ‘Save the Afghans’ and he put the phone on hold and said ‘OK OK I will go on your bill even if it gets me in trouble,’” she said.

“I will miss him.”

It was among several wildfires in western Europe as the region bakes under its third red-alert heat wave this year.

In Spain, 10 people were still unaccounted for Monday from a fire that ripped through a remote southern expatriate community last week, killing 13 people in one of the country's deadliest blazes.

The Fontainebleau forest fire is unusual for its proximity to the French capital — about 70 kilometers (42 miles). The region hosts the Fontainebleau Chateau favored by Napoleon and is popular with visitors from Paris and beyond.

French President Emmanuel Macron said all necessary means were being deployed to fight the fire of ″exceptional scale.”

Two water-dumping planes were deployed over the area along with hundreds of firefighters, regional fire service spokesperson Paul Laurain told public broadcaster France-Info.

The head of the regional administration, Pierre Ory, told French media that an investigation is underway and that arson was being considered a possibility.

A new fire has broken out in another section of the forest, Ory said. The initial fire is still not contained and was continuing to spread at a moderate rate.

“Winds are turning, which is significantly complicating the work of the firefighters," he said.

Trains to and from the bustling Gare de Lyon train station were disrupted late Sunday but were returning to normal Monday morning. A section of the busy A6 highway leading southeast of Paris was shut down because of fire risk.

Large fires in southern France have already scorched thousands of hectares (acres) since last week, disrupting the Tour de France cycling race and stretching firefighting resources.

France is experiencing the peak of its third heat wave of the summer, with temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across western and central areas and around 37 C (98 F) in Paris.

Spain reeling from deadly wildfire

A 93-year-old British national died Sunday in a hospital from injuries sustained in the Los Gallardos wildfire, elevating the death toll to 13.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was expected to visit the site of the fire on Monday. Regional authorities said the blaze was contained Sunday after affecting some 70 square kilometers (27 square miles) of forest and farmland — larger than the size of Manhattan.

Spain is experiencing extreme heat, which combined with wind and little rainfall is creating the ideal conditions for small wildfires to grow unchecked.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Homes evacuated in UK due to fires

In the U.K., people were evacuated from several dozen rural homes in north Wales after a wildfire broke out across a mountainside on Sunday, British media reported.

Wildfires also burned in several locations across England as another heat wave — the third this year — brought hot, sunny and dry conditions.

The Met Office said record heat waves since May have led to 2026 becoming the first year to record temperatures of 35 C (95 F) or higher on six separate days. That broke the previous record set in 1976 and 2020, when five days were recorded with such temperatures.

Natural England’s fire severity index has put much of England at “very high” risk of wildfires, with some areas in southern England and the Midlands at “exceptional” risk.

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Naishadham reported from Madrid. Eva Van Dam in Paris and Sylvia Hui in London contributed.

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A previous version corrected the age of a British national who died Sunday.

Congo since May has been battling the outbreak of a type of Ebola with no approved treatment or vaccine. Last week, the Congolese health minister, Roger Kamba, said the virus had spread to two more provinces.

The striking staff at Rwampara General Hospital in Ituri province, the epicenter of the outbreak, includes epidemiologists, case investigators, drivers and gravediggers who say they have not been paid by Congolese authorities. The protesting staff shut the hospital and blocked the road leading to it, even burning a tire outside.

“We don’t know how it is possible to not have been paid for two months,” Bahati Claude, a health worker at the hospital told The Associated Press. “We don’t want to give up the job.”

The treatment center is different from the one in Ituri where a study of two badly needed treatments began earlier this month.

Congolese authorities declared the Ebola outbreak on May 15, after the disease had been transmitting for weeks without official detection, according to the World Health Organization. The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, and the delay in confirming the outbreak came in part because tests were done for a more common type of Ebola.

During a visit to Ituri last week, Congo's health minister said the government is verifying a list of those working to control the outbreak, as some unrelated names have been added to the payroll.

“We must ensure that these payments reach the right people,” Kamba said. “We have faced a few challenges, notably changes to the lists, which have led to complaints from people saying they are not being paid even though they are working. We have the means to sort this out.”

There are 1,926 confirmed cases in the country, including 702 deaths, according to Congolese authorities.

Meanwhile, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted Monday on X that a second U.S. citizen, a humanitarian worker in eastern Congo who had contracted Ebola, was transferred to Germany. The first American to test positive for the virus was a doctor working in Congo during the early weeks of the outbreak.

The dismissal comes nearly four years after Brennand shot then-17-year-old Erik Cantu during a traffic stop outside a North Side McDonald’s in October 2022. The shooting drew national attention and led to Brennand’s firing from the San Antonio Police Department.

Brennand had been charged with aggravated assault by a public servant and was scheduled to stand trial next week.

During a hearing Monday morning, prosecutors asked the court to reset the trial, citing a new investigation involving Cantu.

According to prosecutors, Cantu — who has been arrested six times since the 2022 shooting — is under investigation in connection with an incident involving his current girlfriend that allegedly occurred July 1.

In a statement, the DA’s office said the charge was dismissed due to the ongoing investigation into Cantu.

“We can confirm that the case can be re-filed at a later date following the completion of the investigation,” a Bexar County DA’s Office spokesperson told KSAT.

Brennand says he always believed he would be cleared

Speaking publicly after the dismissal, Brennand said he feels relief after nearly four years of fighting the charge.

“A lot of emotions coming in. I knew I was innocent from the first day,” Brennand said. “The fact that it took so long is kind of surprising, but I’m blessed to have it.”

Watch KSAT’s full interview with Brennand in the video below.

Brennand credited his faith and legal team for helping him through the case.

“I stayed true to my faith. I trust in God I trust the attorneys, the paralegals, the experts and everybody that has been backing me,” Brennand said.

When asked whether he wants to return to the San Antonio Police Department, Brennand said he hasn’t decided.

Brennand’s attorneys said they were prepared to raise questions during the trial about communications between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the Wren Collective, a criminal justice reform organization based out of Austin.

The defense had subpoenaed Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales, his former first assistant and representatives of the Wren Collective to testify.

Co-defense attorney Nico LaHood alleged the communications would have been relevant to the prosecution’s decision-making process and would have been significant if presented during trial.

“The DA’s office was taking instructions from an Austin group called the Wren Collective on what to do in this case,” LaHood said.

LaHood, along with co-counsel Jason Goss, also argued that any future attempt to refile the case would violate Brennand’s constitutional right to a speedy trial because Brennand asserted that right before the charge was dismissed.

Whether prosecutors choose to pursue the Brennand case again — and whether any charges are filed against Cantu in the separate investigation — remain open questions.

More related coverage of this story on KSAT:

• ‘I could just strangle you right now’: Erik Cantu accused of threatening woman, police say
• Records: Case against ex-SAPD officer James Brennand dismissed following new Erik Cantu accusation

Neill achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.

Neill earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.” Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods — for “Merlin,” “One Against the Wind” and “Reilly: Ace of Spies.”

Some notable reactions:

Steven Spielberg

“Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.” — in a statement.

Laura Dern, actor

“Sam was my beloved lifetime friend… He showed me the depths of loyalty, protectiveness, and love, always with the driest of wit. He was a true and noble gentleman, wrapped up in my dream leading man. I will love you forever, Dr. Alan Grant.” — via Instagram.

Richard E. Grant, actor

“Knew @samneilltheprop for 3 decades and finally worked with him on ‘PALM BEACH’ in 2018. An officer and a Gentleman in the truest sense. Guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my Life … Sail on, kind Sir. — via Instagram.

Cillian Murphy, actor

“Like everyone who knew and worked with Sam, I admired him and adored him in equal measure. He was one of the kindest, funniest and gentlest people, and one of the finest actors … RIP.” — in a statement.

Nicole Kidman, actor

“Sam was one of the greats, a joy to be around,” she said. “We met when I was just 18 and he took me under his wing and we stayed friends for life. He was charming, kind, funny and intelligent. He will be greatly missed, and my heart goes out to his family.” — in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Billy Zane, actor

“I’m deeply saddened by the untimely loss of my dear friend, @samneilltheprop. We first crossed paths years ago through our work, but what I came to treasure most was the man himself—funny, endlessly curious, wickedly intelligent, generous, and always able to make you feel at ease. ... He carried himself with grace, humility, and a wonderfully mischievous sense of humor that made every conversation a pleasure. ... Rest peacefully, Sam. You’ll be missed more than words can say.” — via Instagram.

Colin Trevorrow, director

“Sam Neill was a deeply soulful and beautiful man. He was a friend and collaborator at a challenging time, and his strength gave us all strength. I’ll remember him for his tranquility, his love of wine, and for the calm assuredness he brought to his characters. It’s not every lifetime you get to befriend a legend. Forever grateful.” — via Instagram.

Christopher Luxon, prime minister of New Zealand

“Sir Sam Neill was one of the greats. He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today — one of our greatest cultural exports.” — via X.

Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand

"It was just a few weeks ago that I had the profound joy of sitting with Sam Neill, talking about life, politics, and home. He was such a thoughtful, curious, and decent person. Someone who was principled, unafraid of speaking his mind, and willing to take up a fight when he saw injustice. ... We’ve lost another incredible kiwi, and I feel profoundly sad. All my aroha to his whanau and friends. And to you, Sam, you have our gratitude and admiration. Rest easy. Moe mai rā" — via Instagram.

Anthony Albanese, prime minister of Australia

“Sam Neill starred in so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts. Wry and dry, thoughtful and laconic, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour and conviction that gave strength to his every performance. He will be much mourned and long remembered. May he rest in peace.” — via X.

Laura Tingle, Australian journalist and Neill’s former partner

“I think Sam Neill was the greatest theatrical creation of little Nigel Neill, a little boy with a stutter who was sent off to boarding school at eight years of age and spent his life in flight ever after that and showing off to make friends in new places. And I think that the humanity of that is what made him so approachable and so loved by so many people who saw all his work in television and movies.” — in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Sharon Lawrence, actor

“My condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry. Do yourself a favor and find ‘DEAN SPANLEY’ on a streamer- he’s wonderful and it will soothe someplace in your spirit that needs it now. — via Instagram.

Joel Tobeck, actor

“This man made me feel like I could fly. Even when I was all over the place in his presence he made it ok. We loved to talk rugby. RIP my old mate. Sam Neill, a true gentleman.” — via Instagram.

Rachel Griffiths, actor

“Such a shock — loved by so many — I’ll be cracking two paddocks tonight,” referring to wine from the actor’s vineyard, via Instagram.

Kylie Minogue, singer

“Vale Sam,” a Latin term for “farewell” that’s often used in Australia and New Zealand, via Instagram.

Toni Collette, actor

“I love you, dear Sam. You hero. You legend. You sweetheart. Our great friend. You are already missed so very much. Continue in peace wherever you are.” — via Instagram.

Lesley-Ann Brandt, actor

“Sending love and condolences to your family. A remarkable man and artist. NZ loses a giant and one of its greatest gifts.” — via Instagram.

Kate Mulvany, actor

“It was the greatest of honours to shout at Sam onscreen and to laugh ourselves silly offscreen. He was truly the most wondrous human. Not was. Still is. Will always be. Such is his incredible legacy of life, art, advocacy and love.” — via Instagram.

Despite the alert being discontinued, San Antonio Police Department acting Police Chief Jesse Salame told KSAT “Ozana Cisneros remains actively missing.”

“The alert has not produced any leads, and SAPD continues to investigate,” Salame said Monday night.

In a statement, DPS said the agency “continues the activation of an amber alert until the requesting agency asks that it be discontinued.”

According to the initial alert, which was issued Thursday, the infant was last seen at 6 p.m. June 10 in the 300 block of Roosevelt Avenue.

DPS said Ozana Cisneros was last seen with Maximina Cisneros, 19, who was wanted in connection with the alert. SAPD confirmed Maximina Cisneros, who is the infant’s mother, was found Friday near the 200 block of Parkview Drive.

She was taken to a local hospital with unspecified injures, police said.

Around 9 p.m. Friday, SAPD found skeletal remains in a nearby South Side park during their search for Ozana Cisneros. SAPD said at the time it’s unclear if the remains found are human and if it’s connected to the AMBER Alert.

On Monday, Texas Search and Rescue confirmed to KSAT they joined the investigation.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Immigrant rights groups identified the man who was killed in Biddeford as a 26-year-old native of Colombia. The Colombian Embassy said it was in contact with U.S. authorities about the Colombian national's death and “is providing the necessary consular assistance to his family.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said in a post on X that agents were surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal from the country. When ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, the "vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the department said.

Prior to the brief ICE statement on the incident, Maine U.S. Sen. Angus King said Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin told him the officer opened fire after the man tried to use his vehicle as a weapon against ICE agents in Biddeford, a coastal city roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) southwest of Portland. The agents involved didn’t have body cameras, he said.

When asked about the contrasting statements, King told CNN that that's what the investigation is all about.

“Did this young man actually try to run over an ICE agent or was he in danger of running over other people in the street?" he said. “Was there a reasonable expectation of bodily harm or deadly force to justify this shooting?”

DHS did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarity on what led to the shooting.

King, an independent, said Mullin also told him the officers were in Biddeford to serve an arrest warrant but that it was not for the person who was shot. King said Mullin told him that earlier information that the man was the target of an enforcement action was incorrect.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said Mullin told her the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating in cooperation with the FBI.

Messages seeking comment were left for the inspector general’s office and the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The Maine attorney general’s office, which is also investigating, said initial statements suggest the motorist was trying to flee in the direction of the agent. The office said the agent who killed him has been placed on leave.

Witness says he heard driver say, ‘I tried to stop’

Daniel Boucher said he looked out his third-floor window after hearing a “pop, pop, pop” sound and saw a small car “turned 90 degrees to the curb” with an SUV behind it. The driver was wounded and the car started moving down the street until the SUV hit it, Boucher said.

“His face was bloody. His head was bloody,” Boucher said, getting choked up. “I clearly heard the victim say, ‘I tried to stop.'"

Boucher said he saw an ICE officer bring a medical bag to where the man was lying before an ambulance and fire truck arrived. At one point, Boucher said, the agent who shot the man walked close to him.

“I was emotional and I just let him have it, and he looked at me and said, ‘He tried to run me over,’ or something to that effect," Boucher said. "I don’t remember his exact words.”

Video from a security camera at a nearby business, obtained by the AP, shows a white vehicle approaching an intersection at a modest speed before making several slow circles. A law enforcement SUV blocked its path and two officers open the driver’s door and dragged out a limp body.

It was not clear from the video at what point shots were fired.

The man was authorized to work in the US, advocates say

Two advocacy groups — the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! — said the man who was killed was authorized to work in the U.S.

After the shooting, his family contacted the Immigrants’ Rights Coalition, but they weren't ready to speak publicly about the shooting, said the group's executive director, Mufalo Chitam.

Mary Hayes, who lives close to where the shooting happened, said the man lived nearby with his wife and daughter.

“I watched a wife fall to her knees looking at her husband’s dead body on the ground,” Hayes told the AP as she held a piece of cardboard with “No ICE Stop ICE” written on it. “I watched a little girl crying with a little pink backpack on because she’s never going to see her father again.”

Sadie Dilboy said the man killed in the shooting regularly came to her laundromat and would bring his daughter, who he'd give quarters to buy candy from the vending machine.

“He was such a good person,” she said. “He was always cleaning up.”

Anti-ICE protesters gather near the scene

Several hundred demonstrators gathered in Biddeford on Monday night to wave anti-ICE signs and call for the agency to be abolished.

“We will always be a city of immigrants,” said Maine Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau, a Democrat from Biddeford.

A handful of pro-ICE and pro-Trump protesters demonstrated across the street.

Some demonstrators had gathered in the city within hours of the shooting. Amy Goodman arrived with a sign that said “Stop Killing Us” and directed it toward police working at the scene.

“Sadly, it’s something we’re seeing a whole lot more often lately, and I’m mad about it,” she said.

A recent uptick in Trump's immigration crackdown

On July 7, an ICE officer fatally shot 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, of Houston, after federal agents driving unmarked vehicles pursued him while he was taking his construction crew to a job site.

The shootings come amid a Trump administration push to carry out its mass deportations agenda. During the five-day period at the end of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people.

The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests are surging. The administration’s enforcement efforts were widely condemned last winter after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.

Hundreds of Maine ICE arrests since Trump’s return

ICE had a significant presence in Maine earlier this year, which prompted several protests. Immigration officials later said in late January that they had ceased “enhanced operations” in Maine after hundreds of arrests.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time that some Maine arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes" including aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Court records show that while some had felony convictions, others had unresolved immigration proceedings or had been arrested but never convicted of a crime.

ICE arrested 546 people in Maine between the start of Trump’s second term and March 11, 2026, the most recent data available, according to ICE arrest data provided to the University of California, Berkeley Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the AP.

About 45% of arrested people had criminal backgrounds. During the equivalent 416-day period before Trump took office, roughly 69% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, the data shows.

___

Willingham reported from Boston and Brook reported from New Orleans. Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak in New York, Aaron Kessler in Washington, Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

On Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that her government will file complaints with the U.S. Department of Justice and with prosecutors in states where 17 Mexican people had died in a federal detention center or during immigration enforcement in the U.S.

Sheinbaum also said the Mexican government will file civil lawsuits against companies that operate immigrant detention centers — fulfilling a promise made shortly after Salgado Araujo was shot to death in Houston to seek justice for what she called human rights violations against Mexicans living in the U.S.

“This is probably one of the toughest moments in the relationship since 1985,” said Tony Payan, executive director of the Claudio X. Gonzalez Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Sheinbaum called on Mexico’s political parties to unite in support of Mexicans living in the U.S. and urged officials to submit inquiries and statements condemning human rights violations of Mexicans.

“I don’t think this situation appears acceptable to anyone,” she said. “This is an issue for all Mexicans.

Sheinbaum said Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco notified the U.S. ambassador to Mexico of the plan to file the complaints.

“He appeared receptive to our concerns,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond directly to complaints by the Mexican government but said there had been no spike in deaths, maintaining a rate of 0.008% among their detained population as of May 29.

The agency added that detainees receive a higher standard of care than most prisons that hold U.S. citizens and that all detainees receive due process, proper meals, water and medical treatment. Attorneys and family members of detainees have disputed that claim.

The action by the Mexican government comes at a time when the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico is in the worst state that it has been in decades, experts say.

Turning to the U.S. legal system is nothing new for the Mexican government. Seeking to hold U.S. companies accountable for the proliferation of U.S. weapons into Mexico, the country in 2021 filed a $10 billion lawsuit against gun manufacturers that was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court

In 2022, Mexico sued gun dealers for allegedly supplying military-style weapons and ammunition to Mexican drug cartels. The case is ongoing.

In the past, Republican and Democratic administrations have seen these cases as annoyances, or frustrations, but the overall relationship between the countries was not impacted, said Eric L. Olson, former associate director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.

“I think it would be fair to say that the stakes are a little more elevating in this case,” he said.

The last time Payan recalls U.S.-Mexico relations being similarly strained was in 1985 after the death of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agent, Enrique “Kiki” Camarena Salazar, who was killed by Mexican cartel members.

The incident prompted the DEA to launch a manhunt in Mexico, the agency’s largest homicide investigation, and President Ronald Reagan partially closed the border for a few days.

The relationship between the U.S. and Mexico began to sour over immigration and trade during President Donald Trump’s first term, but relations have worsened during his second term as Trump designated major drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and Mexican officials were indicted for allegedly conspiring with drug traffickers, said Carlos Heredia, professor of international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico City.

The Tribune reached out to the U.S. State Department after hours and did not receive an immediate response.

Adding fuel to the fire is a breakdown in trade negotiations.

The U.S. opted to not renew the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement for another 16 years, leaving the agreement in effect but subject to annual review until 2036.The parties could continue to negotiate its renewal without a clear timeline or choose to terminate it.

If the U.S. walks away from the agreement, as Trump has threatened, that would put Mexico in a tough spot because it’s heavily dependent on access to U.S. markets, Payan said.

That places every aspect of the U.S.-Mexico relationship back on the table, he said.

“Every aspect of the bilateral negotiation is now under threat,” said Heredia, who argued that it was important that Mexico take action in the aftermath of the deaths in U.S. custody or by federal agents.

“In the same fashion that the United States says that [a Mexican official] is a threat to the national security of the United States, we can rightfully say that ICE is a threat to the security of Mexicans because of the racial profiling,” he said.

Payan doesn’t think the complaints filed by the Mexican government will risk anything because pursuing justice through the court system is a slow process.

“It doesn’t add any heat to an already hot relationship,” Payan said.

Olson disagreed, arguing that the Trump administration has a propensity to take offense on issues and letting that bleed into unrelated matters.

“I think the risks are higher,” he said.

Going forward, Olson expects issues that would not normally cause a rift between the two countries to become more irritating and carry more weight because both sides are pointing fingers instead of viewing each other as partners on issues.

“I think as long as that’s the kind of mindset on both sides, then I think you can expect more and more irritants to pop up — more problems, more conflicts,” he said.

Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

Disclosure: Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. and Rice University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Officers responded to the crash at approximately 6:15 a.m. on the Interstate 35 southbound main lanes near O’Connor Road.

In a preliminary report, SAPD said the driver of a silver SUV was “distracted” when he rear-ended an 18-wheeler that was stopping due to heavy traffic.

Officers believe the SUV driver did not make an attempt to brake before the collision.

San Antonio fire officials later pronounced the SUV driver, a 27-year-old man, dead at the scene, police said. The driver of the 18-wheeler, a 32-year-old man, was not injured in the crash.

On Monday, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the 27-year-old as Cimmeron Dwayne Kee.

He died of blunt force injuries, the medical examiner’s office said, and his death was ruled an accident.

According to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), the collision prompted the closure of all I-35 southbound main lanes.

Read also:

• Man dead after two-vehicle crash on Northwest Side, SAPD says