Earlier in the day, Republicans turned back a Democratic effort to block the fund, which would compensate the president's allies who say they have been politically persecuted. But there were potentially more amendments to come overnight as Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana has said he will try again to block the settlement.

The amendments were a test of party unity and a threat to the immigration spending bill, as some Republicans have repeatedly voted to block the fund. The first vote on the settlement was held open for around three hours as several GOP senators decided whether to support it.

“I feel optimistic that we’ll get there in the end," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday evening, while acknowledging he was not sure how the votes would turn out.

Thune has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage.

If an amendment limiting the settlement were to pass, Thune said, it would be “problematic” when they send the bill to the House. It could also mean a White House veto of the immigration spending bill, which has otherwise unified Trump and Republicans.

The last time the Senate abruptly changed a Homeland Security funding package, in March, the House simply refused to accept it and left town.

Settlement fund roils Senate GOP conference

Trump's judgment fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, has angered many Republican senators.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward. But Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

The Senate rejected a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina on Thursday that would also have banned the settlement fund but would have moved the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it.

Tillis said the settlement fund, some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is a political liability for the party.

“If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” Tillis said. “Otherwise, you’re exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they’re not moving forward with."

Amendments will be offered late into the night

It was unclear how Republicans would vote on additional amendments.

Cassidy, who lost re-election last month after Trump endorsed his primary opponent, said he still planned to offer an amendment to ban payouts from the settlement. He told reporters he may also offer an amendment to block a separate part of the settlement that would grant Trump and his family immunity from IRS audits.

Several Republican senators said they supported the idea but would have to see the final language before they decide. Sen. John Cornyn, who also lost reelection last month after Trump endorsed his opponent, said he agrees with the “thrust of it” but would wait to see the amendment. Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah said the same.

Thune said he believes the final bill should pass without language to prohibit the settlement.

“This is about border funding,” Thune said. “It’s about law enforcement, it’s about ICE and CBP. So I’m trying to, you know, keep it about the main thing.”

Democrats continued to offer amendments through the night, including on Trump's tariffs, his war with Iran and his immigration enforcement campaign.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at the beginning of the day.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been delayed for months

Passage of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund ICE and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security and Trump's ballroom that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support, but ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding.

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Speaking in response to a question from The Associated Press during a meeting with heads of international news agencies, Putin acknowledged the damage from Ukrainian drone attacks.

“To our regret, some of them break through,” Putin said of the drone strikes. “Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it, and we will do that.”

The wide-ranging media session came on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, his annual showcase for investment. Hours before the forum opened Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone attack set ablaze an oil terminal in the city and also hit a nearby naval base.

Putin also said Russia is open for a compromise on Ukraine in line with understandings reached at his summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Anchorage, Alaska, adding that Ukraine needs to accept them to make a deal to end the conflict, now in its fifth year.

Zelenskyy proposes talks

Also on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposed face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to Putin. Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to wait for the U.S. to return its attention to Ukraine while it is remains heavily focused on the Iran war.

In Washington, Trump said it “would be great” if Putin and Zelenskyy meet.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin hadn’t seen the letter yet and repeated his statement that Zelenskyy could come to Moscow if he wants talks. Putin said last month he doesn’t exclude a meeting in s third country, but only when there is a deal to sign.

Putin dismissed the idea that European Union countries could mediate Russia-Ukraine peace talks because “mediation assumes neutrality. Where is the neutrality here?”

Any potential third-party mediators needed to be trusted by both sides, Putin said.

“How can Russia trust people who have been harping about the need to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia for years?” he said.

Putin's battlefield update

Commenting on Russia's use of its Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile, Putin said it was fired at targets that allowed it to test its capability and precision before using it against objectives closer to residential areas.

“We hit the area where it was convenient to see the results,” he said. “It was important for making a decision on the future on the full-format use of the Oreshnik on designated targets, including those in populated areas.”

Putin emphasized his push for control of the entire Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, noting that Ukraine controls about 15% of its territory.

Putin declared that “patriotism and will of the Russian people” will ensure the achievement of goals that Moscow set in Ukraine.

“Russian troops are advancing along the entire line of contact,” he said.

Putin said he has accepted Trump’s compromise proposals from the Alaska summit, saying they could “serve as a basis of agreements between Russia and Ukraine and put an end to the conflict."

Moscow wants a comprehensive settlement, not a temporary truce, he said.

“There is no need to suspend the hostilities to start negotiations,” he said. “Naturally, the Ukrainian side would like us to suspend the advances made by Russian troops. But it would be better to end the war by agreeing to the compromises that were discussed in Anchorage.”

Putin dismisses sabotage accusations

Asked about an AP investigation tracking 191 incidents across Europe, including sabotage, cyberattacks, attempted assassination and other activity that Western officials say are part of a Russian-masterminded campaign, Putin replied there was no detailed proof of Moscow's involvement.

“What are the specific facts? What has been proven?” he said, adding that the accusations showed that Europe was not ready to talk to Russia as an equal partner.

“This only shows that certain political figures in the West are trying to carry out aggressive plans against the Russian Federation,” he said.

Asked whether Russia could contribute to a settlement of the war in Iran, Putin responded that Moscow’s proposal to take enriched uranium from Iran for storage remains on the table. He noted Russia did so as part of the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers, "and we are ready to do it now.”

His future as president

Putin, 73, who has held power in Russia for over a quarter-century, was asked if he planned to run for another term that would keep him in office until 2036, when he'll be 83. He laughed and said he’s “not even thinking about it.”

“Only God knows if any of us will be healthy enough ... to survive until tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, much less solve the problems we face and achieve the goals we set for ourselves,” he said.

In 2020, Putin ordered amendments to the Russian Constitution that essentially reset his term limits, keeping him in power.

Drone attacks on St. Petersburg

Wednesday's drone attack hit the nearby Kronstadt naval base and an oil terminal, sending a plume of black smoke above Russia’s second-largest city — an embarrassing blow to Putin's efforts to cast the conflict as a distant event that doesn’t affect Russian daily life.

It also underscored Kyiv’s growing ability to hit deep inside Russia and showed the vulnerability of its cities. Scores of flights were delayed or diverted at St. Petersburg’s airport and authorities cut cellphone internet service to try to prevent drone attacks.

Putin had scaled down Russia’s annual Victory Day parade on May 9, fearing Ukrainian strikes. Days later, a massive drone attack on Moscow’s suburbs killed three and showed the capital’s vulnerability.

Peskov said Russia’s forces were carrying out “systematic” strikes on Kyiv. On Tuesday, Russia launched deadly attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Russia's version of Davos

Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum, likened to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to showcase his country’s economic advances and encourage foreign investment. While Western officials and business leaders have stayed away after Putin sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russia has sought guests from elsewhere to underline its declared goal of promoting a “multipolar world.”

Saudi Arabia sent a large delegation this year, and the presidents of Uzbekistan and Tanzania and vice president of China also are present. A U.S. official, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., head of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, is attending for the first time in years.

Russia’s economic outlook has clouded as the initial boost from military spending has fizzled. The government raised taxes and increased domestic borrowing to keep its budget deficit under control.

Asked at the media session if Russia’s economy was struggling because of the military action, Putin paraphrased Mark Twain that “rumors of my death are highly exaggerated.”

He said the economy was growing but admitted that inflation was a concern.

“We’ve deliberately taken steps to cool the economy,” Putin said of Russia’s Central Bank putting the country’s key interest rate at 14.5%, which he called “a difficult decision.”

“You can say we’ve cooled off, or you can say we haven’t done everything yet, but these are deliberate steps. We don’t want inflation – hyperinflation -- to reach 60-80%, as it is some countries,” he said. “We’re fighting for the health of the Russian economy as a whole.”

“Somebody had to step up and make a play,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said simply.

A shocking third-period comeback changed everything, both in getting the Hurricanes back in the Stanley Cup Final and setting the stage for Jarvis and that power-play unit to get a needed breakthrough moment.

Jarvis blasted a one-timer past Carter Hart on a power play at 3:56 of overtime to lift the Hurricanes past the Vegas Golden Knights. 4-3 on Thursday night. That ended a night that saw Carolina trail 2-0 entering the third period after looking outmatched through the second, rally with three unanswered goals, then regroup after giving up a tying goal late to force the OT.

Just as importantly, the Hurricanes went from staring at an 0-2 series deficit after losing twice at home to heading West for Game 3 on Saturday in a tied series after an abrupt turn of fortune.

The time was coming, the Hurricanes kept insisting, when their top-line guys and the power play would make big plays.

Turns out, they were right.

“This is exciting, this is what playoff hockey is all about," said Jarvis, who admitted the winning score was a “huge” weight off his shoulders. "It's tight games and momentum swings and you never really know what's going to happen next.”

Unexpected comeback

Indeed, Vegas' roster filled with Cup winners from 2023 looked every bit in control of this one. Yet the Hurricanes pulled off a comeback that will earn a spot in franchise lore alongside moments like the 2002 “Molson Miracle” at Montreal — when they rallied from a 3-0 hole entering the third before winning in 4-3 OT in Round 2 — or the 2009 first-round shocker at New Jersey when the Hurricanes scored twice in the final 80 seconds for another 4-3 win in Game 7.

It started with a tough effort by Logan Stankoven to beat Rasmus Andersson for a puck along the boards before coming behind the net to throw one off the skate of Jeremy Lauzon in the crease to slip by Hart for a life-infusing score at the 10:20 mark.

Mark Jankowski followed, coming when linemate William Carrier kept the entry alive while tussling with Lauzon and fed him for a score. This one stuck, coming after Jankowski had an overtime winner waved off in Game 2 of the first-round series against Ottawa and a second goal later waved off against Philadelphia for a goaltender-interference review on Carrier.

“It's nice to sit on the bench and look over and see they're not challenging it,” Jankowski said.

Even more surprising, the power play carried the Hurricanes home.

Jarvis, power play come through in clutch

Carolina's power play entered the night just 7 of 58 (12.1%) in the playoffs after ranking fourth in the regular season at 24.9%. But, that unit struck twice to change everything on Thursday night, first with captain Jordan Staal redirecting Shayne Gostisbehere's shot to beat Carter Hart from the top of the crease for a 3-2 lead with the man advantage.

Then, after Vegas got a tying goal off Mark Stone's skate with 1:21 left in regulation — coming when Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin knocking a loose rebound past Frederik Andersen into the net while clear the crease — Carolina came up with a rousing response in OT.

The fact it was Jarvis who got it only magnified the scope of the moment. The winning blast marked only the fourth goal of the playoffs for Jarvis, a top-line forward who led the team with 32 regular-season goals and played for Canada's silver-medalist team at the Milan Cortina Olympics.

Brind'Amour had said multiple times in recent weeks that the Sebastian Aho-centered line featuring Jarvis and Andrei Svechnikov had largely played other top lines to even. The Hurricanes had rolled to a 12-1 record through the Eastern Conference playoffs while the Stankoven-centered second line or the third line featuring open-ice speedster Nikolaj Ehlers carried the scoring.

But Brind'Amour cautioned Wednesday: “We need them to get going.”

And after Vegas went ahead 2-0 on Brett Howden's second terrific individual effort, Brind'Amour swapped Jarvis with Jordan Martinook midway through the second period to put Jarvis alongside Ehlers and Staal — a move that led to an immediate goal for Jarvis in Game 2 of the second-round series against the Flyers.

This time, Jarvis buried the shot from the left circle off a feed from Gostisbehere up top. A crowd buzzing since the start of the third-period comeback erupted, with Jarvis skating toward the blue line and dropping to one knee to slide across the ice.

The win improved Carolina to 6-0 in overtime during the playoffs. That includes all four Game 2s in this postseason at home.

“It was desperation," Stankoven said. "I think we needed to try to get that split tonight."

___

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Jarvis’ heroics 3:56 into OT came after a thrilling third period that included four goals being scored and another getting called off because of goaltender interference. Carolina became the first team since 1994 to win a Cup final game when trailing by multiple goals in the final 10 minutes.

“It was lot,” said Jarvis, who scored for just the fourth time this playoffs. “We did a great job controlling our emotions. We never got too high, never got too low. Just kept responding, and that’s what I love about this group is we always bounce back.”

Game 3 is Saturday night in Las Vegas. There is now a guarantee the series will return to Raleigh for a Game 5 next week.

That did not look anything close to certain when Hurricanes had almost nothing going for the first 45 minutes, falling behind by two goals as the Golden Knights took advantage of a couple of scoring chances and locked down defensively. A couple of strong shifts in the offensive zone just before the midway point of the third brought the crowd back to life because the Hurricanes were buzzing.

“The building is a tough building to play in when it gets going,” captain Jordan Staal said. “Obviously, we just needed a spark.”

Logan Stankoven, one of the team's best players this spring, provided he. Stankoven made a terrific individual effort to get them on the board, taking the puck away from Rasmus Andersson, going to the net and banking a shot off Jeremy Lauzon and in with 9:40 remaining in regulation.

Less than three minutes later, Mark Jankowski fired a shot past Carter Hart to tie it, flipping the script from Game 1, when Vegas erased a multigoal deficit and won. This is the first time each of the first two games of a Cup final featured a team falling behind by more than a goal and winning.

“Stanky did a great job getting it going and Janks with a great shot, and it just carried on from there,” Jarvis said.

A big decision by Vegas coach John Tortorella with five minutes left paved the way for it to happen.

Frederik Andersen initially went full extension to deny Ivan Barbashev with the paddle of his stick, and a scrum ensued in the crease that ended with the puck eventually in the net. Referee Jean Hebert waved it off immediately, saying Andersen was pushed into the net and ruling it was goaltender interference.

“I saw a loose puck in front of Freddie," Tortorella said. "Our player stabbed it, didn’t move the goalie and it goes through him into the other side. I’d challenge it 10 out of 10 times.”

Tortorella after some deliberation opted to use his coach’s challenge, and the on-ice officials in consultation with the NHL’s situation room confirmed the call on the ice stood.

“The ruling on the play was goaltender interference,” executive vice president and director of officiating Stephen Walkom told a pool reporter. “He waved it (off) immediately. He believed that it was under the goalie, and the Vegas player went after the puck and interfered with the goalie and his ability to freeze the puck and waived it off immediately.”

The punishment for a failed challenge is a 2-minute minor penalty. The Hurricanes went on the power play, where they had been so ineffective all night and most of the playoffs.

Not this time. Staal redirected Shayne Gostisbehere’s point shot in on the power play. with 4:35 left in regulation.

The Hurricanes killed off a penalty in the intervening time before allowing Stone to tie it with 1:21 left at 6 on 5 with Hart pulled for an extra skater. Carolina defenseman Jaccob Slavin actually knocked the puck into his own net on the play.

Eearly in overtime, Tomas Hertl tripped Staal to put Carolina back on the power play. That allowed Jarvis to score just Carolina’s ninth power play goal of the playoffs.

“That’s a step in the right direction,” Jarvis said. “Our power play found our groove tonight. It started with Jordo in the third, and there just making the right plays, playing smart and being aggressive and it worked out.”

Instead of Vegas going home looking to move to the verge of a second championship in nine years of existence, the series is all square, despite Hart making some big saves and Brett Howden scoring his playoff-leading 12th and 13th goals.

Asked what changed, a tight-lipped Tortorella said: “I have my thoughts. I’m not discussing it here.”

___

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

His Vegas Golden Knights appeared to score with five minutes left in regulation, but referee Jean Hebert waved it off immediately, citing goaltender interference. Hebert announced that he and the other on-ice officials thought Ivan Barbashev pushed Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen to knock the puck into the net.

Tortorella after some deliberation decided to challenge the play, and it did not take long for officials and the on-site NHL situation room to stick with the call on the ice of no goal. The Hurricanes scored on the ensuing power play 25 seconds later and went on to win 4-3 in overtime to tie the series.

“I saw a loose puck in front of Freddie," Tortorella said. "Our player stabbed it, didn’t move the goalie and it goes through him into the other side. I’d challenge it 10 out of 10 times.”

It was purely a video review of goalie interference and had nothing to do with whether the whistle was blown before the puck crossed the goal line.

“The ruling on the play was goaltender interference,” executive vice president and director of officiating Stephen Walkom told a pool reporter. “He waved it (off) immediately. He believed that it was under the goalie, and the Vegas player went after the puck and interfered with the goalie and his ability to freeze the puck and waived it off immediately.”

Mark Jankowski had just tied it for the Hurricanes a few shifts earlier after Logan Stankoven started the comeback from down 2-0. On the opposing bench, Carolina players and coach Rod Brind'Amour were not sure how the review was going to go.

“Obviously, you’re hoping for the best,” center Sebsastian Aho said. “You can’t really control it. I didn’t have a really good view of it, so I had no clue. So, I was just hoping for the best.”

Brind'Amour decided not to challenge for goalie interference in Game 1 on Tuesday night because there were too many variables at play. His thinking turned out to be right again.

“It happened to us in I guess the first game: When it’s called a goal or no goal on the ice, it better be 100% to challenge it,” Brind'Amour said. “That’s the rule we go by. So, they called no goal on the ice, so that’s kind of how I think it worked out. I don’t know. I don’t know what the explanation is. It looked like he had it covered, and then all of a sudden it was in the net. I don’t know. I haven’t really looked at it. I was just happy that it went our way.”

Andersen went full extension to make a paddle save to deny Barbashev on the initial shot. A scrum ensued around the crease with players diving at the puck hoping to knock it in or keep it out.

“To me, it felt like a no goal,” Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal said. "Obviously, I’m on the other side, but I’m sure they have a different opinion. My gut was like, ‘Man, there’s no way.’ What an incredible effort my Freddie just staying with that one and finding a way to get a piece of that. I was flopping everywhere. I didn’t know what was going on. Freddy just stuck with it. The guy’s an absolute animal. That was a pretty crazy play and obviously a game-changer for us.”

The punishment for a failed coach's challenge is a two-minute minor penalty. Vegas was 4 for 4 on the penalty kill against Carolina's power play to that point in the series.

“I’m not sure how they go about their thought process, Brind'Amour said. “They’ve obviously killed all the penalties. That’s a big one.”

Staal made sure the Golden Knights didn't kill this one, tipping defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere's point shot in for just the Hurricanes' eighth power play goal of the playoffs. Seth Jarvis made it nine when he scored in overtime, though it may have never gotten to that point had Tortorella not challenged.

“You’d like to make them pay every time," Aho said. "It’s a big swing because the other option is going down a goal. But other than that, every time you get a power play, you’re trying to score. So, it’s not that different, but obviously it was a big swing.”

___

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

Even though the Spurs led for more than half of the game and built a lead as large as 14 points, they couldn’t get things going offensively as smoothly as they would have liked.

The Spurs didn’t play to their usual standard.

The Silver and Black turned the ball over 13 times, leading to 19 points for their opponent.

“It didn’t take too much film or too deep a dig to find the second-chance points,” said Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson. “It’s clearly one of them. Sixteen assists is not a reflection of this program ever since I’ve been here, and decades before I was. We can be much sharper on a lot of game-plan execution stuff.”

Spurs veteran forward Harrison Barnes echoed those sentiments, saying many of their mistakes from Game 1 were self-inflicted.

“I think there were a lot of possessions offensively that we had where it took us a long time to get into our set, or it was our connectivity when we got to the set,” said Barnes. “Those are little things that we can clean up. When you play a group like these guys who can make you pay for the mistakes that you do make, especially in terms of rebounding, those things add up over time.”

Victor Wembanyama finished Game 1 with 26 points, 12 rebounds, two assists, three blocks and one steal. The Defensive Player of the Year said he didn’t play to his standard, but the Spurs have already put Game 1 behind them.

“Really, I think the reason we lost that game isn’t even technical. It’s not even tactical,” Wembanyama said. “We need to approach the game with a better mental state. We just need to play our game. We just need to be normal.”

The Spurs and Knicks will be back at Frost Bank Center for Game 2 on Friday, June 5, at 7:30 p.m. The game will air right here on KSAT 12.

More Race For Seis coverage on KSAT:

• Juvenile arrested, banned for life from all NBA arenas after rushing court in Game 1 of Spurs-Knicks
• These famous faces were spotted at the Frost Bank Center for NBA Finals Game 1
• From the Alamodome to the Frost Bank Center: How Spurs basketball has changed since 1999

Behind the Kitchen Door is a series where KSAT investigates health inspections of restaurants in and around San Antonio.

Manola’s Thai & Vietnamese Cuisine

Metro Health confirmed the restaurant, located at 7212 Blanco, was allowed to reopen on May 22.

Inspectors originally stopped by on May 11, when they forced the restaurant to shut down because of an infestation.

Pest related issues made up a third of the restaurant’s violations, according to the inspection report.

KSAT stopped by on June 3 to see how Manola’s has taken care of the issue.

Paula, who runs the restaurant, allowed KSAT’s cameras to go behind the kitchen door.

In the kitchen, inspectors reported finding dead and live pests. Some of the dead pests were found in a soup ladle and cooked rice.

“Was that rice that was going to be served to customers?” KSAT reporter Daniela Ibarra asked.

“I wasn’t here at that day, that is why the problem happened,” said Paula.

Paula said she was shocked and surprised about the inspection results.

“A lot of customers got upset that we closed down because they missed the food,” said Paula.

Paula said she’s made changes in the kitchen to prevent another shut down.

“I just hired a professional chef here,” Paula said. “We are in the hardship, finding help, okay?”

“Our customer safety is our priority,” Paula said.

Other scores from the week of April 12 through April 18:

Mario’s Bakery - 100

1002 Castroville Road

----------------------------------------

The Original Blanco Cafe - 100

7394 Fredericksburg

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Jack in the Box- 100

10683 Huebner

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La Gloria - 100

9800 Airport Blvd

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The Skinny Pig- 100

3030 Thousand Oaks

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Papa Rami’s Pizzeria - 100

5755 Evers

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The Wicked Wich - 100

825 Fredericksburg

Score Guide

100-90 = A (Very Good to Acceptable)

89-80 = B (Acceptable to Marginal)

79 or lower = C (Marginal to Poor)

• RELATED: What do Metro Health inspectors look for when inspecting a restaurant?

You can catch Daniela’s BKD reports on Thursdays on the Nightbeat.

ALSO ON KSAT.COM

Watch other Behind the Kitchen Door stories here

Americans wagered more than $160 billion in 2025, according to ESPN. In all legal measures, the sports betting industry brought in $16.9 billion in revenue.

The national boom collided with a very different reality in Texas. Betting on the outcome of sports games remain illegal in the Lone Star State despite legislative efforts to legalize the practice.

With the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals, fans said betting chatter focused around player performances since that is one of the only wagers allowed in the state.

Although traditional sports betting on winners or losers are not allowed in Texas, some Texans are turning to legal alternatives focused on player statistics.

One of the most recognizable is Prize Picks, an app available in Texas for people 18 and older.

Instead of wagering on the final score, users make “pick” style projections on player statistics, including points scored, assists or rebounds.

“I put more on Victor Wembanyama and Castle… more than 25 points,” one fan said.

Betting on the outcome of a game can be penalized with a Class C misdemeanor, according to the San Antonio Police Department.

Even with the restrictions, some self-described tried and true gamblers said they still look for ways to put money behind their predictions.

“I still make a fair bet,” one fan said. “I still make money off of what I do.”

Others said they don’t mind the current law and worry the legalization of sports betting could affect fairness.

“I want it illegal because I want the officials to be fair,” one person told KSAT.

During a recent legislative session, House Rep. Sam Harless and Sen. Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinojosa introduced House Joint Resolution 134 “proposing a constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to legalize wagering in this state on certain sporting events.”

Any new push to legalize sports betting in Texas would have to go through the next legislative session next year in January. Lawmakers would have to file a bill in November.

Read also:

• Free options to watch Spurs against Knicks in NBA Finals; start with KSAT 12 in San Antonio
• Juvenile arrested, banned for life from all NBA arenas after rushing court in Game 1 of Spurs-Knicks
• These famous faces were spotted at the Frost Bank Center for NBA Finals Game 1

Frank Almaraz was named interim president and CEO, the utility said in a news release.

Almaraz was hired by CPS in 2011 to work as vice president of corporate development and ended his tenure as chief power, sustainability and business development officer in 2022.

CPS rehired Almaraz last February as chief operating officer, and he was promoted to interim CEO on Thursday, according to the release.

Almaraz succeeds Garza, who has served as president and CEO since 2022. Garza filed paperwork to retire from the utility, according to an internal memo obtained by KSAT Investigates on Monday.

Additionally, Garza was named general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority, a nonprofit utility company that provides power and water based in Austin, on Monday.

Garza won’t leave CPS until the end of June as the utility searches for a permanent CEO replacement, according to the news release.

Chair Francine Romero, Trustee Erika Gonzalez and all board members will lead the search for selecting candidates for the next president and CEO, the release said.

Read also:

• CPS Energy president to retire after 14 years with utility

Elizabeth Anne Nero experienced a medical episode inside her assigned housing area, according to BCSO. An onsite University Health team responded and Nero’s vitals were stabilized.

Once EMS arrived to the Bexar County jail, Nero became unresponsive, BCSO said. Nero was pronounced dead inside the jail at 5:31 p.m. She was 57 years old.

Nero’s death is believed to be related to “drug dependency or detox issues,” according to BCSO. The Castle Hills Police Department will lead the investigation of Nero’s death.

Additionally, BCSO will conduct a separate investigation, the sheriff’s office stated.

Nero was arrested last week on Friday on a state felony drug charge in addition to a failure to identify charge, a Class A misdemeanor, jail records show. She was booked into the Bexar County jail the following day on May 30.

According to a KSAT Investigates analysis, this would be the fourth Bexar County jail death this year

In February, Tammy Hovland, 59, died three weeks after she was attacked by her cellmate at the Bexar County Adult Detention Center. Hovland sustained head injuries as a result of the assault.

An inmate, later identified as Joshua Aaron Reyes, died by suicide in April. At the time, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said Reyes was found unresponsive in his cell by a BCSO supervisor conducting security checks.

Last month, Casandra Monette Pearson, 29, died at a local hospital following a suspected medical episode.

Read also:

• Bexar County jail inmate dies at hospital after suspected medical episode, BCSO says

His trip will the latest in a series of steps by China to reinforce its close ties with its nuclear-armed neighbor, whose leader Kim Jong Un has reached out to Russia in recent years, notably by sending troops and conventional weapons to support its war against Ukraine.

Kim has likewise been cozying up again to China, the North’s biggest trade partner and aid provider, in the past year.

“As North Korea builds closer ties with Russia, China seeks to use Xi’s trip to reassert its influence over Pyongyang and safeguard its strategic interests in northeast Asia,” said William Yang, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Xi will make a state visit from Monday to Tuesday, state media from both nations said in brief dispatches. His last visit was in June 2019.

The trip will come just weeks after Xi hosted U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in quick succession in Beijing.

North Korea's nuclear weapons program has long been a major concern for the United States, which opposes it. The U.N. has imposed economic sanctions on North Korea because of its nuclear and missile development.

The announcement of the trip came a day after North Korea unveiled a new facility to produce the ingredients for nuclear bombs. South Korea’s military has assessed the new nuclear facility as a uranium enrichment plant.

During a visit to the plant, Kim announced plans to bolster the country’s nuclear forces “at an exponential rate.” Experts say the plant’s disclosure implies that Kim was eager to cement his country’s status as a nuclear weapons state ahead of Xi’s visit.

The experts say Kim wants international recognition as a nuclear state so that he can demand the lifting of the sanctions. They say Kim would ultimately push for arms reductions talks with the U.S. to win concessions in return for a partial surrender of his nuclear capability.

Kim has been focusing on expanding his nuclear arsenal since his high-stakes diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.

Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim, but the North Korean leader has said the U.S. must first drop its demand for North Korea to denuclearize as a precondition for talks.

Xi and Kim met in Beijing in September and pledged mutual support and enhanced cooperation. Kim was in the Chinese capital to attend a Chinese military parade alongside other foreign leaders including Putin.

Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, have previously frustrated the U.S. and others’ efforts to toughen international sanctions on North Korea, despite its banned weapons tests.

At their meeting in Beijing last month, Putin and Xi expressed their opposition to “foreign policy isolation, economic sanctions, military pressure and other methods of creating threats to the security” of North Korea, according to a statement from the Kremlin.

Embracing the ideas of a “new Cold War” and a multipolar world, Kim has pushed for a more assertive foreign policy by expanding ties with countries locked in confrontations with the United States.

Xi, who traveled widely in his first years in power, has curtailed his international trips sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic. His last overseas trip was to South Korea last fall for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he talked with Trump.

___

Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writer Simina Mistreanu contributed from Taipei, Taiwan.

You can do that for free (without subscriptions or cable) by using an antenna to get the over-the-air signal.

The San Antonio Spurs turned back the clock for a rematch of the 1999 NBA Finals in hopes of repeating history against the New York Knicks.

The Jackals, Baseline Bums and other dedicated Spurs fans have to spend a significant amount of cash to attend a game in person, but there are a couple of free options to watch the winner of the series raise the Larry O’Brien trophy.

>> NBA Finals schedule: Dates, times, how to watch Spurs vs. Knicks on KSAT 12

Don’t feel like spending money on a new TV provider or service? There are free options available to watch the finals:

• KSAT 12 or your local ABC station over the air
• YouTube TV provides a 21-day free trail for new users
• DIRECTV offers a limited five-day free cable
• A five day free trial of Fubo Sports includes ESPN Unlimited, which provides access to the NBA Finals

Fans who miss the crowd energy have multiple options to attend free watch parties scattered across San Antonio.

More Spurs coverage on KSAT:

• Share your photos celebrating Spurs in the NBA Finals on KSAT Connect!
• Spurs announce free watch parties, pep rally and fan events ahead of NBA Finals
• NBA Finals schedule: Dates, times, how to watch Spurs vs. Knicks on KSAT 12
• Map: Where to watch the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals for Game 1

The 29-year-old Kupcho has four career LPGA Tour wins, but just one since 2022, when she earned her only major victory in The Chevron Championship at Mission Hills. She missed the cuts of her three previous U.S. Open starts, but charged ahead at Riviera with three straight birdies in her afternoon group before adding back-to-back birdies after the turn.

“I just really, really like the golf course,” Kupcho said. “It’s kind of a ball-striker’s paradise. Just hit it down the fairway, hit it on the green and make the putts.”

Play began under a heavy cloud cover at the 100-year-old country club in Pacific Palisades just two miles from the ocean, but the sun broke through around lunchtime as wind picked up. The conditions weren’t oppressive at any point, but the players realized Riviera’s setup presents a formidable challenge in any weather, and the scores reflected it.

The entire field managed just one eagle in the first round — Allisen Corpuz holed out from 86 yards on the 17th.

Mexico’s Gaby Lopez and Japan's Hinako Shibuno joined South Korea's Hyunjo Yoo, Ina Yoon and Minji Kang in the group at 68. Lopez made five birdies in her first eight holes and was the only player to get to 6 under, but she fell back with three bogeys.

Kupcho gained 4.27 strokes on her approach shots to lead the field in the first round, highlighted by a gorgeous 133-yard shot inside a foot on the second hole. She doesn't normally do extensive pre-tournament research on courses despite the encouragement of her parents, but she came down to Riviera on a scouting trip when the LPGA Tour stopped 13 miles away in Tarzana two months ago.

“When I showed up this week, it was just like I knew where everything was,” Kupcho said. “I knew what I was doing. So I think it actually helped. Parents are always right, right?”

The 33-year-old Kim has played pretty well in sprawling Los Angeles this season: At that JM Eagle LA Championship held at El Caballero in April, she led after the second and third rounds — leading by eight strokes at one point — before blowing a three-stroke lead over the final eight holes and losing a playoff to Australia’s Hannah Green.

“This course is really famous in the world, so I’m very happy to play here this week,” said Kim, who also got a head start on Riviera in practice last weekend. “Also, the course is not easy. Every hole is putting me to the test.”

Kim birdied her first two holes, but her round didn’t pick up steam until the final four holes, when she made three consecutive birdies — including two exceptional approach shots and a 29-foot birdie putt — before drilling another 29-foot par putt to end it.

World No. 1 Nelly Korda made a rough start at 2 over, struggling off the tee. She also couldn't get used to a new pair of shoes sent to her this week Nike and LeBron James, a Korda fan who is becoming an avid golfer himself.

Korda started the day in the new shoes, but changed playing the first six holes — although she said they didn't affect her play.

“It wasn’t a great day,” Korda said. “I hit it really good Monday through Wednesday, so I have honestly no idea where this came from. So I’m going to go to the range.”

Aphrodite Deng, a 16-year-old amateur, was in contention for the lead before playing two late holes at 3 over and carding a 70.

Deng was born in Canada to Chinese parents before growing up in New Jersey and eventually settling in Florida. A competitive child figure skater for several years before the COVID-19 pandemic, Deng took up golf only seven years ago, but won the U.S. Girls’ Junior last year.

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

• TONIGHT: Border showers/storms
• FRIDAY: Off & on, scattered downpours, sunshine in between
• DRIER & HOTTER NEXT WEEK: A drier pattern takes hold

FORECAST

TONIGHT

Upper-level energy is likely to develop showers/storms along the Rio Grande overnight and into the early morning. Around San Antonio, scattered downpours are expected but will be random in location.

TOMORROW

Scattered downpours are likely to start around the morning commute tomorrow, but the action should become more widespread throughout the day (with peeks of sun in between).

Some showers will last 15-20 mins, while others could last over an hour. It’s luck of the draw and the “rain lottery” as we like to say, but just over half of South-Central Texas should see at least some drops. A quick 1″-3″ is possible.

WEEKEND AND BEYOND

Stray afternoon showers are possible over the weekend, then it’s looking dry and warmer next week.

QUICK WEATHER LINKS

• WATCH LIVE: Doppler Radar
• Hourly and 10-Day Forecast
• Download FREE KSAT Weather Authority App: Up-to-date forecast information and livestreams from trusted local meteorologists.
• KSAT Connect: Share your weather photos.

The three-time AL MVP was out of the lineup earlier in the day for a third straight game and the Yankees were awaiting clarity about what they said was a bone bruise in one of the slugger’s right ribs that is causing right shoulder pain.

The team later announced Judge was diagnosed with the stress fracture of the first rib on his right side and will need to rest and have limited activity. He'll be re-evaluated after having additional imaging in about four to six weeks. The Yankees said in a statement that Judge is expected to return “at some point this season.”

After avoiding a three-game sweep with a 2-1 victory over Cleveland on Thursday, manager Aaron Boone said the team was awaiting the findings of Dr. Gregory Pearl, a vascular surgery specialist in Dallas.

“Look, it’s a lot of smart people in a specialized area and (the) guy’s several states aways,” Boone said. “We just got to be patient.”

Judge underwent a CT scan on Thursday morning and had an MRI earlier in the week when he met with a specialist. The bruise was first revealed when Judge underwent testing on the team’s off day on Monday.

“I’m obviously not a doctor, I don’t know how it all works, but there’s a lot of people involved in trying to make sure we get the right diagnosis,” Boone said Thursday morning.

Judge was diagnosed with a stress fracture in one of his right ribs in March 2020. The injury occurred when he dived for a ball in September 2019, but Judge didn't miss any time because of the 2020 season being delayed by the pandemic.

He is hitting .248 with 17 homers and 38 RBIs. But he has just one homer in his last 18 games since May 10 and ended an 11-game homer and RBI drought with a game-ending, two-run drive on May 24 against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Judge entered the game against Tampa Bay in a 1-for-24 slump that dropped his batting average to .246. He was hitless in 15 at-bats before singling in the first inning.

Judge won the batting title last season when he hit a career-high .331 with 53 homers and 114 RBIs in 152 games. He missed 10 games from July 26-Aug. 4 with a flexor strain in his right elbow that he sustained on a throw to home July 22 in Toronto. He underwent a plasma-rich injection and did not require offseason surgery.

When Judge was hurt last season, Giancarlo Stanton played 17 games in the outfield. Stanton has been out since April 24 with a strained right calf and started taking live at-bats on the field Wednesday, though he was ruled out for New York’s upcoming road trip.

José Caballero started the first two games against Cleveland and has made four starts in right field since being acquired from Tampa Bay at the July 31 trade deadline. Max Schuemann made his first career start in right field Thursday and made a diving catch on Steven Kwan in the second along with a leaping catch on Brayan Rocchio in the seventh.

Judge had started 52 of New York’s first 59 games in right field. Rookie Spencer Jones made four starts in right field before getting sent down May 22 and Cody Bellinger has started two games.

___

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

Marcus Coley died Monday, May 25, after he was stabbed near the San Antonio Central Library. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide.

“These last couple of days have been unbearable,” said Edna Coley, Marcus’ mother.

San Antonio police arrested Kenneth Dale Hollingsworth Jr., 33, in connection with the case. Hollingsworth was charged with murder.

“He was a father, he was a brother, he was a nephew, and he was my child,” Edna said.

Despite the pain, Edna said she’s determined to keep her son’s voice alive. Through their grief, Edna and her daughter Jazzmyne Coley have found strength in helping others.

“My brother would want me to step forward to help people,” Jazzmyne said.

That inspiration led the family to create the “Marcus Feeds 100” effort. On Wednesday, they distributed bagged lunches near downtown shelters.

“In the lunch bag, it was things that we know Marcus enjoyed,” Edna said.

The family said the effort is aimed at reaching people who may have faced some of the same challenges Marcus did.

“He was trying to figure out life,” Edna said.

“(Wednesday) made us realize how much he really did have an impact on the people out there,” Jazzmyne Coley said.

A public viewing for Marcus is scheduled for this Saturday at noon at the Bell & Bell Funeral Home.

Read also:

• Possible medical episode kills woman inmate inside Bexar County jail, BCSO says
• Bexar County to pay $300K to detention applicant whose job offer was pulled over wife’s La Santa Muerte altar

Included in the sanctions are Alejandro Castro Espín, the sole son of former Cuban President Raúl Castro and Vilma Espín. He served as an adviser to Cuba’s Defense and National Security Commission and was present when Raúl Castro greeted then-U.S. President Barack Obama in Havana during a historic March 2016 meeting. Castro Espín's son, Raúl Alejandro Castro Calis, also was listed.

The new penalties come as U.S. President Donald Trump has been threatening military action in Cuba since ousting Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January and then ordering an energy blockade that choked off fuel shipments to Cuba. That has led to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.

The threats took on additional weight after the U.S. announced criminal charges against Raúl Castro last month. Thursday's penalties, which follow Trump signing an executive order expanding sanctions against the island, freeze individuals’ property and bank accounts in the U.S. But it’s unclear how intertwined their finances are with the U.S. financial system.

It’s “pretty unlikely” Cuba’s president and others have assets in the U.S., said Richard Feinberg, former U.S. national security adviser on Latin America and professor emeritus of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego.

He said the sanctions “could be seen as preliminary to an intervention or increasing pressure on the regime to cut a deal,” adding that the rhetoric of Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio “could take you in either direction.”

Díaz-Canel accused Trump of making “new threatening statements against Cuba” and said “these measures are aimed at reinforcing the blockade and escalating the conflict between Cuba and the United States.”

“This political blindness adds to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks against our country, designed to harm the Cuban people,” he wrote on X. “The aggression and perversion of the U.S. government will clash with our resolve to confront the worst-case scenarios and resist the imperial onslaught.”

Trump says about Cuba, 'We’re going to handle that'

Asked Thursday if his sanctions were meant to accelerate Cuba’s collapse, Trump said, “We just want them to be a nicely run country.”

“The country is starving and it’s got no energy, it’s got no oil, it’s got no money, it’s got nothing. It’s got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event in the Oval Office.

Asked whether Cuba is close to collapsing, he said, “It’s sort of collapsed” and added that “we’re going to handle that as soon as we’ve finished” military operations in Iran.

“I like to do one thing at a time,” Trump said.

Trump has ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba after pledging to conduct a “friendly takeover” of the country if its leadership did not open its economy to American investment and kick out U.S. adversaries.

Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants who has long taken a hardline against Cuba’s socialist leadership, has said Trump’s preference is to reach a deal but has said he is doubtful the U.S. can find a diplomatic resolution with the current government.

Those “designated today direct or fund the regime and its efforts to mobilize its radical revolutionary movements in the United States and around the world,” Rubio said in a statement.

Rubio has defended the Trump administration’s decision to slap escalating sanctions on Havana, the largest of which is against Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.

Cuba's top diplomat condemns new sanctions as ‘creating a scenario of conflict’

In addition to Diaz-Canel, Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s minister of foreign affairs, said “the vile inclusion” of Díaz-Canel and others, including Cuban institutions and civil society organizations, “is the latest example of the U.S. interventionist plan to portray Cuba as a threat to U.S. national security."

“Every U.S. action aimed at creating a scenario of conflict between the two countries is destined to fail,” he wrote on X. “Every threat against Cuba’s independence and sovereignty will be met with even greater unity and determination from our people.”

The new sanctions, which freeze any assets that those targeted may have in U.S. jurisdictions or any that come into U.S. jurisdictions, also apply to non-American entities that might do business with them.

In addition to the individuals, the sanctions also target Cuba's defense ministry; its Institute for the Friendship with the Peoples, which promotes people-to-people talks; Amistur Cuba, an arm of the institute that oversees specialized tourism on the island; and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

Cuba's president, Castro relatives and others are on the list

Díaz-Canel was handpicked in 2018 to succeed Raúl Castro and was the first person in decades to lead Cuba without bearing the name Castro.

Under him, the island plunged into the worst economic and energy crisis in recent history, a situation worsened by heightened sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.

Díaz-Canel's wife, Lis Cuesta Peraza, also appeared on the sanctions list. She does not hold the title of first lady, a title abolished during the revolution, but in practice she acts as such, receiving other spouses such as Queen Letizia of Spain and accompanying her husband on official trips.

Her son Miguel Anido Cuesta, who is Díaz-Canel's stepson, also faces sanctions.

Lis Cuesta Peraza wrote on X late Thursday that “it is almost an honor to be on this ‘list.’ They never tire of ridicule and political stupidity.”

The new action boosts pressure on the Cuban government but is far from the first time the U.S. has imposed sanctions against heads of state or government and their relatives.

The U.S. hit former Sudanese President Omar Bashir and former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in the early 2000s and, more recently, targeted Maduro and his wife with sanctions.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. AP writer Andrea Rodríguez in Havana contributed to this report. Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Dawa Sherpa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled.

Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above base camp, said Pemba Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, which coordinated the search.

He was quickly carried down to safety and given food and water. A rescue helicopter flew him to HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, where his wife and daughter, who already had begun funeral rituals for him, were waiting.

"We first heard that he was still alive on the local news and from a person we know who called with the news that ... he is being brought down," said his wife, Damu Sherpa.

Though Dawa had been missing since last week, there was a delay in organizing a search team. No reasons were given for the delay, but when helicopters were finally sent to look for him, they could not find him.

His family had given up hope. Dawa’s teenage daughter, Mendo Lhamu Sherpa, said they were on the second day of a funeral ritual, which lasts for several days.

“When we first heard about it (the rescue), we could not be sure if that person was indeed our father,” Mendo Lhamu said. “So to be certain we asked for photos to be sent and then only we were sure and very happy.”

The team that spotted him was part of the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee, which lays the ladders and ropes on the route at the start of each climbing season and then removes the equipment and cleans up the site after climbers have left.

Dawa was last seen at spot called Yellow Band above the Camp 3, which is located at 7,200 meters (23,622 feet). The base camp is at 5,300 meters (17,388 feet).

Dawa, 52, works for a small Kathmandu-based company called Himalayan Traverse, and he was guiding a Polish climber. He comes from the town of Okhaldhunga, south of Everest.

Nepal's mountaineering community has hailed Dawa's survival as miraculous.

“This is nothing short of a miracle surviving so many days on the mountains facing such harsh condition,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa, a leading figure in the community.

“Sherpas are built tough growing up in the mountains,” Ang Tshering said. “If there was someone else in his place they might not have survived.”

Members of the Sherpa community were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters, eventually allowing them to dominate the Himalyan climbing business.

More than 1,000 climbers and their guides scaled Everest this May, which was the busiest climbing season ever on the world's highest mountain. It began late because of a massive ice block on the route just above the base camp that took about two weeks to clear.

The 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) high peak was first climbed on May 29, 1953, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay.

But Republicans still faced a gauntlet of amendments before the bill could advance, a test of party unity that could go late into the night. The biggest threat to the bill could be another amendment to ban the settlement fund — this time from Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who lost reelection last month after Trump endorsed his primary opponent.

“I feel optimistic that we’ll get there in the end," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Thursday evening, while acknowledging he was not sure how the votes would turn out.

Thune has been pushing GOP senators for weeks to keep the bill focused on the funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which Democrats have blocked since early this year, and to avoid adding new provisions that could complicate its passage.

If an amendment limiting the settlement were to pass, Thune said, it would be “problematic” when they send the bill to the House. It could also mean a White House veto of the immigration spending bill, which has otherwise unified Trump and Republicans.

The last time the Senate abruptly changed a Homeland Security funding package, in March, the House simply refused to accept it and left town.

Settlement fund roils Senate GOP conference

Still, the judgment fund, which was part of a settlement that resolves Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, has angered many Republican senators.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said this week that the fund would not move forward. But Trump, who has been at odds with Senate Republicans in recent weeks, raised new doubts about the settlement’s future Wednesday afternoon — just after the Senate had voted to start debate on the immigration bill — when he told reporters that the settlement is “very important” and said “I don’t know” whether it is dead or on hold.

“I’d have to ask the lawyers,” he said.

The Democratic effort to ban the fund, the first vote of the day, was held open for around three hours as Cassidy, Jon Husted of Ohio and Dan Sullivan of Alaska withheld their votes. In the end, Cassidy voted against the Democratic motion and the two other GOP senators — both of whom are up for reelection this year — voted for it.

Senators defeated a second amendment from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina that would also ban the settlement fund but would move the money to a separate anti-fraud fund at the Department of Justice. Most Democrats voted against the amendment, guaranteeing its defeat, but more than 10 Republicans supported it.

Tillis said the settlement fund, some of which could potentially go to Trump supporters who beat police and attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is a political liability for the party.

“If Blanche says this is largely inoperative, why not use this moment to codify that?” Tillis said. “Otherwise, you’re exposing every one of our members who are in cycle to having to deal with this between today and Election Day, and that makes no sense for something that the DOJ says they’re not moving forward with."

Amendments will be offered late into the night

It was unclear how Republicans would vote on additional amendments.

Cassidy, who had been in discussions all day with the Senate parliamentarian, said he still planned to offer an amendment to ban payouts from the settlement. He told reporters he may also offer an amendment to block a separate part of the settlement that would grant Trump and his family immunity from IRS audits.

Several Republican senators said they supported the idea but would have to see the final language before they decide. Sen. John Cornyn, who also lost reelection last month after Trump endorsed his opponent, said he agrees with the “thrust of it” but would wait to see the amendment. Republican Sen. John Curtis said the same.

Thune said it wasn't yet certain whether the final bill could pass without some sort of prohibition on the settlement.

“We’re going to find out soon enough,” he said Thursday evening.

Democrats planned other votes through the night, including on Trump's tariffs, his war with Iran and his immigration enforcement campaign.

“Amendment after amendment, vote after vote, Republicans are going to have to answer to the American people,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said.

ICE and Border Patrol money has been long fight

Passage of the roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

Senate Republicans are using a complicated procedural maneuver to get around the filibuster and pass the budget legislation with no Democratic votes. But it has taken weeks to get the bill to the Senate floor as Republicans navigated various obstacles to passage created by Trump and the White House — including a $1 billion proposal for White House security that they eventually scrapped and the fierce bipartisan backlash to the settlement fund.

Democrats say any funding bill for the Homeland Security Department should place restraints on federal immigration authorities, including better identification for federal officers and more use of judicial warrants, among other asks.

After federal agents shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Trump agreed to a Democratic request that the Homeland Security bill be separated from a larger spending measure that became law. But bipartisan negotiations went nowhere, and the department funding lapsed in mid-February with no agreement on changes to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Congress eventually funded the rest of the Homeland Security Department at the end of April with Democratic support. But ICE and Border Patrol remained without regular funding, and Republicans launched a new effort to pass three years of funding for those agencies with no Democratic votes.

The ruling came weeks before Aaron Spencer, who will be on the November ballot, had been set to face a jury on a second-degree murder charge. He won a March primary over the local three-term sheriff whose office had arrested Spencer in Lonoke County, which has roughly 76,000 residents and is heavily Republican.

Spencer’s attorneys do not deny that he shot and killed Michael Fosler in 2024, saying he did so to protect his child. Special Circuit Court Judge Ralph Wilson Jr. granted a motion by Spencer's attorney to dismiss the charge over a dash camera memory card that may have captured the shooting and was lost by law enforcement.

“The court finds that conduct by law enforcement was so egregious that dismissal of this case is warranted,” Wilson wrote.

At the time of the shooting, Fosler, 67, was out on bond after being charged with dozens of sexual offenses against Spencer’s then-13-year-old daughter.

Court documents show on the night of the shooting, Spencer had woken up to find his daughter missing, and later found the girl in the passenger seat of a vehicle Fosler was driving. Spencer forced Fosler’s truck off the road and, after an altercation, called 911 to report he had shot the man.

Prosecutors said Spencer planned the killing and that he could have called police while pursuing Fosler. But Spencer pleaded not guilty and maintained he acted to protect his child from a predator.

Spencer’s attorney, Erin Cassinelli, said she is thankful for the court’s decision.

“No member of this family should ever again be forced to walk into a courtroom and relive this horror,” she said in a statement. “This father should have never been charged for protecting his child.”

Spencer said he is grateful this chapter is over and that his focus is now on his family and returning to normal life.

“There’s still work to do in Lonoke County, and I’m more committed to it than ever,” he said in a statement. “Together we can build a safer and stronger Lonoke County.”

Lonoke County Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Graham did not return messages Thursday seeking comment on the decision.

The Associated Press typically does not identify sex abuse victims, but Spencer has made his daughter’s experience with the criminal justice system a central part of his campaign for sheriff, pledging to establish a dedicated team to combat sex crimes against children.

Spencer's attorneys filed the motion seeking to have the case dismissed, contending that video and audio of the dash camera from Fosler's truck may have contained evidence that would have cleared Spencer of any wrongdoing. According to court records, a detective with the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office removed the dash camera from the truck when responding to the scene of the shooting.

But the camera's internal settings were not preserved and the battery of the camera was allowed to drain, and as a result the camera went back to its default settings. When the camera was sent to the attorney general's office for a forensic exam, the memory card that was in it when it was collected from the truck was missing. The detective who collected the camera later admitted that it was not logged into evidence right away, but was instead stored in his personal office rather than the evidence room, according to court records.

Wilson replaced the original judge handling the murder case in January after the Arkansas Supreme Court removed Judge Barbara Elmore from the case, finding she had issued an overly broad gag order that violated Spencer's First Amendment rights.

—-

Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.

It’s not surprising that those have yet to be resolved, along with several closely contested congressional races, because the state routinely takes days, or even weeks, to fully tally races. Nor is it unusual for President Donald Trump to complain about the pace of the count and allege fraud, as he did Thursday. It’s something he’s done repeatedly in the past.

What was unusual was that Trump announced that his Department of Justice was investigating the count: “Why the vote counting DELAY???,” the president posted on his social media account.

He suggested that the state's Democrats were somehow cheating so two candidates he favors — Republican Steve Hilton in the governor's race and Spencer Pratt in the nonpartisan mayor's race — would be bumped from the top two slots and therefore ineligible for the November general election.

“You see what’s happening in California, they’re rigging the election," he told reporters during an Oval Office gathering Thursday.

Trump's posts prompted a response from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose press office posted a clip of a CNN video explaining how the nation’s most populous state prioritizes accuracy and accessibility over speed, drawing out the count.

“For the record: we wish the votes were counted faster, too,” Newsom’s office posted.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles declined to comment on whether it was investigating the ballot counting.

Slow count is designed to ensure accuracy, but opens door to election lies

The law in California practically mandates a drawn-out count. Ballots are mailed to every eligible voter — some 23 million of them — and the state has permissive rules for returning them. They will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive at an election office within seven days.

Only after the polls have closed and most of the country has gone to sleep can local election workers begin the lengthy process of verifying the legitimacy of the late-arriving mail ballots and then start to tabulate them.

If a voter’s signature on the ballot envelope doesn't match what's on file, election officials are required to give those voters a chance to come in and prove their identity so the ballot will count, delaying a final tally further.

“We might not like how California administers its elections (and I don’t),” wrote Stephen Richer, a former Republican election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, on the social platform X. “But that doesn’t make it fraud.”

Last year, Newsom signed a bill requiring the vote count to be completed within 13 days, rather than the previous 30 days. To get an extension, counties must inform the Secretary of State's Office of the reason for the delay.

That's not quick enough for the president: “The Dumocrats are at it again!” the president wrote on his social media platform. “They are trying to STEAL THE GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA PRIMARY, AND THE MAYOR OF LOS ANGELES, PRIMARY, AWAY FROM TWO GREAT REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES. Here we go with the very late and massive numbers of MAIL IN BALLOTS.”

In a video posted on X, Hilton slammed the state’s counting as “just another shambles brought to you by California Democrats.” Notably, he said that so far his campaign has seen nothing to indicate it will need to go to court. He urged his supporters to take advantage of the state, allowing voters to fix any issues with their mail ballots — one of the steps that drags out the count.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman, a Democrat who wrote the bill to accelerate ballot counting, said Trump’s comments about the counting process were disappointing and “a lie.”

“While Trump is laser focused on lying about our elections and undermining voters’ faith in our democracy, so that Republicans can then try to pass policies like Voter ID laws that make it harder for people to vote, our priority is to make sure that every validly cast ballot is counted,” he said in a statement.

Many Democratic voters waited until the last minute to cast their ballots

Some experts warned that the count from Tuesday's primary might take even longer than after previous elections.

“What compounds things this time around is that Democrats have been holding on to their ballots,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

The state's millions of Democrats this year were exceptionally slow to send in their ballots, apparently waiting until the last minute to make a selection in the ever-evolving governor's race. The state operates a primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election, and Democrats had been fretting for months that having so many Democrats in the race would splinter the vote, allowing two Republicans to claim the top two spots.

Democratic voters appeared to wait until the end to see which of their candidates was emerging as a favorite. The high number of late ballots will likely make the delay in getting final counts even greater.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber issued a statement Thursday saying the state's priority was ensuring the tally is done correctly. “Accuracy comes before speed,” she said.

While millions of ballots have been counted by now, it's the uncounted ones that loom largest for close races.

Despite being an overwhelmingly Democratic state, California has featured some of the nation's closest congressional elections, sometimes decided by just a few hundred votes, so there's often no way to determine a winner until the weekslong ballot count has concluded. In 2024, one House race wasn't called until December.

Things get even more complicated in a primary election, such as Tuesday's. That's because the news isn't just the top vote-getter but also the second-place finisher. To know the true outcome of any race, enough votes need to be tallied to know for certain who finished in first and second.

Later ballots skew toward Democrats, feeding conspiracy theories

Another side effect of the enormous crush of late mail ballots that get tallied last is that the final vote gets more and more Democratic. That’s because Republicans are more likely to return their ballots early or vote in person on Election Day. Those ballots get counted first.

The gradual shift in the vote toward Democrats as ballot counting continues has sparked all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Republicans have long complained about the California count, even though the GOP did well in close House races in the state in 2024. The Republican National Committee filed lawsuits in other states challenging the legality of counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day and the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the issue sometime this month.

But worries about the California vote count aren't only a partisan issue. Voting advocates have urged state lawmakers to better fund local election offices so they can process the avalanche of late-arriving ballots faster.

“The Legislature needs to throw a lot more money to get the count quicker,” Hasen said.

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Associated Press writers Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Sophie Austin in Sacramento contributed to this report.

And while the New World screwworm poses an obvious threat to the state’s cattle industry, a rancher and manager of a livestock auction is concerned but hopeful.

“The USDA is on our side. I mean everybody... nobody wants to see this happen again,” Bryan Luensmann told KSAT in an interview at the Seguin Cattle Company. “They’re doing everything in their possible powers.”

Screwworm flies lay eggs in the wounds or body openings of warm-blooded animals, including livestock, wild animals, pets, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, humans.

After they hatch, the larvae burrow into their hosts as they eat their flesh. As more maggots are born, the wounds become larger, and the parasites can cause serious, often deadly damage to their hosts if they aren’t treated.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday confirmed screwworm larvae were found in the umbilical area of a three-week-old calf in La Pryor, roughly 100 miles southwest of San Antonio and 50 miles from the border.

The state veterinarian has since set up a 12-mile “infested zone,” quarantining all warm-blooded animals inside of it unless they’re inspected first.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said millions of sterile flies have been released in the area, on top of the regularly scheduled releases.

>>What to know about the New World screwworm fly and its reappearance in the US

The fly was an annual warm-weather scourge of cattle ranchers from at least the 1930s through the 1960s, until the U.S. eradicated the pest by breeding sterile male flies and dropping swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females.

Screwworms were declared eradicated in the United States in 1966, though there were still outbreaks into the 1970s.

The deadly flies were detected in Mexico late in 2024, after years of being contained at the southern end of Panama.

Luensmann remembers the screwworm threat from his childhood.

“Anything that was born...if it had an open wound, you’d have to catch it. And there was a purple salve that we would have to run on rub on over it, and it would kind of seal it off and kill whatever was in there,” he recalled. “And I mean, that was twice a day, seven days a week.”

Luensmann said the reported screwworm case is far enough away the resulting quarantine wouldn’t affect his auction business yet.

“If it keeps migrating and migrating, and they keep swallowing up more counties, you know, you can see buying companies stepping back,” Luensmann said. “And it’s like they’re going to associate, you know, ‘maybe we don’t need to own, be buying no cattle right now.”

“It could make beef prices higher, and it could crash the cattle market, too,” Luensmann said. “We do not know what the effects of this is going to be.”

If the problem gets bad enough, Luensmann thinks it could discourage already struggling ranchers into quitting.

“In the cattle business, you wait nine months for that calf to be born. And then the last thing you want to see it is be ate from the outside in, in the course of two weeks after being born. I mean the older you get, the harder it is to lose ‘em,“ Luensmann said.

“So, you know, like I said, if it came down to me — if it got as bad as it did back in the 70s, I might even get out. I don’t know," Luensmann said.

Secretary Rollins has stressed screwworms do not cause a food safety issue and said that animals treated early enough can recover.

“If we all work together and follow these treatment and movement restriction guidelines, there is not reason to believe that this incursion will result in any sort of establishment of the pest on our side of the border which is different from when it hit us in the 1950s and the 1960s,” Rollins said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Read also:

• What to know about the New World screwworm fly and its reappearance in the US
• No peaches to pick: Fredericksburg orchard takes major hit after unusual weather swings

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it “cannot provide any information on the current size, composition or whereabouts of the stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran or whether Iran has suspended all enrichment-related activities.”

The IAEA warned that it was “unable to discharge its safeguards responsibilities” that it has under the Safeguards Agreement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, adding that it is “indispensable and urgent” for Tehran to implement its obligations under that Treaty.

The only nuclear facility inspected in Iran by IAEA inspectors since the last report in February has been the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was visited on June 1-3. The reactor currently running at Bushehr uses uranium from Russia enriched to 4.5%, a low level needed for power generation in such plants.

The confidential report come as tensions have flared in the Middle East.

Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s main airport on Wednesday, killing one person, wounding dozens of others and briefly closing the airfield — the latest in back-and-forth attacks by Iran and the U.S. that test a fragile ceasefire.

According to the IAEA, Iran maintains a stockpile of 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60% purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

That stockpile could allow Iran to build as many as 10 nuclear bombs, should it decide to weaponize its program, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi warned in a recent AP interview. He added that it doesn’t mean that Iran has such a weapon.

Such highly enriched nuclear material should normally be verified every month, according to the IAEA’s guidelines.

The report said Grossi reiterates his "full support to the negotiations underway aimed at finding a mutually acceptable solution to issues related to Iran’s nuclear programme, and his readiness … to support an eventual agreement.”

Talks have dragged on for weeks as mediators seek a more enduring truce in the war, now in its fourth month. They are increasingly strained by Israel’s broadening war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Iran maintains its hold on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the world’s oil and natural gas and related products like fertilizer — and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ports. Global fuel prices remain high, and the effects of the conflict are felt well beyond the region.

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The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/

Crewmembers on the May 3 flight from Venice, Italy, also recalled hearing a loud “thump” and feeling a “mild jolt” just before touchdown at Newark Liberty International Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board stated in its initial report.

The first officer recalled saying “you are still slow and a little low" as the plane descended, according to the report. He then recalled looking back outside and thinking the plane was low, but just about to touch down.

The report provides the first description of the events from the crew inside the plane, but it doesn’t identify a specific reason why the plane came in so low, or make recommendations about how to prevent similar incidents. That is not expected until the NTSB releases its final report, likely sometime next year.

But the report clarifies for the first time that it was debris from the light pole, and not the plane itself, that hit a truck traveling on the New Jersey Turnpike. Law enforcement officials initially said the plane had hit the top of a bakery truck, causing minor injuries to the driver.

The report says the truck’s windshield was damaged and its trailer punctured, but that there was no evidence of tire marks on either the tractor cab or trailer.

The Boeing 767 was able to land safely, though it sustained “substantial” damage to its fuselage and one of its landing tires had evidence of slash marks, according to the NTSB report. None of the more than 200 people aboard the plane were hurt.

Regular drivers on that stretch of Interstate 95 near the Newark airport are likely used to seeing planes coming in low as they cross the highway in preparation for landing.

Dashboard camera video from inside the truck showed the moment of impact. The driver is seen singing happily to himself, then glancing out his window with a slight look of concern as the sound of the jet’s whining engines begins on the recording. A moment later, part of the plane zooms into view out the driver’s side window.

The NTSB report suggests the pilot intentionally took a shallow approach to the runway that was below the established flight path, said D. Blake Stringer, director of the Center for Aviation Studies at The Ohio State University.

“It’s not surprising that the airplane clipped infrastructure near the runway,” he said. “If a pilot can’t fly the intended flight path, the general recommendation is to steepen the angle of descent, not shallow it out.”

Steve Arroyo, a retired United Airlines captain and safety expert, said the pilots don’t appear to have properly prepared for their designated runway’s unique landing requirements, even though they could have made or requested more time.

“They were already below where they should have been before they even crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike," he said.

The plane’s runway assignment changed three times before landing, the report states. The tarmac it ultimately landed on is the shortest runway at the airport and is generally only used when there are strong winds like there were that afternoon.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said those strong winds also appeared to be challenging for the pilot. An air traffic controller told the pilots at the time winds were gusting up to 31 mph (50 kph).

At one point shortly before landing, the pilot told investigators that he “got fast” as he turned the airplane into the headwind, the report states. The pilot pulled the power levers back to compensate as wind gusts produced “moderate turbulence.”

United Airlines declined to comment.

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Associated Press transportation reporter Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska contributed to this story.

An attorney for Karmelo Anthony said his client did not instigate the fight with Austin Metcalf, telling the jury at the start of a packed murder trial near Dallas that it was instead an act of self-defense.

Anthony pleaded not guilty over last year's stabbing, which stunned an affluent suburb where the pair attended school. The death last year quickly drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms. Anthony, now 19, is Black, while the Metcalf was white.

According to an arrest report, Anthony told police he was protecting himself when the two got into a confrontation during the meet in Frisco, a fast-growing city is dotted by dozens of modern-looking school campuses and gleaming athletic facilities.

But prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors it was a “senseless murder” and not a case of self-defense. He called it a “sneak, surprise attack” and said Anthony “knows he goaded the murder.”

“He didn’t want a fight,” Wirskye said of Metcalf.

The jury was seated this week under increased courthouse security and a Collin County judge set strict rules over the proceedings, including prohibiting attorneys from discussing the case publicly. Dozens of people lined up to get a seat in the courtroom Thursday.

The stabbing happened on a rainy morning in April 2025. Witnesses told police the confrontation began when Anthony sat under a tent belonging to Metcalf's team, according to an arrest report. The teens went to different schools in Frisco.

When Metcalf told Anthony that he needed to move, Anthony reached inside his bag and allegedly replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” the report said.

A short time later, Metcalf allegedly grabbed Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest, the report said.

Robert Starr, a track coach at Memorial High School, where Metcalf was a student and athlete, explained to jurors that a tent at a track competition “marks your spot” and is similar to a team bench in other sports.

“You just don’t go into someone else’s tent uninvited,” Starr testified.

In his opening remarks, defense attorney Mike Howard said it was Metcalf who made the first contact.

“In that split second, Melo has a decision to make: how and when to act,” Howard said.

"Self-defense is useless if you wait too late to defend yourself. ... He reacts in a split second of fear, chaos,” Howard said.

Starr told the jury that he rushed to the tent when he saw commotion.

“I see Austin on the ground and his face is purple, and he has a big hole in his chest,” the coach said, choking up in the witness chair.

Another area track coach, Vincent Hooper, testified that he put his arm around Anthony and asked what had happened.

Anthony replied that he stabbed someone who had "put his hands on me,” Hooper recalled.

Anthony faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder.

The parents of both teens have said they were good students who planned to go to college. Metcalf's father has condemned those who seized on the race of the teenagers after the killing.

“This was not a race thing. This is not a political thing. Please do not comment if you do not know what happened,” Jeff Metcalf said on Fox News' “America Reports.”

“This is a human being thing,” he said. “This person made a bad choice and it affected both his family and my family forever.”

Authorities have also issued warnings about online discussions surrounding the killing. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson urged people last year to beware of posts spreading “misinformation, hate, fear, and division."

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Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

An attorney for Karmelo Anthony said his client did not instigate the fight with Austin Metcalf, telling the jury at the start of a packed murder trial near Dallas that it was instead an act of self-defense.

Anthony pleaded not guilty over last year's stabbing, which stunned an affluent suburb where the pair attended school. The death last year quickly drew wide attention, in part because of social media posts that amplified the case in racial terms. Anthony, now 19, is Black, while the Metcalf was white.

According to an arrest report, Anthony told police he was protecting himself when the two got into a confrontation during the meet in Frisco, a fast-growing city is dotted by dozens of modern-looking school campuses and gleaming athletic facilities.

But prosecutor Bill Wirskye told jurors it was a “senseless murder” and not a case of self-defense. He called it a “sneak, surprise attack” and said Anthony “knows he goaded the murder.”

“He didn’t want a fight,” Wirskye said of Metcalf.

The jury was seated this week under increased courthouse security and a Collin County judge set strict rules over the proceedings, including prohibiting attorneys from discussing the case publicly. Dozens of people lined up to get a seat in the courtroom Thursday.

The stabbing happened on a rainy morning in April 2025. Witnesses told police the confrontation began when Anthony sat under a tent belonging to Metcalf's team, according to an arrest report. The teens went to different schools in Frisco.

When Metcalf told Anthony that he needed to move, Anthony reached inside his bag and allegedly replied: “Touch me and see what happens,” the report said.

A short time later, Metcalf allegedly grabbed Anthony, who then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the chest, the report said.

Robert Starr, a track coach at Memorial High School, where Metcalf was a student and athlete, explained to jurors that a tent at a track competition “marks your spot” and is similar to a team bench in other sports.

“You just don’t go into someone else’s tent uninvited,” Starr testified.

In his opening remarks, defense attorney Mike Howard said it was Metcalf who made the first contact.

“In that split second, Melo has a decision to make: how and when to act,” Howard said.

"Self-defense is useless if you wait too late to defend yourself. ... He reacts in a split second of fear, chaos,” Howard said.

Starr told the jury that he rushed to the tent when he saw commotion.

“I see Austin on the ground and his face is purple, and he has a big hole in his chest,” the coach said, choking up in the witness chair.

Another area track coach, Vincent Hooper, testified that he put his arm around Anthony and asked what had happened.

Anthony replied that he stabbed someone who had "put his hands on me,” Hooper recalled.

Anthony faces up to life in prison if convicted of murder.

The parents of both teens have said they were good students who planned to go to college. Metcalf's father has condemned those who seized on the race of the teenagers after the killing.

“This was not a race thing. This is not a political thing. Please do not comment if you do not know what happened,” Jeff Metcalf said on Fox News' “America Reports.”

“This is a human being thing,” he said. “This person made a bad choice and it affected both his family and my family forever.”

Authorities have also issued warnings about online discussions surrounding the killing. Frisco Police Chief David Shilson urged people last year to beware of posts spreading “misinformation, hate, fear, and division."

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Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed.

No official casualty figures were immediately available from the clashes that prompted calls for restraint from the United Nations and the United States as the government and opposition traded blame for the violence.

Residents reported heavy gunfire and explosions as fighting broke out in several neighborhoods Wednesday.

“We heard heavy weapons fire, and people were fleeing their homes,” said Abdullahi Mohamed, who lives in the city's Howlwadaag district. “Many families left the area looking for safer places.”

The clashes underscore growing political tensions as disputes over Somalia's elections and the constitution have increasingly strained relations between the government and opposition leaders. Somalia is also fighting al-Shabab militants while seeking to strengthen state institutions with support from international partners.

Several buildings were hit by heavy gunfire and mortar shells during the clashes, with some catching fire.

Gunfire subsided on Thursday afternoon following mediation efforts led by the director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency, who visited the area and held talks with former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire. The discussions reportedly led to an agreement to halt the fighting.

Khaire was later seen leaving his house alongside the intelligence chief. During a briefing with journalists, Benadir Regional Police Commissioner Mahdi Omar said that an arms recovery operation at Khaire’s residence had uncovered heavy machine guns. He added that the operation resulted in casualties but did not provide details on the number of people killed or injured.

Opposition figures say the rally planned for later Thursday was intended to protest what they call constitutional violations and efforts by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to extend his tenure. The government has rejected those allegations.

On Thursday morning, there were signs of mobilization on the streets, but a heavy security presence remained in place with police patrolling major roads.

Mogadishu police said the violence stemmed from “organized attacks” carried out by armed militias.

“The incidents were not the organization of peaceful public demonstrations, but rather coordinated armed acts that directly threatened the security, order and stability of the capital,” the police said in a statement.

State security forces repelled attacks on their positions and launched investigations to identify those responsible for organizing, financing and carrying out the violence, police said.

Opposition leaders accused security forces of attacking residences linked to former Prime Minister Khaire and former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

“We are under attack,” Khaire said in a statement. “For the second time in less than 24 hours, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has directed armed forces against our peaceful gatherings.”

Traditional elders, politicians, and community leaders were meeting at Khaire's residence when the attack occurred, he said. The government disputed that account.

The U.N. expressed alarm over the clashes. Secretary-General António Guterres said the violence resulted in deaths, injuries to civilians, and damage to critical infrastructure.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns all acts of violence and incitement to violence undertaken for political advantage,” he said in a statement. Guterres also called on all parties to exercise restraint, protect civilians and resolve political differences through dialogue.

The U.S. also voiced concern over the fighting. The U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu described the violence as “reckless” and urged Somali leaders to seek a peaceful resolution.

“Somali leaders on all sides have a responsibility to preserve stability and resolve differences through peaceful means,” the embassy said. “Actions taken in the coming hours and days may have lasting consequences for Somalia’s security, unity, and future.”

Khaire accused Mohamud of deploying state security forces against political opponents and alleged that troops trained and equipped by international partners to fight the al-Shabab extremist group had been used against opposition figures.

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

Nine people were killed in at least four separate strikes overnight in Gaza City, according to Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The hospital said the victims included two women and two children.

Another strike in Gaza City on Thursday evening killed at least one person and wounded another, according to Saraya Field Hospital, which is operated by the Red Crescent.

Footage of one of the strikes showed a massive hole in an upper floor in what appeared to be a residential apartment building. The blast blew holes through interior walls and scattered blood-stained belongings across the room and into the street.

“They say the war has stopped, but the war has not stopped,” said Walid Shbeir, the uncle of one of the men killed in the strikes, as relatives mourned the victims at Shifa Hospital. “Every night there is killing, and we have martyrs. Every night, in the morning, in the evening, and at night, this killing is continuous for us.”

Israel's military said the overnight strikes in northern Gaza killed four Hamas militants, which it described as senior members of an apparatus responsible for protecting Hamas leaders and providing them with intelligence assessments. The military said steps were taken before the strikes to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance.

It was not clear what the evening strike was targeting, and the military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on it.

Last week, Israel killed the top Hamas military leader, two weeks after strikes that killed his predecessor.

More than 900 Palestinians killed since ceasefire began

The fatalities were the latest in the coastal enclave since an October ceasefire deal attempted to halt a more than two-year war between Israel and the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza. While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the fragile ceasefire has seen almost daily Israeli fire.

Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently opened fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing 936 people since the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, is generally seen as reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.

Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to violations of the truce or threats to its troops. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to Hamas' October 2023 attack that killed some 1,200 people, with 251 others taken hostage.

Flotilla says 11 activists detained in Libya

At least 11 international activists attempting to bring attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza have been detained in Libya for more than a week while trying to reach the territory by land, according to the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Libyan media reports said the activists were detained in connection with illegal entry and lack of permits. The Global Sumud organizers said the participants all had valid visas.

The organization's maritime flotilla, consisting of dozens of boats, was intercepted last month before reaching Gaza. Hundreds of activists were deported via Israel and Greece. Israel accused the flotilla of being a “PR stunt” carrying very little amounts of aid.

More than 200 health workers and activists have been attempting a separate route overland to reach Gaza. They left Mauritania on May 15 and have been heading towards Egypt to enter Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

Global Sumud said a Tunisian national was arrested on May 19 around 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the Libya-Tunisia border while returning home. Another 10 people were detained on May 24 while trying to negotiate safe passage for their convoy at a checkpoint near Sitre, in Libya, along the Mediterranean coast less than halfway between Tunisia and Egypt.

The organization, which has condemned the detentions as “unlawful” and “arbitrary,” said Libya first announced it was holding the activists — who hail from Tunisia, Argentina, Portugal, Italy, the U.S., Uruguay, Poland, and Spain — on May 25. Their detention was extended on Tuesday by another 10 days. __ Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman and Natalie Melzer contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure of French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” the French presidency said in a statement.

President Emmanuel Macron and his wife “pay tribute to a remarkable artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable,” the statement said.

News broadcaster BFM TV and other French media reported Satrapi “died of sadness” a little over a year after the death of her husband, Swedish film producer and actor Mattias Ripa, according to a statement from people close to the artist.

The French Academy of Fine Arts, of which she was a member, expressed its deep sadness in a social media statement, paying tribute to “a passionate advocate for cinema and film education” who earlier this year created a foundation to help international students come to Paris to study film.

Satrapi is best known for her monochrome autobiographical comic book and film “Persepolis,” a coming-of-age tale set against the Islamic Revolution in her native Iran.

“Persepolis” won the Film Critics Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 and the César award for best adapted screenplay in 2008, in addition to being nominated for best animated feature at the 2008 Oscars.

The film, which details her life in Tehran as the willful daughter of intellectual Marxists, is a reminder that Iranians are just like everyone else, Satrapi told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview in Cannes.

“What we wanted to say is, if these people scare you, look closer: They have parents, they have lovers, they have hope, they have stories," she said.

Iranian authorities at the time protested the movie’s inclusion at Cannes, sending a letter to the French Embassy in Tehran.

Satrapi was born on Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, but her parents sent her to Vienna in 1983 to finish her studies because of the extremism in their country following the 1979 Revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power.

But Satrapi, who found Austria hostile and who desperately missed her parents, returned to Iran in 1989 to attend Tehran University, where she earned a degree in visual communications.

By the time she graduated, Satrapi decided she finally was ready to leave Iran and accept the opportunities her parents had been so desperate to give her a decade before. In 1994, she moved to France. She studied in Strasbourg and later moved to Paris.

Her graphic novels also include “Broderies” (“Embroideries”) and “Poulet aux prunes” (“Chicken with plums”), which also was adapted into a film. As a filmmaker, she has directed several works including “La Bande des Jotas” (“The Gang of Jotas”) and “Radioactive” (“Madame Curie”), a biography about the Polish physicist Marie Curie.

Satrapi in 2023 coordinated the book “Femme, vie, liberté” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) together with a group of artists and academics to illustrate the revolts that occurred in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 at the hands of the so-called “morality police.” The work denounces the repression and lack of human rights that Iranian society, especially women, suffers at the hands of the Iranian regime, the foundation said.

Satrapi was elected member of the French Academy of Fine Arts in 2024. She also was offered France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, that same year but declined it, arguing France was not doing enough to support Iranian people fighting for democracy.

“Supporting the women’s revolution in Iran cannot be reduced to photos or speeches,” she wrote in a January 2025 letter to French authorities. “When people are fighting for democracy, we should support them.”

In 2024, Satrapi won the Princess of Asturias Foundation award in Spain for communication and humanities. The organization said she was “an essential voice in the defense of human rights and freedom.” The judges described her as “a symbol of civic engagement led by women."

Satrapi's husband died in April 2025 at 53. On her Instagram page, only one message was left in a series of posts: “Because I have lost the love of my life.”

Fredericksburg and the surrounding Gillespie County area in the Texas Hill Country are home to some of the state’s most well-known peach farms. But this season, the fruit didn’t show up the way it normally does.

Along U.S. Highway 290 at Jenschke Orchards, rows of peach trees that typically are full of fruit look a lot more bare this year.

“In a good season, some trees can produce up to 50 pounds of peaches,” Lindsey Jenschke, owner of the farm said. “But this year, many produced little to none.”

Growers said it started during the winter, when trees are supposed to build up “chill hours” — the amount of time temperatures stay below 45 degrees — and it’s what peach trees need to properly reset and produce fruit.

Fredericksburg peach trees usually need about 650 to 900 chill hours.

Instead of steady winter cold, temperatures climbed into the 80s in February, which caused the trees to react like spring had already arrived. One month later in March, a hard freeze dropped temperatures at the orchard to below 23 degrees and hit the trees right as they were developing.

“In that freeze, we lost about 90 percent of our crop,” Jenschke said.

That mix of warm spells followed by a sudden freeze heightens concerns for Hill Country growers, as it’s been harder to predict in recent years, with some seasons bringing strong harvests and others falling short.

The impact is also felt beyond the orchard itself.

Fredericksburg’s peach season usually drew visitors from across Texas looking for fresh fruit and the “you-pick” experience.

Jenschke said they had to take that option off the table entirely.

Although the orchard still sells other products, Jenschke said turning customers away when they come expecting peaches has been one of the hardest parts.

“They come in anticipating seeing peaches on the table,” Jenschke said. ”It’s a disappointment for us too."

For anyone lucky enough to find a Fredericksburg peach this summer, Jenschke said not to take it for granted.

Even with a tough season, growers said the industry continues to adjust as weather patterns become less predictable, and they’re hopeful next year brings a stronger crop.

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The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., seeks to cement U.S. assistance for Ukraine by providing more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine's defense through loans.

The 226-195 vote is a sign of impatience with President Donald Trump's approach to the war and represents the House's second major foreign policy break with Trump this week. The day before, the House, for the first time, approved a war powers resolution aimed at halting U.S. military action against Iran.

Supporters were able to force action on the Ukraine bill by gathering 218 signatures on a discharge petition, a legislative tool that allows a majority of the House to effectively bypass leadership.

Once rarely successful, House members have used the petition tool this Congress to pass bills on releasing the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein and to extend health care subsidies to many of those who get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, though the latter measure faltered in the Senate.

Meeks said the question before the House was simple. Would it help Ukraine negotiate from a position of strength or help Russia outlast American resolve?

“We all want this war to end,” Meeks said. “The question is how. Will we abandon Ukraine and force it into a terrible deal? That is what Vladimir Putin is counting on. Or will this body live up to the commitments we've made since the start of this war?”

The vast majority of Republicans opposed the measure. Rep. French Hill, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he is a steadfast supporter of Ukraine. However, the Arkansas Republican said the House was confronted with a flawed, outdated measure that actually calls for less funding for Ukraine security assistance compared to what Congress had agreed to as part of this year's defense policy. Another section could lead to a decrease in defense spending by some NATO members, he warned.

Rep. Brian Mast, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he believed the bill was “a cudgel to fight against President Trump.”

“This bill, in my opinion, is an unserious bill that was crafted basically a year-and-a-half ago,” Mast, R-Fla., said.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., broke with most of his Republican colleagues in voicing support for the measure.

“Are we going to stand with good or are we going to stand with evil? That’s what this is about tonight,” he said.

In the end, 18 Republicans, 207 Democrats and one independent voted for the bill. Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar joined with 194 Republicans in voting against it.

Lawmakers want to send a message

Supporters are hopeful that the House's passage of the Ukraine bill would put pressure on the Senate to do the same. But they also know the Senate likely won’t go along unless Trump endorses the bill.

“It's probably not going to get 60 votes in the Senate, but it's going to hopefully force the Senate to address the issue," said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., who signed the discharge petition and voted for the bill. “It's going to send a great message to the soldiers of Ukraine.”

He said the vote would also send a message to Putin that “we do have a pulse here, that we do care about Ukraine and that we are going to utilize our authority to help them.”

As the war has dragged on, it's gotten more difficult for supporters of Ukraine in Congress to provide additional financial support to help Ukraine defend itself.

The U.S. has approved some $195 billion for the Ukraine response, according to the latest quarterly inspector general report for Operation Atlantic Resolve, with roughly a quarter of that going to replenish weapons stockpiles for the U.S. military. The last major legislation designed to bolster the Ukraine response occurred in April 2024, though modest amounts have since been included in annual appropriations bills.

Republican leaders tried to stop the bill

Republican leaders urged their members to oppose the legislation. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said there are good-faith negotiations between members of Congress and the White House to boost Ukraine. He described the negotiations as complicated.

“I think they are going to yield positive results, but you set that back if you pass legislation that doesn't go as far as the negotiations are going,” Scalise said.

The war that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor is more than four years old, with no end in sight. In recent days, both sides have sought an edge by launching long-range missile strikes.

U.S.-led peace efforts have fizzled out as the sides made no progress on key differences and after the war in Iran grabbed Washington’s attention. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by Trump, but Putin refused.

Action in the Senate on Ukraine has revolved around a bill that would impose sweeping tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports, which are crucial to financing Russia’s military. But the bill has languished.

___

Associated Press congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Thomas Pauken II is set to be sentenced Sept. 1 in a U.S. District Court and he faces up to 10 years in jail, the department said. He writes under the name Tom McGregor to distance himself from his father with the same name, who was a former chairman of the Texas Republican Party in the 1990s and ran for governor more than a decade ago.

It is the latest in a string of cases that the federal government has brought against people suspected of working for the Chinese government without proper disclosure.

Eileen Wang, a former mayor of Arcadia, California, agreed in May to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, including sharing articles favorable to Beijing.

Linda Sun, a former aide to New York governors, was accused of selling her influence to the Chinese government. Sun pleaded not guilty to charges that she failed to register as an agent of a foreign government, conspired with her husband to launder money and helped people commit visa fraud to enter the U.S. illegally. A December trial ended in a mistrial when a federal jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

Charles Burnham, Pauken’s defense lawyer, said in a statement that, by his guilty plea, Pauken “has accepted responsibility for working as an agent of the People’s Republic of China without first completing certain required U.S. Government forms.”

Burnham said Pauken had hoped his work would “promote peaceful relations and advance the cause of religious freedom in China.”

Pauken was arrested in February after arriving in Washington from China. He met with someone who had sought a job in the Trump administration to provide that person with a SIM card and offer $10,000 to write reports to be read by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to the affidavit.

He appeared to see himself as a middleman between Chinese agents and “human resources" who could provide classified information to Beijing, according to the affidavit. His lawyer didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Since at least 2019, Pauken had been working with Chinese agents, including “Cathy,” who he believed to be working for China's security apparatus. Between 2019 and 2025, Pauken received $100,000 for the reports he provided to Cathy, in addition to paid trips to the U.S., the affidavit says. Cathy told him the reports were to be read by Xi.

Pauken was stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents when he returned to the U.S. in January 2025. In interviews with CBP and FBI agents, Pauken said he was meeting a person who was seeking a job in the Trump administration and would provide that person with a Samsung phone and a laptop computer. He said he was “80% sure” that person, if hired by the new administration, would provide classified information to Beijing, according to the affidavit.

U.S. agents let Pauken go and instructed him to carry on with his plans. Pauken's contact said in an interview that Pauken asked for open-source information but also indicated his clients in China frequently asked for more secretive information. That person indicated having no intention of working with Pauken, the affidavit said.

A year later, Pauken returned to the U.S. to make another pitch to this person, with whom Pauken had reconnected over a possible commercial oil deal, according to the affidavit. They met at a Washington restaurant on Feb. 23 and again two days later at a hotel, where the FBI monitored the meeting.

Pauken gave the person a SIM card and proposed the $10,000 bonus for providing Cathy with weekly reports that would “influence policy and be read by Xi Jinping,” the affidavit says.

Database checks showed that Pauken did not register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act or notify the U.S. attorney general that he was acting as an agent for China, the affidavit says.

The Justice Department said Pauken also sold reports to a group of Chinese individuals from the central city of Wuhan, who sought information about technology and the Justice Department and wanted Pauken to find an expert to help them engage in cyberespionage.

Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown 37 years ago, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution.

Relatives from a group called Tiananmen Mothers visited the graves for more than 30 years, reading memorial statements while police kept watch, Amnesty International said.

Hundreds of people, and possibly thousands, were killed in 1989 as troops advanced through crowds that were trying to stop the military from reaching the protesters on Tiananmen Square, a vast plaza in the center of the Chinese capital. The decision by the Communist Party leadership to send in the military was a pivotal moment in China's modern history, determining that the market reform that transformed the country into the world's second largest economy would not be coupled with political liberalization.

Rubio says censorship can't erase the past

In Hong Kong, police stepped up security Thursday at or near a park where a massive candlelight vigil lit up the night every year until a clampdown following major anti-government protests in 2019. A handful of people showed up in the evening. Officers allowed some to go freely — including a man holding flowers and an activist who said she bowed 37 times.

Police said in a statement that seven people were stopped and searched on suspicion of being disorderly in public as of 11:30 p.m. They were taken away for further investigation before being allowed to leave, police said, without naming them.

Activist Chan Po-ying, who held a yellow paper flower, was among those taken away by police vans as journalists watched.

The U.S., the EU and Britain posted messages on social media marking the anniversary. “No amount of censorship can erase the past,” a statement from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio read. “Those who sacrificed to uphold their unalienable rights of free expression and peaceful assembly will be vindicated someday.” Rows of electronic candles lit up the windows of the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed Rubio's words as a smear on her nation’s political system. “We urge the U.S. side to ... stop using so-called democracy and human rights as a pretext to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” she said.

The chairs of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China also issued a statement, saying the Chinese Communist Party “can censor history; it cannot silence memory.”

On Thursday, a number of U.S. lawmakers, former student leaders from the 1989 movement and their supporters gathered on the U.S. Capitol Hill to commemorate the anniversary. Among them was Arthur Liu, father of the Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu and a former student leader. He urged the public to remember the movement and not to forget those who are still in jail for their pro-democracy activism stemming from the Tiananmen days.

Tiananmen Mothers calls crackdown a crime

Tiananmen Mothers issued an annual appeal for justice ahead of this year's anniversary. The statement, signed by 107 people, demanded full disclosure of what happened, compensation for the victims and their families and the pursuit of legal accountability for those responsible.

“The sacrifice of our family members is an indelible pain etched in our hearts. Our tears have run dry, grief is buried deep within, what remains is eternal remembrance of our family members and hatred for the crime of massacring the people,” Zhang Xianling, a member of the group, said in a video message posted on Facebook — which is blocked in China.

Amnesty said it is deeply troubling that China's suppression of the commemoration appears to be escalating. “Banning the relatives of people killed in the Tiananmen crackdown from visiting their loved ones’ graves is a heartless act by the Chinese authorities," Sarah Brooks, the organization's deputy director for Asia, said in a statement.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau did not respond to a faxed request for comment.

Hong Kong has banned an annual vigil

Authorities in Hong Kong have banned the vigil since 2020, at first citing the COVID-19 pandemic. Simon Ng, a past participant, walked around the nearby Causeway Bay shopping district to mark the anniversary. “There are some things I can neither forget nor let go, so I have to come and take a walk,” he said.

Three of the organizers of the vigil have been charged under a 2020 national security law. One pleaded guilty, which may result in a lesser sentence. The other two have been tried and are awaiting a verdict.

One of them, lawyer Chow Hang-tung, said in an online post published last weekend that she would go on a 37-hour hunger strike in prison. “Behind the glitter of power and dictatorship lies the blood and broken dreams of ordinary people. For in amnesia lies the demise of democracy,” she wrote.

Derek Chu, a former district councilor, said on Instagram that he visited Chow on Thursday and told her he would also stop eating for 37 hours in support. He added that a shop he runs is giving out LED candles that can be used to remember the victims.

An annual vigil was held in Taiwan, but a driving thunderstorm reduced turnout to about 200 people. China, which claims the self-governing island as its territory, sanctioned four New Zealand lawmakers on Thursday to protest their recent visit to Taiwan.

___

Leung reported from Hong Kong. AP video journalist Taijing Wu in Taipei, Taiwan and reporter Didi Tang in Washington D.C. contributed to this report.

Meanwhile, former Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

Here's the latest:

Trump reveals lineup for 250th anniversary rally after other acts backed out

The president said he’ll be joined by Lee Greenwood, Christopher Macchio and U.S. military bands for a June 24 event that he described as “A Rally to end all Rallies!” Trump announced it on social media Thursday, a week after several musical acts backed out of a Trump-linked concert celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary. After some acts said they were misled about the theme, Trump decided to headline it himself. “We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep, we’ve told them all to stay home,” Trump said Thursday. “All we want is you, me, a few speakers, and the Greatest Music ever played.” The show will include “all of your favorite Hits,” Trump added, “PLUS a fine and highly dignified gentleman known as, President DONALD J. TRUMP!”

Cuba’s foreign affairs minister blasts new US sanctions

Bruno Rodríguez, Cuba’s minister of foreign affairs, condemned the new sanctions Thursday on X.

He said “the vile inclusion” of Díaz-Canel and others, including Cuban institutions and civil society organizations, “is the latest example of the US interventionist plan to portray Cuba as a threat to US national security.”

“Every US action aimed at creating a scenario of conflict between the two countries is destined to fail,” he wrote. “Every threat against Cuba’s independence and sovereignty will be met with even greater unity and determination from our people.”

Trump administration has separated dozens of children from their parents for a second time, AP finds

Eight years after Trump’s forcible border separations came to an official halt following global outrage, an Associated Press investigation has found that the government has re-separated dozens of children from their families, despite a landmark legal settlement meant to keep them together.

Some of their parents have been locked in immigration detention facilities for months, others deported back to their home countries after being taken from their families once again.

In some cases, immigration officials conducting interior arrests deported people despite discovering they were legally off limits for removal, according to emails obtained by AP.

▶ Read more of AP’s investigation

Planning commission seeks more details on Trump’s planned arch

The National Capital Planning Commission wants more details on President Donald Trump’s proposal for a triumphal arch in Washington, D.C.

The commission voted Thursday to seek additional information on the planned structure’s impact on air navigation and traffic around the area between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery where the 250-foot arch is planned.

Public comments mostly expressed concerns about its scale and impact on the skyline. One critic called it a “vanity project.”

The arch would feature inscriptions and a public observation deck. Trump claims it can be funded with private donations.

Kennedy Center begins process of removing Trump references after judge said it was illegally added

The Kennedy Center is beginning the process of removing references to President Donald Trump a week after a federal judge ruled that his name had been illegally added to the performing arts center.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said in a statement to The Associated Press that “we are complying with the court’s order while evaluating all legal options to preserve this revitalization and recognize President Trump’s leadership.”

In a Thursday memo to staff from the Kennedy Center’s Office of General Counsel, the institution’s lawyers said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” or “Kennedy Center.”

The changes, the memo said, must be completed by June 12.

A federal judge ruled May 29 that Trump’s name had been illegally added to the venue, also blocking the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July.

Hours later, Trump said he was backing away from the revamp and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

US imposes sanctions on Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in latest move to pressure leadership

The United States has imposed sanctions on Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel, along with four other individuals, according to a filing Thursday on the U.S. Treasury Department website.

Included in the sanctions are Alejandro Castro Espín, the son of former President Raúl Castro.

The sanctions come after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order expanding sanctions against the island.

The new sanctions boost pressure on the Cuban government but are far from the first time the U.S. has imposed sanctions against heads of state or government and their relatives.

The U.S. hit former Sudanese President Omar Bashir and former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in the early 2000s and more recently targeted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife with sanctions.

Trump says he’s going to NBA Finals to root for the Knicks

Calling himself a “big fan” of the New York Knicks and owner James Dolan, the president — born in Queens — said he’ll be attending at least one game at Madison Square Garden.

“The answer is yes — he’s invited me. I’m going,” Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event on Thursday.

Trump said he watched the beginning and end of the Knicks’ Game 1 win over the San Antonio Spurs, though he missed the middle “because I talked to generals all night long.”

A sports enthusiast, Trump said he was amazed by the play of Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.

Asked if he would be attending Game 3, scheduled for Monday, or Game 4, Trump said: “Monday, could be Monday. Maybe I’ll do both.”

Trump says Biden was ‘the same guy’ as ever when they met in Oval Office after 2024 election

The Republican president frequently attacks his predecessor, but he hedged on Thursday when asked whether he noticed any cognitive decline while talking with former President Joe Biden.

“No, it was the same guy,” Trump said. “He was fine as far as I was concerned.”

Recalling a 2024 presidential debate that raised concerns about Biden’s health, Trump took credit for what he described as a strong performance.

“Something happened during the debate,” Trump said. “It could have been me. You know, I thought I had a very good debate.”

Biden made an appearance in New York this week at a tour stop for Jill Biden’s new memoir.

Trump says he was only kidding about keeping UFC cage at the White House

The president, speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, said a UFC octagon being built on the South Lawn will come down after the June 14 bout. He said his previous comment was made “jokingly,” and he expressed dismay that some people believed it.

It comes two days after Trump released a video on social media comparing the cage to Paris’ Eiffel Tower, which was built to be temporary for the 1889 World’s Fair but became permanent. In the video, Trump drew a parallel with the octagon, saying, “Maybe we’ll never ever take it down.”

Trump urged to stop Israel from annexing and encroaching on territory for a Palestinian state

Arab and Islamic countries are urging the U.N. Security Council, especially the United States, and the international community to act to end Israel’s annexation campaign in Gaza and the West Bank.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told reporters Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already has Israeli forces occupying 60% of Gaza, and wants 70%. And he said Israeli construction plans will separate the northern and southern West Bank, and sever east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital, delivering “a deadly blow to the two-state solution.”

Mansour said Trump has told Netanyahu there must be “no annexation,” stressing, “he has the tools to stop Netanyahu in his tracks.”

Mansour was surrounded by many ambassadors from the U.N.’s 22-member Arab Group and 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation who support Security Council action against Israeli annexation.

Trump said it ‘would be great’ if Putin and Zelenskyy met

The president, when asked about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggesting a meeting with Putin, said he was glad to hear they were discussing a meeting and said, “They should get it done.”

Trump said he wouldn’t say what compromises he requested Putin make to settle the war, but said, “They’re going to both make compromises. I suggested those compromises.”

Trump says that Pulte won’t be the ‘permanent’ director of national intelligence

The president’s pick of Bill Pulte to be the acting director of national intelligence has triggered pushback from some Republican and Democratic senators.

But Trump stressed in response to an Oval Office question that Pulte, who currently serves as Federal Housing Finance Agency director, would not be nominated to the position of coordinating 18 federal agencies involved in national security issues.

“He’s not going to be permanent because, you know, I don’t think he’d want to be permanent,” Trump said.

The president said that Pulte is “a very smart guy” and he may look at past elections that Trump claims, without credible evidence, were “rigged” against him.

But Trump said other candidates were being considered to be nominated for the Senate confirmed post.

“We’re interviewing people right now,” Trump said.

Trump’s track record hasn’t been great for jobs mining coal

The U.S. president bragged at an Oval Office event to back the coal industry that his policies are putting coal miners back to work, but the numbers tell the exact opposite story.

“They’re all going back to work,” Trump claimed.

Since Trump became president in 2025, the U.S. has lost 1,800 coal mining jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The job losses translate into more than 4% of the coal mining workforce. Employment in the coal mining sector was hurt by the pandemic and rebounded during much of the term of former President Joe Biden. Coal mining jobs began to decline in late 2024 and the losses have been sustained during Trump’s second term.

Rubio assures Kuwait of US support in meeting with FM after Iranian strike on airport

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has assured Kuwait of U.S. support for the country a day after Iran launched a retaliatory airstrike on Kuwait’s international airport.

In a meeting on Thursday with Kuwait’s foreign minister, Rubio “reiterated the commitment of the United States to Kuwait’s security, to ensuring that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, and restoration of freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz,” the State Department said in a statement.

Rubio “also condemned Iran’s outrageous and unacceptable attacks targeting Kuwait International Airport and other parts of the country and expressed condolences for those killed and injured in that attack,” it said.

Trump does show-and-tell with Reflecting Pool

The president kicked off an event at the White House about coal by showing off what he said was “nice clean water” filling up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after the renovation he directed.

The president held up for reporters images of the refinished pool and a poster boasting of the length of the basin. He then had an aide play a video on a small laptop screen showing water bubbling back into the drained pool.

“The water is pouring in as we speak,” Trump said.

Trump says Reflecting Pool work is done and it’s set to be filled with water

The president’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is done, and it’s set to be filled with water any day now, his administration says.

Trump noted the work to paint the shallow basin a deep shade, which he calls “American flag blue,” was completed on Wednesday. The administration said in a court filing it’s set to be filled with water no later than Sunday.

Trump announced the project in April, inspired by a friend’s complaint. The cost is estimated at $1.5 million to $2 million, but records show at least $14.8 million worth of contracts has been awarded for the project.

Critics argue the Republican president is focusing too much on personal projects.

A nonprofit filed a lawsuit to stop work at the “dark grey” pool, claiming the new paint color suggested a “theme park.” The pool was built in the 1920s and is an iconic Washington site.

▶ Read more

House poised to pass Ukraine aid over the objections of Republican leaders

The House is on course to pass legislation that would aid Ukraine and sanction key segments of the Russian economy despite opposition from Republican leaders who warn the bill will undermine negotiations designed to achieve a comparable but stronger result.

The legislation, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, seeks to cement U.S. assistance for Ukraine by providing more than $1 billion in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8 billion available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.

The vote Thursday could generate the House’s second major foreign policy break this week with Trump. It comes one day after the House for the first time approved a war powers resolution aimed at halting the U.S. military action against Iran.

▶ Read more

Some Republican governors are rebranding June with conservative alternatives to Pride

June is widely recognized as Pride Month, but a handful of Republican governors have bestowed alternative titles that both supporters and opponents view as counterprogramming.

Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”

In Alabama, it’s Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father’s Day.

The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.

Pride organizations say the efforts to rename the month won’t affect their parades and other celebrations. The festivities were born out of protest more than 50 years ago, and organizers say that remains essential to their purpose.

▶ Read more

Trump expected to announce $700 million in new support for struggling coal industry

The president is again seeking to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry, with an announcement expected Thursday to spend nearly $700 million to support coal-fired power plants and coal exports.

A White House official said the administration will use authority under a Cold War-era national defense law to support 13 coal plants across the country and help build coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia.

If built, the plants would be the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013. The money will also help restart a coal-fired power plant in Maryland and support construction of a long-delayed coal export terminal in Oakland, California.

Environmentalists said the plan would “put polluters first” and jeopardize Americans’ health.

▶ Read more

American Airlines temporarily suspends some of its summer routes due to steep jet fuel costs

American Airlines is temporarily suspending some of its routes this summer, as steep jet fuel costs continue to strain carriers’ budgets amid the war with Iran.

In a statement, American said it had adjusted service for “select routes” in August and September — and that affected travelers would be offered alternative arrangements or refunds. The Texas-based airline cited elevated fuel costs, and maintained that these changes were in line with wider industry trends.

American also said that it was not cutting any of its routes indefinitely and that it was proud to “offer an industry-leading network with more flights than any other U.S. airline.”

Still, the summer suspensions could cause more headaches for travelers already facing fewer flights options and higher price tags across their budgets. Airlines around the world have canceled numerous flights or similarly trimmed schedules through the coming months — and many have are also hiking fees or cutting other perks in efforts to save money.

▶ Read more

Supreme Court sides with Trump administration on federal regulation of telecom companies

The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration Thursday in a case about the power of federal regulators to enforce data privacy laws on telecommunications companies.

The 8-1 decision upheld one of the Federal Communications Commission’s key tools, though the companies also won a concession from the Republican administration that could shift the regulatory landscape.

The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data.

The companies argued that the FCC’s process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury.

The administration defended the fines as an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the company’s favor.

The Supreme Court agreed.

▶ Read more

Ex-national security adviser John Bolton will plead guilty in classified information case: AP source

The former Trump administration national security adviser has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or sharing diary-like notes with family members that officials said contained classified information as he was preparing a memoir of his time in government.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that hadn’t been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though the punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

A rearraignment, which typically signals a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

▶ Read more

— Eric Tucker

Senate begins voting on bill to fund ICE and Border Patrol as Democrats try to derail it

The Senate is beginning a long series of votes Thursday on legislation to fund President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies, moving toward passage of a three-year fix as Democrats have blocked the money for months in protest.

The roughly $70 billion bill to fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol would end the blockade by Democrats who demanded policy changes after the fatal shootings of two protesters by federal agents in January. The bill would fund the agencies for three years, through the end of Trump’s term.

First, though, Republicans must beat back a potential gauntlet of amendments Democrats plan to offer, including to try and permanently ban Trump’s $1.776 billion settlement fund for allies who he believes have been politically persecuted. Democrats have said their first amendment Thursday morning will be to eliminate the fund and send the immigration spending bill back to committee.

▶ Read more

US jobless aid filings, a proxy for layoffs, hit highest level since Iran war began in February

The number of Americans filing for jobless aid hit their highest level in four months last week, but layoffs remain historically low despite ongoing economic uncertainty brought on by the war in Iran.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

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

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

▶ Read more

Trump officials went after dozens of colleges. Now they’re rewriting the rules for all of academia

A year ago, the White House was unleashing a blitz on higher education. At one campus after another, Trump officials opened investigations and cut federal funding unless schools fell in line with the Republican president’s political agenda.

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, Trump’s administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump’s administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

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Buffalo named Donald Trump for his golden locks is a sensation at a Bangladesh zoo

With his shock of golden hair and trim 700-kilogram (1,500-pound) build, Donald Trump has been drawing crowds from across Bangladesh since he arrived at the national zoo last week.

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

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Trump slams the 4 Republicans who voted in favor of war powers resolution

The president says the symbolic House vote approving a war powers resolution that would halt the U.S. military action against Iran, was “meaningless.”

Still, Trump is livid that four House Republicans joined the Democrats in supporting the resolution.

“The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump said in a post on his social media site. “They would rather have our Country fail than give me another, of many, victories. The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story - They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to say whether Trump remains exempt from IRS audits

Bessent refused to say Wednesday whether Trump and his family would still get immunity from IRS audits after the administration abandoned plans for a $1.776 billion compensation fund that would have benefited the president’s allies.

“There’s continuing litigation, and I’m unable to comment on ongoing litigation,” Bessent told lawmakers at the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

It was a frustrating answer for Democratic lawmakers looking to get answers from Bessent at a hearing ostensibly focused on the Treasury Department’s budget and came a day after acting Attorney General Todd Blanche seemed to indicate that the portion of the settlement dealing with the IRS audit immunity would still be in effect for the Republican president.

After several failed attempts to get Bessent to answer, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., said, “It’s been very clear you’re dodging this and you’re trying to use it as an excuse. It’s just outrageous on behalf of the American public.”

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Trump says he'll nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general

Trump said Wednesday that he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, tapping his former personal lawyer who has aggressively pursued the Republican president’s agenda while leading the Justice Department in an acting role.

Trump said at a dinner at the White House that he plans to nominate Blanche formally on Thursday, according to a video of the event posted on social media by a White House aide.

“We are going to make him permanent attorney general,” Trump said at the Rose Garden event.

Blanche was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general and was elevated after Bondi’s ousting over her failed efforts to prosecute Trump’s perceived political opponents. Blanche insisted he wasn’t auditioning for the permanent post but made clear through splashy moves since taking the reins his intent on proving his loyalty to Trump.

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An infestation of the flesh-eating flies has been confirmed in South Texas, setting off alarm bells for the state’s cattle industry.

A sample from a 3-week-old calf from La Pryor in Zavala County tested positive for the country’s first case of New World screwworm, the U.S Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during a June 3 news conference about the case.

There have been no other detections so far.

The USDA said in a social media post earlier that it had already activated personnel on the ground and was working with local partners. The federal agency also said that issues with screwworms shouldn’t immediately cause food supply chain issues, as screwworms do not infect meat, fruits or vegetables.

However, an outbreak of screwworm threatens to do $1.8 billion in damage to Texas’ economy alone, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture estimate. This potential fly pandemic could also increase already record-high beef prices nationwide, given the state’s importance to the cattle industry.

Here is a breakdown of why the cattle industry and government leaders are concerned about a parasitic fly:

What is a screwworm?  

The New World screwworm is a type of blowfly that lays its eggs in the flesh of living animals rather than dead ones. Cuts as small as a tick bite may attract a female fly to lay her eggs. One female can lay 200 – 300 eggs at a time and may lay up to 3,000 eggs during her 10- to 30-day lifespan. 

The eggs hatch into maggots that burrow into the wound to feed on the living flesh. The larvae in their final stage develop little hooks and dig deeper into the flesh, hence the name screwworm. After feeding for about seven days, larvae drop to the ground, burrow into the soil, and emerge as adult screwworm flies, repeating the cycle of infestations. 

Multiple infestations are common with multiple stages of larva in one wound, sometimes leading to a “feeding frenzy” resulting in rapid tissue damage. 

New World screwworm is typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean. However, the fly has steadily moved northward from South America, through every country in Central America, and into Mexico, since 2023. Federal and Texas officials started monitoring cases the following year. 

Can the screwworm infect humans and pets? 

Most screwworm infestations occur in mammals, like cattle, pets, and wildlife, but they can also occur in people. 

Dogs and cats are particularly vulnerable to screwworm because minor injuries can attract flies. The Texas Farm Bureau encourages pet owners to check animals daily for wounds — including areas of previous tick bites — and monitor for foul odors, tissue damage or signs of fly larvae in wounds. 

It’s also advisable to assess the pet’s environment for items that may cause injury, such as metal collars, wire fencing, and sharp vegetation that could cause small wounds. 

If left untreated, these infestations can quickly become fatal for pets. 

Although human cases are uncommon, they have usually occurred after someone has visited a place where the fly thrives, such as South America, Cuba, Haiti, or the Dominican Republic. 

Even small injuries, like scratches, insect bites, or surgical wounds, can provide an entry point for screwworms on a human. Infestations can also occur in the nose, mouth, or eyes. 

Signs of infestation can include skin lesions that do not heal or worsen over time, painful bleeding, or sores. In some cases, individuals may feel movement in the wound or notice larvae present. 

Preventative measures for humans include keeping wounds clean and covered as well as wearing loose-fitting, long-sleeved clothing and socks. 

Why are ranchers and agriculture leaders so concerned? 

Screwworm in the flesh of an infested animal will cause a lot of damage to the wound, as flies repeat a cycle of flying into the wound, laying eggs, and making the wound bigger, leading to illness and death. 

Even if the animal survives, there’s usually extensive damage to the hide and to the health of the animal. 

Cattle are particularly susceptible to screwworm due to their inability to protect an open wound, and their large frame can allow eggs to develop in multiple locations from a single cut. 

“Texas livestock producers and all Texans must now be vigilant in their efforts to manage and combat the invasive pest,” Farm Bureau President Russell Boening said in a statement after screwworm had been confirmed in Texas. 

Though screwworm was eradicated in the 1960s, the U.S. experienced a resurgence of the pest from 1972 to 1976. A screwworm outbreak in the U.S. infested tens of thousands of cattle across six states, cost tens of millions of dollars to contain, and was only defeated after a massive eradication effort. 

U.S. producers have not treated livestock for screwworm in more than 40 years, putting the future of the industry on shaky ground. 

Texas leads the U.S. in cattle production, bringing in $15 billion a year to the state.

How did they get here?

The spread of New World screwworms across Central America has been very rapid, seemingly traveling hundreds of miles within weeks. 

Animal experts believe the movement is too quick to be done by the fly itself, meaning people were clearly shipping infested livestock around Central America.

Screwworms usually don’t stray too far from their natural tropical and subtropical climates on their own. The parasitic flies do not tolerate prolonged periods of very dry, hot, or very cold weather. Rapid spread in a country is mainly due to humans moving infested animals over large distances.

After Mexican officials confirmed a case of screwworm in November 2024, the USDA, under former President Joe Biden, closed southern ports of entry to live cattle imports to prevent the spread of screwworm into the U.S. However, the move also strained the supply of cattle in the state, hitting some in the cattle industry hard.

The USDA reversed course in February 2025, after President Donald Trump took office, announcing the opening of the ports, only to close them again in May 2025.

In an effort to prevent its spread, the USDA shut down the southern border to live animal imports in May 2025, preventing cattle from Mexico from entering the U.S. and limiting the supply of cattle in Texas. 

It’s currently unknown how the screwworm infestation reached South Texas. 

How do you stop these flies? 

The federal government has also invested $100 million into research, traps, and mounted patrol officers known as tick riders at the border. 

U.S. officials are working with officials in Mexico and Panama to eradicate the screwworm again, using the sterile fly method. This practice consists of producing male sterile flies to have them reproduce unviable eggs with female flies who can only mate once in their lifetime. 

The sterilization method was successful for more than 20 years, with a key facility in Panama. 

American microbiologists said in a 2025 report that the South American region served as a natural barrier to screwworm due to the difficult terrain of the Darien Gap, a remote land bridge composed of dense, mountainous rainforest between Colombia and Panama. 

In 2023, the flies suddenly overpowered the insect barrier and the difficult terrain of the Darrien Gap. The exact cause of this breach is unclear, but the scientists believe it is most likely due to multiple factors, including interruptions in sterile fly production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and illegal cattle imports stemming from surveillance gaps in geographically difficult regions.  

At the time of their spread from Central America into Mexico, there was only one sterile fly production facility, located in Panama. Since then, U.S. officials have helped launch another in Metapa, Mexico, which is expected to open later this month, and are building another in Edinburg, Texas, which Rollins said is slated to open in fall 2027. 

They’ve also launched two fly dispersal facilities, which help distribute sterile flies in needed areas, in Tampico, Mexico, and Edinburg. The USDA has already been dispersing sterile flies in South Texas, within 50 miles north of the border.

In response to the first confirmed case, the USDA implemented a quarantine zone, controlling the movement and surveillance of animals in the area.

Officials are also increasing trapping and surveillance for screwworm along the border, just outside the 50-mile dispersal area, and are ramping up surveillance and monitoring of wildlife.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued multiple emergency orders authorizing topical sprays, powders, injectable drugs, and ointments to treat New World screwworm in cattle, dogs, cats, goats, horses, pet birds, and wild and exotic animals. 

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller criticized the USDA’s response to the threat of screwworm as slow, bureaucratic and incomplete. 

He urged Trump to direct the agency to deploy the Screwworm Adult Suppression System, a method that uses attractants and insecticides in pellets. However, the USDA called the method outdated and ineffective because it indiscriminately attracted all kinds of flies, not just screwworm.

The technology used is also considered to be a probable carcinogen that is toxic to wildlife and humans, said Scott Hutchins, under secretary for research, education and economics at the USDA.

“This particular technology is not effective and has not been,” Hutchins said.

What to look out for? 

Animal experts say continual and regular monitoring and evaluation of all livestock is important during a screwworm outbreak. 

Cattle producers and pet owners should be alert for a foul-smelling wound with visible maggots, animals biting or licking at wounds, lesions, and unusual restlessness or lethargy. 

The best way to identify screwworm larvae is by the spikes that protrude from the body and wrap around them. 

The USDA said residents near the affected areas should check their pets for signs of screwworm infection, which include infected wounds and screwworm eggs or larvae. 

Treatment for screwworm often involves the manual removal of larvae, cleaning and dressing the wound and prescribed pesticides by a veterinarian. 

There are 12 FDA-approved products available for the treatment of various species. Agency officials warn they have not approved a medicated feed option, though they said they are working on making one available as soon as possible.

Those who potentially see a screwworm infestation are recommended to report it to a local veterinarian or wildlife biologist. 

“If we all work together and follow the animal treatment protocols and movement restriction guidance, there is no reason to believe that this incursion will result in an establishment of the pest in our country,” Rollins said.

The DAR is a lineage-based organization whose members can trace their ancestry to individuals who supported the American Revolution.

“DAR is a lineage society, and we descend from Revolutionary patriots,” said Deanna Rodriguez, regent of a local chapter.

Founded in 1890, the organization now has chapters nationwide. The local chapter has about 170 members and meets monthly.

Members say their work goes far beyond genealogy. The group supports veterans, promotes patriotism and works with local schools and military programs.

“We do veterans work, we do patriotic service, we do children’s events, educational events,” Rodriguez said.

Vice Regent Sharon Pelayo Simonick said the organization is focused on preserving history and serving the community.

“We’re all about education, historical preservation and pretty much celebrating America,” Simonick said.

The chapter works with Junior ROTC and ROTC programs, presenting awards each year to outstanding cadets.

For many members, the organization provides a personal connection to history. Rodriguez said her ancestors helped the Revolutionary cause by supplying cattle to feed troops.

Simonick traces her family to Marcos Cepeda, her sixth great-grandfather, whose family arrived in San Antonio in 1731.

“They were all in it together. It didn’t matter where you came from,” Simonick said of those who fought for independence. “They were all fighting for the same thing.”

Rodriguez said family members spent years researching their lineage, including ties to her eighth great-grandfather, Jacinto Delgado.

“It’s just such a fabulous history that I’m sharing with my family,” Rodriguez said.

With the nation nearing a once-in-a-lifetime milestone, members say they are embracing the moment.

“We’re never going to have anything like this again in our lifetime,” Rodriguez said.

The DAR’s mission remains rooted in historic preservation, education and patriotism, connecting present-day members to America’s founding story.

More America250 coverage on KSAT:

• How The Alamo became one of the most defining sites in U.S. history
• Bexar County’s hidden role in the American Revolution highlighted ahead of country’s 250th anniversary
• Texas’ oldest VFW post keeps veterans connected as America nears 250 years

The suspect was taken into custody without further incident off the State Highway 151 access road, located south of Southwest Military Drive, police said.

San Antonio police officers assisted the Leon Valley Police Department in the arrest.

Officers stated that the man is accused in the murder of Erick Torres, 17, which happened on April 21, 2021, in the 7200 block of Huebner Road.

The suspect, who has yet to be identified, was in an SUV when he allegedly opened fire on a Ford Taurus.

The gunfire hit two people inside the Taurus, including Torres, who later died from his injuries, police said.

The second person injured in the shooting was grazed by a bullet and then ran away to receive assistance, according to Leon Valley PD.

A third vehicle, which was similar to the Taurus, was possibly involved in a road rage incident with the suspect’s vehicle before the gunfire, investigators believe.

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.

More coverage of this story on KSAT:

• Crime Stoppers seeking tips in fatal 2021 shooting of 17-year-old in Leon Valley

What left the Knicks star nearly stumped was determining what he would deem worthy of spending $7,500 to go see.

“That’s a good question,” Brunson said Thursday. He paused for a few seconds before delivering his answer: “A live Michael Jackson performance.”

Thriller, indeed.

From Bay Ridge to the Bronx and beyond, the Big Apple has gone nuts for the Knicks.

The team is not only in the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years, New York is riding a 12-0 roll after rallying from a 14-point second-half deficit in a 105-95 win at San Antonio in Game 1 on Wednesday night. Game 2 is Friday night in San Antonio before the series shifts to New York on Monday.

It seems as if the entire city is on board. There were the thousands who filled Madison Square Garden to watch the game on the big screen, only to be matched by the thousands more celebrating outside in the shadow of the Empire State Building lit up in the Knicks' blue and orange.

The MTA — the city's transit authority — got into the spirit by painting several subway stops around the arena in Knicks colors. And Mayor Zohran Mamdani even signed an executive order temporarily lifting children's bedtime hours.

“Knicks in Four!” chants erupted shortly after midnight, as fans climbed light posts and even on an ambulance outside of MSG.

Similar scenes were captured at a free watch party in Central Park, and across the five boroughs.

At a bar in Brooklyn, fans spilled out onto the outside sidewalk to watch the game on the TV inside. At a pizzeria a few doors down, fans gathered around a flat screen TV someone erected in the trunk of a car.

All of this for a chance to be a part of what could be history 53 years in the making, since Willis Reed and company last brought an NBA title to what was and evidently remains a basketball-mad metropolis. The buzz in the city has overwhelmed much talk of the World Cup, which opens in a week.

“Honestly, I just feel grateful to be here and experience the New York Knicks, doing what we haven’t done in a long time,” Owen Odigie said, celebrating the Game 1 win inside Madison Square Garden. “It’s special. It’s beautiful.”

Knicks forward Karl-Anthony Towns could feel the Big Apple energy some 1,800 miles away in San Antonio following Game 1.

“You feel the energy in the city, the grit, the grind, the hard work you’ve got to put in to make it in the city,” said Towns, who hails from New Jersey. “I think we reflect all our fans ... when we step on that court with a Knicks jersey.”

Knicks fans even made their presence felt in San Antonio, beyond the familiar celebrities of Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Timothée Chalamet, Ben Stiller and more. The crowd in San Antonio was made up of an estimated 20% Knicks fans, some of whom made their voices heard in yelling, “Let’s go, Knicks,” during the national anthem.

In reality, given the soaring prices at home, it was reasonably cheaper for Knicks fans to make the trip to San Antonio, even when taking into account flight and lodging costs. Tickets for Game 1 started at around $750 on the secondary market.

Spurs guard Julian Champagnie — a native New Yorker — wasn’t surprised to see the Knicks contingent.

“I kind of expected that,” Champagnie said. “I’m from New York. I know how New York fans travel and stuff like that, so I kind of expected that.”

Towns said he couldn't be more appreciative of the love being shown by Knicks fans. But he said he also prays for the New York police officers tasked with keeping people safe amid the frenzy.

“All those men and women out there that are not only protecting everybody ... they are huge fans of the Knicks and support the Knicks fans in their ability to show how much they love the Knicks and being as lenient as possible without causing chaos,” Towns said. "So, shout-out to the men and women of the NYPD.”

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Wawrow reported from Buffalo, New York, and Reynolds from San Antonio.

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

Trump showed a video during an unrelated event with water bubbling into the freshly painted basin at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.

“That's clean, beautiful water,” the president said.

Live video showed water accumulating in the center of the basin, with workers and trucks still inside the pool.

Trump noted the work to paint the shallow basin a deep shade, which he calls “American flag blue,” was completed Wednesday. The administration said in a court filing that it was set to be filled with water no later than Sunday.

Trump also announced a plan to build a “promenade” that would allow pedestrians to walk from the back of the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac RIver.

“They want to call it the ‘Trump Promenade’ but I don’t know if I want to do that, but it’s going to be beautiful,” Trump said.

Trump has put the cost of the work on the pool at $1.5 million to $2 million, but records show that at least $14.8 million worth of contracts have been awarded for the project. The president announced the work in April during an unrelated Oval Office appearance, saying he was inspired by complaints from a friend visiting from Germany who called the pool dark and disgusting.

The project is another way for Trump to leave his mark on the city, following the demolition of the White House East Wing to build a large ballroom and plans to build an arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The reflecting pool, which is more than 2,000 feet (610 meters) long, was originally built in the 1920s. It sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and is one of the most iconic sites in Washington. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously gave his “I Have a Dream” speech there in 1963.

The basin held about 6.5 million gallons of water — roughly as much as 10 Olympic-size swimming pools — before a 2012 renovation, according to the National Park Service. Under that earlier renovation, the pool was reengineered with a circulation and filtration system so that instead of using the city’s drinking water, it draws river water from the nearby Tidal Basin. Washington and its surrounding states are facing drought conditions.

Critics have said Trump, a Republican, is spending too much time and attention on his pet projects and not enough on issues that voters care about, like the cost of living, in the run-up to the November elections. Others have said he wants the reflecting pool to look more like a swimming pool.

Last month, a Washington-based nonprofit called the Cultural Landscape Foundation filed a suit asking a judge to force the Trump administration to stop work on the “dark grey” Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, saying the new paint color suggested a “theme park.”

An order in the case hasn't come yet, and on Wednesday the Trump administration notified the court the work was complete, with the basin set to be filled by Sunday.

A message seeking information from the Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service, wasn't immediately answered.

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Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey.

As excitement builds around the championship series between the Spurs and the Knicks, soaring ticket prices on the resale market are making attendance increasingly unaffordable for average families.

A review of ticket listings on Ticketmaster shortly before Game 1 found the least expensive seats selling for more than $700, while courtside seats ranged from approximately $8,000 to as much as $25,000.

Consumer advocates say those prices reflect a growing trend in the secondary ticket market, where high demand and limited restrictions can drive costs far beyond face value.

“They are going to go as high as they possibly can if there are no caps or controls put on the resale market,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative.

To put the costs into perspective, Jacquez compared the price of a single lower-cost Finals ticket to several everyday expenses:

• For roughly the same amount, more than 500 students could visit the San Antonio Zoo
• A vehicle could be filled with gas 75 times
• A renter in San Antonio could cover about three months of housing costs.

The rising cost of attending major sporting events has left many longtime fans priced out of experiences that were once considered attainable family outings.

“It’s really pricing out normal fans who would want to be able to take their family for a special outing to a game, and it’s increasingly getting worse,” Jacquez said.

He noted that many households are already struggling with higher costs for essentials, including housing, utilities and fuel.

“So many people today are struggling with those high costs, whether it’s their energy bills, their mortgage or rent, or those high gas prices,” Jacquez said. “It’s really hard to find $850 to $2,000 in the budget to go and take the kids to a basketball game.”

The dramatic rise in ticket costs is not limited to this year’s Finals. Jacquez pointed to an analysis by The New York Times that found courtside seats for the 1999 NBA Finals featuring the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden sold for about $2,000. Comparable courtside seats today can command prices approaching $200,000.

Read also:

• Mayor’s playoff tickets were gift from attorney with long ties to Spurs
• Spurs to donate up to 1,000 free NBA Finals tickets to nonprofit organizations serving youth
• From the Alamodome to the Frost Bank Center: How Spurs basketball has changed since 1999

District officials said the move will help manage the $35 million budget deficit and improve efficiency as they search for ways to cut costs.

So just because your child is eligible to be picked up and dropped off by the bus doesn’t mean they will. In previous years, bus stops were created for students living outside a two-mile radius from campus. However, moving forward, parents will need to pre-register their children, so a bus stop can be created in their neighborhood.

“We want to make sure that we are going to stops that have students in them,” stated NISD’s Director of Transportation Tesilia Soliz.

Soliz says last school year, more than 35,000 students used the school bus to get to and from school. But often, bus drivers would make stops with no kids in sight.

KSAT asked NISD bus driver Mirna Cortez if she picks up a child at every stop. “Not all the time,” Cortez answered.

Near Culebra Road and Loop 410, Shecaniah Gray walks her daughter Nova to her bus stop daily. She didn’t know that she needed to pre-enroll for next year’s transportation, but says that she will so her daughter can use the bus again in August.

“I feel like there’s a lot of parents working, and they can’t really take their kids to school, so the bus is their easiest route to get them to school,” Gray shared.

Another parent who says she’s already enrolled told KSAT off-camera that she hopes the new system helps the district by not wasting any unnecessary gas.

But the district says it’s too soon to say how much money they will save. KSAT also asked the district about what other measures they will take to cut expenses next school year.

The district declined to interview, saying the school board is still working on it. But sent a statement reading in part:

“The district is committed to a transparent, thoughtful process that minimizes the impact on the classroom and ensures the long-term financial health of northside.”

New or returning families will need to register by June 30. If you miss the deadline, the district says it’ll take one to two weeks after the first day of school for a stop to be created.

To register, click here.

Read also:

• Where San Antonio kids can eat for free this summer

Now, with a new generation of talent led by Victor Wembanyama taking center stage, San Antonio is daring to dream again — and the parallels to that magical 1999 run are hard to ignore.

Then vs. now: Spurs’ 1999 championship legacy

The year 1999 holds a special place in San Antonio Spurs history. That was the year the Silver and Black claimed their first NBA championship — a moment that forever changed the city’s relationship with basketball.

Now, more than two decades later, a new generation of Spurs is chasing that same glory.

Alamodome to Frost Bank Center

When the Spurs won it all in 1999, they called the Alamodome home.

Today, the team plays at Frost Bank Center, where they have been since the 2002-03 season.

Logo gets a modern makeover

The NBA Finals logo has had quite the glow-up since 1999. Back then, the branding featured an old-school look with a red circle surrounding the “NBA Finals” text. Today’s version boasts a three-dimensional trophy and stylized cursive lettering — a sleeker, more modern identity for the league’s biggest stage.

Jerseys, fiesta colors, puro San Antonio

The Spurs’ look has evolved right along with the logo.

In 1999, the team rocked their classic silver and black, black and white uniforms — a traditional getup that defined an era.

These days, the Spurs have fully embraced their fiesta colors, incorporating cool blues, pinks and oranges alongside those traditional tones, honoring the authentic San Antonio culture.

Legends in the stands

Speaking of 1999, the faces behind that championship are still very much a part of the Spurs family.

View this post on Instagram

Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Sean Elliott — three pillars of that title run — can regularly be spotted enjoying games from the stands this season. A little grayer, perhaps, but their imprint on the San Antonio community remains just as powerful.

A new generation takes the court

That championship squad set the standard.

Now, Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and the rest of the Spurs family are carrying that legacy forward. San Antonio is hoping the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy will make its way back to the Alamo City in the weeks ahead.

Read also:

• ‘The money is good’: Spurs fever sparks business boom for San Antonio vendors
• Share your photos celebrating Spurs in the NBA Finals on KSAT Connect!

During a conversation with KSAT’s Ernie Zuniga, Bass shared memories of growing up in a close-knit family surrounded by weekend barbecues and Sunday morning barbacoa.

A childhood family vacation to the Texas coast first sparked Bass’ interest in hospitality after watching hotel employees interact with guests.

Bass began his career while attending St. Philip’s College and was rejected four times before finally landing a front desk job at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter in 1996.

He later transitioned into sales, where he said learning to handle rejection became key to his success.

After a 23-year career with Marriott International, Bass joined Visit San Antonio in 2017 and will mark one year as CEO on June 1.

Bass said he is optimistic about San Antonio’s future, citing projects such as the proposed downtown sports and entertainment district, convention center expansion and airport growth.

He noted that tourism remains one of the city’s top economic drivers, bringing roughly 39 million visitors to San Antonio each year.

Watch the full Pickup Lines with Mario Bass in the video player above.

More Pickup Lines episodes:

• Pickup Lines: Radio legend Elizabeth Ruiz reflects on decades in San Antonio media, music and resilience
• Pickup Lines: ‘Mr. Fiesta’ reflects on South Side roots, passion for writing and his nickname
• Pickup Lines: Tony Plana reflects on childhood performance, Cuban exile and 50 years in acting

Ernie Zuniga started Pickup Lines, a digital talk show, straight from his vehicle. The segments feature a diverse range of guests, including executives, small business owners, and everyday individuals, as they share personal journeys, news, and stories.

The lawsuit filed Thursday in Bristol County Superior Court argues that Read's acquittal last June revealed “an embedded culture of bigotry, misogyny, systemic failures, and institutional rot at the very core of both organizations.” It alleges that the town and the police department were negligent in the hiring, training and supervision of officers and seeks damages for legal fees, lost income, emotional distress and reputational harm, among other claims.

The complaint reproduces dozens of text messages, recordings and other communications attributed to former state trooper Michael Proctor and former Canton police Sgt. Sean Goode. Among them are messages in which Proctor referred to Read as a “whack job” and wrote that he hoped she would kill herself. The lawsuit also cites messages that it says included use of the n-word and, in one instance, a comment by Proctor that “Hitler was really on to something.”

Read's lawyers argue that those materials show both men were unfit to participate in the investigation and that their conduct reflected broader failures in oversight by state and local law enforcement.

In a statement on Thursday, State Police Superintendent Col. Geoffrey Noble called Proctor’s messages “racist, sexist and abhorrent” and said they supported his decision to fire the former trooper. Noble said the comments did not reflect the values of the department and pointed to changes that have been made since he became superintendent. He also noted that the investigation predated his tenure.

“These disturbing messages are entirely inconsistent with any basic standard of decency and certainly with the expectations of a Massachusetts State Trooper," Noble said, adding that agency officials are, "keenly aware of the ways in which this misconduct harmed the public trust on which our mission depends.”

The town of Canton said it learned of the lawsuit through news reports and a press release from Read’s legal team and had not yet been served with the complaint. The town said it had “the utmost faith and confidence” in Police Chief Michael Daniels and disputed what it described as “broad stroke characterizations” of Canton police officers contained in the lawsuit. Officials said the department has implemented recommendations from an outside audit and is modernizing the agency.

Proctor’s attorney, Matt Hamel, told NBC10 Boston that focusing on “anything other than Ms. Read’s own conduct” was “telling and predictable” and said “anything Mr. Proctor did or said in his personal life, years before Officer O’Keefe was killed, had no bearing whatsoever on the investigation of Karen Read.”

Read walked out of court a free woman about a year ago after more than three years and two trials over the death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, who was found on the suburban lawn of a fellow officer’s home after a night of heavy drinking during a snowstorm.

Prosecutors said Read hit O’Keefe with her SUV on the January 2022 night of a party, leaving him to die in a blizzard. Read faced charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene. The jury acquitted her of those charges, but convicted her of a lesser charge for drunken driving.

Her lawyers successfully defended her, painting a sinister picture of police misconduct and theorizing that O’Keefe was in fact killed by colleagues who then covered it up.

The trial centered in part on lead investigator Michael Proctor, whom defense attorneys described as biased against Read from the beginning. The Massachusetts State Police trial board found Proctor guilty of sending crude and defamatory text messages about Read while leading the investigation into her. He was fired and became a central figure for Read supporters who believe the investigation was tainted.

Goode was placed on leave in November 2025 when the town was notified about allegations of misconduct. He resigned earlier this week, according to news outlets.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with family members as he was preparing a memoir about his career.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25 million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement could also allow him to avoid time behind bars. The punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

The case against Bolton, filed weeks after prosecutors secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, unfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department is using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump. The investigation burst into public view last August when FBI agents served search warrants at his Maryland home and Washington office, but it had been well underway by the time Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

Wrote book critical of Trump

Bolton, 77, is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on American power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being pushed out in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed and painted an unflattering portrait of his leadership and decision-making.

Trump's administration fought unsuccessfully to block the publication of “The Room Where it Happened” on the grounds that the book contained classified information that could harm national security if exposed. Bolton’s lawyers have said he moved forward with the book after a White House National Security Council official, with whom Bolton had worked for months, said the manuscript no longer had classified information.

The indictment he faced focused on notes shared with his wife and daughter rather than the substance of the book itself.

Bolton had initially pleaded not guilty and, in a statement released after his indictment, described the charges as part of an “intensive effort” by Trump “to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct.”

A re-arraignment, which can signal a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The indictment's 18 counts carried a threat of a substantial prison sentence in the event of conviction, but the plea will avert that possibility.

Accused of sharing classified material with family members

Court documents alleged that he shared “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.

The indictment said that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the U.S. government to collect intelligence. One document related to a foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch, while another detailed U.S. government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an adversary for an attack, court papers say.

Bolton's government service long predated the Trump administration. He had also served in the Justice Department during President Ronald Reagan’s administration and was a State Department point person on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq War was unable to win Senate confirmation. He resigned after serving 17 months through a recess appointment that allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate approval.

Fired after foreign policy clashes with Trump

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security adviser. His brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.

Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his book, including by alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, and members of the Biden family.

Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

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Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4% for its 10th gain in the last 11 days, a day after dropping from its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 874 points, or 1.7%, to a record, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1%.

Stocks got a lift from a 2.8% drop for the price of Brent crude oil to $95.03 per barrel. That gave back a chunk of its rise from this week caused by the latest flare-ups of fighting between Iran and the United States and its allies.

The expectation on Wall Street seems to be that the United States and Iran will ultimately agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers. That would hopefully improve the flow of crude, lower oil’s price and remove some of the upward pressure on inflation that’s hurting the world. Such hopes, along with strong profit reports from U.S. companies, helped launch the S&P 500 on a nine-day winning streak that ended Wednesday, a day short of its longest run in three decades.

Stocks of smaller companies helped lead the way, and the Russell 2000 index of the smallest U.S. stocks jumped 1.4%. They can reap the biggest benefits of falling interest rates, and the yield on the 10-year Treasury dipped to 4.47% from 4.49% late Wednesday as oil prices sank.

Lower yields can make it less expensive for companies to borrow cash, which many smaller companies need to do to grow.

Banks also helped lead the market, including gains of 5% for Goldman Sachs, 4.7% for Fifth Third Bancorp and 4.4% for U.S. Bancorp.

They helped to more than make up for losses by some AI stocks, which took a sudden back seat after dominating the market.

Broadcom sank 12.6%, even though both profit and revenue for the chip company surpassed analysts’ expectations. CEO Hock Tan said its AI semiconductor revenue more than doubled to $10.8 billion during the quarter and that demand is only getting bigger. He is forecasting AI semiconductor growth to top 200% in the current quarter.

Investors, though, may have wanted even more after Broadcom’s stock came into the day with a 38.5% surge for the year so far. That towered over the already strong 10.3% rise for the S&P 500 index, and Broadcom has grown to become one of Wall Street’s largest and most influential stocks.

Analysts have been saying AI stocks may have run too high, becoming too expensive, and that the broad U.S. stock market may be set for a slowdown following an unrelenting streak of nine straight winning weeks for the S&P 500, its longest since 2023.

Other AI winners likewise gave back some of their big gains. Micron Technology, the latest company to see its total value top $1 trillion because of AI euphoria, fell 7.7%.

CrowdStrike Holdings dropped 3.8% even though the cybersecurity company’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter topped analysts’ expectations. CEO George Kurtz said the latest quarter was when “the worlds of cybersecurity and frontier AI collided,” and the company said it’s splitting its stock to make its share price more affordable.

But its stock came into the day with a 59.5% surge for the year so far. And analysts said it beat forecasts for some financial measures by less than it usually does.

Outside of tech, PVH Corp., the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, tumbled 20.2% even though it also beat Wall Street’s first-quarter sales and profit targets. CEO Stefan Larsson warned that it’s feeling “the prolonged effects of the Middle East conflict, which is putting pressure on” customers in the region.

All told, the S&P 500 climbed 30.63 points to 7,584.31. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 874.86 to 51,561.93, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 23.02 to 26,830.96.

Reports on the U.S. economy, meanwhile, came in mixed. One said that slightly more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, which could indicate a slowdown in the relatively solid U.S. job market.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a weaker finish in Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.5% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.4% for some of the larger losses.

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AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

McClain’s final words — “I can’t breathe” — foreshadowed those of George Floyd a year later in Minneapolis, and the Colorado man’s name became part of the rallying cries for social justice that swept the U.S. in 2020.

The appeals court ordered new trials for Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec. McClain, 23, had been forcibly restrained and put in a neck hold by police, who stopped him in response to a suspicious person complaint as the massage therapist walked home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb in 2019.

Criminal charges against paramedics and emergency medical technicians involved in police custody cases are rare. As McClain’s death and others raised questions about the use of ketamine to subdue struggling suspects, this prosecution sent shock waves through the ranks of first responders across the U.S.

New trials in the case will return the issue to the spotlight, and that could make first responders think twice when responding to calls involving people in police custody, said University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero.

“At 11 o'clock tonight when they're on a call, and the circumstances are the same, is this going to influence their behavior?" Piquero asked. “It may not be the first thing that comes into their heads, but it's going to be there."

A jury in 2023 found Cooper and Cichuniec guilty of criminally negligent homicide following a weekslong trial in state district court. The jurors also found Cichuniec guilty of second-degree felony assault.

Cichuniec received five years in prison. Cooper avoided prison and was sentenced to 14 months in jail with work release and probation.

State attorney general says he will appeal

The appeals court upheld Cichuniec's assault conviction, but faulted the instructions given to jurors with respect to the criminally negligent homicide charges before they deliberated. Thursday's ruling sends their cases back to a lower court for a new trial on that charge.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser will appeal Thursday’s decision, a spokesperson said.

“Bringing these cases to trial was the right thing to do for justice, for Elijah McClain, and for healing in the Aurora community,” Weiser said in a statement. “The attorney general’s office is committed to defending these convictions through the appeals process.”

An Aurora police officer was convicted of homicide and third degree assault in McClain’s death, while two other officers were acquitted.

Cichuniec was released early from prison in 2024 after a judge reduced his sentence to four years of probation. That judge, Mark Warner, cited “unusual and extenuating circumstances,” a part of Colorado’s mandatory sentencing law that allows a court to modify a sentence after a defendant has served least 119 days in prison. Warner said that Cichuniec had to make a quick decision the night of the arrest as the highest-ranking paramedic at the scene.

The International Association of Fire Fighters said in a statement it continued to support Cooper and Cichuniec, who are members of the labor union.

“Today’s ruling recognizes the challenges paramedics face when making split-second medical decisions in rapidly evolving situations,” said Edward Kelly, the association’s general president.

Local prosecutors initially declined to bring charges in McClain's death

Local prosecutors initially decided not to bring charges in McClain’s death largely because an initial autopsy was inconclusive on how how he died.

Following the nationwide protests over Floyd’s death, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis directed Weiser to re-investigate the McClain case. A grand jury indicted the two paramedics and three police officers when Dr. Stephen Cina, a forensic pathologist who performed McClain’s autopsy, changed his findings to pin the blame on the sedative ketamine after reviewing body camera footage from the scene.

The city of Aurora in 2021 agreed to pay $15 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by McClain’s parents.

The Associated Press left a voicemail seeking comment with the attorney for McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain. Other requests for comment were left with the paramedics' lawyers.

The paramedics’ defense attorneys argued they followed their training in giving ketamine to McClain after deciding he had “excited delirium,” a disputed condition invoked to justify excessive force that some say is unscientific. They also said prosecutors did not prove the sedative is what killed him.

Paramedics in Aurora had been trained to use the drug for the condition in 2018. State officials have since told paramedics to stop using excited delirium as a basis for administering ketamine.

An activist who befriended Sheneen McClain after they met at a protest said the appellate ruling was disappointing and “one of the most divisive judicial decisions our state has experienced in recent memory.”

"It strikes at the heart of a question that Colorado continues to struggle to answer: When a Black life is taken under circumstances that shock the conscience of the public, what does accountability truly mean?” said MiDian Shofner, CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Thomas Peipert contributed reporting from Denver.

Describing himself as a “big fan” of the team and owner James Dolan, Trump said Thursday that he will be in the arena for at least one game next week. The NBA believes it would make him the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.

“The answer is yes — he’s invited me, I’m going,” Trump said of Dolan's invitation. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he was eyeing Game 3 on Monday but didn't rule out Game 4 on Wednesday. “Maybe I'll do both.”

Trump, who is simultaneously contending with a war in Iran, strife in Congress and looming midterm elections, said he made sure to catch some of Game 1 on Wednesday as the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs and took a 1-0 lead in the series.

“I missed the middle because I talk to generals all night long now, but I watched that end of the game and they were dominant,” Trump said. “Really amazing.”

Asked about his plans for next week, Trump went on to offer his own game recap, giving nothing but praise for the Knicks. Taking questions after an event on his administration's efforts to promote the U.S. coal industry, Trump said it “wasn't looking good” for the Knicks early on but commended them for holding back Victor Wembanyama, the towering Spurs center.

“I say, how do you guard this guy? He's 7-foot-5 and he’s got a great shot, right? But they find a way to do it. They're really great.”

The NBA said it believes no other sitting president has attended an NBA Finals game. Earlier Thursday, Commissioner Adam Silver said some former presidents had attended. He recalled Trump as a Knicks fan long before his political career.

“Donald Trump, before he ever ran for office, he was a big Knicks fan,” Silver said. “I was there at many Knicks games with him in the old days. He attended many of our drafts when they used to take place at Madison Square Garden."

Silver reiterated a message he conveyed Wednesday amid reports that Trump might attend — that sports can be unifying, even in deeply divided political times.

“We can emphasize what we have in common, not what pulls us apart,” Silver said. “We’re seeing that in New York and I think President Trump is very much a New Yorker, and I’m thrilled that yet another New Yorker wants to participate in the enthusiasm and the joy around this Knick team.”

The commissioner acknowledged that Trump’s presence will require extra security in and around Madison Square Garden. That would almost certainly mean longer transit times and logistical issues for fans.

“I think the fans are very understanding of that,” Silver said. “I think they recognize that it adds to the bigness of the event."

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AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds in San Antonio contributed to this report.

Luis Borges claimed in federal court filings that BCSO Sheriff Javier Salazar personally pulled the 2024 employment offer after deputies found an altar to La Santa Muerte belonging to Borges’ wife during a home inspection.

After Borges went through the application process, including passing a background check and completing a polygraph examination, he was informed that summer by a BCSO recruiting deputy that he had been hired and would begin the training academy in two weeks and was even encouraged to put in his two weeks’ notice at work.

Borges, as part of the hiring process, said he then allowed deputies to do an in-home inspection at the residence he shares with his wife, Stephany.

Borges told KSAT deputies during the inspection photographed his wife’s personal altar to La Santa Muerte. He then received a call from BCSO informing him that he had been disqualified from working for the agency.

A recruiting deputy then sent Borges a message that read, “I just called my sergeant, and It (sic) was disapproved apparently by the sheriff for the Santa Muerte. Unfortunately, he has the final decision and it can’t be turned. I’m sorry about that, they honestly didn’t let me know till today so I apologize and wish you the best of luck in everything.”

Millions of followers of La Santa Muerte believe the folk saint aids them in matters of health, fortune and protection from harm.

The saint’s image, however, has also become synonymous with criminal culture and drug cartels.

“There’s always going to be bad apples in every group. There’s always going to be people who take what is supposed to be good and what is true about whatever you’re worshipping and take it to the extremes,” Stephany Borges told KSAT in 2024. “And her image was just something that they took.”

Stephany Borges said BCSO deputies defiled her personal altar by photographing it without her permission.

Luis Borges’ attorney, Mark Anthony Sanchez, told KSAT Thursday the settlement documents will be finalized soon and that his client is “pleased” with the out of court settlement:

As counsel for Mr. Luis Rafael Borges, I have always believed that the freedoms protected by the First Amendment—including the fundamental right to religious liberty and freedom of association—are among the most sacred rights guaranteed by our Constitution. When powerful government officials trample those constitutional protections, they must be held accountable. From the outset of this case, I vigorously defended Mr. Borges and his constitutional right to be free from government punishment based upon religious beliefs or associations. This case was never simply about one employment decision. It was about whether government officials may punish a citizen because of the religious beliefs present within his household. I firmly believed the answer was no. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission conducted its own independent investigation and found reasonable cause to believe that Mr. Borges was denied employment because of his association with his wife’s sincerely held religious beliefs. In addition, the federal court rejected Defendants’ efforts to dismiss the core constitutional claims asserted in this lawsuit and allowed the case to proceed. These developments reinforced my belief in the merits of Mr. Borges’s claims. We are pleased that the parties were able to resolve this matter out of court. The outcome sends an important message: constitutional rights matter, religious liberty matters, and no person—regardless of title, position, or political power—is above the law. Mr. Borges showed tremendous courage in standing up for his rights, and I am proud to have represented him in that effort.

Mark Anthony Sanchez, attorney for Luis Borges

Sanchez previously told KSAT he had offered Salazar and his command staff an hour of free legal training on how to comply with the First Amendment.

Commissioners approved the six-figure settlement near the end of their May 26 meeting, after discussing the lawsuit in executive session.

The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office released the following statement Thursday:

To avoid the continued expense, uncertainty, and diversion of public resources associated with ongoing litigation, Bexar County made a business decision to resolve Mr. Borges’ claims through court-ordered mediation. The matter was resolved after the parties accepted a Mediator’s Settlement Proposal. Although the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission previously issued an administrative determination stating that there was reasonable cause to believe that actions taken by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office may have been influenced by Mr. Borges’ association with an individual whose religious beliefs included La Santa Muerte, that determination was a preliminary administrative finding and not a judicial determination of liability. Bexar County continues to deny that any actions taken by the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office violated Title VII or any other applicable law. The settlement reflects a practical business decision to resolve disputed claims and avoid the substantial costs, risks, and burdens associated with continued litigation. Bexar County remains committed to providing equal employment opportunities and complying with all applicable federal and state employment laws.

Bexar County District Attorney's Office

Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.

Trump said the administration will use authority under a Cold War-era national defense law to support 13 coal plants across the country and help build coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia — the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013. The money will also help restart a shuttered coal-fired power plant in Maryland and support construction of a long-delayed coal export terminal in Oakland, California.

Together, the announcements will support or create more than 14,000 jobs in coal, construction, rail and maritime industries, a White House official said. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950 law that grants presidents broad authority over national security-related industries, and said his actions will allow coal plants to invest in upgrades that will extend their operational lives for decades.

The plan will “reinforce the reliability of our electric grid, which is really the biggest beneficiary," Trump said at a White House event that also touched on renovations to the Reflecting Pool, the wars in Ukraine and Iran and a UFC cage being built at the White House.

“Coal's a great business," Trump said. "In terms of power, there’s really nothing like it.”

Trump seeks to reverse long-term decline in US coal

The announcement is the latest step by Trump to try to reverse the years-long decline in the U.S. coal industry. The administration said last fall it would open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining and provide $625 million to recommission or modernize coal-fired power plants. Trump issued executive orders soon after retaking office to try to revive coal, a reliable but polluting energy source that’s long been shrinking amid environmental regulations and competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy.

Under Trump’s orders, the Energy Department has required coal-fired power plants in Michigan, Indiana, Colorado and Washington state to keep operating past their retirement dates to meet rising U.S. power demand amid growth in data centers, artificial intelligence and electric cars. The Energy Department has extended short-term orders to allow those efforts to continue, and has ordered oil and gas-fired plants in Maryland and Pennsylvania to run past scheduled retirement dates.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order Thursday requiring a coal-fired power plant in Orlando, Florida, to remain open past a planned shutdown this month.

Wright repeated a claim Thursday that the administration's use of emergency orders to keep aging coal-fired plants operating helped prevent major blackouts during brutally frigid weather that gripped most of the country in late January and early February.

The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, proposed revisions to an Obama-era rule on regional haze that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said would have forced the closure of a coal-fired power plant in Wyoming. The plant uses Wyoming coal, supports hundreds of Wyoming mining and energy jobs and is essential to delivering reliable, affordable energy to families across the state, Zeldin said.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the third Cabinet member at the White House event, called coal crucial to the U.S. electric grid. “It’s the backbone of having affordable, reliable and secure American energy to power our country, power our electric grid, power our competitiveness in AI and power all the manufacturing that’s coming back," he said.

Activists call Trump's priorities archaic

Environmental groups denounced the latest efforts to boost coal, which come as the Trump administration has clamped down on renewable energy, including freezing permits for offshore wind projects, ending clean energy tax credits and blocking wind and solar projects on federal lands.

“Propping up coal billionaires with taxpayer money is one more way for the Trump administration to put polluters first and put the rest of us at risk," said Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “What’s next, a taxpayer bailout to build new phone booths?”

Trump's order will result in higher electricity bills and dirtier air, Kennedy and other critics said. “The best thing for the air, the climate and our utility bills is to let these plants retire peacefully," she said.

“Spending $700 million to bail out the coal industry is like throwing a lifeline to a ship that has already sunk,'' said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, another environmental group.

Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said coal generation helps shield consumers from the impacts of volatile energy prices and supply challenges exacerbated by AI.

Trump's strategy will “ensure that upgrades to existing energy assets are made” domestically, “and at our ports to ensure that U.S. coal can answer the world’s needs,” he said.

Coal once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production, but its share dropped to about 15% in 2024, down from about 45% as recently as 2010. Natural gas provides about 43% of U.S. electricity, with the remainder from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.

Coal exports have dropped

U.S. coal exports dropped during the first year of Trump’s second term, largely due to less coal being shipped to China after it imposed reciprocal tariffs on American products last year in response to broad tariffs announced by Trump, according to the Energy Information Administration. Global coal demand rose to record levels in recent years but is expected to flatten or decline in the coming years, according to the International Energy Agency.

It’s hard for U.S. companies to expand into new markets because there are plentiful reserves of coal around the globe.

Even so, Trump has pushed to revive coal exports on the West Coast. Coal miners have long sought to ship coal from Utah and the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming to markets in Asia.

Developers are fighting the city of Oakland to build an export terminal on the site of a decommissioned Army base. Community members and advocacy groups have voiced concerns over how trains loaded with coal will affect public health, safety and the environment.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana, contributed to this report.

The Packers announced Thursday they had signed Watson to an extension without disclosing terms, but a person with knowledge of the contract told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that the 27-year-old receiver is getting a four-year, $110.5 million extension through 2030 with a $31 million signing bonus.

ESPN first reported the extension.

Watson becomes the second Packers receiver to get an extension this offseason. Jayden Reed agreed in April to a three-year extension that includes $50.25 million in new money and $20 million guaranteed.

“Grateful is an understatement ... so blessed,” Watson said in an Instagram story post.

Watson tore his right anterior cruciate ligament in Green Bay’s 2024 regular-season finale, but he came back last season to catch 35 passes for 611 yards and six touchdowns in 10 games. He tied for the team lead in touchdown catches and ranked second in yards receiving despite missing much of the season.

While recovering from his torn ACL, Watson signed a one-year, $13.25 million extension last fall that enabled his contract to run through 2026. Now he has a longer-term commitment.

Watson, Doubs and 2025 first-round pick Matthew Golden figure to lead a receiving unit that lost a couple of notable performers when Romeo Doubs signed with the New England Patriots and Dontayvion Wicks was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles.

“It was definitely tough to see those guys go because they’re great friends of mine, great teammates,” Watson said this week. “This thing always keeps on moving. I definitely think they’ll be a lot more opportunities for the guys who are out there this year, myself included. Just got to embrace that and continue to make plays when our numbers are called.”

Watson, a 2022 second-round pick from North Dakota State, has been a quality deep threat for the Packers when available. Injuries have limited him to 48 games over his first four seasons.

He spoke this week about how much he should benefit from having a full offseason in which he’s feeling healthy rather than recovering from an injury.

“It makes a big difference between just finding a rhythm and building that confidence with the whole offense and personally just being able to work on my craft and get a feel for things,” Watson said. “It’s definitely a lot smoother of an offseason for me this year, being able to do everything.”

Watson has 133 catches for 2,264 yards — an average of 17 yards per reception — and 20 touchdowns. He also has run for two touchdowns.

Billy Howton and James Lofton are the only other players in Packers history to average at least 17 yards per catch while having at least 125 receptions in their first four seasons.

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

The Republican president's disclosure that he was ruling out installing Pulte in the position full-time came after bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill in recent days over Pulte's lack of national security experience. The position requires Senate confirmation, something that lawmakers indicated was unlikely if Pulte were the nominee.

“He’s not going to be permanent because, you know, I don’t think he’d want to be permanent,” Trump said while taking questions in the Oval Office after an event on coal. He called Pulte a “very smart guy” and said he may look at past elections that Trump claims, without credible evidence, were “rigged” against him.

Trump said other candidates were under consideration for nomination to the post. “We’re interviewing people right now,” he said.

Pulte, a grandson of the founder of PulteGroup, has been a source of controversy within the administration for his work as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and his oversight of the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Pulte has used his position to pursue Trump’s perceived political rivals for alleged mortgage fraud and has verbally attacked Jerome Powell, whose term as the Federal Reserve chairman recently ended after months of Trump and Pulte attacking him for not slashing the central bank’s benchmark rates. The federal housing finance regulator has also pitched a 50-year mortgage, an idea that backfired as it meant that the process of building wealth through home ownership would be slowed.

Both Republican and Democratic senators expressed concerns about Pulte and his lack of national security credentials in occupying a role coordinating 18 federal agencies involved in domestic and foreign security issues. Trump's initial director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, resigned last month, citing her husband's recent cancer diagnosis.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, said the national intelligence director job shouldn't be “weaponized” and should be led by “professionals.”

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas, who are each leaving the chamber after this year’s elections, also expressed concerns about Pulte.

Democratic senators view Pulte as a risk even if he is only temporarily serving as the director of national intelligence while keeping his position at the FHFA.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent Trump a letter on Thursday calling on him to rescind Pulte's national security appointment.

“Americans cannot trust him to protect our nation and refrain from misusing the sensitive information he will have access to,” Warren wrote, saying that giving Pulte the job on an acting basis was a risk because Trump's own words suggested the federal agency could be used “to promote election denial theories.”

At a hearing on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed reports that he had threatened to fight Pulte in September of 2025, a sign of the friction that the federal housing finance director had generated inside the administration.

But as a frequent traveler on Air Force One, Pulte has a close relationship with Trump.

“He’s a person who’s got high integrity,” Trump said Thursday about Pulte.

Andrea Pedro Francisco crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019 with her mother seeking asylum and had been living in Minnesota ever since. In February, days before doctors scheduled her for an urgent surgery to remove an ovarian cyst about the size of a lime, federal agents detained Pedro Francisco and her mother in Minnesota as part of the Trump administration’s controversial Operation Metro Surge.

That initiative, the administration’s most recent high-profile immigration operation, resulted in the detention of about 3,400 immigrants from Minnesota who were sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers in Texas.   

Pedro Francisco, a leader and musician in her Minnesota evangelical church, was transferred to El Paso’s controversial Camp East Montana, a sprawling tent camp at the city’s U.S. Army’s Fort Bliss. Her arrest came six days before she was scheduled for surgery for her ovarian cyst in Minnesota after years of increasing pain, according to her family and medical records.

Two days after arriving at Camp East Montana, ICE staff called 911, records show, and rushed Pedro Francisco to the hospital for what she said was her debilitating condition. Ever since then, her health has deteriorated, she and her lawyers said. But ICE officials and a federal judge have repeatedly denied her release or outside OB GYN- specialists.

In a statement, Pedro Francisco said that she was in “shock” at what she called her sudden release. She said that she was eating earlier this week when an ICE official told her that she was going to be freed.

“They told me that I was going home,” she recalled, adding that she was “stunned,” and thought it was a “joke.” She said that she is excited to see her family, especially her two younger siblings who she helped raise, and to play musical instruments again.

 Her attorney, Ruby L. Powers, called her release “nothing short of a miracle,” adding that now that Pedro Francisco is going home, “she will finally obtain the care she needs and deserves.”

But, Powers added, “we know that there are many others suffering in detention, away from family and being neglected medical treatment. Today, this outcome renews faith in humanity and in what is possible.”

Pedro Francisco’s other attorney, Asra Syed, said that her release “took so many people – her lawyers, her legislators, her friends, her family, organizers – working together.”

Nine experts who reviewed more than 200 pages of her medical records, obtained by The Texas Tribune with Pedro Francisco’s consent, agreed that she urgently requires surgery and not doing so could result in her inability to have children. At worst, some experts argued that it could even result in her death if her cyst is cancerous. The experts said that her treatment in ICE detention amounts to potential medical malpractice because it fails to provide the industry’s standard of care and contradicts what external doctors recommend.

Dr. William Weber, who practices emergency medicine in Minnesota and also reviewed Pedro Francisco’s records, said on Thursday that he is grateful Pedro Francisco could finally get the care she needs now that she is freed.

“Unfortunately, there are many more in ICE detention with unmet medical needs and we need systemic changes,” said Weber, who helps lead the Medical Justice Alliance, a nonprofit focused on care in detention facilities.

Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to questions. 

Previously, Leticia Zamarripa, a spokesperson for ICE, said in a statement that medical staff determined Pedro Francisco’s condition “does not make her a candidate for surgical intervention.” 

“This is the best healthcare that many individuals have received in their lives,” Zamarripa argued.

An unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson added in an email that Pedro Francisco had seen onsite medical staff while in ICE detention and been evaluated at a local behavioral health center, in addition to the ER visit. The official declined to answer detailed questions.

As Trump has ramped up deportation efforts, Pedro Francisco was one of more than 60,000 people in ICE detention as the administration continues to pursue mass ICE warehouses in its push for expanded removals. Like her, the majority were arrested in the interior of the country and have no criminal convictions. At least 18 people have died in ICE custody this year, nearly a third of them in Texas. That record-breaking number is on pace to surpass the nearly three dozen deaths in 2025, which were the most ICE fatalities in more than two decades.

Experts say this is the result of the administration’s push to detain a far greater number of immigrants than some ICE facilities have capacity for while contracting with companies that either have problematic records or little experience in detention management. At the same time, many medical providers which work with ICE have been unpaid since the fall in a bureaucratic change made by the administration as it switched billing methods. 

The American Civil Liberties Union and other Texas advocacy groups sued the administration last month about its treatment of immigrants at Camp East Montana, where Pedro Francisco was held for a few months. Before she arrived, the facility had seen at least three detainee deaths, including a homicide involving staff. Compounding the problems there was a nearly monthlong measles outbreak and nearly 50 detention standards violations as reported by ICE’s own inspectors, prompting calls for the camp’s closure from immigrant advocates and Democratic lawmakers.

The suit last week argued that conditions at the facility are “unconstitutional punishment,” violating detainees’ due process rights, and that the negligent conditions are “longstanding, pervasive, and well documented.” 

As a part of its NBA Cares Finals Legacy Project presented by Emirates, the community center’s revamped gym, multipurpose room and “upgraded gaming equipment for youth and families” will be on display for use for the first time.

Additionally, the NBA Foundation and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Foundation are contributing a $50,000 grant to the San Antonio Parks Foundation to support future efforts at the community center.

During his speech, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver took time out to speak directly to the youth in the Denver Heights neighborhood in attendance.

“The (NBA) Finals come through this community. There’s all this excitement, but invariably, we leave. ... But what remains is this community center,” Silver said. “And the purpose of us being here today is for all of you — not just to make this investment and improving this facility, the gym, the computer center, the library — but to encourage you to use it.”

“The (Spurs) players are here with me today. Every one of them grew up in a community center like this,” Silver continued. “Every one of them will tell you that, but for a community center with leaders like the people who are here, they would not be sitting on these stools today representing the NBA. So, that’s my message to all of you.”

“The Denver Heights Community Center is an opportunity for youth and families to really flourish,” Spurs Sports & Entertainment CEO RC Buford said. “Our vision for the Spurs’ impact is we want to build leaders and legacies where we live, learn, work and play. And what better place can we do that than here at the Denver Heights Community Center?”

Other ceremony attendees were:

• NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum
• San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones
• Spurs players Harrison Barnes, Lindy Waters III, Mason Plumlee, Bismack Biyombo and David Jones Garcia

Youth participants later took part in a Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA clinic, as well as interactive technology and gaming activities throughout the renovated spaces at the community center.

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The infestation was discovered in a single 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio and 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the U.S.-Mexico border. Federal and state officials had been working to keep the parasite from reaching Texas, home to $17 billion worth of the nation's cattle, making it the industry's No. 1 state.

The deadly flies were detected in Mexico late in 2024, after years of being contained at the southern end of Panama.

The fly was an annual warm-weather scourge of cattle ranchers from at least the 1930s through the 1960s, until the U.S. eradicated the pest by breeding sterile male flies and dropping swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females. The USDA said the most recent case was the first in Texas since 1966.

Here is what to know about the fly, the threat it poses and the response:

Being unusual makes the flies a threat

The New World screwworm fly in the Western Hemisphere and its Old World cousin in Africa and Asia are unusual among flies because their larvae, or maggots, eat live flesh and fluids instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds and mucous membranes after mating only once in their monthslong lives.

Any warm-blooded animal, including wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans, can be infested.

Livestock are vulnerable because of how they're handled, Lee Haines, an associate research professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, said in an email Thursday. Standard practices with cattle can break the skin, including shearing and de-horning, or even moving them in and out of corrals can cause scrapes and cuts. Birth would also make a mother and calf vulnerable, she said.

Stephen Diebel, a Texas rancher and president of the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, added that even wounds “as small as a tick bite,” can put cattle at risk.

Death can result if an infestation is not treated, though a dozen treatments have been approved for use in a variety of species. In decades past, ranchers had tens of millions of dollars in losses — potentially billions in today's dollars.

But agriculture officials were quick to note that the fly does not infest food, and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said it’s unlikely to damage beef production -- welcome news given that consumers are already facing record prices.

Officials sounded alarms for nearly 2 years

Federal and state officials and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly's movement through Mexico and toward the U.S. since a case was confirmed in southern Mexico in November 2024.

Officials had considered the pest eradicated from Central and North America nearly two decades before an outbreak in Panana prompted a state of emergency there early in 2023, according to the joint U.S.-Panama program established in 1994 to stop the parasite. Cases jumped to Costa Rica and Nicaragua later that year.

Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly, said it reproduces quickly and is carried across wide areas by its hosts, namely wild animals such as deer. Outside of Panama, he said, programs that produced and released sterile flies have largely shut down.

"It’s hard to stay ahead of it because of how fast that fly is able to move and regenerate,” Burgess said.

Outside the US, thousands of animals and hundreds of humans sickened

As of June 2, the parasite had sickened more than 171,700 animals and 2,000 people across Central America and Mexico, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been 10 human deaths, the CDC says.

Starting in May 2025, Rollins closed border entries to livestock and on Thursday she credited that move with delaying the fly's arrival in Texas by a year.

Rollins has argued that the Mexican government has not done enough to control animals moving within the country, a suggestion Mexican authorities have rejected.

But Haines said climate change is a key element in the spread of a tropical species that thrives in warm weather. Warmer temperatures are expanding the fly's habitat and cold snaps that killed them off each year in marginal habitats are becoming less frequent and less severe, she said.

Officials quarantine a swath of Texas

Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges imposed a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone covering much of Zavala County, home to La Pryor, and a small part of neighboring Uvalde County. Animals cannot leave that zone without being inspected.

Local ranchers are concerned that the fly will spread among wildlife, particularly deer, as a small, short-lived outbreak did in the Florida Keys in 2016. That was the last time a U.S. case was confirmed among animals, though the CDC confirmed a case last year in a Maryland man who had traveled to El Salvador and recovered.

Zavalas County Sheriff Eusevio Salinas said Thursday that state officials were setting up several road checkpoints in the county to enforce the quarantine.

“They said they were going to do that for three to four days, and hopefully after that it’s already under control,” Salinas said.

In Texas, shots and fly drops

Diebel, whose family ranch is about 200 miles (322 kilometers) east of the quarantine zone, said ranchers are proactively giving injections that prevent screwworm infestation. They’re also taking extra care to treat wounds from ear tagging and other practices and keeping a close eye for signs of illness.

The USDA has been dropping sterile flies in south Texas since February, when it opened a center for dispersing them in south Texas. It is now dropping them twice a week, for a total of 4 million flies, and it’s also putting 4 million more a week in the ground as pupae, flies in the stage between larvae and adult, said Rear Admiral Michael Schmoyer, a member of the USDA’s response team.

Releasing sterile files is both time-tested and highly effective. While males are “promiscuous,” in the scientific sense, females are not, and if their one mating hookup is with a sterile male, no eggs from that female will hatch.

Once sterile males are prevalent enough, the fly’s population declines and then dies out.

But with sites outside Panama shut down for years, the USDA didn't think sterile flies were being bred fast enough. It invested $21 million in a new fly-breeding facility in southern Mexico that is expected to start operations next month.

The USDA also is spending $750 million to build a fly factory in southern Texas that can produce up to 300 million sterile flies a week. It is expected to begin operating next fall.

Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president of public relations, said in a statement to The Associated Press that “we are complying with the court’s order while evaluating all legal options to preserve this revitalization and recognize President Trump’s leadership.”

In a Thursday memo to staff from the Kennedy Center's Office of General Counsel, the institution's lawyers said email signatures, letterhead and other documents must reflect the name as “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts" or “Kennedy Center.”

The changes, the memo said, must be completed by June 12.

In a May 29 decision, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also blocked the administration from closing the cultural and arts venue for major renovations that had been planned to start in July.

Hours after the ruling, Trump said he was backing away from the revamp and making arrangements to relinquish control to Congress of what, until the Republican president’s second term, had been known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The next day, Trump on social media branded Cooper as “an anti Trump Hater” and predicted that the performing arts center that he wanted to shutter for a two-year overhaul will “soon be closed, probably never to open again.”

Clearly angered by his latest legal setback, he said it was “impossible for me to be treated fairly,” tying Cooper’s ruling to earlier losses, including the Supreme Court’s rejection in February of his sweeping tariffs.

The removal marked a setback in the president’s second-term plans to remake many of Washington’s landmarks — and add new ones.

On Thursday, his administration said renovations had been completed on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, painting the bottom what Trump has called “American flag blue.” The White House East Wing was demolished to build a large ballroom, and Trump plans to build an arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

___

Associated Press writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report. Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.

It wasn’t his first significant project; it wasn’t even his first film with director Danny Boyle. And he was, in his words, fairly arrogant and cocksure at the time. But that kinetic film about four heroin addicts in late-1980s Scotland was and, 30 years later, remains defining — in his career, in the culture and in his understanding of what true artistic satisfaction can feel like.

“It’s very much in that early part of my career, and of course, even today, probably the most important piece of work that I was involved in, just because it had such a massive effect on my life. Not only because of what it did, but because of how it felt to make,” McGregor told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It set the bar unknowingly high because it’s been quite hard to match ever since.”

Both McGregor and Boyle are a little wistful about the time, and what they made, on the eve of its 30th anniversary re-release. Starting Friday, a 4K digital restoration will be in theaters nationwide. Though “Trainspotting” was very much of its moment with its Britpop soundtrack, its Thatcher-era grit, its darkly comedic tone and shrewd blend of giddy highs and tragic lows, it’s also one that has stood the unforgiving test of time.

“You get kids coming up to you who are 17 who said they’d just seen it,” Boyle said. “I could be their grandfather … yet it still spoke to them.”

Putting Hollywood on hold

Boyle was a hot commodity after “Shallow Grave,” a 1994 black comedy about flatmates in Edinburgh starring McGregor, and Hollywood was calling. Literally. A peak-famous Sharon Stone cold-called him and asked if he’d want to come make a film with her. But he had his sights set on Irvine Welsh’s buzzy debut novel, teaming once again with screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald.

The budget would be small, 1.5 million pounds or about $1.9 million, and the shoot would be quick and local. They didn’t know what they didn’t know: Boyle remembers asking his cinematographer, the late Brian Tufano, if they could use an anal probe camera for the “worst toilet in Scotland” scene.

“I remember him saying, ‘Well, Danny, yes, you can get that. But I’m not sure how Ewan and his family and agent will feel about that,’” Boyle said with a laugh. “He tempered my kind of extreme way of approaching this material.”

And somehow it all worked, driven by youthful energy, a bit of arrogance and a passionate commitment to the material.

‘It would have been a disaster if it had been done differently’

“‘Trainspotting’ had to be made that way,” said McGregor, who was 23 at the time. “It would have been a disaster if it had been done differently.”

For McGregor, at least part of the vitality came from the fact that they were shooting on film; money was going through the camera on every take.

“We shoot on these cards now, and it just doesn’t matter anymore,” McGregor said. “There’s no natural sort of like rhythm to filmmaking like there used to be then. … I think back to ‘Shallow Grave’ and ‘Trainspotting’ and it feels almost like a different job.”

Boyle too has been chasing that kind of innocence ever since. He said he might have come close on his upcoming film “Ink,” with Jack O’Connell.

“It was liberating not having enough money because you don’t have that limitation of thinking, oh, that’s going to be too extreme for the studio or for the audience reach we’re meant to have,” Boyle said. “You could make it so that if it didn’t work, you just, you know, sulk away with your tail between your legs and call back Sharon Stone and say ‘I was wrong.’”

The rock star moment

Like any film about drugs, there was a fair amount of discourse around its release. U.S. presidential candidate Bob Dole even denounced it, unseen, for romanticizing heroin during his campaign. But the film was in the conversation — and it had an enviable group of supporters, including Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and Blur’s Damon Albarn, both of whom provided songs for the film.

After “Trainspotting” became a hit, life changed profoundly for McGregor. In London, he said, “it was madness.” At the time he was sharing a flat with his co-star Jonny Lee Miller, Jude Law and Sean Pertwee. When they’d go out to clubs, they felt like rock stars.

“There was a real energy around it,” McGregor said. “We were part of that, you see, the Blur and Oasis and Pulp and The Verve and all of that amazing music that was happening then. We were the sort of movie version of it, I guess, because Danny knew what he was doing with the soundtrack and because the novel was so huge and current and … and maybe because it was ours. It was British and it wasn’t pandering to America. We didn’t make it for America.”

An absolute love of cinema

Boyle hopes that audiences take a chance on “Trainspotting” in the theater, whether they're revisiting it or seeing it for the first time. It was, he said, made with an absolute love of cinema.

“It’s very indebted to ‘Goodfellas,’ which also has that feeling of: You are here to be absolutely assaulted by an experience,” Boyle said. “You know, you have given us your money and you’ve given us your time to be here for 90 minutes, two hours, whatever it is, and we promise, we promise to deliver everything to you that we can.”

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in La Pryor, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases being confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles (40 km) from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

The 2023 law, known as the “Death Star” bill, made it illegal for cities and counties to enact local ordinances that go further than certain broad areas of state law. Texas Republicans including Gov. Greg Abbott and business groups long argued the law was needed to undo a “patchwork” of local rules they said made it hard to do business in Texas and to rein in progressive policies in urban cities. Critics including local officials argued the law was overly broad and vague while wiping out key protections like water breaks for construction workers, payday lending ordinances and noise regulations.

Today, it remains unclear just what local rules and regulations are out-of-bounds under the law, supporters and detractors told members of the Texas House Joint Committee on Government Oversight Thursday. Still, the law has had a chilling effect on cities, who might not pursue certain ordinances for fear that they could draw a lawsuit. At the same time, the law’s proponents worry that cities aren’t proactively striking ordinances from its books that could violate the law — and that outside of individual lawsuits brought by residents, there’s no way to make sure they’re following the law.

Some Republican lawmakers in the hearing floated enhancing the law to hold cities more accountable, including giving the attorney general more power to go after the law’s violators — an idea that died when legislators met last year.

James Quintero, policy director at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Taxpayer Protection Project, told lawmakers he asked several cities and counties what steps they had taken to comply with the law. Those cities and counties “came back and effectively implied that they had done nothing,” he said.

“Sometimes the Legislature can pass a law, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into local action,” Quintero said. “We don’t necessarily see cities and counties executing the law faithfully.”

Critics of the law argued there’s no evidence localities have openly violated the law. In fact, the law has had a chilling effect on cities, said Bill Longley, general counsel for the Texas Municipal League, a lobbying group that represents a majority of the state’s 1,200-plus cities. Some cities have changed or repealed ordinances, like ordinances that regulate car towing, to avoid costly legal fights, he said, while cities have sought to closely vet newly proposed ordinances to make sure they’re not running afoul of the law. But given the law’s broad scope, cities may rather not pass new ordinances to address urgent problems rather than risk a lawsuit.

“It sounds like there may be some frustration that cities haven’t just jumped in and started repealing ordinances left and right, but we’re talking about a standard that I think is not entirely clear,” Longley said.

Adding to the confusion is a certain amount of legal limbo. The law is in effect, but a legal fight initiated by Houston, El Paso and San Antonio challenging the law’s constitutionality hasn’t been settled. Meanwhile, a group of Dallas residents have sued that city to force it to repeal dozens of ordinances, including a slew of LGTBQ+ protections, that they allege violate the law. The outcome of that case is pending before the 15th Court of Appeals.

“Why should they do a good faith effort to follow a law they believe is unconstitutional?” said state Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood.

The law relies on private citizens to bring lawsuits, which can get tied up for years in appeals. State Rep. Mitch Little, R-Lewisville, floated the idea of allowing the Texas Attorney General to sue cities if they find evidence that suggests cities aren’t following the law — and fast-track those suits through the appeals process to arrive at a quick ruling. Residents and businesses, he noted, often don’t have the money to pay for long legal battles.

“I can’t imagine a car mechanic or an auto shop deciding that it was a good use of its capital to sue the city of Dallas over an ordinance,” Little said.

Lawmakers tossed around other ideas, like requiring cities to audit their ordinances to make sure they’re following the law or issuing financial penalties to cities and counties that violate it. Quintero noted a new state law that freezes cities’ property taxes if they don’t follow financial requirements set by the state as a potential model. Democratic lawmakers on the panel pushed back, arguing that cities and counties ultimately pass on those penalties to taxpayers.

The law is seen as the high-water mark in a years-long push by GOP state lawmakers to curb the rulemaking authority of the state’s urban areas, which often lean liberal.

State Rep. Richard Peña Raymond, D-Laredo, said he supported the law in part because few people vote in municipal elections, and it makes sense for state lawmakers, elected in higher turnout elections, to correct any perceived overreach. But he was skeptical that cities were openly violating the law.

Others argued that the state’s cities have diverse needs specific to their communities and shouldn’t be barred from meeting those needs.

“Why even have a city council?” said state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston. “Why even have a mayor if Austin is going to be the one that dictates what you do and can’t do?”

Disclosure: Texas Municipal League and Texas Public Policy Foundation have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

The incident occurred midway through the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s game between the Spurs and New York Knicks. The NBA did not disclose what role the second banned person, who did not run onto the court, played in the incident.

“The individual who entered the court area during Game 1 of The Finals was arrested and will be banned for life from all NBA arenas," an NBA spokesman said in a message sent to The Associated Press and other outlets. "A second individual will also receive a lifetime ban for his role in the incident.”

The person who was arrested after running onto the court is a juvenile, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because that detail — first reported by the San Antonio Express-News — was not revealed publicly.

That fan appeared to enter the court from the sideline opposite the team benches, starting from behind the play and running into San Antonio's offensive end. The person was quickly pulled from the court by two security guards and it did not appear the person made any physical contact with Wembanyama or any New York players.

“I even hesitate to describe that person as a fan," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Thursday. "They seemed to have some ulterior motive for doing so.”

Wembanyama did not appear bothered by the incident, either as it was happening or afterward.

“I’ve never been in that situation,” Wembanyama said. “I didn’t know how to act."

He compared the moment to a game in January 2024 when a bat got into the Spurs' arena and flew around the court, stopping a game against Minnesota for a couple of minutes.

Play on Wednesday was stopped for 1 minute and 29 seconds before the game resumed with a jump ball. The fan who entered the play was taken out of the court area through a baseline tunnel.

“I don’t think it was an event at all,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “I thought security got him out of there. I think everybody moved on to the next play.”

Silver lauded crew chief Scott Foster and the game's officiating crew for handling the incident quickly, not disrupting the game for any longer than necessary.

“It’s unfortunately part of all sports," Silver said. "There's lot more security, much more apparatus in place than we needed maybe in the old days. I think the other side of the coin of global attention is that somebody realizes that there’s this enormous platform to do stupid things. So, we learn from every incident.”

League investigating fan's words to Brunson

Another incident involving fan behavior occurred in the final minute of Wednesday's Game 1, when New York guard Jalen Brunson — who had a game-high 30 points in the Knicks' come-from-behind win — appeared to be upset by something said to him by a patron in a courtside seat.

Silver confirmed Thursday that the league is looking into what was said to Brunson. Asked about that incident, Brunson declined to comment.

“To be honest, I didn’t even see what happened,” Knicks forward Josh Hart said. “I heard something about it. I didn’t really see it. I don’t know. He’s always pretty calm, pretty composed. I’m sure the fans probably said something crazy to kind of get him going.”

Fan behavior and conduct has been a point of emphasis for the NBA in recent years, and the league sent a memo to all 30 clubs at the start of this season saying it wants “consistent and vigilant enforcement of the NBA Fan Code of Conduct … to deter and address fan misconduct at NBA games and events.”

The NBA, in that October memo, told teams that arena staff “must be trained to identify behavior that violates NBA rules and to respond proactively.” The NBA, like many leagues, also has a video detailing a code of conduct for fans played in every arena before each game.

“It is critical that teams and arenas vigorously enforce the Code of Conduct and not tolerate any misconduct that impacts our players, fans, or otherwise disrupts the game,” the league said.

___

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

The case began in April 2024 when an indictment sought by Arizona’s Democratic attorney general charged 18 Republicans with forgery, fraud and conspiracy, accusing them of trying to undo former President Joe Biden’s victory in the state by 10,457 votes.

In a decision released Thursday, the Arizona Supreme Court rejected Attorney General Kris Mayes’ request to avoid sending the case back to the grand jury. Mayes had hoped to continue pushing forward through the courts without having to start over at the grand jury level.

An appeal sent the case to the state’s highest court after defense attorneys argued successfully that the original grand jury hadn’t been shown the relevant parts of a law that governs how presidential contests are certified.

The most recent ruling marked another setback for Mayes, whose case has been stalled for over a year. The attorney general's office said it will again present the case in its entirety to a grand jury rather than end the prosecution. It declined to comment further on the decision.

The ruling came after similar cases in Michigan and Georgia were dismissed by the courts and a special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. All three cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. Cases related to the fake elector scheme are ongoing in Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.

In Arizona, defense lawyers have argued the law allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed. Federal law was amended in 2022 to specify that any given state could put forward only one slate of electors and that state governors are responsible for signing off.

Mark L. Williams, an attorney representing Giuliani, applauded the state Supreme Court’s latest decision and questioned whether Mayes’ office will carry through on its promise to bring the case back to the grand jury. “In my mind, the whole thing is meritless,” Williams said. “Mr. Giuliani has done nothing wrong.”

The state attorney general has faced steep challenges in making her case.

It was filed nearly three and a half years after the 2020 election and levels complicated conspiracy charges against the 18 defendants. A dozen dismissal requests filed by defense attorneys have slowed progress in court.

The first judge on the case recused himself in late 2024 after an email surfaced in which he told fellow judges to speak out against attacks on Harris’ campaign for the presidency. The next judge ordered the case to be sent back to a grand jury.

Of the 18 Arizona defendants, two were former Trump aides, five were lawyers working for Trump and 11 were Republicans who submitted a document falsely claiming Trump won Arizona.

Three defendants have resolved their cases, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The rest have pleaded not guilty. Some said they signed the certificate in case Trump won court challenges and a new slate of electors was needed urgently before Congress’ Jan. 6 deadline to tally votes.

The Hezbollah announcement came as Israeli strikes killed at least four people, according to local authorities, and a U.N. peacekeeper was killed in the crossfire. An Israeli soldier was also killed in combat in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem, in a written statement read on TV, called the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting.” He said the agreement’s demand that Hezbollah fighters leave southern Lebanon under fire would mean “surrender, defeat and achieving the enemy’s goals.”

“What we are concerned about is an end to the aggression, ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal,” he said, underscoring that Hezbollah has not made any commitment to stop fighting. “So long as our villages are not safe and are being bombed and destroyed and our people are killed," he said, northern Israel “will not be safe.”

Sirens sound after Netanyahu visit

Following Kassem’s statement, drone alert sirens sounded in several border communities in northern Israel, including Shlomi, a town where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several ministers had been meeting with local officials, his office said. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu left a short time before the alerts sounded.

The Israeli military later said the sirens were triggered by attempts to intercept several drones that hit near soldiers in southern Lebanon. No injuries were reported.

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, acknowledged Thursday that the ongoing war was straining northern Israeli towns living under the threat of Hezbollah fire. He said Israel’s operations in Iran and Lebanon had “created a new security reality,” by weakening Iran and Hezbollah “to an unprecedented degree.”

Lebanese troops began moving Thursday afternoon into the southern village of Dibbine, in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers, after Israeli forces left the area, which saw intense clashes in recent days, state-run media reported. It was the first time Israeli troops withdrew from an area in southern Lebanon since the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began about three months ago.

The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit point for oil and gas. Its closure has jolted the world economy.

Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections later this year, wants to press ahead with Israel’s offensive until Hezbollah no longer poses a threat.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who faced a rare rebuke from Congress on Wednesday, has sought to downplay the diplomatic deadlock and the failure of declared ceasefires to end the fighting. He told reporters that in the Middle East, "a ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner.”

Serbian peacekeeper and Israeli soldier killed

A Serbian peacekeeper was killed and two others were wounded when a mortar struck their location near Marjayoun, a Christian-majority town that has seen intense fighting, according to the U.N. mission in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, and the Serbian Defense Ministry.

Israel blamed Hezbollah for the firing that killed the U.N. peacekeeper, without offering evidence. Hezbollah and the U.N. did not immediately comment on who launched the shells.

Also Thursday, the Israeli military announced that a 21-year-old captain in the armored corps was killed in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said a drone strike killed a motorcyclist and wounded four people in the village of Maaroub. The Israeli military said soldiers killed an armed militant and later found a Hezbollah cache of guns, grenades, surface-to-air missiles and other combat gear in the area.

The military also said it conducted strikes near the coastal city of Tyre and around Shaqra, another community in southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese news agency reported airstrikes in the south and said a strike on the village of Sohmor in the Bekaa Valley, in eastern Lebanon, killed three people and wounded others.

Israel has warned people not to go into parts of southern Lebanon where it says it is striking Hezbollah facilities.

Fighting has raged despite declared ceasefires

Hezbollah resumed rocket fire days after Israel and the United States launched their surprise Feb. 28 attack on Iran, which backs Hezbollah. Before then, Israel had regularly carried out strikes in Lebanon against what it said were militant targets, often killing civilians, despite an earlier truce reached in 2024.

After Hezbollah's rocket and drone attacks resumed, Israeli troops seized around a fifth of Lebanon, pushing further into the country's south than at any time since the end of Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation.

In the southern city of Sidon, residents reacted to Wednesday's ceasefire announcement with skepticism, saying previous agreements had failed to stop the violence.

“Every few days a ceasefire is announced, but people keep getting killed,” said Mayada Hijazi.

“It’s all talk and no action,” said Salah Nassab. “We keep going back to our homes, and then we get displaced again, back and forth. We’re very tired."

More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and over 1.2 million have been displaced. The fighting has killed at least 28 Israeli soldiers and three civilians.

Latest ceasefire came from ongoing Israeli-Lebanese talks

The latest declared ceasefire came about through U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and Lebanon's government, which accuses Hezbollah of dragging the country into war and had made efforts to disarm it before the latest hostilities.

The ceasefire agreement calls for Lebanon's armed forces to take control of security zones in Lebanon from which the militants would be banned.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Thursday called the new agreement "the last chance to enter a final and comprehensive ceasefire.” He said Lebanon was ready to implement the deal once he receives responses from relevant factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The United States — and Trump himself — would determine how and when the deal is implemented, Aoun told journalists.

The agreement terms Hezbollah “an enemy" of Israel, the U.S. and Lebanon and calls for dismantling it. The government has promised to do so in the past but does not have the capabilities to disarm Hezbollah by force.

The latest agreement did not say when Israel would withdraw from southern Lebanon but said the U.S. would support the Lebanese army as it works to assert control in areas where Hezbollah has long wielded power.

___ Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank. Associated Press writers Malak Harb and Sarah El Deeb in Beirut; Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

It's been a week since U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire in the conflict by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program that required Trump's signoff.

But Trump has called for unspecified changes to the agreement and Iranian officials — perhaps calculating that the Republican president is reluctant to restart the bombardment after burning through key weapons systems — are showing no signs they'll give in to new demands.

A series of strikes by the U.S. and Iran this week has raised fresh concerns that the ceasefire could collapse. But Trump on Thursday reiterated that he’s certain his administration is on track to successfully wrap up the conflict.

“We're going to win one way or another,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

The shaky moment follows repeated claims by Trump since a 14-day ceasefire was agreed to on April 7 — following 38 days of U.S. and Israel bombing of Iran — that a deal is just days away and the Iranian side is begging to come to a settlement.

Without an interim settlement in place to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, global energy prices remain elevated and are adding to anxieties around the world about the impact of rising costs spurred by the 3-month-old conflict on the cost of food, fuel and other goods.

After a string of reports this week that Iran was shutting down talks, Trump told CNBC he "couldn't care less” if the negotiations had bogged down and even mused they had become “boring.”

There's anxiety Trump is getting boxed in

There's growing concern inside the administration and among key advisers and allies that Trump now finds himself in a bind, according to a U.S. official and another person familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations, both of whom spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

He's buffeted by Democrats seizing on oil prices and warnings from hawkish members of his base that an early exit from the conflict would amount to capitulation.

Trump is privately hearing from other Republican lawmakers as well as Pentagon officials and Gulf allies that a return to the bombing campaign is a bad idea.

Those advising against returning to military action note that the U.S. has burned through munitions at too fast a rate. It could take three years to replenish some key weapons systems.

Meanwhile, Gulf allies are worried Iran will retaliate against them and their critical infrastructure and energy interests and further set back their economies.

At the same time, Trump has bristled at the idea of accepting a deal that resembles the 2015 nuclear agreement brokered by Democrat Barack Obama's administration, which restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international economic sanctions.

Trump, during his first term, abandoned the pact, which he said had failed to permanently stop Iran’s nuclear program, ignored Iran’s ballistic-missile development and did not penalize Iran for supporting militant proxy groups across the Middle East.

Now, Trump, according to those familiar with internal deliberations, has made clear he feels strongly he can't make “a bad deal” and is acutely aware he's at risk of tarnishing his legacy if he missteps.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly dismissed the notion that Trump has been boxed in, or that there’s any concern within the administration about the pace of talks.

Trump resisted Israel’s push for Lebanon bombings

Israeli and hawkish allies in Washington have made the case to Trump that a deal at this point would amount to unconditional surrender, urging him to ratchet up economic pressure on Iran and back Israel's assault on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.

But Trump, earlier this week, in a heated call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanded Israel stand down. And on Wednesday, Israel and Lebanon said they agreed to renew a ceasefire. Hezbollah was not part of the Israel-Lebanon talks, which have been held at the ambassadorial level in Washington since the beginning of last month, and the militant group has denounced the agreement.

Remaining in the current status quo with Tehran — neither a full resumption of hostilities nor sealing an interim agreement to restart nuclear talks — is a situation Iran appears better poised to exploit, argued Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Despite being the weaker party, Iran appears to be calculating that the longer the holding pattern lasts, the better the chances are that it can “box in” Trump, he added.

“Either way, Tehran appears more resolute than ever to not provide Trump with a victory image, hence why it isn’t budging on the battlefield or negotiating table,” Taleblu said.

Holding pattern isn't helpful for Republicans on the ballot

At the same time, Democrats are trying to capitalize on Trump's handling of the unpopular war ahead of November's midterm elections. The House of Representatives on Wednesday for the first time passed a symbolic resolution calling for a halt in military action against Iran, with four Republican lawmakers joining Democrats in the rebuke of Trump’s war.

The president has dismissed the House vote as “meaningless."

“The Democrats are fueled by Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump fumed in a social media post. “The four Republicans, that’s a whole other story - They’re GRANDSTANDERS! They should be ashamed of themselves.”

During hours of hearings on Capitol Hill on Tuesday and Wednesday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Democrats laced into Trump for discounting the economic impact of the conflict on Americans and for failing to anticipate Iran would shutter the Strait.

In one tense exchange, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker pointed to the unsteady ceasefire as a sign Iran has the upper hand.

“We are the strongest nation on the planet Earth, and we’re in a stalemate with Iran,” Booker said. “And now we’re begging to get back into a deal that you all trashed in the first place.”

Rubio dismissed the criticism, underscoring that Iran has been placed on its heels with the strikes, which have taken out multiple layers of senior leadership and left Iran's economy in shambles.

“There’s no one begging,” Rubio responded. “I don’t know where you’re getting this perception that Iran is stronger.”

Another Democrat, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, homed in on Trump's comments last month that voter anxiety about the cost of living was “not even a little bit” of a motivating factor for him to reach a deal to end the war.

The president continues to downplay the rising costs for Americans at the pump and predicts that gas prices would fall sharply after the conflict ends.

Christopher Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Pennsylvania, said that Democrats running in swing districts around the country are already zeroing in on Trump's rhetoric on the war's impact on Americans' pocketbooks.

“There's significant risk in having this thing drag on for Republicans,” Borick said. “But for Republicans in some of these tough swing districts, there's a case to be made to rip the bandage off now, get some easing in the oil markets and hope there's enough time for voters to turn the page.”

___

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri in New York and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

The Polish player became just the second qualifier to reach a Grand Slam singles final in the Open Era when she beat Diana Shnaider of Russia 7-6 (4), 6-4 on Thursday.

The 24-year-old Chwalinska can match Emma Raducanu’s title run at the 2021 U.S. Open when she plays Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva in Saturday's final at Roland Garros.

Nothing will change Chwalinska's routine for the biggest match of her life.

“I’m going to drink my tea,” she said.

Chwalinska and Raducanu, according to stats provider Opta, stand alone among men and women in having reached a major singles final from the qualifying rounds since the Open Era began in 1968.

“I feel like I am in a bubble, I don’t know what’s going on,” Chwalinska said. “After the tournament it will be time to process it: breathe in, breathe out.”

Besides the tea, she might watch some tennis "because I’m a tennis freak.”

She said her favorite player growing up was Swiss great Roger Federer, then Spanish clay-court ace Rafael Nadal. Now it's 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic.

“I'm just very grateful that I was growing up during this era,” she said. "Sometimes I come back to these old matches and I watch them play, and it feels like poetry.”

Chwalinska sealed victory on her first match point with a powerful forehand winner down the line, then fell back with both hands on her face. She then sat on her chair and panted heavily, her face buried into a towel.

“I honestly don’t know what was going on in my head,” she said. “I was just in such a shock.”

Chwalinska's run saw her advance through three qualifying rounds to enter the main draw and play in just her third Grand Slam. Her best result at a major before this was the second round at Wimbledon in 2022. Polish countrywoman Iga Swiatek has won the French Open four times.

The 19-year-old Andreeva reached her first Grand Slam final by beating Marta Kostyuk 6-1, 6-3 earlier Thursday on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

Andreeva had reached the semifinals here two years ago, but this is Chwalinska’s first semifinal anywhere at WTA tour-level.

Remarkable run

Chwalinksa has dropped only one set in her nine matches, including qualifying, and has bulldozed her way past four top-50 players in the main draw.

Her ranking will rocket from No. 114 to No. 14 if she wins the tournament, according to the WTA.

Her bank balance will also get a significant boost. Chwalinksa's total prize money heading into Roland Garros was $864,030 and by reaching the final she gets 1.4 million euros about ($1.6 million); and 2.8 million euros ($3.25 million) if she wins on Saturday.

A neat drop shot and lob gave her set point in the tiebreaker, and she clinched the first set when Shnaider’s backhand went wide.

Shnaider had a medical timeout after the seventh game of the second set. She flexed her left leg as she lay on her back, and dropped her serve in the ninth game, giving Chwalinksa a chance to serve for the match.

“All the kudos to Maja. She played amazing," Shnaider said. “She moves incredible on the court, she covers a lot. Even if you think that you won the point, she’s there.”

Fully focused

Andreeva could see even the smallest details on the ball.

“I was seeing the little hairs on the ball when I was tossing or playing (shots),” Andreeva said. “I was really, really focused today.”

Andreeva, who is seeded No. 8, also converted her first match point when serving for the victory.

She clearly feels comfortable at the French Open, which she describes as a “cozy” tournament because she sees familiar faces every year, and enjoys her time in Paris.

“I really like to walk around the city, to go into those little restaurants on the street,” she said. “I also speak a little bit of French, so I try to sometimes talk to people in French.”

Tensions on the court

There was no post-match handshake between Andreeva and Kostyuk — and the Ukrainian walked off quickly, turning only to wave and blow kisses to the crowd.

They had separate photos taken before the match as they each stood next to two children on their respective side of the net. Usually the players pose for the same photo, standing right next to each other by the net.

Kostyuk and countrywoman Oleksandra Oliynykova have spoken out during the tournament about the impact Russia's invasion of Ukraine is having on their country.

The No. 15-seeded Kostyuk said defeat won't linger given how much support she felt from fans.

“This is something I will carry with me forever,” she said. “I feel like this is the highlight of my tournament."

Roof open and then closed

The semifinal began at shortly after 3 p.m. with an open roof, like on Wednesday when beaten quarterfinalists Aryna Sabalenka and Anna Kalinskaya complained of swirling wind on Chatrier and said the roof should have been closed.

It was closed toward the end of the second set of Thursday's semifinal, offering Kostyuk better conditions for her clay-court game. But her 16-match winning streak on clay ended.

___

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

Pickens signed his $27.3 million franchise tag a little more than a month ago but has stayed away from the team. The Pro Bowler isn't required to show up until mandatory minicamp June 16-18.

“Communicated with (Pickens) yesterday,” Schottenheimer said Thursday. “He's got a football camp this weekend that he's doing. So communication is good, and as you guys know it's voluntary and he's taking care of his business.”

Pickens waited two months before signing the one-year contract that's worth three times what the 25-year-old earned on his four-year rookie contract.

Pickens told the Cowboys before the draft in April that he intended to sign the franchise tag, prompting speculation that Dallas might try to trade him. The Cowboys made it clear they had no such plans. He signed the tag about a week later.

Acquired last year in a trade with Pittsburgh, Pickens thrived alongside CeeDee Lamb, finishing with career highs in catches (93), yards receiving (1,429) and touchdowns (nine) for one of the best offenses in the NFL last season.

Lamb is going into the second year of a $136 million, four-year contract that ranks him fourth among NFL receivers with an average annual value of $34 million.

Owner and general manager Jerry Jones has said the club has long-term plans for Pickens, who has spent time in the offseason with quarterback Dak Prescott.

“I'm not sure exactly what they do,” Schottenheimer said. “You guys know Dak does a great job working with all the guys, whether they’re here, whether it’s this time of year, whether it is in the summer, they always go someplace. They’ll go someplace this summer and train and throw, and it’s a chance for them to develop their timing.”

Schottenheimer said the club believes Pickens will report for minicamp.

“I think he’s in a good spot,” Schottenheimer said. “I know that he misses his teammates. So we miss him, too. You guys know how we feel about him.”

This is the third consecutive offseason with a significant contract issue for the Cowboys.

Two years ago, Lamb stayed away from the team the entire offseason and training camp before signing his extension about two weeks before the season.

Last year, Micah Parsons was in a contract stalemated that finally ended when Dallas traded the star pass rusher to Green Bay exactly a week before the season opener.

“I’ve always believed this, and this has got nothing to do with a single player,” Schottenheimer said. “How do you prove to your teammates that you’re doing everything in your power to be the best version of yourself if they don’t see you doing it? I have no question George is prepared, just like I had no question that Micah was going to prepare or whoever.”

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Matthew Sanchez, 23, was arrested May 14 on a charge of deadly conduct.

It stems from an incident that happened in November 2025 while he was off duty.

An arrest affidavit says Sanchez was out partying with a group of friends, including at least one fellow school police officer, when he began taking part in dangerous behavior.

The affidavit says Sanchez had been ordered to leave a dance club after he became intoxicated and threw up. The group then relocated to a parking lot near Northwest Military Highway and Wurzbach Parkway.

The affidavit says while Sanchez was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his own car, he pulled a gun from his glove compartment and began waving it out the window, pointing it at a friend at one point.

That same person told San Antonio police, who investigated the incident, that Sanchez also offered him cocaine, but he took it from him and dumped it in the grass.

Although this reportedly happened last year, it did not come to light until May when the San Antonio Police Department was investigating another case involving Sanchez.

At that time, the friend also told police that Sanchez had been acting “erratically” since that night in November, including while he was working around children.

KSAT 12 News emailed SAISD a list of questions regarding Sanchez and his employment with the district.

In an email, Laura Short, an SAISD spokesperson, wrote that the district is aware of the off-duty incident that led to Sanchez’s arrest and that he “is no longer with the district.”

She declined to answer follow-up questions regarding where he worked specifically, whether he was fired or resigned, and exactly when he left the job.

When asked about the other off-duty school police officer who was with Sanchez at the time, Short said the investigation is ongoing.

Records show Sanchez had been in jail since his arrest last month but was released June 1 after posting bond.

Read also:

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Scientists say climate change deserves much, but not all, of the blame.

The national smog level dropped by 11% from 2003 to 2015 as strict federal regulations on power plants, cars and diesel engines kicked in. But since then, as wildfires have grown, the nation's average ground level ozone — which is smog — increased by 4%. That means if smoke increases at the current rate, smog will go back up to 2003 levels in 20 years, said study lead author Weizhi Deng, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Iowa.

Thursday's study in the journal Science also estimated an increase in deaths from ozone attacking lungs, using previously established epidemiology studies that compared death rates in clean and dirty air. They calculated an increase of 318 American deaths per year since 2013.

“For the last 20 years, by regulations, we keep decreasing the emissions" for human-caused smog-inducing chemicals, said study co-author Meng Zhou, a University of Iowa wildfire researcher. “However, because of wildfires, that is actually from natural hazards, all those kinds of effort were wiped out.”

Limited smog monitor coverage

The study was novel in the way it estimated the national smog level, compensating for how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a limited number of smog monitors. Those cover only 2% of the nation, mostly in urban areas. So Deng and his colleagues used those observations — along with satellite, pollution and weather data and models — then used artificial intelligence to create a nationwide data set of ozone levels showing smog count at a resolution slightly higher than half a mile (1 kilometer).

EPA figures show the national ozone level since 2015 has vacillated around the same mark, going up and down a few percentage points, but Deng said, “by considering everywhere in the U.S., we actually found an increase in ozone starting from 2015.”

The method using artificial intelligence is solid because it starts with “massive and reliable datasets,” then uses computer models to fill in the gaps in a sensible way to make an “exceptional” high-resolution picture, said University of Delaware environment professor Cristina Archer, who wasn’t part of the study.

Megafire Action's research director and senior policy advisor Teresa Feo said “experts have long called for expanding the air pollution monitoring network to improve research on wildfire smoke exposure and provide the data needed to better protect public health.”

For decades, the U.S. tracked six traditional air pollutants, including smog and soot, which are tiny particles. This new study looked only at ozone, while a 2023 study by many of the same team looked at small particle pollution. They found the downward trend in soot levels had similarly reversed. Wildfire smoke increased particle pollution deaths by about 670 per year, the 2023 study found.

How fires trigger health problems

Fires don't produce ozone itself, but they release precursor chemicals that become smog when they interact with sunlight, scientists said.

“Higher daily ozone concentrations can increase asthma attacks, hospital admissions, and mortality,” said University of Washington public health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi. It's not quite as deadly as tiny particles, she said, but it's “still a very important pollutant, which is why it's regulated.”

During the heavy wildfire smoke seasons of 2022, 2023 and 2024, much of the fires were in Canada, but the smoke came south. In the U.S., 43 million people were exposed to smog levels that exceeded the current EPA safety standard, the study found.

And that standard isn't stringent enough, said Dr. Lynn Goldman, former dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and a former EPA assistant administrator. In 2023, the Biden administration delayed plans to tighten those standards and then the Trump administration changed regulations that consider deaths and health impacts in smog and soot rules.

The biggest increase in ozone levels was in the Northern Rockies, which were near many of the fires, and in the Midwest, where the smoke traveled next, Deng said.

More fires, more smoke

The average amount of U.S. land that wildfires burn each year is now 9% higher than it was from 2003 to 2014, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. But the wildfires in Canada have been particularly bad since 2022, scientists said. They pointed to 2023 when the skies were orange and people in the East were wearing face masks because of the Canadian smoke.

The amount of land burned in 2023 in Canada was not only a record but two times higher than the old record, said atmospheric scientist Brendan Rogers of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. Smoke from that year's Canadian fires killed 82,100 people globally — 33,000 in the United States — because of the particle pollution, a study in 2025 calculated.

Climate change, from the burning of coal, oil and gas, increased the intensity of Canada's 2023 fire season by at least 50% and doubled the chances of the drier, hotter weather conditions that were needed for the fire, a 2023 study found.

“Human-caused climate change is an important contributor, because it increases hot, dry fire-weather conditions in many regions,” said Lixu Jin, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers who wasn't part of the study. “But wildfire emissions also depend on fuels, land management, ignitions, suppression, and year-to-year meteorology.”

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who served in the Obama administration, said it was discouraging to see smog improvements being eroded.

Wildfires cause death and destruction, but the greatest danger may come from smoke and extreme heat increasing the ozone that harms people’s health, she argued.

“So the big question is," she said, “when are we going to stop the nonsense from this administration to burn more and more ‘beautiful’ fossil fuels?”

___

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

Led by Jalen Brunson’s 30 points, the New York Knicks wrestled homecourt advantage away from the Spurs in their 105-95 win Wednesday night at the Frost Bank Center.

Stephon Castle, the Spurs’ second-year guard, discussed how he attacked guarding Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander during the Western Conference finals versus guarding Brunson in the NBA Finals.

“They’re very similar in ways,” Castle said. “I think Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander) is more of a threat to get all the way downhill, all the way to the basket. I think Jalen (Brunson) likes to use angles a lot more — probably a little bit more pump fakes than Shai. ... Just trying to keep him from doing that."

Dropping an early game in a playoff series isn’t new to these young Spurs. They lost Game 2 at home to the Portland Trail Blazers in the first round. San Antonio was also behind the 8-ball when it lost Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals at home to Minnesota.

Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson, who is a head coach in the NBA Playoffs for the first time, was asked if his team’s rough-and-tumble path to the NBA Finals was any consolation following the Game 1 loss.

“I guess it has to be. We’ve been consistent in that regard,” Johnson said. “I think one thing that we have learned in our three (playoff) series is that, yeah, series are long. Games are long. Things shift quickly. ... In this moment right now, we’re coming off a loss, and it’s on us to get into that balancing act of ‘change (or) tweak over here’ and ‘be better and sharper over there.’”

After San Antonio took a one-point lead late in Game 1, key turnovers appeared to doom the Spurs in the end.

“We talked about it, discussed it. You know, old teams make bad decisions, too, at the end of games,” Johnson said. “I think it’s just an opportunity to look at a picture and understand that if you see that moving forward — whatever that pattern is, whatever led to that situation — if you can recognize it and then make a better decision next time ... we’ll try to help them with that."

Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama said he heard from legendary coach Gregg Popovich via text following Wednesday night’s game.

“In the big lines (picture), it was that I’ve been bad and that I’m better than this (6-for-21 from the floor and six turnovers in Game 1),” Wembanyama said.

Castle and Wembanyama, however, didn’t seem deterred after Wednesday’s defeat.

“If I had to think of one thing, it was most of our first times being in the (NBA) Finals,” Castle said. “Obviously, we’re overly excited to get out there and play, so that could definitely be a part of it. ... Obviously, we feel like we’re the better team, and we didn’t play well and still had a chance to win.”

“We know we’re not here by chance, you know? We’ve been through some weird situations, or whatever,” Wembanyama said. “And, yes, it’s reassuring to know that these guys — the 18 guys we’ve got — are built this way and are resilient.”

Game 2 of the NBA Finals is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday. All 2026 NBA Finals games will air on KSAT 12.

Prior to tipoff of each game, KSAT will also air its Race for Seis special at 6:30 p.m. on KSAT 12 and stream live on KSAT Plus. Local pregame coverage will then shift over to KSAT Plus beginning at 7 p.m.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More Race for Seis coverage on KSAT:

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The 8-1 decision preserved one of the Federal Communications Commission's key tools, though the companies also won a concession from the Republican administration that could shift the regulatory landscape.

The appeal from telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T challenged a combined $100 million in penalties imposed after the agency determined that the companies had failed to safeguard customer location data.

The companies argued that the FCC's process was unconstitutional because it gave them little opportunity to tell their side of the story in front of a jury.

The administration defended the fines as an essential regulatory tool. But the government also said companies did not have to pay the penalties right away, a regulatory shift in the companies' favor.

The Supreme Court agreed, affirming the FCC's power to order fines when challenges are still available.

“The orders at issue did not settle the carriers’ legal obligations because, stated simply, they did not create an obligation to pay,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the lone dissenter, said he would have given the two telecom companies a clearer path to recouping the fines they already paid.

Other agencies use similar enforcement methods, so a sweeping victory for AT&T and Verizon could have had widespread effects, advocates said.

The environmental group Earthjustice applauded the ruling, saying it has direct implications for other agencies and a key energy-efficiency case.

“By rejecting this unsupported attack on agency authority, the Court’s decision safeguards the government’s ability to enforce laws that protect people, communities, and the environment," said Caroline Flynn, the group's Supreme Court counsel.

The libertarian-leaning New Civil Liberties Alliance was disappointed by the decision, but expected it to help other companies in the future. “In fact, it may even buttress their willingness to challenge future agency orders in federal court before paying any penalties,” said the alliance's president, Mark Chenoweth.

A few more carriers may decide to litigate, but the decision leaves the FCC with the power to “publicly announce large fines with much fanfare," said Doug Orvis, a veteran telecom attorney. “It will be interesting to see what happens going forward."

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has sided against federal agencies and limited their power before. That includes overturning a decades-old decision that had given regulators an advantage in court and stripping another agency of a major tool in fighting securities fraud.

The letter, the first public message Zelenskyy has written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping critique of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.

Zelenskyy acknowledged shifting U.S. priorities, saying it would be wrong to simply wait for the Trump administration to return its attention to ending the Ukraine war while it remains heavily focused on the Iran war.

“I am proposing a meeting,” Zelenskyy wrote.

U.S. President Donald Trump said it “would be great” if Putin and Zelenskyy met. “They should get it done,” Trump said.

Asked what concessions he had urged Putin to make to end the war, Trump declined to provide details but said both sides would need to compromise.

“They’re going to both make compromises,” he said. “I suggested those compromises.”

Zelenskyy appeared to be trying to seize a pivotal moment in the war, as Ukraine has begun to regain some battlefield leverage largely through improved long-range strike capabilities that have complicated Russia’s advances. At the same time, Moscow has intensified its deadly aerial campaign across Ukraine, seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortages and continued vulnerability to ballistic missile attacks.

He said the talks could be hosted by a neutral third country, ruling out both Moscow and Kyiv as venues and suggested Switzerland, Turkey or Arab states as possible hosts for negotiations.

“It is leaders who resolve the key issues. That has always been the case, and it always will be,” he wrote. “I propose to set a clear date for such a meeting.”

He said Ukrainian intelligence indicated Russia was considering plans to prolong the war into 2027 and 2028, while increasingly relying on ballistic missile strikes to achieve what its ground campaign had failed to accomplish.

Zelenskyy also accused Moscow of seeking to draw Belarus deeper into the conflict and of attempting to destabilize the situation around Transnistria, the breakaway Moldovan region backed by Russia.

The Ukrainian leader argued that Russia was increasingly feeling the costs of the war, pointing to drone attacks deep inside Russian territory, economic strain, fuel shortages, rising prices, and the necessity of more military mobilization.

Zelenskyy claimed Russia suffered more than 30,000 soldiers killed or seriously wounded in May alone, saying Ukraine had “video confirmation” of the battlefield losses and that such casualty levels had been sustained month after month.

He added that Ukraine also continues to suffer painful losses despite what he described as a favorable casualty ratio.

He said Ukraine was prepared to implement a full ceasefire for the duration of negotiations and proposed an all-for-all prisoner exchange as a first step toward ending the conflict.

Zelenskyy also called for the return of civilians and children taken from Ukraine during the war.

“The world has not grown tired of Ukraine, as you long hoped it would. But there is growing fatigue with Russia,” Zelenskyy said.

Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”

In Alabama, it's Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father's Day. Gov. Kay Ivey's proclamation says fathers are “the head of the household” and “homes led by a father and mother provide children with the structure and discipline necessary to succeed throughout life.”

The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.

Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' X account posted a link to an article about her proclamation that declared, “Another Red State is Counter-Programming Pride Month.”

She and the other governors haven’t answered questions from The Associated Press about why their proclamations are all set in June.

Family focus for June has come on strong this year

Republican lawmakers in at least four other GOP-controlled states have introduced legislation this year calling for June to be Fidelity Month.

An organization pushing that concept was founded by Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence who has long been a leader on conservative thought. His group did not respond to interview requests.

He told the National Catholic Register about the idea in 2023, saying “nobody gets a monopoly on a particular day or a particular month.”

June Pride celebrations, which often include parades, festivals and performances, began in 1970 to mark the first anniversary of the violent police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar, and have since expanded to cities worldwide.

“You can call it whatever you want, but one thing you’re not going to do is take away our pride or take away our joy," said Jordan Braxton co-president of USA Prides.

Every Democratic president since Bill Clinton in 1999 has signed a Pride proclamation each year — and no Republican president has.

Last year, President Donald Trump’s Education Department began declaring June to be Title IX Month – and using it to open investigations into schools that allow transgender students to use the bathrooms or locker rooms that align with their gender identities.

One of the few GOP governors who has proclaimed Pride is Utah's Spencer Cox, who did so in 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2024, he deemed June a “Month of Bridge Building” before switching to Fidelity Month this year.

A poll released this week found that a two decade-long increase in acceptance of same-sex marriages and relationships has flattened — largely because more Republicans oppose them.

Conservatives say they're ‘reclaiming the culture’

Last year, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, introduced a resolution to make June Family Month — and to unrecognize Pride Month, saying “Americans are inundated with perverse Pride Month displays and events throughout the month of June that denigrate the nuclear family.” It never got a vote.

Some backers view the state measures as an opportunity for a cultural reset.

Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in an interview that it's good to have the conservative recognitions because Pride celebrations “were going so far as to make it difficult to celebrate traditional marriage."

The resolution approved by Tennessee’s Legislature and governor does not mention Pride Month specifically, while saying the “nuclear family is under attack in our beloved State and nation.”

But Lakie Derrick, a conservative activist who authored the measure with a friend, said she did indeed target it to June to counter Pride Month, which she said “goes against” American values.

“We’re just reclaiming the culture, and there’s no better month to do that than in a month where the culture says we’re gonna celebrate something so opposite to what we know to be right,” Derrick said.

Marina Lowe, who leads legal and legislative affairs for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Utah, said that Pride Month is not the antithesis of other values-based recognitions. Many LGBTQ+ people also value faith and family, she said, so “I don’t think that these positions need to be in conflict with one another.”

In Wenatchee, Washington, a school’s Turning Point USA chapter was able to get Family Month banners posted on light poles that in the past had displayed rainbow flags during June. A local gay rights group, Out NCW, struck back by buying two billboards and passing out yard signs supporting Pride, its president, AJ Soto, said.

For some, this is why Pride Month exists

Josh Coleman, president of Central Alabama Pride, which has 42 events planned over two weeks, said the celebrations, which culminate with a parade on June 13 and festival June 14, won't be affected by the proclamation.

“It's not lost upon LGBTQ people when elected leaders don't recognize or value the visibility of the community,” he said. “That's why Pride started in the first place — to make sure the community had a community.”

Alex Richardson, chair of the board of directors at Indy Pride in Indianapolis, said he sees the governor's proclamation there as a “swipe.” But he also believes the events there this month are celebrating some of the things the governor supports.

“Sure, the governor's right, the nuclear family is worth celebrating,” Richardson said. “But I think so is the grandmother who raises her grandchildren, or the chosen family that shows up when a blended family can't, or won't, ... or the weird blended households that are held together by love and effort.”

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Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Mulvihill from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

Darryl Brown, a sergeant in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, was caught with the missing items after the photojournalist used a geo-tracking device to trace her missing gear to his home, the state’s attorney general said Thursday.

The journalist, Angelina Katsanis, was on assignment for The Associated Press at Delaney Hall on Saturday night when she was struck in the knee by a wood beam during a clash between police and demonstrators.

As she hobbled to a medical tent to seek attention, Katsanis left behind her gear bag, which was marked with her name and contact information. When she was eventually allowed to return to the area — now in a wheelchair — the bag was gone.

“I checked my Airtag and the bag was already on a highway pretty far away at that point,” Katsanis recalled. “Right away, I had a feeling it was the police because they were the only ones with access to that area."

As Katsanis sought treatment in a nearby hospital, the Airtag pinged to a home in Sparta, New Jersey, which was listed as belonging to Brown, according to the attorney general's office. The device was later recovered on the side of a road, miles away from the home where it was initially taken.

A subsequent review of Brown’s body camera footage showed him “interacting” with the bag at the protest location, according to the attorney general's office. A search warrant executed at his home Wednesday turned up several of the missing items, some bearing Katsanis’ name and phone number, the complaint said.

Information for Brown's attorney was not immediately available. A message left at a phone number listed for Brown was not immediately returned. He faces charges of third-degree theft. He has been suspended without pay, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.

Katsanis, who has training in covering hostile environments, said the incident had left her deeply shaken.

“I’ve thought a lot about how the officers are supposed to be there to uphold the law and protect us and protect property — and this is the exact opposite of that,” she said.

The detention center has become a flashpoint for protests against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with frequent clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.

Those demonstrations intensified in recent weeks as advocates said detainees inside launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility. The federal government has denied allegations of substandard conditions and accused protesters of inflaming tensions.

Katsanis said she suffered swelling and bruising on her leg but did not break any bones.

No, the most unpleasant part of descending into New York City's vast sewer system, according to former urban explorer Steve Duncan, was the cockroaches.

“They’re all over the place, crawling on walls, dropping down on you,” Duncan recalled this week. “They were the worst.”

Duncan, 48, who now lives in Maryland, reflected on his years documenting the muck-filled tunnels running under New York after surveillance videos captured small groups of people mysteriously entering and exiting the sewer system in Brooklyn and Queens in recent days.

Police say they’re still investigating the three incidents but don’t believe there’s any threat to the public. Officials stress that it is both illegal and dangerous to enter the city’s 7,400 miles (12,000 kilometers) of sewer pipes.

Duncan believes the groups were likely explorers like him, traversing the large, 19th century sewer mains that run underneath parts of the city.

These relatively cavernous spaces can exceed 6 feet (1.8 meters) in diameter — tall enough for most people to comfortably walk upright — and can feature handmade bricks and elegant arches, he said.

A number, including one near where one of the groups was spotted, trace the paths of naturally occurring waterways that once sustained New York, before industrialization fouled them and forced city builders to convert them to sewers, Duncan said.

“These old streams, they get put underground as cities grow up around them,” he explained. “It’s amazing how much this old natural environment is part of the city today.”

Going underground requires planning

The videos suggest that some of the groups spent up to three hours underground, a length of time that may seem unimaginable, but Duncan said passes quickly as sewer journeys require navigating slippery, humid environments and flowing water that could be a foot (30 centimeters) or deeper in places.

Duncan credits the groups with picking an optimal time for their excursions.

Heavy rainfall days earlier would have mostly cleared the system, and venturing into the tunnels in the early morning hours would mean waste flow would be noticeably less than during peak daytime hours.

“They did their research,” Duncan said.

But invisible dangers lurk in these pathogen-rich environments, he said, recounting how he'd landed in the hospital with badly infected extremities on two separate occasions, which eventually pushed him to retire.

Seasoned explorers will generally bring gas meters to check for dangerous levels of fumes, including potentially flammable hydrogen sulfide, which is produced by decomposition, Duncan said.

As to the smell of all that effluent, it’s not as overpowering as you’d think, Duncan said.

“If it’s a well-functioning sewer, it’s more like a barnyard, or compost pile smell,” he said. “But when it’s bad, it can smell like death.”

Subterranean explorers' motivation raises questions

Some residents have worried the mysterious explorers captured on video were up to something nefarious. Many were dressed in waterproof hip waders and equipped with headlamps and what appeared to be shovels and other tools.

“Sewers can serve as entry or exit points to buildings, and we have all seen movies in which criminals escape jail through a sewer,” offered Magued Iskander, an engineering professor at New York University. “There must be a reason beyond mere thrill to enter a dirty place like a sewer.”

Others have noted that police have nabbed underground treasure seekers from time to time.

Three men were charged just last year with burglary and other counts after they went searching for gold, jewelry and other valuables in a Brooklyn sewer. A decade earlier, police caught three others as they emerged from a maintenance hole, including a worker with the city Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the sewer system.

If anything, the viral videos underscore just how vulnerable some of the city’s vital infrastructure is, said David Sarni, a retired New York Police Department detective and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan.

“Is this something that could be exploited by people who look to do harm?” he said. “You have to really take nothing for granted and always think, unfortunately, on that negative side.”

Duncan, who now works in real estate, said neither riches nor malice motivated him and many others of his generation of urban explorers.

On his trips into underground passages in New York, London, Paris and elsewhere during the early 2000s, he rarely found anything of value, save for the odd credit card or tattered wallet.

“These are terrifying places that take a lot of planning and dedication to explore safely,” Duncan said. “You don’t do all of these things for the tiny chance of finding a diamond earring.”

“The real reason is to see something new, or experience the city in a different way,” he continued. “That’s the real lure.”

___

Associated Press video journalist Joseph Frederick in New York contributed to this story.

___

Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo

Makki, 47, who cooks Lebanese dishes like couscous stews and traditional kibbeh balls in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights, immigrated to Michigan in 1990. But her heart never left her childhood village of Bint Jbeil, now one of the hardest-hit areas in southern Lebanon.

Nearly every Lebanese American has felt the impact of the latest round of fighting, which has displaced more than 1 million people — roughly one in every six Lebanese — and killed more than 3,500 people. It’s Israel’s deepest invasion into Lebanon in more than a quarter-century.

“I was thinking, ‘What can I do for other people?’” Makki said. “So I used my business.”

Even with the rising cost of living in the U.S., she said, “the money I can spare personally, I’ve been sending it to family.”

In areas like metro Detroit, where Arabic signs adorn restaurants, coffee houses and bakeries on bustling suburban avenues, a sense of grief has blanketed the war-weary community as they watch the crisis unfold thousands of miles away.

Like Makki, many grapple with guilt and hopelessness. It’s not easy to help loved ones who are unwilling or unable to leave their country and face a worsening economic crisis.

“Honestly it’s hard. Like, what do you say?” Makki said. “They’re going to ask me what I’m doing. Let’s say I’m at work. They lost their jobs. Let’s say I tell them I’m home. They lost their homes.”

The global diaspora has shaped Lebanon

Lebanese immigration to the U.S. dates to the late 1800s. Roughly 625,000 Lebanese Americans live here now, according to census data, though some estimates put the number closer to 1.4 million.

Opinions about the Lebanese government, Hezbollah and Israel vary among the diaspora as they do in Lebanon, where views are heavily influenced by religious affiliation. The population there is about equally split between Sunni Muslim, Shiite Muslim and Christian denominations, along with a smaller Druze community.

Despite their differences, millions of people in the global diaspora remain deeply connected to their home country, in part through billions of dollars sent back each year.

“There is really no Lebanese homeland without the Lebanese diaspora,” Edward Curtis, director of Arabic Studies at Indiana University, said.

A population who relies on each other

Lebanese Americans often rally around common causes, like during the 2024 U.S. presidential election for the “ uncommitted movement ” protesting U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, or to condemn the Michigan synagogue attack carried out by a Lebanese man in March.

“When they see suffering in Lebanon, people’s immediate reaction ... is for the community to come together, raise funds, raise money, and try to help everybody as much as they can,” Akram Khater, director of Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University, said.

Most rely on one another, rather than looking to Washington for help.

Curtis said many Lebanese Americans have grown disillusioned with U.S. politics, instead seeking to “celebrate Lebanese life when other peoples are threatening its death.”

Maya Attoui, whose parents still live in Beirut, is organizing a metro Detroit fundraiser to support Lebanon and raise awareness about the conflict. She said she doesn’t have enough money to spare to support her numerous relatives, but hopes an event with activities and speakers will generate far more funds.

“We don’t feel like talking, we don’t feel like cooking in our houses,” Attoui said. “We’re just 24/7 on the phone or on the news. Our heart is really melting and breaking because of whatever we see.”

A financial lifeline

Although people send remittances to countries all over the world, Lebanon is particularly dependent on its vast diaspora. The country’s economy has been shredded in recent years, to the point where the U.S. dollar is gradually becoming the de facto currency.

Makki visited Lebanon in February and saw how much prices had risen. Where $200 used to cover a car rental and a hotel room, this time it barely paid for a dinner out.

Some people crowdsource funds online. There are established relief organizations, but most prefer to send money directly to loved ones.

Makki doesn't want to send more than $10,000 in total, to avoid appearing suspicious. After that, she laughed, “Maybe take it there myself?”

Nadia Bryant, 37, of Troy, Michigan, has been sending money to her half sisters in Lebanon, who are in temporary housing after their village of Ayta ash-Shab was invaded by Israeli forces.

Rather than spending the money on themselves, Bryant said, her sisters used it to help orphaned children.

“They’re such righteous people,” Bryant said. “They are not even trying to take the money and get themselves a better house or anything. They’re like, ‘Oh, we have shelter, but this person needs a mattress.’”

Her sister sent a photo on WhatsApp of a teapot steaming over a fire amid the rubble of their former home, calling it the “best cup of tea” since the family fled in October 2023.

Bryant said it “feels so stupid” to ask relatives how they’re doing. Instead she checks in with questions such as “‘What does today look like?’ or ‘Where are you today?’”

Attoui, the fundraiser organizer, has tried to convince her family to move to the U.S. multiple times since she came in 2006. They don't want to leave. Regardless, the U.S. stopped processing immigrant visas for Lebanese nationals in late January.

“I have all my aunts and my cousins over there,” she said. “So like, how many people can you bring here?”

The law allowed students who attended and graduated from high school in Texas to pay in-state tuition, even if they did not have legal immigration status. A federal judge blocked the law a year ago after the Trump administration sued the state, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton agreed not to defend it.

Now, Students for Affordable Tuition, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, Austin Community College and student Oscar Silva want a chance to defend the law themselves. Paxton’s office and Justice Department lawyers say the case shouldn’t be reopened because the Texas law conflicts with federal immigration law.

The background

Texas was the first state to let certain undocumented students pay in-state tuition when lawmakers passed the Texas Dream Act in 2001 with little debate and broad, bipartisan support.

The law, signed by the Republican former Gov. Rick Perry, allowed certain students without legal status to qualify if they graduated from a Texas high school or earned an equivalent diploma here, lived in the state for at least three years before graduating and signed an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.

Supporters said Texas benefited from students educated in its K-12 schools by making college more affordable and moving them into the workforce. But as Republican politics shifted on immigration, the law became a target. 

After multiple failed efforts from state lawmakers to change the law, U.S. Justice Department lawyers sued Texas last year. Paxton’s office quickly agreed the law conflicted with federal immigration law and asked a judge to block it. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor approved the agreement and blocked the law the same day.

Students for Affordable Tuition is a group of students who say they were harmed by the ruling. La Unión del Pueblo Entero, or LUPE, is an immigrant-rights group. They asked to intervene along with Austin Community College and Silva, a University of North Texas graduate student who qualified for in-state tuition under the Texas Dream Act. 

O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee who sits in the Northern District of Texas’ Wichita Falls division, rejected their request, so they appealed to the 5th Circuit.

What the students and immigrant advocates say

Advocacy groups Students for Affordable Tuition and LUPE, Austin Community College and Silva argued they have the legal right to intervene. They urged the court to apply a more lenient standard for intervention instead of requiring proof that their defense of the Texas Dream Act would ultimately succeed. 

Students for Affordable Tuition said the stakes are concrete for its members, who “face significant increases in their higher education costs, putting college out of reach for many of them, some of whom have already spent years in college and will not be able to complete their specific program.”

“The people of Texas are entitled to genuine litigation before a federal court invalidates their democratically enacted statute,” lawyers said in a legal brief to the 5th Circuit. 

Thomas Saenz, the lead lawyer for Students for Affordable Tuition, also stressed that affected students did not get due process because of how quickly the Texas Dream Act was overturned. 

It is “important to emphasize here how extraordinary that it all occurred as quickly as it did,” Saenz told the 5th Circuit on Thursday. “The court needs to look at whether this extraordinary situation violated due process rights held by students for affordable tuition and the other students who benefited or would benefit in the future.”

The groups believe the Texas Dream Act did not conflict with federal law because eligibility was not based solely on residency. Students also had to graduate from a Texas high school or earn an equivalent diploma here, live in the state for at least three years before graduating and sign an affidavit saying they would seek permanent residency as soon as they were eligible.

What the federal government says

Justice Department lawyers sued Texas, saying the Texas Dream Act violated a 1996 federal immigration law. That federal law says states cannot give people who are not lawfully present a higher education benefit unless U.S. citizens can get the same benefit, no matter where they live. 

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys now argue the The Texas Dream Act so clearly conflicted with federal immigration law that allowing others to intervene and defend it would be futile.

“We opposed intervention … only on the grounds that it’s legally futile because the statutes are preempted,” Andrew Marshall Bernie, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, told the appeals court Thursday.

Responding to concerns over due process, Bernie argued courts are not constitutionally required to hear from outside groups when a state law is challenged for violating a federal statute. In the end, he said, the outside groups did get due process because their arguments have been heard by the trial court and the 5th Circuit.

Broader impact

The Texas Dream Act opened higher education to more than 57,000 students, lawyers for LUPE, ACC and Silva told the court. The law could cost Texas hundreds of millions of dollars a year through reduced wages, earnings and consumer spending. ACC said it expected lost revenue, administrative burdens and negative effects on programs and services if the ruling remains in place.

Since O’Connor blocked the Texas Dream Act last year, students and colleges across the state have faced confusion over who still qualifies for in-state tuition.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board told colleges to identify and reclassify students who are not lawfully present as nonresidents but did provide clarity on how to do so. That uncertainty led at least one student with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, to be initially charged out-of-state tuition, The Texas Tribune previously reported. 

Students for Affordable Tuition told the 5th Circuit that several Texas colleges had charged DACA recipients out-of-state rates, even though Texas lawyers said they should still qualify for in-state tuition.

What happens next

Judges Jerry E. Smith, Don R. Willett and Irma Carrillo Ramirez will next deliver a ruling, which could come in the following weeks or months.  Smith was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, Willett by President Donald Trump, and Ramirez by President Joe Biden.

If the court sides with the student and immigrant groups, the case could return to the district court, where advocates would have a chance to defend the law.  If the court sides with Paxton’s office and Justice Department lawyers, the judgment blocking the law would remain in place.

After two years, DeVaux stopped pursuing a degree and took a chance on her passion for horse racing, where she started as a hot walker for late trainer Chuck Simon. She set her sights on one day being an exercise rider.

On Saturday, DeVaux won’t be crossing Union Avenue as a hot walker, or riding and working them out on the Oklahoma Training Track. Five weeks after becoming the first woman to train a Kentucky Derby winner, she'll watch Golden Tempo run in the 158th Belmont Stakes at Saratoga Race Course to close out the Triple Crown.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to get to spend with my family in the build-up and the week of,” DeVaux said. “Getting to spend time with my family, the young ones that don’t get to come to the races — my nieces and nephews — so I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to share what I do with them.”

DeVaux's Derby celebration went viral as she celebrated with her family. But she was more excited about the victory than the history.

“I just see myself as a horse trainer,” DeVaux said. “I thought winning the Kentucky Derby was an achievable goal at some point in my career. It’s an honor to be the one that is the first female. But that’s not really what my focus is on.”

DeVaux could become the second female trainer to win the Belmont in four years, following Jena Antonucci with Arcangelo in 2023.

Janet Elliot, the only woman to be inducted into the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame as a trainer for her success in steeplechase, watched the Derby and was excited for DeVaux but shared the same sentiment.

“I’m just a trainer,” Elliot said. “I didn’t feel like I was a woman in a man’s sport. I’m just doing my job, and that’s how I came about it.”

After DeVaux worked for Simon, she transferred to work with Chad Brown as an assistant trainer. She said that time gave her valuable experience working with top-level horses.

DeVaux opened her own stable in 2018 based in Lexington, Kentucky, and has won some big races with horses like She Feels Pretty and Vahva. But, nothing beat the feeling of the Derby, when Golden Tempo made a surge from the back of the pack to win as a 23-1 long shot.

Even though she is based in Kentucky and grew up in southwest Florida, Saratoga locals have shown a lot of support for DeVaux because of her ties to the area.

“Having a local connection always just amps up everything around here and the interest level,” Saratoga Chamber of Commerce President Todd Shimkus said. “Cherie, this year, is the rock star coming back to Saratoga, where she’s got family and friends and a community that has totally embraced the historic success she’s had, especially this year.”

The Belmont taking place at Saratoga for the third and final time before returning to Belmont Park next year gives DeVaux a chance to celebrate in the winner's circle at the place she started her career.

“It’s a beautiful track,” DeVaux said. “It’s all about horse racing. The whole town, that is their highlight and focus. It’s really exciting to be a part of that.”

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

Join KSAT 12 Meteorologist Justin Horne on Monday, June 8th, for a fun, fast giveaway sponsored by Espinoza & Brock.

• 📍 Location: Espinoza & Brock, 10202 Heritage Blvd.
• 📅 Date: June 8
• ⏱️ Line starts: 8:00 a.m.
• 👕 T-shirt giveaway starts: 9:30 a.m.
• 🎟️ Cost: FREE to the first 100 people in line, ages 18+

Giveaway details (read this part!)

• First 100 KSAT viewers/Spurs fans in line get a shirt
• Limit one (1) T-shirt per person, while supplies last
• Recipients must be 18 years of age or older
• Sizes are subject to availability and not guaranteed; recipients will receive the size available at the time of distribution
• No exchanges

Bring your Spurs energy, be ready to “Honk the Horne,” and let’s show up strong for our silver and black as the playoffs continue.

GO SPURS GO — and don’t forget to watch Larry, Mary and Ashley for the latest in Spurs news!

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General. By appearing in person at the designated location and time, an entry to the KSAT “Honk the Horne” T-shirt Giveaway at Espinoza & Brock sweepstakes (“Sweepstakes”), brought to you by KSAT12 (“Sponsor”) and Espinoza & Brock (the “Co-Sponsor”), entrant acknowledges and agrees that entrant has read, understands, and agrees to be bound by these official Sweepstakes rules (“Official Rules”). By entering the Sweepstakes, entrants agree to waive any right to claim any ambiguity or error in these Official Rules, or the Sweepstakes itself, and agree to be bound by all decisions of the Sponsor, whose decisions are binding and final in all matters related to the Sweepstakes. Failure to comply with these Official Rules or any Sponsor instructions relating to the Sweepstakes’ Official Rules may result in disqualification from the Sweepstakes.

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The Venice Biennale opened its most chaotic and contested edition in recent memory on May 9, with the prestigious Golden Lion yanked from contention after the jury quit in protest of Israel’s and Russia’s participation. The week of previews leading up to the public opening was characterized by loud protests outside the Israeli and Russian pavilions.

Instead of jury awards, the Biennale announced voting by visitors to the two main venues, the Giardini and the Arsenale, for two awards recognizing the best national pavilion and best participant in the main show, titled “In Minor Keys,” curated according to a plan by the late Koyo Kouoh. The awards are to be made public on the Biennale's closing day, Nov. 22.

The protest letter made public on Wednesday said that the voting process “lacked transparency and accountability,” and complained that the Biennale had not responded to the artists' first request to remove their names, made on May 20. It was also signed by curators and commissioners.

The artists said that they were beginning steps toward legal action.

In response to a request for comment, the Biennale furnished a May 28 letter to the artists, curators and commissioners saying that they would keep all of the names on the ballot “to guarantee all visitors have the freedom of expression,” but said none of the signatories would be considered for the prizes.

The protest letter called the procedure “a waste of time” by asking visitors “to cast votes that cannot be counted.”

The jury in its resignation announcement singled out Russia and Israel, citing investigations by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Signatories seeking to be removed from visitor prize contention include some 70 artists participating in the main show and nearly 40 national pavilions, including those of Iceland, Norway and Denmark, which have led the call to have Russia barred from returning to the Biennale for the first time since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

They also include Austrian artist Florentina Holzinger, whose exhibition features recycled waste water from portable toilets outside the Austrian Pavilion, has been one of the most popular of the Biennale.

Anthony J. Moore, 53, was driving a route in Aiken County, about 20 miles from the Georgia border, last Friday when a woman ran directly into his path with her hands cuffed behind her back.

The video, which has no sound, shows the drama unfold: The woman passes in front of the truck, and a man in a Cadillac that had been on the side of the road swerves in front of the truck before taking off. The woman then runs down the road, and the man drives off.

“I just see it as a divine assignment from God, because had not I been there with the dashcam ... they probably wouldn’t have caught the footage that needed to be catched,” Moore told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “It was another assignment from God, a special assignment from God. That a life needed to be saved.”

Authorities arrested Jonathan Willard, 39, of New Ellenton, on one count each of kidnapping and impersonation of a law enforcement officer. He was being held Thursday at the Aiken County Detention Center.

According to an incident report from the Aiken County Sheriff's Department, the woman was taking a walk when a man in a green Cadillac "came from behind her and told her he was with the police.” She said he took her phone and Social Security card, put her in handcuffs and placed her in the back seat of the car.

The woman told police that the man pulled over by a gated property and got out. She said she tried to open the rear doors, but they were locked.

As the man rummaged through the trunk, she said, she climbed over the seat and escaped through the open driver's side door.

Moore was driving south of Aiken when he saw the woman running toward him.

“I let my window down and she said, ‘Please help me. He’s trying to kidnap me,’" Moore said.

As the woman swerved, Moore said, the man chasing her pulled up beside him and showed “what looks to be a badge.”

“And he said, ‘I’m with law enforcement, and she jumped out of my car,’" Moore recounted. The man then left in the Cadillac.

Bystanders called 911, helped get the cuffs off the woman and gave her water. Moore said she told him that she had just graduated the day before, and that the man had also taken her diploma.

She asked Moore if he would accompany her back to the spot where she escaped, to see if the man had might have dumped her belongings. He said they found nothing.

The Aiken County Solicitor’s Office said Willard had not yet been assigned a defense attorney and no court dates had been scheduled. The AP called the jail to speak with Willard, but the request was denied.

Moore is pastor of Amazing Grace Ministries in Denmark, South Carolina. Moore is also a 27-year Army veteran, said his wife, Betty, an associate pastor at the church.

“When I learned that he was caught the next day I was relieved of a lot of things that he didn’t get away," he said, "to go try that again someplace else.”

The 49-year-old from Sacramento was wearing a scarf covering his face and latex gloves, U.S. Attorney Eric Grant said in a news release. He also had five cell phones: one with a 15-minute timer set to begin, a second with a message on the screen from another phone number saying, “we will be awaiting your call.”

Evidence photos released by prosecutors show a cardboard tube about the size of a toilet paper roll fitted with a green fuse. Bomb technicians tested the device. The powder and fuse “were determined to be viable and energetic,” Grant said.

If the device had detonated next to a window on a pressurized aircraft flying above 10,000 feet (3 kilometers), Grant said, “it had the potential to damage the aircraft and cause a possible loss of cabin pressure.”

Before the device was removed from the airport, officers put a bomb blast suppression blanket over it and taped off the immediate area, according to the federal complaint against the man.

He was arrested Saturday and appeared in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday. He is charged with unlawful possession of explosive material in an airport. The complaint also alleges he made “rambling” calls to the FBI in the months beforehand to report he was being threatened and intimidated.

His public defender, Meghan McLoughlin, said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that “there is often more to these cases than the government’s allegations, and that the criminal process will reveal” her client’s story as well.

It wasn't immediately known how extensively the man was searched at the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint. Last year, air travelers in the U.S. were no longer required to take off their shoes during security screenings. Screenings without shoes became a requirement in 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed 2001 attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami.

Here are some key things to know as Broadway's biggest night approaches, including how to watch, the top nominees, who is poised to make history and what shows secured performance slots.

When are the Tony Awards?

The Tonys will be broadcast to both coasts on Sunday from 8-11 p.m. EDT/5-8 p.m. PDT, live from Radio City Music Hall.

How can I watch them?

On CBS and streaming for Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S.

Who's hosting the Tony Awards?

Pink, a three-time Grammy Award winner, will make her debut as MC. “I just want it to be, first and foremost, just celebratory and fun and entertaining and over-the-top and ridiculous,” she says.

She promises a big, honking opening number — written by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Mark Sonnenblick that ends with some 170 people on stage — lots of costume changes and some wire work, which she has done in her concerts. She has tapped Amber Ruffin, a writer and performer for “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” for help with jokes.

A pre-show will be broadcast on Pluto TV from 6:35-8 p.m. EDT/3:45-5 p.m. PDT. Laura Benanti and Tituss Burgess will host that telecast, in which some technical Tonys will be handed out. Viewers can access it on their smart TV, streaming device, mobile app or online by going to Pluto TV and clicking on the “Live Music” channel, found within the Entertainment category on the service.

What performances will there be?

The seven best new musical and best musical revivals — "The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titanique,” “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York),” “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” “Ragtime” and “The Rocky Horror Show.”

Who are some of the presenters?

The presenters include: Adrien Brody, Annette Bening, Ariana DeBose, Ben Platt, Bernadette Peters, Billy Crystal, Bowen Yang, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Carrie Coon, Cole Escola, Darren Criss, Jack O’Brien, Jeremy Pope, John Leguizamo, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kara Young, Kelli O’Hara, Kristin Chenoweth, Law Roach, Lena Waithe, Lily Rabe, Maya Rudolph, Megan Thee Stallion, Neil Patrick Harris, Nicole Scherzinger, Patrick Wilson, Paul Rudd, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Sarah Paulson and Sting.

How many awards are there?

A total of 26 competitive categories, from lead and featured actors to scenic, costume and lighting design. Some technical award handouts may be pre-taped, and winners won't appear on the live show, only cut down into edited bits sandwiched into the telecast.

What are the top nominees?

There are two top nominees: “The Lost Boys” and “Schmigadoon!” each earned a leading 12 Tony Award nominations. “The Lost Boys” is an adaptation of a 1987 teen movie vampire thriller, and “Schmigadoon!” is an adaptation of an Apple TV series that gently mocks Broadway musicals. They're followed by a revival of “Ragtime,” a big, soaring musical celebrating early 20th-century America, with 11 nominations, and “Death of a Salesman,” Arthur Miller’s masterpiece that looks at the unraveling of the American Dream, starring Nathan Lane, which nabbed nine nods.

Who is vying for best new play and musical?

For new musicals, it's “The Lost Boys," “Schmigadoon!,” “Titaníque” and “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York).”

For new plays, it's “The Balusters,” “Giant,” “Liberation” and “Little Bear Ridge Road.”

Can history be made?

History has already been made, in a way. June Squibb became the oldest Tony-nominated actor in history at 96 and could become the oldest Tony winner, surpassing Lois Smith, who was 90 when she won in 2021.

Nathan Lane is hoping for his fourth Tony, which would make him tied as the most-awarded male performer in Tony history, alongside Boyd Gaines and Frank Langella. If he does win for best lead actor in a play for the revival of “Death of a Salesman,” he'd have Tonys in three separate acting categories, previously winning featured actor in a play for “Angels in America” and lead actor in a musical twice for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “The Producers.”

And for the first time since 2002, the contenders for best leading actress in a musical are all first-time nominees: Sara Chase ("Schmigadoon!"), Stephanie Hsu ("The Rocky Horror Show"), Caissie Levy ("Ragtime"), Marla Mindelle ("Titanique") and Christiani Pitts ("Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York").

Will there be other performances?

Other performances include the original lead cast members of “The Book of Mormon” — Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells, Rory O’Malley and Nikki M. James — this year celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Another show celebrating a milestone, “Chicago” now at 30, will have a performance slot featuring Queen Latifah, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alex Newell, Adrienne Warren, Julianne Hough, Whitney Leavitt, Dylan Mulvaney and Pink. Plus, “A Chorus Line,” which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, will get a special tribute by Rachel Zegler. Leslie Odom, Jr. will sing “Without You” from “Rent” during the In Memoriam section, in honor of that show’s 30th anniversary.

Broadway’s big season

The 2025-2026 Broadway season set a new box office record for the second year in a row. Over the 52 weeks of the season, Broadway brought in a combined total of $1,910,903,835, a smidge higher than last season’s then-historic total of $1,892,650,959. Last season also had 53 weeks instead of the usual 52, a Broadway accountant trick.

In more gloomy news, attendance was actually down — 14,577,322 versus 14,658,531 from last season. And the average paid admission was $131.09, continuing an ever upward trend.

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For more coverage of the 2026 Tony Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/tony-awards.

Barkley told Jones he was “so glad” to be back in the city, even though he is known to make jokes about San Antonio. You can see some of the interaction in a YouTube video posted by ESPN.

At the beginning of the video, Jones took a playful dig toward Barkley.

“I learned a long time ago, you can’t teach courage, you can’t teach class, and Mr. Barkley reminds us of that,” Jones said.

Jones quickly defended San Antonio’s River Walk after Barkley called it a creek during the pregame show, touting it as the top tourist destination in Texas.

“We are very proud of our River Walk. We’ve got so much to enjoy here,” Jones said. “The number one tourist destination in the entire state. ... We are so proud of our city, and we even welcome you.”

Jones also drew a connection between the 1999 Spurs championship and the current season, noting she graduated sixth in her class from John Jay High School that same year.

“We are so excited because we are going, San Antonio is going to the championship like it’s 1999,” she said. " ... This is how I know we’re going to win. So in 1999, when I graduated from John Jay High School, I was number six in my class."

When one of the hosts asked Jones whether she and the mayor of New York have a bet, she said they have “something” and that they are waiting to reveal it.

“We’re waiting to reveal it,” she said. “But, you know, we’re looking forward to winning.”

Toward the end of the video, Jones presented churros to the hosts, making a remark to Barkley in the process.

“Chuck has lots of thoughts about the churros,” Jones said. “We know he’s on a diet, but we know he’s not really on a diet. So here are the churros.”

Read also:

• Mayor’s playoff tickets were gift from attorney with long ties to Spurs

A league spokesperson confirmed the juvenile’s lifetime ban from all NBA arenas. Security quickly escorted the fan off the court. No one was injured.

A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told KSAT that the suspect is facing the following charges:

• disrupting meeting or procession
• criminal trespass

The sheriff’s office said it is not identifying the suspect because they are a juvenile.

An NBA spokesperson said a second person will also receive a lifetime ban for their role in the court storming.

Some Spurs fans believed the interruption cost the team possession of the ball during the crucial moments of the game.

According to the NBA Fan Code of Conduct, a fan who disrupts a game could face serious consequences — including immediate ejection and potential criminal charges such as criminal trespass or disorderly conduct.

Wembanyama told reporters after the game that he was “really surprised” in the moment.

“I’ve never been in that situation,” Wembanyama said. “I didn’t know how to act. It really surprised me almost as much as that time a bat crashed the court.”

Wembanyama referenced a moment when a bat flew down to the court during a game at the Frost Bank Center in 2024.

During that incident, the Spurs Coyote captured the bat with a net after many attempts.

More recent Race for Seis coverage on KSAT:

• New York Knicks steal Game 1 from San Antonio Spurs with 105-95 win
• These famous faces were spotted at the Frost Bank Center for NBA Finals Game 1

Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, President Donald Trump's administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.

“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”

The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump's administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.

Through regulation, the administration is going after many of the targets it hammered with investigations — diversity, equity and inclusion policies, transgender athletes, antisemitism and a variety of practices perceived as anti-white discrimination.

Several US agencies propose new rules

One new rule being proposed by the Education Department would overhaul the system that decides which colleges can receive federal money, known as the accreditation process. Among other changes, the proposal would require accreditors to make sure colleges have “intellectual diversity,” a veiled call for more conservative voices.

Many people in higher education are alarmed by a proposal from the Office of Management and Budget that would order agencies to ensure federal grants “advance the President’s policy priorities.” Trump officials would verify that grants aren't used to promote DEI, “anti-American values” or anything denying “the sex binary in humans," according to the proposal issued last week. An OMB spokesperson said the rule aims to promote transparency.

Another proposal from the General Services Administration would require federal grant recipients, including universities and their contractors, to certify they don't have DEI policies deemed unlawful by the administration.

At least 11 new rules have been proposed at the Education Department, including one aimed at “streamlining the process” to cut money for schools that violate the Trump administration's interpretation of civil rights law.

Making federal rules can take months of debate in humdrum bureaucratic processes. But unlike earlier strategies that tested the limits of White House power, the rulemaking process is a widely accepted route to establish federal policy into law — without needing to go through Congress.

Some in higher education welcome the change. Unlike last year's attacks, the new approach opens the door for a conversation, said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents.

“We’re playing a game that has rules and referees, and that’s good,” said Mitchell, a former Education Department official under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “It gives us an opportunity to talk about where we might agree with the administration. That was impossible to do when these were just straight-on attacks.”

The administration launches fewer new investigations

Meantime, the Education and Justice departments have announced fewer higher-education investigations, issuing news releases on roughly a dozen at U.S. universities so far this year. In the same span last year, they announced more than 70, according to an AP analysis. The exact number of new investigations is unclear — a public database has not been updated since January 2025.

Kent said the Education Department will continue to open investigations as needed, describing it as using a “scalpel to cut out the bad.” But he said colleges have started to come to heel on the administration’s priorities.

“Folks realize that it’s a new day and that we’re paying attention,” Kent said.

The vast majority of the investigations opened last year are still open. The White House struck deals with Columbia, Brown and a handful of other campuses, but most cases are unresolved with no public update in months.

Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the barrage of investigations amounted to “performance art” that grabbed attention but had little impact. After pushback from schools, she said, the Trump administration is backing off.

“It stopped putting itself in a position to lose,” said Lhamon, who now leads the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Still, some fights have intensified. The White House has doubled down on battles with Harvard and UCLA after federal judges blocked the administration from cutting off research funding from the campuses.

The Justice Department has sued Harvard and UCLA four times since February, alleging that both campuses tolerated antisemitism and that Harvard refused to release admissions data sought by the administration. Leaders of both universities say they have worked to fight antisemitism.

Admissions cases become a top priority

A White House official said the investigative slowdown is also the result of a mounting focus on college admissions. The administration has been building cases against colleges accused of considering race in admissions decisions even after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. Those investigations can take more time because they require large data collections, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.

Some of those cases are now coming to bear.

The Justice Department recently concluded that medical schools at Yale and UCLA discriminated against white and Asian American students by allegedly favoring Black and Latino applicants. The universities have defended their admissions processes, saying they were rigorous and based on merit.

On Thursday, the Justice Department said it was opening 15 similar investigations at other medical schools, alleging “potential race discrimination” in their admissions processes.

Trump officials are taking a hard-line approach against any use of race in admissions, clashing with colleges that invite students to discuss their race in application essays. In its 2023 decision, the Supreme Court said nothing stops schools from considering how applicants’ race speaks to broader qualities.

“We are making sure," Kent said, “that we are elevating our best and our brightest and that we’re not putting the thumb on the scale because of somebody’s skin color.”

Higher education has already been changed

Facing last year’s blitz, many campuses quietly made changes to avoid scrutiny. Some closed DEI offices. The NCAA moved to limit transgender athletes. Universities from UCLA to Columbia tightened campus protest rules after pro-Palestinian demonstrations were the subject of federal investigations.

Research has been scaled back as top schools face continued funding cuts.

In the classroom, there’s been a chilling effect as professors fear that what they say or teach could attract federal attention, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Still, he’s optimistic the balance of power is shifting in universities' favor. Students and faculty members on several campuses built pressure to reject a White House invitation last fall to sign on to aspects of Trump’s agenda in exchange for favorable access to research funding, he said. The AAUP has brought several lawsuits against the administration, including one that stopped funding cuts at UCLA.

“The sector is getting its feet under it, and it’s only getting stronger,” Wolfson said. “I can promise you that we will fight them tooth and nail.”

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

Top is set to perform at Frost Bank Center on Saturday, Sept. 26. General tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 12, on the Frost Bank Center’s website and Ticketmaster.

The San Antonio stop comes on the heels of a landmark year for Top. He took home Best Traditional Country Album at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards for his sophomore album, “Ain’t In It For My Health.”

“Ain’t In It For My Health” debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Current Country Albums chart and No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and earned more than 30 million global streams in its first week.

Top’s debut album, “Cold Beer & Country Music,” has surpassed one billion streams and earned RIAA Gold certification. His hit single “I Never Lie” is certified 2x Platinum.

Fans can get early access to tickets by registering for the pre-sale at ZachTop.com.

More Things To Do stories on KSAT:

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The benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate fell to 6.48% from 6.53% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. The average rate remains below 6.85%, where it was a year ago.

When mortgage rates decline they give homebuyers more purchasing power.

Rates have been mostly trending higher since the war with Iran began, disrupting the passage of tankers ferrying crude oil from the Persian Gulf to customers worldwide. That’s sent oil prices sharply higher — a key driver of inflation.

“This conflict is currently the main driver of still-high mortgage rates, as the oil shock ripples inflation fears throughout the global economy,” said Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com.

Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations for the economy and inflation. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Expectations of higher oil prices as the war drags on have kept long-term bond yields elevated, causing mortgage rates to mostly trend higher.

The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury note was at 4.47% in midday trading Thursday on the bond market, up from 4.45% a week ago. It was just 3.97% in late February, before the war broke out.

As recently as late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage had slipped just under 6% for the first time since late 2022. It’s hasn’t fallen below that threshold since. Last week, it surged to its highest level since August 28, when it was 6.56%.

While average long-term mortgage rates remain lower than they were at this time last year, their mostly upward trajectory and uncertainty over how much higher they may go as bond markets react to the economic fallout from the conflict in the Middle East have been a drag on the housing market.

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat in April after declining from a year earlier in the first three months of the year, extending a nationwide housing slump that dates back to 2022 when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. The May existing home sales snapshot is due out next week.

Recent mortgage applications data are another sign that the upward trend in mortgage rates has many would-be homebuyers on hold.

Mortgage applications, which include loans to buy a home or refinance an existing mortgage, fell 2.5% last week for the third week in a row, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications for loans to buy a home remain modestly higher than last year's levels, but posted their slowest weekly pace since April.

Meanwhile, home loan refinancing applications softened as many homeowners eager to refinance hold out for lower rates.

Still, those homeowners also got some relief this week. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also eased. That average rate fell to 5.79% from 5.87% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.99%, Freddie Mac said.

Home shoppers who are undeterred by elevated mortgage rates are benefiting from buyer-friendly trends in many markets, including more properties for sale than a year ago and data showing that home listing prices have started falling.

The median price of U.S. homes listed for sale fell 2.4% last month from a year earlier, the steepest decline on data going back to 2017, according to Realtor.com.

The Obama Presidential Center opens to the general public on Juneteenth after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries. But tens of thousands of people — friends and family of museum staff, students and journalists — have already been offered a sneak peek of the nearly 20-acre campus as crews finish final art installations and landscaping.

The roughly $850 million project covers the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president. Campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts are displayed in the admission-based museum tower while public spaces of the sprawling campus feature other things important to Obama: a new library, basketball court and picnic area with grills.

“This is a safe space for people to come and, yes, reflect on the historic moments of this presidency and the campaigns, but also to come together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighborhood,” Josh Harris, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of public engagement, said during a recent tour with The Associated Press.

Here’s a closer look at the top attractions of the campus that is expected to draw as many as 1 million visitors annually.

President for a day

Obama's presidential museum will be the first fully digital museum of its kind. There will be no official papers on display. Instead, visitors will experience high-tech and hands-on exhibits spanning the campaigns, key moments of Obama's presidency and life at the White House.

One of the largest attractions is a life-sized replica of the Oval Office.

On a recent day, a stream of visitors, including schoolchildren, walked through the circular room, stopping to sit behind the desk and pose for pictures. The top drawer holds a copy of a handwritten letter from his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and Obama’s beloved BlackBerry phone.

“We want to make sure that people from all walks of life have the opportunity to sit behind the Resolute Desk,” said Harris. “You think about the possibilities that if a young organizer from the South Side of Chicago can be president, you can be president too."

Other sections of the museum detail the Affordable Care Act, immigration policies, and smaller moments such as when Obama unexpectedly sang during a 2015 eulogy for those killed in a South Carolina church shooting. A large television screen plays a clip of Obama singing “Amazing Grace.”

Peppered throughout are areas for personal reflection, which museum organizers say is key.

“We're passing that baton and inviting people to bring change home, however change may be defined, both small or large,” said Louise Bernard, the museum's director.

Touching iconic ballgowns

When Obama touted the museum’s contents at its groundbreaking in 2021, he predicted one of the top draws.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Obama joked at the site. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ballgowns, although I know everybody will come see those.”

Roughly a dozen outfits on mannequins are behind glass, including a black and red dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez that the former first lady wore on Election Night in 2008 in Chicago.

Visitors will also get a chance to touch swatches of the fabrics, including the rose gold chain mail Atelier Versace evening gown she wore at her final state dinner in 2016.

Obama’s personal touches

The museum’s location is near where Barack Obama started his political career, taught law at the University of Chicago and where the family lived. Michelle Obama also grew up on the South Side.

A lifelong basketball lover, Obama requested a glass-paneled, professional grade basketball court to be used for community programs.

The former first lady designed a garden, where lettuce and strawberry plants are sprouting. There are also charcoal grills available for public use — an element that Obama envisioned when he pitched the plan in community meetings nearly a decade ago.

“President Obama always talked about his feelings of being in Chicago and one of his memorable moments was grilling in the park,” Harris said.

The Obamas' design tastes and love of history are also evident.

The museum campus features dozens of commissioned works of art while different parts of the campus are named after prominent figures. The central “John Lewis Plaza,” named for the late congressman and Civil Rights leader, is designed as a public gathering spot.

Inside a new Chicago Public Library branch, a 70-foot (21-meter) mural depicts literary figures, including Walt Whitman and James Baldwin. At the center, Toni Morrison reads to a boy wearing an orange shirt, representing a young Obama.

The presidential reading room features thousands of books chosen by the Obamas, ranging from presidential biographies to best-selling fiction. One of Obama's favorite parts are two high-backed chairs with blue, yellow and black stripes. They were selected by the former president as top-notch reading chairs similar to ones he has at home.

Pricey admission with free options

Tickets are $30, the highest of any U.S. presidential museum or library. Next on the list is the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in California, where tickets are $29.

Obama Foundation leaders say the prices are justified for the state-of-the-art facility.

Tickets at the adjacent Griffin Museum of Science and Industry are $25.95. In downstate Illinois, tickets to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield cost $15.

Along with free days and discounts for Illinois residents, Obama Foundation officials also argue that most of the campus is free, with only four floors of the museum tower requiring tickets.

Anyone can walk the campus, use the playground, library, sledding hill or grilling area. The tower's top floor, which feature panoramic views of the nation's third-largest city, is also free.

“The idea behind this institution, this campus, was to make it accessible to as many people as possible,” Harris said.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending May 30 increased by 13,000 to 225,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the most since early February, before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran, but still a historically low level. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 211,000 new applications.

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

Despite historically low layoffs, the labor market seems to be mired in what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” state. That’s kept the unemployment rate low at 4.3%, but left many of those out of work struggling to find new employment.

Though U.S. employers delivered a surprising 115,000 new jobs in April, the Iran war has injected a large degree of uncertainty about the broader U.S. economy and labor market.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which travels one-fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed. Since the beginning of the war in late February, oil prices have spiked about 50% and the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is now $4.24, up from less than $3 in late February. Besides hitting consumers’ pocketbooks, those higher costs can make businesses reluctant to hire.

Data from the U.S. government showed that inflation at the consumer level rose 3.8% from April 2025, the biggest jump in three years. Food prices are also up, but may not yet fully reflect rising energy costs due to the Iran war, analysts say.

Another recent report showed that wholesale prices shot up 6% from a year ago, the highest point in more than three years.

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation is already above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. The Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate alone at its last meeting, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and still-elevated inflation. Most analysts don’t expect the Fed to cut rates any time soon.

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to stoke inflation, leading a number of Fed policymakers to say they are actually willing to consider an interest rate hike this year.

On top of that, the recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it could alter or even replace some jobs.

Among the companies that have cut jobs recently are Verizon, UPS, Amazon, Disney, Starbucks and Walmart.

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

Employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, according to the data firm FactSet.

The government issues its May jobs report on Friday.

The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which softens some of the weekly volatility, rose by 6,500 to 214,750.

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending May 23 fell by 8,000 to 1.78 million, in line with analyst forecasts.

Location: Remote in one of GMG’s markets Detroit, MI; Houston or San Antonio TX; Jacksonville or Orlando, FL.

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The new funding announced Thursday pushes French Gates’ donations for women’s health over $600 million in the past two years.

French Gates told The Associated Press in an interview that women’s health is the cornerstone of the work she does through Pivotal, the group of organizations she founded to handle her philanthropy and investments. “It’s just blaringly obvious that women’s health is fundamental — she has to be well to do well in life,” French Gates said.

Since 2024, when she stepped away from The Gates Foundation, which she founded with her now ex-husband Bill Gates and built into one of the world’s largest private funders of health care, French Gates has honed her approach to supporting women.

This latest round of funding reflects an increasingly strategic approach to areas she feels are underfunded. It includes a $40 million donation to Co-Impact for an initiative that embeds mental health support into maternal and primary care, especially in Africa. And French Gates hopes her $10 million donation to the Menopause Society to improve menopause care in the United States, by educating healthcare practitioners and expanding outreach in areas where care is limited, will encourage other funders to begin working on the issue.

According to the World Economic Forum, even though women make up half the population, the health issues that specifically affect them only get 2% of private healthcare funds. The lack of funding has resulted in a lack of products and services dedicated to treating them.

“The role of philanthropy, in my opinion, is to look at some of these societal problems that have been left behind, and shine light on them, show ways of making progress so you can then crowd in other donors and ultimately crowd in government funding,” she said. “Part of what I’m doing here, I hope, is sending a signal to say, ‘This is really important. Let’s do something about it.’ And my hope is that I’ll be able to get others who will join me.”

Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director of The Menopause Society and director of The Mayo Clinic’s Center for Women’s Health, said the United States currently has about 6,000 counties where patients have critically low access to menopause-competent clinicians. She said the donation will allow The Menopause Society to offer its educational resources to more areas of the country that need them.

“Menopause remains one of the most overlooked and underserved areas in medicine, and The Menopause Society believes women deserve better,” Faubion said. “We’re ready to make those changes with the support of donors like Pivotal.”

Research into menopause treatments was already underfunded, even before recent medical research cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration went into effect.

“I think philanthropy is going to fill a greater role than it ever has in the past because we are just not going to have the same type of government funding that we’ve had before,” she said. “Funding is hard to come by these days – much, much harder than it was before. And the need hasn’t gone away. We still have to do the research somehow.”

Faubion said the substantial size of French Gates’ gift is important, but the attention it brings may be even more crucial.

“It shows that somebody like Melinda Gates and Pivotal feel that this is an important issue,” Faubion said. “It will illuminate the gaps that are still there… and it makes people not only aware, but maybe motivated to take some action.”

For French Gates, bringing more attention to these women’s issues is nearly as important as increasing the funding for them.

“I want women’s health issues to not be invisible,” she said. “I don’t want the default to be that women are expected to deal with pain and suffering. I want them to be seen for what they’re going through, their real life experiences, and have those issues addressed so they can live their very best lives."

______

The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal.

_______

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.

The justices ruled unanimously against Ongkaruck Sripetch, who was sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to selling unregistered securities as part of a scheme involving high-risk penny stocks. The Los Angeles resident had challenged a court order of disgorgement, to repay more than $3 million, including interest.

The issue in the case was whether the SEC had to prove that individual investors lost money as a result of buying the stocks. The Supreme Court ruled it did not.

It was enough to show that Sriptech turned a profit from illegal transactions and that “an investor may qualify as a victim of an offender's wrongdoing entitled to compensation,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court.

Sripetch took part in fraudulent schemes involving at least 20 penny stock companies, Gorsuch wrote, citing court records. Some of those were “pump and dump" operations, in which Sripetch and others bought stocks, promoted them so that their share price rose and then promptly sold them, Gorsuch wrote.

Under federal law and prior Supreme Court rulings, the SEC may order disgorgement limited to the amount of illegally obtained profits in fraud cases. The money ordinarily must be returned to investors, when feasible.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at https://apnews.com/hub/us-securities-and-exchange-commission.

Robert Mitchum played Cady in 1962 and Robert De Niro portrayed him in a chilling 1991 remake. Now it's time for Javier Bardem to slip into the menacing shoes of the cold-blooded murderer for a version on Apple TV. It debuts Friday with the first two episodes.

“It’s a great classic thriller, but each version so far is different in a way that reflects its time,” says showrunner Nick Antosca. “I wanted to do a new version that honored the classics that I love, but also is a nightmare for today.”

The 10-part series stars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as well-to-do lawyers in Savannah, Georgia, whose family gets upended by Bardem's revenge-seeking missile.

Exonerated after 17 years in prison in the killing of his pregnant wife, Cady infiltrates the couple's lives and those of their daughter and son. “You deserve a good life. I had a good life,” he tells them, menacingly. Each member of the family has a very exploitative secret.

Javier Bardem as Max

The American Film Institute ranks Max among the among the Top 50 greatest villains of all time, higher than Count Dracula, Freddy Krueger and Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver,” another De Niro nightmare.

“This is a man who has lost it all and, so far, he has nothing else to lose," says Bardem. "He has all the time in the world to enjoy the revenge. He doesn’t seem to care about any external approval of anything or any kind. So he's unleashed.”

Antosca had the blessing of Martin Scorsese, who directed 1991’s “Cape Fear” and executive produces the Apple TV series alongside Steven Spielberg. “He was very generous and encouraging and like, ‘Try this. Try that. Don’t be afraid to get crazy,’” Antosca says of Scorsese.

Antosca looks forward and back, rooting his “Cape Fear” in 2026 — with TikTok, true crime podcasts, microdosing — but leaning on the instantly recognizable theme music from the 1962 movie by Bernard Herrmann and the 1991 version by Elmer Bernstein. There's even a cameo or two from one cast member from 1991.

“We think of the show sometimes as like a nightmare remix," Antosca says. “When I do an adaptation, I want it to feel like you watched the original and then you went to sleep and had a nightmare about it. So there’s new unexpected stuff that comes to it. There’s the visceral energy of the original that’s preserved, but maybe they’re in a different order or context and seen in a new light. So we had fun with it.”

So fans will return to key scenes in the 1991 film — like the psychological seduction of the daughter, or Max Cady doing pushups in the prison gym revealing his tattoos or him behaving badly in a movie theater — but they're made different.

“We also wanted to capture but not exactly copy some of the feverish energy that Scorsese brought cinematically. So there are a lot of camera moves and kinetic camera work, and we really gave ourselves permission to go nuts a little when the action gets heightened.”

Two movies and ‘The Simpsons’

It is a franchise that refuses to die, so to speak, with two movies and a TV show, not to mention being parodied on “The Simpsons” — the "Cape Feare” episode is a classic — and “Family Guy.”

Ten or so hours of plot runway gave Antosca a chance to slowly increase the tension on the family, as opposed to the movies, which are like two-hour runaway trains of terror.

“I wanted to pull back on some of the kind of brute force aspect of it and explore the creeping paranoia and sense of devastation of a family being picked apart," says Antosca. "That, to me, is the scariest thing.”

Wilson, who plays a dad fighting to stay connected to his rebellious teenage children and his spinning-out wife while also battling his own demons, says the longer running time means a deeper experience.

“Your family in turmoil — that’s really, I think, something that’s completely universal. And that’s the benefit of having 10 episodes to tell it and adding other characters and other storylines and seeing the kids' own storylines,” he says.

Setting it in 2026 also gave the series makers plenty of ways for Max to infiltrate his prey in ways he couldn't decades ago — cloned smartphones, drones, artificial intelligence and high-tech surveillance.

“Max is using surveillance in a much more highly technical and much more invasive way,” says Adams. “But that feeling of being watched, I think that’s a very timeless terror.”

Across 29 counties, the San Antonio Food Bank feeds more than 105,000 people every week. Therefore, the process takes a lot of food and a lot of helping hands.

“There are a lot of people that need food support, and so I feel like this is just a really good way to make a direct impact for our community,” said volunteer Melissa Webb.

The Webb family tries to volunteer at the food bank several times throughout the summer.

“I think especially right now it’s really important with the way the economy is, the high gas prices and the rising cost of groceries,” Webb added.

Webb’s children range from 7 to 17 years old. She says that the hardest part is getting them up and out of bed, but once they’re here, they really get into the tasks they’re assigned.

“Kind of racing the clock to see how many bags they can bag and how productive they can be. So, it becomes a real fun activity for them,” Webb said.

Her 10-year-old son, Samuel, was in charge of filling bags with beans. It’s a small task, but it’s one that he knows makes an impact.

“It feels like I’m actually helping instead of just staying and doing nothing,” Samuel said.

San Antonio Food Bank Director of Volunteer Services Liz Johanek says that giving your time is just as crucial as donating money or food.

“Shifts vary based on what you’re doing. The one that is most family-friendly is two and a half hours, and we have it twice a day. So, in the morning and in the afternoon,” Johanek said.

Johanek says the food bank needs help seven days a week. And now that they’ve started the summer meals for kids, the demand has only increased.

“Students who are used to getting meals in school are now out of school, and so we are trying to fill those gaps,” Johanek stated.

If you want to learn more about how to volunteer, click here.

Read also:

• Spurs to donate up to 1,000 free NBA Finals tickets to nonprofit organizations serving youth

The fire started late Wednesday at the home in Anguruwatota town. Fifty-one residents were rescued, police spokesman Fredrick Wootler said. He said people with mental illnesses were also housed there.

The director of the home was arrested on suspicion of causing deaths through negligence. He appeared before a court and was ordered to be detained for a week while an investigation is underway.

Associated Press footage showed the building gutted with its charred furniture and equipment. Bodies lay nearby.

Local television channel Hiru showed image of firefighters, police and residents trying to contain the raging fire. Those rescued were assisted by police and soldiers in boarding buses to a safe location.

Chathura Mihudum, director of the National Secretariat for Elders, said the facility was not registered as a nursing home and had been warned to follow laws and guidelines.

He said it was overcrowded with beds for just about 15 people in a space where 71 people were living.

Government officials had previously visited the institution and had instructed the management to follow laws, he said, without elaborating.

Victoria Mboko, the 19-year-old Canadian ranked No. 9, revealed Thursday she would have the “honor” of playing with the 44-year-old Williams as wild-card entries at the Queen’s Club next week.

They practiced on the grass courts in west London on Thursday, with Williams seen hitting balls in a purple top and white pants.

“The Queen is back,” Mboko wrote in a post on Instagram alongside a picture of her standing next to Williams.

“An honor to share the court with one of the greatest athletes of all time this week,” Mboko added. “Even more excited to play doubles together! Tennis is pretty special.”

Speaking at the French Open last week, Mboko said of Williams: “I really look up to her. I mean, the fact that she even knows me is very exciting.”

Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, stepped away from tennis in 2022. She has yet to say whether she plans to play at Wimbledon or the U.S. Open in 2026.

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

From Hollywood to the music world, celebrities showed up at the Frost Bank Center on Wednesday night to witness history.

Here’s who was spotted courtside.

Spike Lee

Filmmaker Spike Lee was among the prominent Knicks fans spotted at the Frost Bank Center on Wednesday night.

Tracy Morgan

Photos from ahead of tipoff show actor and stand-up comedian Tracy Morgan in a Knicks shirt at the Frost Bank Center.

Tori Kelly

Singer-songwriter Tori Kelly performed the national anthem ahead of Game 1 on Wednesday night.

Singer, songwriter, producer and actress Tori Kelly performs the National Anthem ahead of Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals! pic.twitter.com/W3mWxWt9f9

— NBA (@NBA) June 4, 2026

Timothée Chalamet

The “Dune” actor has already been spotted sitting courtside at multiple Knicks games this season, and Wednesday was no exception.

Shane Gillis

Comedian Shane Gillis returned to the Frost Bank Center to see the Finals action. Gillis also attended Game 6 of the Western Conference finals.

Comedian Shane Gillis in the house for Knicks/Spurs NBA Finals Game 1 🏆 pic.twitter.com/CMEIMWTmrq

— NBA (@NBA) June 4, 2026

Ben Stiller

The Emmy-Award winning actor has been seen cheering the Knicks in celebrity row at Madison Square Garden, and the “Zoolander” actor brought his support all the way to the Frost Bank Center.

Jerry O’Connell

Actor Jerry O’Connell, known for roles in “Stand by Me” and “Scream 2,” posted a video sporting Knicks gear with other New York fans outside the Frost Bank Center.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jerry O'Connell (@mrjerryoc)

Air Corgi

Lilo, a 10-year-old dog better known by the internet as “Air Corgi” or “Steph Furry,” was spotted at the Frost Bank Center.

>> ‘Trust in corgi’: Meet the dog forecasting Spurs wins

Lilo has gone viral online for correctly predicting the outcome of each game of the Western Conference finals. In an interview with KSAT, her owner teased that the corgi might make a special appearance at the game.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by San Antonio Spurs (@spurs)

Lilo also made a surprise appearance at the Spurs’ pep rally on Tuesday. In another viral video ahead of Game 1, she predicted the Spurs would defeat the Knicks in seven games.

The Salesian Sisters

San Antonio’s Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco — widely known as the “Spurs Sisters” — have become a familiar sight at Spurs games, praying courtside for the team’s success.

The sisters were back at the Frost Bank Center for Game 1, greeting players ahead of tipoff.

Fat Joe

New York Knicks superfan and hip-hop artist Fat Joe made the trip from the Big Apple to the Alamo City for the NBA Finals.

Fat Joe was seen at the Frost Bank Center on Wednesday Night sitting next to other well-known Knicks fans — Chalamet and Morgan.

More NBA Finals coverage on KSAT:

• From the Alamodome to the Frost Bank Center: How Spurs basketball has changed since 1999
• San Antonio bars ready for slam dunk business with start of NBA Finals
• Share your photos celebrating Spurs in the NBA Finals on KSAT Connect!

The rare albino buffalo became a sensation when a farmer noticed that his blond tuft of hair resembled the distinctive locks of the U.S. president. After a video of the pale horned mammal went viral on social media, large numbers of people started showing up at the farm outside Dhaka to see him for themselves.

The animal was originally meant to be slaughtered for the Muslim festival of sacrifice. But citing security concerns, the government ordered him transferred to the zoo in the capital, where large crowds are now braving sweltering heat to see him.

On Tuesday, visitors pressed against the fence of the buffalo's enclosure, filming with their phones as some fathers hoisted small children on their shoulders for a better view.

A zoo worker pampered the animal, brushing his hair to one side and hosing him down with water to keep him cool as fans blew on him.

“There is a resemblance to Donald Trump in its eyes, hairstyle, and skin color,” said Mohammed Nasim, a student in Dhaka. “And just as Donald Trump has a distinctive personality and lifestyle, this buffalo, after going viral, is now living a similar kind of life, enjoying a lot of attention and special treatment.”

Local media reported that the exhibit initially included a sign that said “Donald Trump,” which has since been removed. The zoo curator was fired Saturday, though no official cause was given for the dismissal.

Some clearly found the naming in poor taste.

“Giving a farm animal the name of one of the world’s most influential leaders was certainly the wrong thing to do," said Dhaka resident Mohammad Joynal Adedin, who visited the zoo to see the buffalo anyway. “It seems disrespectful. I think the farmer who did this made a poor decision.”

The buffalo was sold ahead of Eid al-Adha, the “Feast of Sacrifice.” When Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed ordered police to take the animal into custody, the authorities refunded the buyer.

"Since before Eid, I had been seeing posts on Facebook saying that ‘Donald Trump’ would be sacrificed. Later, I heard that instead of being sacrificed, it had been placed in a zoo,” said Mohammad Habibur Rahman, a visitor to the zoo from the southwestern Bangladeshi city of Jashore.

“So, I thought I would come to the zoo and see ‘Donald Trump’ for myself," he said.

The crash happened around 2:40 a.m. on the ramp from southbound Interstate 35 to westbound Interstate 10, known as the Finesilver Curve.

Crews are currently in the process of removing the spilled oil from the ramp. As of 6:50 a.m., the ramp is still closed.

According to San Antonio police, the driver of the 18-wheeler, a 64-year-old man, failed to remain in one lane due to speed.

A trailer hauled by the 18-wheeler then collided with another vehicle, which caused the trailer to roll over, SAPD said.

The ramp is expected to be closed for around the next four hours, a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) spokesperson told KSAT.

Officers said there were some minor injuries following the crash.

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.

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A spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Sophia Alejandro’s last day was May 29, roughly seven months after her role as policy advisor was announced.

“Sophia was a terrific Policy Advisor to the Mayor, and we wish her the absolute best on her next steps,” a mayor’s spokesperson said.

Alejandro is the eighth staff member to leave the mayor’s office since Jones was sworn in June 2025.

KSAT has reported on several shifts in Jones’ leadership team since she was first elected last year.

• Jordan Abelson, chief of staff: June 2025 - July 2025
• Gary Cooper, spokesperson for the mayor’s office: June 2025 - July 2025
• Roy Vance, event services director: June 2025 - September 2025
• Anna San Miguel, special assistant: June 2025 - October 2025
• Carlos De Leon, communications director: Oct. 28, 2025 - Oct. 31, 2025
• Jenise Carroll, chief of staff: July 2025 - April 2026
• Pat Wallace, deputy chief of staff: October 2025 - April 2026

Wallace and Carroll were the two most recent staff departures.

Confirmation of Alejandro’s departure comes two days after Jones’ new communication advisor, MarkAnthony Ball, announced his role with the mayor’s office.

Ball described his role in city hall on LinkedIn as helping the mayor’s office communicate with with residents, partners and the broader public.

Jones approaches her one year anniversary as San Antonio mayor in two weeks on June 18.

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• San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones gifted premium tickets to Spurs-Thunder Game 6